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Watch a group of B.C. sick kids pelt their doctors with snowballs
Kendra Mangione CTVNewsVancouver.ca producer
@kendramangione Contact
Published Tuesday, November 19, 2019 1:53PM PST
VANCOUVER – A group of children who've spent much of their young lives in hospital got a chance to just be kids during a Vancouver fundraiser.
The pint-sized patients at BC Children's Hospital teamed up, taking on the doctors they've gotten to know in a kids-versus-adults snowball battle.
"Some had endured chemotherapy; others had undergone multiple surgeries," the BC Children's Hospital Foundation said in an emailed statement Tuesday.
"But for a brief moment, these kids forgot where they were as they gleefully threw one snowball after another."
Cheered on by their families, the children were challenged to throw as much as they could at the doctors.
It's an event that kicks off a weeks-long campaign, which organizers say was inspired by their goal to help kids get back being kids.
Donors are asked to make a contribution online between Nov. 19 and Jan. 6 through snowballfightforkids.ca.
"The holidays represent a season of hope, but for many kids, their holidays are spent at the hospital," BCCHF CEO Teri Nicholas said in the statement.
"The community support we receive during the holidays from this campaign helps to transform lives of kids and families at the hospital."
This year, the goal is 30,000 donations.
Money raised through the campaign funds research and equipment to help pediatric patients across B.C.
Watch how the snowball fight played out in the video attached.
Patients throw snowballs at doctors at BC Children's Hospital on Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2019.
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Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles
Benedictine Vocation
Life Under the Rule
St. Benedict's is best understood as the spirituality of ordinary life... The Benedictine is a spirituality of work: man's by labor, God's by prayer. — John Senior
The Benedictine Rule has ordered all our actions since our foundation. This Rule of Life is read daily, and we strive to keep every aspect of it in all its austere simplicity.
It is in this "little Rule written for beginners," that we find the pattern to be "doers of the Word;" a time-tested way of life which cultured a barbaric continent by the sheer example of its followers.
The simple motto of "Ora et Labora" (Prayer and Work) summarizes the means our Father Benedict holds out to realize the desire of eternal life.
Read the Rule
Listen to the Rule (free audiobook)
View a medieval manuscript of the Rule
St. Benedict (480-543)
If one wishes to understand in depth his personality and life, he can find in the disposition of the Rule the exact image of all the actions of the master, because this saintly man is incapable of teaching other than he lived. — St. Gregory
Benedict was born to a noble family in Nursia, then educated in Rome. He left the world to seek God in solitude at Subiaco, but he was sought out as his holiness became known.
He was then persuaded to become abbot of a group of monks of Vicovaro, but they became dissatisfied with his attempts at reform. They tried to poison him but failed, and so Benedict returned to his solitude.
Not long after, fervent disciples began flocking to him, and he established his famous monastery at Monte Cassino. The order grew dramatically in a short amount of time.
After a life of intense prayer and penance, conversions and miracles, Benedict died on March 21, 543. He left behind him the Benedictine Holy Rule and an example that has inspired men and women for over 1500 years.
Our Abbey
About Ephesus
The Rule
Monastic Life
Fraternal Charity
Silence and Solitude
Subscribe to Print Newsletter
Tribute to Priests
Prints & Cards
Sign up to receive our quarterly newsletter via email. (Or, you can subscribe to the print version.)
© 2020 Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles All rights reserved.
Site development by Wineskin Media.
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HomeArticles posted by Deane
Author: Deane
Kerry Sonia on Ritual and Social Dimensions of Childbirth
December 23, 2019 Deane Biblical Studies Topics, Family religion, Video childbirth, Harvard Divinity School, Kerry Sonia
On November 14, 2019, Assistant Professor Kerry Sonia (Washington and Lee University) delivered a paper on “Like a Woman in Labor: The Ritual and Social Dimensions of Childbirth in the Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel”, at Harvard Divinity School.
Mark Smith on The Hebrew Bible/Old Testament and the God of Israel
December 23, 2019 Deane Biblical Studies Topics, God, Israel and Judah, Video Mark S. Smith, Princeton Theological Seminary
On September 22, 2019, Professor Mark Smith delivered a lecture at Boston College Department of Theology on the Jewish conception of God in the Hebrew Bible.
“Ancient Israel’s unique notions of God drew on non-Israelite material from two related sources. First, Israel arose out of a Canaanite cultural matrix that has been well studied over the past century. Second, during its heyday, ancient Israel maintained continuous cultural, economic and political interactions with Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Syrian states to the north. The culture of these places influenced the development of Israelite religious thought at every point. Professor Smith focuses specifically on the ways such interactions helped lead to Israel’s understanding of God.”
The lecture brings at 4:45.
Johanna Stiebert’s Perverse Bible
November 15, 2019 Deane Feminist, Gender, Queer Criticisms, Ideological Criticisms, Methods and Approaches in Biblical Studies, Universities / Academia
On October 10, 2019, Professor Johanna Stiebert (University of Leeds) delivered her Inaugural Professorial Lecture:
‘Why I Love Studying the Bible even though (and because) It’s Perverse’
(Johanna Stiebert’s lecture begins at 16:08)
“In this inaugural lecture Professor Stiebert discusses her chequered and international career learning and teaching about Hebrew language and biblical studies. Her lecture focuses especially on biblical texts that surprised her – not least on account of their graphic nature. Her concluding remarks focus on the responsibilities of professors and on academic integrity.”
Joan Taylor at Ideacity, on what Jesus looks like
June 23, 2019 June 23, 2019 Deane Historical Jesus, Jesus, Video Ideacity, Joan Taylor, What did Jesus Look Like
Professor Joan Taylor delivered a talk on what Jesus looked like at Ideacity 2019, June 19-21, in Toronto. Ideacity is an annual meeting for rich people, which features talks from popular authors and academics, and was founded by Canadian media mogul Moses Znaimer.
Thoughts on the Parting of the Ways Between Judaism and Christianity: Joel Marcus’s Retirement Lecture
May 4, 2019 Deane Biblical Studies Topics, Christian Origins, Video Joel Marcus, parting of the ways, Thoughts on the Parting of the Ways Between Judaism and Christianity
On April 30, 2019, at Duke Divinity School, Professor Joel Marcus delivered his retirement lecture, “Thoughts on the Parting of the Ways Between Judaism and Christianity”. The lecture commences at 2:30.
An audio version, with an introduction by Ian Mills and Laura Robinson, is available care of New Testament Review.
Paula Fredriksen vs. James Crossley: The Death of Jesus, the First Christians, Apocalypticism, and Caligula
April 16, 2019 Deane Biblical Literature, Christian Origins, Death, Resurrection, Ascension, Gospels, Historical Criticism, Jesus, Mark, Video Caligula, Critical Study of Apocalyptic and Millenarian Movements, James Crossley, Paula Fredriksen, St Mary's University, When Christians Were Jews
On April 11, 2019, the Centre for the Critical Study of Apocalyptic and Millenarian Movements (CenSAMM) hosted a talk by Professor Paula Fredriksen (Boston University/Hebrew University of Jerusalem) at St Mary’s University, Twickenham. A response and exegesis of Mark 13 was given by Professor James Crossley (CenSAMM/St Mary’s University, Twickenham).
“Prof. Paula Fredriksen (Boston University/Hebrew University of Jerusalem) will be discussing her new book When Christians Were Jews: The First Generation at St Mary’s University, Twickenham at 15.00 on Thursday 11th April 2019. Prof Fredriksen is Aurelio Professor of Scripture emerita at Boston University and Distinguished Visiting Professor of Comparative Religion at the Hebrew University. Censamm academic director, Prof James Crossley (St Mary’s University), will give a response.”
Chris Keith: Are The Gospels Historically Accurate?
April 8, 2019 April 16, 2019 Deane Biblical Literature, Cultural Memory, Gospels, Methods and Approaches in Biblical Studies, Video Are the Gospels Historically Accurate, Better Questions Podcast, Chris Keith, Social Memory Theory
The Better Questions Podcast interviews Chris Keith, Research Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at St Mary’s University, Twickenham. While the title of the podcast is “Are the Gospels Historically Accurate?”, Keith takes his cue, perhaps from the lyrics of “11 O’Clock Tick Tock”, and answers other questions:
“What is Social Memory Theory? What assumptions do we have about history? Did people in the first century think about recording history in the same way that we do? Did the events in the Gospels happen exactly as described? How can we know with 100% certainty? Does it matter?”
The interview begins at 3:30:
“We thought that we had the answers, it was the questions we had wrong”
– U2, “11 O’Clock Tick Tock”
Luke and Acts: Pontifical Biblical Institute
March 2, 2019 Deane Biblical Literature, Gospels, Luke, Video Anthony Giambrone, Antonio Landi, Christopher Tuckett, Daniel Marguerat, Jean-Noël Aletti, L’opera lucana, Luke Macnamara, Massimo Grilli, Matteo Crimella, Pontifical Biblical Institute, Santiago Guijarro Oporto, Steven Mason
A conference on Luke and Acts, “L’opera lucana (Vangelo di Luca e Atti degli Apostoli)”, was held at the Pontifical Biblical Institute (Rome), from January 21-25, 2018. The papers are in a mix of Italian and English.
Prof. Massimo Grilli, Synchronic / co-textual approaches [Italian]
Prof. Santiago Guijarro Oporto, Diachronic-contextual approaches [Italian]
Prof. Jean-Noël Aletti, The prophetic typology in the Gospel of Luke [Italian]
Prof. Matteo Crimella, The use of the Old Testament in the Gospel of Luke
Prof. Christopher Tuckett, Luke and the Synoptic question [English]
Prof. Christopher Tuckett, Luke and the “Q” source [English]
Prof. Daniel Marguerat, Lucan historiography [Italian]
Prof. Anthony Giambrone, Ecclesiology in Acts [Italian]
Prof. Antonio Landi, The figure of Peter in the Lucan works [Italian]
Prof. Luke Macnamara, The figure of Paul in the book of Acts [English]
Prof. Steven Mason, Luke-Acts and contemporary historiography [English]
The Bible and Political Thought Conference, Pontifical Biblical Institute
March 2, 2019 Deane Biblical Literature, Biblical Studies Topics, Letters, Pauline, Politics, Politics and Economy, Reception History, Romans, Video Andrew Mein, Bible and Political Thought, Dominik Markl, Eckart Otto, Eric Nelson, Fania Oz-Salzberger, James P. Byrd, Joachim J. Krause, John Coffey, Katell Berthelot, Kevin Killeen, Nicholas Morton, Oda Wischmeyer, Peter Dubovský, Peter Machinist, Pontifical Biblical Institute, Wolfgang Oswald, Yvonne Sherwood
The Bible and Political Thought Conference was held at Aula Magna of the Pontifical Biblical Institute (Rome), on September 27-28, 2018.
Early Jewish communities considered themselves governed by divine law revealed in the Torah of
Moses. This political function of the Mosaic law is grounded in the Pentateuch itself, which narrates
the origins of Israel and the people’s constitution in their covenant with God at Mount Sinai. Early
Christians considered themselves living in the ‘kingdom of God’, which brought them in conflict
with Roman emperors’ claims to divine veneration. When Roman emperors were themselves
Christians, however, they were soon portrayed as new Davids and Solomons, a tradition continued
by medieval kings. Biblical narratives were frequently invoked when nationalisms arose in the 16th17th centuries, e.g., in the Netherlands, Scotland or England, claiming the respective ‘nation’ to be
a divinely chosen people like Israel – a historical development that could be called, with Philip
Gorski, ‘the Mosaic Moment’. The early modern political reception of the Bible is a climax in a
complex genealogy of biblical political thought and its reception over more than two millennia. This
conference will explore the political dimension of the Bible in exemplary themes from its emergence
in the world of the ancient Near East to the present day.
08:30-09:15 Eckart Otto (LMU Munich): Athens and Jerusalem. A Comparison of the Political
Theory of Plato’s NOMOI and the Hebrew Torah
The legal corpora of the Torah in the Covenant Code in Exodus 20-23 and the Book of Deuteronomy
and Plato’s political philosophy of the Politeia, Politicos and Nomoi aimed at answering the question
of how to keep societies together in Israel and Greece. These societies were in danger of falling to
pieces, especially because of unsolved social tensions. Both groups of texts developed strategies of
how to organize the economy, minimizing the tensions between poor and rich and limiting the
political power of officials.
09:15-10:00 Wolfgang Oswald (University of Tübingen): The Literary Compositions of the Hebrew
Bible as Documents of Ancient Political Thought. An Overview and a Tentative Synthesis
Most books of the Hebrew Bible have Israel as their main subject. How did Israel come into being?
How was Israel organized? Who was part of Israel? Who was in power? Some literary works in the
Hebrew Bible accept monarchy as the traditional form of government and merely discuss the
legitimacy of dynasties. Others restrict the power of the king while some even deny the legitimacy
of monarchy at all. And still others imagine an ideal king to come. Some literary works in the
Hebrew Bible do not show awareness or acceptance of written laws. Others, on the contrary, are
constitutions defining a society based on written laws. Still others accept written laws but qualify
their validity. What was the role of the people? Were they merely subjects of the king or did they
make up the popular assembly, i.e. the legislative body? Who was the sovereign? The great king
from abroad as for example Cyrus or the indigenous king from Judah as David and the Davidides?
The governor as Gedaliah or Nehemiah or some prophet-like figure as Jeremiah? The high-priest?
Or no human being at all but the law as the book of Deuteronomy demands? Or God himself without
any mediation as Psalm 146 declares? In this paper I shall trace these lines of political thought in
the Hebrew Bible. Since these voices interact it seems possible to reconstruct a discourse that
continued for more than three centuries.
10:00-10:45 Peter Dubovský (Pontifical Biblical Institute): The Use and the Abuse of the King
Solomon Figure in Traditions
King Solomon became the key figure for discussion and art both in the ecclesiastical and secular
world. The figure was used for exhortative goals and abused for ideological purposes. This paper
will apply the hermeneutical approach proposed by John W. O’Malley who organized the Western
tradition into “Four Cultures”. Following this model, I will organize the interpretations of Solomon
into four groups: academic, prophetic, humanistic, and artistic cultures. By doing so, I will argue
how the same figure was used in dialogue and war.
11:15-12:00 Oda Wischmeyer (University of Erlangen): Romans 13. Paul and Politics
Romans 13 has been the focus of theological thought on politics since the church fathers. During
the last decades a new debate on how to read Romans 13 has been launched. At present, New
Testament scholars heavily disagree about both the meaning of Rom 13:1-7 and the possible
hermeneutical applications of the Pauline text. Whilst Stefan Krauter in his exegetical study on
Romans 13 (2009) bluntly denies the relevance of Romans 13 for theologically based political
ethics, eminent scholars from the last generation such as Helmut Koester and Dieter Georgi and in
their wake contemporary colleagues as Neil Elliot and Richard A. Horsley read especially the Letter
to the Romans as a political text. In “Liberating Paul” Neil Elliott interprets Romans as a manifesto
of a sort of liberation theology.
In my paper I shall try for a fresh exegetical look at the text and for a hermeneutical reflection that
takes into consideration the many-faceted Wirkungsgeschichte of the famous chapter. The possibilities
for contemporary applicative readings of Romans 13 range from affirmative interpretations to
revolutionary approaches. Application largely depends on the political systems at issue – Western
democracies or totalitarian systems like China or illegitimate states or governments like various states
in the global South. Western exegesis has to reflect that perhaps Paul’s ideas of Roman governance
have a different meaning according to the opposing political reality of many of our present regimes.
At any rate, current politically oriented critical application of Romans 13 should not be restricted to
our Western experiences and political values and directed to the model of democracy, but also discuss
the status of Christianity in what we call dictatorial or illegitimate regimes and explore ways of reading
and applying Romans 13 under these kinds of conditions.
12:00-12:45 Katell Berthelot (CNRS Aix-en-Provence): Sinai versus Rome. Rabbinic Perspectives on
Roman Law Courts and Roman Justice
Although Rome did not impose its laws upon the conquered peoples it came to dominate, Roman
law and Roman courts were part of Rome’s imperial presence, both from an ideological and a
practical point of view—because the Romans claimed to have the best legal system ever written,
and because some of Rome’s provincial subjects practiced what is commonly called “forum
shopping,” and tried to have their case judged by a Roman court rather than by a local one. After
212 CE the phenomenon became all the more common as nearly all free people had become Roman
citizens.
In this context, I would like to examine the few sources that explicitly reflect the rabbis’ rejection
of Roman or, more broadly, non-Jewish courts and laws during the tannaitic period, and then
proceed with the analysis of the underlying religious or theological rationale for this rejection,
arguing that some rabbis at least associated non-Jewish law courts with idolatry, a statement that
has deep implications for a proper understanding of the rabbis’s political counter-model in the
context of the Roman Empire.
15:30-16:15 Nicholas Morton (Nottingham Trent University): Crusade and Reform. Biblical Exegesis
and the Role of Crusading within Broader Papal Policy
It is very easy to view crusading as a highly distinct activity in medieval society – individual, and
separate from other aspects of Church policy. It has certainly been studied as a discreet entity for
decades. Even so, the biblical imagery employed by the pope and other crusading preachers tells a
different story. In their sermons, letters and bulls, such advocates of crusading drew upon exegetical
themes which immediately connected crusading to a range of other activities such as: resistance to
secular authority, internal peacemaking within Europe, the moral reform of society. Thus, such
biblical material demonstrates the synergies between crusading and other such activities. This paper
will explore several key biblical themes found in crusading sources, focusing especially on passages
from Ezekiel, Maccabees, the gospels, as well as some pan-biblical themes to demonstrate how a
study of such exegetical material can shed considerable light on the way in which crusading was
conceived and understood by the medieval church.
16:15-17:00 Yvonne Sherwood (University of Kent): Biblicisation without Templates, or Accidents of
the Biblical in Sixteenth Century Mesoamerica
This paper explores how alien landscapes and cultures were understood through biblical analogies
in the work of 16th and early 17th century Spanish and mestizo authors such as José d’Acosta, Diego
Durán, Guaman Poma, Bartolomé de las Casas, and Bernardino de Sahagún. In contrast to the more
secure and self-affirming use of the Bible in the Victorian Empire, the Bible was mapped
onto Mesomerica in surprising, bleak, and often self-critical ways.
17:00-17:45 Dominik Markl (Pontifi cal Biblical Institute): The Bible and Politics. How to Analyse a
Complex Relationship?
The Bible contains political thought, for example in elements of constitututional law in the Pentateuch,
in the historiography of Israel’s leaders, and in reflections on imperialism in both narratives and
prophecy. The political reception of the Bible, however, has not been limited to intrinsic political
thought, but has included legal ideas and ethical values expressed in diverse literary modes. This is just
one of the reasons why the political use of the Bible has been complex and diverse. This paper will
outline a theory of the reception of canonical, sacred literature to propose a framework for analysis of
its specific political use, which will be illustrated by historical and contemporary examples.
08:30-9:15 Kevin Killeen (University of York): The Eye-Sore of the Bible. Varieties of Political
Radicalism in Seventeenth Century England
This paper will deal with the bible in the political and popular thought of the post-reformation era. It
will attend, firstly, to the ubiquity of the scriptural in early modern English culture, its diffusion in the
vernacular, and a pervasive sermon culture. It will consider the remit of the political-scriptural, in an
era that deployed the Bible to such varied ends, eschatological, soteriological and doctrinal. The paper
will attend to the frequent and perhaps baffling elision of radical (in the sense of regicidal) writing, both
Catholic and Protestant, and it will explore the co-existence of the belief that Catholics distrusted and
maligned the Bible and the concern that they were troublingly adept in their exegesis. Looking at the
Jesuit Robert Persons, it will make the case that his work was troubling for his Protestant adversaries
less because he claimed that the spiritual censure of Rome had a bearing on English kingship, than
because he claimed the Bible did, usurping, if not satirising, the discursive ground that Protestants
considered rightfully theirs, by making of it a language of thorough-going political sedition.
09:15-10:00 Joachim J. Krause (University of Tübingen): The Trouble with Prophets. A Political
Problem from Esarhaddon’s Succession Treaty to Thomas Hobbes
A classic of early modern political thought and champion of the political reception of the Bible,
in his magnum opus “Leviathan or, The Matter, Form, and Power of a Commonwealth,
Ecclesiastical and Civil,” Thomas Hobbes gives a full account of religion and politics. The book
features a whole range of major biblical issues, most of them from the Old Testament. A child
of unstable times, Hobbes’ main motivation as a political thinker and interpreter of the Bible is
to conceive a theory of politics which will help to prevent unrest and civil war. Key to this
matter, in his view, is to defuse confessional conflict. For this end, he advocates a radical
reduction of the creed to an unum necessarium: “Jesus is the Christ.” Bringing thus the Bible
into political thought, Hobbes provides a prime example for the historian of ideas. It was Carl
Schmitt who, in his “Political Theology,” argued that all important ideas of modern political
reasoning were secularized theological ideas. Engaging Schmitt, Jan Assmann suggests to invert
this train of thought. According to him, the important ideas of theological reasoning are
theologized political ideas. However, Assmann does not simply turn Schmitt’s reconstruction
on its head. Rather he seeks to expand it by its prehistory. In this venture, Hobbes’ work may
be cited as a case in point. This will become obvious when we, as the present paper suggests,
focus on a particularly delicate problem for statecraft throughout the ages: the trouble with
prophets. Given that his main goal is to invest the sovereign with enough power so as to be able
to keep the war of everyone against everyone at bay, Hobbes clearly perceives prophecy as a
source of political instability. Therefore he postulates two essential characteristics of a true
prophet: the true prophet will work miracles which in fact take place and will teach no other
religion than the one already established in the state. As is plain to see, Hobbes draws on
Deuteronomy 13 here, and in fact he repeatedly cites the injunctions given in that chapter.
While at first glance it might appear that in so doing, the early modern political thinker has
secularized a theological idea into a political one, when we look further for the prehistory of
Deuteronomy 13 and the idea itself, namely the Assyrian succession treaty of Esarhaddon, it
will become obvious that, in a way, Hobbes only ties in with the more original meaning of the
10:00-10:45 John Coffey (University of Leicester): The Bible and the Antislavery Movement
The Bible was both a liability and an asset for the abolitionist movements that emerged in
America, Britain and France during the later eighteenth century. For centuries, Scripture had been
used to defend slavery, and abolitionists were forced to counteract proslavery exegesis. Yet the
Bible could also be deployed against racism, slave trading and even slavery itself. Scripture
was cited to demonstrate the fundamental unity and equality of human persons regardless of race;
God’s judgment against injustice; and the divine imperative to ‘release the oppressed’. Biblical
texts were emblazoned on antislavery banners, inscribed on medallions, and quoted in speeches,
sermons, pamphlets, and verse. This paper will examine the abolitionist use of the Bible from the
mid-eighteenth century to contemporary anti-trafficking movements, arguing that while Scripture
was a powerful resource, abolitionists and proslavery activists were fighting a battle for the Bible
that led some to question biblical authority.
11:15-12:00 Andrew Mein (Durham University): The Mobilization of Biblical Israel in First World
War Biblical Scholarship
The outbreak of war in August 1914 saw a spate of patriotic publication by academics on both sides.
Biblical scholars were no exception to this rule, and the national and martial focus of the Old
Testament gave it fresh relevance to the crisis of a world at war. In this paper I will examine some
of the ways in which British and German scholars made biblical Israel a model for the modern nation
at war, and how their reflection played into the typical themes of wartime propaganda.
12:00-12:45 Fania Oz-Salzberger (University of Haifa): The Hebrew Bible, Politics, and Modern Israel
This paper begins by suggesting a typology of several modes in which the Hebrew bible was
politicised in the history of ideas. Focusing on the Israeli test case, it explores the vast array of
Biblical rhetoric and inspirations in Zionist and Israeli ideologies, history and politics. It proceeds
to analyses some of the complex impacts of Biblical language, poetics, law and moral philosophy
across Israel’s political spectrum.
15:30-16:15 Eric Nelson (Harvard University): “The Lord Alone Shall be King of America”.
Hebraism and the Republican Turn of 1776
It is well known that Thomas Paine’s Common Sense fueled an abrupt “republican turn” in American
political thought during the early months of 1776. Less well understood is that it did so by
reintroducing into Anglophone political discourse a seventeenth-century, Hebraizing tradition of
republican political theory, one grounded in the conviction that it is idolatrous to assign any human
being the title and dignity of a king. This theory was both more and less radical than more familiar
forms of European republicanism: more radical, in that it denied the legitimacy of all monarchies,
however limited; less radical, in that it left open the possibility of an extremely powerful chief
magistrate, so long as he was not called “king.” The history of American constitutionalism and the
history of Christian Hebraism turn out to be deeply intertwined.
16:15-17:00 James P. Byrd (Vanderbilt University): The Bible in the American Revolution and the
American Civil War. A Comparison with Selected Texts
In this presentation, James P. Byrd offers insights from his analysis of scripture in the American
Revolution and the Civil War. He has published a book on the Bible in the American Revolution,
and he is currently writing a book on the Bible and the American Civil War, both with Oxford
University Press. His methodology draws on a database analysis of biblical citations in these wars,
taken from a variety of sources, including sermons, diaries, newspapers, and soldiers’ letters and
journals. Byrd will examine selected texts that most influenced Amercians in these wars, and will
show how they contributed to American ideas of violence, civil religion, and “manifest destiny.”
17:00-18:00 Peter Machinist (Harvard University): Response; Discussion
The Synoptic Problem – Ian Nelson Mills
March 2, 2019 Deane Biblical Literature, Gospels, Methods and Approaches in Biblical Studies, Source and Redaction Criticism, Synoptic Gospels, Video Duke Divinity School, Ian Nelson Mills
Ian Nelson Mills (Duke University) explains what the Synoptic Problem is, and why it is not boring. The video is from the New Testament Interpretation course at Duke Divinity School.
Female Disciples in Early Christianity: Non-Hierarchical Christianity at St Paul’s, London
November 1, 2018 November 1, 2018 Deane Biblical Studies Topics, Christian Origins, Disciples, Apostles, Ecclesiology (Christian Church), Feminist, Gender, Queer Criticisms, Historical Criticism, Jesus, Methods and Approaches in Biblical Studies, Paul, Video Andrew Carwood, Helen Bond, Joan Taylor, My Soul Glorifies the Lord: Jesus' female disciples, Women Disciples in Early Christianity
On Tuesday 30 October 2018, at St Paul’s Cathedral (London), Professor Helen Bond (University of Edinburgh) and Professor Joan Taylor (King’s College, London) discussed the roles of women in early Christianity, beginning with Jesus’s female disciples: “My Soul Glorifies the Lord: Jesus’ female disciples”.
“The traditional story of the birth of Christianity is dominated by men. It is often thought that Jesus only chose men to be his disciples and apostles, but evidence suggests that this is really only half the story. Were female disciples in fact crucial to the Jesus movement? Profoundly scandalous at the time, the idea remains highly controversial 2,000 years later. Two distinguished early church historians will present research that shows as many as half of Jesus’ disciples were women. They say the evidence shows that women were integral to his mission and only if we see men and women working together do we see the whole story, revealing the early church as far more radical than we thought.”
0:05 Andrew Carwood, chair
7:10 Helen Bond – opening address
23:10 Joan Taylor – opening address
35:55 Helen Bond – second address
52:35 Joan Taylor – second address
1:03:25 Helen Bond, Joan Taylor, and Andrew Carwood – Panel Q&A
The Ark Encounter Creationist Theme Park: James Bielo’s Ethnographic Study
October 26, 2018 Deane Audio, Reception History Ark Encounter, Creationist Theme Park, fundamentalist, James S. Bielo, New Books in Anthropology, Siobhan Magee
In the New Books in Anthropology podcast, Siobhan Magee interviews Dr James S. Bielo (Miami University), on the Ark Encounter Creationist Theme Park, the subject of his new book, Ark Encounter: The Making of a Creationist Theme Park (NYU Press, 2018).
https://files.newbooksnetwork.com/anthropology/023anthropologybielo.mp3
“Entertainment has long been understood as important aspect of Christianity in the US, but the theme park, which includes a re-creation of Noah’s ark, provides a striking setting through which to ask questions such as how creationists present their beliefs to the broader public. Ark Encounter is, in part, a workplace ethnography, which describes the entwined conceptual and aesthetic work through which the park’s design team imagine how to most effectively and playfully communicate a controversial religious perspective. Bielo’s findings are situated in discussion with other groundbreaking anthropological work on how categories such as ‘fundamentalist’ have been constructed over time, perhaps most notably Susan Harding’s scholarship.”
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BestStarsVideossite.com
Best Stars – Best Videos
The olde tyme stars
Jeffery Austin “Dancing On My Own” “The Voice” Video: Watch Top 11 Performance!
by Elvis3 | Posted on November 23, 2015 December 30, 2018
(NBC)
Jeffery Austin closed Monday’s “The Voice” with a stripped-down version of “Dancing On My Own.” Check out the video below!
Austin is Team Gwen’s most promising contestant. Last week, his take on James Bay’s “Let It Go” soared on the iTunes charts. Now the Top 11 contestant sought to replicate that success with a powerful new take on “Dancing On My Own” by Robyn.
Adam Levine told Austin afterward, “There’s just something about your voice. You can’t teach the kind of unique quality you have, and that’s the kind of quality that can be heard by millions of people all over the world.”
Blake Shelton said he had a number of thoughts while watching the aspiring star perform, and one of them was, “Jeffery could win. He could win ‘The Voice’ this season.” He also noted that new girlfriend Gwen Stefani would then be the first female coach to win the NBC music competition.
Stefani was actually crying from the performance, and told her artist, “I’m blown away. I don’t understand how talented you are. You are so gifted. You moved to me tears. I am so grateful to know you and be part of this.”
Watch the performance below. Were you tearful like Stefani?
“Pretty Little Liars” Recap: “Did You Miss Me?”
6 1940s Engrav-o-tints Movie/TV stars cards lot, *
Ginger Zee ‘Dancing With The Stars’ Finale Ends “Beautifully” (VIDEO)
Google Doodle honors Anna May Wong, pioneering Chinese-American movie star
Google Doodle honors Anna May Wong, Chinese-American movie star
Star Wars spoiler discussion: Featuring a guy who got paid to watch all the movies
Post Malone, Movie Star? Netflix Is Making It Happen
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Are You a Small Business in Need of Fast Funding?
800-824-2407 | info@bitxfunding.com
AMEX Disclosure > APPLY NOW >
Mid Term Loans
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BitX Funding takes online middleman approach to small-business lending
For Todd Rowe, the road to entrepreneurship began in the residue of the 2008 economic meltdown.
“About four to five years ago, I worked for OnDeck Capital in Manhattan,” said Rowe, referring to a non-bank lender to small businesses, where he was a senior business development manager. “Back in 2008, when we had the market correction, banks stopped lending and small-business owners had nowhere to go to get funds. OnDeck, at the time,
filled that gap.”
“But they only offered one product” for prospective borrowers, he said. “I would see all of this paper that came across my desk that said ‘Denied, Denied, Denied, Denied.’ I said to myself, ‘If we opened up a marketplace where small-business owners needed an SBA loan or a merchant cash advance or a short- or mid-term loan, they’d have one location to come to and we’d work with our funding sources and connect them to the correct business product.’”
In 2013, Rowe in Southport launched BitX Funding as an online marketplace for small-business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs to seek financing for their endeavors.
BitX Funding works with a borrower in fill out data on the company regarding how much money they want to borrow, the time frame they are working in to receive their funds and how long they have been in business. Rowe reviews the information and contacts the applicant to receive more information about the depth and scope of the requested loan. The BitX founder Rowe, who is now working with 20 banks as his company’s financing outlets, determines which applicants have the best chance of moving forward.
“We see a lot of applications,” he said. “We are working with a 20 to 1 ratio — we might see 20 applications, but we are able to fund one.”
BitX has received loan requests ranging from $5,000 to $500,000. “The largest loan we’ve secured was a $300,000 loan for a printing company out in Las Vegas,” he said.
To date, Rowe has secured 100 small-business loans for clients. Applicants do not pay him a fee or a commission for the service, he noted, with his revenue coming from the participating lenders.
“Each funding source has different pay scales” loan middlemen, he said. “We negotiate that upfront. The funding source pays me direct, and it varies between each funding product. An SBA loan can be 1 percent, another product can be higher.”
As a lending middleman, Rowe said, he makes life easier for the banks working with him.
“I’m actually pre-underwriting the applications. Because of Dodd-Frank and all of the other regulations and paying an underwriter a $100,000 salary for a $50,000 loan, it’s not really in their (lending banks’) wheelhouse.”
Rowe said half of his applicants are startups seeking their first cash infusion and the other half are established but still young companies needing additional money to grow. Many would-be borrowers approach lenders with too much confidence in their ability to score financing, with dismal results.
“They think they can go out and request funding with a FICO of 550 or liens and judgments, or with somebody going after them to pay their bills. Once your name gets put into the system, it’s amazing what’s out there on you and how all of these funding sources can grab that data and quickly make a decision on you. Or you can land on a web page with an online lender and answer a couple of questions wrong, get quickly denied and that’s the end of it.”
“With me, I go right to the underwriter and say, ‘Hey, wait a minute, don’t look at the black and white — there is color, and let me show you the color.’” In a loan application.
Rowe is also branching out his service to reach the “entrepreneurial home flipper” who is seeking money to acquire, upgrade and quickly resell residential properties. “I can provide the capital the banks and mortgage companies don’t touch,” he said, adding that it helps if the flipper files as a limited liability company when applying for capital.
BitX Funding is operated by Rowe as a one-man shop. “My goal is to become very large and have private equity and private capital reach out to me and say, ‘We want to take it to the next level,’” he said.
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FreeAir.tv - fire your cable company. Watch More. Pay Less. Be Happy.
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FreeAir.tv’s Apple TV app also offer features available on other platforms, like
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Explore CloudAntenna OTA DVR and Cloud TV, a better way to enjoy live broadcast TV!
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In 2015, the US Supreme Court may have ruled that Aereo is breaking the law and shut down Aereo offered Cloud TV service.The good news is, the Cloud TV is not dead, it was reborn, better, stronger, with more features. CloudAntenna OTA DVR and Cloud TV running FreeAir.tv service is great alternatives to Aereo and it's still free and legal to get live, local Over-the-Air broadcast TV in HD!
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Just connect FreeAir.tv HDTV antenna and set up CloudAntenna OTA DVR. It's completely legal to record and stream that content to all of your connected devices for personal use. Just an old good VCR, well maybe you do n…
Where Roku ends CloudAntenna picks up with Android TV + Antenna + DVR = TV 4.0
Roku’s claim to be America’s favorite media player is new being challenged. The CloudAntenna team has picked up where Roku left, adding an antenna that allows you to record and watch local Live TV, powered by Android TV with millions of apps from Google Play store. Welcome to the world of TV 4.0.
Not only are consumers overwhelmed by all of the choices of media players in the market such as: Roku, Apple TV, Smart TV and Android TV they are confused by what channels they will be able to watch. After making a choice of media player, consumers still face a dilemma. If I cut my cable or satellite service, can I still watch my favorite local TV channels and sport teams?
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Consumers connect to “over-the-air” free broadcast signals from major networks like ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, The CW… and…
TV Antenna Selection Guide or how to fire your cable company
Read our TV Antenna selection guide to help you to make a right decision for you.
Antennas have been around since TV was invented and since 2009 antennas do receive over-the-air broadcast signals from all major network providers in a digital format. You might think of TV antennas as a relic of the early days of televisions, but today they provide a real low-cost alternative to cable and satellite TV as well as service as a supplement to streaming services. Plenty of homes are using an HD antenna to eliminate or reduce their monthly cable/satellite TV bill, and enjoy a better picture quality on their HDTVs. Reasons to buy an antennaCord cutting as a trend is exploding, with the same speed that digital cameras made Kodak obsolete. According to the National Association of Broadcasters, there are over 59.7 million viewers rely on broadcast TV. Do not be afraid to take the leap, you have nothing to lose. If you are worried about poor signal strength in an area or not understanding how an…
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Samsung to focus on mid-level and premium products to compete with LG and Videocon
The smartphone business contributes about 70% of the electronic giant's sales in India, with consumer electronics accounting for the rest
Writankar Mukherjee
Samsung Electronics plans to grab market share in television and white goods business from rivals LG and Videocon, switching focus back to mass products from its recent strategy of focusing primarily on mid-level and premium products.
The South Korean conglomerate is expanding its portfolio of mass products such as single-door and smaller frost-free refrigerators, 32-inch televisions, semi-automatic washing machines and entry-tomid segment microwave ovens, two senior industry executives said.
The company also plans to expand the number of service centres in smaller towns, they said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Samsung does not plan to exit any segment even if the growth rate has decelerated and profit contribution is marginal, the way it moved out of window air-conditioners in India a few years ago, because it wants to be present across price points, the executives said.
When contacted, Samsung India vice president Rajeev Bhutani said the company cannot comment on internal strategies while acknowledging that it is strengthening service outreach.
“We are hopeful that demand from the rural market will expand with a rise in growing aspirations of an expanding base of middleclass buyers. We sense a surge in the aspiration levels of the youth in small towns and even in rural areas who have good insights into new technology and want a better lifestyle,” Bhutani said.
The company plans to adopt the same trade practices for the consumer electronics business as it follows in the smartphone business, such as getting dealers and retailers to log details of each unit sold to ensure better customer service, and tracking final sales.
With this, the company is seeking to put in place a strategy for the television and appliances business which had in the past few years been overshadowed by its focus on the mobile phone business.
Electronics retailer Great Eastern’s director Pulkit Baid said Samsung has products at all price levels.
“Such a strategy to position models across segments will help it gain market share,” he said.
Another industry executive, who did not wish to be identified, said the company’s recent ‘Made for India’ advertisement campaign showcased only mass products. He said the company’s largest selling television model is a 32-inch TV, which is priced at less than Rs 20,000.
Bhutani said the company is excited about the ensuing festival season and expects to grow at double the market growth rate in the next six months. It hopes to continue to do so in the future due to a combination of factors such as growing consumer sentiment, good monsoon rains and rural growth.
“We are already leaders in most product categories, where we will consolidate our market share further. We also hope to make significant strides in other categories with innovative made for India products, which are already very popular,” he said.
Samsung is India’s largest smartphone and television maker while in appliances it trails LG and faces severe competition from Videocon, Panasonic and Whirlpool.
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Tag Archive | miss alabama
Fire and Gold
June 4, 2015.
I had the humbling honor of hosting the Miss Nebraska’s Outstanding Teen pageant, and spent the day at North Platte High School in rehearsals. During breaks, I tried to upload as many photos to the Miss Omaha Facebook page as I could, typing furiously to tag contestants and draw more viewers to our site. I almost didn’t notice when a stunning blonde sat next to me and said ‘Hi, how’s it going?’
Her name was Alyssa Howell.
Funny how such a small gesture of kindness, just taking a moment to ask someone how they are doing, can make such a big impact on how you think of a person. A panel of six judges thought VERY highly of Alyssa.. naming her Miss Nebraska 2015 just 24 hours later.
Photo courtesy the North Platte Telegraph
“Miss Nebraska week was the most fun I have ever had!” Alyssa told me recently. “I was surrounded by 12 amazing contestants that not only were great friends to me during the week, but who also supported me throughout my year.”
And so began a reign that represents everything this Miss Nebraska has stood for; friendship, kindness, genuineness.
As a longtime Miss America fan and a journalist who is always subconciously observing, I’ve noticed over the years the reaction of other contestants speaks volumes about the woman crowned. Minutes after Alyssa was named Miss Nebraska, she was immediately embraced by her ‘pageant sister’, Miss Omaha Megan Gould. Just weeks later, Alyssa invited Megan, as well as other Miss Nebraska finalists Brooke Ludemann, LaRissa McKean and Allison Tietjen, to perform at her send-off party for Miss America. These women, Alyssa’s competition at this time last year, seemed genuinely happy for her and showed up in full force to give her their support; Alyssa was eager to share her spotlight that night to showcase the titleholders who had become her friends.
For me.. it goes back to that day in the cafeteria.. Alyssa Howell is REAL. She doesn’t pretend to care about people; she just DOES. She’s taken that incredible quality across the country for the last year, focusing much of her time and energy on children.
“Not having grown up in Nebraska, this year took me to so many new places!” said Alyssa. “Just being able to reach Nebraskans across the state was such a wonderful experience. Whether it was a Pumpkin Chuckin’ in a cornfield in northeastern Nebraska, a small town elementary school with a total of 42 students, or a large scale fundraising Gala in downtown Omaha, I was able to reach out to the people of Nebraska on so many levels. If anything, this year reminded me just how much I love being a part of the Cornhusker State.”
Alyssa visited dozens of schools across Nebraska, and four Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals in several states. THAT has been Alyssa’s passion for years now, connecting with sick children through her Miracle Bags program.
Alyssa recruiting 2016 Miss Nebraska contestants to put together and deliver bags of goodies, ‘Miracle Bags’ to kids at Omaha’s Children’s Hospital & Medical Center
CLICK HERE to watch KETV’s story about Alyssa & her Miracle Bags!
“As soon as I won Miss Nebraska, one of my priorities for the year was to impact as many children as I could with my Miracle Bags program,” said Alyssa. “And with that goal in mind I was able to visit the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals in Omaha, Denver, Milwaukee, and Washington DC, and deliver over 180 Miracle Bags! Many people ask me how I am able to visit children who are in such dire situations, and not be completely depressed after the fact. I always tell them that the feeling of seeing a child who is going through the most difficult time in their life light up at the sight of my crown and Miracle Bag is indescribable. And I will never forget the parents who tell me that this is the first time they have seen their child smile in days. Children’s Miracle Network will forever be a passion of mine.”
To countless families and children, Alyssa made a profound impact. She also made a huge mark on the pageant world, when in September, she travelled to Atlantic City to represent Nebraska in the 2016 Miss America Pageant.
“I have watched the Miss America Pageant every year on TV since I can remember, but never in my wildest dreams did I believe that I would one day be on that stage!” said Alyssa. “Even after winning Miss Nebraska, my goal for Miss America was to have a blast, meet some amazing girls, and represent Nebraska well.”
Check, check, CHECK. And when 7-million Americans tuned in to see who would make the Top 15..
Left photo courtesy Getty Images
..they heard Miss Nebraska, Alyssa Howell. I screamed and jumped in my living room.. Alysa’s family and friends were EXUBERANT in the crowd in Atlantic City. With the confidence women dream of and the swagger of Bruno Mars, Alyssa strutted her stuff on that stage in Lifestyle and Fitness.. and sauntered right into the Top 12.
Photos courtesy Getty Images
“Being called into the Top 15 was a complete and total shock,” said Alyssa. “Standing on that stage with 51 other talented, beautiful, intelligent women, I never thought that I would hear NEBRASKA called! I still get goosebumps when I watch the video. When I made the Top 12, I was just so excited and honored to move on! I was surrounded by some of my best friends in the competition and it was such a surreal moment.”
Photo courtesy Getty Images
That is where Alyssa’s journey ended, sadly, before she could play her INCREDIBLE piano solo for America. But when I spoke to her just a few weeks later at the Miss Omaha Pageant, Alyssa didn’t have ONE negative thing to say about her experience; no trash talk on her fellow contestants, no coulda woulda shoulda’s.. simply a completely EXCITED outlook on what she could accomplish next in her home state as Miss Nebraska. And holy cow.. has that been a lot. After Miss America, Alyssa was featured in US Weekly and Pageantry magazines. She was a high profile model in Omaha Fashion Week. She secured and strengthened partnerships and sponsor connections with Omaha’s world renowned Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium, Sun Tan City, Kontempo. and nationally known stylist Kirby Keomysay among others.
Alyssa also became a frequent muse for photographers, taking part in numerous photo shoots with Deyo’s Photography in Nebraska and Jenn Cady Photography based in South Carolina.
Alyssa accepted every interview request that came her way, including the nationally recognized Pageant Junkies (CLICK HERE to listen!), Omaha’s KFAB and KETV (CLICK HERE to watch!), the North Platte Telegraph (CLICK HERE to read!), and ME!
“This year was definitely more challenging than I expected,” said Alyssa. “Seeing all of the work Miss Nebraska does from Facebook and Instagram posts pales in comparison to the actual job. What people don’t see is the full hair and makeup 4+ days a week, the early mornings, the days when I drive 8+ hours for an appearance, the days that I was sick, the days that I had three appearances and events. Truly, this is a 24/7 job. But what I also didn’t expect is how rewarding this whole experience would be! By going through everything this job requires, I have not only learned so many life skills, I have also learned so much about myself. I know that if I can be Miss Nebraska, I can do anything. This job has given me a strong sense of confidence about what I am capable of, as well as so many amazing memories and friendships!”
I have the humbling honor of writing this blog post, chronicling Miss Nebraska 2015 Alyssa Howell and her year of service. Initially, I wanted to title this article Humble and Kind, inspired by the Tim McGraw song that to me, so reflects who this incredible young woman is. Despite her jaw-dropping beauty, smile and grace, she doesn’t radiate a shred of arrogance. She is giving, real, and most of all KIND.
Alyssa Howell is fire and gold. She has a huge heart that she has opened to countless children over the last year and more, with the aura of a woman who can only be called QUEEN. As this journey ends, she’ll pick up where she left off one year ago.. pursuing her Elementary Education degree at Creighton University, intending to impact even more children through her career, now with a big boost from her life experiences and financial awards from being Miss Nebraska.
“I have won over $20,000 in cash scholarships for school,” said Alyssa. “This has made all the difference in my future! I started at Creighton University with a total of $27,000 in student loans over four years. Graduating to become an elementary school teacher with that debt was going to be difficult to say the least. This program is first and foremost a scholarship organization, and I cannot say enough about the impact that Miss Nebraska and Miss America makes on young women who are getting a college education.”
As I close out.. I must share a ‘shout out’ to part of Alyssa’s dream team.. her boyfriend, Grady, and her directors, Kayla and Rachel.
These three are superstars in their own right; people who have been in Alyssa’s corner since the moment that crown was placed on her head. They have also become near and dear to my heart with their humor, loyalty and dedication to helping Alyssa become the absolute best she could be. Each of this year’s 36 women I’ve profiled have set out to make the world a better place, supported emotionally and otherwise by their own #TeamAlyssa’s. To ALL of you, THANK YOU for helping these fires burn so brightly, for allowing these gems to sparkle. They’re about to embark on one of the craziest, exhausting, yet exhilarating weeks of their lives.. and they’ll need you.
“To this year’s contestants, whether you win or not, Miss Nebraska week is the most fun you will ever have!” said Alyssa. “Don’t let the stress get to you, and don’t take yourself too seriously. Just have fun and enjoy that time that you get with your Miss Nebraska sisters! To Miss Nebraska 2016, I am so incredibly excited to see everything that this year has in store for you! Remember to make this year your own, to take advantage of every opportunity that comes your way, and find those small moments that make every challenge worth it. Most importantly, remember that this is a year of service. Never underestimate what an impact a crown and a sash can make.”
CLICK HERE to watch Miss Nebraska 2015 Alyssa Howell’s Farewell Video
CLICK HERE to follow Miss Nebraska 2015 Alyssa Howell
on Facebook and on Instagram.
WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT ALYSSA?
2015 * ROAR
2015 * Miracle Worker
2014 * The Kid Whisperer
CLICK HERE to meet the 2016 Miss Nebraska Pageant contestants!
The 2016 Miss Nebraska Scholarship Pageant takes place June 8-11 in North Platte, Nebraska. Learn more on THEIR WEBSITE, FACEBOOK PAGE, or follow ON TWITTER and ON INSTAGRAM.
PREVIOUS.. Miss Nebraska’s Outstanding Teen 2015 Steffany Lien!
NEXT.. Miss Nebraska Pageant 2016 Recap: The Year of the Phoenix
To read more about this year’s contestants, or the Miss Nebraska/Miss Nebraska’s OT classes of 2015 & 2014, click the THERE SHE IS link at the top of the page!
This entry was posted on June 4, 2016, in Fashion, Friends, KETV, Miss America, News, Omaha, TV and tagged alex o'connor, allison tietjen, alyssa howell, atlantic city, black swan dress boutique, brandi petersen, brooke ludemann, bruno mars, Cathy Howell, Children's Hospital & Medical Center, childrens miracle network, Creighton University, DEVIN HOWELL, deyo's photography, fire and gold, getty images, Henry Doorly Zoo, humble and kind, jenn cady photography, jesse palmer, joe bohac, kayla jacox, KETV, kfab, kirby keomysay, kontemp, larissa mckean, megan gould, Miracle Bags, miss alabama, Miss America, miss louisiana, miss maryland, miss nebraska, miss nebraska organization, miss nebraska's outstanding teen, miss omaha, money dress, north platte, north platte high school, North Platte Telegraph, Omaha Fashion Week, pageant junkies, pageantry, pat and jt, payton merritt, q98, rachel daly, sac federal credit union, steffany lien, sun tan city, tim mcgraw, tosha skinner, us weekly. 4 Comments
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Pencil Companies
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Mongol w/ “Clamp” eraser tip point protector
Brand: Eberhard Faber
Little Mongol pencil with the “Clamp” Protector. Shown in a catalog with a model number 1584, but mine does not have the model number. Also pictures is a 1582 Mongol blotter. You don't see many if any of these.
Adjustable tip eraser
About Eberhard Faber
The Eberhard Faber Pencil Company was founded in New York City in 1861 by the German-born Eberhard Faber (1822-1879). The brand was essentially a spin-off from the family’s then 100-year-old company known as A. W. Faber. The American branch of the Faber pencil dynasty began in 1848 when the 26-year-old Eberhard went on a scouting trip for high-quality red cedar to ship back to his brothers Lothar and Johann’s pencil plant in Germany. By 1850, Eberhard had settled in New York and opened a stationery store in Manhattan while continuing to export cedar back to Stein. Eberhard’s NYC operation was the first graphite pencil factory opened in the United States, originally located where the UN building currently stands. According to this fascinating 2007 report on forming an Eberhard Faber historic district in NYC, "Following a disastrous fire at the Manhattan plant in 1872, Faber moved the factory to Brooklyn, where it remained until 1956. The company is credited with bringing German lead pencilmaking techniques to the United States and Faber grew to become one of Brooklyn’s most important factories, employing hundreds of workers, most of which were women."
Related pencils
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Microtomic HB
Black Knight 6379 No.1
Blackwing Volumes 1
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In order to guarantee and protect the privacy and confidentiality of the personal data of the Users of our website and in order to protect their privacy and privacy, we have drafted, in accordance with current legislation, this Policy. Privacy.
The terms set out below and especially the duty of confidentiality will be mandatory for all internal or external personnel who work or could work with us and who have access to the data you provide, either during browsing on our website, through the use of our forms or during the hiring or rendering of services.
We reserve the right to modify the content of this Privacy Policy, in order to adapt it to legislative or jurisprudential news, as well as to reports or opinions issued by the Spanish Data Protection Agency or the Article Working Group 29
In the event that we are going to use the personal data of the Users, Potential Customers or Customers, in a manner different from what is established in the Privacy Policy in force at the moment of providing the data; or in the event that we are going to treat you for purposes other than those indicated at the time you provide us with your information, we will make every effort to contact you as affected, to inform you and obtain your consent again. Otherwise, we will not use the data for different purposes.
We advise Users that, every time they access our website, they review this text to ascertain the purposes and uses that we can make of their data.
This Privacy Policy will be part of and will be permanently linked to the provisions of our Legal Notice, the Legal Conditions of the service contracted and our Cookies Policy, these texts are available to users on our website and those who advise its reading.
At all times we will indicate the date of the last update of the Privacy Policy so that Users know the effective content that is applied to them and the date of the last revision.
DON ARTURO IMPORT-EXPORT, SL, hereinafter DAIE, states that this Privacy Policy is adapted to Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council, of April 27, 2016, regarding the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and the free circulation of these data (hereinafter RGPD).
1. Responsible for the treatment
The person responsible for processing the data collected, processed and stored through this website (www.brasilchic.net) and on the occasion of the services provided and contracted through it, is DON ARTURO IMPORT-EXPORT, S.L. CIF B24643462, with address at Turquesa Street number 12, 47012 of Valladolid. E-mail: admin@brasilchic.net and telephone 628690117. Don Arturo Import-Export, S.L. It is registered in the Mercantile Registry of León, in Volume 1244, Folio 6, Sheet no. LE-21855, with CIF number B-24643462.
2. Data processing
The personal data requested in your case will consist of those that are essential to identify and respond to the request of the owner of the data, resolve issues raised and provide the contracted services, said data being collected for explicit and legitimate purposes and not said data being treated in a manner incompatible with the purposes indicated.
The owner of the data will be informed by DAIE, before the collection of your data, of the ends established in this Privacy Policy, so that you can give express, precise and unequivocal consent for the processing of your data.
3. Data origin
In the first place, it is important for Users to keep in mind that, when personal information is provided online (for example, through e-mail or via the Internet), it can be collected and used by others. That is why, DAIE is not responsible for the fact that such information can be collected, stored and / or processed by an unauthorized third party, because it has adopted the security measures that are within its reach so that this does not happen.
The origin of the data that we treat and store in DAIE can come from different places:
Through our website we collect personal data of those Users who voluntarily decide to fill in the mandatory fields that we have incorporated in each of the forms on our website.
With these forms, Users can register on our website, make a query or provide a suggestion, request a budget for a specific product from those offered on our website / request a product from those offered on our website or receive, if so it is expressly authorized by DAIE advertising and newsletters. Through these forms, the Users provide us with their data and consent to their treatment according to the purposes indicated at the time of filling in the form.
The Users will be responsible for the veracity and authenticity of the data they provide us through our forms, being their obligation to keep them updated at all times to avoid errors on our part. Any false or inaccurate manifestation that occurs as a result of the information and data delivered through such forms, will be the responsibility of the User.
Information can also come through the emails we receive at www.brasilchic.net. Since we make the web available to our users through the www.brasilchic.net domain, we inform that it is hosted on the Google Cloud Platform servers hosted in Europe. who establish the corresponding security measures and guarantee compliance with the RGPD.
It is important to inform users that, in case the user or potential client wishes it, a meeting can be established that will be carried out by telephone. The User must provide his name and telephone number.
Finally, we also give Users the possibility of consulting and commenting on topics and products that Brasilchic, will publish in their case (may moderate them based on criteria of legal and moral compliance, as well as practices of good use and ethics ). Participation will be made through the participation form via comment available once the users have registered on the website itself. It is essential to read the web policies of this page before proceeding to comment.
The purpose of processing all these data will be indicated at the time of collection and detailed in the section "Purposes of treatment and maintenance periods" of this Privacy Policy.
Since we make the web available to our users through the www.brasilchic.net domain, we inform that it uses the services that are detailed. These suppliers establish the corresponding security measures and guarantee compliance with the RGPD.
Zendesk, Inc. online chat services. Privacy Policy.
4. Legitimation for the treatment of data
The legal basis for the treatment of the data of the Users will depend on the moment in which the personal data of the User, Potential Client or Client is collected or processed:
The legal basis for the treatment of the data collected through the form to participate in the form of consultations / comments to be published on the web is the consent. At the time of filling out the aforementioned form, the participant will accept the provisions of this Privacy Policy or specific clause.
The legal basis for the treatment of the data collected through the inquiry and information form as well as, the CHAT service will be the one to respond to queries or requests. These requests do not imply any contractual relationship.
The legal basis for the treatment of the data collected through the form for sending newsletters is the consent. At the time of filling out the aforementioned form, the interested party will accept the provisions of this Privacy Policy or specific clause.
The legal basis for the treatment of the data collected through the registration form for contracting the products is the existing contractual relationship .. At the time of filling out the aforementioned form, the interested party will accept the provisions of this Privacy Policy or clause specific.
5. Purposes of the treatment and terms of data conservation
The purposes for which each of the treatments will be carried out by DAIE, are established in the different informative clauses incorporated in each of the data collection channels-web forms, etc.
Notwithstanding the foregoing, we detail them in full below, together with the data retention period, performed by DAIE:
Contact form / form for publication of queries and / or comments and chat service: To be able to contact the User to resolve the query, doubt or suggestion, as well as to send him, in case he had requested it, username and password to access to your private area.
This data will be kept on the email provider's server without a cancellation period and as long as the affected party does not state their opposition. However, if the stored emails have to do with the provision of services, they will be kept for all the time that may arise obligations of the contractual relationship. (5 years - article 1964 of the Civil Code).
Information request form: These data will be used by DAIE, to provide you with information and to contact you in relation to the interest expressed regarding our organization or our products / services.
Registration Form: These data will be used by DAIE, for the purpose of providing the contracted service / contractual purpose of selling the products you have purchased and to perform an internal management of the organization, accounting, tax and administrative. These data will be kept by DAIE during the time in which some type of responsibility derived from the application of the pre-contractual / contractual measures requested by the interested party (5 years - Article 1964 of the Civil Code) or will be conserved during a period of 6 years (Article 30 Commercial Code).
Form for sending newsletters and advertising: This data will be used by DAIE, to provide information and get in touch with you in relation to the expressed interest in receiving newsletters and advertising
Data collected through Cookies: Through the Cookies of which we inform you in our Cookies Policy, which we recommend you read, we collect data to personalize your experience and better meet your individual needs, improve our website, allow share comments on social networks, etc. These data will be kept according to the provisions of our Cookies Policy to which we refer.
Private zone: The User may access his private area with username and password and may modify or rectify his data whenever he wishes, being able to exercise his opposition to the treatment in his case or suppression, in our system by contacting us at admin @ brasilchic.net These data will be kept by DAIE during the time in which some type of responsibility derived from the fulfillment of the contract and the rendering of services (5 years - article 1964 of the Civil Code) may be demanded.
6. Obligation to provide the requested data
In order to optimally execute the services, Users must provide us with the information and personal data requested in our forms. In case of not providing all the information requested and marked as mandatory, DAIE may not offer its services / products or send, where appropriate, the information requested and therefore can not provide the services / products on which the user is interested .
In DAIE, we scrupulously comply with the requirements stipulated in the RGPD regarding the protection of minors' data, so we do not knowingly collect any information from children under 14 years of age. In addition, we inform Users that this website is only directed to people over 18 years of age.
8. How we protect the information of users, potential customers or customers
DAIE implements physical, technical and organizational measures to maintain the security of personal data and to try to minimize the possibility of accidental or illegal destruction, accidental loss, unauthorized use, alteration, unauthorized modification, disclosure and / or access, as well as any other illegal way of processing your data, in accordance with the provisions of article 32 of the RGPD.
In this sense, and taking into account the state of the art, the costs of application and the nature, scope, context and purposes of the treatment, as well as the risks of probability and seriousness that may affect the rights and freedoms of natural persons, appropriate measures have been established to guarantee the level of security appropriate to the existing risk.
In any case, DAIE has implemented sufficient mechanisms to:
Guarantee the confidentiality, integrity, availability and permanent resilience of the systems and treatment services. Restore the availability and access to personal data quickly, in case of physical or technical incident.
Verify, evaluate and assess, on a regular basis, the effectiveness of the technical and organizational measures implemented to guarantee the safety of the treatment.
Pseudonymize and encrypt personal data, if applicable.
Notwithstanding the foregoing, as a User you acknowledge and agree that Internet security measures are not impregnable and that the networks used on the Internet are not 100% secure, so any communication sent by this means can be intercepted and / or modified. by unauthorized persons, so as a user you should also exercise caution.
9. Notice of violation of personal data or security breaches
The violation of personal data means a breach of the security of the information systems of DAIE that causes or may cause the destruction, alteration, loss, unauthorized disclosure or access, accidental or not, to the personal data transmitted, stored or processed related with the provision of our services. For the case that the personal data we store and / or deal with in DAIE are compromised in some way, we will proceed to timely notify those affected, and in accordance with the provisions of article 33 of the RGPD.
10. Communication of data to third parties
Personal data that users or potential customers have been able to provide through our website, or during the provision of services, will not be sold, transferred and / or exchanged with unauthorized third parties, except by legal obligation, or in the cases established below in relation to the international data transfers we make from DAIE.
On the other hand, Customer data may be transferred to the Tax Administration and other Public Administration Bodies, if required to do so.
11. International data transfers
In DAIE, we use Twitter. This social network is located in the United States. Therefore, any information we upload to that social network, assumes that we make an international transfer of data to the US because the data uploaded to our profiles are stored on the servers of that company, also in the US. Now, DAIE, does not upload or treat through this platform personal data of users, who voluntarily decide to follow our page.
We inform our Users that Twitter is attached to the Privacy Shield and states in its Privacy Policy, linked above, that it complies with the aforementioned framework of protection of the European Union and the United States. You can consult the list here, and, here you can get more information about how Twitter transfers the data hosted on your platform. For complaints or claims regarding data protection we provide the following information:
Twitter, Inc. 1355 Market Street # 900 San Francisco, California 94103 Phone: (415) 222-9670
In DAIE, we use Facebook. This social network is located in the United States. Therefore, any information we upload to that social network, assumes that we make an international transfer of data to the US because the data uploaded to our profiles are stored on the servers of that company, also in the US. Facebook, Inc. has obtained the certification of the EU-EE privacy shields frameworks. UU and from Switzerland-USA UU DAIE also installs Facebook pixels on its website in order to make an interrelation of it with the profiles of users, as well as, know the conversions produced with it.
As has been said, Facebook is attached to the Privacy Shield and states in its Privacy Policy, linked above, that it complies with the aforementioned framework of protection of the European Union and the United States. You can find more information here on how Facebook transfers the data hosted on your platform. For complaints or claims regarding data protection we provide the following information:
Facebook, Inc. 1 Hacker Way 94025 Menlo Park California 94025, USA Phone: (1) - (650) -543-4800
In DAIE, we use Google Inc. This social network is located in the United States. Therefore, any information we upload to that social network, assumes that we make an international transfer of data to the US because the data uploaded to our profiles are stored on the servers of that company, also in the US. Google Inc. and its subsidiaries in the US UU comply with EU-EE Privacy Shields UU and Switzerland-EE. UU DAIE also uses the Google Analitycs service and Google Adwords on its website in order to know the traceability of visits by users on its website in the first case, and produce ads and improve sales through ads in the second case .
As stated, Google Inc. is a member of Privacy Shield and states in its Privacy Policy, listed above, that it complies with the aforementioned framework of protection of the European Union and the United States. You can find more information here on how Google+ transfers the data hosted on your platform. For complaints or complaints regarding data protection we provide the following information: Google Headquarters 1600 Amphitheater Parkway
Google Headquarters 1600 Amphitheater Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043 United States
In DAIE, we use YouTube. This social network is located in the United States. Therefore, any information we upload to that social network, assumes that we make an international transfer of data to the US because the data uploaded to our profiles are stored on the servers of that company, also in the US. YouTube LLC and its subsidiaries in the US UU comply with EU-EE Privacy Shields UU and Switzerland-EE. UU Now, DAIE, does not upload or treat through this platform personal data of users, who voluntarily decide to follow our page.
As has been said, YouTube is attached to the Privacy Shield and states in its Privacy Policy, linked above, that it complies with the aforementioned framework of protection of the European Union and the United States. You can find more information here on how YouTube transfers the data hosted on your platform. For complaints or claims regarding data protection we provide the following information:
San Bruno 901 Cherry Avenue San Bruno, CA 94066 United States
In DAIE, we use Instagram. This social network is located in the United States. Therefore, any information we upload to that social network, assumes that we make an international transfer of data to the US because the data uploaded to our profiles are stored on the servers of that company, also in the US. Instagram complies with the EU-US and Switzerland-US privacy shields. Now, DAIE, does not upload or treat through this platform personal data of users, who voluntarily decide to follow our page.
As has been said, Instagram is attached to the Privacy Shield and states in its Privacy Policy, linked above, that it complies with the aforementioned framework of protection of the European Union and the United States. You can find more information here on how Instagram transfers the data hosted on your platform. For complaints or claims regarding data protection we provide the following information:
Attn: Law Enforcement Response Team 1601 Willow Road Menlo Park, CA 94025 United States
In DAIE, we use Pinterest. This social network is located in the United States. Therefore, any information we upload to that social network, assumes that we make an international transfer of data to the US because the data uploaded to our profiles are stored on the servers of that company, also in the US. Instagram complies with the EU-US and Switzerland-US privacy shields. Now, DAIE, does not upload or treat through this platform personal data of users, who voluntarily decide to follow our page.
As stated, Pinterest is attached to the Privacy Shield and states in its Privacy Policy, linked above, that it complies with the aforementioned framework of protection of the European Union and the United States. More information can be found here on how Pinterest transfers the data hosted on its platform. For complaints or claims regarding data protection we provide the following information:
Pinterest Inc., 808 Brannan Street, San Francisco, CA 94103 United States
In DAIE, we use Mailchimp. This company is located in the United States. Therefore, any information we upload to that social network, assumes that we make an international transfer of data to the US because the data uploaded to our profiles are stored on the servers of that company, also in the US. Instagram complies with the EU-US and Switzerland-US privacy shields. Now, DAIE, does not upload or treat through this platform personal data of users, who voluntarily decide to follow our page.
As has been said, Mailchimp is attached to the Privacy Shield and states in its Privacy Policy, linked above, that it complies with the aforementioned protection framework of the European Union and the United States. You can find more information here about how Mailchimp transfers the data hosted on your platform. For complaints or claims regarding data protection we provide the following information:
The Rocket Science Group, LLC 675 Ponce de Leon Ave NE Suite 5000 Atlanta, GA 30308 United States
12. Data protection rights
Any person, may exercise the rights of access, rectification, deletion, limitation of processing, the right to portability, unless it is subject to automated processing, including the preparation of profiles and the right to oppose the personal data that work in any of the files of which DAIE is responsible, requesting it by any means that leaves a record of your sending and receiving, clearly expressing your wish and accompanying a photocopy of your ID and how many documents are necessary to prove your identity. Do not forget to indicate the reasons that justify the exercise of the right.
To do this, you can write a letter, either to the email address admin@brasilchic.net. We have at our Users' disposal forms to exercise these rights, you can request them in our contact form. What can you request exactly?
Right of access: You can request information about whether DAIE is processing your personal data.
Right of rectification: You can request the rectification of the data, in case these are incorrect, as well as the suppression of the same.
Right of cancellation: You may request the cancellation of the data; and in case there is any limitation, DAIE will keep the data duly blocked, only for the exercise or defense of claims.
Right of opposition: You may request that we stop treating the data in the manner stated, unless for legitimate reasons we should continue to treat them, a circumstance that we will expressly state.
Right to request the limitation of your treatment: You may request at any time that we limit the processing of the data when one of the following cases occurs:
When challenging the accuracy of the data processed and for a period that allows DAIE to verify the accuracy of the same.
When the data processing is illegal according to current legislation and the affected party chooses to restrict its use instead of its elimination.
When the affected party requires their data for the establishment, exercise or defense of legal claims.
Right to data portability: So, in the event that the data are processed in an automated way, they are returned or transferred to another company indicated by the User in a structured, automated and commonly used format.
Right to delete: You can request the deletion of your personal data and DAIE must delete them without undue delay when:
The data is no longer necessary in relation to the purposes for which it was collected or processed.
The affected party withdraws the consent on which the processing of the data is based, and there is no other legal basis for this.
The affected person opposes the treatment because it is aimed at the direct marketing of products.
The data has been processed illegally.
The data must be erased to comply with a legal obligation at the community and / or national level.
In addition, Users have other rights, namely:
Right to withdraw the consent given: The User may withdraw the consent given for the processing of personal data for a specific purpose, when he so wishes, he should only contact us exercising this right.
Right to claim before the Control Authority: Any User may contact the Control Authority, in case he considers that, DAIE is treating his data in a wrong way. In the case of Spain, the control authority is the Espanhola Data Protection Agency, address at C / Jorge Juan, 6, 28001-Madrid and contact numbers: 901 100 099/91 266 35 17.
Our website has a Blog section in which Users are allowed to post comments. Users may also share our articles through the social networks where we are present, so Users should be cautious and read previously the Conditions and Privacy Policies of the aforementioned social network.
14. Social Networks
DAIE-Brasilchic is present on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, Google+ and YouTube, although it may use others in the future. That is why, through this Privacy Policy, it is acknowledged responsible for the treatment in relation to the data published by DAIE on said platforms, as well as the data that Users send privately to DAIE in order to be extracted. - for example, communications for DAIE to answer a query.
Notwithstanding the foregoing, through the profiles, DAIE does not share or communicate any personal information of the Users, "followers" of Twitter, Facebook, etc. We take advantage of this Privacy Policy to inform Users that the profile of Brasilchic in the aforementioned social networks is open to the general public, without limitation of access to other users, in order that our brand, services, contests, contests, etc. be seen by as many people as possible. That is why, in case Users, followers of our profiles send personal information on our wall, it will be their exclusive responsibility.
Anyone who does not wish to be a "follower" of Brasilchic in the social networks in which they are present, only has to stop following that profile following the provisions of the Privacy Policies and Terms and Conditions of the social network in question. The data of the Users uploaded to our profiles will remain in these from the moment the User gives his consent until he withdraws it, requesting it from the platform. The treatment that DAIE carries out within the social networks will be, at the most, the one that the social network allows to the corporate profiles. For what DAIE will be able to inform, when the law does not prohibit it, to its followers, and, by any way that the social network allows, about its activities, contests, contests, services, etc. as well as providing personalized customer service through the social network.
Any User may exercise the data protection rights, by contacting DAIE at the address and email indicated in the section corresponding to them. In no case DAIE will extract data from social networks if you do not have the express consent of the user to do so. We recommend Users to read the Privacy Policies and Terms and Conditions of the social networks where we are present.
15. Receipt of Curriculum Vitae
DAIE does not admit the receipt of Curriculum Vitae through the email provided on this Web page, nor if it is sent by Users through the forms available on the page, because there is no open selection process. In view of this, any Curriculum that is received by email, or by completing any form, will be deleted and deleted. Being able, however, to use the email address of contact, to inform of the deletion of the Curriculum to the interested.
16. Conditions
We strongly recommend that Users also visit the Legal Conditions, Legal Notice and Cookies Policy sections that regulate, among many other aspects, the use, disclaimers and limitations of liability that govern this website.
Cookies are pieces of information that websites store in your computer to remember your preferences, so they can offer you a more personal experience. DAIE uses cookies to, among other things:
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Some of the cookies of our Website are owned by third parties (like Google), which process the information and provide us with data about our promotions, etc. They never collect personal information that may be used to identify a specific user. No cookie has a validity period over two years.
If you do not want these cookies to be stored, you can change the settings of your browser at any time. However, we recommend you not to deactivate them, because you could stop enjoying some specific services on our website. If you prefer to deactivate the cookies from third parties, click the following links:
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Home » Blogs » The Good Daughter Syndrome » 3 Promises Mothers Can Make To Her Daughter Now -To Stop Sexual Assault & Abuse
The Good Daughter
with Katherine Fabrizio, M.A., L.P.C.
3 Promises Mothers Can Make To Her Daughter Now -To Stop Sexual Assault & Abuse
By Katherine Fabrizio
Messages mothers give to their daughters about the sovereignty of their bodies, what they owe others socially, and the sacred beauty of their sexuality is how we turn the tide of assault around.
How do prevent sexual assault in the first place? It begins with the messages mothers give to their daughters. We must rewrite, rethink and reconfigure how we talk to our daughters and in doing so, we will heal ourselves.
By making these 3 promises early on, mothers can send clear signals to their young daughters.
Speaker 1: 00:01 Oh, just give aunt so and so or uncle so and so, a hug. They gave you this nice gift. They’re so happy to see you.
New Speaker: 00:12 Where’s that pretty smile? Put a smile on your face. All these messages that we give our daughters, I think to lay a foundation, um, that when there are enough of them, daughters feel ambivalent about what they owe other people and what they owe themselves.
New Speaker: 00:41 So they feel conflicted about it. And it starts with the messages that mothers give. Very, very young daughters because if you think about it, the bodies, the baby comes from the mother’s body. So a child naturally looks to the mother for protection and direction about her body. You know what’s okay, what’s not okay?
New Speaker: 01:08 And these subtle messages I’ve said them, they just come, came out of my mouth when I was raising kids.
Speaker 1: 01:18 As a woman, particularly in the south, I was trained that other people’s comfort is more important than my own.
New Speaker: 01:27 So I didn’t think this consciously… I didn’t, you know, do the math inside my own head, but as a little girl, giving somebody a smile and making them feel good when you feel good..that’s a wonderful thing.
New Speaker: 01:42 Or if you feel grateful for a gift or someone’s attention …if you feel like giving a hug back, that’s a wonderful thing.
New Speaker: 01:54 But if you are asked in some way to override your own natural feeling, then you’re taught to put others’ needs, wants and desires for you ahead of your own sense of sovereignty or power over your body.
New Speaker: 02:18 So what I want to do is to ask other women and other mothers to make these promises to our daughters.
Speaker 1: 02:27 If we have little daughters or granddaughters or nieces or her school teacher, kindergarten teacher, a preschool teacher, to really think about the messages that we send.
New Speaker: 02:41 I think we have to be thoughtful and intentional and if you’re if you have been raised traditionally by definition, I think you’ll have to go against the grain. Go against something inside of yourself to break this pattern that lays a foundation for sexual harassment, sexual assault, sexual abuse.
New Speaker: 03:11 I want to be really clear about this, it doesn’t make the woman responsible for what happens to her. It just that these internal messages matter. I think they create a vulnerability that can be taken advantage of or an internal conflict.
New Speaker: 03:31 I mean, if you think about it, a little child is powerless. The toddlers are powerless. We do this with my granddaughter… um, I mean she just so delightful. You just want to pick her up and eat her up and hug her and kiss her in and all that.
Speaker 1: 03:49 But her mother has encouraged me to do something different with her – to ask her permission first.
New Speaker: 03:53 I think it’s so important to ask her first. Ask, “Can I pick you up” and …, nine times out of 10 I’d love to say she rushes into my arms. But she says, no, 9 times out of 10.
New Speaker: 04:09 And when you do have to pick her up..put her in the car seat or whatever her mother encourages you to say, “I’m going to pick you up now and put you in the car seat.”
New Speaker: 04:16 So there are times when you take over her body, right? But um, if she allows you to pick her up and she says,” down” she fully expects you to put her down.
New Speaker: 04:30 If you think about it, how powerful that is for her to get the sense that she can direct whether or not somebody picks her up and gives her a hug or she gives them a hug or puts her down.
New Speaker: 04:47 I mean that’s gotta be encoded in the unconscious foundational part of her brain that she is valuable and she’s in charge of what happens to her body.
Speaker 2: 05:01 Yeah.
Speaker 1: 05:03 So I think these messages when, when mothers say, Your safety comes before my social comfort.” are important.
Speaker 1: 05:15 When mothers say, ” If you tell me that you feel uncomfortable around a relative or family friend, I’m going to listen to you and take you seriously.”
New Speaker: 05:27 That doesn’t mean that you’re going to run out and accuse a person of doing something. It might mean that you won’t leave your daughter alone with the person…or that you will accompany her and supervise things. I mean, what, what could be wrong with that?
New Speaker: 05:43 That may mean that it inconveniences you, you’d rather be talking about the adults in the other room or something, but if you take that really seriously what she says and know she has to tell you something on, she’ll be more likely to trust you later on.
New Speaker: 06:01 We expect kids to tell us everything without putting the foundational pieces in place. Um, so you don’t owe anybody a hug or smile. I’ll put your safety before my social comfort. And if you tell me you feel uncomfortable with a relative or even a family friend, um, I’ll listen to you.”
New Speaker: 06:28 I think where we can make these pledges to our daughters, our granddaughters, our nieces, anyone we’re in charge of, as an adult authority figure.
New Speaker: 06:42 We heal a little bit within ourselves when we work to break these cycles and empower ourselves as we empower other women and daughters. This is Katherine Fabrizio with daughters rising. Thank you. Goodbye.
If you resonate with these messages, either for your daughter our yourself. Let’s change the conversation.
Let’s empower our daughters as we heal ourselves.
To find out if you have experienced the Good Daughter Syndrome go here.
Katherine Fabrizio
Katherine Fabrizio, M.A., L.P.C. has treated adult daughters of narcissistic mothers, trapped in the role of the Good Daughter for over 30 years. Dedicated to empowering these women, she offers online help for clients and training (CE’s) for therapists at Daughtersrising.info. Her book, Daughters Rising: Rising Above the Shame, Guilt and Self-Doubt Mothers Pass Down to Daughters, is available on Amazon. Katherine lives in Raleigh N.C. where she raised two daughters and still speaks regularly with her mother. Do you suffer from the Good Daughter Syndrome? Find out here!
Fabrizio, K. (2018). 3 Promises Mothers Can Make To Her Daughter Now -To Stop Sexual Assault & Abuse. Psych Central. Retrieved on January 22, 2020, from https://blogs.psychcentral.com/good-daughter/2018/02/3-promises-mothers-can-make-to-her-daughter-now-to-stop-sexual-assault-abuse/
Why A Narcissist Lies And What It Says About Them
Deciding to Go "Low Contact" or "No Contact" With Your Difficult/Narcissistic Mother? Read This First
You Can't "Make" Your Mother Happy- Here's Why
When It's Time To Heal The Mother Wound: This Comes First
When Mom Doesn't Believe, Validate or Protect Her Daughter When She Has Been Sexually Assaulted/Abused
Ann: I didn’t see the narcissism all my life, until she became ill & had to come live with me (I’m 62). Now,...
Ceci B.: I chose “No Contact” after 2 years of “Low Contact”. I was planning a move out of state, and knew once I...
Katherine Fabrizio: “I feel very conflicted but I also feel that the weight of all that anger has been lifted...
DONNA HANCOCK: I am 62 and just recently had to confront my mom about my childhood. She had to move in with me and my...
Katherine Fabrizio: That sounds so hard. I think the label you may be looking for is codependent. You can find a lot...
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2018 Reflection: Lori Prok, Boettcher Scholar Alumni Board Chair
11 Dec 2018 Reflection: Lori Prok, Boettcher Scholar Alumni Board Chair
Dear Boettcher Scholar community,
As I reflect on 2018 and our work together as a network of engaged and active scholars, one word sums up my experience on the Boettcher Scholar Alumni Board: gratitude. Thank you for a wonderful year of learning, serving, building relationships, sharing experiences and growing our Boettcher Scholar community and its impact on Colorado and beyond. I am continually amazed by how much a small group of committed people can do together, and I am very grateful to be part of such a unique and amazing crew!
I would like to sincerely thank our outgoing board members: Angelique Diaz, Tony Navarro, Edie Sonn and Carly Stafford. Thank you for your time, energy, great ideas and dedication to the Boettcher Foundation and the mission of the Boettcher Scholar Alumni Board.
I am very happy to welcome four new members to our alumni board: Theo Chapman, Lori Marchando, Jason Wheeler and Hannah DeKay (current scholar representative), who will be profiled in upcoming scholar newsletters. We are so excited to work with all of you!
I would also like to introduce Tommy George as our incoming alumni board chair. Tommy has been an active and dedicated member of our board, and we are thrilled to have him lead us for the upcoming year.
2018 was a busy and productive year for the Boettcher Scholar Alumni Board and the alumni community. We focused on several areas of growth and impact, including:
Staying connected. We continue to expand our network through our “Class Champion” initiative. You have likely been contacted by your scholar year Class Champion, a fellow scholar acting as your class contact point. We hope this will continue to be an efficient and useful way to keep you connected to the alumni network. The Boettcher Foundation is also preparing to roll out a new scholar portal that will facilitate communication, mentorship, service and networking opportunities for alumni. Look for updates on the new alumni portal in 2019. Our Alumni Ambassador program also continues to expand, connecting alumni with middle and high school students in underrepresented schools and communities, and raising awareness about the scholarship program.
Building our alumni network. New scholars were welcomed at Scholars Weekend in August, and members of the alumni board hosted undergraduate scholars at various informal welcome barbecues at their homes. Graduating seniors were formally welcomed into the alumni network during spring president’s/chancellor’s events on each campus as well as at the alumni board’s annual spring Colorado Rockies baseball game. We hope to continue these traditions, so that our newest scholars and youngest alumni are an active part of the community, are inspired to maintain their connections and opportunities for impact through the alumni network and “pay forward” the Boettcher Foundation’s investment in them.
Offering educational and service opportunities. Members of the alumni network helped organize service events in various cities, a “Beer and Blue Books” discussion regarding Colorado ballot issues and an online book club. Our biggest project this year, the first Boettcher Scholar alumni summit, was held in June at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, and was a wonderful opportunity for both education and service. This year’s theme, “Make Your Mark,” allowed scholars and alumni to connect, hear inspiring and diverse TED-style talks from fellow alumni, engage in service opportunities, explore Denver and get inspired to become more engaged on a variety of levels.
So…THANK YOU for a powerful year! I am thankful for the opportunities the Boettcher Foundation and the alumni network continue to give me and all of us. And I am very excited for the year ahead, and all the creative ways we, the scholar alumni community, can use our collective energy to make meaningful impact in our communities. Here’s to 2019!
Lori Prok, MD
1992 Scholar
Outgoing Boettcher Scholar Alumni Board Chair
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FT Marinetti's "Mechanical Son" and Manifesto of Tactilism (1921)
Likewise, works written at this time - most notably, Mafarka Le Futuriste - abound with images and nonsexual procreation, consistently eliminating the figure of the effeminizing mother. This tendency is expressed programmatically in Marinetti's railings "Against Amore and Parliamentarism" in "War, the World's Only Hygiene": Well then: I confess that before so intoxicating a spectacle we strong Futurists have suddenly felt ourselves suddenly detached from women, who have suddenly become too earthly, or to express it better, have become a symbol of the earth that we ought to abandon. We have even dreamed of one day being able to create a mechanical son, the fruit of pure will, a synthesis of all the laws that science is on the brink of discovering." (Marinetti SW, p75)
The regulation of sexuality envisaged in this early work, written in the heyday of the productive model of the machine metaphor, is extremely strict: sex serves the function of procreation. Desire is machinic insofar as it motivates (re-)production.
Again, it is with a reference to the organizing metaphor of the machine that one can begin to understand the shift to a degenitalized sensuality. If the early machine concentrates sexual energies on the act of procreation, then the dissociation of the machine from the act of production - its utilization as a model of order rather than as a principle of proliferation - results in a celebration of the technology of creation and necessarily dissociates sexuality from the act of procreation. Sexuality itself becomes the exercising of a power rather than the creation or regeneration of a power in the act of procreation. Thus the "dispersed" sexuality of the Tactilism Manifesto [1921] - though subversive or progressive when viewed purely in terms of discursive divisions that take no account of the subjugation of ideology to the machine metaphor - corresponds to a shift in Marinetti's understanding of the function of the machine and gives expression not to liberational impulses but to an ideology of control at the level of the body. The "efficiency" of the body as machine does not consist, here, in its productivity, but in its full utilization, its functioning at full capacity, every orifice plugged and every inch of epidermis aroused.
Fascist Modernism: Aesthetics, Politics and the Avant-Garde by Andrew Hewitt. Pg 150 - 51. ISBN#
Posted by ce399 on 11 December 2009 at 20:23 in Aestheticization, Andrew Hewitt, F.T. Marinetti, Fascist Modernism, Globalization, Manifesto of Tactilism (1921), Robotics, Transhumanism | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
"The Displacement of the Ethical by the Aesthetic"
It would now be timely to move away from the figure of Man toward that more central figure in Marinetti's work, the machine. I wish to examine here the functioning of the Futurist machine in its specifically political implications, in order to understand whether, and how, a metaphysics of presence asserts itself in Marinetti's work at the political level
Of course, given the model of aestheticization of political life framing the work so far, it is impossible to isolate the political as a realm somehow sealed off from the aesthetic. However, before limiting our examinations to the perspectives opened up in Benjamin's analysis, it is important that we situate aestheticization as a socially and culturally potent ideology. At face value, aestheticization might be taken to mean a displacement of social, political and ethical concerns as the guidelines for political action and a replacement of these values by aesthetic criteria: for example, a political action is judged in terms of its beauty rather than its goodness or even efficacy. This displacement of the ethical by the aesthetic - if that is all that aestheticization might be taken to mean - begs the question of the constitution of 'the beautiful' itself, as a category replacing 'the good.' If aestheticization is to be understood on a purely semantic level - that is, as a replacement of one set of values by another - then it is incumbent upon theorists of aestheticization to provide some content to the notion of the aesthetic itself.
Influenced, perhaps, by the fascist predilection for spectacle and its tendency toward cultural philistinism, those who work with this model - including Benjamin, as previously I argued - generally assume that 'the beautiful' means what it had always meant in the nineteenth century; that it dictated a reliance upon falsified principles of harmony, organic totality, and unity. On the one hand there would be decadence - the dark side of progress, as it were - and on the other simple philistinism. The fascist predilection for regimented spectacle, the adherence to nineteenth century aesthetic standards that, in light of the avant-garde, can surface only as kitch - all of these things tend to confirm the critical desire to equate fascism (as aestheticization) with cultural philistinism. This conflation of political and aesthetic tendencies might stress the importance of outmoded notions of aesthetic harmony and balance to fascist notions of the organicist State. Aesthetic resolutions would serve to paper over cracks and fissures of an increasingly fragmented and noncohesive social totality. Thus, from a broadly leftist perspective 'the aestheticization of political life' comes to mean the masking of class struggle under a facade of aestheticized social unity.
Fascist Modernism: Aesthetics, Politics and the Avant-Garde
by Andrew Hewitt.
Pgs. 134-135
ISBN# 0-8047-2117-3
Futurism: Manifestos and other Resources
Posted by ce399 on 31 March 2008 at 21:19 in Aestheticization, F.T. Marinetti, Fascism, Italian Futurism, Walter Benjamin | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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/ Ada Palmer / 1:05 pm Sun Mar 24, 2019
How #Article13 is like the Inquisition: John Milton Against the EU #CopyrightDirective
Censorship before or censorship after? The EU Copyright Directive rekindles the oldest fight in the history of free speech debates, first waged by John Milton in 1644. Then, like now, policy-makers were considering a radical change in censorship law, a switch from censoring material after it was published to requiring a censor's permission to publish in the first place.
Fundamentally, policing of speech can happen at one of two points: before content disseminates, or after. Policing content after it disseminates involves human agents seeing and reporting content and taking action or requesting action. This can happen on a huge scale or a tiny one: Facebook’s content flagging system, obscenity law in much of the EU and USA, parents who object to books assigned in schools, and China’s 50 Cent Army of two million internet censors, all these act to silence content after it disseminates.
Policing content before it disseminates involves sending it through a screening process before it is allowed to reach readers. Screening can be electronic, like the filters Article 13 would require, or like Tumblr’s infamously dysfunctional adult content filters, or like the automated components of the Great Firewall of China, or it can be done by humans. Human screening is how the Inquisition functioned during the print revolution: all books began effectively pre-banned, and you had to take a book to an official censor for review and approval. Only after making requested changes and securing approval could the book reach its audience—anything without a censor’s note of permission on the title page was preemptively illegal, and author, printer, bookseller, and reader were subject to prosecution.
The two methods may seem pretty similar: both result in censorship, but the difference in effect can be profound. So argues John Milton in the oldest published work defending freedom of the press, Areopagitica, A speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenc’d Printing, to the Parlament of England. Milton wrote in the mid-1600s when England faced a crisis over the licensing of books, and just like today’s EU battle it was largely a battle over profits disguised as a battle to protect the public. Copyright as we know it did not yet exist, but in areas policed by the Inquisition, censors threw in a lucrative bonus which incentivized compliance: the printer who brought the book to the censor received a monopoly license to print the book, making it possible for the first time to sue others who printed the same text. It was not copyright but it secured profits the same way.
Printers in England wanted this too, since monopolies are always lucrative, plus the censors in charge of licensing could charge a fee for the process, so there was lots of money to be made. So they lobbied for it, hiding their profit-seeking motive by selling it as a means to protect the nation against politically dangerous speech, radicalism, terrorism, sedition and, yes, even fake news and disinformation. In 1662 they got their wish, The Act for Preventing the Frequent Abuses in Printing Seditious, Treasonable and Unlicensed Books and Pamphlets; and for the Regulating of Printing and Printing Presses, which ordered that no book, pamphlet, or paper could be printed without being licensed in advance. Running the approval process was handed to a private group, the Stationers’ Company, an old association of printing houses which thus gained a monopoly on regulating printing, letting them skim profits from every book that crossed their desks, and making it easy for them to silence competitors.
England’s Stationer’s Company got rich by exploiting public anxiety, just as the media moguls behind EU Article 11 and Article 13 hope to do. Both systems created the illusion of helping the state protect the public from dangerous speech, while actually advancing a profit motive. And in continental Europe the Inquisition’s system rapidly became the same, since the Church extracted fat fees for issuing book licenses, and delegated the power to hundreds of local figures who could use the system both for profit and control.
Censorship after publication is still censorship, just as much as censorship before, but Milton argued that having to pass through censorship before reaching the public has a vast impact on what is said, and even what is thought. Having a gatekeeper makes it easier for the rich and powerful—those with connections in high places—to speak and to silence others. Financial and logistical barriers weaken the democratizing effects of cheap speech: printing a pamphlet or creating a new web forum cost next to nothing and reach audiences almost instantly, but won’t when Article 13 requires you to pay licensing fees for any copyright content you anticipate users might quote in replies.
And, Milton argued, preemptive censorship has a profound effect on what we say, since everyone who writes does so knowing there is a barrier between author and audience. This is much of what China’s internet censorship aims at: even with AI filters and two million censors China can’t prevent human ingenuity from expressing itself through puns and subtleties, but it does guarantee that every person in China who sits down to say something online is constantly conscious of the barrier, the surveillance, and the large and powerful forces that have power over speech. That, Milton argues, distorts thought, deters creativity, slows down the advance of science and research, and encourages the only thing which genuinely can completely silence thought: self-censorship on the part of authors worried about consequences.
An internet where the creator of a new web space for conversation is required to pay huge fees to media giants before even launching is no different from the world Milton feared, where someone who wanted to publish a book or start a newspaper had to run it by the largest and wealthiest media giant first, and pay a fee to make that fat cat even fatter. In our digital revolution, as in Milton’s print revolution, we must recognize when the profit motive is exploiting public anxiety to create policy which will not protect what it claims to protect, but will further strengthen those special interests which are already strong enough to lobby law-makers and twist governments to their will.
The most famous line in Milton’s Areopagitica is that "it’s almost the same to kill a man as to kill a book, since who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, but who destroys a good book kills reason itself." But the essay presses even more on how much worse it is to prevent words from ever disseminating, as opposed to banning book which has been printed and inevitably survives in other copies even if you burn it: "no age can restore a life," says Milton, but the lives of people are stored and preserved in words which pass on to the future, so to wholly prevent the dissemination of words, to erase words, pull words from an internet re-engineered to prevent their archiving, is to slay, not a life, but an immortality. The internet is a legacy that will shape so much of humanity’s future—let’s make sure the immortal voices it passes down remain free, innovative, and plural.
Ada Palmer is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Chicago, and a science fiction novelist, author of the Terra Ignota series. You can find her work on censorship during information revolutions here. For further reading, she recommends Adrian Johns's Piracy: The Intellectual Property Wars from Gutenberg to Gates and Who Owns the News? A History of Copyright by Will Slauter.
Europeans can pledge to vote out MEPs who support the Copyright Directive and then tell their MEPs that they've done so.
article 13 / censorship / Copyfight / copyright / eu / eucd / History
Three years after the W3C approved a DRM standard, it's no longer possible to make a functional indie browser
Back in 2017, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) approved the most controversial standard in its long history: Encrypted Media Extensions, or EME, which enabled Netflix and other big media companies to use DRM despite changes to browsers extensions that eliminated the kinds of deep hooks that DRM requires.
1975 Disneyland Haunted Mansion Standard Operating Procedures manual
If you ever find yourself time-traveling to 1975 and need to impersonate a Disneyland Haunted Mansion ride-operator, we've got you covered: just remember that in 1975, food and drinks were absolutely not allowed past the main gate, and that E-tickets should be torn in half and placed in the ticket box. (Thanks, Changa!)
Public Domain Game Jam: what games can you design with the bounty of 1924?
Randy Lubin (previously) writes, "New work is entering the public domain and Mike Masnick and I are hosting a game jam to celebrate. Designers have all of January to design analog and digital games about, inspired by, or remixing works from 1924. We have amazing judges, great prizes, and are excited to see what you […]
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All the winners at the 2019 Hull and Humber Tech Awards
Industry leaders and rising stars in the region’s tech sector gathered at Fruit in Humber Street to celebrate the very best talent in the city
Press Release by Phil Winter, Business Editor of HullLive
Guest speaker Georgie Barrat from Channel 5 at Hull and Humber Tech Awards
The winners of the 2019 Hull and Humber Tech Awards have been announced.
Industry leaders and rising stars in the region’s tech sector gathered at Fruit in Humber Street on Wednesday, October 2 for a night of celebration and success.
Winners of the 10 awards were also revealed throughout the evening, as well as the prestigious Outstanding Contribution Award.
Tech firms from all industries were represented at this year’s awards, from new start-ups to established and respected names in their field.
David Keel, chair of the C4DI and Hull’s Digital Ambassador, said: “I believe that this has probably been our most challenging and demanding judgement day yet – but also the most enjoyable.
“We seem to attract new businesses every year and this enables us to both broaden the scope of our conversations around tech in our area as well as celebrate such an important emerging and thriving industry sector.
Hull and Humber Tech Awards
“I think we have a very well thought through and very fair group of shortlisted businesses – that both recognises the greatness of the companies and individuals involved but also demonstrates a wide range of tech successes in our area.”
The awards were this year hosted by Georgie Barrat.
Star of Channel Five’s ‘The Gadget Show,’ and an established tech journalist, Georgie also writes for a range of publications including Marie Claire, The Mirror, Metro & Tech City News and has spoken about tech for the likes of ITV, Channel Four and the BBC.
The winners of the 2019 Tech Awards are below:
Woman in Tech Award (sponsored by Ron Dearing UTC)
Joanne Dixon
Joanne Dixon (left) won the Woman in Tech Award (Image: Richard Addison)
Joanne Dixon began her career in tech in 1992 at the young age of sixteen when she joined business technology solutions provider, HBP Systems Ltd, as an apprentice under the Youth Training Scheme.
From her early years on the reception desk, Joanne’s drive to learn about the world of business and technology resulted in her working in nearly every department at the business, providing her with a unique perspective and skills set.
In 2007, she became the Managing Director of HBP, granting the wish of the ambitious teenager who turned to her MD and said, “I want to be you.”
Joanne, though, did not become the company’s MD through wishing. it was through sheer hard work, dedication and a determination to triumph in what is still a male-dominated industry.
Since 2007, HBP has transformed under Joanne’s leadership. Last year, the company celebrated its fifth consecutive of growth, and now a sixth is well on course for 2019.
HBP celebrated its highest ever turnover last year, up 58 per cent from 2016. Joanne’s five-year business plan was achieved in just three years, with the company doubling in size and attaining its highest ever customer base.
HBP is a 12-year Microsoft Gold Partner, which has been made possible due to Joanne’s strategies and investment in employee training and qualifications.
Young Person in Tech – Under 30 (sponsored by Wykeland)
Brandon Ellis-Cairns
Brandon Ellis-Cairns (left) receiving his award (Image: Richard Addison)
Brandon joined Vanilla as a trainee consultant straight out of college in Grimsby in 2014.
He spent his early years learning the basics of business systems technology. Brandon has since gone from strength to strength, becoming a talented developer and an indispensible member of the technology team.
The last 12 months has been a stand-out year for Brandon. His skills have blossomed under the mentorship of Vanilla’s head of technology, Mike Hollifield.
Brandon has worked closely on expanding the digital footprint of Vanilla, and authored the firm’s Making Tax Digital software. Vanilla’s MTD software is now used by companies across the UK, submitting tax returns automatically to HMRC via a digital bridge.
Despite being one of the youngest members of the team, Brandon has travelled extensively on consulting projects in the UK and oversea, and his technical solutions are supporting many facets of this complex business.
Away from the office, Brandon participated in the annual Vanilla charity challenge, this year canoing the three largest lakes in the Lake District in 12 hours. The challenge raised almost £7,000 for the mental health charity Mind.
Tech Start-up of the Year (sponsored by Hays)
Bombyx PLM
Bombyx PLM won Start-Up of the Year (Image: Richard Addison)
Bombyx PLM was born out of the frustration of other Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) systems currently used in the fashion industry.
After spending over a decade in the product development industry, working with leading brands like Next and Arcadia Group, Lucy grew tired of the complicated, out-dated and overpriced softwares that were supposed to aid not just fashion, but all product design teams.
Bombyx PLM ensures everything is in one place for a brand and team to be able to develop their product with very little stress by using the software right from concept, through to design, development and production.
Lucy is people focused, and is scrapping the notion that PLM is a luxury for only larger corporations, and it is due to her efforts that companies manufacturing a product are signing up to Bombyx PLM.
They know she cares, and is making a difference within the workplace for people to not be consumed by unnecessary duplicated tasks that software can do or them.
eCommerce Transactions Award (sponsored by Arco)
Fuelmate
Fuelmate won best eCommerce (Image: Richard Addison)
Part of J.R. Rix & Sons Ltd, a traditional family-owned business that’s been around since the late 1800s, Fuelmate is a fuel card reseller which has truly disrupted the industry.
In order to compete and grow the business during the last six months, Fuelmate has adapted its business model and revolutionised a traditional product by embracing digital technology.
Fuelmate has never been a “tech” firm. Yet, through this process, it has not only changed the culture and day-to-day operations within the organisation, but also the landscape of the industry too.
It has turned a monopoly on its head and brought something new and innovative to the table.
Fuelmate has used technology to overcome challenges in the marketplace.
Its new offering, which is digital at its core, will address problems faced by fleet managers up and down the country and provide a viable and attractive solution, something not available before now.
Use of Tech in a ‘Traditional Business’ (sponsored by Hull College)
Miller Graphics
Miller Graphics won ‘Use of Tech in a Traditional Business’ (Image: Richard Addison)
Originally servicing the centuries old print industry, Miller Graphics had struggled with a negative balance sheet for almost a decade.
In 2016 the business made the major decision to pivot into a total digital transformation.
Since that point, every single aspect of the business has been transformed – from the culture of the company through to the entire product range.
Miller Graphics now provides high-end CGI images, augmented and virtual reality services, and full product animations.
The transformation has resulted in double-digit growth driven by new clients, new services and a totally new approach to marketing the company.
The remarkable turnaround looks set to continue, with Miller Graphics set to move to prestigious high-tech offices in Beverley.
Fastest Growing Tech Business of the Year (sponsored by Arc Software)
Giacom
Giacom won Fastest-Growing Tech Business of the Year (Image: Richard Addison)
Giacom is the fastest-growing, reseller-only Cloud Service Provider (CSP) in the UK.
Its portal, the Giacom Cloud Market, makes it easier for IT service providers to order, deliver, and manage world-leading cloud services for SMBs of all shapes and sizes.
Since 1999, Giacom has always been a quick adopter of innovating technology.
Its Hosted Exchange and Email Security products were built from the ground up at Victoria Dock in Hull, and are adopted by 115,000 users to date, making it one of the largest Hosted Exchange distributors in the UK.
In 2015, Giacom was one of the original six IT distributors to be chosen to become an Indirect CSP with Microsoft.
In the last three years, turnover at Giacom has grown from £13.8m to £35.7m, with net profits up from £3.3 million to £4.8 million.
Giacom’s partnership with Microsoft over the years has grown in strength. From Office 365 to Azure, it now has the highest share of Azure partners in the channel, resulting in the strongest growth Microsoft UK has seen to date.
Tech Team of the Year (sponsored by Spencer Group)
Sauce won Tech Team of the Year (Image: Richard Addison)
Sauce develops cutting-edge IoT solutions, mobile applications and business software for a wide range of clients, including Nestlé, Ideal Boilers, Siemens Gamesa and the NHS.
“Every project is different, and we always start by considering the unique needs of each client before recommending the best software stack for the job,” Sauce said.
“Our clients view us as an extension of their internal tech team, rather than as an external agency.
“We’re proud of the tech solutions we have produced in close collaboration with our clients, and as we expand, we strive to maintain the same collaborative approach with each and every new project that comes our way.”
Sauce is focused on delivering a high-value minimum viable product as quickly as possible.
Early-stage user testing allows the business to get the feedback it needs to make informed product refinement decisions for its clients, creating a feedback loop which ensures that the project is always on the right track.
Continuous Quality Assurance testing means that bugs are dealt with swiftly at every step of the process.
Tech Disruptor of the Year (sponsored by C4DI)
Rockar Digital
Rockar won Tech Disruptor (Image: Richard Addison)
Rockar’s founder Simon Dixon built the UK’s third largest car retailer over a 20-year period.
After the sale of Dixon Motors PLC in 2004, Simon started to experience the car buying process from the customer’s side of the fence.
He felt frustrated with the customer experience offered by the industry. This inspired him to create a concept which would become a car buying game-changer: Rockar.com.
Rockar has broken the traditional car dealership journey. It has developed a technology and platform which makes car buying as easy as ordering something on Amazon.
The platform integrates all aspects of a purchase journey – finance calculation, trade-in, test drive booking, stock selection, stock build, booking delivery dates, order tracking and digital documentation via customer account.
The technology is all about user experience and empowering customer to make the car purchase that is right for them.
Leadership in Technology (sponsored by Business Live)
Joanne Dixon also picked up Leadership in Tech (Image: Richard Addison)
As managing director at HBP Systems, Joanne’s core responsibilities are the development and implementation of business strategies to drive growth, enhance customer relations and increase commercial awareness.
HBP’s helpdesk works to a Service Level Agreement that all support enquiries will be responded to within one hour and fixed within eight hours.
Thanks to Joanne’s precedent that all support staff at HBP Systems Ltd are Microsoft and AAT accredited, the business currently averages a 10-minute response time and 16-minute fix-time.
This is not standard within the industry; it is because Joanne and her team understand the importance of technology in business.
Tech Business of the Year (sponsored by Trident)
Rockar won Tech Business of the Year (Image: Richard Addison)
Rockar’s founder, Simon Dixon built the UK’s 3rd largest car retailer over a 20-year period.
After the sale of Dixon Motors PLC in 2004, Simon started to experience the car buying process from the customer’s side of the fence. He felt frustrated with the customer experience offered by the industry.
This inspired him to create a concept that would become a car buying game-changer: Rockar.com.
Rockar has developed a platform which makes car buying as easy as ordering something on Amazon. The technology is all about user experience and empowering customers to make the car purchase that is right for them.
Rockar – which has sold nearly 5,000 vehicles already – has logged over 1.6 million user journeys, with 80 per cent of its customers being completely new to the brand.
Rockar believes that in five to ten year times, every car will be sold via digital sources, a large proportion of cars will be subscribed for not owned, cars will be delivering and servicing themselves direct to the customer and at least five new car brands will be born and taking significant market share globally.
This is why Rockar is empowering and motivating change today.
Outstanding Contribution Award (sponsored by KCOM)
Wykeland
Wykeland with Sean Royce of Kcom (Image: Richard Addison)
Wykeland has played a pivotal and central role in the development of Hull’s tech campus in the Fruit Market.
The developer has led the regeneration of the area, which included the construction of Hull’s C4DI building and surrounding @TheDock complex.
The C4DI, since opening in late 2015, has provided a home for Hull’s tech start-ups to thrive and grow. It is a place for like-minded businesses to collaborate, innovate and produce ground-breaking software, apps, gadgets and much more.
The C4DI is fully occupied, and in the space of under four years has seen many tenants – perhaps most notably Sauce – grow within the building and move to new, bigger offices.
None of this would have been possible without Wykeland. It was its ambition and vision to create the C4DI and surrounding Fruit Market development which has transformed a previously disused area of Hull.
Now, the next chapter of Hull’s tech campus is underway. Plans have been approved for two new buildings on the @TheDock development, which will provide over 30,000 sq.ft. of office and meeting space.
The new buildings – one of which has secured funding already – will allow companies which have outgrown their former home in the C4DI to move into new, bigger offices. Sauce is expected to be the anchor tenant of one of the new blocks. In turn, freeing up space in the C4DI will allow new start-ups to move in and begin their journey.
The Tech Awards this year are being held at Fruit, at the heart of Humber Street, fittingly an area which has been transformed by Wykeland.
Outside of the Fruit Market, Wykeland has also led development of the Bridgehead Business Park in Hessle, and owns the Meltonwest Business Park.
Those two developments – with the Meltonwest site expected to be significantly expanded in the years to come by Wykeland – have also provided a home to numerous successful tech businesses. Laser manufacturer Luxinar, IT specialist The One Point (both at Bridgehead), digital pharmaceutical packaging firm Origin (Meltonwest) to name just a few.
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Tag: Amazon Publishing
Review: Huge Deal by Lauren Layne
Posted February 20, 2019 by Rowena in Reviews | 9 Comments
Reviewer: Rowena
Huge Deal by Lauren Layne
Series: 21 Wall Street #3
Also in this series: Hot Asset (21 Wall Street, #1), Hard Sell (21 Wall Street, #2), Hot Asset , Hard Sell , Huge Deal , Hot Asset, Hard Sell, Huge Deal
Publisher: Amazon Publishing, Montlake Romance
Point-of-View: Alternating Third Person
Genres: Contemporary Romance
Add It: Goodreads
Reading Challenges: Rowena's 2019 GoodReads Challenge
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Ripped Bodice | Google Play Books
Series Rating:
Even for a top-gun banker, temptation this hot is quite a gamble, in a sexy Wall Street romp from New York Times bestselling author Lauren Layne.
An alpha among the wolves of Wall Street, Kennedy Dawson rose to the top of the pack by striking the right contracts at the right times. But there’s one deal that’s been giving him a run for his money—a pact to never again let his assistant, Kate, get under his skin. She may be smart, gorgeous, and sharp as a whip, but she’s definitely off-limits.
Kate Henley isn’t a banker, but she knows a thing or two about risk management—specifically, about managing her attraction to her smolderingly sexy boss. She already fell once, and Kennedy showed no sign of paying a return on her investment. So when Kennedy’s brother starts pursuing her, Kate figures she has the best of both worlds. Jack is charming, rich, very attentive, and the spitting image of his older brother.
It’s also making Kennedy think twice. But to win Kate’s heart, he’ll have to broker the deal of a lifetime…and prove he’s worth the risk.
Huge Deal is the third book in Lauren Layne’s 21 Wall Street series and it is legit, my most anticipated release of the year. I have wanted Kennedy and Kate’s story since they were first introduced in Hot Asset. I pre-ordered this the minute I found out that it was up for pre-order and I read it in one sitting the night that it was delivered to my kindle. You guys will have to excuse me because I can’t help myself. I fangirl over everything that I read by Lauren Layne. Are we friends? Nope. Do I get paid to scream from the rooftops over my love of all things Lauren Layne? Nope. Do I hype myself up for all of her new releases? You betcha. Did she deliver a romance worthy of the hype that I gave this book in my head?
I am a sucker for the unrequited trope and Lauren Layne did such a fantastic job of showcasing that same trope for both Kennedy and Kate. We saw Kate’s feelings for Kennedy over the course of this series but in this book, we saw the tables turn and saw Kennedy waking up and catching on to what everyone already knew…that Kate was his lobster.
I think what I was most looking forward to in this book was seeing the usually staid and reserved Kennedy finally lose his cool over a woman, but not just any woman. No, I was looking forward to him losing his cool over the woman. Over Kate. The Kennedy that we know and love is low key a fuddy-duddy who is not exactly a prude but low key maybe is a prude? That probably doesn’t make sense to people who haven’t read this series but trust me, that’s Kennedy’s charm. From the jump, you can tell that Kate has a different relationship with one of her bosses. She’s got three but there’s only one that rubs her the wrong way. There’s only one that brings out the snarky personality in her…and for two books, I wanted to know the full background that explained the combative nature of Kate’s relationship with Kennedy.
Oh man, the waiting damn near killed me but boy did I eat up every single word of this book. I was here for all of the drama, all of the passion and I was definitely here for the explosion. Holy cow, Jealous Kennedy was a sight to behold. I freaking loved seeing Kennedy so jealous and not even realize that he’s jealous. I loved seeing him twisted up in knots over Kate being with anyone not him. I was over the moon when he finds Kate at his parent’s anniversary party on the boat. I had the biggest smile when Kate finally yells at him about the word she’d use to describe him. My feelings and my emotions were wrapped up from beginning to end and I thought Lauren Layne delivered a damn near perfect romance for two of my favorite characters of hers. She never fails to write the kind of romances that I need right now and that I read in one sitting. Is this book perfect? Probably not to everyone but it was damned perfect for me. Kate and Kennedy forever!
Grade: 5 out of 5
Tagged: 21 Wall Street, 5.0 Reviews, Amazon Publishing, Contemporary, Lauren Layne, Montlake Romance, Romance, Rowena's Reviews
Review: Hard Sell by Lauren Layne
Posted August 27, 2018 by Rowena in Reviews | 10 Comments
Hard Sell (21 Wall Street, #2) by Lauren Layne
Also in this series: Hot Asset (21 Wall Street, #1), Huge Deal , Hot Asset , Hard Sell , Huge Deal , Hot Asset, Hard Sell, Huge Deal
Point-of-View: First
Brilliantly hot Matt Cannon doesn't mind his "boy wonder" nickname. At twenty-eight, he may be the youngest--and richest--broker at his firm, but the constant string of women in his bed know he's all man. When Matt's boss insists he clean up his image to land a potential investor, Matt knows just the woman to pose as his girlfriend.Sabrina Cross is Wall Street's go-to "fixer"--a chameleon of a woman who can be anything, to any man, for any reason, with just one rule: no touching. Matt and Sabrina have always been like oil and water, but their new arrangement lights a match to the animosity and leads to something altogether hotter.
Hard Sell is the second book in the 21 Wall Street series by Lauren Layne and I was so looking forward to jumping right in. Matt and Sabrina sure did make a splash in the first book, Hot Asset and I couldn’t wait to see the sparks take off in their own book.
So this book starts off with Matt arriving at work and finding out that his weekend of debauchery was captured and splashed all over the Wall Street Journal and his bosses want him to cool his heels, fix up his image or find another job. So what does Matt need to fix this mess? He needs a fixer and a girlfriend and he finds both of those in Sabrina Cross. Matt and Sabrina are close in the sense that they’re both in the same circle of friends but they don’t like each other so their interactions are always spicy. They have a colorful history and they hate-bang on occasion so really, their book was bound to be a good one.
Matt is a young numbers whiz and he’s good at what he does. Unfortunately for him, he’s also a really young kid that his clients find it really hard to stay loyal. His playboy attitude doesn’t help his cause so he needs to get his act together quickly so that they can stop trippin’ on giving him their money. Matt was my favorite in Hot Asset and I couldn’t wait to get to know him better and I thought Lauren Layne did a great job with his character. He was strong, he was sexy and oh so smart and he just really hit all of my happy buttons.
Sabrina is just as strong and capable and sexy as Matt is and I really enjoyed getting to know her as well. It would have been so easy for her to come off as cold but once again, Lauren Layne did a great job of making us readers connect with Sabrina’s story. I loved that she was completely aware of why she was the way that she was with Matt, even though nobody, Matt included, understood why she was so testy, she did and I completely got it.
As much as I enjoyed both Matt and Sabrina on their own, I really enjoyed seeing them together. It was like, they were better together or as that song says, “I like me better when I’m with you”, that’s how I felt with these two. The chemistry between them was off the charts but also the loyalty that they had for each other was pretty great. Seeing their relationship change from fake to real and their friendship really grow made for a pretty fantastic book and I was here for it all.
Hard Sell brings together two people that were not fans of the other but grew them into a pretty strong and solid unit and Lauren Layne did a rather fabulous job of giving us the goods on these two while at the same time, teasing us with more goodness to come with Kennedy and Kate. I can’t wait for Kennedy and Kate. Gah, I’m so gone for these characters. I love it and I definitely recommend it.
Grade: 4.75 out of 5
Tagged: 21 Wall Street, 4.75 Reviews, Amazon Publishing, Contemporary, Lauren Layne, Montlake Romance, Romance, Rowena's Reviews
Blog Tour: RITA Finalists Spotlight- Best First Book
Posted July 19, 2017 by Holly in Promotions | 3 Comments
The RITA Award is the highest award of distinction in the romance publishing industry and recognizes excellence in published romance novels and novellas. Winners will be announced at the award ceremony held during the RWA National Conference at Walt Disney World Dolphin Resort, Thursday, July 27. Today we’re spotlighting the nominees for Best First Book.
Alterations by Stephanie Scott
Publisher: Bloomsbury Spark, Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Publication Date: December 6th 2016
If anyone saw the prom boards Amelia Blanco makes on her favorite fashion app, they'd think Ethan Laurenti was her boyfriend. They wouldn't know that all the plans she's made for them are just dreams, and that she's the girl who watches him from the kitchen while her parents cook for his famous family.
When Amelia's abuelita enrolls her in a month-long fashion internship in NYC, Amelia can't imagine leaving Miami--and Ethan--for that long. As soon as she gets to New York, however, she finds a bigger world and new possibilities. She meets people her own age who can actually carry on a conversation about stitching and design. Her pin boards become less about prom with Ethan and more about creating her own style. By the time she returns to Miami, Amelia feels like she can accomplish anything, and surprises herself by agreeing to help Ethan's awkward, Steve-Jobs-wannabe brother, Liam, create his own fashion app.
As Liam and Amelia grow closer, Ethan realizes that this newly confident, stylish girl may be the one for him after all . . . even though he has a reality TV star girlfriend he conveniently keeps forgetting about. The "new and improved" Amelia soon finds herself in between two brothers, a whole lot of drama, and a choice she never dreamed she'd have to make.
Order the Book:
AMAZON || BARNES AND NOBLE || GOOGLE || iBOOKS || KOBO
About Stephanie Scott
WEBSITE | TWITTER | FACEBOOK | INSTAGRAM | PINTEREST | TUMBLR | GOODREADS
Stephanie Scott writes Young Adult stories about teens who put their passions first. She enjoys dance fitness and cat memes, and Pinterest is driving her broke. Born and raised in Kalamazoo where there are no zoos, she’s a Midwest girl at heart. She now lives outside of Chicago with her tech-of-all-trades husband. You can find her chatting about TV and all things books on Twitter and Instagram at @StephScottYA.
Before Goodbye by Mimi Cross
Publisher: Amazon Publishing
Music means more than anything to high school student Cate Reese; it’s also what unites her with Cal Woods. Devoted classical guitar players, Cate and Cal are childhood friends newly smitten by love—until a devastating car accident rips Cal out of Cate’s life forever. Blaming herself for the horrific tragedy and struggling to surface from her despair, Cate spirals downhill in a desperate attempt to ease her pain.
Fellow student David Bennet might look like the school’s golden boy, but underneath the surface the popular athlete battles demons of his own. Racked with survivor’s guilt after his brother’s suicide, things get worse when tragedy darkens his world again—but connecting with Cate, his sister’s longtime babysitter, starts bringing the light back in.
As Cate and David grow closer, the two shattered teenagers learn to examine the pieces of their lives…and, together, find a way to be whole again.
AMAZON || BARNES AND NOBLE || INDIEBOUND
About Mimi Cross
Born in Toronto, Canada, Mimi Cross is an author, singer, and songwriter who grew up in New Jersey. She received a Bachelor of Music from Ithaca College and an MA from New York University. She is a performer, a music educator, and worked briefly in the music industry. Mimi is also a certified Kripalu yoga instructor and the creator of Body of Writing, a practice that adds an additional dimension to the body, mind, spirit discipline of yoga: story.
A two time Asbury Music Award winner, Mimi has shared the bill with artists such as Sting, Bonnie Raitt, Lauryn Hill, Jill Sobule, and Jon Bon Jovi. She enjoys performing for the benefit of others, and has played shows with many New Jersey musicians, including Bruce Springsteen, to raise funds for the Light of Day Foundation. She offers classes at Project Write Now, A nonprofit dedicated to helping people improve their writing and communication skills.
Mimi lives with her young son, across the street from the beach.
Close to You by Kara Isaac
Publisher: Howard Books
Publication Date: April 26th 2016
A disgraced scholar running from her past and an entrepreneur chasing his future find themselves thrown together—and fall in love—on a Tolkien tour of New Zealand.Allison Shire (yes, like where the Hobbits live) is a disgraced academic who is done with love. Her belief in “happily ever after” ended the day she discovered her husband was still married to a wife she knew nothing about. She finally finds a use for her English degree by guiding tours through the famous sites featured in the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit movies. By living life on the road and traveling New Zealand as a luxury tour guide, Allison manages to outrun the pain of her past she can’t face.Jackson Gregory was on the cusp of making it big. Then suddenly his girlfriend left him—for his biggest business competitor—and took his most guarded commercial secrets with her. To make matters worse, the Iowa farm that has been in his family for generations is facing foreclosure. Determined to save his parents from financial ruin, he’ll do whatever it takes to convince his wealthy great-uncle to invest in his next scheme, which means accompanying him to the bottom of the world to spend three weeks pretending to be a die-hard Lord of the Rings fan, even though he knows nothing about the stories. The one thing that stands between him and his goal is a know-it-all tour guide who can’t stand him and pegged him as a fake the moment he walked off the plane.When Allison leads the group through the famous sites of the Tolkien movies, she and Jackson start to see each other differently, and as they keep getting thrown together on the tour, they find themselves drawn to each other. Neither expected to fall in love again, but can they find a way beyond their regrets to take a chance on the one thing they’re not looking for?
About Kara Isaac
Kara Isaac is an award-winning writer who lives in Wellington, New Zealand, where her career highlights include working in tourism as Private Secretary for the Prime Minister. She loves great books almost as much as she loves her husband and two children.
For a full list of RITA finalists, readers can go to: https://www.rwa.org/page/2017-finalists
To see a spotlight of each book being nominated, click here: http://bit.ly/RITA17BlogTour
Follow RWA on the following social media platforms for winner announcements:
facebook.com/romancewriters
twitter.com/romancewriters
instagram.com/romancewriters
What is the RITA Award?
The purpose of the RITA award is to promote excellence in the romance genre by recognizing outstanding published romance novels and novellas.
The award itself is a golden statuette named after RWA’s first president, Rita Clay Estrada, and has become the symbol for excellence in published romance fiction.
For more about the RITA Award, click here: https://www.rwa.org/p/cm/ld/fid=528
The RITA Ceremony will be streamed live for people to watch from home! Readers can watch from 7 to 9 p.m. ET on July 27 by going to www.rwa.org.
Tagged: Amazon Publishing, Blog Tours, Bloomsbury Publishing USA, Bloomsbury Spark, Howard Books, Kara Isaac, Mimi Cross, RITA Nominations, Stephanie Scott, Young Adult
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Sunday Spotlight is a feature we started in 2016. Each week, we will spotlight a book that we absolutely love. We’ll be posting why we love the book and being total fangirls.
Grumpy Jake by Melissa Blue
Giveaway Alert! We’ll be giving away one of our featured books each month. Winner’s choice. Don’t miss out!
“You’re the best part of this city,” he whispers, and I close my eyes and kiss him again, lying to myself the whole time, telling myself I can keep this in l-i-k-e territory, telling myself that other, unruly, warning won’t slice right through my heart when he leaves.
– Reid Sutherland in Love Lettering by Kate Clayborn
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Bennett GlaceComedyDramahonest [spoiler free] reviewsMusical
Believe the fans and haters alike. This year’s inevitable Oscar darling is at once a stirring ode to Hollywood magic and a somewhat misguided paean to director Damien Chazelle’s considerable gifts. It proves far more charming while focused on the former.
“Another Day of Sun” Whiplash, Damien Chazelle’s propulsive breakthrough, ends with a sequence of disquieting virtuosity. Our protagonist (Miles Teller’s Andrew Neyman) explodes in an eruption of artistic cacophony, unleashing a drum solo that seems to cry both, “Please, notice me,” and “For the love of God, help me!” Chazelle’s follow-up, another jazzy critical darling, opens with comparable bombast. Its first number sees a troupe of gridlocked Angelenos leap from their cars and burst into song. The sequence quickly calls to mind both the artistry and the desperation of Whiplash’s final moments. Chazelle seems far less interested in capturing the action on screen than in reminding audiences of his directorial prowess. His camera zips and twirls with the grace of a dancer, but its routine distracts more often than it thrills. This ‘look-at-me’ camerawork continues into the next number. As “Someone in the Crowd” draws to a merciful close, Chazelle’s camera dives into a pool and performs an underwater pirouette. Viewers prone to shaky-cam-induced nausea will find themselves running toward the exit doors. Thankfully, the film proceeds on a smaller, more personal, scale for the rest of its run-time. Chazelle’s head never fully leaves his backside, but he mostly cedes a share of the spotlight.
“The Ones Who Dream” Between its two opening numbers, Mia (Emma Stone), a struggling actress, and Sebastian (Ryan Gosling), an unfulfilled pianist, experience an episode of not-quite-meet-cute. Their first hints of romance appear soon after another single-shot performance. Stone and Gosling may not be Broadway-level talents, but this sequence achieves everything the opening could not. In fact, their relatively modest (though far from meager) gifts add a layer of plausibility to their character’s professional struggles. If we ignore their movie-star looks and megawatt charisma, it's sometimes as if two figures from the real world walked onto a Hollywood backlog to give it a try as a triple threat. Their duet is sweet, engaging, and, best of all, speaks to the chemistry they've honed over three films together. The film loses considerable appeal whenever its central lovers are separated. Unfortunately, they spend much of the second act pursuing their crafts independently. La La Land’s detractors aren’t quite off the mark when they dig into Chazelle’s limited characterization of these protagonists. Both actors contend with a script that paints them as little more than single-minded strivers. In a sense, they're like the more charming and socially adjusted answer to Whiplash’s driven antihero. They suffer and sacrifice in pursuit of their passions without quite resorting to that film’s artistic masochism. It seems almost unfair to chide the film’s somewhat archetypal treatment of Mia and Seb. Though this story of boy-meets-girl doesn't quite boast a fully-realized boy or girl, its romance, while perhaps underexplored, produces a rare kind of spark.
Borrowing from so many Hollywood classics, La La Land can’t help but equal less than the sum of its parts. Many of these parts - that ending! - are glorious, but a saggy second act, a woefully underwritten ‘villain,’ and the occasional overindulgence on Chazelle’s part make for a decidedly flawed product.
Related: Read our interview with La La Land Composer Justin Hurwitz
Watch La La Land via Amazon
Reader Rating 15 Votes
2016Damien ChazelleEmma StoneJ.K SimmonsLa La Land (2016)Rosemarie DeWittRyan Gosling
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Bennett Glace
Bennett Glace is a lifelong student of film. He especially enjoys landscape documentaries, 50s melodramas, and the sort of horror films released each January.
Wiener-Dog
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LinkedIn Sales Blog Sales Blog
Get the latest on #realsales once a week. Right in your inbox.
Useful advice on boosting your sales techniques
Illuminating content from sales experts
The latest on LinkedIn Sales Navigator
5 Directives for B2B Tech Sellers
The B2B tech industry is growing rapidly, and becoming all the more competitive for sellers. Make sure these five practices are part of your sales approach.
Alex Hisaka
The technology industry is enormous, and a B2B mainstay. Companies spend an estimated $250 billion on software each year, and that figure keeps rising along with the number of new solutions and applications being continually introduced.
It’s a booming, competitive vertical -- and one that many of our readers operate in. So we thought it might be helpful to explore some insights and surface some techniques that are driving success for today’s B2B tech sellers, with an eye on giving you an edge in this crowded space.
Which sales tactics resonate most with buyers? What do high-level decision-makers consider in their evaluations? In a setting where autonomous research is the norm, how can you ensure that prospects with a need find their way to you?
Based on our research, these five directives stand out as critical priorities for selling B2B tech:
Focus on Reliability and Ease of Use
Last year, Phoenix-based agency LAVIDGE commissioned a survey of 400 technology product and service decision-makers throughout the United States in an effort to gauge their receptiveness to different kinds of marketing and messaging.
The report included a ranking of preferred claims about solutions and at the top of the list -- by a wide margin -- were “Reliable” and “Easy to use.” These beat out factors like “Low cost,” “Integrates easily,” and “24-hour customer support.”
Based on the feedback, it seems clear that in this era of complex and multifaceted tech tools, decision-makers are looking for something that won’t be a huge pain to implement, and can be trusted to function properly. They might even pay more for these things. As such, it makes sense to lead with these strengths when pitching.
Third-Party Reinforcement and Social Proof are Key
Nothing will verify your claims about reliability and ease of use more than authentic evaluations from people who have actually used what you’re offering. It’s natural for a buyer to be skeptical of any new tech solution, and the lofty claims of its sellers, so third-party validation is often impactful.
Among the findings from the LAVIDGE survey: 52 percent of tech buyers are influenced by consulting colleagues and friends. This means that if you can find a mutual connection who’s had positive experiences with your product or service, and they’re willing to share them, you can powerfully reinforce your benefit claims. In lieu of a known acquaintance, customer reviews from anyone in a similar position or industry will be helpful.
Don’t Get Caught Up in Buzzwords and Jargon
It’s sort of inevitable that when you work extensively within a certain niche, you’ll start adopting its lingo. There’s nothing wrong with that, but being over-reliant on buzzwords when engaging buyers isn’t always constructive. Professionals within the respective niche undoubtedly hear these terms all the time, and may have jargon fatigue.
In a recent piece for Martech Today, Josh Aberant points to “microservices” as one example of an overused shorthand. “Microservices are a real thing that real technologists do real work with,” he says. “But that doesn’t mean that namedropping the term is necessarily an effective way to appeal to a B2B tech buyer.”
In many cases, buyers will find straight talk that cuts through the esoteric language refreshing.
Know Your Accounts
Always important, but especially here. As tech buying committees become more elaborate and prone to change, it’s getting tougher to single out one decision-maker whom you can learn about and tailor your pitch around. As Aberant wrote in his aforementioned piece:
“You’re obviously aiming to connect with key influencers and decision-makers. Thus, you’re obliged to do a huge amount of research, networking, social media and industry outreach to figure out who it is you need to target within each organization and what their hot buttons/pain points might be.
Remember, though, that the final decision-maker may not be the person doing the assessment and testing, and he or she may only have a momentary presence during the entire buying experience. They may kick off the process and show up at the end, but somebody else is doing the grunt work in between. Even so, you’ve still got to educate and sell them when they eventually show up.”
An account-based pursuit, in conjunction with research on LinkedIn, can be advantageous for laying out the structure of an organization and identifying potential touchpoints. Targeted marketing efforts can build familiarity with your business throughout the company’s ranks.
Social Selling is a Must
A study by TechTarget and Google found that 95 of tech buyers conduct their own research online. No surprise there. Perusing social media is invariably a part of this process, so you’ll be bolstering your odds of generating recognition and interest by maintaining an active presence on key networks. Optimizing your LinkedIn profile so that it speaks directly to those you want to engage is a good first step.
Top Takeaways for Selling B2B Tech
It’s possible you’ve already checked each of these boxes with your sales strategy. If so, you’re ahead of the curve. But if you wish to adopt these five practices and are looking for a place to start, here are some suggestions:
Work with your team to come up with compelling sales pitches centered on your solution’s reliability and ease of use
Equip reps with a Point Drive content package featuring your most persuasive case studies, customer reviews, and testimonials
Tweak your sales approach to be more conversational and less buzzword-heavy
Identify priority accounts and research them to create informational profiles
Optimize your LinkedIn profile and challenge yourself to post updates at least twice per week with insights or anecdotes useful to a tech buyer audience
The world of B2B tech is in flux. Make sure your sales tactics are adapting along with it.
For more insights on selling to every B2B industry and vertical, subscribe to the LinkedIn Sales Solutions blog.
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Home » Knowledge Centre » Video Marketing » How to Share Video on Twitter
How to Share Video on Twitter
By Video Team | 9 Jan, 2012
Back in September 2010 Twitter introduced the ability to embed videos into tweets so that that users can stream videos whilst on the Twitter website. The user can read tweets on the left side of the page whilst streaming video on the right side of the same page. This move is a compelling reason to share video via Twitter as part of your video marketing campaign.
You cannot upload a video direct to Twitter. You need to upload the video to a compatible video sharing website, such as YouTube, Vimeo, Twitpic and Y-frog; all these sites enable you to share the video to your Twitter account.
Alternatively its easy to use a YouTube short URL to embed a video into a tweet. Use of a short URL helps to keep your tweet within maximum of 140 characters. To create a YouTube short URL take the full YouTube URL of your video and replace “http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=” with “http://youtu.be/”
For more details see Twitter’s own short video tutorial about how to share videos.
Micro-Videos: An idea for video marketing on Twitter
There are video experts who recommend that because Twitter is a micro-blogging website it makes great sense to create micro-videos for Twitter. A micro-video is a video of 10-30 seconds duration.
We felt this to be a powerful idea and produced 10 second videos for hundreds of UK businesses. Here are links to a couple of our favourites – you’ll see the power of the passion and personality and that can be expressed in a 10 second video clip:
Red Dog Music
It can be simple to create a micro-video. If you have a webcam on your PC try out TwitCam . Apps are available which enable sharing of videos via a smartphone, for example Qik and Ustream are both available via the Android and iPhone apps stores. Also available for iPhone is Viddy which offers production features such as music and transitions for your video.
micro-video
PPC New Year’s Resolutions
The GoDaddy Dilemma of Elephantine Proportions…
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Soyuzmultfilm: The Fun Years
THUNDERBEAN THURSDAY
February 5, 2015 posted by
Rare War Shorts from the Disney Studio
With Thunderbean ‘world headquarters’ moving out of the basement here and into an actual office, I’m finding time to work a little more on the titles for this year. As we’re working on the Snafu Blu-ray, I’ve been looking through all the materials that were transferred on the Army/Navy Screen Magazine, some with Snafu in them, some without. These were all transferred in HD, so we’re dusting them off for the Snafu blu-ray set. Right now, I’m debating putting ALL the Army/Navy Screen Magazine animation on the Snafu set (even the Non-Snafu episodes) or having an HD version of the ‘Cartoons for Victory‘ materials with these. What do you folks think would be best?
The two shorts I’m posting this week (below) were produced by the Disney Studio, and were among the harder to see of the war films made by the studio. They remain, as so many war shorts, interesting looks back into history more than having great entertainment value. I was happy to be able to transfer them from the 35mm materials (both of these from the Fine Grain Master Composties) at the United States National Archives. Both appear on the ‘More Cartoons for Victory‘ DVD from a few years back.
These films were more than likely designed & storyboarded at the First Motion Picture Unit, comprised of artists from various studios. Because they were produced as past of the Army/Navy Screen Magazine, they don’t have the usual Disney credits on them. Both are fairly dry, concentrating on the information at hand. It would be great to see the original storyboards on both these shorts for comparison to the studio’s styling. One short on the More Cartoons for Victory, “Weapon of War”, was boarded at FMPU beautifully; what appears in the animation from UPA is virtually identical in design and composition.
I hope to head the National Archives again sometime soon to look for various materials. I’ve promised a friend that I would try to track down things on his longtime list of want-to-sees..
The first here, Another Chance (1944) is barely animated- almost all stills. It explains how the newly founded United Nations works, and why. It’s a fairly straight forward explanation to the troops on the formation of the United Nations. It’s understandable why this particular film was handled in animation/graphics: it does a good job of explaining simply many ideas that would be hard to show in any other way.
Voting for Servicemen (1944) was included as a special addition to the Army/Navy Screen Magazine to help the service men and women understand how they could vote while overseas, how the system works and why it’s important. It’s funnier at the beginning especially, and interestingly similar to the format of the educational Disney films to come in the future. It’s a good explanation of how the voting process works for service people.
The production, even with a limited budget, is top notch, with excellent design and execution of graphics especially. To me, it’s interesting to see how the Disney Studios animated Snafu, but also odd to see several different art styles unitized in the same film. Some of the posing is quite nice, while other poses / expressions are not as well drawn.
The lack of these particular films showing up in 16mm war prints is understandable. These were some of the later films produced for the war, and more than likely only appeared once in the Army/Navy Screen Magazine. Because they arn’t as entertaining as the Snafu shorts, it makes some sense that the were not kept.
That’s the report from Thunderbean-Land for now. Have a good week everyone!
DisneyFMPUPvt. Snafu
Frederick Wiegand
Great post! I didn’t know the Disney Studios ever animated Snafu.
Was that Mel Blanc doing the voice of Hitler?
Dan Lega
Sounds like another great set. However, I don’t have the “Cartoons for Victory” sets, yet — so I’m a bit confused as to what our two choices are. I really enjoyed to two cartoons in your post, and would love to see more of the same. I’m sure I’d be interested in the “Cartoons for Victory” sets, too. Can’t you just add them all to the blu-ray set? 😉
Oh yeah, that’s Mel doing Adolph.
Thanks for another great Thunderbean Thursday, Steve.
To answer your question, I’d prefer the Snafu Bluray to exclude the drier non-Snafu material, but I can understand requests to include as much of this rare material as possible.
What I would like to see on the Snafu would be the Hook shorts, including the lone Walter Lantz entry.
February 05, 2015 11:18:52 am
Unfortunately, we’re SOL on the Hook cartoons. They were only ever transferred in SD, and the prints themselves have disappeared. If anyone knows the whereabouts of 16mm or 35mm material on the Hook cartoons, please let us know!
Bill Cotter
I wasn’t familiar with these films so I looked them up in my master list of Disney productions. I did find “Another Chance” which is also listed as “U.N. Peace Charter” with a release date of 1945. I couldn’t find anything though for “Voting for Servicemen”. Is there anything that definitely would show that this came from Disney?
Florian S.
It’s listed in Shale’s famous book “Donald Duck Joins Up”:
1944: A Few Quick Facts #6 [Soldiers Voting Overseas] (for U.S. Army)–5 min. (Prod. 4016)
February 05, 2015 2:49:07 pm
The log records at the National Archives show the productions and the production company for each of the segments in the Army/Navy Screen Magazine- this is where I found the information on these shorts.
In 1944 Disney did “A Few Quick Facts #7 (Venereal Disease)”, production number 4016. That’s the only entry I can find for them in the “A Few Quick Facts” series. So the right production number to match Shale, then, but a completely different title. My data comes from Dave Smith’s “Supplement to All Pictures Book” and is consistent in each version I have.
Here’s a list of the Disney WWII shorts based on Dave Smith’s files:
Icing Conditions (Navy)
US Army Identification Series – WEFT and Warships (Navy)
US Army Identification Series – WEFT (Navy)
Protection Against Chemical Warfare (Navy)
Prelude to War (Army)
Know Your Enemy, Germany (Army)
Forming Methods (Navy)
Boys Anti-Tank Rifle [Stop that Tank] (National Film Board of Canada)
Blanking and Punching (Navy)
Bending and Curving (Navy)
Battle of Britain (Army)
Approaches and Landings (Navy)
Out of the Frying Pan Into the Firing Line
Aircraft Carrier Mat Approaches and Landings (Navy)
Aircraft Carrier Landing Signals (Navy)
Food Will Win the War
The Nazi’s Strike [Campaign in Poland] (Army)
Aircraft Riveting (Navy)
Donald’s Decision
The New Spirit
Battle of China (Army)
Battle of Russia (Army)
Basic Electricity
British Torpedo Plane Tactics (Navy)
Aeronca Project [Basic Maintenance of Primary Training Airplanes] (Army and Aeronca)
C-1 Autopilot
Carrier Rendezvous and Breakup (Navy)
The Cold Front (Navy)
Divide and Conquer (Army)
Beechcraft Maintenance and Repair (Beech Aircraft Corp. and Army)
The Aleutian Islands [A.D.C. Project] (Army)
Aircraft Welding (Navy)
Aircraft Carrier Landing Qualifications (Navy)
Air Masses and Fronts (Navy)
Der Fuehrer’s Face
Education for Death
Fog (Navy)
Reason and Emotion
Air Transport Command (Navy)
Template Reproduction (Navy)
Fast Company (Army)
Fixed Gunnery and Fighter Tactics (Navy)
The Warm Front (Navy)
Thunderstorms (Navy)
Substitutions and Conversion (Army)
Rules of the Nautical Road (Navy)
The Occluded Front (Navy)
Mock-Up and Tooling (Navy)
The Mark 13-Modification I Aerial Torpedo (Navy)
Lofting and Layouts (Navy)
Know Your Enemy – Japan (Army)
High Level Precision Bombing (Army)
Heat Treating (Navy)
Minnepolis Honeywell Project [Auto Pilot] (Army)
V.T.B. Pilot Training (Navy)
Glider Training (Army)
Weather at War (Navy)
Howitzer,105mm M2A1 and Carriage M2, Principles of Operation (Army)
It’s Your War, Too (Army)
Operation and Maintenance of the Electronic Turbo Supercharger (Army)
Theory of Simplex and Phantom Circuits (Army)
Your Job in Germany (Army)
Tuning Transmitters (Army)
Ward Care of Psychotic Patients (Army)
Weather for the Navigator (Navy)
The Howgozit Chart (Navy)
Battle of Cape Gloucester (Army)
Two Down and One to Go (Army)
Automotive Electricity for Military Vehicles (Army)
The Case of the Tremendous Trifle (Army)
Attack in the Pacific (OWI)
Fundamentals of Artillery Weapons (Army)
Basic Map Reading (Army)
Carburetion, Basic Principles (Army)
Electric Brakes, Principles of Operation (Army)
The Equatorial Front (Navy)
A Few Quick Facts #7 [Venereal Disease] (Army)
Flying the Weather Map (Navy)
Air Brakes, Principles of Operation (Army)
War Comes to America (Army)
Another Chance [UN Peace Charter] (Army)
Burma Campaign [The Stilwell Road] (Army)
Dental Health (Army)
On to Tokyo (Army)
The next time I’m at the National Archives I’ll pull the production information again. They also showed ‘GI Bill of Rights’ (1946) was s Disney production too… and is one of the the last appearances of Private Snafu. I wouldn’t have known this was a Disney production without that information. On ‘Voting for Servicemen’, besides the information at NARA, other production aspects point to the studios’s work in music, sound effects and production. On Here’s the post from last year on ‘GI Bill of Rights’. It appears that this film also had a very low budget, down to Snafu’s drawing style nearly matching the boards.
https://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/gi-bill-of-rights-1946/
The list in Shale’s book is MUCH longer. He lists two “A Few Quick Facts”-films:
A Few Quick Facts #6 [Soldiers Voting Overseas] (for U.S. Army)–5 min. (Prod. 4016)
A Few Quick Facts #7 [Venereal Disease] (for U.S. Army)–3 min. (Prod. 4016)
As both films have the same production number, it seems as they were made at the same time. But “Venereal Disease” is still a mystery, as nobody seems to have a copy…
Is that Ronald Reagan narrating?
I think the narrator is Bill Goodwin, who was the announcer for Burns and Allen.
Geo. Stewart
I’d love to learn the economics involved with these release. i.e the llicensing rate for a bluray vs. a DVD. Wouldn’t it cost more to include a second disk even if it was a DVD than to dump them at the end of a bluray as “bonus material”?
I say, let’s just do everything at the highest bit rate that a 35mm frame could possible require and get this done with once and for all. I can’t imagine how Criterion breaks even on their releases; how Thunderbird manages it with such obscure – but important – titles is beyond me. But I am so glad you do.
Kevin Wollenweber
February 05, 2015 12:36:12 pm
Well, I guess I would agree with the first posting that wishes that all such material–the SCREEN MAGAZINE *AND* the two volumes’ worth of CARTOONS FOR VICTORY–end up on the expanded PRIVATE S.N.A.F.U. collection, but I could also live withan expanded PRIVATE S.N.A.F.U. collection that also includes all the HOOK shorts *AND* perhaps “TOKIO JOKIO”, “BUGS BUNNY NIPS THE NIPS” and, maybe, even “HOP AND GO”, if it is in the public domain. I almost wish that you could talk Warner Bros into cooperating with such a project so you could get really nice prints of *ALL* their wartime cartoons, both for the soldiers and as homefront cartoons, so you could get stunning print quality, but hey, the S.N.A.F.U. set alone, previously, had some fascinating things. But, again, the HOOK shorts need to be included.
Yay! And I vote for two sets.
Put as much cool stuff on it as you can (especially if it wasn’t on the original DVD set). I will buy it again on Blu Ray.
Robert Reynolds
I’m looking forward to this release. As for what you include in the release, do whatever you decide is best. Given my experiences with Thunderbean titles, I trust your judgement without hesitation. Whatever you do, I’m certain this will be a great release.
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ABOUT STEVE STANCHFIELD
Steve Stanchfield is an animator, educator and film archivist. He runs Thunderbean Animation, an animation studio in Ann Arbor, Michigan and has compiled over a dozen archival animation DVD collections devoted to such subjects at Private Snafu, The Little King and the infamous Cubby Bear. Steve is also a professor at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit.
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← Do Politicians Really Believe In Anything?
Boris The Bullfighter →
Boris In Brixton?
Posted on September 8, 2019 by Frank Davis
British politics is going has gone completely crazy. Headline 1 yesterday:
Defiant Johnson ‘Will Not’ Ask EU for Brexit Delay, Remainers Ready to Take PM to Court
Headline 2:
Boris Johnson ‘could be jailed for refusing to seek Brexit delay’
BORIS Johnson CAN refuse to delay Brexit despite being threatened with jail, his top aide has claimed.
Brexit bombshell: Civil servant ‘can sign off delay with EU’ – miss Boris out completely
So we’ve reached the point where our Prime Ministter, Boris Johnson, could be sent to prison if he doesn’t delay Brexit.
I’ve been suggesting that Boris could simply ask the Queen not to assent to the legislation voted by Parliament last week. A growing number of people seem to agree:
“Her majesty must give royal assent [for bills to be enacted],” noted Olsen. “She has an absolute veto that cannot be overridden by parliament. Traditionally, she has followed her ministers’ advice. Well, her ministers don’t want the bill that has been passed and she has no functioning government.”
Olsen added, “If I were Boris Johnson, I would [tell Queen Elizabeth II], ‘Your ministers recommend that you veto this bill so that you and Britain can have a functioning government. They must either back me, sack me, or go to the people.’ That’s what could happen on Monday, because that is the first working day that the Queen has after the bill passes [the House of Lords].”
The most interesting thing about this is that Boris Johnson has probably already told the Queen exactly this. How come? Because a), he’s been in Scotland:
Boris Johnson grapples with bull during visit to Scotland
And b), he’s been due to stay with the Queen:
The PM was due to arrive at Her Majesty’s Scottish castle retreat tomorrow [Friday] for the Prime Minister’s traditional three day early Autumn stay.
So it seems to me that he’s probably already seen her, and probably already told her to veto the bill passed in Parliament last week.
We’ll find out tomorrow. But I won’t be in the least bit surprised if, on the advice of her ministers, the Queen vetoes the bill tomorrow, and it does not become law.
The Remainers in Parliament would then have to topple Boris Johnson’s government, and assemble a new set of ministers (in a Corbyn-led government), who will tell the Queen to lift her veto, which she will then do.
But if they topple the government, won’t there have to be a General Election? But Corbyn and the Remainers don’t want an election. And the reason is that they fear that they’ll lose their parliamentary seats in the north of England to an alliance between Nigel Farage’s Brexit party and the Leavers in Boris Johnson’s Conservative party.
I’m not a constitutional expert, of course, so I have no idea what will actually happen. But it seems to me that more or less anything could happen next, including a Remainer Corbyn government, Boris Johnson in Brixton prison (but still Prime Minister), and the Queen in hiding from all the people demanding she listen to them.
About Frank Davis
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This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged Brexit, madness, Politics. Bookmark the permalink.
8 Responses to Boris In Brixton?
Ripper says:
Everyone seems to think that her maj will sign off the bill on Monday, but Boris first has to send it, and there is no time scale specified for doing this. So Boris can just delay sending the bill until the proroguing kicks in. After that, the bill is dead and will never become law. Everyone also seems to think that Boris has no options but there must be a dozen or so different ways to stop the bill.
As far as I know, the Benn Bill isn’t a criminal law and there are no specified penalties for non compliance contained within it. After all no future PM would wish to be thrown in jail on the whim of the Opposition and it would set a very dangerous precedent.
Labour Governments Forced Queen to Block Numerous Bills
“Guido can now reveal there is extensive precedent of Governments asking the Queen to not sign legislation they don’t approve. Anti-Brexit spokesman Tony Blair himself used this power on a number of occasions to “quell politically embarrassing backbench rebellions”. Perhaps most notably to block a bill by Tam Dalyell in 1999 that aimed to give MPs a vote on military action against Saddam Hussein.
Going further back, Labour PM Harold Wilson used the Queen’s veto to kill off two “politically embarrassing bills” about peerages and Zimbabwean independence, in 1964 and 1969 respectively
Alastair Campbell has been reacting furiously to Gove’s refusal to commit the government to obeying any law parliament passes; when asked about Blair using the same tactic, he conveniently failed to recall the case…”
https://order-order.com/2019/09/02/labour-governments-forced-queen-block-numerous-bills/
Timothy Goodacre says:
There is nothing these remainer elites won’t stoop to, to keep their snouts in the EU trough. Alistair Campbell is a fine example.
jaxthefirst says:
I thought that the necessity for the Queen’s assent in order for an Act to be passed was done away with under the Maastricht Treaty? Or does that only apply to laws that emanate from the EU, not those initiated purely by our own politicians in respect of matters happening here in the UK alone. Anybody know?
When asked about this very matter by Bill Cash in Parliament, Bercow, who is a law untio himself these days, said it wasn’t necessary in this case, which didn’t appear to convince anyone.
I learnt from the butchering of Nigel Farage’s speeches by the MSM, if you want to know what was really said, you have to watch the whole thing as it happens, rather than edited soundbites that suit the broadcasters slant.
As I understand the various arguments, proper laws have to put forward by the Government, which that rag tag collection of malicious malevolents were not, even though Bercow gave them the floor.
Remainers to bulldoze through Boris’ Brexit plan as they force two emergency debates TODAY
“THE battle between Parliament and Boris Johnson is poised to take another twist today with the so-called “rebel alliance” requesting emergency debates aimed at forcing the Government to publish further paperwork related to no-deal planning, and ensuring the Prime Minister adheres to the rule of law.”
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1175480/brexit-news-remain-so24-commons-debates-boris-johnson-law-legislation-yellowhammer
Luckily I have a lot of handsewing to do today so I can sit infront of Parliament TV for hours and see what the blighters are up to.
Frank Davis says:
As of Friday, September 6, an extension of three months to prevent the U.K. leaving the E.U. without a deal passed the Houses of Commons and Lords. In order for that legislation to become law, there must be consent by the monarch – in this case, Queen Elizabeth II. Once she assents, the bill becomes law.
While most everyone is considering her assent a formality on Monday, it should not quite yet be considered a fait accompli. The queen can lawfully refuse assent or delay her approval, which would effectively veto the bill and keep it from becoming law, thereby paving the way to a No Deal Brexit on October 31.
There are two occasions when the monarch can and should, according to most academic experts in the matter, refuse assent.
According to Anne Twomey, professor of constitutional law at the the University of Sydney in her book The Veiled Sceptre, the first occasion is that where a “serious error is discovered in the bill.” No one is arguing that there is an error in the Remainers’ meticulously crafted bill of extension.
But the second occasion in relation to royal assent, “the predominant academic view … is that the Sovereign … must act upon the advice of responsible ministers.”
roobeedoo2 says:
Royal Assent has been given:
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/breaking-parliaments-law-block-no-19913250
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Woman Charged With Leaving Scene Of Fatal South Holland CrashDiane Turley, 53, was charged with a felony count of leaving the scene of an accident involving death in connection with the crash.
Man Dies After South Holland ShootingPolice were called about 7:30 p.m. to a home in the 1300 block of Prince Drive where they found 31-year-old Damien D. Purnell lying on the floor with gunshot wounds to the chest and abdomen.
Man Shot During Family Christmas Party In South HollandA man is in custody after he shot his girlfriend’s family member during a Christmas party Saturday night in south suburban South Holland, police said.
State Police Trooper Released From Hospital After Altercation On I-294Police said the altercation happened around 7 p.m. Monday at the Halsted Street toll plaza in the northbound lanes of the Tri-State Tollway in South Holland.
State Police Trooper Injured In 'Altercation' With Armed Motorist On I-294Authorities say the altercation occurred at the Halsted Street toll plaza on northbound Interstate 294, in South Holland.
Two Brothers Charged In Fatal Shooting At Cell Phone Store In South HollandTwo brothers have been charged with the murder of a man who tried to intervene as they held up a cell phone store Tuesday afternoon.
Store Customer Slain In South Holland RobberyA 45-year-old man was shot and killed Tuesday afternoon while shopping at a South Holland cell phone store, when two men robbed the shop at gunpoint.
Man Slain In South Holland Store Robbery, One Of Two Suspects In CustodyPolice in south suburban South Holland were searching for a suspect wanted in the deadly armed robbery of a cell phone store.
One Dead In Armed Robbery At Boost Mobile In South HollandOne person was fatally shot during an armed robbery Tuesday at a mobile phone store in South Holland.
1 Injured In Rollover Crash On Bishop Ford Near South Holland One person was injured in a rollover crash that temporarily closed all outbound lanes of the Bishop Ford Freeway early Sunday near south suburban South Holland.
Two Killed In Fiery Tri-State Tollway CrashA 2007 Chevrolet crashed into a toll plaza, rolled over and caught fire about 4:30 a.m. on the Halsted northbound entrance ramp to southbound I-294, according to Illinois State Police.
Driver Charged In Wrong-Way Crash That Injured 6The crash occurred at about 2:30 a.m. Saturday when a car was traveling north in the southbound lanes of I-94 near 159th Street, according to Illinois State Police. Three other vehicles were also involved in the crash.
Best Places For Bird Watching Near ChicagoIf you want to spend the afternoon watching for birds, then you're in luck. Grab your binoculars and check out these locations for birding in and around Chicago.
Last Of Three Deaths Tied To Nursing Home Ruled NaturalRobert Rundin, 88, was one of six residents of Holland Home who were hospitalized on Feb. 3. While three of those people have since recovered, Rundin and two others later died.
South Holland Police Chief Unhappy With Officer’s Conduct During Traffic StopOn cell phone video, a South Holland police officer is heard cursing at a young driver, Rodney Wilson, trying to get him to leave his car.
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What is the difference between the Gospel and the Holy Bible? [duplicate]
What's the difference between the Gospel and the Bible? (6 answers)
Probably my question here is trivial, but I'm interested to know the difference between the Gospel and the Holy Bible. Also, does anyone have the original version of it (I mean the original version which was supplied by Jesus Christ, peace be upon him)?
bible gospels
zeraoulia rafikzeraoulia rafik
Isn't the Gospel(s) the parts about Jesus , which doesn't include things like the Epistles? – Clint Eastwood Feb 20 '18 at 18:10
Are you asking about the Gospel books (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John)? – depperm Feb 20 '18 at 18:34
Let us know if the linked duplicate doesn't answer your question. If you/others feel that that question doesn't capture what you are asking here, please edit to make the difference more clear. Thanks! – Nathaniel is protesting Feb 20 '18 at 19:19
The difference between the Gospel and the Holy Bible.
The Injeel as Islam describes it has no evidence of existence outside Islamic sources, nor do Jesus' Muslim followers. The early Christians never believed that Jesus was given the Gospel from God like a prophet would be given. But rather he gave the gospel to his followers and it was his followers who eventually recorded it.
And we afterwards continually remind each other of these things. And the wealthy among us help the needy; and we always keep together; and for all things wherewith we are supplied, we bless the Maker of all through His Son Jesus Christ, and through the Holy Ghost. And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. The First Apology (153-155 A.D) (Emphasis Mine)
Notice Justin Martyr never mentions one Injeel given to Jesus, like the one described in Sura 57:27. But rather a collection of documents written by his disciples.
Also, does anyone have the original version of it (I mean the original version which was supplied by Jesus Christ, peace be upon him)?
No one has the gospel described in the Quran, no one has evidence of the Muslim followers of Jesus either.
"The Gospel" is a phrase used to describe either some books in the new testament (Mathew, Mark, Luke & John) and/or the general message of Christianity.
aska123aska123
Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged bible gospels or ask your own question.
What's the difference between the Gospel and the Bible?
A “version” of the bible with sentence structure written in English but retaining most of the original untranslated “nouns/verbs/adjectives”?
Does Jesus ever claim to be God, or the son of God?
Is there a difference between Scripture and inspired writings?
Are the gospel authors who we believe them to be?
Are subheaders of Bible chapters part of the original text?
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Archive for the ‘LEVERAGE AGAINST ARABS AND MUSLIMS’ Tag
JOHN CHUCKMAN ESSAY: FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH IN PARIS AND THE UGLY TRUTH OF STATE TERROR Leave a comment
FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH IN PARIS AND THE UGLY TRUTH OF STATE TERROR
Mass murder, as that which just occurred in Paris, is always distressing, but that does not mean we should stop thinking.
Isn’t it rather remarkable that President Hollande, immediately after the event, declared ISIS responsible? How did he know that? And if he was aware of a serious threat from ISIS, why did he not take serious measures in advance?
Within days of Friday 13, French forces assaulted an apartment with literally thousands of bullets being fired, killing a so-called mastermind, Abdelhamid Abaaoud. Just how are you instantly elevated to the rank of “mastermind”? And if security people were previously aware of his exalted status, why did they wait until after a disaster to go after him?
Well, the ugly underlying truth is that, willy-nilly, France for years has been a supporter of ISIS, even while claiming to be fighting it. How do I know that? Because France’s foreign policy has virtually no independence from America’s. It could be described as a subset of American foreign policy. Hollande marches around with his head held stiffly up after getting off the phone at the Élysée Palace, having received the day’s expectations from Washington. He has been a rather pathetic figure.
So long as it is doing work the United States wishes done, ISIS remains an American protectorate, and regardless of Hollande’s past rhetoric, he has acted according to that reality. But something may just have changed now.
It is important to note the disproportionate attention in the West to events in Paris. I say disproportionate because there are equally ugly things going on in a number of places in the Middle East, but we do not see the coverage given to Paris. We have bombs in Lebanon and Iraq. We have daily bombings and shootings in Syria. We have cluster bombs and other horrors being used by Saudi Arabia in Yemen. And of course, there are the ongoing horrors of Israel against Palestinians.
We have endless interviews with ordinary people in Paris, people who know nothing factual to help our understanding, about their reaction to the terror, but when was the last time you saw personal reactions broadcast from Gaza City or Damascus? It just does not happen, and it does raise the suspicion that the press’s concern with Paris is deliberately out of proportion. After all, Israel killed about twenty times as many people in Gaza not very long ago, and the toll was heavily weighted with children, many hundreds of them. Events in Paris clearly are being exploited for highly emotional leverage.
Leverage against what? Arabs in general and Muslims in particular, just part of the continuing saga of deliberately-channeled hate we have experienced since a group of what proved (after their arrest) to be Israeli spies were reported on top of a truck, snapping pictures and high-fiving each other as the planes hit the World Trade Center in 2001. What those spies were doing has never been explained to the public. I’m not saying Israel is responsible for 9/11, but clearly some Israeli government interests were extremely happy about events, and we have been bombarded ever since with hate propaganda about Muslims, serving as a kind of constant noise covering the crimes Israel does commit against Palestinians and other neighbors.
It is impossible to know whether the attack in Paris was actually the work of ISIS or a covert operation by the secret service of an ISIS supporter. The point is a bit like arguing over angels on a pinhead. When you are dealing with this kind of warfare – thugs and lunatics of every description lured into service and given deadly toys and lots of encouragement to use them – things can and do go wrong. But even when nothing goes wrong in the eyes of sponsors for an outfit like ISIS, terrible things are still happening. It’s just that they’re happening where the sponsors want them to happen and in places from which our press carefully excludes itself. Terrible things, for example, have been happening in the beautiful land of Syria for four or five years, violence equivalent to about two hundred Paris attacks, causing immense damage, the entire point of which is to topple a popularly-supported president and turn Syria into the kind of rump states we see now in Iraq.
A covert operation in the name of ISIS is at least as likely as an attack by ISIS. The United States, Israel, Turkey, and France are none of them strangers to violent covert activities, and, yes, there have been instances before when a country’s own citizens were murdered by its secret services to achieve a goal. The CIA pushed Italian secret services into undertaking a series of murderous attacks on their own people during the 1960s in order to shake up Italy’s “threatening” left-wing politics. It was part of something called Operation Gladio. Operation Northwoods, in the early 1960s, was a CIA-planned series of terrorist acts on American civilians to be blamed on Cuba, providing an excuse for another invasion. It was not carried out, but that was not owing to any qualms in the CIA about murdering their own, otherwise no plan would have ever existed. The CIA was involved in many other operations inside the United States, from experiments with drugs to ones with disease, using innocent people as its subject-victims.
There have been no differences worth mentioning between Hollande’s France and America concerning the Middle East. Whatever America wants, America gets, unlike the days when Jacques Chirac opposed the invasion of Iraq, or earlier, when de Gaulle removed France’s armed forces from integration within NATO or bravely faced immense hostility, including a coup attempt undertaken by French military with CIA cooperation, when he abandoned colonialism in Algeria.
If anything, Hollande has been as cloyingly obsequious towards America’s chief interest in the Middle East, Israel, as a group of Republican Party hopefuls at a Texas barbecue fund-raiser sniffing out campaign contributions. After the Charlie Hebdo attack, Hollande honored four Jewish victims of the thugs who attacked a neighborhood grocery store with France’s highest honor, the Legion of Honor. I don’t recall the mere fact of being murdered by thugs ever before being regarded as a heroic distinction. After all, in the United States more than twenty thousand a year suffer that fate without recognition.
Israel’s Netanyahu at the time of the Charlie Hebdo attack actually outdid himself in manic behavior. He barged into France against a specific request that he stay home and pushed himself, uninvited, to the front row of the big parade down the Champs-Élysées which was supposed to honor free speech. He wanted those cameras to be on him for voters back home watching.
Free speech, you might ask, from the leaders of Egypt, Turkey, the UAE, and Israel, who all marched in front? Well, after the free-speech parody parade, the Madman of Tel Aviv raced around someone else’s country making calls and speeches for Jewish Frenchmen to leave “dangerous” France and migrate “home” to Israel. It would in fact be illegal in Israel for someone to speak that way in Israel to Israelis, but illegality has never bothered Netanyahu. Was he in any way corrected for this world-class asinine behavior? No, Hollande just kept marching around with his head stiffly up. I guess he was trying to prove just how free “free speech” is in France.
But speech really isn’t all that free in France, and the marching about free speech was a fraud. Not only is Charlie Hebdo, the publication in whose honor all the tramping around was done, not an outlet for free speech, being highly selective in choosing targets for its obscene attacks, but many of the people marching at the head of the parade were hardly representatives of the general principle.
France itself has outlawed many kinds of free speech. Speech and peaceful demonstrations which advocate a boycott of Israel are illegal in France. So a French citizen today cannot advocate peacefully against a repressive state which regularly abuses, arrests, and kills some of the millions it holds in a form of bondage. And Hollande’s France enforces this repressive law with at least as much vigor as Israel does with its own version, in a kind of “Look, me too,” spirit. France also has a law which is the exactly the equivalent of a law against anyone’s saying the earth is flat: a law against denying or questioning the Holocaust. France also is a country, quite disgracefully, which has banned the niqab.
Now, America’s policy in the Mideast is pretty straightforward: subsidize and protect its colony Israel and never criticize it even on the many occasions when it has committed genuine atrocities. American campaign finance laws being what they, politics back home simply permits no other policy. The invasion of Iraq, which largely was intended to benefit Israel through the elimination of a major and implacable opponent, has like so many dark operations backfired. I call the invasion a dark operation because although the war was as public as could be, all of America’s, and Britain’s, supposed intelligence about Iraq was crudely manufactured and the reasons for undertaking an act which would kill a million people and cripple an entire country were complete lies.
America’s stupid invasion created new room for Iran to exert its influence in the region – hence, the endless noise in Israel and Saudi Arabia about Iran – and it led directly to the growth of armed rabble groups like ISIS. There were no terrorists of any description in Saddam’s Iraq, just as there were no terrorists in Gadhafi’s Libya, a place now so infested with them that even an American ambassador is not safe.
Some Americans assert that ISIS happened almost accidentally, popping out of the dessert when no one was looking, a bit like Athena from the head of Zeus, arising from the bitterness and discontents of a splintered society, but that view is fatuous. Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens by accident in this part of the world. Israel’s spies keep informed of every shadowy movement, and America always listens closely to what they say.
It is silly to believe ISIS just crept up on America, suddenly a huge and powerful force, because ISIS was easy for any military to stop at its early stages, as when it was a couple of thousand men waving AK-47s from the backs of Japanese pick-up trucks tearing around Iraq. Those pick-up trucks and those AK-47s and the gasoline and the ammunition and the food and the pay required for a bunch of goons came from somewhere, and it wasn’t from Allah.
A corollary to America’s first principle about protecting Israel is that nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in Israel’s neighborhood that is not approved, at least tacitly, by the United States. So whether, in any given instance of supply and support for ISIS, it was Israel or Saudi Arabia or Turkey or America – all involved in this ugly business – is almost immaterial. It all had to happen with American approval. Quite simply, there would be hell to pay otherwise.
As usual in the region, Saudi Arabia’s role was to supply money, buying weapons from America and others and transshipping them to ISIS. Ever since 9/11, Saudi Arabia has been an almost pathetically loyal supporter of America, even to the extent now of often cooperating with Israel. That couldn’t happen before an event in which the majority of perpetrators proved to be Saudi citizens and which led to the discovery that large amounts of Saudi “go away” money had been paid to Osama bin Laden for years. But after 9/11, the Saudis feared for the continuation of their regime and now do what they are told. They are assisted in performing the banking function by Qatar, another wealthy, absolute state aligned with the United States and opposing the rise of any possibly threatening new forces in its region.
Of course, it wasn’t just the discoveries of 9/11 that motivated Saudi Arabia. It intensely dislikes the growing influence of Iran, and Iran’s Shia Muslim identity is regarded by Sunni sects in Saudi Arabia in much the way 17th century Protestantism was viewed by an ultramontane Catholic state like Spain. The mass of genuine jihadists fighting in Syria – those who are not just mercenaries and adventurers or agents of Israel or Turkey or the Saudis – are mentally-unbalanced Sunni who believe they are fighting godlessness. The fact that Assad keeps a secular state with religious freedom for all just adds to their motivation.
ISIS first achievement was toppling an Iraqi government which had been excessively friendly to Iran in the view of Israel, and thereby the United States. Iraq’s army could have stopped them easily early on but was bribed to run away, leaving weapons such as tanks behind. Just two heavy tanks could have crushed all the loons in pick-up trucks. That’s why there was all the grotesque propaganda about beheadings and extreme cruelty to cover the fact of modern soldiers running from a mob. ISIS gathered weapons, territory, and a fierce reputation in an operation which saw President al-Maliki – a man disliked by the United States for his associations with Iran and his criticism of American atrocities – hurriedly leave office.
From that base, ISIS was able to gain sufficient foothold to begin financing itself through, for example, stolen crude sold at a discount or stolen antiquities. The effective splitting up of Iraq meant that its Kurdish population in the north could sell, as it does today, large volumes of oil to Israel, an unheard of arrangement in Iraq’s past. ISIS then crossed into Syria in some force to go after Assad. The reasons for this attack were several: Assad runs a secular state and defends religious minorities but mainly because the paymasters of ISIS wanted Assad destroyed and Syria reduced in the fashion of Iraq.
Few people in the press seem to have noted that ISIS never attacks Israel or Israeli interests. Neither does it attack the wheezingly-corrupt rulers of Saudi Arabia, the Islamic equivalent of ancient Rome’s Emperor Nero. Yet those are the very targets a group of genuine, independent warrior-fundamentalists would attack. But ISIS is not genuine, being supplied and bankrolled by people who do not want to see attacks on Israel or Saudi Arabia, including, notably, Israel and Saudi Arabia. ISIS also is assisted, and in some cases led, by foreign covert operators and special forces.
There does seem to be a good deal of news around the idea of France becoming serious in fighting ISIS, but I think we must be cautious about accepting it at face value. Putin is reported as telling ship commanders in the Mediterranean to cooperate and help cover the French aircraft carrier approaching. Hollande keeps calling for American cooperation too, as Putin has done for a very long time, but America’s position remains deliberately ambiguous. A new American announcement of cooperation with Turkey in creating a “safe zone” across the border with northern Syria is a development with unclear intentions. Is this to stop the Kurds Erdogan so despises fighting in the north of Syria from establishing themselves and controlling the border or is it a method for continued support of ISIS along the that border? Only time will tell.
I do think it at least possible Hollande may have come around to Putin’s view of ISIS, but America has not, and the situation only grows more fraught with dangerous possibilities. I’ve long believed that likely America, in its typically cynical fashion, planned to destroy ISIS, along with others like al-Nusra, once they had finished the dirty work of destroying Syria’s government and Balkanizing the country. In any event, Israel – and therefore, automatically, America – wants Assad destroyed, so it would be surprising to see America at this point join honestly with Putin and Hollande.
America has until now refused Russia any real support, including such basic stuff as sharing intelligence. It cooperates only in the most essential matters such avoiding attacks on each other’s planes. It also has made some very belligerent statements about what Russia has been doing, some from the America’s Secretary of Defense sounding a lot like threats. Just the American establishment’s bully-boy attitude about doing anything which resembles joining a Russian initiative does not bode well.
After all, Putin has been portrayed as a kind of Slavic Satan by American propaganda cranking stuff out overtime in support of Ukraine’s incompetent coup-government and with the aim of terrifying Eastern Europe into accepting more American weapons and troops near Russia’s border, this last having nothing to do with any Russian threat and everything to do with America’s aggressive desire to shift the balance of power. How do you turn on a dime and admit Putin is right about Syria and follow his lead?
And there are still the daily unpleasant telephone calls from Israel about Assad. How do you manoeuvre around that when most independent observers today recognize Assad as the best alternative to any other possible government. He has the army’s trust, and in the end it is the Syrian army which is going to destroy ISIS and the other psychopaths. Air strikes alone can never do that. The same great difficulty for Hollande leaves much ambiguity around what he truly means by “going to war against ISIS.”
It is an extremely complicated world in which we live with great powers putting vast resources towards destroying the lives of others, almost killing thousands on a whim, while pretending not to be doing so. We live in an era shaped by former CIA Director Allen Dulles, a quiet psychopath who never saw an opportunity for chaos he did not embrace.
The only way to end terror is to stop playing with the lives of tens of millions in the Middle East, as America has done for so long, and stop supporting the behaviors of a repressive state which has killed far greater numbers than the madmen of ISIS could dream of doing, demanding instead that that state make peace and live within its borders. But, at least at this stage, that is all the stuff of dreams.
Tagged with "SAFE ZONE", 9/11, ALLEN DULLES, AMERICA AND RUSSIA, AMERICAN BULLIES, BLOOD ON AMERICA'S HANDS, BOMBS AND BOMBING, CAUSE OF TERROR, CHARLIE HEBDO, CIA, CRAZY PARADE IN PARIS FOR FREE SPEECH, DARK OPS, FIVE ISRAELI SPIES ON TRUCK 2001, FRANCE AND FOREIGN POLICY, GAZA TERROR, GHADAFI'S LIBYA, GOVERNMENT DARK OPERATIONS, HATRED OF MUSLIMS, HOLLANDE, HOW DO YOU GET TO BE A MASTERMIND?, HOW TO STOP TERROR, ISIS, ISIS SPONSORS, ISRAEL, ISRAEL AND PALESTINIANS, JOHN CHUCKMAN, KILLING YOUR OWN PEOPLE, KURDS AND NORTHERN SYRIA, LEVERAGE AGAINST ARABS AND MUSLIMS, MEDIA BIAS, MIDDLE EAST, MURDERING CIVILIANS, NETANYAHU, NETANYAHU'S INSANITY, NOT SO MUCH FREE SPEECH IN FRANCE, OBAMA, OPERATION GLADIO, OPERATION NORTHWOODS, PARIS TERROR ATTACK, PHONE CALLS FROM ISRAEL, PRESS BIAS, PUTIN AS SLAVIC SATAN, QATAR, SADDAM'S IRAQ, SAUDI ARABIA, TERRIBLE CORRUPTION IN SAUDI ARABIA, TERROR, TERROR IN SYRIA, TERROR IN YEMEN, THREATS FROM AMERICAN SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, TURKEY, UNFAIR REPORTING, WAR ON TERROR, WHY WE HAVE TERROR
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WhatsApp Webjoernaal
Selekteer jou taal
Sekuriteit
Kom in aanraking
Introducing the WhatsApp Business App
People all around the world use WhatsApp to connect with small businesses they care about — from online clothing companies in India to auto parts stores in Brazil. But WhatsApp was built for people and we want to improve the business experience. For example, by making it easier for businesses to respond to customers, separating customer and personal messages, and creating an official presence.
So today we're launching WhatsApp Business — a free-to-download Android app for small businesses. Our new app will make it easier for companies to connect with customers, and more convenient for our 1.3 billion users to chat with businesses that matter to them. Here's how:
Business Profiles: Help customers with useful information such as a business description, email or store addresses, and website.
Messaging Tools: Save time with smart messaging tools — quick replies that provide fast answers to frequently asked questions, greeting messages that introduce customers to your business, and away messages that let them know you're busy.
Messaging Statistics: Review simple metrics like the number of messages read to see what's working.
WhatsApp Web: Send and receive messages with WhatsApp Business on your desktop.
Account Type: People will know that they're talking to a business because you will be listed as a Business Account. Over time, some businesses will have Confirmed Accounts once it’s been confirmed that the account phone number matches the business phone number.
People can continue using WhatsApp as usual — there's no need to download anything new. And people will continue to have full control over the messages they receive, with the ability to block any number, including businesses, as well as report spam.
Over 80% of small businesses in India and Brazil say WhatsApp helps them both communicate with customers and grow their business today (Source: Morning Consult study). And WhatsApp Business will make it easier for people to connect with them, and vice versa, in a fast and simple way.
WhatsApp Business is available today and free to download on Google Play in Indonesia, Italy, Mexico, the U.K. and the U.S. The app is rolling out around the world in the coming weeks. This is just the beginning!
Onlangse plasings
Sakeonderneming
Maatskappy
Loopbane
Handelsmerksentrum
Webjoernaal
WhatsApp-stories
Mac/rekenaar
Privaatheid & Bepalings
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Home RelatedContent
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Rett Syndrome Studies
Not currently recruiting at UCSD
Biobanking of Rett Syndrome and Related Disorders
a study on Rett Syndrome MECP2 Duplication Syndrome CDKL5 FOXG1 Syndrome
at San Diego, California and other locations
estimated completion December 31, 2020
Jeffrey L Neul
The overarching purpose of this study is to advance understanding of the natural history of Rett syndrome (RTT), MECP2-duplication disorder (MECP2 Dup), RTT-related disorders including CDKL5, FOXG1, and individuals with MECP2 mutations who do not have RTT. Although all these disorders are the result of specific genetic changes, there remains broad clinical variation that is not entirely accounted for by known biological factors. Additionally, clinical investigators currently do not have any biomarkers of disease status, clinical severity, or responsiveness to therapeutic intervention. To address these issues, biological materials (DNA, RNA, plasma, cell lines) will be collected from affected individuals and in some cases from unaffected family members, initial evaluation performed to identify additional biological factors contributing to disease severity, and these materials will be stored for future characterization.
Biobanking of Rett Syndrome and Related Disorders Protocol
At the present time, effective treatments for RTT, MECP2 Dup, or Rett-related disorders are lacking. Investigators have made substantial progress in RTT over the past eleven years such that this study represents a narrowing of focus to mutations or duplications of the MECP2 gene and related disorders, including those with phenotypic overlap. Understanding of RTT has advanced remarkably well through the Rett Syndrome Natural History Clinical Protocol (NHS) and correspondingly advancement in the basic science realm has moved forward with equivalent success. Thus, progress in clinical and basic science has led to the establishment of clinical trials and other translational studies that hold promise for additional clinical trials in future. In the process, however, investigators became aware of additional MECP2- and RTT-related disorders that were unknown at the time the original proposal was conceived and further were impressed by the substantial clinical variability in individuals with RTT that cannot be explained by differences in mutations alone. In fact, variability among individuals with identical mutations has led investigators to search for additional explanations. At the time of the initial application (2002), just three years after the identification of the gene, MECP2, as the molecular link to RTT, investigators were not aware of the variation in clinical disorders related to MECP2 mutations or to the related but quite different MECP2 Dup. Each disorder is characterized by significant neurodevelopmental features related either to alterations in the MECP2 gene or related to phenotypes closely resembling those seen in individuals with RTT. Further, the phenotypic overlap with RTT due to mutations in CDKL5 and FOXG1 was also unexplored. The investigators propose in this new study to build on the substantial progress made in understanding both classic and variant RTT and to add these related disorders, MECP2 Dup and the Rett-related disorders including CDKL5, FOXG1, and individuals with MECP2 mutations who do not have RTT. In conjunction with the longitudinal clinical assessment performed via the natural history component, investigators will systematically collect from all willing participant's blood and isolate plasma, DNA, and RNA. All participants in the Natural History Study will be asked to contribute samples at the initial visit, whereas samples will be collected repeatedly on a subset of participants in order to look for changes over time. In order to identify factors that distinguish between affected and unaffected individuals, as well as to have the potential to characterize the heritability and potential consequences of genetic changes in families, samples will be collected from unaffected family members. Additionally, on a subset of individuals chosen because of unique clinical features skin biopsies and/or hair follicles will be collected to establish cell lines. Investigators will ask all individuals providing samples to agree to potential future whole-genome sequencing in order to be able to potentially evaluate for genetic modifiers of these diseases.
These materials will be stored at a central repository (Greenwood Genetics Laboratory). The main purpose of these samples is to serve as durable materials for future analyses, however, a set of defined analyses will be performed on all samples. For the samples collected in the Rett syndrome cohort, investigators will perform X-chromosome inactivation studies and evaluate common polymorphisms in Brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and determine the contribution of these known factors to disease severity. For MECP2 Dup cohort investigators will characterize inflammatory markers in the plasma and correlate these with clinical features. Also for MECP2 Dup cohort investigators will perform detailed genomic breakpoint and gene content analysis and correlate this with disease severity. Similar analysis of genomic breakpoints and gene content will be performed on people with FOXG1 Duplications. Finally, in a pilot study, investigators will perform metabolic profiling on people from all disorders and evaluate for metabolic features correlated with disease severity, and metabolic features common or unique between these disorders. This work will provide a durable resource for future analysis, extend understanding of genotype/phenotype correlations, identify other biological factors contributing to disease severity, as well as provide the framework for the development of biomarkers of disease state and severity.
Rett Syndrome MECP2 Duplication CDKL5 FOXG1 Disorders Syndrome MECP2 Duplication disorder Rett-related disorders: CDKL5, FOXG1
Individuals of both genders and of all ages, with RTT, MECP2 Dup, and, RTT-related disorders including those with mutations or deletions in CDKL5 and FOXG1 genes, or those with RTT (atypical or typical) who are mutation negative. Additionally, unaffected family members of those people who meet the disease specific criteria stated will eligible.
Individuals who do not meet the above criteria will be excluded.
University of California San Diego not yet accepting patients
San Diego California 92123 United States
Children's Hospital of Oakland not yet accepting patients
Oakland California 94709 United States
Lead Scientist at UCSD
December 31, 2020 (estimated)
International Rett Syndrome Foundation website
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A Compelling Conversation with Matthew Desmond
Sociologist Matthew Desmond is the author of New York Times bestseller and winner of the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction, Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City. In 2015, Desmond was awarded a MacArthur Genius Grant for “revealing the impact of eviction on the lives of the urban poor and its role in perpetuating racial and economic inequality.” His landmark work Evicted tells the stories of eight families living on the edge and the landlords who control their fate. Desmond will transform our understanding of extreme poverty and economic exploitation (unfair or inadequate pay for work) while providing fresh ideas for solving one of the most urgent issues facing America today - housing insecurity.
C202 1 p.m.
“If incarceration had come to define the lives of men from impoverished black neighborhoods, eviction was shaping the lives of women. Poor black men were locked up. Poor black women were locked out.”
― Matthew Desmond, Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City
Follow Matthew Desmond on Twitter: @Just_Shelter
Event Recap: MacArthur Genius Matthew Desmond on Housing Insecurity in America
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CMX Pro
CMX Summit
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CMX Hub Facebook Group
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2020 Community Industry Trends Report
CMXThe Premier Community for Community Professionals
CMX Summit 2019 Is Here!
erica mcgillivray / Announcements 11 min read
Announcing CMX Summit 2019 and Our Big Conference Swings
Did someone say CMX Summit 2019?! That’s right, get excited — and get your ticket for — the biggest and best conference for community builders, directors, VPs, CMOs, and CEOs to launch, revitalize, or scale your community. The goods:
When: Thursday and Friday, September 5th and 6th with the half-day workshop on Wednesday, September 4th.
Where: Redwood City, CA — in the Bay Area — specific venue, Fox Theatre
Who: Kim Scott (author of Radical Candor), Jen Dulski (Facebook Head of Community), Ryan Smith (CEO/co-founder of Qualtrics), Jascha Kaykas-Wolff (CMO at Mozilla), Chris Bruzzo (CMO at Electronic Arts), and dozens more CEOs, CMOs, and community leaders.
Let’s talk about those Big Swings
We know all business is moving — or in some cases, being dragged along — to be customer-centered and community-focused. This is why CMX Summit is so important! By attending, you’ll be educated and trained by those at the forefront of this space and others championing customer and community programs.
With recent headlines around social media fatigue, misinformation, and data protection (or lack of it), community professionals are being called upon to solve some of the world’s most important challenges.
A Pew Research study revealed only 3% of US social media users say they have a lot of trust in the information they find on these sites. As a growing alternative, digital natives have been turning to in-person communities.
A recent CMO Survey reports internet sales remain modest at 12.2% of total company sales. Marketing leaders (55.9%) cite the need for more human interaction as the key barrier to growth.
In a new paper looking at the strategies people employed be happier. It found that engaging with others worked better than trying to self-improve. “Those people with social ideas became more happy,” said Julia Rohrer, a PhD candidate at the Max Plank Institute and author of the study.
Our goal for Summit is to bring the world’s best thought leaders together — face-to-face — to share their perspectives on how community professionals need to adapt in order to harness the power of human interaction and solve these important challenges.
1,000 attendees all together
There are tens of thousands of community builders and customer-driven individual contributors, managers, directors, VPs, CMOs, and CEOs out there. But there has never been a conference this big, focused entirely on you!
Growth in the community profession and the advent of customer-to-customer (C2C) marketing is a huge emerging trend in business. Whether you work in the business-to-business (b2b) space, in consumer (B2C) brands, in non-profits, in government, or in education, CMX Summit is the event for you.
More executive voices in the room
We’re taking leadership to the next level at CMX Summit 2019. We all know to get buy-in and to get more budget and resources for our programs, we need to bring executives into the conversation. We also know there are many of them who already understand how important community is to an organization.
We’re bringing these community champions in. We’re putting more CMOs, CEOs, and founders on stage than ever before. And we’re encouraging you to bring your leadership to hear from these dynamic executives.
With 1,000 people and incredible speakers and sponsors in the room, you’ll be able to walk away with new connections, contacts, possibilities, and even friends. How amazing would it be, if you were in a room talking about new technologies or plans for your community, and your boss mentions a technology from, or a community run, by someone you met at Summit!
I always encourage each of you to meet at least 8 people at every event to get the most from your experience. You’ll find that community professionals are very friendly people. In fact, our emcees have sometimes struggled to get the show running again due to your enthusiasm for each other.
And don’t worry, introverts, we’ll make sure to have places for you to chill when you get tired of all of us extroverts.
New voices and some fan favorites
At CMX, we have a commitment to bringing you incredible talks, whether they’re inspirational, strategic, or getting down into the details of making community happen. And we’re extremely passionate about diversity and inclusion on stage and adding to the experience of Summit.
Traditionally, Summit’s been 65%+ women in attendance. This means, from our very beginnings, our conference has matched our community in binary gender representation. But that’s step one! Since 2017, we’ve made further commitments — and had actual programming numbers to back it up — for racial and queer representation on stage.
With each show, we learn something new and pivot. We’re still building out lineup, and expecting a lot of speakers (around 60)! We still have speaker pitches ahead of us — make sure to sign up for our newsletter to get the announcement when it hits — and a lot of spaces to fill.
Here’s some of our confirmed voices — but let me tell you, I wish I could totally share who we’re talking to — but they’re ALL pretty stellar:
Kim Scott
Author of Radical Candor: Be a Kickass Boss without Losing Your Humanity
Kim Scott is co-founder of Radical Candor and author of Radical Candor. She’s been an advisor at Dropbox, Kurbo, Qualtrics, ReelGoodApp, Rolltape, Shyp, Twitter, and several other Silicon Valley companies. She was a member of the faculty at Apple University and before that was at Google. Known for her ability to generate billions of dollars in revenue from millions of small customers while keeping her team happy and margins high, Kim’s unofficial title was High Priestess of the Long Tail. She is the author of three novels; she and her husband Andy Scott are parents of twins.
Jennifer Dulski
Head of Groups & Community at Facebook and author of Purposeful: Are You a Manager or a Movement Starter
Jennifer Dulski leads Facebook Groups, a product used by more than 1.4 billion people to create and participate in communities that matter to them. Prior to Facebook, she served as president and COO of Change.org, which grew from 18 million users to more than 180 million under her leadership. Jennifer writes about management and leadership for LinkedIn Influencers, Fortune, Forbes, and Huffington Post. Her first book, Purposeful, about how each of us can be movement starters, was published in May 2018 and is a Wall Street Journal Bestseller.
CEO at Qualtrics
Ryan Smith co-founded Qualtrics with the goal of making sophisticated research simple. In January 2018, Qualtrics was acquired by SAP for $8B in cash. Ryan grew the company from a startup to one of the fastest-growing technology companies in the world with more than 8,500 enterprise customers, including over 75% of the Fortune 100. Named to Fortune’s 2016 40 Under 40, he’s a frequent contributor to Fortune Magazine and has been featured in Forbes, Harvard Business Review, The Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, Inc., The New York Times, TechCrunch and USA Today, and has appeared on CNBC, Bloomberg TV and FOX Business.
Nick Mehta
CEO at Gainsight
Nick Mehta is the CEO at Gainsight, the #1 customer success platform for corporate services, turning your customers into your best growth engine. To date, Gainsight have raised over $156m from some of the world’s best VCs in the form of Lightspeed, Bessemer, Insight Venture Partners, Battery Ventures, and Salesforce Ventures. As for Nick, prior to Gainsight he was the CEO at LiveOffice where he grew cloud archiving ARR from $2m in 2008 to $25m in 2011 and drove and negotiated the acquisition by Symantec for $115m in cash. Before LiveOffice, Nick was Senior Director of Product Management at Symantec where he led $378 MM market-leading email archiving / security businesses managing over 180 people across 3 continents. Before that, Nick co-founded his first business during college in the mid 1990s, a venture-funded online golf retailer called Chipshot.com that became one of the top 20 online retailers of its time. Nick holds a Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry and a Master’s degree in Computer Science from Harvard University.
Jascha Kaykas-Wolff
CMO at Mozilla
As Chief Marketing Officer, Jascha Kaykas-Wolff leads Mozilla’s global marketing strategy and organization. Prior to joining Mozilla, he served as CMO for BitTorrent and CMO for Mindjet. Jascha’s marketing specialties span B2C and B2B, and outside of work, he’s a passionate volunteer and mentor with TheLastMile.org. He published Growing Up Fast with Kevin Fann in August 2014. He calls Marin County home with his wife Rebecca, 3 whip-smart children, 1 grey-haired hamster, 2 frogs, 6 or 7 fish, and 1 cat to eat them all.
Rebecca Kaden
Managing Partner at Union Square Ventures
Rebecca Kaden is a Managing Partner at Union Square Ventures, where she invests in primarily early stage businesses using technology to broaden access to capital, knowledge, and well-being.
Chris Bruzzo
CMO at EA
Chris Bruzzo has been the Chief Marketing Officer at Electronic Arts Inc. since joining in September 2014. In this role, he oversees Electronic Arts marketing strategy, strategic communications, and web strategy and experience teams. Chris previously served as the Chief Marketing Officer and Senior Vice President at Seattle’s Best Coffee at Starbucks Corporation.
Kobie Fuller
General Partner at Upfront
Kobie Fuller brings to Upfront deep expertise in enterprise SAAS and emerging technologies, including VR and AR. Over his career, he has invested early in notable companies including Exact Target (sold to Salesforce for $2.5B) and Oculus (sold to Facebook for $2B). Kobie was previously an investor at Accel and Chief Marketing Officer at LA-based REVOLVE. He graduated from Harvard University.
Erica Kuhl
Vice President for Community at Salesforce
Erica Kuhl serves as Vice President for Community at Salesforce, where she also served as manager and senior application instructor. Prior to Salesforce, Erica was a consultant at Live Solutions. In 1996, Erica completed her degree in business at the University of Colorado in Boulder.
Wayne Sutton
Co-Founder at Change Catalyst
Wayne Sutton is a serial entrepreneur and co-founder of Change Catalyst and its Tech Inclusion programs. Change Catalyst is dedicated to exploring innovative solutions to diversity and inclusion in tech. As a leading voice, Wayne shares his thoughts on solutions and culture in various media outlets and has been featured in TechCrunch, USA Today, and the Wall Street Journal. In addition to mentoring and advising early stage startups, his life goal is to educate entrepreneurs who are passionate about using technology to change the world.
Renata Amaral
CEO at EAT
Renata Amaral is the CEO of EAT, a creative studio that delivers branding and design. EAT all started in 2009, with nothing more than a 200 square foot apartment and stupid jokes over Skype, to form a creative studio based on Renata and company’s unique talents and perspectives. With team members residing in several different countries, EAT has purposefully positioned themselves to tap into ideas and inspiration from all over the world.
Richard Millington
Founder at FeverBee
Richard Millington is the founder of FeverBee and author of both Buzzing Communities and The Indispensable Community. Over the past 13 years, Richard has helped 270+ great brands, including Apple, Facebook, Google, The World Bank, and SAP use powerful psychology to build thriving communities. Through his community management academy, he has also trained 1,250 of the world’s top community pros.
Laura Nestler
Head of Community at Duolingo
As Head of Community at Duolingo, Laura Nestler is a community builder, wanderlust enthusiast, and headline writing wiz. She’s seeds, launchs, and grows communities with a knack for crafting and scaling playbooks, building effective teams, and translating value propositions overseas. Before Duolingo, she was one of Yelp’s first community managers, launched Yelp’s international expansion, and developed and oversaw Yelp’s small market expansion into 60+ cities.
David Spinks
Founder at CMX and Head of Community at Bevy
David Spinks is the Founder of CMX, the premier community for community professionals. CMX’s mission is to help community professionals thrive. The CMX team has trained hundreds of companies in community strategy, including teams at Facebook, Google, and Salesforce. Today, thousands of community professionals come to CMX every day to learn, connect and grow. In February 2018, CMX was acquired by Bevy.
More incredible sponsors and industry champions
Community professionals need tools to make our jobs happen. We love community platforms, but we also know those aren’t the only tools we use every day
With a bigger conference, vendors will have the opportunity to reach even more people than ever — and as always, we will make sure these sponsors are industry champions. They are the companies who care directly about your success and how they can help with that. If you are one of these champions and interested in sponsoring Summit, please reach out to us!
Tell me about these ticketing options
We hope you can all be there, and that you’ll bring your colleagues, CMOs, CEOs, and anyone else that is invested in building community at your organization. If you’d like to bring more people from your team, we offer team discounts!
You don’t want to miss out. The Early Bird deals end in early May, or when we sell out of them, whichever comes first. So don’t snooze on this and get your ticket now!
Ticketing types:
Everything Ticket: entrance to both the 2-day conference and the half-day workshop
2-Day Ticket: entrance to only the 2-day conference (September 5th and September 6th)
Workshop Ticket: entrance to only the half-day workshop (September 4th)
Group tickets:
Are you bringing 3 or more people to Summit? We hope you are, and Group tickets save you and your organization money. We have special Group pricing at 3+, 6+, and 10+, which you can buy directly from the interface.
If you want to buy 15+ tickets, reach out and we’ll make you an extra special discount.
Save $350 per ticket in our very special, limited ticket discount
As a special perk for our CMX Pro members, we offer a Pre-Sale 2-Day Conference Ticket that saves you $350 (42%) per ticket compared to our General Admission 2-Day Conference Ticket ($849). Pro members can buy up to 2 of these tickets.
How do you get this deal?
By becoming a CMX Pro member!
CMX Pro is our exclusive membership for community builders, which provides a private community, direct group office hours with CMX staff and other members, exclusive video recordings from our webinars, access to previous conference videos, and super sweet discounts like this one!
Pro is $750/year. So let’s do a little math:
You become a Pro member and a colleague joins you at Summit:
Pro membership $750 + 2 Pre-Sale Tickets $998 = $1,748
You and a colleague attend Summit together and you wait to buy your ticket:
2 General Admission Tickets = $1,698
For only $50 more, you can get a CMX Pro membership on top of your two tickets.
But you have to act quickly — we only have 50 of these tickets! We expect them to sell out by or before April 5th. You want to make this happen now.
(If you are a CMX Pro already and want this deal, head to this post for your promo code.)
We’re so pumped to see you all there!
Reflections on CMX Summit 2019
Volunteer at CMX Summit 2019!
Imagine Yourself on Stage at CMX Summit 2019
TAGS: CMX Summit CMX Summit 2019
erica mcgillivray
Erica McGillivray is the Director of Product Strategy and Community Experience at CMX Summit. She's a published author, gardening enthusiast, and loves tea, cats, and books. Erica lives in Seattle with her two cats and 75 houseplants.
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So you want to go hiking? Here's everything you need to know
By Kimberly Gillan| 1 year ago
With the fresh air, the white noise of rustling trees and the incredible vistas – there's nothing better for the body or brain than hiking in nature.
If this is the spring that you take to the trail, then here's your go-to guide to keep you safe and comfortable so you'll want to replicate the experience again (and again and again).
Start within your means
As much as Base Camp or Kilimanjaro might be in your sights, hiking newbies should start small and build gradually.
"I always recommend first-timers choose a well-marked track because it allows you to navigate the trail, enjoy your time in nature and not be overly concerned with becoming lost," seasoned hiker Darren Edwards, founder of Trail Hiking Australia, tells Coach.
"Once you have undertaken a few walks on well-marked trails you can then build up to something more challenging."
Be sure to research the difficulty of the hike, because something beyond your fitness will be the opposite of fun.
"A common mistake I see is people overestimating their abilities, not understanding the grade of the hike and undertaking a hike that is beyond their level of experience or level of fitness," Edwards says.
Grade one or two hikes are usually recommended for first-timers, and if you're reasonably fit, Edwards says you will probably finish a hike quicker than the suggested time.
Be more organised than you think you need to be
The chances might be slim that you'll need to be rescue chopper'ed out of there, but Edwards says it's critical that you cover all safety bases.
"I see people make [the mistake of] being under-prepared in terms of navigation tools, adequate clothing, water, food and emergency gear," Edwards says.
"You should always carry a compass, a map, a first-aid kit, suitable clothing in case the weather turns bad, and enough food and water in case the hike takes longer than expected or you become lost and are forced to stay overnight."
Edwards says a good rule-of-thumb is to carry at least one litre of water and drink 250ml every 30 to 45 minutes.
"You should never commence a hike [greater than] a kilometre without a bottle of water," he says.
"Keep the water flowing even if you don't feel thirsty [because] by the time you feel thirsty, you are already dehydrated."
By the end of a four-hour hike, Edwards says you would want to have polished off two litres of water.
Wear lots of layers
Rather than wearing a thick, heavy jacket, Edwards says more thin layers will make your hike more comfortable.
"Your clothing is your first line of protection from the cold, wind, rain, sun, insects, snakes and the scrub," Edwards says.
"Adjust zippers and layers to minimise sweating during exercise and be sure to add layers before you feel cold at rest stops. Never wear jeans."
Edwards says every hiker needs a pair of comfortable, worn-in shoes or boots and some thick, well-fitting wool socks.
"Hiking footwear needs to protect your feet from damage and provide solid grip," he says.
"You might also wish to consider ankle support and whether they will keep your feet dry."
If the weather is likely to be cool, then a jumper, windproof jacket, thermal underwear, mittens or gloves, a beanie or balaclava, jumper or polar fleece and some waterproof over-pants are essential.
If it's hot, then a hat and lightweight long-sleeved shirt is paramount.
"Cotton is not a good wicking fabric, does not breathe well and will make you cold when wet," Edwards points out.
(iStock)
Check the weather
No matter the time of year, you should study the weather radar closely before venturing out.
"You shouldn't hike if the temperature is above 35 degrees; in high fire danger periods; if there's bushfire warnings; forecast lightning storms; high snow fall; or avalanche or blizzard conditions," Edwards says.
"It doesn't matter if you are going for a half hour stroll or multi-day trek, the principles are the same – plan your hike, understand the environment you are entering and the risks associated with it, and plan for the unexpected."
Act like a pro
Taking a leaf out of experienced hikers' books will help keep you safe.
"If you are leaving the trail – generally to go to the toilet – leave your pack on the trail so that people know where you left if you become separated or lost," Edwards suggests.
"If your group spreads out a little, always wait at trail junctions for all members of your group to catch up."
When you leave, take your rubbish with you, along with a sense of contentment and feeling of oneness with the world.
"Hiking can improve stress levels, alleviate or lesson symptoms of depression and reduce anxiety," Edwards says.
"I love hiking where I feel like I am standing on top of the world, looking out into the wilderness and appreciating the beauty of nature."
Property News: The colours to know before painting your house in 2020 - domain.com.au
Target worker receives $48k in donations for holiday after customer's angry tweet
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Coventry Bookstore
CHILDREN'S RECENT RELEASES
RECENT RELEASES > Fiction
Author: Anthony Doerr
$19.99(AUD) inc GST
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE
From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, the beautiful, stunningly ambitious instant New York Times bestseller about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II.
Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History where he works. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris, and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure's reclusive great uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. They carry with them perhaps the museum's most valuable and dangerous jewel.
In a German mining town, an orphan named Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. He becomes expert at fixing these new instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment to track the Resistance. Increasingly aware of the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and Marie-Laure's converge.
Doerr's "stunning sense of physical detail and gorgeous metaphors" (San Francisco Chronicle) are dazzling. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, he illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another. Ten years in the writing, a National Book Award finalist, All the Light We Cannot See is a magnificent, deeply moving novel from a writer "whose sentences never fail to thrill" (Los Angeles Times).
'Far more than a conventional war story, It's a tightly focused epic revolving around two unusual main characters ... Doerr paints with a rich palette, using prose that resonates deeply and conveys the ephemera of daily existence along with high drama, sadness and hope ... A bittersweet and moving novel that lingers in the mind' Clifford Beal, Daily Mail 'This novel will be a piece of luck for anyone with a long plane journey or beach holiday ahead. It is such a page-turner, entirely absorbing... [Doerr's] attention to detail is magnificent' Carmen Callil, Guardian 'Doerr's novel seems poised somewhere between the sublime and the twee. It very much lands on the right side of things, thanks to the author's eye for detail and the suspenseful rhythm of his chapters - often only a page or two - which expertly cut back and forth in time. He can bring a scene to life in a single paragraph ... Delicate and moving ... the novel takes hold and will not easily let go' Lidija Haas, The Times 'Boy meets girl in Anthony Doerr's hauntingly beautiful new book, but the circumstances are as elegantly circuitous as they can be' Janet Maslin, The New York Times 'I'm not sure I will read a better novel this year ... Enthrallingly told, beautifully written and so emotionally plangent that some passages bring tears' Amanda Vaill, Washington Post 'This jewel of a story is put together like a vintage timepiece ... Doerr's writing and imagery are stunning. It's been a while since a novel had me under its spell in this fashion.' Abraham Verghese, author of 'Cutting for Stone' '"All the Light We Cannot See" is a dazzling, epic work of fiction. Anthony Doerr writes beautifully about the mythic and the intimate, about snails on beaches and armies on the move, about fate and love and history and those breathless, unbearable moments when they all come crashing together.' Jess Walter, author of 'Beautiful Ruins'
Anthony Doerr is the author of four books, The Shell Collector, About Grace, Four Seasons in Rome and Memory Wall. Doerr's short fiction has won three O. Henry Prizes and has been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories, The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories, and The Scribner Anthology of Contemporary Fiction. He has won the Rome Prize, and shared the New York Public Library's Young Lions Fiction Award with Jonathan Safran Foer. In 2007 Granta placed Doerr on its list of the "21 Best Young American novelists." Doerr lives in Boise, Idaho, with his wife and two sons.
Publisher : HarperCollins Publishers Limited
Imprint : Fourth Estate
Reading Level : very good
Author : Anthony Doerr
© Coventry Bookstore 2020
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Contact Corrections Staff
Correctional Education
NY State Probation Incarceration Study
Vermont Criminal Justice Corrections Board
Bexar County Probation Improvement Project
Orange County Risk Assessment Validation
Wisconsin State Risk Assessment Validation
The Council of State Governments Justice Center (CSG Justice Center) and the Vermont Department of Corrections (Vermont DOC) launched the Vermont Corrections Dashboard in the fall of 2012. It is an innovative template for quarterly reports that summarize key data for the corrections agency, including change in correctional populations, recidivism indicators, and average length of stay. The dashboard allows the Vermont DOC to easily view a wide variety of statistics, observe trends, and assess progress toward agency or legislative goals.
CSG Justice Center’s Research Division developed measures, determining how to draw the most information from what the state was already collecting, and designed the dashboard with input from the Corrections Oversight Committee for a two-page quarterly snapshot of correctional and supervision populations, offender characteristics, and movement in and out of the system. It includes data on population flow, such as admissions, population, and releases—fundamental information for any corrections department. Specific figures include admissions and population, returns to incarceration, number of individuals sentenced, and number of individuals under supervision. Since addressing recidivism is a priority for the Vermont DOC and Governor Peter Shumlin, measures pertaining to recidivism are distinguished from the others.
Vermont Corrections Dashboard
Vermont DOC Dashboard Appendix Full Report
Dashboard Definitions
Vermont's Innovative System for Tracking Correctional Data and Trends
Admissions for persons with no sentences pending adjudication increased from the previous period from the corresponding quarter last year and from the average across the previous three quarters.
Admissions for persons with sentences decreased from the previous period. The prior two quarters saw an increase in this population. More reductions per quarter are necessary to hit the 30 percent reduction goal.
This population is under some form of state supervision, but has been detained in a VTDOC facility for some reason. If sentenced, this population will drive the recidivism population.
Supervision failures, decreased from this quarter last year, increased over the previous quarter, but has held constant to the previous three quarter average. This quarter’s movement pushes the population away from the goal’s direction. The first quarter of FY 2013 shows an increase from last quarter and is well above the goal line.
This is the sum of entrants who were on probation, parole, and furlough last quarter, received a new sentence, and have hit the 90-day barrier to entry of being counted as a recidivist during this quarter. These offenders have been incarcerated for more than 90 days, but less than 120 to ensure no double counting has occurred. This is not the whole of recidivists; however, it is the closest possible for entries from supervision the Vermont data system will allow.
Detainee population increased 13 percent from an average of the last three quarters and is up 11 percent from this time last year. It is moving away from the goal’s direction.
Detainee population includes both detainees, the individuals in a DOC facility with no outstanding sentence. The inmate’s case has not yet been adjudicated. The reduction goal is limited to detainees, which was set at 300.
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Tim Cutler 🏏 cutsinfo.com
Emerging cricket. Growing the game. Filling in the blanks.
ICC global funding model explainer
The first of a series of FAQ-style posts about the underlying structures of cricket’s funding, development, strategies, and other pieces that are useful in understanding what goes on behind the sport’s curtain…
A brief look at how global cricket is funded by the ICC (and where the money comes from)
The vast majority of cricket funding (outside the major nations’ own arrangements) comes from moneys distributed by the ICC. Almost US$1.8bn will be distributed over this current rights period (2015-23) to over a hundred member federations.
The majority of ICC funds are gained from their “global events” which include the Men’s & Women’s 50 over Cricket World Cups (CWC) and World Twenty20s (WT20). The Champions Trophy 2017 & 2021 was also included, but the 2021 event has now been replaced by a World Twenty20 instead.
In the majority, these funds come from two particular streams:
Media (TV & digital) Rights. Star Sports* (through their Indian/Middle East operations) bought the worldwide 2015-23 rights for around two billion dollars. ICC approved broadcasters will then carry these events in their regions after paying a fee to Star; e.g. Sky (UK), Super Sport (Sub-Saharan Africa), Channel 9/ Fox Sports (Aus) etc. *Interestingly Star will be sold to Disney by owners Fox as part of a massive deal which should complete in the next year or so. How does the value of these rights compare the deals signs some of the bigger cricket nations? Look out for another FAQ on that soon.
Sponsorship Properties. There is ~$700m in the ICC budget for the 2015-23 period. This includes everything from naming to major alignments such as trophy naming rights and other headline deals (they do not sell naming rights to world events any more – if we think back to the “Wills World Cup” days in 1996 etc). Major names aligned to ICC events during this period include Nissan, Emirates, Oppo, Pepsi, LG, MRF Tyres, Castrol, Reliance, Hyundai, and more..
Other non-event specific sponsorships such as the Umpires (Emirates), and equipment (Gray-Nicolls) are in addition to these global events, but will generally also carry over and into the major tournaments.
The funding distribution model has changed a lot (and numerous times) over the past few years, no more so than as a result of the “Big 3” reforms in 2014, which were more or less repealed mid last year under a raft of positive governance overhauls under Chairman, Shashank Manohar (seen above, photo: ICC). The ICC confirmed the current model in early 2018.
Manohar was first appointed Chairman in November 2015, when he was BCCI’s representative. However he resigned as BCCI President in order to take up the position as the ICC’s first independent Chairman in May 2016.
So, how much does each member receive?
Over eight years the breakdown of ICC grants to members are as follows (USD):
405m (~51m pa) India
139m (~17m pa) England
128m (16m pa) Australia, Bangladesh, NZ, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, West Indies
94m (~12m pa) Zimbabwe
40m (~5m pa) Afghanistan & Ireland (became full members 2017 so this may be pro-rata from 2017-23)
160m to 93 Associates – this broken up across two grant systems (tournament & scorecard)^. The complexities of Associate funding deserve their own piece (or perhaps pieces) which will follow shortly.
Dutch journalist Bertus De Jong set out the funding model changes in a tweet not long after they were ratified:
Also from the ICC meet, the increased funding for Afghanistan and Ireland announced last year confirmed. Here's a reminder of where that increase is coming from: pic.twitter.com/nN3HNxdLNy
— Bertus de Jong (@BdJcricket) February 9, 2018
The new model totals distributions to members of $1.774bn, the rest is for ICC’s administration and cost of running its operations and events.
It must be noted that these totals are based on the current ICC income budgets for 2015-23. These will change if actual numbers (are forecast to) deviate from the budget.
^correction: the original post had “as well as the cost of running emerging tournaments such as the World Cricket League and minor (i.e. non-global) qualifying tournaments” in this section. This funding comes out of the central ICC pot, the AM allocation of 160m go direct to Associate Members in grants.
Author Tim CutlerPosted on 3rd May 2018 4th May 2018 Categories FAQTags Funding, Global Events, Governance, ICC, Media Rights
Great rundown on following the money Tim. Do each of these allocations of money from the ICC have to be used in a particular way or are accountable in any way?
Tim Cutler
Here’s where it gets a little complicated. The ICC previously did not have ‘too’ much oversight on full members’ operations but this all changed under the new governance framework with audited accounts now being required to be submitted as well as other requirements that are more suitable considering the investment being made. Conversely, the Associates submit annual plans, accounts, quarterly update reports, which include census (participation) figures which go towards that member’s position in the ICC scorecard – where every country is ranked against the other 92 Associates across various weighted metrics (player/ground/coach numbers etc, non-ICC income level/employee numbers, to… Read more »
It makes me physically ill that all 93 associates combined only get 40% of what one country does, and only around 14% more of what another country does. Disgusting.
Bhanu Sigdel
Is there any seperate allocation for ODI associate nation ! I want to know how many fund they will get ? Specially for Nepal, UAE, Scotland and Netherland case
Direct AM event funding is linked to WCLC/ICup only. In the last two years there was extraordinary funding for AM ODI/T20I members however generally it’s only scorecard / tournament funding (or global event qualification). Will address AM funding in one of my next posts.
Associate funding - censuses, scorecards & grants - Tim Cutler?cutsinfo.com
[…] receives is much more involved with many more moving parts and timelines. After my more-general ICC’s global funding model post it is only fair that I now take the time to set out how cricket’s emerging nations are […]
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George Eliot, Medieval Germany ex Nuremberg to Mainz
7 Night Cruise sailing from Nuremberg to Mainz aboard George Eliot.
Departure: 10 Jun 2020
From: Nuremberg, Germany
Cruise line: Riviera Travel
Cruise Ship: George Eliot
7 Night(s) From
Back to Cruise Home
10/06/2020 Nuremberg, Germany
12/06/2020 Bamberg, Germany
13/06/2020 Rothenburg, Germany
14/06/2020 Wurzburg, Germany
15/06/2020 Wertheim, Germany
15/06/2020 Miltenberg, Germany
16/06/2020 Mainz, Germany
Itinerary may vary by sailing date and itineraries may be changed at the cruise lines discretion. Please check itinerary details at time of booking and before booking other travel services such as airline tickets.
Select a Cabin
E-6349 - Suite
Superior Suites on the Emerald Deck benefit from the larger living area but have smaller fixed windows.
R-6351 - Balcony
Measuring approximately 16 square metres (172 square feet), these cabins feature full floor-to-ceiling glass doors that slide away to create a French balcony to enjoy the panoramic views.
D-6355 - Balcony
R-6353 - Suite
Measuring approximately 18 square metres (194 square feet), these Superior Suites benefit from a larger living area plus a French balcony – panoramic floor-to ceiling sliding glass doors.
Please note, while prices and inclusions are accurate at time of loading they are subject to change due to changes in cruise line policies and pricing and due to currency fluctuations. Currency surcharges may apply. Please check details of price and inclusions at time of booking. Please ask for child and infant pricing if applicable. Pricing is Per Person, including all taxes.
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Cruise Description
NOTE: Cruise operates in approximate reverse order to the itinerary outlined below.
Day 1 MAINZ
You will join your ship in Mainz for the start of your great Bavarian adventure. Be welcomed aboard by the dedicated crew, taking in the air of anticipation and excitement as you explore the luxury surroundings that you will call home for the next 7 days. Settle into your exceptionally well equipped cabin, then get acquainted with your ship and your fellow cruisers while you look forward to a delicious first night dinner to start your cruise off in style.
Day 2 - MAINZ
Whether you decide to take breakfast in bed or set yourself up for the day at the plentiful buffet, afterwards you can enjoy a morning exploring bustling Mainz, the capital of Rhineland-Palatinate and an important Roman city for 450 years. Dominating its skyline is the colossal six-towered 12th-century cathedral – Martinsdom – a pinnacle of German Romanesque architecture that houses a spectacular nave, many elaborate tombs and a peaceful colonnaded cloister. Also unmissable is Saint Stephen’s Church, which features nine breathtaking stained glass windows, created by the artist Marc Chagall, that bathe the interior in magical blue light. Book-lovers will appreciate the Gutenberg Museum, located in a gorgeous 17th-century building in Mainz’s Old Town, whose star attractions are two 1455 Gutenberg Bibles, among the first books ever printed. Johannes Gutenburg, the inventor of the movable type printing press, is Mainz’s most famous son, and you can try out his 15th-century book printing technology in the Druckladen, or print shop – a tricky skill to master!
Of course, Mainz is also at the heart of Germany’s winelands, so it’s a pleasure to seek out a traditional wine tavern in the pastel-painted, timber-crisscrossed buildings of the Old Town to sample a glass. If you prefer beer, the vaulted chambers of the Eisgrub-Bräu beer hall are a fine place for a mug of the local dark brew.
Back on board your floating boutique hotel in the afternoon, find a relaxing seat in the lounge to take in the lovely views of lush woodland and fertile vineyards seamlessly idling by. As evening approaches, why not enjoy an apéritif in the bar before choosing a table in the restaurant to enjoy the chef’s masterful creations for dinner?
Day 3 MILTENBERG & WERTHEIM
Awaking refreshed, look out of your cabin window to find a complete change of scenery. We’re moored in Miltenberg, a beautifully preserved medieval village whose labyrinth of winding alleys and lanes begs exploration. Backed by dense emerald-green forest, this picturesque stop-off has something of the feel of a Brothers Grimm fairy tale, complete with a castle nestled into the lush tree-clad hillside. Admire the impressive gatehouse which stands like a proud guardian of the village, and wander across the charming marketplace, lined by traditional fachwerk buildings instantly recognisable by their grids of timber framing. The story goes that locals were allowed free wood from the surrounding forests, hence the abundance of this architectural style. Highlights of this beautiful square include the trickling fountain, ornately carved from stone and complete with dancing cherubs, and the intricately detailed Gasthaus Zum Riesen, which claims to be Germany’s oldest tavern.
In the afternoon we pass under Miltenberg’s red-brick bridge and continue to Wertheim, navigating the gentle meandering bends typical of the Main River. Relax and take in the scenery while sipping your choice of tea or coffee or maybe something a little more fortifying from the bar. Or watch the riverside scenes slip by from the comfort of your sumptuous cabin, many of which have French balconies with splendid unhindered views.
Wertheim is completely off the main tourist trail, making it a delightful surprise, all the better for its untouched ambience. We pass the fishing boats riding at anchor while admiring the muted colours of the sage-green, pale lilac and buttercup-yellow houses opposite. A russet-walled 12th-century castle overlooks the Old Town, surveying the church spires, turrets and patchwork of multicoloured buildings below. There’s time to explore here and, as you wander the quaint and colourful market square, look out for the blink-and-miss-it Zobelhaus, a contender for the narrowest house in Germany.
This evening you’ll be served another delectable dinner, and overnight we cruise to Würzburg.
Day 4 WURZBURG
One of the delights of river cruising is indulging in complete relaxation. Catch up on some reading, relax as you watch the world float by or maybe indulge in a little pampering in the sauna and steam room. This afternoon we arrive at elegant Würzburg, which contrasts with the quaint towns and villages you’ve encountered so far. We have a guided tour of this Bavarian city sitting resplendent on the banks of the Main, founded in the 10th century as the centre of the kingdom known as Franconia. The impressive Marienberg Fortress overlooks the neat blocks of grand pastel-coloured buildings punctuated by the spires and domes of the city’s many churches. The jewel in Würzburg’s illustrious crown is the Residenz, a magnificent Baroque palace that whisks you back to a more romantic age. Originally conceived to rival the Palace of Versailles in scale, it is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and features one of Germany’s most spectacularly ornate staircases and dozens of interconnecting rooms adorned with gorgeous frescoes, priceless tapestries, sculptures and paintings. There’s ample time to explore here as you wish – the ornamental gardens are enchanting to stroll around – before returning to the ship, enjoying another evening of exceptional cuisine and a drink in the bar as the pianist works his magic at the keyboard.
Day 5 ROTHENBURG & MARKTBEIT
After breakfast we take a drive along the Romantic Road – the perfectly named route made up of a spellbinding procession of folkloric scenery, medieval towns, lofty castles and grand palaces, so picture-perfect they could all serve as film sets. We arrive at gorgeous Rothenburg, crowning a hill with glorious views over the meandering river below. The Old Town is cradled within immaculately preserved walls, and there’s time to explore its narrow cobbled streets lined with tall gabled half-timbered houses.
A short drive takes us to Marktbreit, the southernmost point of the Main River and where our ship and another superb lunch await. You’re free to relax on board this afternoon, or you can disembark to explore Marktbreit, a romantic town with elegant buildings recalling the grandeur of days past. Wander the Old Town and admire its Renaissance-style town hall, 16th-century castle and Baroque trading houses before rejoining the cruise this evening.
Day 6 BAMBERG
Another day dawns and this morning is free to enjoy the ship’s five-star facilities while admiring the magnificent undulating landscape. The foredeck features exquisite outdoor furnishing and there’s nothing quite as refreshing as the gentle breeze as we progress along the serene waters of the Main. Alternatively, why not find a quiet alfresco seat at the Lido Lounge at the stern of the ship and admire one enchanting vista after another?
We moor this afternoon in Bamberg, undoubtedly one of the prettiest small towns in the whole of Europe and so precious that UNESCO declared it a World Heritage Site. Planned by Emperor Heinrich II in the 11th century as a Franconian capital, it sits on seven lush green hills, a similar setting to the city whose grandeur it was meant to equal – Rome! You’ll discover its history and many architectural highlights on our informative tour led by a local guide, which takes in the exquisite Old Town and impressive multi-spired cathedral. Perhaps the most noticeable and intriguing landmark is Bamberg’s Old Town Hall, which sits on an island in the middle of the burbling river, flanked by bridges either side. From here you can also see ‘Little Venice’ – a delightful cluster of former fishermen’s houses built along the waterfront, mostly dating from the Middle Ages. Leaving Bamberg, we join the Main–Danube canal, a superb feat of engineering guiding us to our next fascinating stop, Nuremberg.
Day 7 NUREMBERG
Of course, this Bavarian city is intriguing for its association with the Second World War, as the site of many pre-war Nazi rallies and, later, the war crimes trials. What’s little known, however, is that Nuremberg also captivates visitors with its cobbled streets with classic half-timbered houses, an enchanting castle (rebuilt after wartime bombings) and many historic landmarks. These include the Church of Saint Lawrence, a stunning example of Gothic architecture, and the intricate Church of Our Lady, which features a working mechanical clock dating from 1506 and overlooks the bustling Hauptmarkt square, itself renowned for its intricate fountain resembling a Gothic church tower. Amid all this splendour, spare a moment to taste Nuremberg’s famous gingerbread, perhaps stocking up with a packet to spice up the biscuit tin back home! Afterwards you return to the ship for your final dinner on board, perhaps selecting a local white from the wine list and, later, enjoying a coffee in the lounge with your travel companions while sharing memories of your exploration of Germany’s medieval heart.
After breakfast this morning your friendly crew bid you farewell before you disembark the ship.
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UK Financial Watchdog Warns Over Unregistered Crypto Brokerage
The U.K.’s financial regulator has issued a warning to investors over an unregistered brokerage firm that appears to be offering cryptocurrency-related derivatives in the country.
The Financial Conduct Authority in a statement Thursday, opened fire at a firm Olsson Capital, Saying the Bulgarian based regulator is not authorized to be targeting UK citizens. It is believed that the brokage is carrying on regulated activities that need approval.
While the firm’s website is currently not accessible, information from Scambroker, a website that scrutinizes securities brokers and dealers, shows that the firm has been handling cryptocurrency trading services and is not registered with the FCA as a licensed broker.
The website further indicates that services available on Olsson Capital include a contract for difference (CFD) trading on a variety of cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin, XRP, dash, Ethereum, monero, and litecoin. Further, investors need to deposit at least around $250 in order to open an account on the platform, ScamBroker states.
While Olsson Capital has not responded to email inquiries from CoinDesk, comments on Scambroker from several investors have claimed that requests for withdrawals have not been proceeded even days after requests.
The notice comes as a continuation of the FCA’s efforts to caution the public regarding trading in cryptocurrency-related derivatives, as such activities fall under the jurisdiction of the agency.
As reported by CoinDesk, the regulator issued a warning to the public in November 2017, specifically regarding the risk associated with cryptocurrency CFDs.
And, earlier last year, a high-level official at the FCA also stated that the public must “exercise a degree of caution” with such products.
Turkey Fires Imams for Alleged Bitcoin Acquisition
World Cup Fans Excited About Bitcoin Payment Option
US based financial news firm, Yahoo Finance has partnered with Coinmarketcap to add cryptocurrency market data on its website amongst other financial reporting data.
The data which is supplied by the popular cryptocurrency market data aggregator Coinmarketcap now allow visitors on the website to track the prices of cryptocurrencies daily.
Currently available on the website are 118 cryptocurrencies ranked in the order of their market capitalization. The price data on the website are denomination in USD.
The website has a feature which it calls Heatmap View. It allows visitors to see the price actions on each crypto assets. A red signal shows the asset has dipped while a green signal reveals a gain in the asset.
Registered users can add any cryptocurrency to their portfolios.
Just like coinmarketcap reports, the Yahoo Finance website also reports detailed information on each cryptocurrency it has listed in its website.
The website reports on each website various market data such as current price, changes in percentage and amount, market capitalization, volume and circulating supply.
Yahoo finance also have individual pages for each cryptocurrency listed on the website. Yahoo Finance was quoted saying “We are thrilled about this partnership which comes timely as we continue to level up our game with the new liquidity-based metrics for ranking market-pairs and an improved pricing algorithm coming soon.”
Other than data from Coinmarketcap, Yahoo Finance also have two indices Crypto 200 (including Bitcoin) and Crypto 200 EX (i.e. excluding Bitcoin)
The data on the website incorporates pricing from over 200 exchanges, according to the Finance reporting organization, the indices provide exposure to the broader cryptocurrency market by including the cryptocurrencies that represent more than 90% of global market capitalization as of the index launch date.
Its daily newsletter and blog content will also be integrated into the news stream on finance site’s cryptocurrency screener landing page as well as the individual cryptocurrency pages.
The firm said in the future, it will plan to produce more educational video features, which it hopes will further add to the educational content on the website.
Image: Yahoo Finance
Is Facebook Pay an alternative to Libra?
Facebook has announced it will be launching the Facebook Pay service to provide people with a convenient, secure and consistent payment experience across its platform.
According to Facebook, people already use payments across its platform to shop, donate to causes and send money to each other. The Facebook pay will make these economic events easier while continuing to ensure user transaction information is secure and protected.
In order to use the service, users are to add their preferred payment method once and then use the service where it is available to make payments and purchases on the facebook’s platform apps. This will ensure users are not inconvenience as they wouldn’t be required to enter their payment information again.
The Facebook Pay will be available on Facebook and Messenger this week for US customers for fundraising, in-game payments, and event tickets, person-to-person payments on Messenger and purchases from select pages and businesses on Facebook marketplace.
According to Facebook, over time, the service will become available to more people and places including on its Instagram and WhatsApp platforms.
Facebook iterates its desire to continue investment in security of its platform.
Facebook said “We designed Facebook Pay to securely store and encrypt your card and bank account numbers, perform anti-fraud monitoring on our systems to detect unauthorized activity and provide notifications for account activity”.
Facebook Pay allows users to add Pin or use their device biometrics for extra security when sending money or making payments. Facebook argues it will not receive or store users device biometric information based on its privacy policy.
The Facebook Pay is part of our ongoing work to make commerce more convenient, Facebook said and this also will make it accessible and secure for people on its app.
And it will continue to develop Facebook Pay and look for ways to make it even more valuable for people on our apps.
Bankera has announced the release Bankera Loan, its crypto lending solution. The Bankera Loan according to Bankera is geared to providing flexible and secure crypto-backed loans to cryptocurrency holders globally.
The Loans are to start with a minimum of at least 100 EUR and to as high as 1 million EUR.
Bankera Loans act as an option for cryptocurrency owners who desire access to financing, but do not want to liquidate their assets. The solution offers cryptocurrency holders the ability to access funds by using their cryptocurrencies holdings as collateral while retaining ownership of their crypto assets.
According to Bankera, the solution aims to democratize access to core banking services for all cryptocurrency market participants by giving them facility better suited for either individual or enterprise needs.
Co-founder of Bankera Vytautas Karalevicius expatiating on the solution said “We see a big interest from the community in smaller crypto-backed loans. This market has been heavily underserved, and typical loan minimums in the current market are often too high”.
Continuing, Vytautas said “Bankera Loans solution offers our clients the possibility to take a loan as low as 100 EUR so that all clients can obtain the financing they need”.
Enterprise clients can also use their crypto asses to get quick facilities for leveraging positions, for expansions or other needs.
Taking a loan is simple, Bankera revealed. It can be achieved by a sign up which is followed after by a deposit of crypto assets to Bankera Loan wallet. This deposit are required and used for as collateral.
Once this is done, Bankera said a customer can then personalize the facility by selecting amount, duration, withdrawal and collateral currencies. Once approval is achieved, the customer/clients receive the facility to his/her Bankera Loans account.
Though the more assets or currencies will be added to the platform in the future, the Banker Loans platform currently supports just over half a dozen currencies such as the EURO, Banker (BNK), Tether (USDT), Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), NEM (XEM) and privacy coin Dash (DASH).
Bankera aims to revolutionize banking by taking advantage of what blockchain technology has to offer while still focusing on scale by becoming a one-stop store for all financial services, in the same way traditional brick and mortar banks are now, while using technology to reduce the number of counterparties, thus lowering the cost of banking for the end consumer.
Alo Kingsley
Kunal Kalra, a 25-year-old from West wood Los Angeles has been said to have pleaded guilty to federal charges of having exchanged over $25million in cash and cryptocurrencies.
Kunal, also known as “Kumar,” “shecklemayne” and “coinman,” was indicted on Friday, August 23 for allegedly trading cash and cryptocurrencies including drug dealers partially via his Bitcoin ATM kiosk.
The exchange was a front for other illegal activities
Kalra was said to have agreed to engagements in other illicit activities such asd distributionof methamphetamine, operating an unlicensed money transmitting virtual platform, laundering money and failing to maintain an effective anti-money laundering instrument.
According to an announcement made by the U.S Department of Justice last Friday, Kalra had said that he has agreed to plead guilty to the offence of converting Bitcoin for cash for criminals, drug dealers who acquired cryptocurrencies from trading narcotics on the dark web, as well as a number of other persons involved in various illicit activities. He had also confessed that he used platforms such as Localbitcoin and a company known as Paxful.
It was alleged that Kalra had been running this cryptocurrency exchange from May 2015 through October 2017. The justice department also went ahead bro say that without the implementation of an anti-money laundering program, Kalra facilities these kinds of transactions with a commission knowing fully well that the proceeds came from drug trafficking.
As at the time of this report the law enforcement agency had already seized about $889,000 in liquid cash from Kalra, about 54.3 Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, worth more than half-million dollars.
The announcement also said that the maximum sentence that Kalra stood a chance of facing was life imprisonment.
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Mobills PREMIUM
How to cancel a recurring subscription by Google play (Android)?
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Request a refund for an App Store or iTunes Store purchase (iOS)
Rafael H.
If you'd like to cancel Google Play's recurrence of your subscription, you'll need to do so through your Google account.
Uninstalling the app will not cancel your subscription.
To help you, we've separated an article from Google that teaches you how to do this by accessing on some platforms:
Smartphone or tablet Android:
On your Android phone or tablet, open the Google Play Store .
Check if you’re signed in to the correct Google Account.
Tap Menu Subscriptions.
Select the subscription you want to cancel.
Tap Cancel subscription.
Follow the instructions.
Go to play.google.com.
On the left, click My subscriptions.
Click Manage Cancel Subscription.
If you have a subscription with an app and it gets removed from Google Play, your future subscription will be canceled. Your past subscriptions will not be refunded.
When you cancel a subscription you’ll still be able to use your subscription for the time you’ve already paid.
For example, if you buy a one-year subscription on Jan. 1 for $30 and decide to cancel your subscription on July 1:
You’ll have access to the subscription until Dec. 31.
You won’t be charged another yearly subscription of $30 the following Jan. 1.
If you can't find an option to cancel the subscription, it means that it has already been canceled and will not be renewed.
To access the full article, click here.
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Balancing Convergence and Diversity in Evolutionary Single, Multi and Many Objectives
Seada, Haitham
Single objective optimization targets only one solution, that is usually the global optimum.On the other hand, the goal of multiobjective optimization is to represent the wholeset of trade-off Pareto-optimal solutions to a problem. For over thirty years, researchershave been developing Evolutionary Multiobjective Optimization (EMO) algorithms forsolving multiobjective optimization problems. Unfortunately, each of these algorithmswere found to work well on a specific range of objective...
Show moreSingle objective optimization targets only one solution, that is usually the global optimum.On the other hand, the goal of multiobjective optimization is to represent the wholeset of trade-off Pareto-optimal solutions to a problem. For over thirty years, researchershave been developing Evolutionary Multiobjective Optimization (EMO) algorithms forsolving multiobjective optimization problems. Unfortunately, each of these algorithmswere found to work well on a specific range of objective dimensionality, i.e. number ofobjectives. Most researchers overlooked the idea of creating a cross-dimensional algorithmthat can adapt its operation from one level of objective dimensionality to the other.One important aspect of creating such algorithm is achieving a careful balance betweenconvergence and diversity. Researchers proposed several techniques aiming at dividingcomputational resources uniformly between these two goals. However, in many situations,only either of them is difficult to attain. Also for a new problem, it is difficult totell beforehand if it will be challenging in terms of convergence, diversity or both. In thisstudy, we propose several extensions to a state-of-the-art evolutionary many-objectiveoptimization algorithm – NSGA-III. Our extensions collectively aim at (i) creating a unifiedoptimization algorithm that dynamically adapts itself to single, multi- and manyobjectives, and (ii) enabling this algorithm to automatically focus on either convergence,diversity or both, according to the problem being considered. Our approach augmentsthe already existing algorithm with a niching-based selection operator. It also utilizes therecently proposed Karush Kuhn Tucker Proximity Measure to identify ill-converged solutions,and finally, uses several combinations of point-to-point single objective local searchprocedures to remedy these solutions and enhance both convergence and diversity. Ourextensions are shown to produce better results than state-of-the-art algorithms over a setof single, multi- and many-objective problems.
An Analysis of Fitness in Long-Term Asexual Evolution Experiments
Wiser, Michael J.
Evolution is the central unifying concept of modern biology. Yet it can be hard to study in natural system, as it unfolds across generations. Experimental evolution allows us to ask questions about the process of evolution itself: How repeatable is the evolutionary process? How predictable is it? How general are the results? To address these questions, my collaborators and I carried out experiments both within the Long-Term Evolution Experiment (LTEE) in the bacteria Escherichia coli, and the...
Show moreEvolution is the central unifying concept of modern biology. Yet it can be hard to study in natural system, as it unfolds across generations. Experimental evolution allows us to ask questions about the process of evolution itself: How repeatable is the evolutionary process? How predictable is it? How general are the results? To address these questions, my collaborators and I carried out experiments both within the Long-Term Evolution Experiment (LTEE) in the bacteria Escherichia coli, and the digital evolution software platform Avida. In Chapter 1, I focused on methods. Previous research in the LTEE has relied on one particular way of measuring fitness, which we know becomes less precise as fitness differentials increase. I therefore decided to test whether two alternate ways of measuring fitness would improve precision, using one focal population. I found that all three methods yielded similar results in both fitness and coefficient of variation, and thus we should retain the traditional method.In Chapter 2, I turned to measuring fitness in each of the populations. Previous work had considered fitness to change as a hyperbola. A hyperbolic function is bounded, and predicts that fitness will asymptotically approach a defined upper bound; however, we knew that fitness in these populations routinely exceeded the asymptotic limit calculated from a hyperbola fit to the earlier data. I instead used to a power law, a mathematical function that does not have an upper bound. I found that this function substantially better describes fitness in this system, both among the whole set of populations, and in most of the individual populations. I also found that the power law models fit on just early subsets of the data accurately predict fitness far into the future. This implies that populations, even after 50,000 generations of evolution in consistent environment, are so far from the tops of fitness peaks that we cannot detect evidence of those peaks.In Chapter 3, I examined to how variance in fitness changes over long time scales. The among-population variance over time provides us information about the adaptive landscape on which the populations have been evolving. I found that among-population variance remains significant. Further, competitions between evolved pairs of populations reveal additional details about fitness trajectories than can be seen from competitions against the ancestor. These results demonstrate that our populations have been evolving on a complex adaptive landscape.In Chapter 4, I examined whether the patterns found in Chapter 2 apply to a very different evolutionary system, Avida. This system incorporates many similar evolutionary pressures as the LTEE, but without the details of cellular biology that underlie nearly all organic life. I find that in both the most complex and simplest environments in Avida, fitness also follows the same power law dynamics as seen in the LTEE. This implies that power law dynamics may be a general feature of evolving systems, and not dependent on the specific details of the system being studied.
Evolution of cooperation in the light of information theory
Mirmomeni, Masoud
Cooperation is ubiquitous in different biological levels and is necessary for evolution to shape the life and create new forms of organization. Genes cooperate in controlling cells; cells efficiently collaborate together to produce cohesive multi-cellular organisms; members of insect colonies and animal clans cooperate in protecting the colony and providing food. Cooperation means that members of a group bear a cost, c, for another individuals to earn a benefit, b. While cooperators of the...
Show moreCooperation is ubiquitous in different biological levels and is necessary for evolution to shape the life and create new forms of organization. Genes cooperate in controlling cells; cells efficiently collaborate together to produce cohesive multi-cellular organisms; members of insect colonies and animal clans cooperate in protecting the colony and providing food. Cooperation means that members of a group bear a cost, c, for another individuals to earn a benefit, b. While cooperators of the group help others by paying a cost, defectors receive the benefits of this altruistic behavior without providing any service in return to the group. To address this dilemma, here we use a game theoretic approach to model and study evolutionary dynamics that can lead to unselfish behavior. Evolutionary game theory is an approach to study frequency-dependent systems. In evolutionary games the fitness of individuals depends on the relative abundance of the various types in the population. We explore different strategies and different games such as iterated games between players with conditional strategies, multi player games, and iterated games between fully stochastic strategies in noisy environments to find the necessity conditions that lead to cooperation. Interestingly, we see that in all of these games communication is the key factor for maintaining cooperation among selfish individuals. We show that communication and information exchange is necessary for the emergence of costly altruism, and to maintain cooperation in the group there should be minimum rate of communication between individuals. We quantify this minimum amount of information exchange, which is necessary for individuals to exhibit cooperative behavior, by defining a noisy communication channel between them in iterated stochastic games and measuring the communication rate (in bits) during the break down of cooperation.
Hybrid Structural and Behavioral Diversity Techniques for Effective Genetic Programming
Burks, Armand Rashad
Sustaining the diversity of evolving populations is a fundamental issue in genetic programming. We describe a novel measure of structural diversity for tree-based genetic programming, and we demonstrate its utility compared to other diversity techniques. We demonstrate our technique on the real-world application of tuberculosis screening from X-ray images. We then introduce a new paradigm of genetic programming that involves simultaneously maintaining structural and behavioral diversity in...
Show moreSustaining the diversity of evolving populations is a fundamental issue in genetic programming. We describe a novel measure of structural diversity for tree-based genetic programming, and we demonstrate its utility compared to other diversity techniques. We demonstrate our technique on the real-world application of tuberculosis screening from X-ray images. We then introduce a new paradigm of genetic programming that involves simultaneously maintaining structural and behavioral diversity in order to further improve the efficiency of genetic programming.Our results show that simultaneously promoting structural and behavioral diversity improves genetic programming by leveraging the benefits of both aspects of diversity while overcoming the shortcomings of either technique in isolation. The hybridization increases the behavioral diversity of our structural diversity technique, and increases the structural diversity of the behavioral diversity techniques. This increased diversity leads to performance gains compared to either technique in isolation.We found that in many cases, our structural diversity technique provides significant performance improvement compared to other state-of-the-art techniques. Our results from the experiments comparing the hybrid techniques indicate that the largest performance gain was typically attributed to our structural diversity technique. The incorporation of the behavioral diversity techniques provide additional improvement in many cases.
Economic Gain-Aware Routing Protocols for Device-to-Device Content Dissemination
Hajiaghajani Memar, Faezeh
The objective of this dissertation is to investigate Device-to-Device content dissemination protocols for maximizing the economic gain of dissemination for given combinations of commercial and network parameters. We pose this as a gain-aware multicast Delay Tolerant Network (DTN) routing problem in a Social Wireless Network (SWN) setting. Commercial parameters in this framework include the revenue out of selling a product, discount, rebate, content expiry time, and a content-specific...
Show moreThe objective of this dissertation is to investigate Device-to-Device content dissemination protocols for maximizing the economic gain of dissemination for given combinations of commercial and network parameters. We pose this as a gain-aware multicast Delay Tolerant Network (DTN) routing problem in a Social Wireless Network (SWN) setting. Commercial parameters in this framework include the revenue out of selling a product, discount, rebate, content expiry time, and a content-specific redemption function. These parameters are inputs provided by a content generator. Network parameters are decided based on a Social Wireless Network’s characteristics such as consumers’ interest profiles and their social bindings summarized in their mobility profiles. We explore two solution approaches. First, we investigate stochastic design methods for gain-aware DTN protocol design including prediction-based dissemination mechanisms. We develop a predictive gain utility which is used for deciding relative importance of an immediate peer in comparison with potential future peers. We propose two versions of the utility; the first one, Predictive Gain Utility Routing-Individual (PGUR-I) uses node-specific information, and the second one, Predictive Gain Utility Routing-Aggregated (PGUR-A) implements a more scalable version by probabilistically aggregating node interaction information across consumers with similar consumption interests. In the second approach, we explore learning mechanisms including evolutionary learning and reinforcement learning for synthetizing communication protocols. We explore evolutionary learning, specifically, evolving state machines for protocol synthesis. A specific network protocol is coded as a genotype and its resulting state machine behavior manifests in the form of the corresponding phenotype, leading to specific performance. Using the developed framework, we explore the evolutionary design of Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols including ALOHA, S-ALOHA and Carrier Sensing Multiple Access (CSMA). Finally, we leverage Reinforcement Learning (RL), which enables nodes to gather local information and make efficient routing decisions in runtime.
Evolution of Decision-Making Systems
Schossau, Jorden D.
Adaptive biological or engineered systems are adaptive because they can make decisions. Some systems such as viruses use their molecular composition – genetic information – to decide when to become lysogenic (dormant) or lytic (active). Others, such as self-driving cars, must use spatiotemporal information about obstacles, speed, and previous signs to determine when to turn or begin braking. Computational models of systems allow us to both engineer better systems, and create better scientific...
Show moreAdaptive biological or engineered systems are adaptive because they can make decisions. Some systems such as viruses use their molecular composition – genetic information – to decide when to become lysogenic (dormant) or lytic (active). Others, such as self-driving cars, must use spatiotemporal information about obstacles, speed, and previous signs to determine when to turn or begin braking. Computational models of systems allow us to both engineer better systems, and create better scientific understanding about the dynamic world. The practice of modeling decision-making started with the study of interactions between rational agents on the spectrum of conflict and cooperation began with Von Neumann and Morgenstern's Theory of Game and Economic Behavior.Scenarios, called "games", are models designed and studied to increase understanding of conflict and cooperation between these agents. The games discussed here are Prisoner's Dilemma and Volunteer's Dilemma. Modern methods of analysis for games involving populations of interacting agents fail to predict the final strategy distribution among all agents. In chapter 2 I develop a new computational agent-based simulation used as an inductive study system to compare the deductive predictive capabilities of an analytical model that is capable of predicting the final distribution under idealized conditions. Lastly, I show a novel finding that the agent-based model suggests probabilistic, or mixed, strategies (such as probabilistic gene expression) are a result of the development and maintenance of cooperation in Volunteer's Dilemma.Game theory fails to provide tractable models for more complex decision-making situations, such as those with complex spatial or temporal dimensions. In these cases an algorithm of conditional logic may be used to simulate decision-making behavior. Yet still there are systems for which the use of an algorithm as a model is inadequate due to incomplete knowledge of the system. Perhaps the model makes too many generalizations, is limited by atomic discretization, or is otherwise incomplete. In these cases it is useful to compensate for deficits by using probabilistic logic. That is, we assume that a stochastic process can roughly describe those subprocesses not fully modeled.Lastly, algorithms as decision strategies can incorporate temporal information in the decision-making process. There are two ways temporal information can be used in an individual's conditional logic: evolutionary, and lifetime. The evolutionary approach has proved much more flexible as a means to discover and tune models of unknown decision-making processes. Neuroevolution is a machine learning method that uses evolutionary algorithms to train artificial neural networks as models of decision-making systems. There is currently a wide diversity of methods for neuroevolution that all share common structures of the types of problems being solved: those generally being cognitive tasks. Toward this end it would be useful if there were some properties common to all cognitive systems that could be incorporated into the optimizing objective function in order to enhance or simplify the evolutionary process. In chapter 3 and 4 I explore new methods of improving model discovery through neuroevolution and discuss the applicability of these methods for probabilistic models.
Out of the box optimization using the parameter-less population pyramid
Goldman, Brian W.
The Parameter-less Population Pyramid (P3) is a recently introduced method for performing evolutionary optimization without requiring any user-specified parameters. P3’s primary innovation is to replace the generational model with a pyramid of multiple populations that are iteratively created and expanded. In combination with local search and advanced crossover, P3 scales to problem difficulty, exploiting previously learned information before adding more diversity.Across seven problems, each...
Show moreThe Parameter-less Population Pyramid (P3) is a recently introduced method for performing evolutionary optimization without requiring any user-specified parameters. P3’s primary innovation is to replace the generational model with a pyramid of multiple populations that are iteratively created and expanded. In combination with local search and advanced crossover, P3 scales to problem difficulty, exploiting previously learned information before adding more diversity.Across seven problems, each tested using on average 18 problem sizes, P3 outperformed all five advanced comparison algorithms. This improvement includes requiring fewer evaluations to find the global optimum and better fitness when using the same number of evaluations. Using both algorithm analysis and comparison we show P3’s effectiveness is due to its ability to properly maintain, add, and exploit diversity. Unlike the best comparison algorithms, P3 was able to achieve this quality without any problem-specific tuning. Thus, unlike previous parameter-less methods, P3 does not sacrifice quality for applicability. Therefore we conclude that P3 is an efficient, general, parameter-less approach to black-box optimization that is more effective than existing state-of-the-art techniques.Furthermore, P3 can be specialized for gray-box problems, which have known, limited, non-linear relationships between variables. Gray-Box P3 leverages the Hamming-Ball Hill Climber, an exceptionally efficient form of local search, as well as a novel method for performing crossover using the known variable interactions. In doing so Gray-Box P3 is able to find the global optimum of large problems in seconds, improving over Black-Box P3 by up to two orders of magnitude.
Elucidating the evolutionary origins of collective animal behavior
Olson, Randal S.
Despite over a century of research, the evolutionary origins of collective animal behavior remain unclear. Dozens of hypotheses explaining the evolution of collective behavior have risen and fallen in the past century, but until recently it has been difficult to perform controlled behavioral evolution experiments to isolate these various hypotheses and test their individual effects. In this dissertation, I outline a relatively new method using digital models of evolution to perform controlled...
Show moreDespite over a century of research, the evolutionary origins of collective animal behavior remain unclear. Dozens of hypotheses explaining the evolution of collective behavior have risen and fallen in the past century, but until recently it has been difficult to perform controlled behavioral evolution experiments to isolate these various hypotheses and test their individual effects. In this dissertation, I outline a relatively new method using digital models of evolution to perform controlled behavioral evolution experiments. In particular, I use these models to directly explore the evolutionary consequence of the selfish herd, predator confusion, and the many eyes hypotheses, and demonstrate how the models can lend key insights useful to behavioral biologists, computer scientists, and robotics researchers. This dissertation lays the groundwork for the experimental study of the hypotheses surrounding the evolution of collective animal behavior, and establishes a path for future experiments to explore and disentangle how the various hypothesized benefits of collective behavior interact over evolutionary time.
Experimental evolution and ecological consequences : new niches and changing stoichiometry
Turner, Caroline B.
Evolutionary change can alter the ecological conditions in which organisms live and continue to evolve. My dissertation research used experimental evolution to study two aspects of evolutionary change with ecological consequences: the generation of new ecological niches and evolution of the elemental composition of biomass. I worked with the long-term evolution experiment (LTEE), which is an ongoing experiment in which E. coli have evolved under laboratory conditions for more than 60,000...
Show moreEvolutionary change can alter the ecological conditions in which organisms live and continue to evolve. My dissertation research used experimental evolution to study two aspects of evolutionary change with ecological consequences: the generation of new ecological niches and evolution of the elemental composition of biomass. I worked with the long-term evolution experiment (LTEE), which is an ongoing experiment in which E. coli have evolved under laboratory conditions for more than 60,000 generations. The LTEE began with extremely simple ecological conditions. Twelve populations were founded from a single bacterial genotype and growth was limited by glucose availability. In Chapter 1, I focused on a population within the LTEE in which some of the bacteria evolved the ability to consume a novel resource, citrate. Citrate was present in the growth media throughout the experiment, but E. coli is normally unable to consume it under aerobic conditions. The citrate consumers (Cit+) coexisted with a clade of bacteria which were unable to consume citrate (Cit-). Specialization on glucose, the standard carbon source in the LTEE, was insufficient to explain the frequency-dependent coexistence of Cit- with Cit+. Instead Cit– evolved to cross-feed on molecules released by Cit+. The evolutionary innovation of citrate consumption led to a more complex ecosystem in which two co-existing ecotypes made use of five different carbon sources.After 10,000 generations of coexistence, Cit- went extinct from the population (Chapter 2). I conducted replay experiments, re-evolving for 500 generations 20 replicate populations from prior to extinction. Cit- was retained in all populations, indicating that the extinction was not deterministic. Furthermore, when I added small numbers of Cit- to the population after extinction, Cit- was able to reinvade. It therefore appears that the Cit- extinction was not due to exclusion by Cit+, but rather to unknown laboratory variation.Chapter 3 shifts focus to studying evolutionary changes in stoichiometry, the ratio of different elements within organisms’ biomass. Variation in stoichiometry between organisms has important ecological consequences, but the evolutionary origin of that variation had not previously been studied experimentally. Growth in the LTEE is carbon limited and nitrogen and phosphorus are abundant. Additionally, daily transfer to fresh media selects for increased growth rate, which other research has suggested correlates to higher phosphorus content. Consistent with our predictions based on this environment, clones isolated after 50,000 generations of evolution had significantly higher nitrogen and phosphorus content than ancestral clones. There was no change in the proportion of carbon in biomass, but the total amount of carbon retained in biomass increased, indicating that the bacteria also evolved higher carbon use efficiency.To test whether the increases in nitrogen and phosphorus observed in the LTEE were a result of carbon limitation or were side effects of other selective factors in the experiment, I evolved clones from the LTEE for 1000 generations under nitrogen rather than carbon limitation (Chapter 4). The stoichiometry of the bacteria did change over the course of 1000 generations, indicating that evolution of stoichiometry can occur over relatively short time frames. Unexpectedly however, the evolved bacteria had higher nitrogen and phosphorus content. It appears that the bacteria were initially poor at incorporating nitrogen into biomass, but evolved improved nitrogen uptake.
The Evolution of Neural Plasticity in Digital Organisms
Sheneman, Leigh
Learning is a phenomenon that organisms throughout nature demonstrate and that machinelearning aims to replicate. In nature, it is neural plasticity that allows an organismto integrate the outcomes of their past experiences into their selection of future actions.While neurobiology has identified some of the mechanisms used in this integration, how theprocess works is still a relatively unclear and highly researched topic in the cognitive sciencefield. Meanwhile in the field of machine...
Show moreLearning is a phenomenon that organisms throughout nature demonstrate and that machinelearning aims to replicate. In nature, it is neural plasticity that allows an organismto integrate the outcomes of their past experiences into their selection of future actions.While neurobiology has identified some of the mechanisms used in this integration, how theprocess works is still a relatively unclear and highly researched topic in the cognitive sciencefield. Meanwhile in the field of machine learning, researchers aim to create algorithms thatare also able to learn from past experiences; this endeavor is complicated by the lack ofunderstanding how this process takes place within natural organisms.In this dissertation, I extend the Markov Brain framework [1, 2] which consists of evolvablenetworks of probabilistic and deterministic logic gates to include a novel gate type{feedback gates. Feedback gates use internally generated feedback to learn how to navigatea complex task by learning in the same manner a natural organism would. The evolutionarypath the Markov Brains take to develop this ability provides insight into the evolutionof learning. I show that the feedback gates allow Markov Brains to evolve the ability tolearn how to navigate environments by relying solely on their experiences. In fact, the probabilisticlogic tables of these gates adapt to the point where the an input almost alwaysresults in a single output, to the point of almost being deterministic. Further, I show thatthe mechanism the gates use to adapt their probability table is robust enough to allow theagents to successfully complete the task in novel environments. This ability to generalizeto the environment means that the Markov Brains with feedback gates that emerge fromevolution are learning autonomously; that is without external feedback. In the context ofmachine learning, this allows algorithms to be trained based solely on how they interact withthe environment. Once a Markov Brain can generalize, it is able adapt to changing sets of stimuli, i.e. reversal learn. Machines that are able to reversal learn are no longer limited tosolving a single task. Lastly, I show that the neuro-correlate is increased through neuralplasticity using Markov Brains augmented with feedback gates. The measurement of isbased on Information Integration Theory[3, 4] and quanties the agent's ability to integrateinformation.
Applying evolutionary computation techniques to address environmental uncertainty in dynamically adaptive systems
Ramirez, Andres J.
A dynamically adaptive system (DAS) observes itself and its execution environment at run time to detect conditions that warrant adaptation. If an adaptation is necessary, then a DAS changes its structure and/or behavior to continuously satisfy its requirements, even as its environment changes. It is challenging, however, to systematically and rigorously develop a DAS due to environmental uncertainty. In particular, it is often infeasible for a human to identify all possible combinations of...
Show moreA dynamically adaptive system (DAS) observes itself and its execution environment at run time to detect conditions that warrant adaptation. If an adaptation is necessary, then a DAS changes its structure and/or behavior to continuously satisfy its requirements, even as its environment changes. It is challenging, however, to systematically and rigorously develop a DAS due to environmental uncertainty. In particular, it is often infeasible for a human to identify all possible combinations of system and environmental conditions that a DAS might encounter throughout its lifetime. Nevertheless, a DAS must continuously satisfy its requirements despite the threat that this uncertainty poses to its adaptation capabilities. This dissertation proposes a model-based framework that supports the specification, monitoring, and dynamic reconfiguration of a DAS to explicitly address uncertainty. The proposed framework uses goal-oriented requirements models and evolutionary computation techniques to derive and fine-tune utility functions for requirements monitoring in a DAS, identify combinations of system and environmental conditions that adversely affect the behavior of a DAS, and generate adaptations on-demand to transition the DAS to a target system configuration while preserving system consistency. We demonstrate the capabilities of our model-based framework by applying it to an industrial case study involving a remote data mirroring network that efficiently distributes data even as network links fail and messages are dropped, corrupted, and delayed.
Ecological effects on the evolution of cooperative behaviors
Connelly, Brian Dale
Cooperative behaviors abound in nature and can be observed across the spectrum of life, from humans and primates to bacteria and other microorganisms. A deeper understanding of the forces that shape cooperation can offer key insights into how groups of organisms form and co-exist, how life transitioned to multicellularity, and account for the vast diversity present in ecosystems. This knowledge lends itself to a number of applications, such as understanding animal behavior and engineering...
Show moreCooperative behaviors abound in nature and can be observed across the spectrum of life, from humans and primates to bacteria and other microorganisms. A deeper understanding of the forces that shape cooperation can offer key insights into how groups of organisms form and co-exist, how life transitioned to multicellularity, and account for the vast diversity present in ecosystems. This knowledge lends itself to a number of applications, such as understanding animal behavior and engineering cooperative multi-agent systems, and may further help provide a fundamental basis for new industrial and medical treatments targeting communities of cooperating microorganisms.Although these behaviors are common, how evolution selected for and maintained them remains a difficult question for which several theories have been introduced. These theories, such as inclusive fitness and group selection, generally focus on the fitness costs and benefits of the behavior in question, and are often invoked to examine whether a trait with some predetermined costs and benefits could be maintained as an evolutionarily-stable strategy. Populations, however, do not exist and evolve in a vacuum. The environment in which they find themselves can play a critical role in shaping the types of adaptations that organisms accumulate, since one behavior may be highly beneficial in one environment, yet a hindrance in another. Ever-changing environments further complicate this picture, as maintaining a repertoire of behaviors for surviving in different environments is often costly. In addition to these environmental forces, the number and composition of other organisms with which individuals interact impose additional constraints. The combination of these factors results in significantly more complex dynamics.Using computational models and microbial populations, this dissertation examines several ways in which ecological factors can affect the evolution of cooperative behaviors. First, environmental disturbance is examined, in which a cooperative act enables organisms and their surrounding neighbors to survive a periodic kill event (population bottleneck) of varying severity. Resource availability is then studied, where populations must determine how much resource to allocate to cooperation. Finally, the effect that social structure, which define the patterns of interactions among the individuals in a population, is investigated.
Mechanisms of adaptation and speciation : an experimental study using artificial life
Anderson, Carlos Jesus
Detailed experimental studies in evolutionary biology are sometimes difficult--even with model organisms. Theoretical models alleviate some of these difficulties and often provide clean results, but they cannot always capture the complexity of dynamic evolutionary processes. Artificial life systems are tools that fall somewhere between model organisms and theoretical models that have been successfully used to study evolutionary biology. These systems simulate simple organisms that replicate,...
Show moreDetailed experimental studies in evolutionary biology are sometimes difficult--even with model organisms. Theoretical models alleviate some of these difficulties and often provide clean results, but they cannot always capture the complexity of dynamic evolutionary processes. Artificial life systems are tools that fall somewhere between model organisms and theoretical models that have been successfully used to study evolutionary biology. These systems simulate simple organisms that replicate, acquire random mutations, and reproduce differentially; as a consequence, they evolve naturally (i.e., evolution itself is not simulated). Here I use the software Avida to study several open questions on the genetic mechanisms of adaptation and speciation.In Chapter 1 (p. 13), I investigated whether beneficial alleles during adaptation came from new mutations or standing genetic variation--alleles already present in the population. I found that most beneficial alleles came from standing genetic variation, but new mutations were necessary for long-term evolution. I also found that adaptation from standing genetic variation was faster than from new mutations. Finally, I found that recombination brought together beneficial combinations of alleles from standing genetic variation.In Chapter 2 (p. 31), I investigated the probability of compensatory adaptation vs. reversion. Compensatory adaptation is the fixation of mutations that ameliorate the effects of deleterious mutations while the original deleterious mutations remain fixed. I found that compensatory adaptation was very common, but the window of opportunity for reversion was increased when the initial fitness of the population was high, the population size was large, and the mutation rate was high. The reason that the window of opportunity for reversion was constrained was that negative epistatic interactions with compensatory mutations prevented the revertant from being beneficial to the population.In Chapter 3 (p. 58), I showed experimentally that compensatory adaptation can lead to reproductive isolation (specifically, postzygotic isolation). In addition, I found that the strength of this isolation was independent of the effect size of the original deleterious mutations. Finally, I found that both deleterious and compensatory mutations contribute equally to reproductive isolation.Reproductive isolation between populations often evolves as a byproduct of independent adaptation to new environments, but the selective pressures of these environments may be divergent (`ecological speciation') or uniform (`mutation-order speciation'). In Chapter 4 (p. 75), I compared directly the strength of postzygotic isolation generated by ecological and mutation-order processes with and without migration. I found that ecological speciation generally formed stronger isolation than mutation-order speciation and that mutation-order speciation was more sensitive to migration than ecological speciation.Under the Dobzhansky-Muller model of speciation, hybrid inviability or sterility results from the evolution of genetic incompatibilities (DMIs) between species-specific alleles. This model predicts that the number of pairwise DMIs between species should increase quadratically through time, but the few tests of this `snowball effect' have had conflicting results. In Chapter 5 (p. 101), I show that pairwise DMIs accumulated quadratically, supporting the snowball effect. I found that more complex genetic interactions involved alleles that rescued pairwise incompatibilities, explaining the discrepancy between the expected accumulations of DMIs and observation.
Evolution of distributed behavior
Knoester, David B.
In this dissertation, we describe a study in the evolution of distributed behavior, where evolutionary algorithms are used to discover behaviors for distributed computing systems. We define distributed behavior as that in which groups of individuals must both cooperate in working towards a common goal and coordinate their activities in a harmonious fashion. As such, communication among individuals is necessarily a key component of distributed behavior, and we have identified three classes of...
Show moreIn this dissertation, we describe a study in the evolution of distributed behavior, where evolutionary algorithms are used to discover behaviors for distributed computing systems. We define distributed behavior as that in which groups of individuals must both cooperate in working towards a common goal and coordinate their activities in a harmonious fashion. As such, communication among individuals is necessarily a key component of distributed behavior, and we have identified three classes of distributed behavior that require communication: data-driven behaviors, where semantically meaningful data is transmitted between individuals; temporal behaviors, which are based on the relative timing of individuals' actions; and structural behaviors, which are responsible for maintaining the underlying communication network connecting individuals. Our results demonstrate that evolutionary algorithms can discover groups of individuals that exhibit each of these different classes of distributed behavior, and that these behaviors can be discovered both in isolation (e.g., evolving a purely data-driven algorithm) and in concert (e.g., evolving an algorithm that includes both data-driven and structural behaviors). As part of this research, we show that evolutionary algorithms can discover novel heuristics for distributed computing, and hint at a new class of distributed algorithm enabled by such studies.The majority of this research was conducted with the Avida platform for digital evolution, a system that has been proven to aid researchers in understanding the biological process of evolution by natural selection. For this reason, the results presented in this dissertation provide the foundation for future studies that examine how distributed behaviors evolved in nature. The close relationship between evolutionary biology and evolutionary algorithms thus aids our study of evolving algorithms for the next generation of distributed computing systems.
The evolution of complexity and robustness in small populations
LaBar, Thomas
A central goal of evolutionary biology is to understand a population’s evolutionary trajectory from fundamental population-level characteristics. The mathematical framework of population genetics provides the tools to make these predictions. And while population genetics provides a well-studied framework to understand how adaptation and neutral evolution quantitatively alter population fitness, less attention has been paid to using population genetics to predict qualitative evolutionary...
Show moreA central goal of evolutionary biology is to understand a population’s evolutionary trajectory from fundamental population-level characteristics. The mathematical framework of population genetics provides the tools to make these predictions. And while population genetics provides a well-studied framework to understand how adaptation and neutral evolution quantitatively alter population fitness, less attention has been paid to using population genetics to predict qualitative evolutionary outcomes. For instance, do different populations evolve alternative genetic mechanisms to encode similar phenotypic traits, and if so, which processes lead to these differences? This dissertation investigates the role of population size in altering the qualitative outcome of evolution.It is difficult to experimentally investigate qualitative evolutionary outcomes, especially in small populations, due to the time required for novel evolutionary features to appear. To get around this constraint, I use digital experimental evolution. While digital evolution experiments lack aspects of biological realism, in some regards they are the only methodology that can approach the complexity of biological systems while maintaining the ease of analysis present in mathematical models. Digital evolution experiments can never prove that certain evolutionary trajectories occur in biological populations, but they can suggest hypotheses to test in more realistic model systems.First, I explore the role of population size in determining the evolution of both genomic and phenotypic complexity. Previous hypotheses have argued that small population size may lead to increases in complexity and I test aspects of those hypotheses here. Second, I introduce the novel concept of “drift robustness” and argue that drift robustness is a strong factor in the evolution of small populations. Finally, I end with a project on the role of genome size in enhancing the extinction risk of small populations. I conclude with a broader discussion of the consequences of this research, some limitations of the results, and some ideas for future research.
A Differential Evolution Approach to Feature Selection in Genomic Prediction
Whalen, Ian
The use of genetic markers has become widespread for prediction of genetic merit in agricultural applications and is a beginning to show promise for estimating propensity to disease in human medicine. This process is known as genomic prediction and attempts to model the mapping between an organism's genotype and phenotype. In practice, this process presents a challenging problem. Sequencing and recording phenotypic traits are often expensive and time consuming. This leads to datasets often...
Show moreThe use of genetic markers has become widespread for prediction of genetic merit in agricultural applications and is a beginning to show promise for estimating propensity to disease in human medicine. This process is known as genomic prediction and attempts to model the mapping between an organism's genotype and phenotype. In practice, this process presents a challenging problem. Sequencing and recording phenotypic traits are often expensive and time consuming. This leads to datasets often having many more features than samples. Common models for genomic prediction often fall victim to overfitting due to the curse of dimensionality. In this domain, only a fraction of the markers that are present significantly affect a particular trait. Models that fit to non-informative markers are in effect fitting to statistical noise, leading to a decrease in predictive performance. Therefore, feature selection is desirable to remove markers that do not appear to have a significant effect on the trait being predicted. The method presented here uses differential evolution based search for feature selection. This study will characterize differential evolution's efficacy in feature selection for genomic prediction and present several extensions to the base search algorithm in an attempt to apply domain knowledge to guide the search toward better solutions.
The evolution of a key innovation in an experimental population of Escherichia coli : a tale of opportunity, contingency, and co-option
Blount, Zachary David
The importance of historical contingency in evolution has been extensively debated over the last few decades, but direct empirical tests have been rare. Twelve initially identical populations of E. coli were founded in 1988 to investigate this issue. They have since evolved for more than 50,000 generations in a glucose-limited medium that also contains a citrate. However, the inability to use citrate as a carbon source under oxic conditions is a species-defining trait of ...
Show moreThe importance of historical contingency in evolution has been extensively debated over the last few decades, but direct empirical tests have been rare. Twelve initially identical populations of E. coli were founded in 1988 to investigate this issue. They have since evolved for more than 50,000 generations in a glucose-limited medium that also contains a citrate. However, the inability to use citrate as a carbon source under oxic conditions is a species-defining trait of E. coli. A weakly Cit+ variant capable of aerobic citrate utilization finally evolved in one population just prior to 31,500 generations. Shortly after 33,000 generations, the population experienced a several-fold expansion as strongly Cit+ variants rose to numerical dominance (but not fixation). The Cit+ trait was therefore a key innovation that increased both population size and diversity by opening a previously unexploited ecological opportunity.The long-delayed and unique evolution of the Cit+ innovation might be explained by two possible hypotheses. First, evolution of the Cit+ function may have required an extremely rare mutation. Alternately, the evolution of Cit+ may have been contingent upon one or more earlier mutations that had accrued over the population's history. I tested these hypotheses in a series of experiments in which I "replayed" evolution from different points in the population's history. I observed no Cit+ mutants among 8.4 x 1012 ancestral cells, nor among 9 x 1012 cells from 60 clones sampled in the first 15,000 generations. However, I observed a significantly greater tendency to evolve Cit+ among later clones. These results indicate that one or more earlier mutations potentiated the evolution of Cit+ by increasing the rate of mutation to Cit+ to an accessible, though still very low, level. The evolution of the Cit+ function was therefore contingent on the particular history of the population in which it occurred.I investigated the Cit+ innovation's history and genetic basis by sequencing the genomes of 29 clones isolated from the population at various time points. Analysis of these genomes revealed that at least 3 distinct clades coexisted for more than 10,000 generations prior to the innovation's evolution. The Cit+ trait originated in one clade by a tandem duplication that produced a new regulatory module in which a silent citrate transporter was placed under the control of an aerobically-expressed promoter. Subsequent increases in the copy number of this new regulatory module refined the initially weak Cit+ phenotype, leading to the population expansion. The 3 clades varied in their propensity to evolve the novel Cit+ function, though genotypes able to do so existed in all 3, implying that potentiation involved multiple mutations.My findings demonstrate that historical contingency can significantly impact evolution, even under the strictest of conditions. Moreover, they suggest that contingency plays an especially important role in the evolution of novel innovations that, like Cit+, require prior construction of a potentiating genetic background, and are thus not easily evolved by gradual, cumulative selection. Contingency may therefore have profoundly shaped life's evolution given the importance of evolutionary novelties in the history of life. Finally, the genetic basis of the Cit+ function illustrates the importance of promoter capture and altered gene regulation in mediation the exaptation events that often underlie evolutionary innovations.
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Pakistan, Punjab
Punjab govt takes steps for water conservation
Honorable Justice Lahore High Court Shahid Karim, formed a judicial commission under the supervision of Retd Justic Ali Akbar Qureshi this year to take necessary measures for the conservation of water.
The main objectives of this commission were to manage water reservoirs, conservation of water, make revenue out of non-revenue water, treatment of water and stop water theft.
A session of water commission is organised every week to check and evaluate the reports received from various related departments. The judicial commission in collaboration with 14 other institutes has taken important steps for the conservation of water.
These institutes are: WASA, AQAF, Cooperative Housing, Lahore Cantonment Board, Dolphin Force, LDA, Industries, District Management, Lahore Walton Cantonment Board, LWMC, Irrigation, Environment, PHA and DHA.
Since, car service stations were using unrestricted water supply for a long time, the court directed WASA to begin inspection of the service stations and disconnect water supply to those without a water recycling system.
In second phase these service stations were issued notices and given two months for installations of the recycling plants to save water. Those service stations who failed to install recycling plants were sealed whereas those who ensured to install within two weeks were considered under observation. Almost 50% service stations have installed recycling plants and the rest are in process. The Cantonment Board and DHA are also taking measures on the same lines. This step has helped save 260,000 gallon of water per day.
For irrigation of parks, 17 irrigation channels have been restored. It includes, Aitcheson College, FC College, Jinnah Garden, Governor House, Mayo Garden, New Campus, Model Town Park and other irrigation channels. It has helped has save 113,000,000 gallon of water per day.
On the directives of judicial water commission, WASA installed an underground tank in a park adjacent to Nimra Mosque in Johar town for the irrigation of plants. It has helped save 1,500 gallons of water per day for irrigation purposes. Parks and Horticulture Department has followed the same model and constructed underground tanks along 52 mosques. It has further helped, save 60,000 gallons of water per day for plants.
On the directives of the judicial water commission, Dolphin Force is monitoring water users outside houses. These teams take pictures and impose fine of Rs 1,000 on the domestic consumers. A fine of Rs 5,000 has been imposed in DHA.
WASA Lahore has prepared a model on the basis of public private partnership. It could help save 10,000,000 gallons of water per day.
The Lahore High Court’s Justice Shahid Karim has instructed Lahore deputy commissioner to implement all these measures in other cities of Punjab.
The WASA Lahore is working on a project to make BRB Canal’s water drinkable. The completion of this project will reduce dependency on underground water aquifer.
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Dan Russell-Pinson
Games, Art, Photography and more…
Tag Archives: Nepal
Stranger 38/100 – Bini
“I’m a food blogger, so I go around Charlotte trying different food. It’s called Bini Eats.”
Meet Bini.
What does food mean to you? “I just want to share different culture’s food. A lot of people are so comfortable with what they’re eating. They don’t want to go out and try new food. I want to show that Charlotte is beautiful and there’s so many good places that I want to share.”
What advice would you give to your younger self? “Love yourself. You know I moved from Nepal when I was little and I’ve always tried to adjust with everyone around me, like try to be them. But then, I forget the unique me. I’m from Nepal, that already makes me unique, and I want to like express that and love myself.”
How old were you when you moved here? “Ten. I’ve moved from places to places, different schools all the time, so it’s always been adjusting myself. I think I’m happy where I am right now.”
What is your biggest challenge? “My passion is to travel, and I’m just looking for ways to travel around the world, share people’s stories, find different, unique food and explore places that people have never been before.”
Where do you want to be in ten years? “You know, I’ve always been in a family where all you do is get a job, get married, have kids… it’s always been like that. In my family everyone is a doctor or a dentist, you know, so there’s high hopes. There’s like that thing that’s set on me that you have to do something like that. But, honestly, I just want to find peace of mind maybe be like in a tropical island selling ice cream to little kids, doing yoga… in that spiritual vibe. I just want to find that.”
Technical Notes: Bini chose this colorful mural as the backdrop for her portrait, and it definitely suits her personality. I used a small LED panel to light up the left side of her face.
Posted in 100 Strangers, Photography, Street Photography
Tagged 100 Strangers, 50mm, bini, blogger, charlotte, food, nc, Nepal, north carolina, people, portrait, portraits, scarf, Street Photography, street portrait
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Committees & Workgroups
DACA / Undocumented Students
Syracuse University DACA/Undocumented Students Solidarity Statement
Syracuse University has a long, proud history of/for its commitment to diversity, social justice, civic engagement and cultural pluralism. In order to honor that commitment as a higher education institution, we must continue to mindfully develop a student body that is not only diverse, but also informed, socially aware and truly committed to seriously engaging with all members of the University community. It is our belief that the future of the 2012 executive action, known as the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), merits further discussion among the SU community. DACA has granted many youth and young adults the ability to be gainfully employed and pursue advanced educational opportunities, thereby becoming contributing members of society.
Syracuse University welcomes all students. We were reminded as an academic community that it is our responsibility to support our community of Dreamers, who are eligible for deportation if lack of action among Congress and the President results in jeopardizing the opportunity for these young people to legally remain in the only country many of whom have only known for most of their entire lives.
The University has demonstrated support for our community of Dreamers. In a December 7, 2016 message to the University community, Chancellor Kent Syverud charged members of the SU community to work together to ensure all members of the community are protected from physical harm, discrimination and intimidation. An Ad Hoc Committee on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)/Undocumented Students was formed in February 2017. The committee focused on establishing opportunities for dialogue and reflection among students, faculty and staff regarding this important issue. A report with was made to the Chancellor in late May 2017 with specific recommendations as to how best to support our DACA students. All recommendations were approved.
We must continue to work and advocate for our DACA students. It is imperative that, as a University, we are vigilant to the specific challenges this population faces. We must ensure adequate resources are provided to allow them to be informed of their rights, feel protected in their surroundings, and achieve successful completion of their academic course of study.
Syracuse University stands firmly behind our DACA/undocumented students. We must continue to remain informed and vigilant about federal policies. We will continue to support and fight for the best interests of all of our students, whether they are DACA, undocumented or mixed status students. We believe in their promise for the future of this country and for Syracuse University.
United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), a U.S. government agency that oversees lawful immigration processes and manages immigrant benefits function, including DACA applications and renewals.
National Immigration Law Center, one of the leading nongovernmental organizations in the U.S. that advocates for rights of immigrants.
American Immigration Council, a nonprofit that advocates for immigrants, including through research and policy analysis.
American Immigration Lawyers Association, a national association of immigration lawyers.
Center for Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, Pennsylvania State Law School.
Legal Support at Syracuse University (not official legal counsel)
Jennifer Gavilondo, Associate General Counsel, Office of University Counsel, jgavilon@syr.edu
Legal Resources in Syracuse
Hiscock Legal Aid Society: Lucero Saldana Mistry, Immigration Attorney, lsaldana@hlalaw.org
AILA, Upstate NY Chapter: Divya Hoffman, Pro Bono Liaison, divyahoffmann@gmail.com
Below are numerous resources that can help you navigate our campus community. Some individuals have been highlighted who are sensitive to the needs of DACA/Undocumented students and students with “mixed-status families”.
DACA/Undocumented Student Liaison
Huey Hsiao
548 Bird Library
222 Waverly Ave.
huhsiao@syr.edu
Admissions and Financial Aid
The Office of Admissions is generally your first point of contact at Syracuse University. Undocumented students and students with DACA status should connect with the International Admissions team if they have questions. We are very happy to assist you with navigating the nuances of the application process to Syracuse University.
Jennifer Mathews
Director, International Admissions
200 Crouse-Hinds Hall
jmmathew@syr.edu
Institutional need-based aid is available for undocumented undergraduate students regardless of DACA status. Aid is based on your completion of the CSS Profile application. Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is not required. For more information on how to apply, please contact Laura Ortiz.
Laura Ortiz
200 Bowne Hall
laortiz@syr.edu
Syracuse University Career Services can help connect your dots, from your first year through your last, and beyond. With a team focused on helping you discover your passions, explore your options, build skills and make connections, we can assist you in discovering who you want to be and where you want to go. We can assist you in finding internships and job opportunities, exploring graduate and law programs or discussing your career goals.
Michael LaMarche
Director of Career Services, Assessment and Student Success
Women’s Building, Suite 310
mjlamarc@syr.edu
Counseling at the Barnes Center at The Arch
The counseling team at the Barnes Center at The Arch supports and enhances student health and wellness by providing comprehensive and holistic mental health, substance abuse, and sexual assault and relationship violence-related services. Operating within a multicultural framework and with a social justice orientation, the Barnes Center strives to assist students by providing support during times of crisis, providing advocacy when needed, facilitating problem resolution, enhancing coping skills, promoting personal growth, and supporting academic success.
Karin DeLeon
Staff Therapist
kldeleon@syr.edu
Case managers provide comprehensive prevention, outreach and follow up services to identify and assist students in need of support in managing any aspects of their well-being. Case Managers work collaboratively with both off and on campus resources to proactively identify and serve students in need. Case managers take a strength based approach and strives to create safer spaces for all in which resilience, self-advocacy, and personal and academic success are achieved.
Effective case management prioritizes the safety and security of the University community and works to ensure that individual students have access to appropriate resources and support services.
Emma Moteyunas
310 Steele Hall
esmoteyu@syr.edu
Finding your “Home”
These departments, offices, and centers are more than just places to take a class, listen to a lecture, or participate in a program. They are places where you can find someone who will listen to you and that can provide community and support. They can be a place where you can find a “home”. Participating in a mentoring program is great way to actively learn how to navigate the campus, and to be supported in engaging in the student experience. A list of mentoring programs can also be found below.
Asian/Asian American Studies
Center for International Services
Community Folk Arts Center
Disability Cultural Center
Hendricks Chapel
Latino-Latin American Studies
LGBT Resource Center
Graduate study and research have been recognized as a critical piece of Syracuse University’s mission since its inception in 1870. Today, every school and college at Syracuse offers graduate study, and the University awards approximately 1,700 master’s degrees and certificates of advanced study and 150 doctoral degrees annually. In all, more than 135 graduate degree and certificate programs are offered at the University.
Glenn Wright
304 Lyman Hall
glwright@syr.edu
The Department of Public Safety (DPS) is dedicated to maintaining a safe and secure living, learning and working environment in partnership with those it serves by respectfully employing the highest professional standards and providing exceptional services to the Syracuse University community.
It is not DPS’s responsibility to enforce federal laws regarding immigration status, and DPS will not inquire about the immigration status of students.
Kathleen Pabis
005 Sims Hall
kmpabis@syr.edu
Off-Campus Resources
American Immigration Council
ASPIRE (Asian Students Promoting Immigrant Rights through Education)
Black Alliance for Just Immigration
Council on American-Islamic Relations
My (Un)Documented Life
United We Dream
Contacts within relevant multicultural student organizations
Here is a small sampling of student organizations that may interest undocumented students.
African Student Union
Asian Students in America
Central New York Civil Liberties Union at Syracuse University
La Lucha
Xicanxs Empowering Xicanxs (XEX)
Here is the list of over 300 student organizations.
Do I need a social security number in order to apply for college?
A Social Security number is not required to apply to Syracuse University.
Can an undocumented student apply for admission without DACA?
I am a DACA student applying outside of the State of New York. Can I still apply?
Yes, Syracuse University is a private institution, and we have enrolled undocumented students from many different states.
Is there eligibility for federal or state financial aid, or programs such as Higher Educational Opportunity Program (HEOP)?
Students in an undocumented or DACA status are not eligible for Title IV Federal or state financial aid.
Are DACA students eligible to fill out the CSS Profile?
Yes! Both DACA and undocumented students can complete the CSS PROFILE.
How do I complete the CSS (College Scholarship Service) Profile?
You can apply on the CSS website. Be sure to list Syracuse University (code 002882) as a recipient school.
Do I qualify for the resident tuition rate?
Syracuse University is a private institution, so tuition is the same for all students, residents and nonresidents.
How can undocumented students apply for admission at Syracuse University?
All undergraduate applicants apply to Syracuse University via the Common Application.
For graduate studies, students may submit an application to the Graduate School.
What financial aid is available to me as an undocumented or DACA-holding student?
DACA and undocumented students may qualify for need-based financial aid, based upon their completion of the CSS PROFILE. Undocumented students may also receive merit or opportunity scholarships if they meet established criteria.
In addition, we have compiled a list of scholarships available to undocumented and DACA status students here.
My college requires students to complete the FAFSA to apply for institutional scholarships. If I have been granted DACA status and have received a social security number, can I complete the FAFSA?
We do not require a FAFSA at Syracuse University for DACA or undocumented students.
If the DACA program is canceled or revoked, will I be able to finish my Syracuse University degree?
The University has recently formulated a policy related to degree completion in the instance of immigration-related interruptions of study. Please visit the Pathways to Degree Completion page for more information.
Will my ability to receive financial aid be affected by the changes to DACA?
No. We offer need-based institutional financial aid to undocumented students regardless of DACA status.
Can I still use services, such as health care and counseling services at the Barnes Center at The Arch, if my DACA expires?
Is Syracuse University legally required to assist the federal government with immigration enforcement? What actions will Syracuse University take if immigration policy at the federal level changes?
Absent a subpoena, warrant or court order, we do not voluntarily assist, or act on behalf or at the direction of, federal officials in connection with immigration investigations or raids. Should federal immigration law or policy change, we will review our procedures in light of such changes.
How does Syracuse University protect the privacy of students’ personal information?
All of our students are protected under FERPA and HIPPA, regardless of status.
For additional questions, please refer to the Know Your Rights section.
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FISKE, George Converse
Roxbury Highlands
George Alfred & Kate Washburn F.
Augustine Louise Eileau, 26 Dec. 1908.
A.B. Harvard, 1894; A.M., 1897; Ph.D., 1900; study at Bonn & Halle.
Tchr. Belmont, MA, & instr. Gk. & Lat. Phillips Acad. (Andover, MA), 1900-1; instr. to prof. Lat. U. Wisconsin, 1901-27.
“Quas sententias gens Claudia habuerit de re publica administranda quaeritur” (Harvard, 1900); printed as “The Politics of the Patrician Claudii,” HSCP 13 (1902) 1-59.
“Notes on the Worship of the Roman Emperors in Spain,” HSCP 11 (1900) 101-39; “Lucilius and Persius,” TAPA 40 (1909) 121-50; “Lucilius, the Ars Poetica of Horace, and Persius,” HSCP 24 (1913) 1-36; “Udas ante Fores: Persius V.165-66,” CP 11 (1916) 336-7; “The Plain Style in the Scipionic Circle,” Classical Studies in Honor of Charles Forster Smith, Wisconsin Studies in Language and Literature 3 (1919) 62-105; Lucilius and Horace (Madison, 1920); “Augustus and the Religion of Reconstruction,” Wisconsin Stud. Lang. & Lit., 2d ser. no. 15 (1922) 111-33; “Cicero's Orator and Horace's Ars Poetica,” with Mary A. Grant, HSCP 35 (1924) 1-75.
Fiske's chief contribution is his volume on Lucilius and Horace, which received considerable praise both in this country and in Europe. His scholarly life was devoted to Roman religion and the effect of Greek rhetoric on Roman satire. He was an effective teacher, regularly teaching undergraduates Livy and Latin composition, while he offered seminars to graduate students in Tacitus' Germania or Aeneid 6. Keen on imparting new methods of instruction and maintaining the standards of Latin teaching in Wisconsin, he frequently visited the high schools of the state and spoke regularly at state teachers' meetings. As senior editor of Classical Bulletin, he contributed numerous editorials notable for their intelligence and integrity. At his sudden death from a heart attack, he was finishing a volume on rhetoric and literary composition for the “Our Debt to Greece and Rome” series.
CJ 22 (1926-27) 450-1; CP 22 (1927) 308; Kenneth Scott, DAB 6:418-19; W. E. Leonard & G. Showerman, Nation (16 Feb. 1927) 170.
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Jim Suptic
Prairie Village, KS
Related Projects: The Get Up Kids, Blackpool Lights, Radar State
Genres: AcousticEmoIndieAlternative
Empty Tank
Full Band Studio Recording
Single Guitar / Multiple Vocals Studio Recording
Jim is best known for being the lead guitarist and sometimes singer of The Get Up Kids, as well as the singer and guitarist for the band Blackpool Lights. Jim has been a touring musician for over 20 years and he likes to write personal songs about the crazy journey we are all on called life.
Let Jim Suptic Write You a Song!
We're sorry but Jim is not presently taking requests.
What is Downwrite?
Downwrite is a platform enabling songwriters to connect with fans on a personal, creative level.
Fans and music lovers connect with an artist & hire them to write & record a one-of-a-kind piece of music, which they provide the inspiration & direction for! Entirely original, entirely personalized.
I am a singer/songwriter/musician. How can I be on the site?
We'd love to have you on the platform! Head down to the "Become An Artist" link at the bottom of the site & get the process started.
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The songwriter retains all songwriting credit. The delivered recording, however, is one-of-a-kind, made specifically for the requester, and will not be released. The content of the song may be used by the songwriter for future work.
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The song may have been inadvertently sent to your junk or spam folder. Please add @downwrite.com emails to your safe list to ensure this does not happen. If you have not received a note from Downwrite on hehalf of the artist within 3 weeks of your request, send us an email at info@downwrite.com and we will contact the artist for an update on your behalf.
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Jensplaining
The Vagina Bible
Sterilization camp in India kills 11 women – a government funded slaughterhouse
Posted byDr. Jen Gunter November 12, 2014 November 13, 2014 16 Comments on Sterilization camp in India kills 11 women – a government funded slaughterhouse
The reports from India read more like the review of a horror movie rather than a detailing of a government funded surgical program – 83 women receiving a surgical sterilization leaving 11 dead and another 50 hospitalized, 20 of whom (as of this posting) are seriously ill. And all of this happened in six hours with one surgeon at a government sponsored sterilization camp.
As an OB/GYN I want to tell you how bad this actually is…
The most common method of tubal ligation is by laparoscopy, which is major surgery. An operating telescope is placed into the belly and a clip is placed across the Fallopian tubes to clamp them shut. Sometimes doctors remove the Fallopian tubes or burn them. The biggest risk from the surgery is inadvertently injuring the bowel (spilling stool leading to potentially catastrophic infection, bleeding, and even death), cutting a blood vessel (resulting in uncontrollable bleeding), and infection (from non bowel injury causes). There is also risk from the anesthesia. Patients are counselled about warning signs of these complications so they can get care sooner rather than later should a problem arise.
With competent surgeons, anesthesiologists, and nurses and clean hospitals the risks of laparoscopic tubal ligation are low. In one study of over 9,000 tubal ligations in the United States there was one serious complication and no deaths. Using a more liberal definition of serious complication the rate rose to 1%. A Swiss study indicates no deaths in a review of more than 27,000 procedures. Overall, the estimate is that 1-2 women will die for every 100,000 laparoscopic tubal ligation with most deaths anesthetic related. Basically, 99% of healthy women should expect to have no major issues beyond a day or two of recovery and for the women who do have major complications most involve getting a larger surgical incision and immediate repair of the damage with no long-term issues.
The other method of tubal ligation is done through the uterus and called a hysteroscopic tubal ligation. This can be done in the office (and takes about 20 minutes start to finish versus 40 minutes for a laparoscopic tubal ligation), saving the risk of the anesthesia. It is also less expensive. The risk of injuring blood vessels and bowel is still there (if the device is inserted incorrectly it can puncture the uterus and potentially cause bleeding/bowel injury/and infection), but studies tell us that the complication rate is likely lower than a laparoscopic tubal ligation.
It is likely the women in India had laparoscopic tubal ligations as the procedures are described in the press as “tubectomies” (impossible to do through the uterus).
That is why 11 deaths and 50 women hospitalized with 20 seriously ill is so appalling. A mortality rate of 13% for a procedure that should have a mortality rate of 0.001-2%.
83 tubal ligations in 6 hours and reportedly one surgeon and one or perhaps two assistants is nothing short of a horror show. It takes an average of 40 minutes to give a women an anesthetic, clean her belly, insert the instruments, clip the tubes, make sure nothing is injured, remove the scope, sew or glue the incisions, reverse the anesthetic, and get her off the operating table. It is possible, if everything is going smoothly and there are no complications, to sometimes have this done in 20-30 minutes. Even if there were 3 surgeons, 83 women in 6 hours is impossible unless of course hands were not cleaned and dirty intruments were just stabbed into bellies. The thought that the women may not have had adequate (or even any) anesthesia makes it even more horrifying. How could they given what has been described?
That the government funded this horror show is terrible. That a doctor was involved with this makes it even worse. Agreeing to such a perversion of health care is an abomination – 83 women simply can not have tubal ligations in 6 hours even with 3 competent surgeons and 3 anesthesiologists in a modern hospital never mind in a field. Understanding that doesn’t require a medical degree, just common sense and compassion. Money was offered to the women increasing an element of coercion. How many were forced by their families to go?
Government quotas for sterilization don’t empower women to make better decisions for themsleves and their families they only treat women like livestock. Or worse.
***November 13, 2014 update***
The BBC is reporting that the surgeon, Dr. RK Gupta, has been arrested. Sadly, the death toll has climbed to 15 women. 14 women died at the first camp (mentioned above) and 1 from another sterilization “camp” that was held two days later. Apparently 130 women were operated on over two day by just Dr. Gupta and an assistant.
Posted byDr. Jen Gunter November 12, 2014 November 13, 2014 Posted inContraception, Patient safety, war on womenTags: contraception, patient safety, war on women
Why women voting matters today more than ever
A letter to Dr. Oz for his In Box
Jessica A Bruno (waybeyondfedup) says:
Reblogged this on Jessica A Bruno (waybeyondfedup).
korhomme says:
I’m not an Ob/Gyn but was a general surgeon, and I do understand the procedures.
The reports speak of “tubectomy” rather than tubal ligation. Even so, to do such a procedure in five minutes or less, which is what the figures imply is impossible. Even under local anaesthesia, it is impossible.
Dr M de Bakey used to lots of heart valve replacements; but he had five or so operating theatres, and five teams. Each team would prepare the patient, including any necessary heart by-pass; Dr De Bakey only replaced the valve, the team completed the operation.
Even if this was how so many patients were “managed”, it still allows only a few minutes for the surgeon to clip the tubes after the anaesthesia (if any) has been given and the pneumoperitoneum to be established. Even so, I cannot see how so many women were operated on by one surgeon and an assistant in such a short time; it is just not credible.
enaffaaffane13 says:
What does that mean ….!!!!
ErinBliss says:
Even with all the problems this country this has, I am feeling blessed.
This is just sickening.
bethhavey says:
With the rapes in India and now this, women are obviously not honored. It is shameful in 2014 to read of this kind of slaughter–that’s really what it is.
Tom Yokohama says:
Unlicensed (and even those with licenses) medical professionals can and do make horrible decisions that lead to unnecessary suffering by patients and their loved ones whether in India, Japan, or the United States. The profit motive for both doctors and patients, poor regulation, public health policy concerns, and a whole host of other issues created an environment where this happened.
Unfortunately, Americans have a habit of cherry picking news like this to support their unsophisticated opinions about other nations (look up confirmation bias). Does India have a problem with rape? Yes. The United States has problems with rape, gender pay equality, domestic violence, age discrimination disproportionately aimed at women, body image shaming of women who do not fit pop culture ideals, and racism just to name a few but none of us condemn your nation. We call this bigotry.
Perhaps your shame and scorn extends to the events occurring in the United States but I don’t know. I do know doctors like Jennifer Gunter bring valuable experience to explain the news. There needs to be a discussion on solving the problems in India but discourse such as yours does nothing to advance any useful cause.
It may be that there is a caste problem; all the women came from the poorest, most disadvantaged caste.
Lyla Michaels says:
Reblogged this on Conversations I Wish I Had.
Canee says:
Dr Jen. Please advise about reading of HSV IgG positive (33) in first test and unequivocal in the second test after 15 days. Does it suggest virus has become dormant?
evmaroon says:
And just to throw a little more insult into the horror show, part of the money the women received for this had to be given back immediately to the van driver who took them to the surgeon. Sick.
Loren Pechtel says:
The local paper here had an article about this, contaminated drugs are suspect. On the other hand it said he had performed 50,000 such operations, from what you say that seems pretty unreasonable.
I’ve seen that about the contaminated drugs too. It sounds more like blame shifting.
It’s also reported that the scalpel was sterilised by dipping it in spirit between cases, and being discarded after 10 or so. The towel clips were similarly sterilised. Anyone with any understanding of the sterilisation of surgical instruments would see this as about as useful as dipping instruments in holy water.
I have yet to see an explanation of how it is possible to do a “tubectomy” in two to four minutes.
It looks like there’s something to the contamination claim:
Barbara O' Donnell says:
This is what happens (sickeningly) when women’s rights. education and access to contraception are slim or non-existent. And I agree that mistakes/problems/issues are not limited to first world countries. All of these things, no matter where they occur, need to be discussed openly in society.
Those instruments cannot have been sterilised in any meaningful way. No operating theatre, even in the West has 83 sets/scopes on hand. Even 40. A mini autoclave cycle would be 30 mins generally in between cases. And we have stopped using mini autoclaves in main operating theatres in the UK due to increasingly stringent traceability requirements.
I find it incredibly difficult that this doctor will have been attended by other healthcare professionals, all of whom were knowingly carrying out these procedures in worse than substandard conditions. Dr. Gupta’s assertions that he was “morally obligated” to operate on these women because the administration rounded up 83 of them is another load of absolute rubbish for which I don’t have words,
It’s also about poverty, the women operated on came from the lowest and most impoverished caste.
And the place of men and women in society; a vasectomy is quicker and less invasive than a tubal ligation, but apparently not so acceptable to men. India did have a vasectomy policy some years ago, this seems to have been curtailed.
The “Little Sister” and similar types of small autoclaves were useful when someone accidentally contaminated an instrument; it didn’t take long to autoclave it. However, doubts were raised about how effective it was.
Pingback: Claims of poisoning in India sterilization deaths seem unlikely | Dr. Jen Gunter
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Gwyneth Paltrow wants to take your money. The press is helping her
“Hot pants! DIY Gynecology” is a Hot Mess
How does a placenta previa “move” on ultrasound? (With video!)
Dr. Jen Gunter, Powered by WordPress.com
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Desitin is focused on pharmaceuticals for the treatment of epilepsy. It is the only manufacturer that offers the almost entire spectrum of products recommended by the WHO for the treatment of epilepsy. It should be noted that not all products are available in all countries.
Desitin not only offers a wide range of different therapeutics, but also a broad spectrum of presentations and dosage strengths.
Whereas most of these preparations have been developed in-house by Desitin and successfully sold within various countries of Europe, co-operations with licensors and the successful marketing of products licensed represent a cornerstone of Desitin’s latest developments.
Among the five products which are presently in the centre of our marketing efforts four products, namely Xeomin , Timox, Clarium and Diacomit, are licensed from European partner companies (Merz, Servier, Biocodex). These products are not currently available in the UK.
Besides its full range of antiepileptics Desitin promotes the following proprietary and licensed products:
Note: In UK Orfiril long and Orfiril solution for injection are marketed under the brand name of Episenta®▼ (sodium valproate prolonged release) or Episenta®▼ Solution for Injection.
In the UK Levetiracetam Desitin is marketed under the brand name of Desitrend® (levetiracetam)
None of the other products shown are available in the UK at this time from Desitin.
DESITIN ARZNEIMITTEL GmbH was founded in Berlin in 1919. We developed and successfully introduced the still frequently used Desitin® ointment as our first product. In 1945, Desitin relocated to Hamburg, where the development and sales of medication for illnesses of the central nervous system (CNS) began. The company became a specialist supplier and competent partner […]
Desitin concentrates its marketing efforts on the European continent. In a number of countries (key countries mainly in the UK, Scandinavia and Eastern Europe as well as in Switzerland) Desitin is present with own sales forces, whereas in other countries licencees and partners distribute Desitin’s products.
Desitin is focused on pharmaceuticals for the treatment of epilepsy. It is the only manufacturer that offers the almost entire spectrum of products recommended by the WHO for the treatment of epilepsy. It should be noted that not all products are available in all countries. Desitin not only offers a wide range of different therapeutics, […]
PRODUCT AVAILABILITY BY COUNTRIES
Three active ingredients play a major role in Desitin‘s own developments for epilepsy: Valproic acid, which is the first-line therapy for generalized seizures, Carbamazepine, which is of the same relevance for focal seizures, and Oxcarbazepine the more modern alternative to Carbamazepine.
Medium-sized, specialized pharmaceutical company Founded nearly 100 years ago
in Berlin Independent, family-owned, profitable company, based in Hamburg About 300 employees in development, production, sales, medicine, marketing and administration Established as a specialist in the
field of epilepsy Addition of further CNS indications Fully integrated pharmaceutical company Incorporating sales & marketing, commercial, medical affairs and […]
DESITIN PHARMA DISCLOSURE SUMMARY
Desitin Pharma Ltd disclosure of payments to Health Care Professionals (HCPs), Donations and Grants Date of Preparation April 2019
Pharmaceutical innovations developed by Desitin as well as the launch of new chemical entities licenced from partners represent corporate milestones throughout Desitin’s history. None of the products shown are available in the UK at this time from Desitin.
STRONG REPUTATION
Desitin’s straightforward approach together with the quality of its products from own development and licensors consequently lead to its high reputation within its main target group – neurologists – as shown in the results of the survey performed in Germany in 2013. Desitin is starting to build a reputation in the UK.
Desitin Pharmaceuticals GmbH – galenic innovation for over 40 years 2011 Levetiracetam Desitin The first levetiracetam minitablets worldwide (approved administration form: film-coated granules in sachets) 2010 Sumavel® DosePro® The first ready-to-use, needle free injector for sumatriptan in Europe* 2009 Topiramat Desitin quadro The first quartered topiramate tablet worldwide 2008 Apydan extent The first modified release formulation […]
SUPPLY CHAIN / PRODUCTION
Pharmaceuticals are developed, manufactured, procured, and tested at Desitin’s Hamburg site under modern conditions and then shipped to our customers worldwide. The comprehensive laws, regulations, and standards conforming to AMG, AMWHV, cGXP, etc. are mapped in a modern process-oriented and flexible organisation. Falsified Medicines Directive (Directive 2016/62/EU) Desitin is compliant with Directive 2016/62/EU. All products […]
Relevant information about our clinical development activities is provided below. At Desitin, we are proud of the fact that for decades we have consistently produced global innovations that have considerably improved and simplified drug treatment for doctors and patients, and have already become standard treatments. These innovations, which were and are always developed in close […]
© Desitin Pharma Ltd 2019
Disclosure Summary
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Compassionate City
See City Programs & Initiatives
Initiative Home
Compassionate Louisville's organization website
Compassionate City Mission Statement
Mayor's Give A Day Week
Metro United Way
Children's Charter For Compassion
Festival of Faiths
Interfaith Paths to Peace
527 W. Jefferson Street
https://dev.louisvilleky.gov/eform/submit/contact-department?field_choose_a_depa...
Louisville is a Compassionate City
On 11-11-11, Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer signed a resolution committing to a multi-year Compassionate Louisville campaign – making Louisville an international compassionate city, the largest city in America with that distinction.
“Being a compassionate city is both the right thing and the necessary thing to do to ensure that we take care of all of our citizens,” Fischer said. “There’s a role for all of us in making sure no one is left behind or goes wanting.”
Compassion can take many forms, Fischer said, ranging from shoveling snow from the sidewalk of an elderly neighbor to helping read to a struggling student.
Fischer said Louisville is already home to a “critical mass” of such organizations including the Muhammad Ali Center, Center for Interfaith Relations, the annual Festival of Faiths, Presbyterian USA headquarters, WaterStep, and universities and seminaries located here.
Among the initiatives in Louisville,are the Mayor's Give a Day Week, mentoring programs, and community beautification and clean projects.
“I'm impressed with what you've accomplished in Louisville, both in terms of your organization of the elements to mobilize the campaign as well as the broad constituency you've involved. What you’ve done and are moving forward in doing shows clear leadership,” said Ari Cowan, co-director of the International Institute, who joined Fischer at the signing ceremony.
To help develop and implement Louisville’s city-wide campaign for compassion, Fischer created the Partnership for a Compassionate Louisville.
The campaign will include developing alliances with key local and international organizations and groups that focus on compassion.
Initiative Home News
Mayor Fischer’s 2018 Give A Day Week breaks last year’s record with more than 205,000 volunteers and acts of compassion
Mayor Fischer rallies Louisville for 7th annual “Give A Day” Week of Service, April 14-22
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Stem cell transplantation for type 1 diabetes mellitus
Júlio C Voltarelli1 &
Carlos Eduardo Barra Couri1
Diabetology & Metabolic Syndrome volume 1, Article number: 4 (2009) Cite this article
The use of stem cells to treat type 1 diabetes mellitus has been proposed for many years, both to downregulate the immune system and to provide β cell regeneration.
High dose immunosuppression followed by autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation is able to induce complete remission (insulin independence) in most patients with early onset type 1 diabetes mellitus.
Type 1 diabetes (T1DM) is an autoimmune disease through which the patient's immune system loses the immunologic tolerance against β cells antigens, resulting in an immune response against the islets which involves CD8+ and CD4+ cells. Such process results in insulitis, an inflammatory process which causes the destruction of pancreatic β cells, thereby eliciting insulin therapy as the treatment for T1DM [1, 2].
Stem cells (SC) have the unique function of asymmetric division, i.e., they are capable of self-renewing and the generation of other identical cells. They are undifferentiated cells that perpetuate throughout the body and are responsible for regenerating all tissues in adults and are also responsible for tissue morphogenesis in embryos. Such cells may be obtained from the fetus, the umbilical cord, the bone marrow and may also be deployed by peripheral blood and even from different somatic tissues[3, 4].
Bone marrow SC originates blood cells, including lymphoid cells. In addition to hematopoietic stem cells, which are the most widely known and studied types of bone marrow SC, other important SC types have promising importance in therapeutics. One of them is the endothelial precursor cells, capable of angiogenesis and they are widely used nowadays in regenerative therapy. Another type of SC is the mesenchymal stem cell, which has a powerful immunosuppressant capacity and is also capable to differentiate into several tissues. Therefore, these three types of stem cells, hematopoietic, endothelial and mesenchymal, have been used in therapy and may be applied to the treatment of diabetes[5].
The bone marrow transplantion or classic stem cell transplantion has been performed successfully for exactly 40 years since the first successful transplant was performed in 1968. This type of transplantation is typically performed using SC mobilized from bone marrow cells to the peripheral blood or from the umbilical cord of an allogeneic donor, and transplanted to a patient who most of the times has hematologic disease. This type of transplant is preceded by immunosuppression in order to avoid rejection and the graft reaction against the host. Oppositely from solid organ transplants, the hematopoietic SC transplant requires limited continuous immunosuppression which may range from three to six months, depending on the pathology. In this type of transplant, a mutual tolerance is established between the donor and the recipient, due to chimerism, which characterizes donor cell persistence in the receptor. Chimerism results in a process which still remains unclear, associated with clonal exhaustion or clonal depression, which makes the receptor not to react to the donor or vice versa. Regarding the induction of chimerism in allogeneic transplantation, there are two types of transplant: myeloablative and nonmyeloablative. The first is the classic transplant, in which a very high dosage of debulking agents (chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy) is used to completely eliminate the hematopoietic and lymphoid tissues of the receptor. After that, these tissues are replaced by donor tissue, resulting in complete chimerism. Due to its intensity, myeloablative immunosuppression is highly toxic, resulting in non-eligible mortality rates. Currently, the nonmyeloablative transplant has been increasingly used, where the immunosuppression load is lower resulting in a mixed chimerism which is sufficient to avoid allogeneic reactions graft rejections against the host.
Such nonmyeloablative transplant strategy with partial chimerism induction is one hope to induce tolerance in the long run for solid organ transplants, such as kidney or pancreas transplants, but it is yet to be obtained. A paper written almost ten years ago, showed advantage while using bone marrow SC along with solid organ transplants in kidney-pancreas transplants in terms of chronic rejection, acute rejection and even corticoid interruption [6, 7].
Recently in 2008, there were some reports of cases of tolerance induction including interruption of immunosuppresion after kidney or liver transplantation [8, 9]. These reports showed the interruption of immunosuppresion in four out of five patients. In this nonmyeloablative conditioning procedure, a smaller dose of immunosuppressant drugs was used, which is not enough to completely eliminate recipient hematopoiesis. Such nonmyeloablative conditioning process is used to allow bone marrow grafting and to induce chimerism deployment. It gives us the hope that in the near future we may reach the goal of eliminating both rejection and graft reaction against hosts, resulting in the possibility of interrupting immunosuppression.
In the near future, according to these papers, allogeneic stem cell transplant has the perspective of allowing the grafting of other solid organs and the interruption of immunosuppression much like it is routinely performed in hematopoietic stem cell transplants as described in the literature [10].
Autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation for type 1 diabetes
Another type of transplant which has been more widely used clinically, mainly in autoimmune diseases, such as T1DMs, is the autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantion (AHSCT). For such transplant, we mobilize the patient's hematopoietic SC from bone marrow to the blood with the use of low dose cyclophosphamide and granulocyte colony-stimulating factor. Then the hematopoietic SC are collected from peripheral blood by leukapheresis and cryopreserved. The cells are re-injected intravenously only after conditioning with high dose of chemotherapy - cyclophosphamide (200 mg/kg) and rabbit antithymocyte globulin (4.5 mg/kg). This is a lymphoablative scheme, as we destroy most of the patient's lymphocyte clones, which include both autoreactive and non-autoreactive, and we recover the immunologic system with AHSCT. This phenomenon is called immunologic reset.
Such type of transplant has been performed for twelve years for autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis, systemic sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematous, Crohn's disease and others. This type of treatment has significant mortality rates, mainly for more severe diseases such as systemic sclerosis and lupus. In most cases, except for rheumatoid arthritis in adults, there is a prolonged remission in over 50% of the cases, which may be considered a success, as transplanted patients are the most severe cases and generally have not responded to usual therapies. In Brazil, a cooperative study protocol was initiated in 2001 and our series comprises is comprised of more than 150 patients, including patients with diabetes, multiple sclerosis, systemic sclerosis and lupus.
In animal models, T1DM may be prevented by allogeneic bone marrow transplant, and in allogeneic transplants in human beings, it has been shown that type 1 diabetes may be transmitted through bone marrow transplants. For example, a leukemic patient, after receiving a bone marrow transplant from a brother who has diabetes, may also become a diabetic patient, which means that the disease may be transmitted through stem cells. However, when type 1 diabetic patients received transplants due to leukemia or other blood-borne diseases, there was no improvement of diabetes after the transplant, which is contrary evidence to what has been observed in animal models. These patients have already had diabetes for several years, and they had small amount of β cell mass, demonstrating that the hematopoietic stem cell involved in such transplant is not able to differentiate into a significant number of β cells and to induce remission in the patient with long term disease.
The beneficial effect of several chronic immunosuppressant schemes was demonstrated in diabetes, however, after immunosupression interruption, the disease relapses [11–16]. Several studies tried to induce prolonged immunosuppression after a short term therapy with immunomodulatory drugs. One of the most successful results obtained with acute immunossuppression was with anti- T cell antibodies, as shown in articles reporting the effects of OKT3 in increasing C-peptide levels and a decreasing in daily insulin doses [17, 18]. However such effect was transitory and too short.
As previously discussed, strategies of immunomodulation are more interesting during a phase in which the patient still has an important β cell reserve, i.e., in an initial stage of the disease, blocking the immunological aggression of T cells against β cells and allowing an endogenous regeneration of β cells. In face of this, our research group started a protocol of nonmyeloablative AHSCT in newly diagnosed type 1 diabetic patients in 2003 to transplant individuals from 12 to 35 years old with recent clinical and laboratorial diagnosis of type 1 diabetes (<6 weeks). In the initial protocol, especially in the first patient, we used corticoids along with rabbit antithymocyte globulin to avoid anaphylactic reactions. In face of the pro-apoptotic effects of glucocorticoids on β cells, we stopped use after that.
All the enrolled patients were checked for HLA hystocompatibility system antigens, and most of whom were DR3/DR4 [19].
Side Effects and Results
Because we apply immunosuppressant leukemia therapy on an autoimmune disease in young patients, reports of side effects are extremely important, and the most frequent side effects are infections in general, controlled using an antibiotic scheme prophylatically or therapeutically. In three patients, we observed post-transplant autoimmune diseases due to the transplant or to diabetes.
During a 7- to 58-month follow-up (mean, 29.8 months; median, 30 months), 20 patients without previous ketoacidosis and not receiving corticosteroids during the preparative regimen became insulin free. Twelve patients maintained this status for a mean 31 months (range, 14-52 months) and 8 patients relapsed and resumed insulin use at low dose (0.1-0.3 IU/kg). In the continuous insulin-independent group, A1c levels were less than 7.0% and mean (SE) area under the curve (AUC) of C-peptide levels increased significantly from 225.0 (75.2) ng/mL per 2 hours pretransplantation to 785.4 (90.3) ng/mL per 2 hours at 24 months posttransplantation (P < .001) and to 728.1 (144.4) ng/mL per 2 hours at 36 months (P = .001). In the transient insulin-independent group, mean (SE) AUC of C-peptide levels also increased from 148.9 (75.2) ng/mL per 2 hours pretransplantation to 546.8 (96.9) ng/mL per 2 hours at 36 months (P = .001), which was sustained at 48 months. In this group, 2 patients regained insulin independence after treatment with sitagliptin, which is a DPP-4 inhibitor, an enzyme which metabolizes GLP-1, and is thus associated with a glucose dependent increase in C-peptide levels. Two patients developed bilateral nosocomial pneumonia, 3 patients developed late endocrine dysfunction, and 9 patients developed oligospermia. There was no mortality [19, 20].
We have concluded that there are several challenges when it comes to this type of transplant in recently diagnosed T1DM, from which the main one is to investigate the length of the clinical response (insulin independence) and relapse mechanism. Using embryonic stem cells could have better results at the long term diseases. Injecting bone marrow mononuclear cells directly into the pancreas significantly increased endogenous insulin secretion in type 2 diabetic patients, but not in persons with T1DM in studies conducted in Peru and Argentina. The use of autologous umbilical cord stem cells in children with T1DM resulted in not significant differences in daily insulin doses and in a decline in C-peptide levels after 1 year of follow-up. This study is still being conducted at the University of Florida, in Gainesville.
Notkins AL, Lernmark A: Autoimmune type 1 diabetes: resolved and unresolved issues. J Clin Invest. 2001, 108: 1247-1252.
Gepts W: Pathologic anatomy of the pancreas in juvenile diabetes mellitus. Diabetes. 1965, 14: 619-633.
Fischbach GD, Fischbach RL: Stem cells: science, policy and ethics. Journal of Clinical Investigation. 2004, 114: 1364-1370.
Wagers AJ, Weissman IL: Plasticity of adults stem cells. Cell. 2004, 116: 639-648. 10.1016/S0092-8674(04)00208-9.
Couri CE, Voltarelli JC: Potential Role of stem cell therapy in type 1 diabetes mellitus. Arq Bras Endocrinol Metabol. 2008, 52: 407-415.
Alexander SI, Smith N, Hu M, et al.: Chimerism and tolerance in a recipient of a deceased-donor liver transplant. N Engl J Med. 2008, 358: 369-374. 10.1056/NEJMoa0707255.
Girman P, Kriz J, Dovolilova E, Dovolilová E, Cíhalová E, Saudek F: The effect of bone marrow transplantation on survival of allogeneic pancreatic islets with short term tacrolimus conditioning in rats. Ann Transplant. 2001, 6: 43-45.
Kawai T, Cosimi AB, Spitzer TR, et al.: HLA-mismatched renal transplantation without maintenance immunosuppression. N Engl J Med. 2008, 358: 353-361. 10.1056/NEJMoa071074.
Scandling JD, Busque S, Dejbakhsh-Jones S, Benike C, Millan MT, Shizuru JA, Hoppe RT, Lowsky R, Engleman EG, Strober S: Tolerance and chimerism after renal and hematopoietic-cell transplantation. N Engl J Med. 2008, 358: 362-368. 10.1056/NEJMoa074191.
Skyler JS: Cellular therapy for type 1 diabetes. Has the time come?. JAMA. 2007, 297: 1599-1560. 10.1001/jama.297.14.1599.
Elliott RB, Berryman CC, Crossley , James AG: Partial preservation of pancreatic β-cell function in children with diabetes. Lancet. 1981, 19: 631-632. 10.1016/S0140-6736(81)92761-6.
Harrison LC, Colman PG, Dean B, Baxter R, Martin FI: Increased in remission rate in newly diagnosed type l diabetic subjects treated with azathioprine. Diabetes. 1985, 34: 1306-1308. 10.2337/diabetes.34.12.1306.
Cook JJ, Hudson I, Harrison LC, Dean B, Colman PG, Werther GA, Warne GL, Court JM: Double-blind controlled trial of azathioprine in children with newly diagnosed type I diabetes. Diabetes. 1989, 38: 779-783. 10.2337/diabetes.38.6.779.
Silverstein J, Maclaren N, Riley W, Spillar R, Radjenovic D, Johnson S: Immunosupression with azatioprine and prednisone in recent-onset insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus. N Engl J Med. 1988, 319: 599-604.
Assan R, Feutren G, Sirmai J, et al.: Plasma C-peptide levels and clinical remissions in recent-onset type 1 diabetic patients treated with cyclosporin A and insulin. Diabetes. 1990, 39: 768-774. 10.2337/diabetes.39.7.768.
Bougnères F, Landais P, Boisson C, Carel JC, Frament N, Boitard C, Chaussain JL, Bach JF: Limited duration of remission of insulin dependency in children with recent overt type I diabetes treated with low-dose cyclosporin. Diabetes. 1990, 39: 1264-1272. 10.2337/diabetes.39.10.1264.
Herold KC, Hagopian W, Auger JA, et al.: Anti-CD3 monoclonal antibodiy in new-onset type 1 diabetes mellitus. N Engl J Med. 2002, 346: 1692-1698. 10.1056/NEJMoa012864.
Keymeulen B, Vandemeulebroucke E, Ziegler AG, et al.: Insulin needs after CD3-antibody therapy in new-onset type 1 diabetes. N Engl J Med. 2005, 352: 2598-2608. 10.1056/NEJMoa043980.
Voltarelli JC, Couri CEB, Stracieri ABPL, et al.: Autologous non-myeloablative hematopoietic stem cell transplantation in newly diagnosed type 1 diabetes mellitus. JAMA. 2008, 297: 1568-1576. 10.1001/jama.297.14.1568.
Couri CE, Oliveira MC, Stracieri AB, et al.: C-peptide levels and insulin independence following autologous nonmyeloablative hematopoietic stem cell transplantation in newly diagnosed type 1 diabetes mellitus. JAMA. 2009, 301: 1573-1579. 10.1001/jama.2009.470.
Department of Clinical Medicine, Ribeirão Preto School of Medicine, University of São Paulo, Brazil
Júlio C Voltarelli
& Carlos Eduardo Barra Couri
Search for Júlio C Voltarelli in:
Search for Carlos Eduardo Barra Couri in:
Correspondence to Júlio C Voltarelli.
All the authors and participated in the manuscript design and drafting. All authors participated in study coordination and acquisition and interpretation of the data showed. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Voltarelli, J.C., Couri, C.E.B. Stem cell transplantation for type 1 diabetes mellitus. Diabetol Metab Syndr 1, 4 (2009) doi:10.1186/1758-5996-1-4
Received: 07 April 2009
Accepted: 16 September 2009
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/1758-5996-1-4
Solid Organ Transplant
Bone Marrow Stem Cell
Autologous Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantion
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We have introduced Toll Operate Transfer (TOT) wherein we invite participation of the concessionaire or PPP partners in operation phase of the concession period. TOT mode are offered for the roads that are completed by NHAI under EPC. We had first made a bundle of such roads and then offered these roads for operation under TOT mode, says Niraj Verma, Member, Public-Private Partnership (PPP), National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), in conversation with Gautam Debroy of Elets News Network (ENN).
What are the achievements and challenges of Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model in highway sector?
he National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) is one of the leading players in the world in implementing PPP model in highway sector . Some PPP models being used by us are Built Operate Transfer (BOT) Toll, BOT Annuity, and Hybrid Annuity. NHAI is also implementing road projects under Engineering Procurement Construction (EPC) . In this mode, construction of road project is financed by NHAI. Coming back to PPP projects, I would like to mention that we have implemented many important road projects like the one in Delhi-Gurgaon (Gurugram), Ahmedabad- Vadodara, Chenani- Naseri tunnel projects etc Earlier, we had followed the waterfall mechanism for selection of mode of implementation. In this, we would first appraise the projects under BOT toll. For this, the equity return to the investors would be kept at 15 per cent. If these projects were not suitable under BOT toll i.e if the EIRR would be found less than 15 %, we would take up the project under BOT Annuity and only after failing in our attempt to take up under these two, we would have opted for EPC. However, in the immediate aftermath of economic downturn in 2008, there was less appetite for the BOT projects. We thus took up many projects under EPC. In December 2016, we introduced another form of PPP – the Hybrid Annuity mode or HAM. First example of successful HAM is Delhi-Meerut Expressway Package I. This project starts from Sarai Kale Khan and ends at Delhi-UP Border.
How would you describe the state of affairs in the context of Bharatmala programme?
Bharatmala pariyojna has several components like economic corridor, feeder roads, port connectivity roads, roads in Border areas, connectivity to religious places, bypasses and ring roads. In nutshell , we have an ambitious target of around 20,000 kms of roads to be implemented under Bharatmala. NHAI is one of the implementing agencies of MoRTH (Ministry of Road Transport and Highways) under Bharatmala. The other two agencies are State PWD under the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways and National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (NHIDCL), a sister organisation of NHAI. The NHIDCL is implementing roads in the Northeast and hilly areas under Bharatmala. As far as the present status of progress is concerned, we have prepared Detailed Project Reports (DPR) for more than 10,000 kms of roads. We have already awarded many such roads under Bharatmala.
Is there any roadmap or strategy to ensure expedition of the PPP model?
When we award projects under PPP, we try to ensure that we meet our condition precedents. In other words, there should be sufficient availability of work-front and prior clearances of environment/forest, etc, so that the concessionaire can start the construction immediately after the appointed date.
There were some PPP projects which had started languishing. For these projects, we have creatively used the available tools, which includes – giving one-time fund infusion (OTFIS) from NHAI to the eligible projects, increasing the concession period for the delay not attributed to the concessionaire (for BOT) or giving the missed annuity for Annuity projects. Several of such projects , which have been brought back on track through OTFIS, etc, are Delhi-Jaipur Road, Chhapra-Hajipur Road and Srinagar- Bannihal road.
How many PPP projects are in the pipeline for next five years and how many kilometres will be covered under it?
In next five years, Bharatmala targets are the priority targets, which are to be implemented by NHAI. More than 20,000 kms will be covered under Bharatmala project. We have taken decisionto take up 60-70 percent of roads under HAM, 10 % under BOT (toll) and the rest under EPC.
What are the three major challenges you face while implementing these projects?
PPP projects are basically a collaborative effort of the Government authority and the concessionaire. Once, we award the project, we have to meet our conditions precedent like availability of land through acquisition process, shifting of utilities, clearance from forest department, etc, as applicable. Ensuring that this is done in such a way that 80-90% of land is available is the first challenge.
Secondly, we have to ensure that the land is encumbrance free at the time of appointed date ( a date after which the construction work starts). In other words, the buildings etc in the right way should be demolished, the trees should be removed and the utilities (like electric lines) should be shifted at the time of appointed date.
Lastly, the concessionaire has arrived at the financial closure by tying up with the banks for bringing the loan amount. Subsequent to this, the construction is done. For this, the concessionaire is given six months under BOT (toll/annuity) and five months under HAM. Concluding financial closure within the stipulated time is another challenge as any further delay would mean that the project would get delayed.
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Richard Ekre Suzzi
Musician Composer Teacher
Ensembles / Groups
Pedagog (sv)
Zephyr released new album ‘October Ocean’
Review RootsWorld on Zephyrs album ‘October Ocean’
”On October Ocean, Zephyr make a compelling and intriguing showcase for the power and universality of, and experimentation possible with, wind instruments.”
Click here to go to Rootsworlds own website directly and listen to the soundtrack ‘Polska Amrutvarshini’
Zephyr is a Swedish group, this time configured of flutes. Görån Mansson, Jonas Simonson (from Groupa), and Richard Ekre Suzzi utilize a variety of wind instruments from Sweden and afar, such as the bamboo Bansuri flute. An all-flute trio can certainly have an ethereal sound, as the band demonstrates on “Blow My Fear,” but Zephyr go well beyond such stereotyping and they construct compositions that indulge in world music influences. Zephyr are also a remarkably percussive group, as evidenced on the opening “Char Bungalow.” The melodic washes are undergirded by deep tones that, combined, lend a slightly Asian air to the tune. Indian textures are apparent on the fascinating “Polska Amrutvarshini,” a peaceful atmosphere that is riven with the drive of the sub-bass recorder. “Gurukul” toys with an Indian scale, and then surprisingly drops into a bluesy vibe. “Mumbai 8 pm” also nods towards India, as well, but via a pensive and mysterious ambience. On October Ocean, Zephyr make a compelling and intriguing showcase for the power and universality of, and experimentation possible with, wind instruments.
RootsWorld, May 2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwyJsXO_2VM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsPDA-0goTw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eorkYnG9w7I
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Salt Plus Salt Can Equal Sustainable Agricultural Land
Take an arid field riddled with salty soil. Irrigate it with salty water. Plant a salt-tolerant grass along with a salt-sucking companion plant and what do you get? If you're a Brigham Young University research team, you raise a crop that successfully replaces corn as cattle feed.
Their research highlights the promise of using salty water to turn the salty soil -- like that found near the Great Salt Lake -- in the world's arid regions into sustainable agricultural land.
Published online in the journal Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment ahead of the February issue, the study identified a plant that could thrive in yet-unusable lands near the coasts in much of the world.
"It seems odd that salty soil and salty water could produce useful crops, but that's what this study showed," said Brent Nielsen, chair of BYU's microbiology and molecular biology department and corresponding author on the study. "It's exciting to share in work that directly benefits people who need to find more land in order to produce the food and income they need to survive."
Research team members focused on a plant called Panicum turgidum that can grow in salty conditions. They measured its protein content and determined that it could be a suitable alternative to existing cattle feed. Then they tested its growth potential when irrigated with the salty water found in the area. They showed that Panicum grew so fast it could be harvested almost monthly. Overall, with limited fertilizer, they produced 60,000 kilograms per hectare during the yearlong study. Nielsen is confident that further studies that determine the best ratios of fertilizer will boost that number over 100,000 kilograms.
The researchers also used nature to preserve a sustainable growing environment. Panicum is a "salt excluder," meaning it survives salty conditions by keeping salt out of its system, which most other plants can't do. Although this allows Panicum to grow on salty water, the extra salt deposited by irrigation would render the soil too salty for even this hardy plant. So the researchers found that planting a companion crop that is a "salt accumulator" prevented the soil from getting too salty. The other plant sucked up the extra salt, then was harvested and burned and the ashes turned into soap. After the yearlong study, the levels of salt in the soil were virtually unchanged.
The Balochistan region of southern Pakistan, where Nielsen's collaborators conducted the test, is one of the world's driest places, and the underground water supply is "brackish" or salty because of its proximity to the Indian Ocean.
There is a strong demand for fodder to feed the cattle that are a main source of income in the region, so a crop that can grow successfully in these conditions "would have enormous impact on the quality of life in local communities," said Ajmal Khan, a professor at the University of Karachi, director of the Pakistani research team and first author on the paper.
The Panicum was fed to cattle, and the cattle grew as big or bigger as those fed corn, with similar amounts of protein in their meat.
As world populations grow and agricultural land is threatened, this new approach can open up more crops for both livestock and humans, Nielsen said.
Tips to Keep Your Home Festive and Ecofriendly
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Home Everything Tech Three resists watchdog’s call for ‘fairer’ mobile phone fees
Three resists watchdog’s call for ‘fairer’ mobile phone fees2 min read
The UK’s telecom regulator has said Three is the only major UK mobile network to have “refused” to automatically cut its customers’ monthly charge at the end of their contract’s lock-in period.
As a result, Ofcom said, the firm’s subscribers would “overpay” unless they took action to change to another deal.
The watchdog said it had challenged the industry to treat users more fairly.
But Three has said that customers were often happy to stay on the same deal.
“Many consumers are happy with the service that they are paying for and may choose to take no action, particularly if the consumer feels that there is not an equivalent, better value, service that meets their needs,” it said in a consultation filing.
“Moving consumers to a default tariff, on an opt-out basis, may drive consumer dissatisfaction and complaints.”
By contrast, Ofcom said that the other major mobile companies had given it the following commitments regarding out-of-contract customers:
O2 and Virgin Mobile – will cut the monthly charge to the equivalent of a 30-day Sim-only deal
Vodafone and EE – will automatically reduce prices three months after the subscribers’ lock-in period expires, but have yet to say by what amount
Tesco Mobile – will reduce the monthly charge to the best available airtime tariff
The discounts are set be introduced by February 2020.
The regulator said that this would help address a situation in which it currently estimated that 1.4 million out-of-contract mobile phone users were spending an average of just under £11 more per month than if they switched to a comparable Sim-only deal.
This situation had arisen, it explained, because the initial deal had covered both the cost of a handset and its usage.
“We’re introducing a range of measures to increase fairness for mobile customers, while ensuring we don’t leave existing customers worse off,” said Ofcom’s consumer group director, Lindsey Fussell, in a statement.
“All the major mobile companies – except Three – will also be reducing bills for millions of customers who are past their initial contract period.”
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Projects - Nitrogen Cycle
Projects on the nitrogen cycle and balance examine nitrogen inputs, biological fixation, use by crops, offtake, transformations in the soil and losses by leaching, surface runoff and emissions to the air. While the emphasis here is on projects that examine the role of legumes in the nitrogen economy of agriculture, large scale, integrative projects on the wider nitrogen cycle are also included.
Click a link in the list below to move down the page for a brief description of each project and web link.
Forage legumes in multi-species grassland
NitroEurope
Summary of PhD thesis by Karin Pirhofer-Walzl
The aims of the study, at Copenhagen University, were to quantify the performance of multi-species grassland mixtures comprising grasses, legumes and herbs in terms of three nutrient processes: mineral accumulation, nitrogen transfer and nitrogen uptake. Legumes included Medicago sativa, Trifolium repens, Trifolium pratense and Lotus corniculatus. Three field experiments were conducted in Denmark using 15N methodology to trace nitrogen through the plant-soil system and to measure N2 fixation. The role of legumes in importing nitrogen to the community is highlighted. The downloadable files below are a project summary on the Legume Futures template (Word) and a pdf file of the summary and contents pages from the thesis. Contact the author for access to the thesis.
Contact: karin.pirhofer@gmail.com
Word file, 41 kb: Project information
PDF file, 921 kb: Project summary and contents
First published on this site: 5 December 2012.
The nitrogen cycle and its influence on the European greenhouse gas balance
NitroEurope is a five year EU-funded project, 2006-2011, that considers the nitrogen cycle and its particular contribution to greenhouse gas emissions. The scope of the project is therefore is very much wider than legumes, but contributes to the biophysical baseline against which legume cropping systems may be assessed. The project produced the NitroEurope brochure "The nitrogen cycle and its influence on the european greenhouse gas balance" which is available online from the web site (link below). The project contributed substantially to the recently published European Nitrogen Assessment (Cambridge University Press, 2011, edited by M. Sutton et al. ) which is a comprehensive account of the N cycle in a wide range of systems (cover above right). The web site also gives links to the Edinburgh Declaration on Reactive Nitrogen - a statement (arising from a recent major conference) which contains the following statement "an overall strategy to reduce the losses and adverse impacts of reactive nitrogen on society should be focussed on improving nitrogen use efficiency, particularly in agriculture, which can provide significant financial benefits to farmers and society as a whole." NitroEurope is also entered on this site as a network under General information.
Web link: NitroEurope
cropping systems
rhizobia genetic resources
legume genetic resources
new uses and markets
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Custom customs formalities International Commerce customs offices Customs custom permits Exports & imports Logistics Central American Customs Union cargo transport customs management export procedures regional commerce border Procedures
Guatemala El Salvador Costa Rica Honduras Panama Nicaragua
Tax Authority of Guatemala Customs General Office (El Salvador) Panamanian Custom Authority Inter-American Development Bank Secretariat for Central American Economic Integration
Jan 20 | Nicaragua: DUCA Charges Increase
Dec 19 | New Customs between Honduras and El Salvador
Nov 19 | Virtual Customs: Advances in El Salvador
customs offices
Aug 19 | Legal Process Against Charges for Freight Transportation Initiated
Jun 19 | Central America: Customs Difficulties Persist
Jun 19 | Difficulties in Customs Do Not Stop
custom permits
Jun 18 | Customs Procedures Simplified
Jul 17 | Honduras: Customs Procedures Improved
May 17 | How to Improve Customs Management in El Salvador
Apr 19 | Costa Rica Requests Review of Freight Transportation Charges
Apr 17 | Costa Rica's Bureaucracy Affecting Central America
Oct 16 | Strikes in Guatemala - Mexico Customs Offices
Custom International Commerce Customs Exports & imports Logistics Central American Customs Union customs management export procedures regional commerce border
Nicaragua: DUCA Charges Increase
Since January 1, 2020, Nicaraguan authorities have been charging $25 for the electronic processing of the Single Central American Transit Declaration, a cost that exceeds by 233% what was paid until the end of 2019.
Until December 31 last year, the General Directorate of Customs Services (DGA) charged $7.5 for the Single Central American Declaration in Transit (DUCA), but with the new provision of the authorities, the cost increased by $17.5 for 2020.
New Customs between Honduras and El Salvador
The Mocalempa customs and immigration control post in the Honduran province of Lempira began operating.
In order to make it easier for customs users to pay taxes and combat smuggling, the Government of the Republic, through the Presidential Commission for Comprehensive Reform of the Customs System and Trade Operators (Coprisao), today opened Customs Mocalempa, in the Mancomunidad Mapulaca, south of the department of Lempira, border between El Salvador and Honduras, informed the Presidency of Honduras.
Virtual Customs: Advances in El Salvador
Local authorities plan to implement at the end of 2019 the service of Advance Declaration, which will serve for the generation of a Virtual Customs platform for exports, which would be operational in the first half of 2020.
Gustavo Villatoro, director of Customs, told Elmundo.sv that "...
Approval for Customs Construction
In El Salvador Fomilenio II signed the contract for the design and construction works of the border post for cargo transport of Anguiatú, in Santa Ana, work valued at $16 million.
The Spanish company Informes y Proyectos, S.A.
North Triangle: FYDUCA is Delayed
Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras agreed that May 4, 2020 is the new date for the use of the Central American Single Invoice and Declaration.
From the Agexport statement:
September 30, 2019. The Ministry of Economy through the Vice-Ministry of Integration and Foreign Trade announced on September 27, 2019 that in a meeting with the Ministerial Instance of the Customs Union of the Republics of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras it was agreed as follows:
El Salvador: PPP for Customs Construction
Feasibility studies for the application of a Public-Private Partnership in the construction and maintenance works of the border crossings of La Hachadura and El Poy, and in the intermediate enclosures of Metalío and Tejutla began to be elaborated.
FOMILENIO II and the consortium Unión de Personas Pasos Fronterizos (UDP Pasos Fronterizos) signed a contract this day to carry out a technical study to determine the feasibility of a possible Public-Private Partnership (PPP) project at border crossings and intermediate precincts, according to an official statement.
Pressure to Implement Single Window
Five months after the regulations for the creation of the Single Window of Procedures for the Colon Free Zone were approved in Panama, businessmen are asking for their implementation to be accelerated.
At the beginning of April, it was reported that the Board of Directors of the Colon Free Zone (ZLC) approved the resolution regulating the creation of the Single Window of Procedures (VUT) and its procedures to expedite trade in the free trade zone, however, so far the window in question still does not work.
Panama and Costa Rica: Faster Border Procedures
The Cortizo administration is preparing a bill to create the Integrated Control System at the border with Costa Rica, with the aim of simplifying the transit of people, vehicles and goods between the two countries.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Panama reported that Alejandro Ferrer, head of the institution, with the support of the Director of the Customs Authority of Panama, Tayra Barsallo, presented to the Cabinet Council, the draft law approving the framework agreement to implement integrated binational control systems at the border crossings between Panama and Costa Rica (Paso Canoa, Rio Sereno and Sixaola).
Single Window for Companies in Free Trade Zones
The Dominican Republic's free trade zones guild promises to reduce response times with the implementation of the Single Window for Foreign Trade of the General Directorate of Customs.
Simplifying procedures, transparency and security of processes, reduction of response times of requests, reduction of costs of stationery and office equipment, are some of the benefits that will enjoy for companies in areas with the implementation of the Single Window, informed the union.
Legal Process Against Charges for Freight Transportation Initiated
Costa Rica recurred to the Central American Trade Dispute Resolution mechanism, for the collection of $50 by Nicaraguan customs authorities to Costa Rican cargo carriers entering the country.
The disagreement began after the Nicaraguan authorities on March 15 of this year began to collect a customs tax on the cargo transport in transit or with final destination in the country, which consists of the payment of $50 for each transport unit of goods that passes through land customs.
Trade Facilitation Committee Reactivated
After two years of non-operation, El Salvador's government and business associations agreed to reactivate the institution dedicated to decision-making on customs matters and trade agreements.
The private sector was represented by the Presidents and Executive Directors of the guilds ASI, COEXPORT, CAMARASAL, CAMAGRO, AMCHAM, CAMTEX and ADES, which are part of the Inter-union Commission for Trade Facilitation (CIFACIL) and participate with voice and vote within the Committee, informed the Salvadoran government.
Customs: Contingency Plan Finishes
After having been extended several times, the contingency plan for DUCA F and DUCA was finalized on July 8, however, there is uncertainty because the platform is not fully operational.
The entry into force of the Central American Single Declaration at the beginning of May generated delays in the import and export processes, so it was decided to activate a contingency plan at the Central American level.
Central America: Customs Difficulties Persist
Because the implementation of the Central American Single Declaration continues to generate problems in customs in the region, the contingency plan for DUCA F and DUCA was extended until June 27.
"If you use the Contingency Plan, we suggest that you make sure you arrive at the destination country with the DUCA F and DUCA T duly processed and the supporting documents," reported the Guatemalan Association of Exporters.
Difficulties in Customs Do Not Stop
Since there are still difficulties arising from the implementation of the Single Central American Declaration, the Contingency Plan for DUCA F and DUCA T was extended until 17 June.
Central American customs authorities agree to maintain in force the Contingency Plan for DUCA F and DUCA T, until June 17, 2019, at 23:59 hours.
North Triangle: Customs Agreements
Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador agreed on a plan that seeks to guarantee order and security at the Integrated Border Posts, and also approved the technical documents for the operation of Radio Frequency devices at the borders.
The Guatemalan Ministry of Economy (Mineco) reported that the countries in the Northern Triangle approved on May 28 a security plan for the Integrated Border Posts (IFP) of the Customs Union (AU), which was signed by the ministers responsible for security in these countries.
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Lyre 2.0 on the Ancient Europos!
Reinventing and reintroducing a legendary ancient music instrument to the modern world…
our research in a 2 minutes video!
Research on Ancient Sources & Amphorae’s Depictions
Homer, Philostratus the Elder, Virgil, Ovid etc., along with numerous depictions on amphorae and limited but valuable archaeological finds, helped us lay the foundations for the Lyre 2.0 Project to start…
3d Scanning & 3d Modelling during the Prototyping Phase
We used the latest 3d technologies for a rapid prototyping phase, such as 3d scanning of real tortoise shells and 3d modelling design for the rest of the instrument.
Working in the Workshop: The First Models
At the end of the “prototyping” phase, we began working in the workshop to produce the first fully functional models of the ancient Greek lyres: one of the chelys type, and one of the barbiton type. Both of them were constructed in total using only materials available during the antiquity such as tortoise shell for the resonator, bone for the plectrum, leather for the soundboard, metal for the tailpiece, animal’s guts for the strings, wood for the arms, the bridge etc.
Sound tests & university research!
With the first integrated models of ancient Greek lyres ready, we visited the Laboratory of Electronic Media of the Department of Journalism & Mass Media (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki), we recorded our instruments and proceeded with sound analysis tests to identify their features. The results of this research have confirmed their supreme sound qualities!
An Ancient Lyre for Every Need
By confirming the musical quality of our first models of ancient lyre, we started the final step to make them complete: the development of different ancient Greek lyras (for beginners, advanced, etc.) and their final finishing, shortly before their deliver to musicians and music lovers!
The “Kithara of the Golden Age” (advanced spring mechanism)
The “Barbiton Lyre of Sappho” (7 or 9 strings)
The “Lyre of Apollo” (11 or 13 strings)
The “Kylix Lyre of Pan” (7 or 9 strings)
The “Phorminx” (with spring mechanism)
Sambuca (7 strings, harp-like)
We are with the Best!
The most well-known lyre player in the world, Michael Levy, has chosen one of Luthieros instruments for his on-going projects and album’s recordings! So far, he has recorded three music albums with an 11-strings “Lyre of Apollo” premium quality model.
More specific, he recently released:
(1) The Lyre of Apollo: The Chelys Lyre of Ancient Greece (12 songs) – Available at iTunes.
(2) The Lyre of Hermes, EP (6 songs) – Available at iTunes.
(3) 21st Century Lyre Music, EP (6 songs) – Available at iTunes
What’s more, Michael has arranged sheet music for solo lyre for 10 of the tracks featured in his albums and has prepared a series of lyre tuition videos on his Youtube channel. Additionally, he wrote a booklet briefly outlining the lyre’s history. All of the above, plus one of his albums, are included in every lyre we send to our amazing customers!
An amazing GoT fans’ videoclip by Greek amateur and professional musicians, playing our workshop ancient replica instruments! Damn worth watching it!
“A bit of Ancient Greece, and a bit of Hollywood at the same time! The handcrafted ancient replica lyres by Luthieros are one-of-a-kind!” – e-radio.gr | “The Greeks, who revived the ancient lyre, are playing the theme song of GoT!” – news247.gr
Praise to be our Lyres!
(conferences, journals etc.)
Honorary praise in the first presentation of our ancient lyres to the public, at the Congress Designing Creative Synergies 2014! Awarded to the team of “The Lyre 2.0 Project” from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, the International University of Thessaloniki, the Metropolitan Development Thessaloniki SA and the Center for Creative Economy Thessaloniki.
The “Lyre 2.0 Project” was presented with a lecture during the Panhellenic Conference of Acoustics 2014, and at the same time some of our models were exhibited in the conference hall. The conference participants showed great interest for our replica lyres, and photographs of our stand were featured on the cover of the magazine of the Panhellenic Acoustics Association!
In the academic world, our project was presented with a lecture during the Panhellenic Conference of Acoustics 2014, and a paper (in English) is in the revision stage of a peer-reviewed top-ranked journal with great feedback so far by our reviewers!
Find the lyre that is made for you...
Ancient Greek replica music instruments at a consumer price tag that you cannot resist!
The Lyre of Pluto (9 strings) – The Lyre of the Underworld – ancient Greek lyre
The Lyre of Thamyris (11 strings) – the mortal who challenged the Muses
The Marvellous Lyre of Olympus II (11 or 13 strings) – ancient Greek lyre
The Marvelous Lyre of Olympus II (11 strings) – ancient lyre with Cedar wood
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Author: Bettina Marx
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Persecution of Syrians in Exile
The Long Arm of the Baath Regime
Over the past few months, Syria's President Bashar Al-Assad has used every means to brutally suppress the country's opposition. Now, even Syrians in exile opposed to the regime are no longer safe, as Bettina Marx reportsMore
Uprising against the Assad Regime in Syria: What Support for the Protest Movement?Resistance to the Assad Regime: Iron Hand and Bloody Reform
Mubarak Trial
A Historic Day in Cairo
Hosni Mubarak ruled Egypt for 30 years. In February, he stepped down after weeks of protest against his regime. Now, Egyptians are thrilled to see him on trial, writes Bettina MarxMore
Political Upheaval: The Mubarak System without MubarakInterview with the Egyptian Historian Khaled Fahmy: ''The Army Lacks a Vision for the Future''
Peace Research into the Arab Spring
''A Historical Turning Point like the Fall of the Berlin Wall''
The 2011 Peace Report, which was compiled by the five largest peace research institutes in Germany, is almost 400 pages long. The general tenor of the report is a demand for more support for the Arab Spring. Bettina Marx reportsMore
Libya's Opposition Movement: The Road to TripoliNATO Options in Libya: A Moral and Military DilemmaDossier: Uprisings in the Arab World
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Espionage History Archive
Inside The KGB’s Intelligence School
March 24, 2015 Mark Hackard 5 Comments
KGB Lt. Gen. Leonid Vladimirovich Shebarshin (1935-2012) was an experienced specialist on South Asia and Iran and would become the last chief of the Soviet KGB’s First Chief Directorate (Foreign Intelligence) in 1989. In his memoirs, Shebarshin recalls his time training at the KGB’s 101st Intelligence School in 1962.
101 – That was the name of the intelligence school subsequently transformed into the KGB’s Yuri Andropov Red Banner Institute.
For the first time in my life I was quartered in a dormitory. In the two-story wooden house of pre-war construction, the walls were starting to become dilapidated, in places the floors would bend, but it was warm and cozy in the winter, and in the spring lilac branches would brush against the windows.
In the room there were five continual residents, all with some life experience, and among us even a doctoral candidate. We all had switched professions. We were allowed home only on Saturdays, to return by Monday morning.
Academics didn’t seem complicated. The most difficult subject for those who hadn’t worked with them earlier was foreign languages. We had no such problem – between the five of us we had mastered nine languages from professional civilian training. In the spirit of good tradition, we helped our comrades who hadn’t worked with languages earlier as much as we could.
Eternal Marxism-Leninism. Much academic time was relegated to it, and exercises in this subject resembled the eastern method of threshing – an animal tied to a shaft walks in a circle along the sheaves lied out on the threshing floor, and its hooves dislodge the grain from the ears. Every one of us had already made several rounds over the trampled hay, it wasn’t clear whether any grains were left there, but the senseless stamping continued. Neither quick-wittedness nor erudition were needed here; just memorize a few current clumsy expressions, follow the front-page articles in Pravda (the most thankless and mind-numbing reading for any intellect), and don’t get upset.
Marxism-Leninism in its interpretation then was extremely remote from science. Its clichéd formulas and concepts had the character of ritual incantations, something akin to a daily and hourly affirmation of loyalty. Every academic text, even in our rather special academic institution, began with a pious thesis on the class character of intelligence. (The time when class character was ascribed to physics, biology, and mathematics was departing slowly. Things happen slower in Russia than elsewhere.)
Lectures on Marxism and time spent on preparation for seminars gave us, however, a splendid opportunity to read anything we liked to our satisfaction. The people selected for our room were not drinkers, but interested in life and readers, and we enjoyed books not so much from the library as those we exchanged amongst each other.
The special disciplines seemed incredibly interesting, i.e. training in the basics and techniques of spycraft. In the following years in our medium, the term “art of intelligence” was officially disseminated, but I object to it. I suspect that initially it came about as a result of the not completely accurate translation of the name of the book by former CIA chief Allen Dulles The Craft of Intelligence (It would seem that Dulles could have used the word art if he considered intelligence an art). Doubtless, the vanity of professionals played its role. Belonging to the sphere of the arts rather than a craft elevated many in their own eyes.
I consider intelligence a complex and unique craft, where, as in every craft, there is an element of art where corresponding skills are necessary, yet mastery of the basic techniques of the job, painstaking labor, thorough professional training, and conscientiousness are more important than the fits of inspiration by which art lives. I defended this view in further official discussions, far from always meeting the approval of veterans. Great is the charm of words; it’s difficult to rid oneself of it.
Photography in all its special variations; the preparation of microdots; secret writing; methods of communication; ways to covertly remove information; the fundamentals of acquiring sources and work with them; methods of conducting surveillance and techniques for detecting it – all of that was new and extremely fascinating.
The crowning moment of all this came as practical exercises in the city that lasted several days. We had to carry out a number of operations for communicating with an agent, including a personal meeting. The most complex assignment was ensuring there was no surveillance on you in order to keep the counterintelligence service from identifying an operation underway, and, God forbid, from finding our source.
Lt. Gen. Leonid Shebarshin
To detect surveillance and determine the makeup of the team working against you is not a simple assignment. Professionals from the KGB’s Seventh Directorate undergoing more training worked with us. Upon the completion of exercises, reports from the intelligence trainee – the object of surveillance – and the reports of the surveillance team were compared.
This was a rare situation that arose in real conditions only when we were able to acquire a source in the Soviet department of a foreign counterintelligence service. There, however, the joint analysis of an operation and exposing inaccuracies in reports would be excluded. Human weaknesses are inherent to surveillance operatives of foreign services, and blatant distortions of the real situation in their summaries are a rather common matter. In any case, mention of their own mistakes is not encountered, and the target is sometimes endowed with superhuman versatility and craftiness. This tends to be when the surveillance team lose the target due to their own sluggishness or lack of coordination in their actions.
We weren’t allowed to depend on surveillance revealing itself. One must not, with the exception of extreme situations, check for them in an obvious fashion. During exercises and in life, we proceeded from the fact that the intelligence officer’s behavior shouldn’t cause suspicion either from professionals or random observers. If a surveillance service notices that a foreigner is blatantly checking for a tail, it will be stimulated to work more secretly, more tenaciously, and with more ingenuity. The foreigner makes it into a list of suspected or established intelligence officers, which can complicate his life.
In such a way, for a successful surveillance check, a previously selected natural route is necessary, one that allows for observing the situation around you multiple times unnoticed. Sometimes in both training and active operational conditions, counter-surveillance is used – at various points on the intelligence officer’s route other operatives are standing post. It’s easier for them to notice a possible tail and by pre-arranged signal (by radio, a car parked at a specific spot, etc.) warn their colleague of danger. An effective method, though not without its drawbacks. The people who have been moved out to counter-surveillance points might also bring a tail. There have been such cases. It’s undesirable that anyone but the resident or his deputy knew about the planned operation and the area of its execution. This rule, unfortunately, is violated everywhere. There’s still another negative moment: knowing that his comrades are covering him, the operative conducting the operation can over-relax and lose vigilance.
An intelligence officer in the field is alone, and in all situations he should depend only upon himself.
We painstakingly prepared routes, foreseeing changes in transport, dropping into buildings, the logical connection of our actions. In the school descriptions of places convenient for surveillance checks are passed on from generation to generation. (To get lost in the crowd, by the way, is practically impossible, since it’s impossible to detect surveillance in a crowd.) The tragedy is that such descriptions are passed from generation to generation amongst our opponents – the surveillance operatives. One must search out one’s own original maneuvers.
The exercises were completed successfully. We were able to detect surveillance and safely carry out all planned operations for communicating with the source. The game was captivating.
This was a game, but it was played by the genuine rules and demanded real nervous tension, imagination, and simply physical endurance. The game introduced the trainees to the profession, initiated them into professional secrets, and united us into a corporate body.
A few words on corporative spirit. In the Committee for State Security there had long ago formed a special and respectful, but with a shade of coldness and envy, attitude toward the First Chief Directorate (FCD). Officers of the service were in many ways better trained that the remaining personnel of the KGB overall, they worked overseas, and were thereby more secure materially. They didn’t have to engage in “dirty work,” i.e. fight against internal subversive elements, the circle of which never radically narrowed.
To make it into service in the FCD was the object of concealed and open dreams of the majority of young officers of state security, but only a few were made worthy of this honor. Intelligence was an organization closed off not only from society, but in a significant degree from the KGB. The very specifics of the work united intelligence officers into a unique camaraderie with its own traditions, discipline, conventions, and special professional language. It always seemed to me that camaraderie and corporative spirit were necessary for men engaged in a common cause. Precisely in the framework of such a body one can share one’s experience, resolve doubts, and get to know each other better. Our work was predominantly tenacious and unnoticeable labor, slow progress forward toward some hidden goal, but there could be moments when success and even the fate of an officer depended on the assistance of his colleagues.
I want to repeat – the men of our profession should present themselves as a corporation, a brotherhood. This is the basis of our moral well-being, and consequently, our success.
Training was interesting. During spring exercises I was able to come up with a scheme for carrying out a dead-drop operation using a container that was very simple in manufacture and use. The operation was awarded with a prize. I felt like a professional. I managed to apply my successful idea in future practice, and it was vindicated.
It’s necessary to train intelligence officers individually. A different state of society is needed for this, a different attitude toward expenditures, contemporary psychology, and toward the future intelligence officer. The extensive method of training, when a trainee and young officer are given just a little and least of all the ability to independently think and orient themselves in acute situations and make decisions in the moment, has outlived itself. But for all its shortcomings, the school cultivated a feeling of camaraderie that was one of a kind.
I remember our room on a winter evening. On the table were tea and black biscuits, left to the side was a chessboard. We were still green, but we were serious and single-minded. We spoke not about women, sports, or drinking – traditional subjects of conversation for young men. The topic that randomly arose today was ethno-psychology. A scholarly colleague, one of the trainees from our room, was edifying the rest. We debated, smoked, drank tea, and learned something important – we were learning to think.
Work Translated: Рука Москвы – записки начальника советской разведки. М.: Центр-100, 1992.
Translated by Mark Hackard.
Cold WarCounterintelligenceForeign IntelligenceKGBKGB Intelligence SchoolLeonid Shebarshin
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True Spy Stories from Russian Intelligence
Foreign Intelligence
Deep Politics
Spy Culture
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Helping with Heated Situations
Demand for safe intervention training grows as hate incidents increase
News by Corinne BoyerPosted on 08/31/2017
Although racist, xenophobic and gender-motivated incidents are not new in Eugene, these acts of aggression have more than doubled over those reported during the same period in 2016, according to data from the city’s Office of Equity and Human Rights.
Heated confrontations are challenging, and many unknown factors like anger and alcohol can exacerbate these public situations —making it very difficult to step in for fear of retaliation and safety.
To help address this issue, a group of community members met Aug. 24 at Temple Beth Israel to attend a three-hour bystander-upstander intervention training.
Led by Nadia Telsey, the group of 25 people discussed local and national hate and bias incidents that have been recorded and on the rise since the 2016 election. Showing Up For Racial Justice (SURJ), a social justice nonprofit, has compiled training materials to assist people who, finding themselves in a heated public situation, may want to help.
The three-hour workshops combine discussions, role-playing scenarios, videos and group sessions on how to safely intervene in the event of a targeted attack against any marginalized community member. The group listed a number of people who have been the subject of harassment, including the elderly, children, people of color, women, religious minorities — the list goes on.
The workshop began with Telsey going over the safety aspects of any situation, such as knowing where the exits are, being aware of the danger the harasser may present and keeping an eye out for other potential witnesses.
Ginnie Lo attended the workshop after hearing about several incidents of harassment, as well as the stabbing on the MAX train in Portland. “I just think it’s important because there are so many incidents of harassment and hate lately and also because it brings us together as a community to come together and say we won’t tolerate this and we will work to prevent those,” she says.
Telsey told attendees who may try to intervene as a bystander to remember to breathe, keep soft eye contact and stand in the “balance position” — a stance with one foot slightly in front of the other that helps prevent someone from being easily pushed over.
The group also reenacted incidents that have occurred throughout the U.S. All participants, at different points, played the role of the harasser, target, intervener and bystander. A bystander is a person who may happen to witness a public conflict, and an intervener is someone who speaks up in the moment of conflict. In this workshop, people in either role can choose to step in safely and help the person targeted by a harasser.
Bruce Kreitzburg says he learned to focus on the target of the harassment during the workshop. Kreitzburg says before the training he thought his options were to not intervene or to confront the harasser. “And what I took away was actually you don’t have to confront the harasser; you need to be aware of the harasser; you need to be cognizant of what’s going on, but keep the focus on helping the target — which might be as simple as offering some kind words or offering to escort somebody away from the situation where they are being harassed or abused.”
Pat Bryan, a member of SURJ, says she thought the workshop was great. “In addition to of course wanting to think about preparing myself should I ever see any kind of conflict that I felt that I could step in and make a difference, I think just in general I’ve been wanting to build my brave muscles.”
Workshop instructor Telsey says it’s always important to know your own triggers. “Know what your goals are if you’re going to engage with them, what are you hoping to accomplish. I would focus on the person being harassed and keeping a safe distance.”
Telsey adds that the workshop is becoming more popular and there are many people who are waitlisted and is in need of volunteer teachers. If you would like to help, contact SURJ at surj-info@googlegroups.com.
DeFazio Visits Mexico Border Camps
The congressman visits border to investigate Trump's Remain in Mexico Policy
BlogNews 13 hours ago
Last week, Rep. Peter DeFazio visited the U.S.-Mexico border to investigate the Trump administration’s Remain in Mexico policy, which forces people seeking asylum in the … Continue reading →
Tags: DeFazio / immigration / Peter Defazio
Protesters Crash Trump Rally — Again
Rally at Ferry Street Bridge attracts Trump supporters from Portland and summons a large protester presence
BlogNews 3 days ago
On Martin Luther King, Jr. Day weekend, supporters of President Donald Trump held an event near Ferry Street Bridge, drawing protesters who called them “fascists” … Continue reading →
Our Children’s Trust Climate Lawsuit Dismissed
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2-1 to throw out the case
Five years into the case, a divided panel from 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the climate lawsuit from Our Children’s Trust, the Oregon-based … Continue reading →
Tags: Climate change / climate lawsuits / Our Children's Trust / youth climate
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NHL 2014 Stadium Series Evokes Extreme Backlash on Twitter
by Andi Perelman Hockey in the News, Stadium Series, Winter Classic • Tags: anaheim ducks, chicago blackhawks, five for boarding, fiveforboarding, hockey, IIHF, IOC, los angeles kings, national hockey league, new jersey devils, new york islanders, new york rangers, nhl, nhlpa, olympics, ottawa senators, Outdoor games, pittsburgh penguins, sochi, sports, stadium series, vancouver canucks, winter classic
If you are a hockey fan, you have probably heard the NHL’s recent announcement about their plans to have five additional outdoor games (in addition to the Winter Classic) during the 2014 season. See below for the tentative schedule:
This announcement has been met with mixed reactions from agents, media, and fans. While some fans (like me) are thrilled to attend more outdoor games, others are against it. People against the “Stadium Series” argue one of a couple things:
1. The additional Stadium Series games will take away from the spectacle of the Winter Classic
2. More outdoor games=less special
3. The games are a ploy for the NHL to make more money from larger stadium capacity, increased viewing on TV, and sales of specialized merchandise
Other naysaying fans are simply hung up on how ice will be maintained in the Los Angeles climate.
Sporting News writer, Sean Gentille, wrote NHL Stadium Series a Gamble on Moneymaking Power of Outdoor Games, a blog post that discusses how additional outdoor games dilute the market. The article begins, “At some point in young adulthood, you figure out that, theoretically, you could eat birthday cake at every meal. Most people don’t.” While I see what Gentille is saying, the additional outdoor games are not under the label “Winter Classic”. The Winter Classic is still unique with the New Year’s Date, pre-game 24/7 episodes on HBO, intrigue for casual fans, and other festivities like the alumni games. I don’t know about everyone else, but I love cake all the freaking time.
Stadium Series games will be played both before and after February’s 2014 Sochi Olympics. While it is not confirmed that NHL players will be allowed to play in the Olympics, it is conceivable that these Stadium Series games provide a buffer for fans in case negotiations between the IOC, NHL, NHLPA, and IIHF head south (although I doubt that will be the case).
At this point, the Stadium Series is an experiment for the league. Employees know that one outdoor game works, so now it is time to try out more. The league is a business, remember? I am sure NHL bigwigs are hoping the games will bring in more hockey fans, create increased support after the lockout, and yes, rake in additional revenue. If the league can gain fans and increase TV viewing numbers after a horribly long lockout, why wouldn’t the Stadium Series work?
Everyone loves a little more hockey in their lives. And according to John Collins, the COO of the NHL, “No one would be more concerned about not screwing up a good thing than we would be”. Give JC a chance! (You see what I did there?)
Here are some of the best tweets I’ve seen from hockey agents and media discussing the Winter Classic and Stadium Series:
Sidenote: I just joined the Pens Nation team at http://www.thepensnation.com. Be sure to keep an eye out for this banner on the website to see my posts!
Condor Causes Raucous at ECHL Game
The PensNation has a new writer: Me
One comment on “NHL 2014 Stadium Series Evokes Extreme Backlash on Twitter”
Eric Perelman says:
I tried to “like” this but I need a password in wordpress.
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5-Minute History
History for a fast-paced, connected world
History Periods
The Georgian Era
Castles & Cathedrals
Art Victorian Era
30 Beautiful Paintings by Berthe Morisot
April 24, 2016 May 11, 2017 David James 19th century, Berthe Morisot, impressionism, paintings
In 1894, famed art critic Gustave Geffroy described Berthe Morisot, Marie Bracquemond, and Mary Cassatt as “les trois grandes dames” (the three great
5 Historical Figures Feeling the Blues
Kylemore Abbey – the incredible story of an Irish castle on a lake
40 Delightful Images of Devon, England in the 1890s
Quote of the moment …
To sit in the shade on a fine day and look upon verdure is the most perfect refreshment. ― Jane Austen.
5-Minute History Copyright © 2016.
5-Minute History is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.
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Pick A Number, Any Number
Jul. 28, 2017 , at 8:00 AM
Edited by Oliver Roeder
Filed under The Riddler
Illustration by Guillaume Kurkdjian
Welcome to The Riddler. Every week, I offer up problems related to the things we hold dear around here: math, logic and probability. There are two types: Riddler Express for those of you who want something bite-sized and Riddler Classic for those of you in the slow-puzzle movement. Submit a correct answer for either,1 and you may get a shoutout in next week’s column. If you need a hint, or if you have a favorite puzzle collecting dust in your attic, find me on Twitter.
Riddler Express
From Abijith Krishnan, a simple but intriguing participatory problem:
Submit a positive integer. The person who submits the lowest unique number among all submissions is the winner and is inducted into the exclusive 🏅 Ordinal Order 🏅 of Riddler Nation!
Submit your number
Riddler Classic
From Itay Bavly, a chain-link number problem:
You start with the integers from one to 100, inclusive, and you want to organize them into a chain. The only rules for building this chain are that you can only use each number once and that each number must be adjacent in the chain to one of its factors or multiples. For example, you might build the chain:
4, 12, 24, 6, 60, 30, 10, 100, 25, 5, 1, 97
You have no numbers left to place after 97, leaving you with a finished chain of length 12.
What is the longest chain you can build?
Extra credit: What if you started with more numbers, e.g., one through 1,000?
Submit your answer
Solution to last week’s Riddler Express
Congratulations to 👏 Mats Cooper 👏 of Snowmass Village, Colorado, winner of the previous Express puzzle!
In a certain town, 11 fine folks are running in a primary for three at-large seats on the City Commission. Each voter may vote for up to three candidates. This election will reduce the field of candidates from 11 to six. How many different (legal) ways may a voter cast his or her ballot? And how many different outcomes (excluding ties) are there for who advances to November’s general election?
Let’s start by separating out the number of candidates a voter is capable of voting for. They can vote for three, two, one or zero.
If they vote for three candidates, there are “11 choose 3,” or 165, ways to select them. If they vote for two, there are “11 choose 2,” or 55, ways to select them. If they vote for only one, there are 11 ways to choose that candidate. And there’s just one way to vote for zero candidates. Adding all that up gives 232 possible ballots.
As for which candidates advance to November’s general election, there are 11 candidates and six slots, and “11 choose 6” equals 462 outcomes.
Solution to last week’s Riddler Classic
Congratulations to 👏 Josiah Jenkins 👏 of Rugby, North Dakota, winner of the previous Classic puzzle!
There are two warlords: you and your archenemy, with whom you’re competing to conquer castles and collect the most victory points. Each of the 10 castles has its own strategic value for a would-be conqueror. Specifically, the castles are worth 1, 2, 3, … , 9 and 10 victory points. You and your enemy each have 100 soldiers to distribute between any of the 10 castles. Whoever sends more soldiers to a given castle conquers that castle and wins its victory points. (If you each send the same number of troops, you split the points.) Whoever ends up with the most points wins. But now, you have a spy! You know how many soldiers your archenemy will send to each castle. The bad news, though, is that you no longer have 100 soldiers — your army suffered some losses in a previous battle. How many soldiers do you need to have in order to win, no matter the distribution of your opponent’s soldiers?
You need 56 soldiers.
The 10 castles are worth a total of 1 + 2 + … + 9 + 10 = 55 points, meaning you need at least 28 victory points to win. Solver Jack Markley provided an excellent description of the intuition behind the solution:
Since we will have all the knowledge in this battle, we really just need to figure out what the most effective strategy for our enemy would be and then how many soldiers we need to win in that case. War, like everything else involving people who want things, is ruled by economics. My enemy doesn’t want us to get 28 or more points, so they want to make it cost as much as possible — they want to make every castle give an equally poor number of points per soldier required to conquer it. Luckily for my desire to deal with even numbers, 100 is the perfect number of soldiers so that the enemy sets up every castle as requiring two soldiers spent per victory point won with a distribution of 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17 and 19 soldiers. With that being the worst distribution for me, I can still win with 56 soldiers by conquering Castles 1 through 7 with a distribution of 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 and 14 — for exactly 28 victory points.
Solvers Daniel Eriksson and Zack Segel approached the problem using a technique called simulated annealing and were kind enough to share their code and graphs. In the image below, you can see how Daniel’s simulations converged to Jack’s mathematical argument about the enemy’s troop distribution above. As the program attempts to find the best distribution to combat your spy, it eventually arrives, after about 8,000 iterations, at the band of bars representing the 1, 3, 5, … soldier distribution described above:
It’s good to have a spy!
Want to submit a riddle?
Email me at oliver.roeder@fivethirtyeight.com.
Important small print: For you to be eligible, I need to receive your correct answer before 11:59 p.m. EDT on Sunday. Have a great weekend!
Oliver Roeder was a senior writer for FiveThirtyEight. @ollie
The Riddler (205 posts)
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Did no one else watch Justified? A little inconsistent at times through the years, but when it was on, it was really on. Like Olyphant's prior gig - Deadwood - it never really got its due during its run but will probably get noticed after its demise.
Quote from: ggw on April 09, 2015, 03:07:39 pm
This final season is being raved about by AV Club. I feel like the first season and this last one were very strong but it got so-so in the middle. I'll miss it; excited to see what the finale brings.
FX really has been killing it with Justified, The Americans, Fargo, etc but their positioning of their shows as "miniseries" keep them from getting an Drama Emmy nods that would make more people take notice.
« Last Edit: April 09, 2015, 03:44:08 pm by Julian, Verified SHITLORD »
Season 2 of Justified was definitely the best, they just never had a villain as good as the one Margo Martindale played since then. Her pot queen pin role was the best.. Last season is kinda plodding along, with a couple good moments
Like Olyphant's prior gig - Deadwood - it never really got its due during its run but will probably get noticed after its demise.
Deadwood was great and he was fantastic in it
First time I saw Tim O in GO, I knew he was going to be someone to watch
although, I couldn't ever really get into Justified
Quote from: kosmo vinyl on April 09, 2015, 03:44:45 pm
I was always partial to the white guy who was kind of nuts and got his arms cut off by the hog guy at the end of the season.
Wynn Duffy will outlive us all, though.
Agree on season 2 being the best.
Lots of great minor characters throughout the series. Sometimes the show got a little too hokey/cutesy with the hillbilly stereotypes. Other times the dialogue spun its own fantastic vernacular, but not with the consistency that Deadwood did the same. Boyd Crowder had his moments, but he was nowhere near the foil to Raylan that Ian McShane was to Seth Bullock.
And Olyphant seems only to succeed when playing the morally conflicted lawman.
Yeah season 2 of Fortitude already announced!
Would appreciate an HBO Go password! Unfortunately that new HBO service isn't available for Samsung TVs . Anyone catch Game Of Thrones last night? Gonna watch it after work! Very excited. Winter is finally here I think...
We dug coal together.
daredevil is quite good, they definitely nailed the look and feel of frank miller era daredevil
Quote from: Got Haggis? on April 16, 2015, 11:07:33 am
good to hear....haven't turned on the tube in a week or so, but this was high on the next to watch list
I just always thought he was a lame superhero. And I don't like any superhero shows. But Netflix is good...
Quote from: Sidehatch on April 16, 2015, 11:15:03 am
felt it was a good night to deprive my self from sleep and watch the first episode
I think its awesome so far....very dark and violent
some hokey elements, but overall very good
new orphan black starts tomorrow!
I kinda have the hot's for the Berkley College student one with the dreds
I was catching up on the Americans this weekend and wow have amped up the tension on this one.
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» Chris On Screen
» Kyle Newman's Revenge of the Nerds (Remake) - CANCELED
Pages: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 … 11 Next
#51 12 Oct 06 :: 05:38
Re: Kyle Newman's Revenge of the Nerds (Remake) - CANCELED
Dude, we're having trouble believing it! It was just so bloody fortuitous. I mean, who woulda thunk it? TeeJay and I just kept going over it and over it again on the ride to the airport today. We still can't believe how lucky we got with the people at Agnes Scott and on the production. Everyone was so wonderful to us. It was such a great day. I just hope we can keep growing this experience into something that finally helps get the word on Chris out there.
Chnyst
Dork in Plastic
From: Albuquerque, NM
I'm gone for a couple of days and next thing I know, you've been on the set, taken pictures, and got to meet Kyle and Chris, and many others.(Love the TIE Fighter chair by the way)
I know you must be on cloud nine right now! This is so cool!! I'm very happy for you guys.
That's also cool that Kyle said I/we could use whatever Fanboy pics we wanted to.
Once again, this is too cool!!
Well, I'm safely back in Germany and I'm being totally ridiculed by Lars, who's hanging out on my couch. Gee, I've missed this, friends hanging out, laughing about my little (okay, big) obsession. I think he's just jealous. But he indulged me and had me tell him everything about our meeting (well, at least the most exciting parts) and he's even looked at the pictures. And, yes, he says I'm crazy. And he may just be right.
Yep, Sean, we still can't believe how crazily coincidental this all was. I mean, how many stars had to align to make this happen? How the hell did we deserve that? But, hey, I'm not questioning it. It was so awesome, such a great day. I will type up a whole sort of trip report that I wrote down in my little diary that I had with me. Bear with me, guys. It'll take a while.
And, thank you, guys, for all your comments. Again, we can't believe how lucky we were and we'd love to share all of that with you guys. Yes, we should have taken more pictures, but we didn't want to be too groupie-like. Well, maybe there's gonna be a next time. Who knows. And if not, we still had a wonderful experience. I think I'm gonna be on a high for, like, a week. Until I go back to work on Monday, probably.
Meeting Kyle was also great. He and Chris remembered you guys, Sean and Ken. And there's gonna be a Fanboys sequel! That's what Kyle said. Seriously. We asked, Okay, so this is obviously gonna be without Linus, but Kyle just had this sly smile on his lips and said, Well, you know, nothing's impossible, there will be a way. Wonder what that means.
And our Fanboys t-shirt just opened us all sorts of doors. You won't believe the guys who came up to us to ask us about the t-shirt. Adam F. Goldberg was totally jazzed, Dan (the six-fingered man) was shown the t-shirt by Kyle ("Hey, Dan, come over here and look at that!"), even the set designer came to talk to us (he wasn't involved in Fanboys, though). It was unbelievable just how relaxed and super-nice all these people were to us.
Deb, thanks for posting the first part of the interview. I'll find a way to put it into the website when it's finished.
We have a feeling next year is gonna be big for Chris. Both Alpha Dog and The Invisible will be released in January, Fanboys probably in February (both Kyle and Chris said that). And then there's still all these indies that he's got in the can, some of which might be released next year too. If so, I really hope people are gonna notice and come check us out. Chris totally deserves it. I still can't believe how totally relaxed and nice and sweet he was.
And let us tell you, on the set he's a real goofball. He joked around, did all sorts of funny grimaces and capers and just bounced around all the time, teasing everyone. He probably had to keep the energy up, shooting a comedy, but if they said on the JoA s1 episode commentary that Chris was a potty-mouth and a diva, I now totally believe it.
And, Anne? He's a regular dude. As regular as they come. Nothing star-like about him at all. AT ALL. Yes, of course I was nervous at first, but after, like, five seconds of talking to him, it was all so relaxed and just not awkward in the least. So get over your star-phobia, he's just a normal guy with a job that has him exposed to the public more than "normal" people. I wish he could tell you himself. And you don't have to die if you ever get to talk to him.
Lars is telling me I should stop drooling. So I will. I need to do my laundry and also go grocery shopping. My fridge is totally empty and I'm getting hungry. They gave us breakfast at 6 AM on the flight. Geez. But then again, we landed at 7 AM, so...
Oh, and here's some instant visual proof for those who don't wanna go to the gallery:
Just one thing I wanted to mention. To anyone who's read "PS, I Love You", Gerry said to Holly: Shoot for the stars.
We did. And it look where it got us. I think people should try to do that more often. Don't be afraid to aim high. It might not always work out, but you might just have that tiny little window one day where everything falls into place and you get there. I'm so glad that happened to us. I'm still mentally bouncing up and down. I'll be up there with the stars any second now.
TeeJay wrote:
I should stop drooling. So I will. I need to do my laundry and also go grocery shopping. My fridge is totally empty and I'm getting hungry. They gave us breakfast at 6 AM on the flight. Geez. But then again, we landed at 7 AM, so...
You'll never stop now, huh?
Oh God. I think, if you had the time to really shoot this video thing you planned, you would have asked him to say "I'm a regular dude", only for me. huh? I can totally imagine.
Just read the interview ...
No, we didn't so much think about the regular dude thing. You would have seen it yourself if we'd had the chance to catch him in a little video snippet. There were so many things we wanted to tell him and ask him and make him do, but there just wasn't enough time.
We gave him the Strong Medicine collage, though. He was totally tickled by that.
I know, Deb told me. I just wanted to make a joke.
Oh cool! @the Strong Medicine collage.
Okay, did I hear that right? A Fanboys sequel? Whoa!
Ya know, they could bring back Chris in some flashback scenes.
That's cool that Kyle and Chris remembered us. We had a great time when they were here. Also good to hear that they confirmed the FEB release date. Anyways, I look forward to reading more about your meetings and stories from the set. Glad you both had such a great and memorable time!
Chnyst wrote:
Yes, Kyle said it himself. There's gonna be a sequel. I don't know how far that project is advanced, though. Deb, make sure to quiz Adam if it's already written if you ever get the chance to go back to the set. You should start making a list with whom to bug about what. LOL
Flashback scenes could totally work. I don't know what they have planned. It would be really cheesy, though, if Linus somehow didn't die. But I can't believe they'd do that.
Yeah, Flashback scenes could work, I think so too.
Talking about Linus dying... We asked Kyle what kind of cancer Linus has. He said they never specified that. They kept it vague for a reason. They didn't want to go into all that medical crap, what chemo he got and all that, so it's just cancer that'll kill him eventually. I wish we could transcribe Kyle's interview right now too, but we only have the video footage that Andrew shot and God knows when we'll get that. Let's hope sooner rather than later.
Oh, and there's also the question about his height, right? Even though he looks taller than me on the picture, I'm kinda squatting to one side to get my arm around him, so I think he was maybe just a tiny bit smaller than me, actually. I'd say maybe around 1.71 or 1.72 m. Does that satisfy you, Anne?
Does that satisfy you, Anne?
Dude, did you have to say that in public?
Ah well, now it's out already. LOL But for the record: Yes, it does.
Sean, to give you a little more about the Fanboys sequel, Kyle said, "Remember, no one ever dies in the Star Wars universe so there are possibilities." He also told us about the reshoot they did at Skywalker Ranch with Linus coming out after seeing Episode One. Hope that's not giving away anything but he said that was the most memorable day of the shoot for him.
Well, look whose autograph I just hung in my little treasure corner in the bedroom:
And, yes, that's a gun holster, but it's only a painted water pistol in there. It's an original prop from a German cop show with my favorite German actor in it. He signed it too. (That's TV illusion for you, because he wore it like that on the show too when they didn't shoot it too close, because a real gun would have been too heavy and would have messed with how the t-shirt fit the guy. Sheesh!)
And unfortunately I had to take Alexander Siddig down temporarily because I don't have enough frames. He'll get a new frame though and make it up on that wall again.
Told our story to 5 people today and showed them pictures and all of them were just stunned by our luck. I still am, myself. Nicole even said that if she as going to be in town, she'd go back to Agnes Scott with me this weekend. How cool is that?
Guys, I had to stay late after work and I'm having issues with my back. I just listened to part two of the interview again and there's still a lot of work to do on the transcription. Don't think I can do it tonight. Tomorrow night, I'll have more time and I hopefully won't be stupid and lift stuff that's too heavy for me.
We'll be staying tuned for the rest of the interview. No worries, just get to it as soon as you can. (And that's easy for me to say, because I already know what he said.)
Hope your back feels better today. Yay for Nicole!
I will be getting home later than anticipated again because I have to go see Casey after work, and then I'll probably need a short nap. I fell asleep sitting up in my chair last night for about 40 minutes. That NEVER happens. I think I'm still coming down and I'm starting to feel all the food and sleep deprivation from the last couple of weeks. It was totally worth it, but it looks like this weekend will mostly be about recovering.
But I WILL get the rest of the interview up.
Well, it doesn't look like the crew is shooting for the next three days at ASC. So I don't know if I'll be able to get back in touch with the guys. But look at it this way, if they've got three days off, maybe they'll contact us.
Just in case anyone stops by here:
Andrew, we'd love to get that Kyle video interview soon.
Kyle, we'd love to take you up on the offer of schwag from Fanboys and ROTN.
Adam, we'd still like to interview you about writing Fanboys and ROTN.
And Chris, we'd love it if you'd give me a call or something so we can get in contact with your manager about the photos and things you said you'd send us for the site.
And if anyone from the production would like to drop us a line about anything, please do so at: mail@chris-marquette.com
Hey, I just listened to part 1 of the interview. Yay!
Kristhetvgirl
From: BC, Canada
Registered: 16 Aug 06
OMG! So freakin' amazing & lucky you guys are! I am so jealous... Chris Marquette and Dan Byrd?! Thank you so very much for taking a photo of Dan - even if his eyes are closed. He looks adorable anyways. The interview with Chris... wow I had no idea him and Dan were actually friends - and for years! The only connection I knew of was the JOA episode Dan guested on. But he didn't have any scenes with Chris, so who knew? I can't even imagine how mind-blowing that must've been for you guys! What a trip. Oh and yeah reading about Chris talking about how he spent 3 1/2 months in Vancouver shooting The Invisible is rather annoying... cuz I live about 30 min from Vancouver and only knew about the last bit of shooting in Nov/Dec of last year and couldn't find out where they were shooting. So he was actually here earlier than I knew! Argh!
So congrats guys for doing something the rest of us just wish we could've...wow. Rock on.
I run Chris Marquette's page on TV.com.
Hey Kris,
TeeJay and I talked about you living in BC and how cool it would've been if you'd gotten to see some of the shoot for The Invisible. Maybe you could have cheered the poor guy up. One thing is obvious when you meet him; he is totally flattered that people care so much about his work. I hope we can get some decent sound clips for you guys from these recordings. You just have to hear how sweet and humble he is. And though we rarely get to hear it on film, he has a great laugh!
Yeah, as I told Anne, he was flattered shitless about all the things we said we liked.
And I hate to be a wise-ass, but Kris, I think you can update some of the info on the tv.com page. Like, for instance, he doesn't live with his family anymore. Of course we don't know that for sure, but when we talked about baseball, he said he doesn't even have cable, so I'm guessing he was talking about his own place and not his parents'.
Also, that information about his pets might be years old... I think that's from quite an old interview.
I also spotted this as one of his things he did listed there:
As Told By Ginger
Cry Wolf
Stuart Higsby
The Wild Thornberrys
What and when was that? I've never heard about him being in that, but that doesn't mean I'm the authority of everything that concerns Chris and his filmography. If that's something he did, it needs to go in our filmography.
And, yes, I wish you could have met him when he was shooting in Vancouver. I wish you all could meet him. And I'll get those sound clips up there one of these days. Lars has been hanging out at my place all night, but he left now and I'm gonna continue typing up that "trip report" from my hand-written diary of our little Nerd adventure. I'm sure y'all are waiting for that. Next thing I'll work on the sound clips.
Okay, Deb and I finished our trip report diary thing of our adventures on Monday and Tuesday and I uploaded it to the site. Go to the About Chris section and then click on Meeting Chris. You'll find everything there. Deb is still working on the second part of the interview, stay tuned, we're gonna get there.
I also posted the sound clips from part 1 of the interview in the Media - Sounds section, as well as part 1 of the interview in the About Chris - Interviews section. Have fun!
I've read everthing and tested all the links. Looks great! Thanks for putting in all that work today, TeeJay. I'll work on the second part of the interview tonight. I hope it'll be here on the board when you wake up tomorrow.
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Fagin – Oliver Twist
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Fagin gives us the impression that he is a miser in the beginning of the extract by revealing his splendorous stash of jewels under the floor boards. You could tell he was excited by the ‘magnificent materials’ within the box because ‘the Jew rubbed his hands with a chuckle. Fagin was constantly wary of his surroundings and that he could be caught out at any moment in time. We discover this because he keeps looking around the room to see if anyone is listening to or watching him. Fagin is also very secretive with his rich possessions this shows that if he wasn’t a miser he could potentially become very wealthy.
However in contrast, as he sees Oliver awakening, over come with anger and fear, he laid his hand on a bread knife which was on the table and stated furiously up. From this we learn that even poor and on the wrong side of the law, Oliver and Fagin still value their possessions. On the other hand Fagin can also calm quickly when he needs to, and when he is sure of his safety. Underprivileged Victorian citizens had to be tough to survive. For the reason that Fagin lives in a grimy infested flat Oliver also believes that the Jew is a miser.
This is illustrated by ‘Oliver thought the old gentleman must be a decided miser to live in such a dirty place with so many watches’. Fagin is also greedy and rich which is shown by this, and it also highlights the reasons many people were thieves in these times. Oliver also is inspired by the jewels to become rich in his later life. Washing in a cold basin of water, as he is told, Oliver’s actions are used to draw attention to the terrible conditions for the poor people of Victorian London. Using a bowl rather than a sink shows they do not have running water.
Children were mostly affected by poverty as they were vulnerable, easily lead, and in some cases un-wanted due to un married couples getting pregnant. He lived in many places in his childhood including a work house, a funeral home Fagin’s flat, and a rich family home. Many children lived in cruel, uncomfortable, dirty lifestyles just like how Oliver had 75% of the time. Fagin is delighted with the pocket books the dodger has collected, but he tells Oliver that the dodger and Charlie bates had made them themselves along with the handkerchiefs.
Oliver is keen to learn the trade after the Jew says ‘you’d be able to be able to make pocket handkerchiefs as easily as Charlie bates, wouldn’t you, my dear? ’ the way Oliver is so naive and childish makes the other boys laugh, because it is although he has been protected from the real world. Fagin uses a game to try and show Oliver how to steal and pick pocket, to make it seem it is fun and playful. This makes Oliver believe that this is the sort of thing that all children of his age do.
Fagin is seen as a father figure in the novel, not only by the other boys but by the audience as well. Although he is a mean, spiteful man, the Fagin is seen as a nice person, as he is supplying a better lifestyle for the boys, which is a good alternative to the workhouse. Fagin shows the boys how to defend for them selves and survive in these dark times making him, in a way, a good role model to the boys, who he treats as though they are his own sons. The themes of poverty and crime throughout the whole novel are shown by Fagin’s academy for the boys.
Author: Brandon Johnson
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No Easter Travel for Palestinian Christians in Gaza
There are around 1,100 Palestinian Christians in Gaza, many of whom are descended from the earliest Christians in Palestine (where Christianity originated). For the first time, Israeli authorities denied all travel permits to Palestinian Christians from Gaza to celebrate Easter as they do each year, by processing from Bethlehem to Jerusalem to follow the path of Jesus in the Resurrection.
Can such a restriction be justified by security needs only?
Human right watchers say, Israel’s decision to outright deny movement between Gaza and the West Bank this Easter constitutes a further violation of Palestinians’ fundamental rights to freedom of movement, religious freedom, and family life. The increased restriction on the movement of Palestinian Christians points to further implementation of Israel’s ‘separation policy’: a policy restricting movement between Gaza and the West Bank which deepens the split between the two parts of the occupied Palestinian territory.
The number of permits issued has diminished each year, and have included blanket bans on anyone under age 55 – but this is the first year that the Israeli military allowed no Palestinian Christians from Gaza to travel to Jerusalem for Easter.
While some practice the Latin faith and mark Easter on the 21st of April this year, many others are Eastern Orthodox and celebrate Easter on the 28th. Their traditional ceremonies involve a commemoration of Palm Sunday in Bethlehem, then a procession from the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, where Christians believe Jesus was resurrected after death.
According to the Israeli human rights organization Gisha, “The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) published the quotas set by Israel for holiday permits to be granted to for Christian Palestinians living under Israel’s control. The quota allocated by COGAT for holiday permits for Gaza residents this Easter is limited to only 200 people over the age of 55, and only for travel abroad; the quotas for West Bank residents are limited to 400 permits for travel abroad, and visits in Israel. This means that Palestinian families separated between Gaza, Israel and the West Bank will not be able to mark the Easter holiday together. It also means that all Christians in Gaza are being denied access to family and to the holy sites in Jerusalem and the West Bank.
The ban on Gaza Christians comes after Israeli military authorities announced the full closure of the West Bank and Gaza for Palestinian residents during the week of Passover, from April 19th to 27th. Israeli military authorities, which control all aspects of life for the occupied Palestinians living under their rule in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, frequently closing all Palestinian areas and preventing Palestinians from moving between Palestinian towns during periods of Jewish holidays.
In 2016 at least 850 Christian Palestinians from the Gaza City Strip traveled to celebrate Easter in Bethlehem and occupied East Jerusalem after Israeli authorities agreed to grant them permits.
Filed Under: Press Release Tagged With: and, announced, April, areas, authorities, ban, bank, bans, Bethlehem, blanket, Breaking Travel News, celebrate, ceremonies, Christian, Christianity, Christians, church, city, closing, Closure, commemoration, control, death, decision, denied, deny, East, East Jerusalem, Easter, Easter holiday, easter travel, Eastern, faith, families, Family, Feature, first, follow, freedom, full, Gaza, Gaza City, government, grant, holiday, holidays, holy, holy sites, Human, human rights, implementation, in, included, increased, Israel, Israel travel news, Israeli, issued, IT, Jerusalem, Jesus, Jewish, Latin, life, Limited, Living, military, movement, moving, needs, News articles, number, occupied Palestinian territory, only, organization, over, Palestine, Palestine travel news, Palestinian, Palestinians, Passover, path, People, tourism, Travel Destination News, Travelwire News
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The Development and Promotion of MICE in Thailand
The Thailand Convention & Exhibition Bureau (TCEB) is leveraging the development of Thai MICE business in long haul markets in collaboration with foreign chambers of commerce representing Australia, UK, USA and Germany.
Mr. Chiruit Isarangkun Na Ayuthaya, President of Thailand Convention & Exhibition Bureau (Public Organization) or TCEB, disclosed, “The signing of this MOU – The Development and Promotion of MICE – between TCEB and Foreign Chamber Alliance (FCA), comprising 4 chambers of commerce representing our main target countries, which are Australia, UK, USA and Germany.
It’s considered another remarkable step of TCEB in altering our role to leverage MICE by serving as a business partner who joins hands with foreign organisations to promote the development of Thai MICE in international markets, as well as to penetrate into long haul MICE markets in Oceania, Europe and the USA, side by side with our main short haul target markets in Asia.
“Indeed, the collaboration is a new dimension of promoting Thai MICE business in long haul markets with concentration on Oceania, Europe and the USA. This is the very first time that the Foreign Chamber Alliance – FCA, which represents Australia, UK, USA and Germany, signed an MOU with a Thai government agency. Interestingly, FCA has more than 20,000 members that include businessmen, investors, entrepreneurs from business, industrial and service sectors, such as Minor Hotels Group, AccorHotels Group, Marriott Hotels Group, convention centres business, as well as oil, mining, pharmaceutical, automobile and other industries,” he added.
“These are considered high potential business groups for propelling the national economy and are included among the targeted industries that the Thai government is keen to encourage in line with the 4.0 Policy. For this reason, this is a lucrative opportunity for us to collaborate to develop and raise the competitiveness of Thai MICE. The 4 chambers of commerce have recognised the importance of using MICE as the gateway to the development of commerce and investment in Thailand and ASEAN,” he said.
With this MOU, the framework for the development of MICE business will embrace 5 dimensions of operation:
• The sharing of MICE statistics and events
• MICE business development
• MICE market promotion
• MICE business research
• MICE personnel development.
Mr. Chiruit further said, “The initial collaboration to mutually promote MICE business will mainly focus on hospitality service, because members of the FCA have long records of investment in Thailand, which have been running alongside their nationwide service businesses. Hence, they have eyed to extend collaboration with Thai government agencies, as they believe the endeavour will open a new door to operate MICE business in Thailand and ASEAN.
“This, in turn, will allow them to study about the dynamics and direction of the Thai MICE market. By joining with TCEB in formulating a marketing development scheme, the synergy will open a new door to connecting with other alliances who relate with the promotion of Thai MICE business in targeted countries. Moreover, there will be co-operation in drawing international events into Thailand, marketing promotion and provision of support for events previously held in Thailand,” he said.
“Target groups and alliances will be invited to participate to strengthen the potential of MICE events held here in Thailand. The FCA will join with us in the exchange of marketing information related to targeted industries held by allied chambers of commerce and TCEB will exchange information on Thai MICE business, including statistics and events, to fully bolster mutual MICE business development,” said the TCEB President.
He went on to say, “Nevertheless, the FCA expects the Thai government to leverage the competitiveness of Thai MICE business in order to serve global competition. For example, facilitation of customs and immigration procedures; development of infrastructure and transportation; construction of convention centres; development of MICE personnel that meets international standards, and establishment of One-Stop-Service MICE centres. All of which will open a new door to the holding of MICE events in Thailand by efficiently offering enhanced convenience for MICE entrepreneurs and organisers,“ he declared.
Proposals to establish MICE service centres has been included in TCEB’s earlier strategic plan, and the Ease of Doing Business project as well as the draft of a national strategy of NESDB (National Economic and Social Development Council).
Mr. Chiruit went on to explain, “After the completion of MOU signing, TCEB is set to discuss with the FCA on the preparation of Phase I work plan, which lasts two years. Both parties will encourage practical co-operation in a rapid and consistent manner. Initially, we have planned to attract events and provide support to the holding of events that relate to targeted industries according to the government’s 4.0 Policy, particularly in the provinces governed by the administration of EEC (Eastern Economic Corridor),” he said.
“TCEB expects that the collaboration will not only leverage the competitiveness of Thai MICE in long haul markets in Oceania, Europe and the USA, but will also help to attract international events into several regions in Thailand, especially those considered main markets in MICE City project, which are Bangkok, Pattaya, Phuket, Chiang Mai and Khon Kaen. Definitely, we believe the rapport will encourage transfers of technology and knowledge of each industry among one another, and thus will promote advancement in all regions and stimulate income distribution to communities nationwide,” concluded Mr. Chiruit.
Mr. Benjamin Krieg, Vice President, Austcham, explained, “The role of the Foreign Chamber Alliance (FCA) in Thailand and the purpose of signing the MOU combines key Foreign Chambers and their members through this important collaboration, we provide a common voice on advocacy to develop and grow opportunities that can benefit our members and the country of Thailand,” he said.
“The MICE industry is growing, and will also continue to grow in importance and contribution to the overall tourism sector within Thailand, and of course the greater Thai economy. Our primary aim is to continue to increase and grow the competitiveness of Thailand as a leading destination for MICE not only within Asia, but the world, further complimenting the amazing tourism industry that we already are so fortunate to be a part of,” concluded Mr. Krieg.
Filed Under: Press Release Tagged With: amp, and, ASEAN, Asia, attract, Australia, bangkok, benefit, Breaking Travel News, bureau, Business, Business Development, businesses, businessmen, Centres, chamber, Chambers, Chiang, Chiang Mai, city, collaboration, commerce, communities, competition, competitiveness, Completion, concluded, connecting, construction, continue, contribution, convention, Convention Centres, Corporate News, Corridor, council, countries, country, course, customs, Destination, development, dimension, direction, Discuss, Distribution, doing, door, draft, earlier, ease, Eastern, economic, Economy, embrace, Endeavour, entrepreneurs, establish, establishment, Europe, Events, exchange, exhibition, explained, extend, first, foreign, framework, gateway, Germany, Global, global competition, government, Government Affairs, greater, Group, groups, grow, Growing, held, help, high, hospitality, Hotels, immigration, importance, important, in, included, including, income, increase, industrial, Industries, Industry, information, infrastructure, International, international markets, international standards, Investment, investors, invited, IT, join, joining, joins, key, Khon, khon kaen, knowledge, leading, leading destination, line, Main, Market, Marketing, markets, Marriott, Marriott hotels, meetings.travel, members, mice, mice business, MICE City, mice events, MICE industry, MICE Industry News, MICE market, mining, Minor, minor hotels, MOU, Mr, NA, national, national economy, Nationwide, New, News articles, offering, Oil, one-stop, only, open, operate, operation, opportunities, opportunity, order, organization, participate, particularly, parties, partner, Pattaya, People in Travel, personnel, Phuket, plan, planned, policy, potential, president, Primary, procedures, project, promote, promoting, promotion, proposals, provinces, public, purpose, raise, reason, records, regions, relate, related, representing, represents, research, role, running, s, said, scheme, sector, sectors, serve, service, serving, Set, sharing, short, signed, Signing, social, standards, statistics, stop, strategic, strategic plan, strategy, study, support, synergy, target, TCEB, Technology, Thai, thailand, Thailand convention, Thailand Travel News, The National, The World, through, time, to, TO BE, tourism, Tourism Industry, tourism sector, transfers, Transportation, Travel & Tourism Organizations News, Travel Destination News, Travelwire News, turn, UK, US, USA, using, vice, vice president, voice, We, went, WHO, work, World, years
Latest in the Sri Lanka wave of terror: Holy Sites must be respected
The latest from Sri Lanka in regards to eight deadly terror attacks on Easter Sunday leaves 290 dead and more than 500 people injured.
Among the dead are also foreign tourists including 3 from India, 1 from Portugal, 2 from Turkey, 3 from the UK, and 2 with both a U.S. and U.K. citizenship
9 foreigners are missing, 25 unidentified bodies are also believed to be foreigners.
The German embassy is working on identifying possible German tourists among the victims.
Bombs explosions were reported yesterday in eight locations
Katuwapitiya Church
Kochikade Church
Church in Batticaloa
Shangri-La Hotel, Colombo
Kingsbury Hotel, Colombo
Dehiwala
Dematagoda
An improvised explosive device (IED) was discovered in close proximity to the Bandaranaike International Airport in Colombo last night. The IED was successfully diffused and detonated by the members of the Sri Lanka Air Force. The bomb was discovered along the Adiambalama road, in close proximity to the BIA hours before President Maithripala Sirisena returned to the country.
According to the Crime Division of the Sri Lanka Police (CCD) 13 individuals linked to the attack last night were arrested and 10 of them were later transferred into the custody for further investigations.
Officers of the Wellwatte police late last night managed to take into custody a van and a driver believed to have been used to transport the attackers. 24 people have been arrested thus far in relation to the incidents.
Schools and Universities remain closed, scheduled government examinations have been postponed. The Colombo Stock Exchange last night announced that they would not be open for trading until further notice.
The United States of America and the United Kingdom have issued travel advisories for Sri Lanka.
In the meantime, curfews and social media and instant message shut down are in effect in Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka had planned to double tourist arrivals next year. This may be a big test to achieve such numbers.
The attacks that took place yesterday has also drawn international condemnation.
Here are some of their messages:
“I learned with sadness and pain of the news of the grave attacks, that precisely today, Easter, brought mourning and pain to churches and other places where people were gathered in Sri Lanka,” he told tens of thousands of people in St. Peter’s Square to hear his Easter Sunday message.
“I wish to express my affectionate closeness to the Christian community, hit while it was gathered in prayer, and to all the victims of such cruel violence.”
WORLD JEWISH CONGRESS PRESIDENT RONALD S. LAUDER
“World Jewry – in fact all civilized people – denounce this heinous outrage and appeal for zero tolerance of those who use terror to advance their objectives. This truly barbarous assault on peaceful worshippers on one of the holiest days in the Christian calendar serves as a painful reminder that the war against terror must be at the top of the international agenda and pursued relentlessly,” he said in a statement.
ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, JUSTIN WELBY, SPIRITUAL LEADER OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
“The will to power leads to the murder of innocents in Sri Lanka. The utterly despicable destruction that on this holiest of days seeks to challenge the reality of the risen Christ. To say that darkness will conquer, that our choice is surrender or death. Jesus chose to defy this darkness and he is risen indeed.”
U.S. PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP
“The United States offers heartfelt condolences to the great people of Sri Lanka. We stand ready to help!,” he tweeted.
“Strongly condemn the horrific blasts in Sri Lanka. There is no place for such barbarism in our region. India stands in solidarity with the people of Sri Lanka. My thoughts are with the bereaved families and prayers with the injured,” he said on Twitter.
PAKISTAN’S PRIME MINISTER IMRAN KHAN
“Strongly condemn the horrific terrorist attack in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday resulting in precious lives lost and hundreds injured. My profound condolences go to our Sri Lankan brethren. Pakistan stands in complete solidarity with Sri Lanka in their hour of grief,” he tweeted.
RUSSIAN PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN
“Vladimir Putin expressed condolences to Sri Lanka President Maithripala Sirisena in connection with tragic consequences of terrorist acts,” his English Twitter account said.
“It is shocking that people who had gathered to celebrate Easter were the deliberate target of vicious attacks,” she wrote in a letter of condolence to Sri Lanka’s president.
“Deep sorrow following the terrorist attacks against churches and hotels in Sri Lanka. We firmly condemn these heinous acts. All our solidarity with the people of Sri Lanka and our thoughts go out to all victims’ relatives on this Easter Day,” he said on Twitter.
IRANIAN FOREIGN MINISTER MOHAMMAD JAVAD ZARIF
“Terribly saddened by terrorist attacks on Sri Lankan worshippers during Easter. Condolences to friendly govt & people of Sri Lanka. Our thoughts & prayers with the victims & their families. Terrorism is a global menace with no religion: it must be condemned & confronted globally,” he said on Twitter.
NEW ZEALAND PRIME MINISTER JACINDA ARDERN
“New Zealand condemns all acts of terrorism, and our resolve has only been strengthened by the attack on our soil on the 15th of March. To see an attack in Sri Lanka while people were in churches and at hotels is devastating,” she said in a written statement.
“New Zealand rejects all forms of extremism and stands for freedom of religion and the right to worship safely. Collectively we must find the will and the answers to end such violence.”
SRI LANKA EMBASSY
It was with horror and sadness we heard of the bombings in Sri Lanka costing the lives of so many people. We condemn the horrendous attacks targetting innocent civilians. Our sympathies go out to all the victims. Maldives stands in solidarity with people & Govt. of Sri Lanka.
The Toronto sign has been dimmed in solidarity with Sri Lanka following today’s tragic attacks. We join our Sri Lankan community and our Christian community in mourning those killed and pray for the recovery of those injured.
Filed Under: Press Release Tagged With: amp, and, announced, answers, appeal, arrested, arrivals, assault, attack, attackers, attacks, Aviation News, aviation-website, bia, big, blasts, bodies, bomb, bombings, bombs, Breaking Travel News, calendar, celebrate, challenge, chancellor, choice, Christian, church, churches, Cinnamon, citizenship, civilians, close, closed, Colombo, community, complete, condemn, condemnation, condemned, condolences, Congress, connection, costing, country, crime, custody, day, Days, dead, deadly, death, denounce, destruction, Division, Donald, Donald Trump, double, down, driver, Easter, effect, eight, embassy, end, England, English, exchange, explosions, Explosive, explosive device, express, facts, families, far, Feature, find, following, force, foreign, Foreign Minister, foreign tourists, foreigners, forms, Francis, freedom, French, French President Emmanuel Macron, friendly, German, german chancellor, German tourists, Global, globally, GO!, government, Government Affairs, Grand, Grand Hotel, grief, help, hit, holy, holy sites, hotel, Hotels, Hour, hours, in, incidents, including, India, Indian, Indian Prime Minister, injured, International, International Airport, Iranian, issued, IT, Jesus, Jewish, join, Justin, killed, Kingdom, LA, Lanka, Lankan, last, late, later, LATEST, leader, leads, letter, LGBTQ, linked, lives lost, locations, lost, maldives, march, May, media, members, messages, minister, missing, mourning, murder, New, New Zealand, News, night, notice, numbers, offers, officers, only, open, out, outrage, pain, Pakistan, peaceful, People, people injured, Place, places, planned, police, Pope, Pope Francis, portugal, postponed, power, pray, president, President Donald, President Donald Trump, Prime, Prime Minister, Putin, ready, reality, recovery, region, religion, reported, resolve, right, road, Russian, Russian President, s, sadness, said, scheduled, schools, see, Shangri-La, Shangri-La Hotel, shut, shut-down, sign, sites, social, social media, solidarity, spiritual, spiritual leader, Square, Sri, Sri Lanka, sri lanka president, Sri Lanka travel news, Sri Lankan, St, stands, statement, states, stock, successfully, surrender, target, terror, terror attacks, terrorism, terrorist, terrorist attack, terrorist attacks, test, the United States, thousands, to, TO BE, today, told, tolerance, top, Toronto, tourism, tourist, tourist arrivals, tourists, trading, Tragic, transport, Travel, travel advisories, Travel Destination News, Travelwire News, Trump, Turkey, tweeted, twitter, U.S. president, UK, United, United Kingdom, United States, United States of America, use, used, Van, victims, violence, war, wave, We, were, WHO, working, World, wrote, year, yesterday, Zealand, ZERO, zero tolerance
Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority, U.S. and British Authorities warn in response to terror attacks
The Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority in a statement released urges hotels in Sri Lanka to take maximum measures to strengthen security as Hotels have been one of the main targets. Please assist us in spreading the word and let us not forget to help tourists who are currently in Sri Lanka.”
The Sri Lanka travel industry is bracing for the impact of the horrific attack Easter Sunday in the nation’s capital Colombo and in Negombo, where the airport is located.
Sri Lanka received 2.1 million tourists in 2017 and had set a target to double that number this year. Free visas to visitors from 30 countries including the U.S.,UK, EU and Thailand are part of this strategy.
Currently, Sri Lanka is quiet. It’s a curfew and all roads are closed.
The U.S. embassy raised the level of travel advisory for Sri Lanka to level 2: The embassy warned terrorist groups to continue plotting possible attacks in Sri Lanka. Terrorists may attack with little or no warning, targeting tourist locations, transportation hubs, markets/shopping malls, local government facilities, hotels, clubs, restaurants, places of worship, parks, major sporting and cultural events, educational institutions, airports, and other public areas.
The White House issued a statement, that the United States condemns in the strongest terms the outrageous terrorist attacks in Sri Lanka that have claimed so many precious lives on this Easter Sunday. Our heartfelt condolences go out to the families of the more than 200 killed and hundreds of others wounded. We stand with the Sri Lankan government and people as they bring to justice the perpetrators of these despicable and senseless acts.
In the meantime, Sri Lanka arrested 13 alleged suspects. Another attack on the airport was prevented. 215 people including foreign tourists were killed, more than 500 injured in a series of planned and coordinated attacks on Easter Sunday.
The UK Foreign Department is telling British Citizens:
On 21 April 2019 bombs were used to attack three churches and three hotels in Sri Lanka, in central Colombo; in the northern suburb of Colombo Kochchikade, and in Negombo roughly twenty miles north of Colombo; and in the east of the country in Batticaloa. There have been significant casualties. If you are in Sri Lanka and you are safe, we advise that you contact family and friends to let them know that you are safe.
If you are in Sri Lanka and have been directly affected by the attacks, please call the British High Commission in Colombo: +94 11 5390639, and select the emergency option from where you will be connected to one of our consular staff. If you’re in the UK and worried about British friends or family in Sri Lanka caught up in the incidents, please call the FCO switchboard number: 020 7008 1500 and follow the same steps.
Security has been stepped up across the island and there are reports of ongoing security operations. if you are in Sri Lanka, please follow the advice of local security authorities, hotel security staff or your tour company. The airport is operating, but with increased security checks. Some airlines are advising their passengers to arrive early for check-in, in light of increased security screening.
The Sri Lankan authorities have declared a nationwide curfew. You should limit movements until this has been lifted, following the instructions of the local authorities and your hotel/tour operator.
The Sri Lankan authorities have confirmed that, if you need to catch a flight from Colombo airport, you are able to travel to the airport provided you have both passport and ticket valid for travel that day. They have also confirmed that arrangements have been put in place for arriving passengers.
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Centara identifies technological and social trends that will shape the hospitality industry in the next 10 years
Global hospitality is at a crossroads. In the last 20 years, technology has transformed every aspect of the guest journey, from online bookings to in-room services to post-stay feedback. But as technology continues to evolve and advance, what will the hotel industry look like 10 years in the future?
In the past, digitalization was largely driven by companies, as new solutions were introduced to enhance efficiency and target customers more effectively. In the modern era however, it is customers who are demanding greater connectivity. This is especially true in the hotel industry, which is driven by modern lifestyle trends and the “always-on” mindset of millennial travelers.
In light of these trends, Markland Blaiklock, Centara’s Deputy Chief Executive Officer, explains his vision for the future of the hospitality industry in the next decade:
“Ten years from now, I’m sure we will look back and see that the hospitality industry changed much more than predicted, and Asia will continue to be a major catalyst for change. This evolution will be part social and part technological, but the overall goal will be the same: to meet and exceed guests’ expectations,” he commented.
According to Mr. Blaiklock, Centara foresees three significant trends shaping its business, and the entire industry, going forward:
Travel and work life will become inseparable thanks to improved technology and faster connectivity. This trend will occur in all countries but will be led by China and the rest of Asia, which are currently driving the growth in overseas travel. The launch of Centara’s new “Meetings Redesigned” MICE initiative will help to accommodate this shift, by allowing companies to be more flexible and creative with their event agendas.
Robotics and artificial intelligence will create hyper-connected hotel experiences. The Internet of Things (IoT) will seamlessly connect every hotel touchpoint, which will be personalized to the unique preferences every guest. In addition, big data insights will enable hotel staff to improve service quality in real time.
Delivering emotional experiences will be the ultimate goal of hotels. As technology takes over, many guests will go in search of authenticity, human interaction and genuine hospitality. The ability to predict and identify human emotions will be key to the success of hotels in the coming decades.
The big question for hoteliers now and in the future will be: how do we successfully integrate technology to improve the guest’s entire journey, whilst also retaining our distinct personality and brand loyalty?
For Centara Hotels & Resorts, Thailand’s leading hotel operator, this balance is at the core of its strategic vision. In the coming years decades, the group will focus delivering warm Thai hospitality in line with the latest social and technological trends to create exceptional customer experiences.
Centara has proven adept at developing new brands that embrace innovation. The most recent example is COSI, which caters for young-minded and tech-savvy travelers with friendly, simple and affordable accommodation and state-of-the-art amenities like smartphone integration, self-service check-in and a 24-hour lifestyle café concept. It is no surprise that this contemporary concept, which made its debut in Koh Samui in 2017, is now a key driving force behind Centara’s expansion strategy.
In many ways, COSI represents the future of hospitality. Its combination of connectivity, comfort and convenience enables guests to blend business and leisure travel, a key trend identified by Mr. Blaiklock. Across all of Centara’s six brands however, the group continues to roll out innovative new digital experiences.
Recent initiatives range from revamping the Centara website and mobile app for a seamless online experience, to launching a new central reservation system and revenue management system for global coordination. The new Chinese language, China-hosted website, social media pages and payment solutions are also positioning Centara to compete successfully in the world’s largest travel market.
Technology, however, is only one element of a successful strategy. Hotel guests will always be human beings, and the majority of humans visit a destination to experience its charm and culture, not to look at a screen. For Centara, the ability to deliver authentic Thai hospitality is something that can never be replaced by technology. By harnessing big data and personalization tools however, hoteliers can enhance every human interaction. Intuitive and rewarding loyalty programs like CentaraThe1 will play a major part in anticipating and delivering tailored experiences.
So digitalization really is the key; by using smart technology to identify and satisfy guest preferences, the hoteliers of the future will be able to create truly bespoke experiences for every guest.
Centara Hotels & Resorts is Thailand’s leading hotel operator. Its 68 properties span all major Thai destinations plus the Maldives, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Laos, China, Oman, Qatar and the UAE. Centara’s portfolio comprises six brands -Centara Grand Hotels & Resorts, Centara Hotels & Resorts, Centara Boutique Collection, Centra by Centara, Centara Residences & Suites and COSI Hotels – ranging from 5-star city hotels and luxurious island retreats to family resorts and affordable lifestyle concepts supported by innovative technology. It also operates state-of-the-art convention centers and has its own award-winning spa brand, Cenvaree. Throughout the collection, Centara delivers and celebrates the hospitality and values Thailand is famous for including gracious service, exceptional food, pampering spas and the importance of families. Centara’s distinctive culture and diversity of formats allow it to serve and satisfy travelers of nearly every age and lifestyle.
Over the next five years Centara aims to double its size with additional properties in Thailand and new international markets, while spreading its footprint into new continents and market niches. As Centara continues to expand, a growing base of loyal customers will find the company’s unique style of hospitality in more locations. Centara’s global loyalty program, Centara The1, reinforces their loyalty with rewards, privileges and special member pricing.
For more information about Centara, please visit centarahotelsresorts.com.
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New US Cuban sanctions target tourism, remittances and banking
The US is targeting Cuba with additional sanctions, including restricting travel to the island nation, limiting remittances, and sanctioning additional entities, White House national security adviser John Bolton said.
US citizens sending remittances to Cuba will be limited t $1,000 per person per quarter, Bolton said on Wednesday. Non-family travel will be restricted to reduce “veiled tourism” that benefits the Cuban government and military, he added.
“Through the Treasury Department, we will also implement changes to end the use of ‘U-turn transactions,’ which allow the regime to circumvent sanctions and obtain access to hard currency and the US banking system,” Bolton said in a speech to veterans of the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, when Cuban exiles tried to overthrow Fidel Castro’s regime.
The move comes a day after the White House announced it would stop issuing waivers on implementing the Helms-Burton law, which would penalize anyone in the world who did business with Cuban entities using property seized from US owners following the 1959 Cuban revolution.
Treasury has not officially announced the new sanctions, but Bolton said five entities will be added to the Cuban blacklist, including the military-owned airline Aerogaviota.
The US cut diplomatic ties with Cuba in 1961, and over the following decades imposed a wide range of sanctions on the island nation, just 90 miles south of Florida. Former president Barack Obama sought to soften the US policy in 2015, leading to the reopening of the US and Cuban embassies and loosening of travel restrictions.
In June 2017, however, Trump rolled back all of Obama’s changes, returning to a hardline policy on Cuba. Additional sanctions were introduced this year, as Trump administration has accused Cuba of and its military of occupying Venezuela and helping Nicolas Maduro’s regime to stay in power.
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Arab Hotel Investment Conference is back: Why it’s so amazing
Last year, the move of the 14th Arab Hotel Investment Conference (AHIC) from Dubai Jumeirah Madinat to the neighboring Emirate Ras Al Khaimah (RAK) was a huge challenge.
Ras Al Khaimah is where? It is one-hour drive from Dubai Airport.
Arriving at midnight at Dubai Airport, and driving on a sheer endless straight highway through the desert, it certainly was an entirely new experience: no skyscrapers, no traffic jams, nothing but a totally empty highwa which is normally clogged up during the day, with only some camels walking along enroute during the night.
After the one-hour drive, all of a sudden there was a wake-up call as lights of a monumental building like a Fata Mogana (mirage) emerged from the horizon. Getting closer, it was not a Fat Mogana but the newly-opened Waldorf Astoria Hotel.
Photo © Elisabeth Lang
As the function rooms at the Waldorf Astoria hotel were not big enough to host the AHIC event with nearly 2,000 delegates, a gigantic fully-airconditioned tent was built just for this event and only for the 3 days of the conference.
We are talking about a cost of nearly 2 million dollars set in the sand for a humongous fully-equipped tent with the latest technologies – Wi Fi, a TV broadcasting studio, and a revolving stage. Just amazing!
BBC Hard Talk presenter Stephan Sackur, who had just arrived from ice-cold Moscow, was interviewing Russia’s Foreign Secretary, Sergej Lavrov, and then found himself on the beach on a revolving stage the next day with a colorful audience and an outside temperature of 45 Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit).
A red carpet was rolled out for the rulers and dignitaries of Ras Al Khaimah and the entire region with people rushing towards the AHIC village on the beach.
Ras Al Khaimah is the most authentic and UAE’s second-smallest emirate and is quietly boosting its tourism, free zones, and real estate.
Despite being the second smallest emirate in the UAE with a population of just 400,000, strong real estate and hospitality sectors, as well as corporate giants such as RAK Ceramics and Gulf Pharmaceutical Industries (Julphar) have helped RAK avoid the oil-related economic crisis of its neighbors.
During AHIC 2019’s opening, the Ras Al Khaimah ruler launched a contest to create a “unique” resort.
The ruler, Sheikh Saud bin Saqr Al Qasimi of Ras Al Khaimah, launched the Grand RAK Project competition which is open to delegates registered at the event.
Sheikh Saud said: “We support projects and concepts that spark creativity and place Ras Al Khaimah at the forefront of the tourism sector which aims to create a new resort that is unique to the emirate.
“Sustained growth is already the hallmark of Ras Al Khaimah’s tourism industry, and we seek to ensure this continues by utilizing our strategic tourism plan to reach well-defined targets.”
Working in teams combining hotel designers and operators, entrants will have 3 months to prepare a preliminary concept vision supported by a high-level feasibility appraisal.
The winning project will be allocated a coveted beachfront location.
The judging panel for the Grand RAK Project includes Abdullah Al Abdooli, Managing Director and CEO, Marjan; David Daniels, Director of Architecture, SSH; Filippo Sona, Managing Director, Global Hospitality, Drees & Sommer; and Kevin Underwood, Principal, HKS Hospitality Group.
While the UAE remains RAK’s strongest market, representing about 40 percent of total visitors, Europe is gaining ground. The number of German tourists to RAK grew by 53 percent last year, followed by 28.5 percent growth from the UK, 25 percent from India, and 4 percent from Russia.
The Government of Ras Al Khaimah has an established history in the tourism sector commencing with the opening of the first internationally-branded hotel back in 2001 and is galloping forward on a large scale.
With the launch of the first Arabian Hotel Investment Conference last year, the spotlight shone on Ras Al Khaimah. The program, featuring more than 100 speakers from around the world, has been curated around this year’s theme with a focus on addressing the current tensions in the owner-operator relationship, uncovering innovative approaches to business, analyzing future market demand trends, and fostering harmonious relationships between all stakeholders in order to sustain growth and prosperity
In his speech, Jonathan Worsley, Chairman of AHIC, said:
“It is evident to me that we are going through transformational change within the Middle East’s hotel investment market. As more supply comes online and the market becomes increasingly competitive, the dynamic of the owner-operator relationship has shifted. As the landscape becomes more competitive it is key that all parties are working together towards the same goals. With this backdrop in mind, together with our advisory board and partners at Insignia, we concluded that evolution in 2019 is not about creating disruptive moves but about finding constructive steps that create an environment of clarity and collaboration. Hence, we came to our 2019 theme, Synchronized for Success.
“Synchronicity not just in relationships but in the alignment of business strategy with what is happening in the broader macro-economic environment as some of the most ambitious projects of our generation are announced and social transformations, technical innovations, and shifting consumer behavior are changing the hotel investment landscape at a staggering pace.”
How can business be synced with these new dynamics?
The visionary industry leader, Stardom Speaker Sebastien Bazin, Chairman & CEO of ACCOR, will address the AHIC community on “What is your compass during times of disruption, innovation, and global turmoil?”
Conference Chair Stephen Sackur will take a break from his day job as host of HARDtalk and head back to the beach as he has been assigned one job at AHIC 2019 – to ask the questions the industry wants addressed the most so that attendees walk away with the insights they need.
Synchronized for success? Three owners and three operators will sit down with Stephen Sackur to discuss how they are “Syncing for Success.” Never in the history of the hotel industry has there been such a rapid build-up of hotel rooms. How does the industry cope and what business models are evolving that will help retain and attract more owners and investors? Stephen Sackur will present these tough questions to the operators.
Who else is there? Among the speakers are:
The Managing Director & CEO of Marjan responsible for creating and designing Ras Al Khaimah’s key freehold master plans including the spectacular Al Marjan Island, a world-class tourism development offering excellent opportunities for investors.
Abdullah Al Abdouli, Head of Investment & Finance, The Red Sea Development Company which is creating an exquisite ultra-luxury destination within a pristine 28,000 km² area that includes an archipelago of more than 50 unspoiled islands, volcanoes, desert, mountains, nature, and culture.
Jay Rosen, Chief Executive Officer, Public Investment Fund, Amaala, and ultra-luxury development that is part of an integrated approach to developing Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coast focusing on wellness, healthy living, and meditation. The development will cover an area of more than 3,800 sq. km. and will target more than 2,500 hotel keys.
The Chief Executive Officer of RAK Properties has drawn regional and global interest for launching state-of-the-art luxury hotels, resorts, and malls. With more than $540 million worth of available capital, the company is behind the Anantara Mina Al Arab, Ras Al Khaimah, and the 350-key InterContinental Ras Al Khaimah Mina Al Arab Resort.
The AHIC 2019 is taking place from April 9-11 at the AHIC Village, Ras Al Khaimah.
This copyright material, including photos, may not be used without written permission from the author and from eTN.
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Travel Oregon’s “Only Slightly Exaggerated” campaign
April 6, 2019 by Forimmediaterelease
Inspired by the viral success of the “Only Slightly Exaggerated” campaign last spring, Travel Oregon is launching part two of the animated campaign that gives viewers a creative glimpse of the magical feeling of being in Oregon.
The new 1:45 minute video continues the visual narrative, showcasing different locations, experiences and thrilling adventures in Oregon—from venturing deep into the Oregon Caves National Monument to paragliding over the Steens Mountain. Like the original, this new video features a cast of animated human characters, native flora and fauna and new fantastical beings, including mystical cloud-people and a sea-stack creature, to name a few.
In addition to the sweeping outdoor animated imagery highlighted in the video, the viewer also gets a taste of Oregon’s culinary bounty. In the restaurant scene, look for the bottle of Oregon Solidarity wine, a nod to the real-life collaboration between four Oregon wineries who came together to help the Rouge Valley wine region that was affected by the Southern Oregon wildfires last summer.
“The goal of this campaign is to welcome and invite everyone to experience a happier state of being while traveling in Oregon,” said Travel Oregon CEO Todd Davidson. “As people are overwhelmed with the distractions of modern life, experiencing the wonders of Oregon can be the answer for that. Whether that respite is on a beach, in a high desert or under a forest canopy, there are abundant opportunities to unplug and reconnect with yourself and nature here in Oregon.”
The campaign launches tomorrow in the target markets of Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, Boise, Tri Cities, Eugene and Bend. The media buy includes cinema, TV (launching during Final the Four), digital, billboards and on MAX Light Rail trains. Moreover, the campaign will be extended throughout the year through our annual visitor guide, downloadable wallpapers, posters, postcards, GIFs, shorter animation clips, and immersive new online content highlighting locations in the campaign that travelers can visit—the Oregon Caves, Steens Mountain and Clear Lake to name a few.
Utilizing the strong creative teams from the 2018 campaign, which generated more than 10 million worldwide views, the new video was brought to life in collaboration with long-time advertising partner Wieden+Kennedy with animation by Psyop and Sun Creature Studios and the musical score composed by Jim Dooley.
“Our goal with Only Slightly Exaggerated, both last year and this year, is to visualize the emotional experience of visiting Oregon. By using animation, we are able to capture experiences that go beyond traditional travel films, while also feeling unique to our state, said Ansel Wallenfang, creative at Wieden+Kennedy.
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Marriott has a 2020 vision when it comes to expansion in Asia
From the 15th Hotel Investment Conference – South Asia, Marriott International today announced its continued expansion plans in Asia-Pacific with its 2020 vision — an aggressive target to have 1000 hotels open by the end of 2020. This vision also could create up to 50,000 more job opportunities for the region. In 2019 alone, the company expects to add close to 100 new hotels or close to 20,000 rooms in the region, with several brand debuts in Australia, Hong Kong, The Philippines, Nepal and India. Marriott International’s portfolio in Asia Pacific currently encompasses over 710 properties in 23 countries and territories, operating under 23 of the company’s 30 global brands.
“The breadth and depth of Marriott International’s footprint means that we are able to offer travelers opportunities to experience more destinations, brands and experiences, especially through Marriott BonvoyTM, our industry-leading travel program,” said Craig S. Smith, President and Managing Director, Marriott International Asia Pacific.
“As important as our size is our commitment to deliver seamless and quality experiences for our guests at on-brand properties. Today’s traveler demands authentic, personalized and transformative experiences, whether for work or for pleasure, as a way of broadening their individual horizons and achieving a deeper understanding of the world. As the world’s leading hospitality company, it is in our DNA to strive to be part of our guests’ favorite moments and memories. We are dedicated to Marriott International remaining Asia Pacific’s favorite travel company.”
China, India and Southeast Asia as Marriott International’s Growth Drivers in the Region
Marriott International is well positioned to capitalize on global travel trends in China, India, and Indonesia, three of the world’s four most populated nations.
China continues to be the strongest growth driver for Marriott International in Asia Pacific, with more than 300 hotels in the pipeline. This accounts for more than 50 percent of the company’s pipeline in Asia Pacific. This year alone, Marriott International targets to open more than 30 hotels in China, including the first JW Marriott Marquis Hotel in China, the 515-room JW Marriott Marquis Hotel Shanghai Pudong featuring 6 food and beverage outlets; and the first Renaissance Hotel in the Fujian province with the planned opening of Renaissance Xiamen Resort & Spa in the fourth quarter of 2019. Outside of mainland China, the St. Regis brand is set to debut with the opening of St. Regis Hong Kong located in the historic Wanchai district.
With its recent 100th Marriott International hotel milestone celebrated in 2018, India continues to be the company’s second fastest growth engine in Asia Pacific with more than 50 properties in the pipeline. Marriott expects to reach more than 30,000 rooms open in India by end 2023. Given India’s robust economy and rising middle class, the country continues to present exciting growth opportunities, leveraging strong demand for Marriott’s select-service brands and growing demand for its upper upscale and luxury portfolios. The company expects to debut the Tribute Portfolio brand in India, with the opening of Port Muziris, Kochi, a Tribute Portfolio Hotel slated for the second quarter of 2019.
At the recent ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Tourism Forum, the ASEAN National Tourism Organizations revealed their collective efforts to marketing initiatives to inspire travel to Southeast Asia. Marriot International is poised to welcome these travelers, with over 140 signed hotels in its Southeast Asia pipeline, with Indonesia leading growth, meeting the growing demands of travel and tourism. In the Philippines, the company expects to more than triple its hotel portfolio by 2023. Sheraton, Marriott International’s most global brand, recently debuted in the country with the opening of Sheraton Manila Hotel.
Marriott International continues its growth momentum in the Pacific region, with 50 hotels anticipated to be open by 2020. Australia should see several brand debuts in coming years, including The Luxury Collection and The Ritz-Carlton. The Tasman, a Luxury Collection Hotel, expects to open in Hobart in late 2019, and the 205-room The Ritz-Carlton Perth is slated to open in June 2019. Element Hotels, Marriott International’s eco-conscious brand, is expected to debut in Australia with the opening of Element Melbourne Richmond in Q3 this year.
Marriott International Eyes New Destinations in Asia Pacific with Marriott BonvoyTM
Earlier this year, Marriott introduced Marriott BonvoyTM — Marriott International’s travel program replacing Marriott Rewards®, The Ritz-Carlton Rewards®, and Starwood Preferred Guest®(SPG). With Marriott BonvoyTM, travelers can experience the company’s newly introduced Asia Pacific website featuring rich experiential and user-generated content and offering inspiration for the next adventure in Asia Pacific. The company continues to focus on bringing new hotels to unchartered destinations sought out by our guests, with Marriott International’s first foray into Myanmar planned for 2020 with the opening of Sheraton Yangon Hotel.
As the Company Expands, Culture Remains a Bedrock For Success
Marriott International’s Asia Pacific vision could create up to approximately 50,000 new job opportunities in Asia Pacificby the end of 2020. Travel and tourism provide opportunities for experienced people or those new to the hospitality industry. Research by the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) highlighted that 1 in 5 new jobs created globally are attributable to travel and tourism.
As the company continues to grow, this also means that there is an increased opportunity for our associates to develop their careers and thereby improve their livelihoods. This is another way that Marriott International takes care of its associates. With a culture that empowers associates to live their best lives — putting people first has been the company’s core value since Marriott was founded more than 90 years ago. Marriott has built its business on taking care of its associates, who in turn take care of our guests. The company believes that creating a diverse and inclusive environment strengthens culture and community and drives competitiveness. Marriott International has won Aon Hewitt’s best employer for five consecutive years in Asia Pacific.
Filed Under: Press Release Tagged With: amp, and, announced, ASEAN, Asia, Asia Pacific, Asian, Asian nations, association, Australia, authentic, best, beverage, brand, brands, Breaking Travel News, bringing, built, Business, capitalize, celebrated, China, class, close, collection, collective, coming, commitment, community, company, companys, competitiveness, conference, Content, continued, continues, Corporate News, council, countries, country, create, created, culture, currently, debut, debuts, deliver, demand, demands, Destinations, director, District, DNA, driver, drivers, earlier, eco-conscious, Economy, efforts, Element, employer, end, engine, environment, expands, expansion, expansion in Asia, expansion plans, expected, experience, experienced, experiences, favorite, featuring, first, food, forum, Global, global travel, global travel trends, globally, grow, Growing, Growth, guests, historic, Hong, Hong Kong, hospitality, hospitality company, hospitality industry, Hospitality News, hotel, Hotel Investment Conference, hotel portfolio, Hotels, important, improve, in, including, inclusive, increased, India, individual, Indonesia, Industry, initiatives, inspiration, International, international hotel, introduced, Investment, IT, job, Jobs, June, JW Marriott, JW Marriott Marquis, Kochi, Kong, late, leading, Leading hospitality, live, Luxury, mainland, Malaysia travel news, Managing, managing director, Manila, Marketing, marketing initiatives, Marriott, Marriott International, Marriott International Asia Pacific, Marriott Rewards, meeting, Melbourne, memories, Middle, middle class, milestone, moments, momentum, most, Myanmar, national, national tourism, national tourism organizations, nations, Nepal, New, new destinations, new hotels, new jobs, newly, News articles, offer, offering, onbrand, open, opening, Operating, opportunity, organizations, out, Outlets, outside, over, Pacific, People, percent, Perth, Philippines, pipeline, planned, plans, pleasure, port, portfolio, Preferred, present, president, program, properties, province, putting, quality, quarter, recent, region, remains, Renaissance, research, resort, revealed, rewards, rich, Richmond, rising, Ritz, Ritz-Carlton, room, rooms, s, said, seamless, second, second quarter, see, service, Shanghai, Sheraton, signed, Size, slated, South, South Asia, Southeast, Southeast Asia, Southeast Asian, spa, St, St. Regis, Starwood, strong, strong demand, success, taking, target, targets, territories, The Luxury Collection, the Philippines, The Region, The Ritz, The Ritz-Carlton, The World, through, to, TO BE, today, tourism, tourism council, Tourism Forum, Travel, travel and tourism, travel company, travel program, travel trends, Traveler, travelers, Travelwire News, Trends, tribute, Tribute Portfolio, triple, turn, up, upscale, user-generated, value, vision, way, We, website, welcome, WHO, won, work, World, world travel, world travel and tourism, World Travel and Tourism Council, WTTC, Xiamen, Yangon, year, years
D.R. Congo: African Tourism Board is a place to be according World Heritage Kahuzi-Biega National Park
The African Tourism Board welcomes Kahuzi Biega National Park as a new member. The Kahuzi-Biega National Park is a protected area near Bukavu town in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is situated near the western bank of Lake Kivu and the Rwandan border.
“The African Tourism Board is a place to be, we have been undercover for long. When you search for Congo tourism, all you hear is information about Virunga or news about poacher. We want to make a difference. Let’s unite our efforts to promote the African tourism industry.”
These are the word by De Dieu Bya’Ombe, director of the Kahuzi Biega National Park.
He explains on his membership information:
Kahuzi-Biega National Park is home to more species of mammals than Any Other Site Albertine Rift. It is the second major MOST website in the area for Both endemic species and in terms of species richness. The park HAS 136 species of mammals, Including the eastern lowland gorilla is the star and 13 other primates like chimpanzees Including endangered species, red colobus monkey, and monkeys L’Hoest and Hamlyn.
• Other extremely uncommon species of the forests of eastern DRC are present aussi Such As the giant genet ( Genetta victoriae ) and aquatic genet ( Genetta piscivora ). Characteristic mammals of the central African forests aussi live in the park as the forest elephant, forest buffalo, giant forest hog and the bongo.
• The KBNP Is located in significant year endemism zone (Endemic Bird Area) for birds APPROBATION by Birdlife International. The Wildlife Conservation Society HAS compiled a list of birds to the park in 2003 with 349 species Including 42 endemic.
• Similarly, the park aussi Was Recognized As a diversity center for plants by IUCN and WWF in 1994 with at least 1,178 species listed in the high altitude area, the lower portion still remaining in inventory.
• The park is one of The Few sub-Saharan African websites Where flora and fauna transition from low to high altitude is observable. It included courses, in fact, all of the forest vegetation from 600 m to more than 2600 m, bass Moist Forest and medium altitude forest sub mountain up montane forest and bamboo. Above 2600 m to the top of Kahuzi Biega and mountains, Has Developed montane vegetation heather harboring endemic plant Senecio kahuzicus.
• The park houses aussi Generally, not Widespread vegetation Such As swamps and altitude bogs and swamp forests and riparian areas are waterlogged at all altitudes.
Due to all above specificities of the Kahuzi – Biega national park, we are looking forwards to develop eco-tourism activities and sustainable conservancy concept which are going to inspire the next generation.
Kahuzi Biega is a world heritage site created in 1970 for the main purpose of protecting low land gorillas. Kahuzi-Biega National Park is divided into two zones connected by a narrow corridor: Rainforest Mountain (Afro-montane forest gold) on one hand, and the lowland rainforest (Guinea-Congo Relatively wet) on the other hand.
It is a scarce African region where the transition entre thesis two kinds of rain forests remained largely intact. So far, over 1178 plant species have been recorded at high altitude, making it the third Albertine Rift website in terms of species richness partner after the Virunga National Park in DRC and the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest in Uganda. For cons, the lowland flora is still little known. The inventory of species endemic to the Kahuzi-Biega National Park is far from full, and we Even Discovered Many new species Belonging Mainly to the families of Balsam Orchidaceae & Purple Spurge, Araliaceae, Anacardiaceae, and many others families with one Particular species ( Fischer, 1995).
Conservation targets are the wildlife and communities at risk, and critical habitats and declining to protect. The subsidiary or auxiliary targets are a more detailed level of the target to which they are attached (parts of habitat, landscapes, media, etc.). The term key ecological attributes of the main natural characteristics of species, populations or ecosystems developed over time or as a result of natural disturbances and allow maintaining the range of conditions under which species are adapted. Furthermore, the exceptional forest cover KBNP an important carbon sink to contribute to the fight against climate change.
Talking about tourism, we offer gorilla trekking as our main attraction. Hiking, mountain accession and birds watching are complementary to the main attraction. We are proudly the only site where visitors can trek low land gorillas in the wild. We put our efforts to maintain all our tourism activities sustainable and ecological.
More information: www.kahuzibiega.org
More information on African Tourism Board:www.africantourismboard.com
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Ottawa Tourism and Outaouais Tourism join forces to target UK
Senior members from Ottawa Tourism and Outaouais Tourism will visit the UK from April 8-10 to promote both regions as a holiday destination.
The delegation, which also includes representatives from Canada’s national museums and from the wildlife experience called Omega Park, will visit Manchester and London, where they are set to meet with leading travel trade partners and top travel media.
The sales mission will conclude with an exclusive co-hosted event taking place at the Argyll Room & Terrace at London’s prestigious No. 4 Hamilton Place.
Ottawa is Canada’s capital with more than one million people. Located in Ontario at the Quebec border, it’s a place where English and French are spoken in the streets. Outaouais is located on the north shore of the Ottawa River, facing Ottawa.
Filed Under: Press Release Tagged With: amp, and, April, border, Breaking Travel News, Canada, Canada Travel News, capital, delegation, Destination, English, event, exclusive, experience, Forces, French, Hamilton, holiday, holiday destination, in, includes, IT, join, leading, London, Manchester, media, meet, members, million, million people, mission, museums, national, News articles, North, North Shore, one million, Ontario, Ottawa, park, partners, People, Place, prestigious, promote, Quebec, regions, river, room, s, Sales, senior, taking, target, to, top, tourism, Trade, Travel, Travel & Tourism Organizations News, Travel Destination News, travel media, travel trade, travel trade partners, Travelwire News, UK, visit, wildlife
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Visit Oakland reports record growth and Unveils New Strategies for 2017/18
Visit Oakland, the city’s official destination marketing organization, announced a strong tourism growth and interest from international travelers. In 2016, 3.7 million visitors traveled to Oakland and spent $627 million, up 3.4% from 2015.
Visitor spend has been increasing year after year and has grown by 27% in the last 4 years. Tourism supports 7.1K jobs in Oakland, generating $271 million in total income last year.
Much of Oakland’s international tourism growth is an in correlation with European flights coming through Oakland International Airport. Within the last 18 months, OAK has announced nonstop flights to and from London, Barcelona, Paris and Rome, in addition to the existing Oslo, Stockholm and Copenhagen routes.
As OAK’s passenger volume has consistently increased over the past four years,” says Bryant Francis, Port of Oakland Director of Aviation. “Our rapidly expanding portfolio of international nonstop flights has helped OAK and the East Bay to be increasingly top-of-mind for European visitors to the Bay Area.”
To continue its growth in leisure and business travel sectors, Visit Oakland introduced two new marketing programs to solidify Oakland’s place nationally and internationally as a leading art and cultural destination.
In continuing to support Oakland’s diverse creative community, Visit Oakland announced the inaugural Oakland Art Month in May 2018. Preliminary partners include OMCA, Oakland First Fridays, Oakland Art Murmur, Oakland International Film Festival, East Bay Mural Festival, and the Oakland Symphony.
“The goal of the program is to showcase a wealth of incredible arts offerings in Oakland that be enjoyed by the local community and visitors from afar,” says Mark Everton, President & CEO of Visit Oakland. “By promoting May as Oakland Art Month, Visit Oakland aims to encourage overnight stays to attend several art events during their stay. Furthermore, the profile of smaller events can be raised in part of the larger city promotion.”
Additionally, the Oakland Mural Grant program will continue Visit Oakland’s efforts to increase the number of public murals for display on the outward walls of buildings within city limits as a way to further enhance the aesthetics of the city, while supporting the incredibly talented artist community within Oakland.
Oakland’s art talent was showcased this morning in a live art demonstration by legendary local artist Vogue. His piece will be donated to “heART is Oakland,” a benefit exhibit that has been showing at Classic Cars West during the month of July. The exhibition is a fundraiser to help keep art and artists in Oakland. Proceeds benefit “Safer DIY Spaces” which is an Oakland-based coalition of activists, architects, contractors, and artists that offer guidance, financial assistance, and labor to the members of the Bay Area’s communities who live and work in non-traditional “DIY” spaces.
Finalists of The 2nd Global Tourism Startup Competition
Shark Attack Injures French Tourist in the Seychelles, Kills in Australia
Travel More in 2020 by Finding a Job for Remote Workers
Grupo Xcaret’s Parks Ban Single-Use Plastics
6 German Tourists Killed in Northern Italy
U.S. Travel Hails USMCA Passage by Senate
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DBR Boards > Main Category > Elizabeth King Forum > 2017 NBA Summer Thread
View Full Version : 2017 NBA Summer Thread
Pages : [1] 2 3
JasonEvans
Rather than continue to pollute the NBA Finals thread, let's move the conversation about post-season trades and free agents to a new home... here.
Looks like the Cavs are more interested in Jimmy Butler.
http://www.espn.com/espn/now?nowId=1-19682349
Makes perfect sense to me as Butler would seem more likely to stay in Cleveland than George. Also, Butler is under contract for 2 years while George is only locked in for 1 more season. That said, because George has made it clear he wants out of Indy, I would think a trade would be easier to facilitate with the Pacers.
All the talk is that Cleveland is trying to deal Love to someone who would send picks and younger players to Chicago. I wonder who the third team would be in these scenarios.
-Jason "I know one thing, i ain't Boston ;) " Evans
According to Ramona Shelburne and Marc Stein (both still with the Worldwide Leader), via "league sources," the Lakers & Pacers have engaged in talks for Paul George in advance of the draft.
That protected Boston 2018 LAL draft pick appears likely to go up in smoke. It's likely on to the 2019 Sacto pick for them.
So, suddenly the Lakers are in "win now!" mode? Huh? If they wait a year, they have a decent chance to get PG13 for free (cap space).
If you are Indiana, what do you want for PG13? Jordan Clarkson and D'Angelo Russell would work in terms of cap space. I can't imagine Indiana would do it, but you could do George for Deng and then throw in a ton of draft picks from the Lakers.
-Jason "I wonder if the Lakers would consider dealing the pick that will become Ball? I think that would be a mistake. Elite PGs who make everyone around them better are hard to come by" Evans
Butler to Cleveland makes sense from a feasibility and mutual interest standpoint, but he doesn't fit in as seamlessly on offense as George or even Kevin Love in my opinion. However, the George to Cleveland story seems to have died down, so Butler is probably the best they can do at this point.
Defensively, Butler is obviously a massive, massive upgrade for them. The reason to do this deal is because of his defense. He can switch 1 through 3 and is tough as nails.
Just adding Butler turns Cleveland into a top 10- defensive squad.
That said, it will be an awkward fit on offense. Butler is another ball dominant perimeter scorer on a team with 2 extremely ball dominant stars, and he doesn't have the consistent shooting that you would want in a #3 scorer.
I think we would all agree that Butler would be 3rd in the pecking order on the Cavs, and it's also widely accepted that the 3rd scorer always gets the short end of a stick on these super teams. That is, unless your 3rd scorer is a lights out shooter who knows how to move without the ball, like Ray Allen or Klay Thompson. Chris Bosh had to work hard on his perimeter shot before he finally settled in comfortably into his role as the #3 guy in that Heat offense.
Butler is not a lights out shooter, and he doesn't have a ton of experience playing without the ball in his hands. However, he does by all accounts have a ridiculous work ethic, so if he does end up with the Cavs, I would bet on him improving that jumper.
It's an interesting move, and I think it does make the Cavs more competitive with the Warriors. I still think George is the better fit from a basketball standpoint, with his ability to play some power forward, and his more accurate shooting, but I guess that ship has sailed.
DallasDevil
PG to LA may actually make it more likely that Boston gets the 2018 LAL pick. As long as it's not 2-5, it goes to Boston. Given that LA has traded their 2018 first round pick, there's no reason for them not to trade for George now and begin integrating him with the rest of their core.
The problem with the love for butler trade is that it won't be enough. Too bad they couldn't nab butler AND keep love. That's gets them on the same level as the GSW super duper team, I think....
kshepinthehouse
My guess is also that they would be worried about the Cavs acquiring him and the possibility of him resigning with Lebron and the Cavs after that. I would be scared that whoever he gets traded to he may fall in love with the team and decide to stick around.
This is my suspicion--there is a nonzero likelihood that he ends up somewhere else, and by making a deal now, that likelihood is vaporized. In an era of superteams and players colluding in the offseason to play together, who knows what the landscape will look like in 18mo. Especially with the specter of Lebron leaving Cleveland, Melo ending up somewhere, CP3 leaving LAC (or staying with LAC), etc. This assumes that Magic is risk averse, but that's not a great leap of faith, pending the Pacers' asking price.
That's backwards. As long as it IS 2-5, it goes to Boston. Otherwise, Boston receives the 2019 Kings pick.
The problem with the love for butler trade is that it won't be enough. Too bad they couldn't nab butler AND keep love. That's gets them on the same level as the GSW super duper team, I think...
Well, yeah. Usually you can't tack a 4th star onto your Big 3. The circumstances that allowed GSW to do it -- Curry-ankle-contract, cap spike -- do not exist for Cleveland.
A few things here:
1. I totally agree that Butler is less of a fit offensively on the floor with Irving and James than either Love or George. He's at his best with the ball in his hands, and is more of a scorer than a shooter. That said, he's also very good without the ball (especially on back-door alley-oops), and having facilitators like James is a nice plus. He's also a perfect guy to fill in the "LeBron" role when LeBron sits. No, he's not nearly as good as LeBron, but he can play the same position at an All-NBA level while LeBron sits, rather than having replacement-level play there.
2. He does in fact have a ton of experience without the ball in his hands, as the first several years of his career (with Rose at PG and then with Noah as "point center") he was an off-ball player. It's only in the last couple of years that he's expanded his role to be a ball-dominant player.
3. Defensively, he's a HUGE get for whoever gets him. You say "1 to 3" here, but he is more than capable of guarding PFs too, and he's not overwhelmed by most centers. He's 6'7", 220lb, and basically defensively similar to Iguodala in that he's a true Swiss army knife on defense. Plug and play almost wherever you want.
He's one of the absolute best two-way players in the league, and he is on a pretty darn cheap contract for two more years given what he can provide. He's the most valuable commodity that is potentially available this summer.
That being said, I don't think Cleveland is a match unless they can get really creative with a third team, or unless Paxson/Forman really blink. The Cavs don't have the assets to get Butler unless it involves Irving, and that isn't happening. Boston is the place that makes more sense from an assets perspective. They have the pile of high draft picks that would facilitate a rebuild for the Bulls.
CDu, what do you think of Butler's chances of slowing down (not stopping) Durant? I mean, that's what this trade would be about, essentially.
Have you seen Butler and Durant matched up enough to make a determination either way? It'd be a small sample, of course, since different conferences.
Butler is as capable as anyone against Durant. He isn't stopping Durant, of course. Nobody does that. But when not burdened with playing 40+ minutes AND carrying the offense, he is as good as it gets defensively against SG/SF/PF.
Kawhi Leonard might take exception to that.
That said, Butler is a remarkable defender and would be a major upgrade to the Cavs D.
-Jason "I wonder, with a lot of young talent that has value, could the Spurs get involved in some of this Butler/George talk? I actually think the Spurs are a lot closer to the Warriors than folks realize" Evans
Yeah, fair point. Leonard is probably better, especially against bigger guys. But after him, I would take Butler defensively over/even with anyone else in that category. He is that good and that versatile defensively.
If he was only a little better as a shooter, he would be darn near the type of perfect player. He isn't a bad shooter, but he definitely isn't a knock-down shooter.
As for the Spurs, I don't think they have the assets to make a trade for either guy.
Adrian WojnarowskiVerified account @WojVerticalNBA (https://twitter.com/WojVerticalNBA) 11m11 minutes ago (https://twitter.com/WojVerticalNBA/status/877287243236462592)
Lakers are trading Tim Mozgov and D'Angelo Russell to Nets for Brook Lopez and 27th pick Thursday, sources say.
Wow, that's the cost of signing Mozgov to a dumb contract. You have to give away a young asset like Russell* to get rid of the contract. Lopez's contract is expiring, so the Lakers are setting themselves up for 2018 free agency. I wouldn't be surprised if they dropped out of the Paul George pursuit at this point.
* While there is some reason to believe Russell won't ever live up to his #2 draft slot, it's also a bit early to be giving up on him. That's why the Nets were interested and willing to take on Mozgov.
pfrduke
Since the Nets basically never have their first round pick again, this is the only way for them to get young talent. Eating Mozgov's salary for three years isn't a bad way to do it, and Russell seems like a worthy risk to take a flier on.
drummerdevil
This is a terrible trade for both sides IMO. The Nets give up their best player by far for a young player who is not living up to the hype and a terrible contract. Also, might I mention that Russell is a point guard, which Lin is also? Who is the ball-dominant? Then the Lakers give up a core piece of their future for an expiring contract. Is this confirmation that they're drafting Ball? I just don't see this working out well for either side.
Must mean the Lakers are taking Ball.
I think the Nets made a good trade. Russell is only 21 years old and could still blossom. Lopez is expiring and isn't part of the future for a rebuilding team like the Nets anyway. But I think you're right to criticize the Lakers.
Lakers have offered Pacers 27,28 plus Clarkson or Randle for George. Unless Boston offered the 3 pick that's the best deal Pacers will get
Ichabod Drain
Not sure what people were expecting from Russell but he's been pretty darn good so far. Per 36 min: 19.6 pts 6 ast 4.5 reb. Shooting 35% from three. He's only 21.
If I'm the Pacers, I take it and then go into rebuilding mode. Guess that's why I'm not a GM, though. Might want a little more value, maybe a future first as well.
Atlanta Duke
I just don't see this working out well for either side.
The Ringer says Lakers clearing cap space for two contracts - George (now if Pacers will trade) and to make a run at LeBron after next season
https://theringer.com/lakers-dangelo-russell-trade-magic-johnson-paul-george-258cb7748d2d
Neals384
Charlotte gets: Howard and pick #31
Atlanta gets: Miles Plumlee, Marco Belinelli and pick #41.
The Dwight Howard homecoming lasted exactly one painful year. It's a pretty sad reflection of how far he's fallen that Miles Plumlee and Marco Belinelli is all he can draw in return (and the Hawks even have to give up ground in a pick swap)
(also, since it's Miles, this is MP1)
I really wish the Hornets wouldn't have traded for him. I think I'd rather have Plumlee and Belinelli. I loved it when Belinelli played for the Spurs. Warriors or Spurs would be perfect team for him with their superb ball movement.
flyingdutchdevil
My god Howard is worth very little in this league.
It's well known that MP1 has one of the worst contracts in the league (say what you want about Duke players, but they are excellent at negotiating! Singler and MP1 have 2 of the worst contracts in the league and they're getting paid so much to do so little).
I can't believe that Hawks couldn't get at least a first rounder for Howard. How is that possible?
He's a broke down player at this point and has always seemed like a cancer vs a winner.
Fair trade by both teams. Nets get the player with more upside (he's still 21), but they are left with a terrible contract (3 years and $49M left). Lakers get a proven low-post player who can't play defense to save his life (Okafor, there is hope for you yet!)
I am really baffled by all these terrible contracts. The more I read about trades, the more I can't understand how you can pay players with PERs <10 over $10M per year.
He averaged 13.5 points and 12.7 rebounds per year. His defense is still stellar. He's still very effective as an NBA 5.
But I agree on the cancer part. He's a horrible influence on young players.
It would be supremely disappointing to Cavs backers (or Kyrie / Dahntay backers, in my case) if Cleveland doesn't beat that offer. Trade Love to a third team and you will have the assets to beat L.A.'s offer. But also, maybe the Pacers want Love and not the assets he's worth.
Re: Love, the Cavs have two guaranteed years with him remaining, and then he has a player option for a 3rd year (http://hoopshype.com/player/kevin-love/salary/). Would I trade 2 guaranteed years of Love for 1 guaranteed year of Paul George? Heck, yeah. Lebron has one year remaining with the Cavs. Gotta maximize that year. And maybe, just maybe, George learns to love the Cavs locker room culture and playing with Lebron and Kyrie and/or maybe George is the piece the Cavs need to take the Warriors to 7 games and maybe even win it, and then George and Lebron re-sign with the Cavs.
He turns 32 in December, is a bad offensive player, and really regressed defensively last season.
I think the value of the NBA 5 overall has gone way down vs 20 years ago.
I have never liked him and agree with this post. He reminds me of the line from Bull Durham: He has a Million Dollar Arm and a Twenty Cent Head. Howard has never been a winner and has not, really, improved on his skills during his career - beyond marginal improvement.
He led the Magic to the Finals. Yes - they got swept. But leading your team to the Finals is a helluva accomplishment.
He currently isn't a winner, and your quote still holds, but never calling him a winner is disingenuous (and yes yes....I understand that he didn't WIN the NBA championship with the Magic. But by that definition, every Duke player sans Ferry, Irving, and Battier is in the same boat as Howard).
Let's play the "worst contract in the NBA" game.
I nominate Chandler Parsons, owed $72.3 mil over the next 3 years after putting up a PER of 7.69 this year. Of course he was injured so he has potential to be better in the future.
MP1 is owed $37.5 mil over the next 3 seasons and had a PER of 8.43
Singler is owed $9.6 over the next 2 seasons, but basically does not play. His PER was 5.93, but he only played in 32 games.
How about Luol Deng? He is owed $54 mil for the next 3 years and had a PER of 10.13.
Among non-Dukies, there's Bismack Byombo who is owed $51 mil by the Magic over the next 3 seasons. He averaged 6 ppg and had a PER of 12.2, but his playing time was plummeting late in the season. And, who can forget Joakim Noah. He's making $55.6 mil over the next 3 years... this past season he scored in double figures a grand total of 5 times.
It is worth noting that salaries play a huge role in a trade like this. It is not that Howard was not worth a first rounder, it is that Howard's onerous contract made him a negative asset. If we were merely constructing teams with no regard to salary cap, then Howard would have a lot more worth.
-Jason "stating the obvious, but I felt I needed to say it anyway" Evans
So rumor has it (I don't really trust this) that Jimmy Butler has demanded a trade to the Cavs, probably for KLove. What are y'all's thoughts on this? It would create a superteam, boost the Cavs defense and create another scoring option and probably a better team. However, would the Bulls even go for this? Does this have any chance of happening? The Bulls should do something with Butler, but is this what they should do? Is the Celtics/76ers trade because the Celtics are stocking up for Butler?
Not sure where you heard that rumor, but it is inconsistent with pretty much everything that has been said regarding Butler. All the rumors I've seen say that Butler wants to stay with Chicago. This rumor sounds either made up or that you misheard what the actual rumors are.
Edouble
Uh, yeah. There is no such rumor that Butler is demanding Cleveland.
Please provide a link or a tweet or something, drummerdevil, as I've been following closely on line all week and have seen nothing like the rumor you are referencing.
http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jun/20/lebron-james-kyrie-irving-gauging-interest-jimmy-b/
The Chicago sun times has since deleted (altered) the orginal article, but the quote remains in this one.
From what I saw it went from....
Butler wanting to go to the cavs to butler saying he doesn't want to go to the cavs to cav players telling him to stay away. All rumors. Who knows
I don't even remember where I heard it. Sorry. I just thought I did hear that.
From what I saw it went from...
As a general rule, if it is written by Joe Cowley, it should be ignored. He is... how do I say this... not afraid to make stuff completely up to fill a column.
Well, that's good to know! How does someone like that keep a job at a place like the Chicago sun times? Sad world we live in.
These are dark times for the print media industry.
you know all those sweeps in the NBA playoffs? Well, that cost the league ticket sales and TV revenue. As a result, next year's salary cap will be $2 million less than initially estimated.
The Cap is determined by total league revenues, with half going to the players and half going to the owners. So, with 30 teams that means that the lost playoff games cost the league $120 million!
Jason "Put another way, the Warrior and Cavs super teams were really, really bad for business" Evans
How much does a $2 million cap difference actually change things? It's still a ridiculous amount of money that teams can spend. I think that a $2 million cap difference would just hurt teams trying to put together enough talent to compete with the warriors, and the warriors players are willing to just take small (small being a couple million) pay cuts in order to continue to sweep the playoffs.
To be fair, the $120 million difference isn't just a result of lost playoff revenue. It's a result of a season's worth of deviation from the expected revenue, right?
Was he one of Dan Rather's apprentices?
No, but I did hear that he once got off a plane in Bosnia....
The bolded is the key. Teams plan with a certain cap number in mind. Whereas a team might thought it could free up max cap room by moving a particular guy who had an $8 million contract, now that won't be enough because it would take $10 million to open up that room, and the team might not have a $10 million player it can move. (This is, certainly, an oversimplification, but you get the drift).
No, but I did hear that he once got off a plane in Bosnia...
But I have to tell you that I don't believe this country has ever practiced true capitalism, and even less so now that the court jester is in charge.
I don't mean to pick on you two since a lot of people break the PPB/political ban, but please stop making political references or taking little shots at political figures you don't like; in these two examples, Hillary and Trump, respectively.
The shots are never funny or insightful or anything that we haven't read thousands of times on facebook, and they're against the rules of this forum. Again, I'm really addressing everyone and only quoting you two because of recency. Thanks.
My understanding is that there was an estimate of the cap given out to teams in April, before the playoffs started. Now that the playoffs ended, the new estimate is $2 mil per team less. So, it is all due to lost playoff revenue. We all heard that 1 NBA finals game was worth something like $12 mil to Golden State. And I am sure the NBA's TV contract calls for some kind of adjustment based on how many games the networks actually get to broadcast. I have to think that each game late in the playoffs carries some kind of significant value to the league... at least $5 mil per game, I would think.
Thanks to Cleveland and Golden State's dominance, we had a total of 14 conference finals and NBA finals games out of a possible 21 (to say nothing of sweeps in earlier rounds). Now that I have thought about it, I am not even remotely surprised that the shortened playoffs cost the league $120 million.
--Jason "as pfr points out, this is a significant difference for teams. Don't think of it as $2 mil out of a $100+ mil cap, think of it as $2 mil out of maybe $10-15 mil that most teams have available to spend on free agents" Evans
Is anyone else hoping the big names, such as PG13 and Butler get moved tonight, just for the sake of change? I know I am. I love seeing the entire landscape of the NBA change in a night. The NCAA never changes this much this fast.
As much as I don't like UNC players Danny Green is being discussed as an option for the Cavs. He would be a perfect addition for the Cavs. Knockdown shooter, good defender, winning pedigree.
mgtr
Not to mention his dancing ability.:D
It is spelled "whining"
weezie
...The NCAA never changes this much this fast.
Never changes, period. Except the mystical law of verticality. I correct myself.
So, is our consensus that Minnesota pretty much destroyed Chicago with the Butler trade? I'm beyond stunned that Chicago did not have better offers for Butler. I can't imagine that Boston couldn't have made a better offer than that (maybe the Celtics are truly enamored of Tatum... I dunno).
Anyway, I want opinions on where Minnesota will be in the West next season. How many games will they win and what will their seed be (assuming you think they will make the playoffs)? I don't think it is at all insane to believe that Butler, Bennett, and Towns constitute a three-man core that is as good as any in the league aside from Cleveland and Golden State (they have a big four).
Minnesota has gone from 100-1 to 50-1 to win the title (according to Bovada), the biggest move of any team since odds opened in the wake of the Warriors title. Other interesting movers in the wake of the draft and other off-season news:
Boston 16-1 to 12-1
Charlotte 125-1 to 300-1 (apparently, the bettors don't like Dwight)
Indiana 100-1 to 150-1 (Paul George probably gonna leave sooner rather than later)
Lakers 100-1 to 66-1 (George may be headed here)
New Orleans 50-1 to 100-1 (apparently, Vegas hates drafting Frank)
Orlando 100-1 to 500-1 (no idea why this moved)
Philly 100-1 to 66-1 (the Fultz effect)
Golden State 1-1 to 1-1.75 (you have to bet $175 to win $100)
Cleveland 4-1 to 3.5-1
-Jason "see all the Bovada and other odds here (http://www.oddsshark.com/nba/odds/futures)" Evans
I would say that Chicago destroyed itself in that trade. Gar Forman is one of the worst - if not THE worst GMs in the league. They regularly flub trades, always getting pennies on the dollar:
- traded Korver for a trade exception that they didn't use (so literally for nothing)
- traded Deng's expuring contract (at a time when he was still decent) for Andrew Bynum's nonguaranteed contract and a heavily protected pick, which seemed okay but...
- rather than using said pick in a trade over the years, they let it materialize into a late lottery pick, which they...
- packaged with their own mid-first round pick and essentially two 2nds to move up a few spots to take McDermott
- traded Gibson's expiring contract, PLUS McDermott, PLUS a second rounder for... Cameron Payne
Basically, aside from fleecing the Knicks every once in a while, the Bulls ALWAYS blow it on trades. Which explains why they don't make many: they always lose in trades. They are one of the least staffed, least tuned in organizations in basketball. Aside from Ivica Dukan (international scout), they simply don't have a capable guy in the front office.
So, yeah, Minnesota easily won that deal. I am quite sure that a real GM could get more for one of the top ten players in the game than a 23-year-old who was literally the worst shooter in the NBA last year, a talented kid who recently tore his ACL, and the chance to move up just 9 spots in a deep draft. They should have at least gotten a top-3 pick out of it. Frankly, the #3 pick (keeping their #16 pick), Smart, and Zeller's non-guaranteed contract would have been better, and surely something Boston would have considered.
Oh well, what more can you expect from a franchise that literally sold their 2nd round pick for cash?
As for Minnesota? Well, Butler just carried an AWFUL team to a .500 record last year. I think he will be able to get Minnesota into the playoffs next year. Even in the West. Butler with Towns is a good duo. They need more shooters (Rubio and Wiggins aren't that), but the two at the top are enough.
oakvillebluedevil
Meh, even that's a bit up and down
CrazyNotCrazie
I assume you are referring to Butler, Wiggins and Towns? I think they want to forget about Bennett as quickly as possible up there! Or else maybe you meant Tyus Jones...
Oh boy... of course I meant Wiggins. I got my double-consonant Cavs #1 picks who got traded for Love jumbled for a moment. Sorry.
Milos Teodosic of Serbia reportedly could be heading to the NBA, and is linked to the Jazz ...
According to Fran Fraschilla:
"Offensively, he's the best passer in the world, ... Now, he will not guard a chair, but he's a brilliant offensive player and an ultra-competitor."
http://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/utah-jazz-reportedly-could-land-one-of-the-top-international-players-on-the-market/
Based on some of the other things you say in your post, you clearly know more about NBA wheeling and dealing than I do. But don't teams "sell" their 2nd round picks all the time, if they like their roster and could use the cash? You can't count on franchise-altering talent in the 2nd.
Not to say the Bulls' move you reference was a smart one at the time, but in a vacuum I don't think 2nd-for-cash is outrageously bad.
I wouldn't say "all the time." But yes, it does happen some. But it usually happens with teams that like their roster. Not teams starting a rebuild (as the Bulls' President admitted after the trade). When you are starting a rebuild, you want more picks, not less.
So new reports are surfacing that we could see Wade and Melo land with the Cavs. I'm my opinion that won't help them compete with the Warriors. I think it just makes them older and slower especially on the defensive end. Offense wasn't really the problem for the Cavs in the finals. What are your thoughts?
Seems unlikely. I can see the Bulls (who are rebuilding) working out a buyout with Wade. At that point, I could see him signing a vet minimum deal with the Cavs. But I am not sure how Carmelo gets to Cleveland.
If it did happen, it certainly doesn't get the Cavs closer to the title. Wade is atrocious defensively these days, and can't shoot. Anthony is a bit better defensively, but is he actually an upgrade over Love?
I haven't seen this rumor anywhere, but it seems like someone just spitballing hypotheticals rather than something actually in the works.
Newton_14
Several years back a MLB Player in the minors was traded for a batch of baseball bats. Like 400 bats or something. Anything is on the table for a trade of low value assets be it a player or a draft pick. Not uncommon.
The trade you referenced wasn't an MLB player. It was a minor leaguer in the independent (i.e., not affiliated with MLB) league. I am not sure that I would reference a trade by a cash-strapped independent league team as a comp to one of the most profitable teams in the NBA.
In the NBA, sometimes teams sell late-2nd round picks. This is occasionally done in a weak draft when a team has a maxed-out roster and can't use a guy unlikely to make a roster anyway. Neither applies in this case: the Bulls are now a rebuilding team in need of young talent to fill out the roster; their pick was early in the 2nd round; and this was a very deep draft.
fraggler
I think in this scenario, both would be buyouts. But like you said, neither is really the defensive upgrade that the Cavs need unless Anthony goes to his Team USA ways once he's on a super team (if he even has enough left in the tank to be that effective). Bench scoring would be more potent, but Paul George really is the ideal addition as a super 2 way player. Not sure if losing Love makes it worth it unless Tristan significantly ups his play. Really wish Bogut hadn't gotten hurt. His rim protection would have been very, very useful. Shumpert is a bad basketball player in general. I'd rather have Korver take his minutes so he can get into a shooting rhythm.
I'm not quite as sanguine on their playoff chances as CDu. I think he's got a bit of homer bias when it comes to Jimmy Butler, who I think is closer to the 15th best player in the league than top 10.
Here's my case: Minnesota was 31-51 last year. They were a young team, with young stars. Give them a year of improvement, and I'll be generous and say they improve 4 games, to 35-47. Does this trade make them 6+ wins better? I think it's hard to say. This team still has a ton of flaws.
First, they are almost just as bad at shooting as the Bulls were last year. At least the Bulls kind of had Mirotic and McDermott. Who's the Wolves go-to shooter? Bjelica? Casspi? Tyus Jones? This team has less perimeter shooting than almost anyone else in the league. Butler can't really shoot, neither can Wiggins, Shabazz, or Rubio. The best shooters they have in their top 7 are Towns (36%) and Dieng (37%). I don't think it's in any team's best interest to have their starting big men spotting up from 3, rather than controlling the paint/glass.
Defensively, does adding Butler help them? Of course, Butler is one of the best defensive players in the league. But can he transform one of the WORST defensive teams (tied with Sacramento for 26th) in the league into a playoff defense in 1 year? I'm skeptical. Towns and Wiggins can only get better defensively, but they have been flat out terrible defensively in their young careers thus far. The bad news is, they are still really young. Towns is now 22 and Wiggins 23. They will still be terrible on defense next year.
3rd, Wiggins and Butler are kind of the same player. They both need the ball in their hands ALOT. I've seen the argument that Butler played off the ball often when Derrick Rose was on the Bulls, but since he's become the All-Star player he is now, he's been EXTREMELY ball dominant, and given that he's the star of the team, I don't see him suddenly needing the ball less. Then there's also Rubio, who also needs the ball, and who is actually USELESS off the ball. These pieces don't fit.
When you get a player like Butler, you surround him with shooting. Look at what LeBron has done with his roster. He's a guy who can get into the paint and find open guys, just like Butler. But instead, Butler has Wiggins and Rubio spotting up . . . those guys' defenders aren't staying home, they are double or triple teaming Butler in the paint.
So, they suck at defense, they can't shoot, and their 3 primary ball handlers kind of all do the same thing and all need the ball constantly (and they all can't shoot). How is this a playoff team again?
I think it's pretty hard to make the case that they are better than the top 7 in the West (as they are constituted prior to FA):
1. Golden State
2. San Antonio
4. Clippers
6. OKC
7. Memphis
I think they are in that next group of 4-5 teams hunting the 8th playoff spot: Portland, Denver, New Orleans, and Minnesota (maybe Dallas/Sacramento get into that conversation)
The Wolves are really talented, and could possibly get into the playoffs based on that alone, but I could easily see Portland, whose roster makes way more sense in the modern NBA, beating them out for the 8th playoff spot.
Then there's also Rubio, who also needs the ball, and who is actually USELESS off the ball. These pieces don't fit.
Word is coming out of Minnesota that they are intent on dealing Rubio (http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/19741720/minnesota-timberwolves-remain-intent-dealing-point-guard-ricky-rubio)in the offseason.
Sources told ESPN that the Wolves, despite Rubio's strong second half last season, are trying to add more shooting to their lineup and continue to make the Spaniard available via trade.
Now, before you go assuming the TWolves want Tyus to be their PG, it is worth noting that the Wolves are dead set on getting a veteran PG to be their starter. It seems their intent is to get a shoot-first PG to play with Wiggins and Butler because those two guys don't really need a passer to create offense for them. You know who could be a decent fit is Austin Rivers. He knocked down 37% of his 3s last year. George Hill from Utah could also work if Utah decides to rebuild if Hayward leaves to Boston (or elsewhere). I doubt you could get Houston's Patrick Beverley or SA's Patty Mills but those guys would be ideal fits as well.
-Jason "no matter what happens, the trade of Dunn almost certainly means that Tyus plays 16+ minutes per game next season" Evans
Ugh, I would get a notification that they are shopping Rubio literally seconds after I spent half an hour on that post. But that's still up in the air. I think I can answer your question with their current roster in mind.
If it makes you feel any better, I think the Wolves would make the playoffs even with Rubio. But if they replace Rubio with a "3 and D" PG, they are even more likely to make it.
Butler: I admit I'm a big fan of his, but statistically speaking I think he's top-10. Win shares (3rd), win shares per 48 min (6th), Box plus/minus (10th), real plus/minus (7th) all suggest he belongs in that category. But, even if he were, say, 12-15, that doesn't really discredit the idea that he substantially changes the equation for Minnesota.
Shooting argument: You mention that the key is putting shooters around Butler. Well, the Bulls this year... didn't. And never really have, actually. Mirotic is not a great 3pt shooter (34.2% this year, 35.0% for his career), and actually shot worse than Wiggins did this year (35.6%). As a stretch-4 and pick-and-roll/pop partner, Towns (36.7%) is WAY more valuable than Mirotic. McDermott (37.6%) is, but could never establish himself as a regular due to atrocious defense. Wiggins is a better shooter and player than Wade at this point. Rubio and Rondo are somewhat of a wash. Worth noting that the Bulls (with Butler's 36.7%) was one of the worst shooting teams in the NBA (34.0%) last year. That didn't seem to slow Butler down.
Rubio: the same argument you make against Rubio working alongside Butler could be made for Rajon Rondo, only Rubio is a better defender than Rondo is these days. And as I said, Rubio (like Rondo) would allow Butler to take some possessions off on offense, while also creating easy bucket opportunities for Butler when he is off the ball.
Wiggins: the same argument you make against Wiggins could be made for Dwyane Wade, only at least Wiggins is a better shooter and has athletic potential on defense. I'd argue that Wiggins and the Wolves would do BETTER by having the ball less. Butler (whose offensive efficiency is among the best in basketball despite being a high-volume player) is a HUGE upgrade over Wiggins as primary playmaker.
Competition: You have listed the Clippers and Utah above Minnesota. Frankly, I'm not convinced either of those two teams are playoff-bound next year. The Jazz stand a REALLY good chance of losing Hayward, while Griffin and Paul are both opting out of their contracts this summer.
Your arguments do hold water that they won't likely be an elite team next year. I completely agree that they won't be able to compete with Golden State or (as constituted) Cleveland or San Antonio. But they don't have to be elite to make the playoffs. Frankly, I don't see a reasonable argument why a team with two of the top 20 players in the NBA (Towns and Butler) would miss the playoffs. I think they are instantly well ahead of the Portland/Dallas/Denver/New Orleans (who I think will make a move up next year), and probably ahead of Memphis (their stars are all now aging), Utah (definitely if they lose Hayward, likely even if they don't), and LA (if Paul leaves).
I think you'd be surprised:
http://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/nba-trade-rumors-rockets-reportedly-shopping-guard-patrick-beverley/
gam7
The Warriors in the Joe Lacob era have done this a lot, and it hasn't always worked out. In 2011, they bought the 39th pick for $2M and used it to draft Jeremy Tyler. In 2013, they bought Nemanja Nedovic (30th pick) on draft night from the Suns. Of course, they famously (well, famous among Bay Area basketball fans) bought the 38th pick last year for $2.4M to pick up Patrick McCaw, which was, and will continue to prove to be, a tremendous success. Bell also was the 38th pick.
So, it doesn't always work, but given the current, high profile nature of the Warriors, if Jordan Bell is a success (making two successes in a row with this strategy), you can bet more teams will try to buy picks (and more teams will hesitate to get rid of them) going forward. And teams will hesitate to sell picks to the Warriors. I would imagine the source of the $3.5M maximum cash payment for draft picks is the CBA, and if more teams want to employ the strategy, I bet that figure will go up in the next CBA negotiations.
The move makes a lot of sense for the Warriors this year, where the team has only five players under contract at the moment. They need to find some low cost bodies, and paying $3.5M (that I don't think counts against the cap) for a player who will make the league minimum for a year and then a little more than the league minimum in year 2 is kind of a no-brainer.
To be clear, the Wolves would LOVE to get Beverley. That would have to be in a separate deal from Rubio though, as the Rockets are trying to dump salary rather than take on salary.
I'm very aware that the Bulls were a terrible shooting team. Actually, that was my very first point:
First, they are almost just as bad at shooting as the Bulls were last year.
My point was that those 2 teams are really similar. Non-shooting point guard, and non-shooting wings. The only difference is that the Bulls were the #6 defensive team, and Minnesota was #26. IMO, Butler does not transform Minnesota into the #6 defensive team. Those other guys are just too young.
That Bulls team would not have made the playoffs in the West. They were the 8th seed in the East. Now, Butler is on a Western team with more or less the same configuration if they don't find a suitor for Rubio. The Bulls had less talent, but the Wolves are much younger, so I think it's a wash.
Yes, your point about the Clippers and Jazz is valid, but that's why I put that caveat in there (before FA). The Clips are a total mystery right now, but IMO, the Jazz can still easily be better than the Timberwolves even minus Hayward. The George Hill situation will be a factor, but Gobert is the best center in the league, and Hood will only get better with Hayward out of the picture.
There is one otber glaring difference: the Wolves have Towns. The Bulls have nothing remotely comparable to him. I would argue that the Bulls' supporting cast this year was comparable to the Wolves... except for Towns. Put Towns on last year's Bulls team and they win 50+ games. Now put Butler with Thibs and a year-older Towns and Wiggins, and I think that is a 45-win team. Even in the West.
And sorry, but there is absolutely no way the Jazz without Hayward are better than the Wolves with Butler. Hood, Hill, and Gobert are nice complementary players. But not difference makers as first options.
I'm stupefied.
Houston wants to get rid of Patrick Beverley...
There must be something I am missing. Beverley is the ultimate 3-and-D player. He was 1st Team All-NBA Defensive Team this year... HE IS ONE OF THE 5 BEST DEFENDERS IN BASKETBALL!! He hits 3s at a very nice 37.5% rate over his career. He's 28 so he is in the middle of his prime. Of course, in today's NBA is seems everything is about cap space and contracts. Goodness knows there are a lot of wretched contracts around the league. So, what does his contract look like?
Beverly is due to make $5.5 mil in 2017-18. After that, there is a team option year at $5.0 million (yes, his contract actually goes down in the team option year?!?!?!). To call that a bargain is a massive understatement. I think there are folks who compute the value of players in the NBA and I bet Beverley is worth over $10 mil a season.
But Houston wants to deal him so they can clear another $5 mil in contract space. To be clear, this extra $5 mil won't get them to the max, where they could make a run at Gordon Hayward or Chris Paul or Blake Griffin or Paul Milsaps... it would probably just allow them to overspend on some other good, but not great free agent.
If I were the Minnesota GM, I would run to Houston to make a deal for Beverley. Add him to the TWolves and I think they instantly become a contender for a top 4 seed in the West.
-Jason "I just do not understand the NBA sometimes" Evans
So, the one thing that I could see happening for them to get 50 wins is Wiggins and Towns making leaps. They obviously have immense potential, but I'm basically betting that they don't get there in 2018 just yet. Towns is particularly awful on defense. He had an abysmal 117.3 defensive rating in the 4th quarter of games. He'll get there eventually, but probably when he's like 24 or 25, not this year. You gotta at least not be terrible before you can be good.
Yeah, the Jazz need a star offensive guy for sure, but they have a TON of B to B+ players. Gobert is an A, he's going to be their star next year. Hood, Favors, Hill, Ingles, Johnson, Mack, and Diaw are all competent. Johnson seems to still be capable of running an offense at times. Maybe even Exum finally gets healthy and becomes something. They also got Donovan Mitchell and Tony Bradley in the draft, both of whom are pretty solid defensively. Mitchell projects to be a VERY good perimeter defender with some scoring upside. That's a lot of really solid guys, and I wouldn't be surprised if they make a move to upgrade the roster.
The Wolves do have the 2 best players between the teams, but their depth is pretty questionable. Not sure what happens in free agency just yet (who knows, Hayward might stay), but I'd feel fairly confident saying Utah will have a better record. Depth matters in the regular season.
NSDukeFan
Without Hayward, I think I would rather have Denver's roster - Jokic, Plumlee, Gallinari, Wilson Chandler, Trey Lyles, Tyler Lydon, Gary Harris, Jamaal Murray, Mudiay, Jameer Nelson, Will Barton.
JJ rumors to the Nets today in the NY Post. Owns a penthouse in DUMBO (hot area in Bklyn for the non-NYers)
http://nypost.com/2017/06/26/nets-dream-backcourt-duo-has-been-working-out-in-brooklyn/?utm_campaign=iosapp&utm_source=pasteboard_app
If JR smith is worth 14 million surely Beverly is worth at least half that lol.
elvis14
I really hope that doesn't happen. Unless they over pay him, I seems odd to me that JJ would sign with the hapless Nets. He's the type of guy that could be the last piece to a playoff puzzle.
The problem is that he would have to take a substantial paycut to go to a contender. This is probably his last chance to sign a big contract. But contenders don't have cap space, and are not likely to overpay for a role player (which is what he would be on a contender).
Haven't you heard? The right thing for the teams with winning records, but not good enough to win titles to do is trade their best player for little to nothing in return, or get rid of one of their other top players for little to nothing. It's a really great strategy too. Everyone is doing it now. It's all the rage J-Dawg!
I was afraid that was the case. If he can get one more big contract, a move to a contender will have to wait a couple of years.
It is easy to forget that JJ has never had a mega-payday in the NBA. Sure, he has made about $7 mil a year for the past several years, but he has never been in even the $10-15 mil kind of range where most starters on contenders tend to be.
His career earnings are $56 mil. I would not blame him for taking a big payday at this point... though it does probably mean he will never play in a conference finals. If he is content making $5 mil, then he can probably find a home on a contender. One team really interested in him is the 76ers, and they may have a fairly bright future in a couple seasons when the youngsters mature. That could be his best option. They could use a shooter around Simmons.
-Jason "I would love to see JJ on the Cavs... but no way to make that happen, I suspect" Evans
I would not blame him for taking a big payday at this point... though it does probably mean he will never play in a conference finals.
Didn't he play in the conference finals with Orlando? Or do you mean "play" as in "play a meaningful role," since that was before he fought his way into real minutes.
luburch
He played in the finals with the Magic.
JJ is in a bit of a tough spot. He's talked on his podcast about this being has last big contract. Not a lot of contenders can give him big money. I've seen rumors of the Wolves and 76ers...neither fits his timeline for winning a ring.
JJ was in the rotation for 4 of the 5 Finals games against the Lakers (albeit as an 8th or 9th man), and he played a lot during the series in which Orlando eliminated the defending champs Boston (who were without Garnett). He usually did a great job guarding Ray Allen. 2008-9 Game Logs for JJ (http://www.espn.com/nba/player/gamelog/_/id/3024/year/2009/jj-redick). I'd say those minutes were meaningful enough.
His career earnings are $56 mil. I would not blame him for taking a big payday at this point...
To me the choice is easy not tough. If the 76ers offer him something like 3 years - 45 million, he should take that considering, as Jason mentioned, his career earnings are "only" $56M. For a franchise to trust in JJ to mentor and provide spacing for their young studs is a great responsibility and an honor. AND they'll pay you $45 million to do it? That's the place to go.
What's the alternative? Beg the Warriors to put you on their roster at the vet minimum so you can ring-chase even though they're not going to play you during the playoffs because their system prefers switchable athletes. That's more fulfilling?
Or beg the Cavs to take you in at the mid-level exception to play Kyle Korver's role without knowing whether Lebron will leave after one season?
Yeah, the 76ers and TWolves make sense as teams that will be semi-competitive/competitive now but could develop into a contender in the next few years and can offer him decent money.
There are other teams that could develop nicely too, but none of them have an immediate need for an outside shooter the way the TWolves and 76ers do. Of course, the TWolves only available spot in the lineup is at PG, because they just brought in one of the top few SGs in all of basketball in Butler. But, NBA teams have been getting pretty creative with positions -- they could maybe decide to move Butler to PG if they wanted to go after JJ's elite outside shooting.
Miami could be another possibility if they lose Dion Waiters to free agency. He was an excellent SG for them last season and will probably command $15 mil or so per season in the free agent market. But, he sounds like he wants to stay there and I am betting they would rather have him for $15 mil a season than JJ for the same price.
Milwaukee (Kris Middleton) and Denver (Gary Harris), both of whom seem to have promising futures, are set at SG.
Here is another possibility -- Memphis. They had Tony Allen and Vince Carter at SG last season, both of whom qualify for an AARP discount. They are both free agents so maybe the Grizz are looking for some SG help. Of course, while the Grizz are a playoff team in the West, it is sorta hard to see how that take the leap to be a contender.
-Jason "The more I think about it, the more I think the 76ers are the best fit in terms of moolah and maybe playing for a team on the rise" Evans
Yeah, the Grizz don't look appealing to me at all. They are old, with all of their key players on the back end of their careers. They are also glacial, which doesn't help in the "space and pace" era. They were barely a playoff team the last two years, and I don't see them getting better. I could see them missing the playoffs this year. And they don't have cap space as Gasol, Randolph, Parsons, and Conley all have big contracts.
Philly and Minnesota are MUCH better situations to go to. Philly has the obvious need of course. But Minnesota does too, and can certainly accommodate Redick with Butler playing PG and defending wherever. And Redick would play his more natural spot whenever Wiggins or Butler is sitting (the other of whom would play SF), which should be 20-25 mpg anyway. So it's not like Redick would be stuck as a de facto PG very much anyway.
superdave
http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/19751422/nba-free-agency-2017-latest-news-buzz-rumors
Interesting stuff in this NBA thread on Espn -
Melo is seeking a buyout with the Knicks who may try to re-sign Derrick Rose. What a franchise!
Igoudala will have no shortage of offers, which could be trouble for GSW.
http://nypost.com/2017/06/27/one-of-john-walls-teammates-wont-love-paul-george-recruitment/
John Wall is recruiting Paul George which may not help with Otto Porter. But a Wall, Beal, Porter, George, Gortat lineup would be awesome, right?
wsb3
It is easy to forget that JJ has never had a mega-payday in the NBA. Sure, he has made about $7 mil a year for the past several years, but he has never been in even the $10-15 mil kind of range...
JJ is my top choice of any player I would love to see get a ring but this is a great post Jason. JJ has limited time & appears to be in position for his biggest contract ever. Can't fault him one bit.
I kind of hope it is the Sixers. They have accumulated some great young talent. His work ethic hopefully would rub off..
I really admire how hard JJ has worked to have a good long NBA career.
Don't think it's happening. While MElo holds the no-trade clause trump card, Knicks want to at least try to get something back. Or can do the stretch provision for the cap space "asset."
I am more concerned with the Porzingis situation. He acted like a big baby by not meeting with Phil, and per the Knicks has not responded to calls or texts. Anyone in business pulling that crap would be looking for another job. Granted the Knicks are in chaos, but that's not the way to be professional.
After I posted the article on JJ and the Nets on FB, a client of mine (CFO) commented that perhaps I should switch to the Nets. (He's a big Nets fan) I said only if they put Dr. J back into the line-up.
Huh? Porzingis is in business. And he would have no problem finding a better job if his employer fired him.
Eternal Outlaw
Not saying I agree with how Porzingis handled it but attitude reflects leadership and that's the type of attitude that gets bred under Phil. Not sure how business applies here, if this was normal business where employees aren't drafted, someone as skilled at their craft as Porzingis would get to have their pick of employer who would treat him and his fellow coworkers with respect. Phil is the ultimate big baby that trashes him employees to the media, often not directly by using Rosen. Even the recent trade talks are being looked at by many as a public spanking rather than actually want to trade him. If this was a normal business, any decent owner would have canned or re-trained a manager that treats his employees the way Phil does.
And that's really should be where the blame goes now. Dolan is trying so hard to not be the meddling owner that he's refusing to do anything and maybe even wants Knicks fans to beg for him to get more involved as a told you so that I wan't the problem.
So you think his behavior was appropriate? I don't. Nor do any of the local (former pros) on the local media.
I understand his frustration. Phil is awful on so many levels. But you show respect and meet with your boss at season's end. And you certainly return phone calls.
moonpie23
up to a point...but when your boss is being a complete and utter jerk, making everyone mad, poisoning the company, and killing it's chances at getting better, you need to take a stand.
Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15
Well, it seems that Phil is getting an early retirement.
ChillinDuke
Initial reactions from locals are mixed. Most are happy that Phil is leaving, but if the cost is Carmelo staying then the tangible impact is questionable - insofar as on-the-court results are the be-all end-all.
- Chillin
I'm not sure I see how keeping Jackson and getting rid of Anthony (and to be clear, the only way that would realistically happen would be a very expensive buyout, as Anthony will veto most trades) is a desirable outcome for Knicks fans. Getting rid of Jackson is a great outcome.
Worst case, you are stuck with Anthony for 2 more years, but have a new GM. Best case, the next GM still works out a way to move Anthony that works for the team.
But getting rid of Anthony isn't going to make the team better in and of itself.
Not speaking for anyone but myself on this one, I think getting rid of Anthony is more about a cleansing than any in-and-of-itself net benefit.
Anthony is an anchor on a sinking ship. He's not helping anything and he's just prolonging the pain. I (and I think more loyal Knicks fans than I) want to just rip the bandaid at this point and move on.
Right, but the $20M per year the Knicks will pay Rose is going to make the Anthony situation look like the Seth Curry situation (ie a bargain).
The new Knicks GM better not pay for Rose. But he will.
Yeah, at least Anthony is somewhat remotely worth the money he's making. Rose and Noah are much bigger problems relative to their salary.
Today's obligatory link to the Ringer describes how "The Process" will always live on at the Sixers new practice facility:
https://theringer.com/sixers-sam-hinkie-process-graffiti-90df7643e8b1
However, this delightful story planted a seed of doubt. Mrs. Turk had the kitchen blown up at Stately Turk Manor a couple summers back. One day, I noticed one of the crew had a Carolina shirt on. Do I start pulling out appliances, cabinets, and fixtures looking for "Duke Sucks" written in sharpie?
Kristap's move seems to have worked for the benefit of the Knicks.
Growing up in the NYC area, I learned as a child not to take the local media and their opinions too seriously.
Listen, I agree with both of you. But I don't think the point is who is relatively a better bargain than who else.
The issue is that the Knicks need to build this back up. And Anthony, Rose, Noah, they are all part of the problem: old, overpaid vets past their golden years. The Seth Curry's of the world are the players that the Knicks should be seeking out - not Derrick Rose. And Carmelo Anthony should just be bought out, IMO. We won 31 games last year, what's the point of keeping Anthony?
Hmmm, David Griffin is recently out of a job, and he's well-regarded around the league...
Yeah, it's Chris Paul they're after (http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/19754916/houston-rockets-emerge-serious-contenders-chris-paul-la-clippers) primarily. Let's see if Morey can pull it off.
Yeah, it's Chris Paul they're after (http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/19754916/houston-rockets-emerge-serious-contenders-chris-paul-la-clippers). Let's see if Morey can pull it off.
I'll give Morey credit: the guy goes after it. As a Bulls fan, it is frustrating watching our GM do nothing and try to justify it for years, then when they occasionally make a move, they trade assets for pennies on the dollar and talk about working to have flexibility.
Morey is constantly making moves. Sometimes they work out great, sometimes they don't. But he is never handcuffed by his decisions and is more than willing to try to rectify mistakes.
I don't know if he'll be able to pull of getting Chris Paul. And to be honest, it wouldn't put the Rockets in competition with the Warriors anyway. But it'll be fun to see if he can get it done.
EDIT: and apparently Paul just negotiated a sign-and-trade with LA to go to Houston.
Morey's appetite for risk is impressive. However, Chris Paul is not risky. There are very few players who are risky in the league (Lebron and KD come to mind) who can join a team and instantly make them better. Paul is one of those players. The only thing stopping Paul from succeeding is health.
I would love this move, despite not liking Harden. But, in terms of support, I'll take the Harden over the Dubs any day. Hell, I'll rally around a 6-day old sandwich over the Dubs.
It's happening:
https://twitter.com/WojVerticalNBA?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Es erp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
Yeah. For Dekker, Beverly, and Williams plus a draft pick or two. Massive steal for the Rockets, who retain Anderson, Ariza, and Gordon. Holy cow.
FYI, the Clippers are now filled with a ton of sixth men: Rivers, Crawford, and Williams. 3 dudes best playing off the bench. Lol...
Yeah, the Clippers were stuck in a bad place. Paul convinced them he was going to walk this summer (and sign with Houston) if they didn't trade him. So they had just a couple of days to make a deal to get anything back.
I would expect a similar move to be made by the Clippers with Griffin in the near future. The dynamics of the also-rans in the West are changing quickly.
And DeAndre. Just blow up the team. Get first round picks. Pull a TWolves and just start afresh. Trade Griffin and DeAndre to the Celts for all of their first round picks for the next 2 years?
Well, I don't think the Celtics would want them both. Jordan would make sense though. But that would probably hurt their chances of getting Hayward (they are already short on cap space as is). Is Jordan or Griffin more valuable than Hayward for their long-term plan?
If this was baseball, the Clippers would be set in the bullpen for the 7th, 8th and 9th innings. They would need some starters though.
Good question. I like Hayward, but I think Tatum can turn into a Hayward in a few years (excellent on O, mediocre on D, amazing teammate and lovable guy). The Celts are set at the 2 (Avery, Smart), the 3 (Crowder, Brown, Tatum), and one the 4/5 (Horford) for the next few years. I like Thomas, but he's not a max player and doesn't make the Celts better. My opinion? Get Griffin and DeAndre, trade Horford for a really good 2-way PG (like George Hill), and work with that team.
You have 3 of the top 15 defensive players in the country on one team (Bradley, Crowder, DeAndre) and some really nice offensive pieces (Tatum, Griffin, Hill, Thomas). Your cap? Yeah, that's an issue.
nmduke2001
I don’t understand why Houston would want Chris Paul. I know this sounds strange, but despite his passing skills, Chris Paul really is a ball dominate guard. James Harden just came off an incredible season being a ball dominate guard. Now you have two ball dominate guards. Isn’t Patrick Beverly a great option for a team with James Harden? Beverly plays solid D and makes open jump shots. Harden with the ball less isn’t the right option in my mind.
Chris Paul makes everyone better, and he has an elite 3pt shot. Plus he's an amazing defender. The only thing he does subpar is iso plays, and that's where Harden may be top 3 in the NBA.
By giving the ball to Paul, you cut down on Harden's TOs (5.4 per game), over-reliance on Harden's isos, and players just standing around waiting for Harden to shoot. Paul is a rare player who makes EVERYONE better. Insanely good trade for the Rockets. They aren't the Dubs, but I think they are now better than the Spurs.
I couldn't disagree more. Chris Paul is a 5'-11" 32-year old PG. When is the last time that combination aged well? So now instead of Harden creating, you'll have him standing around waiting for a pass from Paul?
up to a point...but when your boss is being a complete and utter dickehead, making everyone mad, poisoning the company, and killing it's chances at getting better, you need to take a stand.
Not his place...he's a hired employee. Be the better man. Meet with the guy and discuss the situation and your feelings. Then go to the owner if not satisfied. Sorry, but I disagree with you.
I've worked for those types you describe (in somewhat hyperbolic terms) - I would never have blown off meetings and shut down communications.
But all moot. Diaper being changed on Zinger and Phil is now rightfully out.
That 5'11" 32-year old PG just averaged 18+ points, 9+ assists, and 5 rebounds for a PER of 26.25. And John Stockton aged pretty damn well. Chris Paul isn't overly athletic nor does he need to be; he will age pretty well.
Amazing trade for the Rockets.
I'd go so far as saying ALL are happy. Carmelo would be staying either way, I think, given the no-trade clause and the Knicks' refusal to buy out the contract.
Perhaps with the triangle in a geometry cemetery, Hornacek can make better use of MElo's current skillset - iso ... then chuck up a shot with 2 seconds left... or pass it to our 7'3' perimeter player who stagnated last year when he actually was on the court.
Geesh.
His place? Kind of you to opine on that.
Athletes have a very short career. I completely understand if they do not want to sit by and watch their future toyed with by old men who cannot adapt to reality.
Big Chief Triangle and his boss are the ones who deserve scorn here. What competent manager trashes his employees in the press. I must have missed that piece of advice along the way.
We'll have to agree to disagree and check back next year to see who was right. I'm sticking with my thought that they don't fit well together. I'm guessing CP will continue to be the guy that hasn't won a conference final. CP will NOT age well and this contract will drag on Houston and ruin Harden's prime years. Not that it really matters, no one is challenging GS for a few more years anyway.
Billy Dat
Amen. Aside from a mostly excellent draft record, Phil was a disaster. KP's rebellion got us to today so THANK GOD he skipped his exit interview.
Now, we see who Dolan hires. The only thing that gives me any hope is that he mostly stays out of the Rangers affairs and lets Glen Sather operate. Naturally, this should have happened before the draft because we probably would have chosen differently, but I hope Frankie Smokes works out.
As for Melo, it's a mixed bag. His primary deficiency is ball hogging and not getting KP involved at the end of tight games. But, he seems like a good locker room guy and spiritual leader/mentor to the young pups. He can still fill it up so I am inclined to keep him rather than buy him out. Hopefully Hornacek will have the freedom to design an offense to fit the skills of his players and PLEASE can we send Rambis packing?
As for CP3 and the Rockets, Morey has a habit of ignoring chemistry/fit as he collects talent. I don't think CP3 and Harden and a good match, and CP3 is known as a real jerk to his teammates. Don't get me wrong, the guy is great, but that roster doesn't seem like a good fit to me. I guess we'll see.
Agree with FDD here. Paul is fantastic.
Gary Payton also played pretty well at age 32 (23.1 ppg, 8.1 apg, 4.6 rpg, 1.6 spg). Payton continued to put up 20/8/4/1 for 2 more years across 3 different teams. And then went better than 14/5/4/1 in his age 35 season which was good for the 3rd leading scorer and top assist man on a Lakers team that featured ball-dominant Kobe and Shaq (and 40-year-old Karl Malone).
Paul easily has 3 years left in the tank to be a top-flight PG.
@CVivlamoreAJC (AJC reporter)
The Hawks are nearing a deal to trade Ryan Kelly to the Rockets for cash considerations. Could be completed today.
Truth&Justise
I guess Kelly replaces Sam Dekker? Do they intend to keep him?
Too bad. I was looking forward to seeing how many seasons in a row Harden could set a new all-time turnover record.
SCMatt33
No. At least as reported, the existing Paul trade doesn't meet salary matching so the Rockets are buying players to add to the deal. Kelly is very likely to be flipped to he Clippers. Furthermore, most of the players the rockets are getting (including Kelly) have little if any guaranteed money, so there's a good chance he ends up as a free agent very soon, although it's possible with such heavy roster changes that the Clippers hold on to some of them through camp at least
The firing of Phil Jackson (and the open job) makes me wonder if Danny Ferry is blackballed from any high-level NBA job?
Ironic choice of terminology
He has a little GM in him
I think it helps them. Not enough to beat the Warriors, but it helps them. People who see Harden's assist numbers and assume he's a great PG aren't real basketball analysts. He's just the PG on Mike D'Antoni's team.
Harden led the league in turnovers, with 5.7 a game. Westbrook was 2nd, with 5.4. Harden's A/TO ratio was 1.95, which isn't even top 50. His A/TO was 1.58 in the playoffs. Good teams know how to stop the Rockets, just stop Harden. It's such a predictable offense. He's a dominant scorer, but a mediocre point guard.
Chris Paul is the best point guard of this generation, and he will run the team. Harden will get his points and be more efficient with Paul running the team. Paul makes everyone better.
To anyone questioning that this is a good trade/signing from Houston's perspective, consider the market. These are the top 10 free agents this summer according to the analytical (and very prolific) Kevin Pelton of espn:
1. Curry
2. Durant
3. Paul
4. Lowry
5. Millsap
6. Hayward
8. Otto Porter
9. Gallinari
10. Jeff Teague
Curry and Durant are not really available and will resign with GSW. So, what Morey did was sign the best player available on the free agent market while starting off with little cap room. That's really good!
I won't say it's a great signing/trade necessarily because Paul is 32 and Houston's going to hate his salary in his age 35, 36, and 37 seasons in which he'll be paid $40 million with the contract that he's likely to sign (a 5-year super max extension next summer). But this is all about James Harden being 27, in his prime, and now he'll have a co-star for the next 3 seasons in the form of Chris Paul's age 32, 33, and 34 seasons. I do think Paul will be in slow instead of accelerated decline.
This was about as good as they could do. I'm not worried about the fit since they can both shoot and therefore play off the ball when the other is creating. Yes, they'll have to share creation duties, but I think that's a feature, not a bug. Next season in the playoffs, if the Spurs put Kawhi on Harden and focus in on stopping him, the Rockets will have Chris Paul to go to.
Harden led the league in turnovers, with 5.7 a game. Westbrook was 2nd, with 5.4. Harden's A/TO ratio was 1.95, which isn't even top 50. His A/TO was 1.58 in the playoffs. Teams know how to stop the Rockets, just stop Harden. It's such a predictable offense. He's a dominant scorer, but a mediocre point guard.
Yeah, remember how amazing Steve Nash was with D'Antoni in Phoenix? Well, Paul is arguably a better player than Nash, and Harden is better than anyone D'Antoni has had as a #2.
We have seen two high-volume ballhandlers co-exist before in LeBron and Kyrie and LeBron and Wade before that. Well, Harden is better off ball than Irving or Wade, and Paul is a better passer than Irving or Wade.
And just as importantly, Paul and Wade will share the court for only around half the game. What this does is allow D'Antoni to have Harden run the second unit when Paul sits and to rarely ever have to settle for a second-tier shotcreator/playmaker on the floor.
Part of the calculus in this trade -- for both Paul and the Rockets -- is that it could be a short-term rental. Paul opted in to the final year of his deal ($24.4 mil) rather than becoming a free agent. So, he becomes a free agent after next season. If things work out in Houston and Paul/Harden are a good fit, Paul signs with Houston for the super max (more than $200 mil over 5 seasons) and everyone is happy (for now, by the time that super max deal is in its final couple seasons and Paul is in his mid-30s, it will be an albatross of a contract). If, things don't work out then Paul goes elsewhere (probably for $130 mil over 4 years).
-Jason "I have no idea how the Rockets pull off the deal for Paul George. Where do they find the cap space?" Evans
Here is a cool explanation (https://www.sbnation.com/nba/2017/6/28/15886854/chris-paul-houston-rockets-trade-no-cap-space-nba-free-agency)for how the Rockets made this deal work under the cap.
Paul is slated to make $24.2 million next season by virtue of opting in, plus he has a 15 percent trade kicker that would bump his salary up more. The combined salaries of Williams, Beverley, and Dekker add up to $14.3 million, which isn’t enough to complete the trade by NBA rules.
To solve that problem, the Rockets have canvassed the league for non-guaranteed minimum contracts that can be included to make the money work. They have two on their roster already in Kyle Wiltjer and Isaiah Taylor, and they’ve reportedly acquired DeAndre Liggins from the Mavericks, Tim Quarterman from the Blazers, and Ryan Kelly from the Hawks for cash considerations. Houston also has two guaranteed minimum-salary players they can include in the deal in Montrezl Harrell and Chinanu Onuaku. Harrell is indeed in the deal, according to Brad Turner of the Los Angeles Times.
Some combination of those seven players together should be enough to reach 75 percent of Paul’s incoming salary, which is the necessary threshold for over-the-cap teams to complete trades.
So, this appears to quite literally be something like a 9-for-1 deal... wow!" Evans
Cap space isn't the challenge to get George. They can find takers for Anderson or Ariza and others to clear enough space to absorb George's contract in a trade. What they lack are the assets needed to get him from Indiana. The Lakers and Boston can both easily out-do Houston in assets. Heck, even Love is a better return than what Houston could send.
I won't rule anything out with Morey, but realistically their hope would have to be to present an appealing option for George as a free agent next summer. At that point they would just need to move one piece to have the cap space.
Just a technical note, but Paul won't qualify for the super max if/once he is traded.
I agree about the desirable assets, but I'm not so sure they will be able to move Anderson's contract. He's due $60 mil over the next 3 seasons, a big number for a stretch 4 who does not rebound or play D. I'm hard pressed to think of a GM looking to make their team better (less than half the league is looking to get better, everyone else is looking to get worse and get draft picks while clearing cap space) who would think Anderson and his $20 mil/season deal are the way to do that. Ariza's $7.4 mil for 1 season can be moved... but Anderson's $60 mil is a lot tougher.
He won't? What am I missing about the qualifications? I did not think being traded was one of the ways to undo the Super Max? Paul did fail to make the 3 All-NBA teams this year, which (I think) would make him ineligible for the Super Max next season if he did not make one.
-Jason "the Super Max is a nice idea, but I'm not sure anyone will sign one any time soon because the big stars are keen to keep their team out of salary cap hell" Evans
Quote from the ESPN article (http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/19758509/la-clippers-trade-chris-paul-houston-rockets): "Because he is being acquired in a trade, Paul will be eligible for a five-year deal worth an estimated $205 million from the Rockets after this season."
$41 mil a year is definitely the "super max." Sounds like the incumbent team can do it as long they don't acquire the player through free agency.
A-Tex Devil
One or more of the bolded players or 'Melo or Paul George [edit to ad 'Melo] will end up on the Rockets before the end of July. Mark my words. Morey isn't done. It will take some scheming with multiple teams. But look what he is doing today (with the encouragement of his owner). He didn't have enough to match salaries with Paul, so instead of giving up other assets (Anderson, Capela, Gordon) he just went out and bought a bunch of less than 12th men to make it work.
Between all of this, the Osweiler salary dump in the NFL, and the Astros redefining the MLB rebuild, Houston teams have made the offseason rather interesting in all of the sports.
The "super max contract" (the slang for the designated player exception) is available for players as follows:
- must have won an All-NBA honor; and
- must be with his original team OR on a team that traded for him during his rookie contract
That's why Jimmy Butler will now no longer be eligible for the super max in two years. If he'd still been with the Bulls, he could get the super max. He got traded during his second contract, so he can't get it.
The article writer doesn't quite understand the rules. Paul actually doesn't qualify for the DPE regardless of whether or not he stayed with the Clippers. He was not a Clipper originally (so he wouldn't qualify if he stayed), and is well past his rookie contract (so he won't qualify via the trade). What Paul is eligible for is the standard max contract for a player with 10+ years of experience (35% of the cap). The trade (or no trade) has no impact on his max salary eligibility.
As I said, it is a technical point, since I believe that the DPE value is the same as the max contract for a 10+ year player. But Paul doesn't qualify in any way for the "super max". He will qualify for the 10+ year player max.
Just to clarify, as I incorrectly my have bashed the article.
The standard max contract is subject to trade rules. Paul would not be able to sign the max as a free agent going from LA to Houston. He would be able to sign to a lower max as a true free agent. But he WILL be able to sign a standard max contract (via Bird's rights) next year because he was traded.
The "super max" applies to a very select group of players: those players entering their second or third contract (before their 10th year) that meet the criteria mentioned (all NBA and on their original team or traded on their rookie deal). It allows them to skip over the standard max contract for a player of their service time.
Paul is beyond the service time for which that would matter, so the standard max is what he is looking at.
The article doesn't actually talk about the super max (that was inferred by a previous poster), so the writer was correct.
There's some embarrassing stories leaking about Doc the GM doing what was best for Doc the Dad not Doc the Coach.
http://deadspin.com/report-chris-paul-hated-austin-and-doc-rivers-1796493696
FWIW, Austin transformed himself from a punchline to a solid second unit player over the past few years, and odds are that may not have happened had his Dad not been his coach and given him the chance.
To solve that problem, the Rockets have canvassed the league for non-guaranteed minimum contracts that can be included to make the money work. They have two on their roster already in Kyle Wiltjer and Isaiah Taylor, and they’ve reportedly acquired DeAndre Liggins from the Mavericks, Tim Quarterman from the Blazers, and Ryan Kelly from the Hawks for cash considerations.
I know Chris Paul is dominating the talk of this trade, but the Blazers are pretty fired up about their side of things too (https://twitter.com/trailblazers/status/880133241813876736).
http://i.imgur.com/RQSHmkm.png
http://i.imgur.com/SB0poSy.png
Olympic Fan
Interesting note: One ex-Duke player got votes for the NBA all-defensive team this year. Want to guess who that was?
My bad . . . I saw $41 million a year and assumed that had to a be a super max deal. I was not aware that the "super max" was a very specific type of contract for which you had to meet so many criteria to become eligible. But if he were a player eligible for the super max, it would still be for around the same amount as this reported deal, right? The way you're describing it seems to me like the "super max" is just a way to get the 10 year veteran max without needing to have been in the league for 10 years.
So in other words, the super max is only more than the standard max if the player has less than 10 years of service, right?
Does that mean Doc Rivers is coach, GM, and a sportswriter with an all-NBA vote????
I kid. Nothing but love for Austin.
"If Austin Rivers cost his team both Carmelo Anthony and Chris Paul, then he has already cemented himself as an all-time NBA heel."
A heel? Really? What a low blow!
But I guess that is just about the most despicable thing in the English language.
Exactly. It is purely a terminology difference. The "super max" is just a mechanism of the new CBA that allows the bumping up of a younger player to the true max salary, which a sub-10 year guy couldn't otherwise get. Same dollar amount, just different terminology.
Chris Paul is the most overrated PG of all time. I'd say he was the most overrated player but Melo gets that award.
Harden and Paul will do what they all ways do choke in the playoffs
At this point right now I feel Chris Paul is somewhat underrated.
DeAndre Jordan is getting what deserves for screwing over Dallas
Fivethirtyeight tackles if CP and Harden can play together.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/can-chris-paul-and-james-harden-play-together/?addata=espn:frontpage
what he deserves?
getting just desserts?
Talking about Shaun May again?
Looks like the Gordon Hayward free agent battle has divided the Ainge family:
http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/19767673/ainge-family-public-tug-war-gordon-hayward
JNort
Good Lord you need some education on NBA basketball. CP3 is perhaps more underrated than anything. Only thing that's ever held him back was a crap team when he was with Nola and injuries in LA. Not sure what you mean by him "choking" in the playoffs since his stats and efficiency all raise in the playoffs despite facing tougher competition.
CP3 is/was the stereotypical pg that could score, pass, shoot, lead, didnt turn the ball over, made others better and played good defense. He always looked for balance between his scoring and creating for other. He probably could have scored 27 a game like Steph and Russ or dropped 15 assists a game if he chose to do so.
Not sure that pointing out the tax situation is the best idea for the younger Ainge. After all, the third team in the mix, Miami, is in a place with no state income tax...
Worth noting that Miami also actually has the cap space available to sign Hayward to a max deal once they waive Bosh for medical reasons. Boston will still need to make some moves to get a max offer for Hayward, including renouncing the qualifying offer for Olynyk. Given their second half last year, Miami seems to be a sneaky player for Hayward's services.
I find it difficult to believe that the offer on the table was Anthony and Vujacic for Pierce, Crawford and Rivers. That just doesn't make any sense for NY (sure sure, insert jokes about the Knicks here). Hence, I'm taking this report with a huge grain of salt, especially as it seems to come from a single reporter's facebook post, without corroboration.
You have a point. But stories about Austin's arrogance, Clippers nepotism, and infighting between Paul and Doc seem realistic. Most - if not all - on this board support Austin, but many of us firmly believe that he is one of the most arrogant players to ever come through Duke's doors.
devildeac
JE likely waiting the conclusion to your post...
Jason Evans is the anti-Rivers: sincere, lovable, gets along with everyone, and he didn't get here riding his daddy's coattails
Much better. Ends tomorrow, correct? ;)
Cheaper than beer. :rolleyes:
sagegrouse
Speak for yourself and not for the rest of us. Or, better yet, don't speak at all if you don't have something constructive to say.
No thank you. I'll happily speak my mind.
At end of SportsCenter this evening Michael Smith said Calipari allegedly has reached out through an intermediary to express an interest in the Knicks presidency - no surprise since so many kids can be helped by Cal heading up a NBA team
"This is the greatest day in the history of Kentucky basketball."
- University of Kentucky NCAA Compliance Office (http://www.ukathletics.com/page/compliance)
JetpackJesus
And here's a write up on the story (http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/19770044/john-calipari-kentucky-wildcats-makes-inquiry-new-york-knicks-sources-say).
With Cal wanting to go to the Knicks, I thought it would be fun to mess around with some trades. According to ESPNs trade machine the following trade works. Unfortunately, the tool does not consider draft picks so CDu I'll need your help on the draft picks.
Cleveland knows LeBron is gone next year. Why not get something. So here goes
New York Knicks get:
Cleveland Cavs get:
Prozingis
NY 2020 and 2021 first round picks
I think that trade works for both teams. NYC becomes relevant and Cleveland gets a really good young player and 2 future pieces before LeBron bails. LeBron gets to NYC with his buddy. Maybe the Knicks can get some vets on the cheap to join them.
http://www.espn.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=y7grgapq
... Calipari allegedly has reached out through an intermediary to express an interest in the Knicks presidency ...
Would he have to give up his current position?
Given my respective interest in college ball and the NBA... can I write a reference letter for him?
The Knicks have supposedly said they are not interested in Cal... so Cal is denying he ever reached out to them in the first place.
What are some of the stories that were out there before yesterday?
A few weeks ago, Big Baby made some negative public comments regarding the doc/Austin relationship. He essentially called Austin spoiled and kept saying that "...your father gave you your money..." in an online video.
https://www.google.com/amp/ftw.usatoday.com/2017/05/glen-big-baby-davis-austin-rivers-comments-doc-instagram-video-rant-money-father-shut-up-lies-response-angry/amp
On a side note, I stumbled across how Doc rivers got his nickname (his real first name is Glenn). The late great Rick Majerus called Rivers "Doc" because he was wearing a Julius Irving shirt at a basketball camp. I don't know exactly when this camp took place but Rick Majerus was an assistant coach for Marquette at the time, so it was between 1971 and 1983.
Yea but that's just big baby's opinion... not really a story that illustrates his opinion.
Most - if not all - on this board support Austin, but many of us firmly believe that he is one of the most arrogant players to ever come through Duke's doors.
Arrogant enough to knock this one down, and I thank him for that.
Also I would point out there were plenty of teams offering to pay Austin during his last free agency but he liked the team they had in LA. So his "your father gave you your money" line doesn't hold up.
Find attached:
http://ftw.usatoday.com/2017/05/glen-big-baby-davis-austin-rivers-comments-doc-instagram-video-rant-money-father-shut-up-lies-response-angry
http://www.slamonline.com/nba/austin-rivers-i-want-to-destroy-lebron-on-the-court-one-day/#gxmZ6FRed4DLcjjJ.97
https://www.clipsnation.com/2015/8/14/9154311/twitter-austin-rivers-thinks-he-is-better-than-a-lot-of-dudes-who
There is a lot of negative press on Austin Rivers since before he even step foot on Duke. To me, most is unfounded. But the arrogance? That's indisputable.
Yeah, Austin has absolutely shown he belongs in the NBA and that he is worthy of significant playing time for pretty much any team. I don't recall any outcry that he was being overpaid or that his father only signed him due to nepotism when Rivers got his 3-year, $35 mil deal before last season.
I am pretty skeptical of these stories that his dad refused to make important trades in an effort to keep his son on the team. It seems word about trade requests would probably filter out to others in the organization including the owners. If Doc was making clearly biased moves, the owners would step in and remove him from his job, I would think. Steve Balmer has no special allegiance to Austin Rivers.
That said, there will be a large segment of the population who will believe all this stuff. I suspect Austin will deal with it for a while and that he and Doc will get blamed for the Clippers being worse next season (they will be worse). That said, I don't find the stories that Doc played favorites with his son all that surprising and I sorta think it was always a bad idea to have a dad coaching his son at this level of basketball.
-Jason "with Paul gone, Austin will likely see his role on the Clips expand a bit -- though I would expect Beverley to be the new starting PG" Evans
As I posted in the MBB Coaching Carousel thread, what are the odds that the "intermediary" is Adrian Wojnarowski? Isn't he a staff member of the Calipari self-promotion team?
Good post, Jason.
There are two major issues that open this door to massive speculation on the Clippers.
The first, that you pointed out, is that it's always a bad idea to have dads/uncles/moms coaching sons/daughters/neices/nephews. The second is that Doc is both head coach and Head of Basketball Operations, which means he has the final say on everything. Hence, every decision - good or bad - is put on Doc. On the surface, it completely looks like Doc is prioritizing his son. And with only Steve Balmer above Doc, there isn't a system of checks & balances.
Oh I know he's arrogant. I should have clarified that I was mainly looking for stories of nepotism. Other than people's unfounded opinions I haven't seen any actual evidence of it.
Oh man, NBA free agency starts at 12:01am tonight. This offseason is going to continue to be fun, methinks.
Between this, the upcoming Wimbledon, and NBA Summer League, I'll get my sports fix for the next couple of weeks. After that, though, the summer becomes sort of a drag (unless you're into baseball or other summer sports).
IMO, this is a very good point. There is a fine line between arrogant and confident. My comfort zone with arrogance is whether it can be backed up. For example, I consider Michael Joran arrogant for cause.
So, here is an article from ClipsNation (https://www.clipsnation.com/2016/7/19/12220666/grade-the-signing-clippers-keep-austin-rivers-for-3-years-35-million) about Austin's contract when it was signed about a year ago. The 5 writers who cover the Clippers for the site all chime in about the signing and though a couple of them think the deal might be a tad rich, no one seems even mildly upset about it. There is no talk that this is a sweetheart deal given because of Austin's relationship with Doc. Everyone agrees that it is somewhere between a B- and a B+ deal... and there were a lot of C, D, and F deals handed out last summer.
What's more, more than 1000 fans voted on the deal in a poll on the site. 55% give it and A or B; 20% say C; and 25% judge it a D or F. That's not overwhelming support, but isn't nearly a loud outcry of anger.
--Jason "Austin is fairly paid, there's no question about that, IMO. But, I have no idea if Doc treats him differently from other players at practice and in the locker room, as Chris Paul apparently thinks" Evans
IMO, this is a very good point. There is a fine line between arrogant and confident.
IMO, it ain't arrogance if you can consistently perform.
Exactly! Many consider Duke arrogant, but the banners tell a different story!
Various pieces of news, with my Duke spin on them:
Derek BodnerVerified account @DerekBodnerNBA (https://twitter.com/DerekBodnerNBA) 6h6 hours ago (https://twitter.com/DerekBodnerNBA/status/880788274796777472)
"The Sixers have told agents they will seek one-year deals this summer to preserve future space" per @ZachLowe_NBA (https://twitter.com/ZachLowe_NBA).
I can't see JJ signing just a 1-year deal, so maybe the Sixers aren't the favorite to get him.
Marc SteinVerified account @ESPNSteinLine (https://twitter.com/ESPNSteinLine) 3h3 hours ago (https://twitter.com/ESPNSteinLine/status/880820092442783744)
League sources: Growing resignation among interested teams that New Orleans comes to terms quickly with Jrue Holiday on rich five-year deal
So New Orleans' PG rotation won't be Duke-Duke in the form of Quinn and Frank, not that that should've been the expectation. I was hoping, though.
Zach LoweVerified account @ZachLowe_NBA (https://twitter.com/ZachLowe_NBA) 2h2 hours ago (https://twitter.com/ZachLowe_NBA/status/880845209428471808)
As of now, the Warriors and Andre Iguodala have no meeting scheduled, sources say. Could change any minute. Sides are optimistic.
You know, even if the Cavs can't trade for Paul George (and they should do everything in their power to get that done), it's possible that Kyrie/Dahntay's chances of winning another NBA ring tick up just a bit if GSW loses Iguodala. But doesn't look like that's the case here.
Ricky Rubio was just traded to the Jazz for a 2018 first round pick. Does that mean Tyus Jones is now the Timberwolves' nominal starting point guard?
If so . . . sign me up for some T-Wolves on league pass next year!
This might mean Kyle Lowry to the Wolves at a bit of a discount, but I do think Thibs is comfortable with Tyus as a backup PG now. Being in the rotation for a contending team is pretty good for a late first-round draft pick like Tyus.
I think it is more likely the T-Wolves try to turn Jimmy Butler into a bit of a James Harden point-forward by putting the ball in Butler's hands as much as possible. There is little question they will be seeking a shooter in the backcourt... maybe JJ? The Rubio deal clears a lot of salary cap space for them. Maybe I am missing something, but I think they have $25+ mil to go after a max free agent. Could they make a bid for Hayward?
David AldridgeVerified account @daldridgetnt (https://twitter.com/daldridgetnt) 25m25 minutes ago (https://twitter.com/daldridgetnt/status/880895107159011328)
Sixers announce they’ve waived veteran G Gerald Henderson. His $9M 2017-18 salary was guaranteed if he wasn’t waived by today.
Lots of talk on Twitter that Minnesota is going to after Kyle Lowry. Whew, a lineup of Lowry, Butler, Wiggins, Dieng, and Towns is really strong... top 5 in the NBA, I think.
Blah. It might turn out to only be Jeff Teague actually.
Sam AmickVerified account @sam_amick (https://twitter.com/sam_amick) 25m25 minutes ago (https://twitter.com/sam_amick/status/880899047313219584)
Updated intel on Minnesota front: expectation from folks who would know is that Jeff Teague is heavy, heavy favorite with T-Wolves.
DukeTrinity11
Kyle Lowry or Jeff Teague will probably end up on the Wolves but if not...the Tyus Jones era will begin in Minnesota!! :cool:
Strongly disagree Jason, they don't have enough 3 point shooting still to be a serious contender IMHO.
Lowry hit 41% of his 3s last year.
Butler hit 36%.
Town, one of the best outside shooting big men in the game, hit 37%.
Yes, they need some outside shooting off the bench (Tyus hit 35% of his 3s and figures to be a key reserve for the TWolves this season), but if they land Lowry, this is going to be a heck of a good team.
-Jason "agree to disagree... but I think it will be moot as it seems they want Teague more than Lowry for some reason" Evans
They will be better. But I think top 5 is a stretch.
I get the skepticism... but aside from GS, SA, Cle, and Bos... who will be better? Maybe Miami if they get Hayward. Any other candidates? In terms of teams current rosters, who else is better?
This all may be moot as it appears Minn is getting Teague, not Lowry. I think there is a HUGE difference in those two players
-Jason "Win Shares says Lowry (10.1 last season) is worth 2 more games than Teague (8.1 last year)... and Lowry played 25% fewer games" Evans
COYS
I guess the Wolves value Teague's age, but Teague is still old enough that he has probably reached or is currently at his peak, just like Lowry. And Lowry is significantly better. Seems like an odd decision from where I'm sitting, assuming they had an equal shot at Teague and Lowry for roughly the same price.
If I'm the Sixers I sign JJ then package Oak and picks to the Pacers in 3 team deal with Cavs to bring Love to Philly. Fultz-Redick-Simmons-Embied is a damn good five.
Blake Griffin is reportedly signing with the Clippers for 5 years and $183 mil. Wow!
I was going to add a comment about the Clips regretting that deal when Blake is in his upper 30s, but I looked it up and he is just 28. I could have sworn he was 30+.
Paul George to OKC for Oladipo and Sabonis.
lol, how are the Celtics and Cavs getting outbid on these paltry trade packages for Butler and now George? Ridiculous. Boston in particular should never be getting outbid with all their assets.
And now comes news that Paul George is going to the Thunder for Domantas Sabonis and Victor Oladipo. WOWOWOWWOW!!
This offseason's been fantastic.
Alex KennedyVerified account @AlexKennedyNBA (https://twitter.com/AlexKennedyNBA) 8m8 minutes ago (https://twitter.com/AlexKennedyNBA/status/880969011500109826)
In the last 10 days, Chris Paul, Jimmy Butler, Paul George, Ricky Rubio, Dwight Howard, Brook Lopez, D'Angelo Russell, #1 pick were traded.
I guess Ainge wants to save his cap space for Heyward... but I'm not sure what he is doing. It could also be that in this era of mega contracts he just wants to collect cheap rookies and not trade for high dollar vets.
Regardless, the East just of easier and the West tougher... again.
My guess is the Celtics are going all in on Hayward. Their salary cap space matches what they can off him.
Boston's plan was to get BOTH Hayward and George by sequencing the transactions correctly (http://www.csnne.com/boston-celtics/report-celtics-plan-sequencing-acquisitions-hayward-george). Basically, what they had to do was beat the OKC offer, then execute the trade AFTER signing Hayward.
But either (a) Boston was unwilling to beat the package of Oladipo and Sabonis and/or (b) the Pacers GM way overvalued Oladipo and Sabonis relative to Boston's best offer.
Joel EmbiidVerified account @JoelEmbiid (https://twitter.com/JoelEmbiid) 32m32 minutes ago (https://twitter.com/JoelEmbiid/status/880966827530211328)
Playoffs spots are opening up hehehehe #TheProcess (https://twitter.com/hashtag/TheProcess?src=hash)
Take if for want it's worth, but Boston sports radio and some of the local print media were suggesting that the George trade would have to include Tatum. Perhaps Ainge wasn't really willing to part with Tatum for the chance (remote?) of convincing George to remain in Boston after the 17-18 season. Bird in the hand (no pun intended).
From Jeff Goodman:
Celtics offer on draft night for Paul George, per league source, was 3 first-round picks (not the Nets pick next year or the Lakers/Kings pick) and two starters (Crowder being one).
Found via Team Stream by Bleacher Report.
Report is that Boston put 3 1sts (but not the Brooklyn one) and two starters (unnamed) on the table on draft night and Indiana turned them down. Which leads me to three possible (and not necessarily mutually exclusive) conclusions: (a) Pritchard really didn't want George in the east; (b) when you get a rep as the "smartest" team on trades, people stop wanting to trade with you to avoid being the punch line in yet another "Boston fleeced someone" story; or (c) your point b above.
JJ meeting with Sixers first after midnight:
Adrian WojnarowskiVerified account @wojespn (https://twitter.com/wojespn) 4m4 minutes ago (https://twitter.com/wojespn/status/881002173403873281)
Free agent JJ Redick is meeting with the 76ers, league sources tell ESPN.
http://forums.dukebasketballreport.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=7515&stc=1
I'm an idiot... I forgot about Chris Paul in Houston.
Ok, I think Minny is top 6 ;)
Side note - I bet Lebron is throwing stuff at the wall in anger at all the moves happening... none of which involve his team getting any better.
His only consolation is that it seems no one in the East is getting better. Houston, Minnesota, and OKC seem to be the big winners thus far...
Yea I was gonna say...what about Houston.
I really feel the cavs just lost their chance to make a vast improvement. I still think they can improve but not enough to come close to the Warriors. I wouldn't consider myself a Warriors fan per se but I am definitely enjoying watching them play and love to see Lebron get crushed. Paul George scares me a little if they would have added him. Jimmy Butler also would have been a nice addition. I can't see anyone else out there moving the needle for them. I don't think Carmelo or Wade will make them that much, if at all better.
One interesting article I read is that teams around the league have realized that they can't win in an arms race with the Warriors. They felt their best chance to compete was to try to break up the team by signing some of their players. Iggy looks to be the first they have a shot at poaching. I think this will hurt the Warriors a little but not as much as people are making it out to be. He has been great for them but his body is showing signs of breaking down. Plus Curry and Durant will only get better together over time. This could mark the end of the death lineup which she been one of the most lethal lineups in NBA history.
Recent reports say Rudy Gay may be a backup play if Iggy decides to go elsewhere.
dukelifer
His body is much older than his age.
Sounds like me.
Gerald Henderson's departure makes room for JJ Redick. JJ can stretch the floor, Henderson cannot. Henderson really needs to hit 3's if he's going to be a major rotation player going forward.
My guess with this price tag for George - low to very low - is because George's agent made known this was a one-year rental not a purchase. If George plans to flee to the Lakers after one season, then doing what you can to make Russell Westbrook happy for a year may be a good move. Oladipo/Sabonis is worth that price.
But from the Pacers perspective, shouldnt they have gotten draft picks in return? I guess Oladipo is a pretty solid building block - 36% from 3, 16 per game, age 25. Sabonis had a tough year though. Seems like cap filler. I'd have gotten at least a first rounder in addition to this.
Oladipo is okay. If for some reason the Thunder can convince Paul George to resign this is the steal of the century. Sounds like the Pacers didn't want to solidify any teams in the East. I would have personally preferred draft picks as well.
Just saw on CNN that Steph Curry will be signing a 5Y/$201M deal:eek:. I shoulda had a better vertical :rolleyes:.
I'd bet the issue is more related to ball handling and shooting & scoring skills! :D
That said, congrats to Steph. He has earned it with his play. I do believe that $40,000,000 per year is a little excessive for bouncing a ball on a court while wearing short pants - for anyone!
Jeff Teague signs 3-year, $57 million deal with the Wolves.
One interesting article I read is that teams around the league have realized that they can't win in an arms race with the Warriors. They felt their best chance to compete was to try to break up the team by signing some of their players.
As long as contenders still make the attempt to try to beat the Warriors, then I am sated. This past week of NBA transactions tells me that teams are not just going to turtle and wait out the Warriors. They're making moves to try to improve, to try to beat GSW. I'm proud of those teams making moves like the Rockets, OKC, Minnesota, etc.
Even if George leaves after 1 year, it's still a steal. Oladipo is a negative asset (an average player that's overpaid), and OKC was able to dump him on the Pacers.
One of the NBA beat reporters on twitter said that a team's executive told him that OKC executed the greatest salary dump ever.
https://www.sbnation.com/nba/2017/7/1/15907324/paul-george-trade-pacers-what-about-the-celtics
One man's take on the Celtics' use of their stockpile of assets (or, more accurately, their attempts to use the stockpile).
An alternative take (in form of a tweet) here:
Nate DuncanVerified account @NateDuncanNBA (https://twitter.com/NateDuncanNBA) 8h8 hours ago (https://twitter.com/NateDuncanNBA/status/881037014946074628)
It is pretty curious how the Celtics keep making these massive offers and keep falling short isn't it? Either other teams real dumb, or...
I actually believe teams CAN be that dumb, but it's important to note that the Celtics don't actually have to be telling the truth about what they offered, after the fact.
Good for Steph. I've liked him since the Davidson days, but Seth really made me a fan of the whole Curry family.
And I thought it was Sonya. 😀😎
I just realized that Oladiplo's extension kicks in starting next year. So, thought OKC paid him just $6.5 mil last season, he is due to make $21 mil a season for the next 4 years, until 2021. Whoa... that is a seriously bloated contract for a decent, but not great player. What the heck was Indiana thinking bringing in a $21 mil/season player who is nowhere near All-Star caliber?!?! Are you planning to build your franchise around Victor Oladipo?!?!
So, if the reports are true and Indiana took this deal over clearly better ones offered by Boston because they could not bear to see George in the East... well... all I know is that Indiana does not need to worry about how good Boston might be because the Pacers are not going to be challenging the Celtics in any way for quite some time.
-Jason "this isn't even good tanking strategy by Indiana because they are tying up precious salary cap space... baffling" Evans
There is that...😄
Curry's deal looks amazing ($34.6 mil next year rising to $45.7 mil in 2022), an average of $40 mil per season... but John Wall is about to eclipse it in terms of per-year salary when he signs the Wizards 4-year, $170 mil super max extension offer. Wall will just be 31 when that deal is done with career earnings of almost $280 million. By the time his career is over, it is likely that he will have earned more than half a billion dollars from just playing basketball (to say nothing of his endorsement deals).
-Jason "if only I was a lot quicker, a lot more coordinated, and really dedicated to improving myself athletically... I too could have made a mint ;) " Evans
The only rationale I can think of for this is that ownership in Indiana is unwilling to go full blown tank and would rather try to keep a team that has some chance of making the playoffs even if there's no legit chance of title contention. Because of his history with IU, I imagine that more than anywhere else, Oladipo can help sell some tickets that wouldn't get sold during a full blown tank.
Really odd. You have to believe the Indiana Hoosier connection had something to do with the Pacers' deal -- but $21 million per year worth of "local hero?"
A lot of being written and said this weekend about the flight of talent from the East to the West. A very interesting tweet (https://twitter.com/NickVanExit/status/880971718600396800) pointed out the following:
3 of these players will not be All-Stars:
Gasol (Marc)
He forgot to mention Jordan, Griffin, Wiggins, Aldridge, McCollum, Booker, Conley and perhaps some other guys who rise up. And what if Hayward decides to stay in Utah? Wow!!
How many guys in the East would even have a shot at making All-Star in the West? Lebron, Kyrie, Thomas, DeRozan, Wall, Freak... anyone else?
-Jason "Milsap is probably headed out West too... man, OKC could really use his floor spacing but there's no way they could make it work under the cap, could they?" Evans
JJ to the Sixers, accepting their one year offer (for a lot of money, mind you):
Adrian WojnarowskiVerified account @wojespn (https://twitter.com/wojespn) 2m2 minutes ago (https://twitter.com/wojespn/status/881243180880076803)More
JJ Redick has agreed to a one-year, $23 million deal with the 76ers, league sources tell ESPN.
It just hit me: get rid of the East and West Conferences and replace them with Division 1 and Division 2. Division 1 is the top half from the prior season and Division 2 is the bottom.
At playoff time, build the bracket based on final rankings, with Division 1 getting preferential seeding.
At the end of the year, you reshuffle. Maybe do it relegation/promotion style, with only a certain number of teams moving up or down a year.
This would fix a structure where one team can dominate a bad conference while talent stockpiles in the other.
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Board index Sports Talk RealGM Basketball Top Basketball Boards NBA Draft
Delon Wright Is the Best Prospect You've Nevever Heard Of
Draft talk all year round
Moderators: Marcus, Ruzious
noobcake
Post#1 » by noobcake » Mon Feb 24, 2014 5:32 am
Every college basketball season there are a few solid NBA prospects who mysteriously fly under the NBA draft radar. This year, Utah's Delon Wright is one of those players. Wright is the younger brother of NBA veteran swingman Dorell Wright. Unlike his older brother, whom he apparently easily beats one-on-one, Delon Wright is a 6'5" playmaking guard—and a particularly dynamic one at that.
Wright is advantageously tall for a point guard, especially at the college level, and he appears to have the skill set necessary to play that same position as a pro. Because of academic issues, Wright spent two years at City College of San Francisco before arriving at Utah this season. His transition from community college to the PAC-12 was seamless: Wright's mixture of size, fluidity and on-court intelligence overwhelmed Division I opponents immediately. However, NBA scouts haven't seemed to notice.
Wright's all-around production for a decent Utes team has been rather jaw-dropping. He's averaging 16 points, 6.7 rebounds, 5.4 assists, 2.8 steals and 1.3 blocks per game—and shooting 60% from the field. His long-range shooting needs work, but when a point guard prospect shoots 60% from the field such flaws can be overlooked for the time being.
Players in the Pac-12 with statistics like Wright's should be very much in the 2014 first-round draft discussion, but Wright's name rarely pops up. One reason is perhaps because of his age—Wright will be 22 in April—and another might be his somewhat unusual path to Utah. But none of these things should matter—any tall point guard who mixes offensive efficiency with dominant defense (2+ steals and 1+ blocks per game) has to be taken seriously as a highly intriguing prospect. With Wright, so far, that has not been the case. He could be a draft day heist in June.
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1955 ... r-heard-of
Re: Delon Wright Is the Best Prospect You've Nevever Heard O
Ruckusmh
Post#2 » by Ruckusmh » Mon Feb 24, 2014 5:59 am
Huge Utah fan here, just a couple of insights and questions about him going forward:
First of all, easily the best Utah player this year and his BBiq is just absurd. He is a 60% shooter because he takes about 85% of his shots at the rim. Very good at not forcing offense, making the right play, great moves in the lane and in transition. He has extremely long arms and his steals come from playing the passing lanes but also from poking the ball from behind which he probably does almost once each game. His blocks are almost never help defense blocks, but blocks against his own man at the rim.
He is a FANTASTIC college player, but as a pro prospect I'm a little nervous about him, mainly because his three point shot is just not good. Not sure if it's a form thing or just mental, he's over 80% at the line but will not attempt threes even if left wide open.
I also am unsure if his handle is good enough to be a full time pg in the NBA. I think he would do great to start out as a bench SG next to a pure shooting PG, someone in the Eddie House mold or similar.
He is also obviously VERY skinny and needs to put on a little weight.
For all the criticism of him, his line tonight against ASU was just absurd.
7-7 from the field (all at the rim), 8-10 from the line for 22 points, 9 rebounds, 6 assists, 3 steals, and 3 blocks.
If you haven't had a chance to do so, try to watch him at least once. He is phenomenal.
ManualRam
Post#3 » by ManualRam » Mon Feb 24, 2014 6:24 am
i think his handle is good enough to be a pg. his IQ and vision obviously are. he can be a little casual with the ball. added strength would obviously help, but he has all the moves. he has the change of speed and direction. he has that calmness about him that allows him to anticipate where the defense is coming from and react to it. he's very slithery (one of the better guards i've seen this yr splitting traps) and can cover so much ground with single moves because he's so long and rangy. in the paint his footwork is among the best, if not the best i've seen of a college guard. he admits that his idol is d.wade and it shows in his footwork. his euro steps are nba level.
he's not a confident 3 pt shooter, but his stroke is not bad. he shoots a bit of a push shot and he appears to aim the ball more than shoot it, but i don't think his shot is broken. his ft% is a good indication of his touch. range is another area i think added strength would help.
his poise and iq are what i'm most impressed with. he's got a very mature game to go along with his flair and creativity. he's the best pg prospect i've in seen in college this yr.
idontgiveashtaboutmelo
Winglish
Post#4 » by Winglish » Mon Feb 24, 2014 6:25 am
http://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=1298696
http://collegebasketballtalk.nbcsports.com/2014/02/18/delon-wright-a-notable-cousy-snub/
NBC and I noticed Delon Wright.
ManualRam wrote: i think his handle is good enough to be a pg. his IQ and vision obviously are. he can be a little casual with the ball. added strength would obviously help, but he has all the moves. he has the change of speed and direction. he has that calmness about him that allows him to anticipate where the defense is coming from and react to it. he's very slithery (one of the better guards i've seen this yr splitting traps) and can cover so much ground with single moves because he's so long and rangy. in the paint his footwork is among the best, if not the best i've seen of a college guard. he admits that his idol is d.wade and it shows in his footwork. his euro steps are nba level.
Interesting to get your viewpoint, I know you watch a lot of cbb. I think loose with the ball is exactly the right term, almost like he doesnt strike it squarely with his hand occasionally and will get really dead bounces when trying to keep it away from pressure. His footwork is easily the best I've seen at the college level this year, he is absolutely dynamite at getting to the basket and avoiding charges. Recently he has seemed to get better at creating contact which is big for him.
Where do you see him going? Or do you think he may come back and try to add strength and come out next year? I could see it going either way with him at this point. He's intriguing, but has enough questions combined with his age that I have a hard time seeing him before early second or maybe late first.
Ruzious
Post#6 » by Ruzious » Mon Feb 24, 2014 11:08 am
He should come out this year. Otherwise, he'll be 23 when he's drafted, and that's a huge stigma. NBA GM's know who he is - even if the internet sites have been slow to catch on. He will be a 1st round pick if he comes out this year.
"Look, you never know when you may need to borrow a cup of sugar, maybe some milk or a handgun" - Dan C. from Texas
Post#7 » by ManualRam » Mon Feb 24, 2014 2:48 pm
Ruckusmh wrote:
i don't know where he'd go should he declare. i just know where i'd take him and i think he's definitely a first rounder, somewhere in the late teens to early 20s. i have him currently at 22 on my big board. age is a factor and so is his frame, but i'd have no problem with a team taking him in the teens. i think his combination of iq, tools, creativity and anticipation is pretty rare. i think he should definitely at least submit his name for feedback. maybe the scouting sites are just slow to react to a player with his background who was off their radar, but i doubt he's invisible to pro scouts this late into the season. he's been too good to simply ignore. it's not like he's hidden in a weak conference on a bad team. utah's at least decent and have a couple of good wins. every time i watch one of their games, the color guys are always gushing about his basketball acumen.
Post#8 » by Bluejay » Mon Feb 24, 2014 6:45 pm
He's been posted about in the sleeper thread as early as October.
djthesonicsfan
Post#9 » by djthesonicsfan » Mon Feb 24, 2014 9:45 pm
He seems like a Presti pick. We might have the Dallas pick at #21. And we need a third PG to sit on the bench next year & play at Tulsa as Jackson might be too expensive to keep the following season.
notSonics 2016
Starters - Trey, Roberson, KD, Ibaka, Adams
Rotation - Payne, Waiters, Green, McGary, Kanter
Bench - Collison, Christon, Brodgon, Huestis
Stash - Johnson, Abrine
Cut - Morrow
Trade - Singler
Draft - Brogdon
FA - Green
EMG518
Post#10 » by EMG518 » Mon Feb 24, 2014 10:06 pm
Should change the title to
Delon Wright Is The Best Prospect You've Never Heard Of Unless You Frequent Real GM's NBA Draft Forum.
165bows
Location: The land of incremental improvement.
Post#11 » by 165bows » Mon Feb 24, 2014 11:16 pm
Who projects better, for those that have seen them: Delon Wright or Elfrid Payton?
lakeshow22
Post#12 » by lakeshow22 » Tue Feb 25, 2014 10:43 pm
If he's the best point guard prospect you have seen this year than y do u have him so low? 21 isn't that old for a junior and there have been players older than that taken in the lottery. Is the high teens or 20s the earliest you can see him going? Best case scenario how high could he go this year should he declare? Who would you compare his game to? Could he be a starting point guard in the NBA next season?
Post#13 » by ManualRam » Tue Feb 25, 2014 11:24 pm
lakeshow22 wrote:
because i am realistic. there is not a great need for PGs. he's older, thin, a JC transfer who has no residual hype from HS, was off draft radars before the season started, on a middling program with no national hype and less visibility. i take all that into consideration. on talent alone i'd have him higher, but again, i'm realistic so low 20s is where i have him. i'd have no problem with a team taking him late lotto if they really like him and they need a pg.
i'd compare his game to a mixture of a rondo and jrue holiday. he has similar length, slipperiness, thin build, creativity with the ball as rondo. he's disruptive defensively with his length, quick hands and ability to play passing lanes. very good finisher despite his thin frame. he's got a big bag of tricks in the painted area with running hooks, floaters, leaners, push shots, scoop shots. knows how to use his extension to reach past defenders to get shots up and has terrific body control. will move off the ball looking for easy buckets off of cuts. he's been doing a better job at creating contact and getting to the line (nearly 7 FTA in conference play). he'll gamble on D like rondo looking to dig, shoot gaps and attempt poke-aways from behind. not as creative of a passer as rondo, but he doesn't pound the ball like rondo either. he has good vision with anticipation and doesn't fear attempting riskier passes. gets assists via distribution, but he has break down ability and looks comfortable making plays out of PnR. reads shots in flight and won't hesitate to swoop into traffic for rebounds. great hands and is quick to the ball (over 7 boards in conference play).
he plays with the pace of jrue holiday though. very calm and collected, almost too casual at times. doesn't get rattled. he's not ball-dominant, will distribute and run the offense through it's progressions. has no problem with others initiating the offense. can put up impressive lines quietly, within the flow of the game. he does have good quickness, but does not rely on it. i think he's more liable to pick his spots and beat his defender with change of speed/direction, anticipation, deception or involving his man in ball screens. he really has great fakes and footwork. knows how to manipulate defenders so he doesn't have to go 100 miles an hour.
Post#14 » by Ruckusmh » Wed Feb 26, 2014 12:32 am
I think if he could go late first to a contender and get groomed at 10-15 minutes a game on a very good team that would probably be optimal for his development.
He is a guy who can come in and play right away, but I feel could really be a monster if brought along slowly so he has time to improve in practice. Really, that's the best thing about him as a later pick in my mind - he has a very defined skillset that even with a couple of glaring weaknesses is a solid player. If he can develop a perimeter shot and tighten his handle he could be a very very good player in the NBA.
RoyalMajesty
Post#15 » by RoyalMajesty » Wed Feb 26, 2014 8:29 am
Don't worry Bob Myers and Jerry West will pick him up when he goes undrafted
TucsonClip
Contact TucsonClip
Post#16 » by TucsonClip » Thu Feb 27, 2014 4:32 am
I do like him as a reserve guard that can play both positions. I would like to see what he looks like trying to score more without the ball in his hands. He should take advantage of the added space at the next level, but I want to see him score more off ball reversals and spot ups.
Plus, why would I want to go to the NBA? Duke players suck in the pros.
- Shane Battier
brackdan70
Location: Ogden, UT
Post#17 » by brackdan70 » Thu Feb 27, 2014 1:47 pm
Unless you don't follow College Basketball you have heard of him. maybe if you said that in November it would make some sense.
Looks like a solid player with NBA potential. If he comes out he will get drafted. I would guess early second round this year.
Danny Ainge on Jayson Tatum and rational for not making him available in a trade for Anthony Davis
“And how can this be....for he is the Kwisatz Haderach”
Post#18 » by Bluejay » Thu Feb 27, 2014 9:51 pm
RoyalMajesty wrote: Don't worry Bob Myers and Jerry West will pick him up when he goes undrafted
He's likely to go in bottom part of 2nd round IMO.
Dr Positivity
Post#19 » by Dr Positivity » Thu Feb 27, 2014 10:13 pm
I like him and can see him being a starting PG
asubstituteforwar.wordpress.com
Recent article: Are Andrew Wiggins and Brandon Ingram's starts for real?
Post#20 » by Ruzious » Thu Feb 27, 2014 10:55 pm
Dr Positivity wrote: I like him and can see him being a starting PG
Exactly. He's not a jump shooter with 3 point range, and he works well with the ball in his hands, so why mess around playing him anywhere but the point - unless you have to. He's also not thick enough to handle a lot of the stronger 2's.
Return to NBA Draft
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Boulder Students Back Off Barack Obama High
Saturday, February 21st, 2009
Deary
http://extras.mnginteractive.com/liv...derHigh~p1.jpg
Boulder High School will keep its name after the Student Worker Club, an activist organization at Boulder High, stopped its push to rename the school after Barack Obama.
BOULDER — A trio of well-intentioned Boulder High School students said they grossly underestimated the students' and the community's reactions to their proposal of renaming their school after President Barack Obama. So they withdrew the idea Thursday afternoon, just 24 hours after floating it into the media.
"We didn't anticipate how rapidly this proposal would become so controversial," said Ben Raderstorf, a 16-year-old junior and president of the Student Worker Club at Boulder High School. "We also underestimated the pride that the alumni and faculty have in this school and its rich history."
Courageously facing reporters and photographers, Raderstorf said the group's intention was merely to circulate a petition among students and hope for "an overwhelming majority of support.
"But this happened so quickly we didn't have time to give the idea a proper discussion," Raderstorf said, adding he got the idea of using the name as a symbol of the hope and inspiration Obama brings to the country.
"The support is clearly not as large as we would have hoped. The students and the community have spoken, and we have no desire to go against their will."
Meagan Mahaffy, a junior, said, "It happened so fast. We were bombarded by criticism."
Emma Marion, also a junior and member of the Student Worker Club, said things got a little ugly within the student body.
"There were tons of signs that came out, some to get rid of the Student Workers. Some called us Communists. They even held an impromptu school spirit rally," she said, pointing to student council president Devin Kuh, standing among reporters wearing a purple and yellow "Boulder" sweatshirt.
Kuh then addressed the media: "I want to thank Ben for having the maturity for stepping down when he realized the idea went bad. We believe a majority of the student body is in favor of keeping the name 'Boulder High School.' We are proud of our school and feel that a name change would diminish the lengthy and rich history of our school."
Language arts teacher James Vacca, the faculty sponsor of the Student Workers Club for 10 years, commended the group for trying something new. "While we're celebrating (Boulder's) 150 years, these kids are looking to the future," he said. "This is a great school where opinions are valued."
At least two other schools have renamed their schools after Obama, including an elementary school in Hempstead, N.Y.,and another in Compton, Calif.
http://www.amren.com/mtnews/archives...19/boulder.jpg
Left to right: Emma Marion, Ben Raderstorf, and Meagan Mahaffy, completely unprepared for opposition.
GroeneWolf
"We also underestimated the pride that the alumni and faculty have in this school and its rich history."
Something that trio clearly lacked.
I'm dissapointed two schools have already changed names in honor of Obama, they seem to be counting their eggs rather soon unless their just celebrating that he won, which is rather idiotic.
Cythraul
For gods' sake, these people have no idea how good or bad a President Obama's going to be yet. Ridiculous.
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Community Guidelines/Ratings changes and Discussion
NovaCaine
In today’s newspost, we have a big update, so grab your favorite egg and buckle in for some good stuff!
As stated in our previous site update, we’ve been working on the Community Guidelines and Ratings Guidelines
As the site progresses, its rules and policies progress as well. This progression is based both on staff experiences and user feedback.
The changes are as follows:
Community Guidelines:
Existing item I.C.3 has been removed due to redundancy.
Existing item I.C.6 (now I.C.5) now includes character submissions and journals.
Existing item I.C.7 (now I.C.6) allows for generated content in character galleries (limited to one image per character).
New item I.C.7 has been added. This allows for artists to post reminders about auctions, YCH works, and raffles under certain conditions. One reminder per auction/sale every 24 hours is permitted, and will require a “reminder” tag. Uploading and deleting the same reminder over and over again will be considered a violation.
Category II.C has been reduced to two items instead of the previous four. If the content is wholly yours, the submission is acceptable, and if it uses content made by a source other than yourself, at least one of two conditions must be met.
Item II.D.2 addresses video game screenshots. In short, video game screenshots are no longer acceptable as submissions- however, you may use a screenshot as a character reference so long as it is uploaded through the Character Gallery feature.
The Moderate category no longer exists.
All submissions that were previously rated Moderate will now be in the General category, and the General category inherits the wording from the former Moderate category. The Mature and Explicit categories remain essentially the same, with a bit of wording changed to clarify some parts.
Lastly, we’ve changed the wording of the two Ratings Guidelines policies that didn’t quite fit in their own categories- they can be found as notes at the bottom of the Ratings page.
And that wraps it up!
Please feel free to reach out to Weasyl staff if you’d like us to clarify any parts from either of the Guidelines pages, and if you’d like to have an in-depth discussion with staff and users alike feel to discuss them in this thread.
Badgefox
I didn't bring an egg ,_,
fulgens
So now there is going to be a lot of weird sexualized stuff in the General category?
Originally Posted by fulgens
Not quite. The General category will now only allow mild sexual themes. This could be things like dirty jokes, or more well-endowed characters or characters with larger bosoms. It will not allow for genitalia to be defined through clothing or directly exposed, and it will not allow graphic sexual content. If you come across any graphic sexual content in the General category, please use the report feature to file a ticket, and staff will re-rate the content accordingly.
We also have a blacklist system for tagging, so if there's content that is properly rated but you'd not like to see it at all, you can add a tag to your blacklist and the content will no longer be visible for you.
anubis_werewolf
I don't understand this:
"Item I.C.7 allows for generated content in character galleries (limited to one image per character)."
What does it mean? We can only have one pic of one character in our gallery?
Originally Posted by anubis_werewolf
So Weasyl has a feature where every user has a separate gallery they can dedicate to their characters. Originally, the policy was such that completely disallowed any content that was made by a character generator- including the submissions in the character gallery. Staff looked back and realized that some users are using the character generators to show their character's design because they weren't able to create their own reference, and that the [now former] policy really wasn't fair. Now, in character galleries, if a user would like to use a character generator to create the reference image, that's perfectly fine, but each character is only allowed one generator-created image to display their design.
Hopefully that clears up any questions! Let us know if you'd like more clarification.
"Sexualized or erotic fashion is permissible as long as it does not meet the criteria for Explicit."
Shouldn't that say Mature?
Originally Posted by Tiger
No, it doesn't answer anything actually.
What does this have to do with my question?
I have ALL my characters in my Character gallery. So I can only have one character in there now and only one pic of them? That's silly to have a whole separate gallery for only one image.
That bit refers more to things like a ball gag and other types of sex toys/gear. It allows for characters to be depicted wearing things such as a rope harness without being grouped into the Explicit category, while characters wearing gear such as ball gags will not be placed in the General category.
You can have as many characters in your character gallery as you desire! However, if you intend to use a character generator to be used to display their design, each character is only allowed one character generator image. For example, I have a character that's a snow leopard, but let's say I'd like to use three different pictures to display his design. I can use one image created with a character generator and two images that I've drawn myself. It would be a violation, though, if I were to upload three images of the same character that were all created with a generator.
@Tiger
I still have no idea what you are talking about.
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Thomas Jefferson Papers
Documents filtered by: Recipient="Randolph, Martha Jefferson"
From Thomas Jefferson to Martha Jefferson Randolph, 6 March 1807
Washington Friday Mar. 6. 07.
My dearest Martha
I wrote you on Monday evening, and then expected that a morning or two more would have produced a compleat intermission of mr Randolph’s fever. but it did not. yesterday morning the remission was such as to leave the fever scarcely sensible, and at 3. P.M. the usual hour of it’s access it was more moderate than it has ever been. I left him at 4. P.M. with not much fever, entirely at ease and in good spirits. I write this too early in the morning to have heard from him this morning, because mr Burwell sets out early and is expected to call for it every moment. he will be able to give you particulars as he has attended him very assiduously. Dr. Jones & Capt Lewis never quit him. Mr. Coles is much with him also, & Joseph constantly to whose attentions he is particularly attached. I have had a very bad cold, which laid me up with a fever one day. this indisposition will occasion me to be here some days longer than I expected, and indeed with the mass which is before me, I cannot fix a day at all for my departure. I think that it will take mr Randolph, as long, after his fever leaves him, to recover strength for the journey, as it will me to get thro’ my business: so that you will see us both together, as certainly I shall not go till he is strong enough to accompany me. I shall write you by your stage mail which arrives on Thursday, and a horse post will now arrive at Milton every Monday morning. God bless you my beloved Martha, & all the young ones.
Th: Jefferson
NNPM.
Early Access Link Note: this link will eventually disappear!
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/99-01-02-5222
Jefferson Papers
Randolph, Martha Jefferson
“From Thomas Jefferson to Martha Jefferson Randolph, 6 March 1807,” Founders Online, National Archives, accessed September 29, 2019, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/99-01-02-5222. [This is an Early Access document from The Papers of Thomas Jefferson. It is not an authoritative final version.]
From Jefferson to Randolph [2 March 1807]
All correspondence between Jefferson and Randolph
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Documents filtered by: Author="Adams, Charles"
Charles Adams to John Adams, 29 May 1793
Charles Adams to John Adams
New York May 29th 1793
It is with great pleasure I hear that my brother is appointed to speak the town Oration, on the fourth of July next. It would give me infinite satisfaction to hear him, but as I cannot, I request a few copies if they can be procured, as soon as they appear in print.1 Confined as he must be, by the shackles which are, I think erroniously, imposed upon those who have this duty to perform; I have no doubt but he will greatly add to his already far extended reputation. Publicola, has been reprinted in Edinburg and in London; and in an European Magazine, there is a contradiction of your being the Author of those publications, as was indicated by the edition printed in Scotland.2 The reports of Dumourier’s defection, come from so many different quarters, that we begin to give credit to them; nor do I think it so very extraordinary, no man in his right senses could submit to be the instrument of so mad a faction, as now seem to govern in France. We have in our papers this day, a dialogue said to have passed between the General and the Commissioners sent to carry him to Paris: In which Dumourier says “your Convention consists of three hundred fools, governed by four hundred rascals. They have formed a Government infinitely more imbecile, dangerous and destructive, than the former. They will annihilate the nation.”3 I am very much pleased with a writer with the signature of Marcellus; I have seen but one Number reprinted in Fenno’s Gazette, but his sentiments are perfectly coincident with those, which I think every well wisher to his Country, every real American ought to adopt: but alas! what will not this people swallow, if gilded over with the foil of liberty and equality. Where is the Lover of this Country who will not join in the wish? “that laurelled victory may sit upon the sword of Justice and that success may always be strewed before the feet of virtuous Freedom” but we should learn to discriminate; We should learn to distinguish virtuous freedom, from unprincipled licentiousness; then, and then only, can we be a happy or a dignified people.4 While we are continually hunting in the catalogue of improbabilities, for excuses, to palliate the enormities of an enraged clan of Jacobins, we are injuring our morals and destroying our reputations.— Dumourier seems to have expressed great surprize that Condorcet, should not have pointed out a constitution, more worthy of his abilities: but what could he do? Might he not have fallen a victim to just ideas? and I think it is quite time that martyrdom should be discarded at least from France; there is but little encouragement. Monrs Genet is received with open arms in Philadelphia, I know of no objection which can with propriety be offered to this; provided it did not convey the idea of an acquiescence in the transactions in France. I know very well that such ideas as these, are termed Aristocratic. I disclaim the faith. My sentiments are dictated by the purest philanthropy. Can those who with the stern eye of apathy behold murder carnage and every affliction which can desolate a Country, following as a consequence of the unbridled machinations of a few: men Can they love mankind? No person can be more an advocate for civil liberty and civil equality than myself, but name not the French as models; name not that barbarous, that cruel people, as examples worthy to be followed by Americans, who are happy in equal laws and a just Government. Happy! thrice happy people! if they would reflect upon their own prosperity. I have found it adviseable of late, again to peruse with attention the writers upon Natural law. Grotius, puffendorph, Vattel, Burlemaque. many questions interesting to the community, and to individuals, dayly arise. These studies, blended with that of the law, have lately occupied my attention. I think I have pitched upon a method of reading, by far the most preferable: instead of reading the Reporters in course, I take up Espinasse’s Law of actions, a book of great authority and credit, and constantly refer to the cases in the Reporters: a method which fixes much more firmly in my memory the principles of every case: in this manner I intend to go through him, and have no doubt of reaping ample reward for my pains. It has been my endeavor to select in the first instance The Reporters during the time of Lord Mansfield. I have purchased
Durnford and East
Richardson’s pra K B
Cowper Reports Bacon’s abridgment Crompton’s practice
Douglass Espinasse Nisi Prius Powell on Mortgages
Do on Contracts
W Blackston Lilly’s Entries Highmore on bail
Lovelace laws disposal Kyd on bill of exchange
Laws of the State of New York.—5
Our parties in this City begin to cool down of late; it was quite time, for very warm blood was raised, and it was very much feared that serious consequences might have ensued.
Perhaps you may recollect, that when I was last at Quincy you offered me a work entitled Cours D’Etudes:6 I had then no method of conveying it to New York: should you now remain of the same mind, Brizler will pack them up, and send them to me by Barnard. I had occasion while I was there to peruse several parts of that work, and was highly delighted with it, as containing a very useful and instructive epitome of the Sciences. Judge Duane in his kindness has been pleased to appoint me one of the Commissioners to examine the claims of invalid pensioners. He may think it an honor conferred, but there is no emolument to be derived, and except its being a charitable duty, would be rather tedious. I accepted it on that account; but the late law of Congress has so restricted applicants, that I doubt much whether any one will be able to take advantage of it.7 Our latest arrivals from Europe bring intellegence to the fifth of April only; it appears that communications from France have been of late so impeded that we are led to suspect much of our information has been coined in England. I fear I have long since tired your patience And I will bid you adieu
Beleive me my dear Sir your ever affectionate and dutiful son
Charles Adams.
RC (Adams Papers); addressed: “The Vice President of the United States / Quincy”; endorsed: “Charles Adams / May 29. / ansd June 5. 1793.”
1. On 4 July, JQA delivered an address at Boston’s Old South Meeting House, which Benjamin Edes & Sons published some days later. “Seventeen times has the sun, in the progress of his annual revolutions, diffused his prolific radiance over the plains of Independent America,” JQA said. “Millions of hearts which then palpitated with the rapturous glow of patriotism, have already been translated to brighter worlds; to the abodes of more than mortal freedom.” The press reported an enthusiastic reaction to the address: “The elegance and spirit of the composition, and the forceful elocution of the Speaker, excited such a burst of admiration, as would have flattered a CATO” (JQA, An Oration Pronounced July 4th, 1793, Boston, 1793, p. 12, Evans, description begins Charles Evans and others, American Bibliography: A Chronological Dictionary of All Books, Pamphlets and Periodical Publications Printed in the United States of America [1639–1800], Chicago and Worcester, 1903–1959; 14 vols. description ends No. 25076; Massachusetts Mercury, 5 July). An incomplete Dft and Tr of the oration are in the Adams Papers, filmed at 4 July.
2. JQA’s Publicola articles were first published in Edinburgh in 1791 as Observations on Paine’s “Rights of Man” without any identifying author, though they were commonly attributed to JA. John Stockdale—a friend of JA—subsequently published them in London in 1793 under the title An Answer to Pain’s Rights of Man. By John Adams, Esq. but stopped the printing when he learned that JQA, not JA, was the author. The European Magazine, Feb. 1793, p. 85, included a note avowing that JA had not written the pieces (JQA, Writings description begins Writings of John Quincy Adams, ed. Worthington Chauncey Ford, New York, 1913–1917; 7 vols. description ends , 1:66; John Stockdale to JA, 16 March, Adams Papers). See also TBA to AA, 27 May [1792], and note 5, above.
3. Reports of the French National Convention for 1 April 1793 included an extended dialogue between General Dumouriez and the commissioners from the Convention. This dialogue suggested that it was Dumouriez’s “fixed intention” to go to Paris to protect the queen and her children, and he further threatened that “the convention will not exist three weeks longer” and expressed his determination to restore the monarchy (New York Journal, 29 May).
4. Marcellus appeared in the Boston Columbian Centinel, 24 April, and 4, 11 May. The third installment was also reprinted in the Philadelphia Gazette of the United States, 25 May, and CA quotes from the final lines of that piece. Marcellus examines the role the United States and its citizens should play in the war among the European powers, arguing that “a rigid adherence to the system of Neutrality between the European nations now at war, is equally the dictate of justice and of policy, to the individual citizens of the United States, while the Nation remains neutral.” Furthermore, he suggests that “the natural state of all nations, with respect to one another, is a state of peace.”
5. Henry Cowper, Reports of Cases Adjudged in the Court of King’s Bench: from . . . 1774, to . . . 1778, London, 1783; William Douglass, A Summary, Historical and Political, of the First Planting, Progressive Improvements, and Present State of the British Settlements in North-America, 2 vols., Boston, 1747–1752, Evans, description begins Charles Evans and others, American Bibliography: A Chronological Dictionary of All Books, Pamphlets and Periodical Publications Printed in the United States of America [1639–1800], Chicago and Worcester, 1903–1959; 14 vols. description ends No. 5936; Charles Durnford and Sir Edward Hyde East, Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Court of King’s Bench, London, 1787; Matthew Bacon and others, A New Abridgement of the Law, 5 vols., London, 1736–1766; John Lilly, Modern Entries, Being a Collection of Select Pleadings in the Courts of King’s Bench, London, 1723; Peter Lovelass, The Law’s Disposal of a Person’s Estate Who Dies without Will or Testament, 4th edn., London, 1787; Robert Richardson, The Attorney’s Practice in the Court of King’s Bench, London, 1739; George Crompton, Practice Common-placed; or, The Rules and Cases of Practice in the Courts of King’s Bench and Common Pleas, Methodically Arranged, 2 vols., London, 1780; John Joseph Powell, A Treatise upon the Law of Mortgages, London, 1785; Powell, Essay upon the Law of Contracts and Agreements, London, 1790; Anthony Highmore, A Digest on the Doctrine of Bail in Civil and Criminal Cases, London, 1783; Stewart Kyd, A Treatise on the Law of Bills of Exchange and Promissory Notes, London, 1790; Laws of the State of New York, Albany, N.Y., 1777– .
6. Étienne Bonnot de Condillac, Abbé de Mureaux, Cours d’étude pour l’instruction du prince de Parme, 16 vols., Parma, Italy, 1775. Copies of all but vol. 13 are in JA’s library at MB (Catalogue of JA’s Library description begins Catalogue of the John Adams Library in the Public Library of the City of Boston, Boston, 1917. description ends ).
7. On 28 Feb., George Washington signed into law “An Act to Regulate the Claims to Invalid Pensions,” which modified the earlier “Act to Provide for the Settlement of the Claims of Widows and Orphans . . . and to Regulate the Claims to Invalid Pensions,” enacted the previous year. The new law created higher bars to establish legal claims of disability from military service during the Revolutionary War, including oaths from two doctors and multiple witnesses testifying to the injury and strict deadlines for applications. The act also required that all evidence be submitted either to a district court judge or to a three-person commission appointed by the judge (Annals of Congress description begins The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States [1789–1824], Washington, 1834–1856; 42 vols. description ends , 2d Cong., 2d sess., p. 1346–1348, 1436–1437).
Adams, Charles
“Charles Adams to John Adams, 29 May 1793,” Founders Online, National Archives, accessed September 29, 2019, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/04-09-02-0247. [Original source: The Adams Papers, Adams Family Correspondence, vol. 9, January 1790 – December 1793, ed. C. James Taylor, Margaret A. Hogan, Karen N. Barzilay, Gregg L. Lint, Hobson Woodward, Mary T. Claffey, Robert F. Karachuk, and Sara B. Sikes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009, pp. 430–433.]
From Charles Adams to John Adams [10 May 1793]
From John Adams to Charles Adams [5 June 1793]
All correspondence between Charles Adams and John Adams
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George Washington Papers
Documents filtered by: Author="Sullivan, John" AND Recipient="Washington, George" AND Period="Revolutionary War" AND Correspondent="Washington, George"
sorted by: date (ascending)
To George Washington from Maj. Gen. John Sullivan, 10 June 1777 [letter not found]
Letter not found: from Maj. Gen. John Sullivan, 10 June 1777. GW wrote Sullivan on 11 June: “I have yours of yesterday with Colonel Formans letter inclosed.”
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-09-02-0662
Washington Papers
Sullivan, John
“To George Washington from Maj. Gen. John Sullivan, 10 June 1777 [letter not found],” Founders Online, National Archives, accessed September 29, 2019, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-09-02-0662. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 9, 28 March 1777 – 10 June 1777, ed. Philander D. Chase. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1999, p. 670.]
From Sullivan to Washington [9 June 1777]
From Washington to Sullivan [11 June 1777]
All correspondence between Sullivan and Washington
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Documents filtered by: Recipient="Madison, James" AND Period="post-Madison Presidency"
sorted by: editorial placement
To James Madison from Joshua Dawson, 13 March 1817
From Joshua Dawson
Washington March 13th. 1817.
It is with the hope, that I may be permitted without the imputation of vanity, to convey in this manner to Mr. & Mrs. Madison, upon their retireing to the pleasing scenes of private life, my most sincere wishes, that they may both long enjoy every felicity, which this world can possibly afford; and to beg they will have the goodness to be assured, that although, I have not on particular occasions, mingled with the numbers, who by personal attendance, might be supposed in that way to testify their respect, yet, so far as an obscure individual may presume, I cannot yield an iota of that respect, even to the most assiduous. I have the honor to be, with every sentiment of respect, Mr. & Mrs. Madison’s very obedt. humble Servt.
Joshua Dawson1
RC (DLC). Docketed by JM.
1. Joshua Dawson (ca. 1758–1820) was a clerk in the Register’s office of the Treasury Department (John C. Van Horne and Lee W. Formwalt, eds., The Correspondence and Miscellaneous Papers of Benjamin Henry Latrobe [3 vols.; New Haven, Conn., 1984–88], 2:472 n. 5).
Dawson, Joshua
“To James Madison from Joshua Dawson, 13 March 1817,” Founders Online, National Archives, accessed September 29, 2019, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/04-01-02-0011. [Original source: The Papers of James Madison, Retirement Series, vol. 1, 4 March 1817 – 31 January 1820, ed. David B. Mattern, J. C. A. Stagg, Mary Parke Johnson, and Anne Mandeville Colony. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2009, pp. 10–11.]
From Dawson to Madison [24 October 1816]
All correspondence between Dawson and Madison
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Benjamin Franklin Papers
To Benjamin Franklin from Dumas, 25 January 1781
From Dumas
ALS: American Philosophical Society
Lahaie 25 Janv. 1781
Honored & dear Sir
The same Courier, who, as I told you in my last,5 has brought, on the 21st. instant, the Treaty Signed by each of the contracting Parties, has delivered another Letter from the Dutch Embassadors at Petersb. to Mr. Fagel the Greffier of their H.M., communicated by him to the Gr. Py. [Grand Pensionary], wherein they add this more: that Sir Harris, the English Envoyé at Petersb., having given the Empress to understand, why her receiving the Rep. into the Alliance could possibly bring on a war between her & his King, She answered, that this reason Should not hinder her from doing what was proper to be done.6
It is said in some of our Niewspapers, that te Russian Minister has left the British Court. But I am not sure of this.7
I hope you enjoy a good health, & am with true respect, honored & dear Sir, yr. very humble & obedient servant
C.W.F. Dumas
Passy à Son Exce. Mr. B. Franklin
Addressed: His Excellency / B. Franklin, Min. Plenipo: / of the United States / Passy./.
[Note numbering follows the Franklin Papers source.]
5. Of Jan. 23, above.
6. For Harris’ detailed account of his Dec. 19 interview with the Empress see Fauchille, Diplomatie française, pp. 587–94; Madariaga, Harris’s Mission, pp. 250–6.
7. On the contrary, the Empress had just written her minister plenipotentiary to the British court offering her good offices in mediating the British-Dutch dispute: Madariaga, Harris’s Mission, pp. 290–1. That minister was Ivan Matveevich Simolin (1720–c.1800): Repertorium der diplomatischen Vertreter, III, 355; Lewis, Walpole Correspondence, XLVIII, 2463.
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-34-02-0222
Note: The annotations to this document, and any other modern editorial content, are copyright © the American Philosophical Society and Yale University. All rights reserved.
Franklin Papers
Dumas, Charles-Guillaume-Frédéric
“To Benjamin Franklin from Dumas, 25 January 1781,” Founders Online, National Archives, accessed September 29, 2019, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-34-02-0222. [Original source: The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, vol. 34, November 16, 1780, through April 30, 1781, ed. Barbara B. Oberg. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1998, pp. 305–306.]
From Dumas to Franklin [23 January 1781]
All correspondence between Dumas and Franklin
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Security experts urge UN to step-up efforts to stabilize Sahel Region
July 4, 2019 Key Issues
Accra, Three security experts have urged the United Nations (UN), the African Union (AU) and ECOWAS to step-up their efforts to stabilize Mali, Burkina Faso and other countries in the Sahel Region.
The experts, who made the appeal include Dr Festus Aubyn, Research Fellow, Faculty of Academic Affairs and Research (FAAR), Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC); MrMutaruMumuniMuqthar, the Executive Director, West Africa Centre for Counter-Extremism; and Chief Superintendent of Police Adofiem Raymond Wejong, the Commanding Officer, Counter-Terrorism Department of the Ghana Police Service.
According to the trio, the cross-border and trans-regional nature of terrorism in West Africa suggests that no single country could tackle the treat alone.
They expressed the view that stabilizing Mali and Burkina Faso and tackling terrorism in the Sahel Region depended on putting in place a long-term plan for resolving the issue.
The trio, made the appeal on Thursday during a panel discussion at the KAIPTC’s Reflection on Security Dialogue Series dubbed Is West Africa Becoming the New ‘Arc’ of Instability in the Region?
West Africa seems to be the new hub of terrorists’ activities in recent times, as Burkina Faso, Benin and Togo- which were hitherto not affected by the activities of violent extremist groups, have increasingly been targeted by Ansaroul Islam, the Macina Liberation Front and other criminal organisations.
With plots and tactics, and through series of attacks such as kidnappings and bombing, these radical extremist groups continue to undermine efforts at strengthening governance and security in their areas of operation.
Resultantly, these groups have generated mixed reactions from different sections of society.
The panel discussion provided a platform, which contributed to demystify the complex security dimensions of the surge in terrorists’ attacks in the sub-region.
DrAubyn speaking on the topic Regional Responses to Terrorism in West Africa: The Politics, Pitfalls and Prospects, noted that responding to terrorism required a composite approach that takes into consideration its domestic and transnational dimension.
He said based on this common understanding, regional counterterrorism strategies and ad hoc response structures had been established to complement the national counterterrorism efforts.
These include the ECOWAS counterterrorism strategies and ad hoc response structures mandated by the AU namely, the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) against Boko Haram and the G5 Sahel Joint Force.
MrMuqthar speaking on the topic Preventing Radicalization, Preventing Terrorism in West Africa, said in the past 10 years, West Africa had served as a notorious and sustained epicenter for radicalization and terrorists violence.
He said an estimated more than 7,000 radicalized youth were believed to have joined in terrorists’ campaign during this period.
He said just like Togo and Benin, Ghana’s strong interaction with and proximity to Burkina Faso, the Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Mali; all thrust for terrorists violence, implies that the country was not immune to attacks.
He said the existence of similar vulnerability factors continue to provoke predictions and fears that the country could become the next new frontier for terrorism in West Africa.
How states and the civilian community in the affected and yet-to-be affected countries response to these will define future security trends for the entire region.
Chief Superintendent Wejong said the trend of terrorists’ incidents in Burkina Faso very close to Ghana, understandably provoking the current national posture, civil outcry and the various media narratives validates the saying that when your neighbour’s beard is on fire you put water by yours.
He said the good news was that Ghana’s national strategic reaction had transcended beyond putting water close to their beard extending to creating a fire belt around the nation and assisting their neighbours to quench theirs.
Mr Charles Wiredu, a Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, who was the guest speaker, said Ghana’s credential as a peaceful democratic nation in the sub-region, places more responsibility on it to ensure that its neighbours were also at peace.
Air Vice Marshall Griffth S. Evans, the Commandant, KAIPTC, said Ansaroul Islam, Macina Liberation and a coalition of radical Islamic groups known as the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims had taken advantage of deteriorating security in parts of West Africa to perpetuate their agenda.
DrKwesiAning, Director, FAAR, KAIPTC, said there was absolutely no doubt in the minds of people that the threat of terror was becoming a challenge to their daily lives.
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INTRODUCING THE FIRST ALL-ELECTRIC MINI. ARRIVING IN MID 2020.
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The MINI Electric Car has a 0–60 mph (0–97 km/h) acceleration time of 7.3 seconds and a top speed of 149.99km making it one of the fastest small cars to get around town.
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A MINI BIRTHDAY PARTY.
The 2019 event was celebrated in Bristol, UK with days of fun, socialising, relaxing, car club activities and enjoying MINI Community spirt. See the pics!
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The Limited Edition MINI John Cooper Works GP will be released in Australia in 2020 with only 3,000 units produced featuring 220kW/ 300 hp and TwinPower turbo.
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© BMW 2020 Privacy and Legal Whistleblower policy CAREERS
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MARK page 2
MARK page 10
READING JOHN
JOHN 1 – 3: Strange Brew
JOHN 3 – 6: Renegade Rebellion
JOHN 6 – 8: From Abraham to Zen
JOHN 8 – 9: Jesus and Judaism
JOHN 10 – 11: Lost Sheep Meet Lazarus
JOHN 12 – 13: Love and Hate
JOHN 13 – 20: Passion & Doubt
JOHN 20 – 21: In My End is My Beginning
READING JOHN: Coda
BACK STORY
CONNOR’S CORNER
what’s a gospel?
Taking Mark Seriously
BERG’S BUNKER
Particles and Authorship
gospel renegades
Scandalous!
W. ROBERT CONNOR 1/20/14
I’m struck by the skandalon of Jesus’ disquisition on eating his flesh and drinking his blood at 6:55-58. His followers find it a hard and bitter pill to swallow (σκληρός λόγος). Jesus asks them if they’re “scandalized” (τοῦτο ὑμᾶς σκανδαλίζει; 6:61) — “Do you take offense at this?” (RSV), or more literally, “Does it make you stumble?” But a skandalon is not merely an inadvertently offensive remark or a stumbling-block that accidentally trips you up. It’s a trap, laid for the unwary. That’s how it’s used in classical Greek and in most New Testament passages, as LSJ indicates. Even in Matthew 18 and Luke 17, the passages commonly cited in support of the “stumbling block” translation, it is by no means clear that the gospel writers think the word meant anything other than entrapment. So is Jesus saying, “Did I catch you in a trap?”
This well paralleled translation can’t possibly be right here, can it? Traps don’t just happen. Someone sets them. Could John be indicating that Jesus deliberately, craftily, sets a trap for his followers? That’s hard to accept, but there is a partial parallel for this in John 6.5-6 when Jesus asks Philip where they will buy bread to feed the crowd that has gathered. “This he did as a test (πειράζων αὐτόν), for he himself knew what he was about to do.” In other words Jesus, in John’s view, wanted to see if Philip would take the bait, and assume it was all a question of money. He does, calculating that 200 denarii wouldn’t buy enough bread for even a snack for so many. Bad answer, Philip. Andreas comes through better. This is what we have; let’s work with that. That’s not the end of the road for Philip, but it does show a side of Jesus, as he appeared to John — hard, probing, testing. And perhaps not beyond setting a trap now and then.
RICHARD McKIM
In context, I think the direct English derivative from σκανδαλίζειν makes good sense here: “Do you find it scandalous [that I talk of eating my flesh and drinking my blood]?” — just as we might call an exhortation to cannibalism scandalous. Thus the disciples find it “unbearable to hear” (τίς δύναται αὐτοῦ ἀκούειν;). The stumbling-block metaphor approximates the idea. What would a “trap” set by Jesus amount to? That he lures them into thinking he means literal cannibalism? What would the point of such a trap be? Seems to me he’s merely saying “You find my words scandalous because you’re taking me too literally.” That’s why he follows up by saying “The spirit (πνεῦμα) is the life-maker; the flesh is no help at all. What I’ve said to you is spirit and life.” In other words, “I don’t mean ‘eat my flesh’ literally (you idiots!).”
A stumbling block indeed, this passage, for the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation!
How does the trap work? There’s a clue, I think, in a recurring verbal pattern in this gospel. The Holy Man speaks in paradoxes, asserting things that seem quite impossible, often introducing them by a repeated “amen”. The response comes in the form “How can that be?” That’s what Nicodemus says in 3:4 when Jesus says that no one can (δύναται) see the kingdom of God unless he is born anothen, anew or from above. Nicodemus asks the obvious question, with a personal interest, “How can a man (πῶς δὐναται) be born when he is already old?” Nicodemus emphasizes the impossibility: “It’s by no means possible (emphatic μἠ rather than οὐ, plus δύναται again 3:5) to enter into his mother’s womb a second time and be born.” Jesus responds with a little lecture on the working of the spirit, but Nikodemos is still stuck on impossibility, ”How can (πῶς δὐναται) this happen?” (3:9)
This exchange puts the reader in a surprising position. Although we may come to John’s gospel to learn more about Jesus, we know more than his interlocutors do. Christians, we understand, believe that baptism is a second birth. With that in mind, everything Jesus says to Nicodemus makes perfect sense. But Nicodemus doesn’t get it. He’s entrapped in his own ideas about what is possible.
Eucharist, Roman catacomb, 3rdC
The exchange in chapter 6 works in a similar way. As Jesus makes increasingly extreme statements about what the bread of life really is, the necessity of devouring his flesh, his listeners ask the obvious question, “How is this man able (πῶς δὐναται 6:52) to give us his flesh to eat?” It seems impossible, but we readers know that Christians believe that’s precisely what happens in the Eucharist. In neither the Nikodemos episode nor here does John directly allude to what came to be regarded as sacraments. Still, only by being aware of baptism and the Eucharist is the reader able to avoid the trap of perpetually asking, ”How is this possible?”
Yet this awareness may create a trap of its own for sacramentally-minded Christians. The reader has an advantage over Jesus’ interlocutors. They don’t get it; we do. But superiority is always a risky posture for a Christian. In this case, the risk is that one might lose the alertness to paradox and to the hitherto unthinkable that keeps surfacing in John’s narrative. The answer to the question “How is this possible?” must always echo Peter’s response when Jesus asks the disciples if they too wish to “scram’ (ὑπἀγειν 6. 67, colloquial for άπέρχεσθαι). “Lord, to whom shall we turn (ἀπελευσόμεθα)?”
McKIM 1/21/14
The Nicodemus exchange parallels chapter 6 just as well if we take my pedestrian view that the issue is merely whether to take Jesus literally. Nicodemus fastens on a literal meaning of “born”, just as the disciples fasten on the literal meaning of “eat my flesh” and “drink my blood”. Jesus is understandably impatient. It’s not that he deliberately misleads them into a trap. He’s trying to express the inexpressible by using physical language analogically, and it frustrates him that everyone insists on being obtusely literal-minded.
I don’t mean to imply that Jesus was out to set a trap for the innocent. On reflection it seems to me that what we have is an example of πειρασμός, a testing of mettle. Once the non-believers have hightailed it, he says to his remaining inner circle, in effect, Did you get entrapped by that talk? Peirasmos (trial, testing) can do that.
That still leaves the question Would Jesus/God subject people to peirasmos? One could read the OT, I believe, as a series of such testings, but closer to hand is the ending of the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6: “Don’t lead us into peirasmos.” Surely that doesn’t mean “don’t subject us to the temptation” in the sense of robbing the collection plate or sleeping with the parish secretary — except in so far as those situations stress-test our inner fabric. More to the point is the testing of one’s trust level in J. himself.
McKIM
Your thoughts on peirasmos take me back to the loaves and fishes episode in John, where, as you remind us, Jesus asks where they can buy bread in order to “test” them. I’ve already complained that John here presumes to read Jesus’ mind, like the omniscient narrator of a novel. I don’t think Mark ever did that, but John feels especially free to drop into Jesus’ head whenever he wants to claim that Jesus is “testing” people. Thus again at 6:64, in what you rightly take to be a testing context, after Jesus points out that he means “eat and drink” in the spiritual not the fleshly sense, John the mind-reader pipes up to inform us that “he knew from the beginning who wouldn’t believe in (or trust) him and who the traitor would be [namely Judas, 6:71].”
CONNOR 1/22/14
As for trust … When you tell a story you filter out what isn’t meaningful to you or to your imagined audience and “filter in” what applies to you most directly and spotlight it. Whoever John was, he doesn’t tell us much about himself. But here’s a thought experiment. Imagine someone repeatedly cheated, abandoned, abused, betrayed. He has never been really loved. Then he meets the Wonder-Worker and what he hears him saying is “Trust me”. Not “believe in me,” that’s too easy. Wonder-Worker says he’s the son of God. OK, fine, I’ll believe it. But what’s that to me? He says he’s the Messiah. Great. We need one. But trust me? The one thing I find hardest to do.
Now for the experiment: that guy writes an evangelion. What does he filter out? What does he filter in? What is the thing that obsesses his narrative? ΠΙΣΤΙΣ, trust.
Jumping back to the rich guy in Mark, Jesus has a way of asking people to do what they find hardest. “Sell all your mutual funds and give the proceeds to the food bank.” Are you kidding? Anything but that. Me, too. I always look for the easy way out. This text keeps pushing me toward what is hard.
But when I get to the argument about circumcision (7:18-24), I revert to my recurrent perplexity about John. I can’t follow the chain of thought. I’m pretty much OK with it through verse 18, but then the exchange seems to lapse into free association of ideas. The verb zetein seems to be the laundry line on which different kinds of “seeking” get hung — seeking δόξα turns into seeking to kill. But then enter Moses with the circumcision knife, a practice that Jesus says comes not from Moses but from the “fathers”. What does he mean by that? And lo and behold it’s the Sabbath and yet the bris goes on.
Then we switch to κρίνειν and κρίσις, judging and judgment (7:24) — as if Jesus were already on trial. The children of Israel had their doubts about Moses on the flight out of Egypt. Did they ever seek to kill him? That might clarify some of the muddle I’m in.
The First Cut is the Deepest?
WILLIAM BERG
The “one work” of his (ἓν ἔργον) that Jesus refers to in 7:21 must be the healing by the pool on the Sabbath. He uses Moses as a foil to point out that his salutary act of healing “the entire human” (ὅλον ἄνθρωπον) conforms to a law that transcends Moses’ Torah with its ban on sabbath work, just as the law of circumcision — God’s major command to Abraham in Genesis 10:17 — predated and transcended the Torah. Thus his own work, like the “work” of circumcision, can be carried out on the sabbath.
So: Moses wasn’t conforming to a new law, the Torah, when he commanded circumcision (7:22). I’m not conforming to the Torah when I heal on the sabbath. You guys don’t conform to the Torah at all. So why are you trying to kill me for not conforming to the Torah? Come on, stop making distinctions between what conforms and what doesn’t (μὴ κρίνετε) based on superficial appearances (κατ’ ὄψιν). Start making distinctions fairly (τὴν δικαίαν κρίσιν κρίνετε)! We observe that, while the ignorant ὄχλος thinks he’s crazy for imagining that someone is out to kill him, the Jerusalem “in crowd” (τινες ἐκ τῶν Ἱεροσολυμιτῶν), by contrast, are not so naïve (7:25).
The lead-in to this argument features repeated use of two key terms, doxa and zetein (to seek). Rick, a while back you argued that in chapter 5 we should connect the meaning of doxa with that of dokein (to think/suppose//believe) within the same passage, and I can certainly understand the attraction. In 7:18, however, we’re again discussing doxa in a similar context, and I think here we have to allow for the usual NT sense of that word — “glory” is probably an over-translation; maybe just “honor.” “The one who speaks on his own initiative is seeking his own belief/opinion/perspective” (7:18) doesn’t seem as coherent as “The one who speaks on his own initiative is seeking his own honor;” and so I think we have to preserve that sense in the following sentence, “The one who’s seeking the honor of the one who sent him — he’s the true teacher. There’s no wrong (adikia, self-seeking unfairness) in him.”
In this passage, zetein “seek” seems to be the hinge for the rant that follows. Gezerah-shawah-like, the repetitions of zētein provide a verbal link between thoughts that seem to us to lack “logical” connection, for example between Jesus’ remark about seekers of doxa (7:18) and his abrupt outburst “So why are you seeking to kill me?” (7:19), which the Judaeans take to be a sign of Jesus’ paranoid lunacy.
Woven into all this, of course, is the idea of the “true teacher” with Moses as the traditional archetype — Jesus meaning, “I’m being and doing nothing different from what Moses was and did, so why are you trying to kill me?”
One of the things John “filters in” here, to use Bob’s term, is the persistent hostility of his Jesus to Judaism. Take the exchange at 7:19-24, where his Jesus is accused of doing work on the sabbath by healing (at the pool, I guess, his most recent such “miracle”, back in chapter 5 where a similar dispute about work on the sabbath ensues). Here in 7, Jesus contrasts his noble work of “making the whole man healthy” with the Jewish work of circumcision (of that little part of a man?), which the Jews perform on the sabbath.
Abraham with circumcision knife, Fra Filippo Lippi, 16thC
Bill, you take him to be granting that circumcision is a worthy exception to Moses’ no-work rule because, as God’s command to Abraham, it “predated and transcended the Torah.” But isn’t Jesus’ point instead pejorative? Whether he’s contrasting his whole-person healing with making that little part healthy or with disfiguring it, the belittling implication seems the same: “You allow work as trivial as circumcision on the sabbath, and you’re angry at me for doing some real good?”
“Anti-Semitic” would be an anachronism, but John’s anti-Jewish agenda gets more & more obtrusive. Is the main mission of his gospel to sell Jesus to the Gentiles? This episode would contribute to the pitch by making Jesus as contemptuous of circumcision as John’s Gentile audience presumably was.
BERG 1/24/14
This doesn’t feel like a Gentile gospel to me, the way Mark did. Its ambience seems thoroughly Jewish. John is often anti-Judaean (i.e. pro-Galilean), but yes, “anti-Semitic” seems out of place. James Charlesworth at Princeton Theological Seminary argues against the suggestion (admittedly frequent) of anti-Semitism in John. He also argues for an early date for at least parts of John, and notes that more and more scholars are now finding evidence in John that predates the Synoptics.
Leaving aside for the moment the issue of anti-Jewish sentiment, I’m bothered, like Bob, by the incoherence of the circumcision argument.
Jesus’ reasoning in 7:19-23, such as it is, seems to run this way: “Didn’t Moses give you the law [not to work on the sabbath]? And yet none of you follows it [because you perform circumcision on the sabbath]. So why do you want to kill me [just because I don’t follow it either]? … I perform one work [on the sabbath] and you’re thunderstruck. But by the same token (διὰ τοῦτο), [you do one work too.] Moses gave you circumcision — in fact, circumcision comes not from Moses but from the fathers [who have even more authority than he does] — and so you break the sabbath law in order to follow Moses’ law [of circumcision]. And yet you’re angry with me [for doing even more good than you do] because I make the whole man healthy on the sabbath.”
Jesus argues that Jews break the sabbath by performing the work of circumcision. Never mind that categorizing circumcision as “work” seems sophistical. What’s the point of the interjection that it comes not from Moses but from “the fathers”? Bill, you take it to mean that the authority for circumcision — God’s command to Abraham — is greater than that of Moses’ laws. But not only does Jesus call it Moses’ law right before that (22), but right after it as well (23).
If he’s trying to distinguish between (1) keeping the sabbath as Moses’ law and (2) circumcision as having the higher authority of the fathers, then he should say in effect “You perform circumcision on the sabbath in order not to break with the tradition of the fathers.” Instead he says “You perform circumcision on the sabbath in order not to break Moses’ law.” But doing work on the sabbath does break Moses’ law. if their priority were to keep Moses’ law, then they wouldn’t circumcise on the sabbath!
What’s going on here? Later interpolation seems the best answer, someone trying to “clarify” Jesus’ argument or correct his attribution of the circumcision law to Moses. At any rate, this is tortured logic, to say the least. And here we can’t let John off the hook by saying he’s writing music. He’s clearly trying to give Jesus a knockdown rebuttal in a debate.
Circumcision of Jesus, Menologion of Basil II, illuminated ms 10thC
Bill, I think you’re suggesting that the gist is something like “Just as you have a higher authority than Moses for sabbath circumcision, so I have an even higher authority (the one who sent me) for my sabbath healing.” And it’s true that back at 7:18 Jesus strongly implies that, as “the seeker of the doxa of the one who sent him”, he can’t do anything wrong (adikia) — by definition! But 19-23 seems to me to present a second, basically moral argument that if circumcision is a good enough reason to break the sabbath, then whole-person healing is an even better one. Here he doesn’t appeal to the authority of the one who sent him.
But that interjection about the fathers makes the argument a mess. If the fathers’ authority for circumcision is higher than Moses’ authority for the sabbath, then of course you’d break the sabbath to circumcise. Jesus undermines his own point, namely that circumcision is a weaker reason for breaking the sabbath than whole-person healing is. After all, whole-person healing on the sabbath is neither the tradition of the fathers nor the law of Moses, so it’s worse than irrelevant to grant that circumcision has the imprimatur of the stronger of those two.
Alternatively, if we ditch the interpolation as spurious we get a cleaner line: “I do one work on the sabbath and you’re thunderstruck. But by the same token, you do one work too — circumcision, because Moses gave that to you, authorizing an exception to his own no-work rule. But if that one little part of a man is a good enough reason to break the sabbath, then surely my whole-person healing is an even better one.”
In other words, there’s a higher moral standard (δικαία κρίσις) than Jewish law. We’ve seen Jesus make similar claims in Mark, but in John I still think there’s an additional, more hostile undertone — not only dismissive of Jewish law but (with an eye to Gentile sensibility?) belittling circumcision as a trifling matter. Jesus has more important things to do than such superficial (κατ’ ὄψιν) tinkering.
Rick, I can’t find much to argue with in your analysis. And I love your translation “you’re thunderstruck” — yup, nothing particularly positive in that θαυμάζετε!
A couple of details: You translate διὰ τοῦτο as “by the same token”, but it’s better, I think, to take the phrase with the following ὅτι-clause (as usual in NT Greek, e.g. John 5:16, 18, etc.): “Moses gave you circumcision for this reason, [namely] not because it’s from Moses himself, but because it’s from the fathers.”
You call the classification of circumcision as work “sophistical”, but according to the divisions of the Torah it does fall under the rubric of ἔργα νόμου, duties of man to God (like keeping the sabbath, dietary restrictions, sexual taboos, etc.). The other division, δικαιώματα νόμου, is everything that falls under Leviticus 19:18 — duties of man to man. (See Gal. 3:10, Rom. 2:26, etc. etc. in Paul.) What you point out is interesting, that Jesus calls his miracle an ἔργον rather than a σημεῖον or something else. Not sure whether he means to put it on the same level as circumcision, or if it has a more neutral sense.
Yeah, I know the argument appears messy; it all seems like “tortured logic” to us. But I suspect that’s at least partially because we don’t have a feel for what was customary in Jewish diatribe. I’d go for that assumption first; textual interpolation would be a last resort.
In light of your remark about διὰ τοῦτο, Bill, I see that of course it points forward to the ούχ ὅτι clause, making that clause integral to the text, so that my whole mishegas about interpolation may be misguided. I guess Jesus’ argument must amount to something like I suggested anyway, but boy it’s a herky-jerky road. This isn’t the first time that John’s attempts at constructing an argument have left us in the lurch. Maybe, as you suggest, we’re simply not tuned in to Jewish debating style. Your Christian charity in suggesting that the fault lies not in John but in ourselves puts me to shame! But I suspect instead that, while he’s great at mystical music about the Logos, John’s lousy at logic.
The Evangelist as Riddlemeister
John the Evangelist, Segna di Bonaventura, 14thC
If John were a Zen master who whacked me on the back every time I tried to think in a logical way, I would have a very sore back by now. I keep asking, what is John’s chain of reasoning? WHACK! How does this text hang together? WHACK! Why can I not follow it? WHACK! Didn’t Marshall McLuhan say “The whack is the message”?
In 7:30–40, an unspecified “they” seek to put pressure on Jesus. A while ago they were seeking to kill him. Why the change? WHACK. His hour had not yet come. Jesus’ following, which had dwindled away a little earlier, is now once again a full-fledged ὄχλος. How come? WHACK! They are responding to his miraculous signs. But has he done any recently, enough to change the mood of the crowd? WHACK!
Then (7:32) comes the pressure alluded to in verse 30. I’ve been wondering what form that would take. WHACK! As with Nicodemos, before they get a chance to say anything, Jesus takes over, latching on to the “seeking” word in 30, but shifting it just a bit. So you are “seekers?”, he says (34). Well, play hide and seek to your hearts’ content. You will not be able to find me. More Holy Man Speak — another impossibility (adunaton), and the poor delegation tries to figure out what he could possibly mean. After all, they have found him, and are talking face-to-face to him. Maybe he’s bought a ticket to Greece and will do his teaching there (7:35-36).
No whack this time. Instead Jesus stands up (in synagogue, I suppose) and shouts a ritual shout: ἐρχέσθω…πινέτω (“Let them come! Let them drink!”). Another golden nugget. If you are thirsty, here is the water you need. We’re transported back to the well in Samaria, and the woman who understands at one very simple level who Jesus is. Now we taste that water again, and it is living water (7:38).
Oh, John, what’s the meaning of your little exegesis in 7:39? “He said this about the pneuma that those who believed in him would receive, but there wasn’t any pneuma yet, for Jesus had yet to be glorified.” WHACK!
Bob, aren’t “the unspecified they” the same milling crowd in the temple precinct whom we assume we’ve been seeing before him all this while? As in any crowd, time passes, the crowd ebbs and flows, personalities shift (“Jerusalemites,” etc.), moods shift … And, if LSJ is right on later usage, πιέζω doesn’t mean merely “put pressure on” but “lay hold of”. Couldn’t that be just what they did at Gethsemane, preparatory to handing him over to the Romans, i.e. killing him? But premature, because the hour was yet to come.
Regarding the dearth of recent miracles — what have you done for me lately? — good question! Nothing in John since the healing at the pool. But it’s a huge festival (Tabernacles). Bound to be plenty of Galileans there, who may have seen Cana and the loaves & fishes and healings mentioned but not described — as at 6:1, where “A huge crowd continued to follow him, because they were witnessing miracles performed by him on the infirm.”
At 7:41-42, the skeptics in the crowd say, “Surely the messiah can’t be from Galilee! Didn’t scripture say that the messiah is from the seed of David and comes from Bethlehem, where David came from?”
But wait a minute — Jesus was born in Bethlehem, at least according to Luke! One of two strange things seems to be happening here. Either John expects his reader to know that Jesus does in fact come from Bethlehem, and thus to share an in-joke at the expense of these ignoramuses, or (more likely) the nativity tale in Luke is a (later!) attempt to neutralize a well-known objection that John has faithfully recorded, that Jesus wasn’t born in Bethlehem — and John, or the author of this bit at any rate, is writing before that tale had evolved.
This passage reminds me of 2:19-21, which I remarked on earlier. There, John has Jesus declaring that he’ll resurrect the temple in three days, whereas Mark says it’s a false accusation that Jesus ever made such a claim. Somebody’s reacting to somebody else’s account in both cases, and the most natural explanation seems to be that John is earlier — predating Luke’s nativity in chapter 7, while in chapter 2 he records something Jesus was generally reputed to have said, but which by Mark’s time was perceived as casting Jesus in a bad light. Is there a better explanation in either case?
Journey to Bethlehem, Chora Church, Istanbul, 14thC
Oh little town of Bethlehem, how implausibly I’m afraid they lie. It’s in Matthew, too, along with the rest of the Christmas pageant. I’m afraid Bethlehem has to go, and the Magi are suspect, and that means the flight to Egypt, too. And maybe the sheep and the star. What’s left? The Incarnation. Still, the skeptics are wrong that no prophet ever came from Galilee. Lightfoot has a few examples.
Quite right, Bob! Alford reports that Elijah himself came from Galilee! Rick, I would think John the logos-guy would be right up there brandishing the Matthew/Luke story about Bethlehem, if it were true. After all, tradition holds that he lived with Jesus’ mother, and you’d think she would’ve dropped a remark about Bethlehem (and/or Egypt) if she knew of it. And I’d forgotten Mark 14:57-59, where the promise to rebuild the temple is called a false accusation. Good detective work, Rick!
The skeptics don’t say no prophet ever came from Galilee, but that the Christ can’t come from there.
Bill, are we seriously entertaining the idea that our author, the logos guy, is the disciple who’s reputed to have lived with Mary?? Bob noted way back that there’s not a trace of personal experience as to what it was like to be a disciple, and anyway the whole portrait of Jesus seems to me immensely remote (not just in time) from any personal acquaintance. Am I tone-deaf to your irony here?
BERG 2/1/14
You’re right about 7:41, Rick. That’s what the skeptics say. What’s confusing is that the Sanhedrin skeptics in 7:52 claim that no prophet was ever “raised up” from Galilee. Whom is that remark aimed at? I find Metzger’s comment useful on the “prophet from Galilee” verse: “Instead of προφήτης … read ὁ προφήτης, … ὅτι ὁ προφήτης ἐκ τῆς Γαλιλαίας οὐκ ἐγείρεται (“that the prophet is not to arise out of Galilee”)” — alluding to “the foretold prophet” of e.g. John 1:21-25. That seems to clear up the difficulty: it was hard to believe that the Sanhedrin folks could really be that ignorant about prophets. My only remaining question is, Are they here merging the Messiah (7:41) with “the prophet”? John 1:25 certainly keeps them separate. Or is the Sanhedrin, unlike the ὄχλος, not even entertaining the idea that Jesus might be claiming to be the Messiah?
John the Beloved, Sankt-Katharinenthal, Switzerland, 14thC
Yes, I do go along with the tradition, faute de mieux, that at least one author of this gospel meant us to take him as Jesus’ beloved. That seems to be the whole point behind having Jesus join his mother and John in 19:26-27. Otherwise, why keep calling attention to this particular disciple? Aren’t we meant to see him as the one whose ties to Jesus, his bonding in love and family, make his “testimony” the most reliable?
John’s “Jesus” is immensely remote from the bland, gentle, only occasionally frenetic Jesus of Mark. It even goes against my grain to call them by the same name. John’s hero has wild eyes and wild hair, and most people these days would immediately spot him as a loony and go out of their way to avoid even eye contact. But it’s not impossible to imagine him having a knack for attracting certain types, at least in that culture. He knows his, and they know him, and he gives them the take-me-or-leave-me choice (6:66-67). I think we’ll see more such interaction with his disciples, at least around the table at the last supper.
I’ve been re-reading that Mark passage Rick points to (14:58-59) about the “false accusation” that Jesus claimed he’d re-build the temple in three days. I seem to find that the accusation is based on an “inconsistency” rather than on an outright falsehood. Jesus’ statement in John uses the second-person plural imperative, “Destroy this temple, and I’ll raise it up in 3 days,” while the accusers in Mark make Jesus threaten to destroy the temple himself. They also say that Jesus promised “a different temple not built by hands,” also missing from John. Mark comments that their testimony was “not even here consistent” (οὐδὲ οὕτως ἴση), seeming to imply that there was a correct version.
According to John, that promise by Jesus was made right after his first grand entrance into the temple precinct, whip in hand, three years before his trial. If so, the witnesses had had quite some time to muddle details. Of course, Mark doesn’t give Jesus’ public life more than a few months, or does he?
McKIM 2/3/14
Granted, Bill, ἴση in Mark 14:59 might mean something like “fair” — not, I think, “consistent” but still perhaps implying that Jesus said something similar that’s being unfairly misrepresented — though immediately before, in 14:57, Mark says that those who attribute such an utterance to Jesus are lying or “bearing false witness” (ἐψευδομαρτύρουν), which feels stronger.
In any case, it seems clear enough that Jesus’ remark about rebuilding the temple had become problematic in a way that it wasn’t for whoever wrote that bit in John. OR — is John just quietly correcting the (earlier) record by “quoting” precisely what Jesus did say on the subject? This business of who’s earlier / who’s later is maddening and maybe ultimately pointless. There doesn’t seem to be a single passage that can’t be made to fit whatever hypothesis one likes.
The Woman Taken in Adultery
The Woman Taken in Adultery — Lucas the Younger Cranach, 16thC
CONNOR 2/4/14
I am having trouble figuring out which manuscripts have this passage here (7:53 – 8:11) and which don’t. If I read the app crit correctly, the Vulgate has the passage, so Jerome must have had it in whatever ms(s?) he was using. Also in papyrus 66 (circa 200). So I suspect the doubts are a combination of omission in some mss, its appearance after Luke 21.38, and in some mss at the end of John rather than here.
So its location is problematic but that doesn’t prove we should throw it out. Let the textual critic who’s never wrong be the first to excise it!
I’m with you there, Bob. I’d sooner throw out the whole gospel than this episode. But wouldn’t you know my favorite passage in the whole NT would turn out to be spurious! Alford’s venerable commentary details the stylistic anomalies with his usual frightening punctiliousness, and just about everyone seems to agree that it’s a later interpolation.
The NT text site sums up the situation this way: “This passage is enclosed in double brackets in the UBS text, which means that the UBS Textual Committee felt that it was not written by John, but that it was old enough and historical enough to be considered as scripture. The passage was known to some third and fourth century writers, although it does not seem to be found in any extant Bible manuscripts until the fifth or sixth century. It possibly circulated at first in oral form and was later written down and added to the text of John or Luke.”
But why should I be surprised that others have noticed that at least one narrative section of this bricolage of a gospel is authored by someone other than the rant-composer? I’ve felt that way about other narrative sections as well. Whether or not the stylistic “differences” are illusory, what makes this one stand out is that it doesn’t lead directly into a rant: Jesus is silent, writing or doodling in the sand, looking up only to issue a single imperative, and finally dismissing the lady with just a sin-no-more. I don’t have to “defend” the authenticity of the passage; whoever authored it, it stands up well enough on its own. Any evangelist should have been proud to have written it. As a vehicle for displaying what Christianity ought to be, it’s worth its weight in “miracles.”
It’s very hard to do meaningful stylistic comparisons based on a short passage as short as this. I don’t see any flagrant deviations from John’s style elsewhere, but that doesn’t mean much. Nor would one or two deviations. Pace Alford, I don’t think stylistic analysis will solve the problem.
Unlike Bob, I find (as an amateur) that the textual grounds for interpolation are persuasive. More importantly, the content of the story seems totally non-John. To me, this is definitely the synoptic Jesus making a (very welcome!) cameo appearance, throwing into strong relief exactly what’s missing from John’s portrait of our hero — the moral dimension, the moral basis for his hostility to the traditionalists, the difference Jesus’ mission makes in the way we live our lives and relate to other people.
John’s own Jesus is so tiresome by comparison! Inevitable but disappointing that, immediately after this moving narrative interlude, we go straight back to the endlessly repetitive pontification of that above-it-all supernatural being — a discourse that the woman taken in adultery has so rudely interrupted.
Jesus writing in the sand, Codex Egberti, Carolingian 10thC
More perplexity: why does Jesus bend over and write on the ground? We’ve been talking a lot about writing, like the laws of Moses central to chapter 7. Then in 8:3 enter the scribes (grammateis), the poor adulteress in tow. As they pontificate on the Mosaic law that she should be stoned, Jesus “writes in the dirt (εἰς τὴν γῆν) with his finger”. Is he mocking them by parodying their scribal work? Is he suggesting that he’s a second Moses, writing his own entole, with its good legal use of the 3rd person imperative, βαλέτω, in 8.7 — “let the sinless one among you cast the first stone”?
We’re not the only ones to be puzzled. I notice in the app. crit. on vs. 7 that ms 264 provides an explanation, “with his finger writing onto the ground the sins of each one of them …”. I love it! Catches the damn hypocrites in secretis delictis. It makes sense of his otherwise puzzling body language. But I don’t imagine we could ever convince a text critic that this was the right reading.
But what, pray tell, does “right reading” mean? We know what it ought to mean — what John himself wrote, or at least what the most “reliable” mss, properly evaluated, point to. But the more I look at the variations in reading among the manuscripts, the more I wonder whether they, the scribes and “copyists” (our word, not theirs) thought that way. It looks to me as if they were in the same boat we are, trying to make clear to one another what the story meant.
They were not, I suspect, trained in the Alexandrian Library’s courses in advanced paleography. They were trying to make sense out of what they had before them, a text maybe never quite finished or polished, or fully proofread by its often dreamy, sometimes ecstatic author, then transmitted through some copies with obvious errors and puzzling obscurities in them — the product of semi-trained scribes, just like them. So every now and then one of them went up to the top deck of the boat, stripped down, and took the plunge. In the cool awakening water he said, “Ahh, now I see what it must mean. I’ll put in what some idiot must have left out.” Back on board, dried off in a warm fluffy towel, he does us the favor (as he sees it) of adding a phrase that clarifies it all.
In the app crit I find this all the time, as if they did not think of the text as a sacred imperishable object but as an ongoing project. In the graduate seminar at Alexandria he would have been trained in how to add a note, a scholion, in the margin to provide his explanation. Not on our ship! Gospel mss never have scholia, do they? My hunch is they reshaped the text itself rather than adding notes in the margin.
Can we scale this up, moving beyond the manuscript readings to the gospels themselves? Why do we have so many of them? Why four canonical ones, and others that were read not just by gnostics but by ordinary Christians as well (Gospel of James, anyone?). Another hunch: the same process was at work. That is, the gospel writers were trying not to record as exact an account as possible, but to make sense out of a man who didn’t act in predictable ways, or say the logical, sequential thing, and MAYBE, just maybe did not fit the available categories very neatly. (Even the Messiah category? Oh my, dare we go that route?) So one gospel writer makes his best effort, and another is not satisfied, takes the plunge and says, “Here’s how I see it…” What a good way to drive the V-8 Quest for a historical Jesus right into the madhouse garage!
Fascinating suggestions, Bob! I had taken the ΓΡΑΦ-stuff to indicate drawing, actually doodling, to pretend insouciance. First time in literature: the Doodling Hero? Since he’s already sitting down (καθίσας 8:2), he doesn’t need to bend over to reach the ground. Maybe κάτω κύψας means “kept his head down”? “Looked down”?
William Blake, 18thC
I find myself now sorely tempted to regard the Adulterous Woman story the way I regard so many other narrative sections in John, i.e. as a launch pad for preaching on a particular topic. Chapter 8 may not be as well cobbled together, or run as smoothly, as the other mythos-to-logos episodes, but it still could be seen as following the same pattern. In this case, the author pulls another story out of his hat (the story doesn’t have to be by him, the author — which could explain Alford’s stylistic anomalies), then turns his hero loose with logoi on that particular topic (in this case, judgment — κρίσις/κρίνειν).
Subsequent scribes are made uncomfortable by chapter 8’s more-awkward-than-usual cobbling, while nonnulli are feeling extreme moral compunctions about the passage, so more often than not it’s deleted, sequestered at the end, or passed on to another scribe to deal with as he sees fit. (You see, Bob, I’m already learning from you about their fast-and-loose habits, as compared with the transmitters of classical texts.)
But what am I doing here, again butting my head against scholarly opinio — in this case not just communis, but universalis? Incurable black sheep!
I don’t know what Jesus is scribbling on the ground, but this is one of those details that make you think “That must have been the way it happened — who could make it up, and why?” I’m sure Bob’s right about the way scribes tried to incorporate their comments into the story in lieu of scholia, treating the text as an organic, growing thing rather than as graven in stone. But it’s tempting to believe that everyone’s trying to puzzle out what he was writing because he really was writing something!
Trying to figure out just why John 8 was usually targeted by our scribes for insertion of the Adulterous Woman episode, I’m considering the possibility that the recurrent theme of judgment (κρίνειν, κρίσις), first brought up by Nicodemus in 7:51, made the chapter particularly hospitable to such a passage. The mention of stoning in both 5 and 59, and of illegitimate sexual relations in both 3 and 41, might also be seen as links.
The Pharisees are asking Jesus for his opinion on their judgment of this woman, who has been caught in an illicit relationship. They declare that “In the Torah, Moses has commanded us to stone such women” (5). As for the Torah, Jesus refers to it in 17 as “your Torah”; as for their judgment, Jesus declares in 8:15f. ὑμεῖς κατὰ τὴν σάρκα κρίνετε, ἐγὼ οὐ κρίνω οὐδένα — “You judge by your human standards, I’m not judging anybody” — ἡ κρίσις ἡ ἐμὴ ἀληθινή ἐστιν, just as he doesn’t judge the woman, after her “judges” have all left (10f.). However, if he wanted (he declares in 26), he could do a lot of judging: πολλὰ ἔχω περὶ ὑμῶν λαλεῖν καὶ κρίνειν.
Things really get out of hand in 41, when the mob taunts Jesus with “We, at least, were not begotten in adultery!”, which can’t help but remind me that this chapter began with the controversy over an adulterous relationship. Jesus doesn’t have to take that shit. He fires back with ὑμεῖς ἐκ τοῦ πατρὸς τοῦ διαβόλου ἐστὲ (44), insulting their own parentage. Tίς ἐξ ὑμῶν ἐλέγχει με περὶ ἁμαρτίας; (46) may or may not have been seen as a match for μηκέτι ἁμάρτανε in 8:11. But look at the famous 8:7 — “let him who is without sin (ὁ ἀναμάρτητος) be the first to throw a stone”!
Finally, in 8:50, ἐγὼ δὲ οὐ ζητῶ τὴν δόξαν μου· ἔστιν ὁ ζητῶν καὶ κρίνων (ὁ πατήρ μου, of course). “It’s my father who’s entitled to judge.” And the stones of 8:5-7 lie ready to be picked up again (59).
Nice. Really nice. So do we after all NEED the adulterous woman story?
I don’t know if “we” need any of this, but I’m suggesting that the composer of John (thanks to your insights, I’m now calling him the composer, not “one of the composers”) needed something very much like this story to kick off his next logos. We’ll see if that pattern persists.
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READING JOHN: In the beginning … 1:1-18
JOHN 13 – 20: Passion and Doubt
William Berg on MARK page 3
Molly on Three maverick classicists exp…
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Rick McKim on JOHN 3 – 6: Renegade…
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Reading John: Mission Accomplished! June 19, 2014
Renegades Read John: More New Posts! May 13, 2014
The Renegades Read John: New Posts! March 19, 2014
The Gospel Renegades read John: New posts! January 23, 2014
The Gospel Renegades start reading John January 13, 2014
UPDATE: A new essay from Bob Connor September 18, 2013
Update: We’ve made it to the end of Mark! July 30, 2013
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Lime and Bolt Abruptly Yank E-Scooters From Multiple Markets Across the U.S.
Filed to:RIP
Photo: MEHDI FEDOUACH/AFP (Getty)
Electric scooter company Lime is laying off more than 10 percent of its workforce and pulling its scooters from roughly a dozen major global cities as its competitor Bolt, too, has yanked its e-scooters from city streets in multiple U.S. markets, Gizmodo has learned.
Lime announced the move in a blog post from the company’s CEO and co-founder Brad Bao that characterized the decision as a necessary measure to “achieving financial independence.” Though Lime operated in more than 120 markets, Bao said, “there are select communities throughout the world where micromobility has evolved more slowly.” Axios first reported the news on Thursday.
Lime’s affected U.S. markets include Atlanta, Phoenix, San Diego, and San Antonio. Additionally, the company will be pulling from operation in Linz, Austria as well as Bogota, Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Lima, Puerto Vallarta, Rio de Janeiro, and Sao Paulo. In a statement, Bao indicated that the company may return to the cities at some point in the future.
“Financial independence is our goal for 2020, and we are confident that Lime will be the first next-generation mobility company to reach profitability,” Bao said in the statement shared with Gizmodo. “We are immensely grateful for our team members, riders, Juicers, and cities who supported us, and we hope to reintroduce Lime back into these communities when the time is right.”
A spokesperson told Gizmodo roughly 100 employees are being laid off, or about 14 percent of the company’s workforce. The company told Gizmodo that advanced notice was given to municipalities ahead of it pulling scooters from service.
Separately, Gizmodo has learned that Florida-based e-scooter company Bolt has pulled out of some of its own U.S. markets, though the company declined to specify which were affected and said only that it continues to operate in “select markets.” But a survey of the markets listed through the Bolt mobile app seems to indicate that South Florida is the only market where the company is still operating at scale, as indicated by the dozens of tiny scooter icons peppering the map.
This is not the case in any of the other U.S. cities listed by the Bolt app. DC Metro, Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, Louisville, Nashville, Portland, Richmond, and Roanoke displayed either blank maps or showed just one or two scooters available for the entire region. Three markets—Atlanta, DC, and Nashville—showed only five available scooters total between all of them. When asked about this, the company then told Gizmodo it was operating primarily in Florida but said there was “activity” in other regions as well.
In December, Chris Chittum, City Planning Director for Roanoke—one market where the scooters have been pulled from service—told CBS-affiliated WDBJ that the company had picked them up and that the city was “unclear what their plans are at this point.” Chittum confirmed to Gizmodo on Thursday that the scooters were still out of operation as of this week.
“They’re still absent in our market,” Chittum said. “Before that happened, their local GM advised they were pulling them off the street for maintenance and inventory in advance of a weekend of wintry weather. Of course, they never reappeared.”
Memphis, another city where the Bolt scooters were deployed as a partner in its Shared Mobility Program, has also seen a Bolt departure. A city spokesperson told Gizmodo by email that the company notified Memphis officials that it was leaving toward the end of December.
“Bolt has been a good partner in [the] city’s Shared Mobility Program, and we regret to see it leave,” the spokesperson said.
Bolt announced in December that it had named Julia Steyn, an alum of General Motors’ urban mobility arm, as CEO of the company. The company said this week that Steyn had been brought into the role to grow the business moving forward but declined to comment further on the decision to scale back its operations at this time.
While Bolt’s motives are somewhat unclear, the decision follows similar moves by rival micromobility outfits competing for market dominance nationwide. Lyft announced in November that it was pulling from six major U.S. markets, with a spokesperson telling TechCrunch at the time that the company planned on “continuing to invest in growing our bike and scooter business, but will shift resources away from smaller markets and toward bigger opportunities.”
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Around the Globe in Your City: A World Heritage Teacher Workshop
Penn Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
Article by Charlotte Thomas, GPA Ambassador.
On the morning of Saturday, September 16, educators from around the Philadelphia region gathered at the Penn Museum to learn how to incorporate World Heritage education materials into their lesson planning. The event introduced teachers to the Philadelphia World Heritage City Project as well as to materials that are available at the Penn Museum. Within the Museum lie an abundance of resources that would facilitate the translation of World Heritage studies from isolated cultural experiences to classroom instruction.
The workshop began with presentations from Global Philadelphia World Heritage Coordinator, Melissa Stevens; Director of Learning Programs at the Penn Museum, Ellen Owens; Diversity Program Manager, Hitomi Yoshida; as well as presentations from World Heritage teachers, notably retired William Penn Charter School teacher and World Heritage Education Task Force member, Sarah Sharp.
The first presentation by Stevens outlined the goals of the World Heritage City Project. She began by describing the strategic plan ‘to promote preservation and appreciation’ of Philadelphia’s geographical, historical, and cultural heritage through education and the World Heritage City title. Stevens expanded on the idea that there is a need for students to succeed in a rapidly globalizing world. The best preparation to build this strength involves an education of World Heritage that would provide them with knowledge of different cultures in Philadelphia and around the world.
Next, both Owens and Yoshida worked through different ideas with educators in attendance to help them best identify and implement the resources in the Penn Museum. Accordingly, the two Penn Museum speakers presented the resources as different galleries available to the public in the museum. One gallery included an exhibit on Syria, among others.
The last presentation led by Sharp described how she and a group of educators also in attendance recently traveled to India and Nepal as a part of the first international Philadelphia World Heritage Education trip. These teachers have applied their visits to World Heritage sites in India and Nepal to their classroom action plans, and shared how they plan to communicate their newfound cultural understandings to students in a curriculum.
Finally, the workshop concluded with two different breakout sessions. The first, led by Owens and Yoshida, was an object-based learning activity that looked at cultures and conflict. The pair explained ways to initiate discussions about such complex topics through the galleries that are available at the Penn Museum. Secondly, University of Pennsylvania teacher and GPA Board Member Anastasia Shown led a Lesson Plan session that guided teachers in thinking through ways to adapt and implement the World Heritage lesson plans and other resources presented to their own curriculums.
Already, pilot programs in schools and community centers have set the stage for future educational and community engagement plans. The Global Philadelphia team and other educational resource providers such as the Penn Museum are working hard to meet the goals of not only the World Heritage City Project, but also those of educators who understand the need to inform young minds of the importance of global understanding.
View pictures of the event.
GPA Hosts Fifth Annual Globy Awards in Recognition of Philadelphia’s Global Citizens
Annual Luncheon Will Spotlight Works of Local Charity Cradles to Crayons
PHILADELPHIA (Nov. 6, 2019) –To celebrate five global leaders representing a cross section of Philadelphia’s international community and businesses, The Global Philadelphia Association (GPA) will host the fifth annual Globy Awards and Luncheon on Dec. 9, 2019.
GPA’s Zabeth Teelucksingh Presents at World Heritage UK Annual Conference
As the cultural backbone of human history, UNESCO World Heritage Sites are too often lost within the United States’ diverse treasure trove of heritage and preservation efforts. But this is not an inherently American problem; countries across the world are struggling to spotlight the legacy of World Heritage sites and to surround them with a sense of collective ownership and pride. The United Kingdom is spearheading the movement to enhance this outlook.
Philadelphia Unveils SDG #5 Public Art Display
Step aside, Rocky. Global Philadelphia Association (GPA) and its partners unveiled a public art display at the opposite end of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway on October 3rd, in honor of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) #5, “Gender Equality.”
The Middle East Center is announcing educator grant to Egypt in collaboration with GEEO
The University of Pennsylvania Middle East Center is excited to announce an educator grant that we are offering in collaboration with GEEO, a Philadelphia-area nonprofit that helps educators travel.
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House Targaryen
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Game Of Thrones Season
Home GOT News They’re Gonna Shoot “Multiple Endings” For “Game Of Thrones,” Are You Ready?
They’re Gonna Shoot “Multiple Endings” For “Game Of Thrones,” Are You Ready?
Hey, Game of Thrones fans…guess what? You’re just too damn good at finding spoilers, and the show’s creators know it.
So, in order to thwart what would be the most ultimate spoiler in TV history, they’re going to shoot MULTIPLE ENDINGS of Game of Thrones Season 8 (aka the FINAL season).
According to The Morning Call, HBO’s president of programming, Casey Bloys — who was speaking at an event at Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, said:
[For the ending of Game of Thrones] they’re going to shoot multiple versions so that nobody really know what happens. You have to do that on a long show. Because when you’re shooting something, people know. So they’re going to shoot multiple versions so that there’s no real definitive answer until the end.
As most fans probably know, HBO suffered a major hack this year, which included an episode outline for Thrones.
And an unaired episode of Season 7 (“The Spoils of War”) also leaked during the summer.
Four people were arrested in India after a pirated episode was uploaded from an online streaming service in Mumbai.
Although, HBO maintained that this particular leak was not a part of the previously mentioned hack.
So, it’s no real surprise that the show’s creators want to go to some extra lengths to protect the entire series’ ending.
The only question now is — how MANY “fake” endings will they shoot? And what would they be?
Honestly, I’m curious what you think the “fake” (or REAL) endings will be. Add your thoughts below in the comments!
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A place to get some role-playing game goodness.
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City of Sigil
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Chapter 4 – The Midnight Isles
Chapter 5 – Herald of the Ivory Labyrinth
Chapter 6 – City of Locusts
← 4e PHB Readthrough – Chapter 7: Equipment
Breaking the Flow →
D&D 4e’s Out… And It’s Awful. Here’s Why
Posted on June 6, 2008 | 236 Comments
Dungeons & Dragons Fourth Edition has hit stores, but as my readthrough review shows, you probably shouldn’t bother with it (see the “4e PHB Readthrough” posts on this blog for the nitty gritty). It’s a World of Warcraft-inspired tactical combat game, very unlike (and incompatible with) previous editions of D&D.
Many people love to attack the bearer of bad news, so let me be clear about my background. I’m not one of those D&D-haters, or someone who has only played Third Edition and therefore can’t believe anything might be an improvement. I’ve gamed since the early 1980s, starting with Star Frontiers and quickly moving to the D&D Basic set, and happily migrating to AD&D first edition, AD&D second edition, and D&D third edition. Each time, the new version of D&D, with its improved elegance and increased options, easily sold me on being an improvement on the previous version, and I was happy to upgrade! My bookcases still bear the weight of more Second Edition gear than anything else, just because they published the most product ever in that generation – but except for repurposing adventures those books lay fallow after the upgrade. I view players of “1e derivative” products like Castles & Crusades and OSRIC with pity; I enjoyed my First Edition days but I don’t find that I want to go back there.
I’m also not a D&D-only guy – I’ve played everything from Deadlands to Feng Shui to Call of Cthulhu – I have several Cthulhu Master’s tourneys under my belt and have playtest credits in things as farflung as “Wraith: The Great War.” Check out my RPG reviews – they’re pretty widespread. I also can’t be accused of being just a “collector”, I play all the time. So I think I know RPGs in general, and D&D in particular. I don’t have a (previous) bone to pick with WotC. I helped launch 3e as one of the original Living Greyhawk Triads at Gen Con 2000. OK, so enough about my credentials.
4e is the first time I thought of D&D, “Whoa – this isn’t going in the right direction.”
Not only is it the largest change ever in D&D, possibly excepting only the shift from the original D&D wargame rules to AD&D First Edition, but it’s a negative change – not only relative to D&D but also to the rest of the RPG field. If some other company put out this exact game under a different name, it would already be sinking into obscurity. Like Windows Vista, it’s a failure – a failure that will regrettably sell enough copies, due to its maker’s market share, that they will likewise deceive themselves into thinking it’s a success.
My chapter by chapter 4e readthroughs are revealing a lot of specific bits to dislike, but what’s the mile-high view of the problem? It boils down to a couple major categories.
Back Incompatibility
The oddest thing about this new ruleset is that they didn’t just change the mechanics. You expect mechanics to change in each edition, and being incompatible there is no offense. But D&D has always been a game with a rich history of continuity. People run games in their favorite published, or their own personal, campaign setting for decades.
In 4e, they have decided to “rewrite history.” Previous core races, classes, and spells that have been enshrined in novels, campaigns, and tradition have been discarded or reworked until they aren’t the same thing any more. Greyhawk, the campaign setting that has thrived from OD&D until the last issue of Dungeon Magazine, is now impossible with the new D&D as written. Entire major character archetypes have been removed. The cosmology, which previous classic stories like the Temple of Elemental Evil revolved around, has changed. Wizards don’t use the Vancian spellcasting model, which has always been an integral part of D&D. The same campaign or campaign world cannot transition from 3e to 4e without a complete rewrite, something that’s never been required for a D&D version upgrade before. “Uh, all the gnomes have been killed and replaced with dragon guys, and the elves all teleport now…”
What makes this new game D&D, besides the branding? If another company released this under a different name, it would get reviews on RPG.net about being a “fantasy heartbreaker” with “better than average production values” and that would be it. It shares very little beyond a very cursory similarity to previous versions of the game. It wasn’t the rules that made D&D D&D, it was the fantastical concept, the enchanters and necromancers and iconic races and the whole distinct fiction surrounding it. And that’s been changed significantly to where, for me, it’s “some other fantasy story” and not D&D.
Retreat from Openness
With Third Edition, D&D took a brave step into empowering their community and sharing the core of the game by picking up the open source concept of open licensing. Wizards of the Coast released the core D&D rules under the Open Gaming License. Product flowed, third party companies sprung up to form an ecosystem around the game. The company that had nearly gone out of business towards the end of Second Edition was doing great again. The best stories since the classic 1e modules came from companies like Paizo Publishing and Green Ronin.
Now, Wizards has decided to say a big “screw you” to that. Not only are they not using any more open licensing, but they are requiring companies who are 4e licensees to agree not to publish materials under the old open license. After a big stink, this restriction was “clarified” to only apply to products in the same product line, but that’s a difference only in the magnitude and not the nature of the hostility towards openness here.
They are just giving off closed vibes about everything. From their behavior toward their playtesters to their jerking around the entire D&D publisher community with their delays and equivocation regarding licensing. Their new license, the GSL, still isn’t out, and was supposed to cover fan sites but now that’s “coming later.” Their every move is dripping with lawyeriness and disregard for their customers and partners. It’s hard to keep an open mind towards the game itself when its maker is being a grade A asshole.
Awful, Derivative Rules
So maybe I could say back incompatibility is OK – after all, the Wizards adventure products in 3e were all derivative “returns to” the original great D&D adventure locales, from the Temple of Elemental Evil to the Ruins of Greyhawk. A fresh start would be nice, perhaps. You can make an artistic argument for a break with the past, even iconic story elements; the comics do that from time to time. And I like openness, but I could see that there might be business drivers I’m not aware of that make it not a good idea. If 4e was a brilliant game, those two complaints lose their luster.
But even when you take it to the gaming table – 4e is not brilliant. They took some steps towards improving the game – the core mechanics are cleaner – but then they just layered gratuitous awfulness on top.
“Oh, all that tracking of effects like Bless in earlier editions is such a bummer!” they said. Sure, we’ve all had combats that get slow because people are trying to remember all the pluses and minuses from Bless, Haste, etc. And what did they do? Put an “aura” on nearly every monster, and make every power for every class give fiddly little minor bonuses for one round in duration. So now instead of remembering “+1 to hit from Bless, and another +1 to hit and damage from the Prayer, for the entire combat” you get to remember “oh, this round Fred hit someone with some power and I have +1 to hit this turn only. And we’re in a monster’s -1 to damage aura. And Jane’s heal spell also is giving me a free healing surge if I do that instead of attacking on this turn only. And the warlord’s aura is giving me +1 to hit, until he moves away from me.” Their goal was good, their implementation worse than 3e – one-round effects and aura effects plus more mobile combat equals pain. Combat is slow and fiddly and painful, and most of the game has been made about combat.
And call me crazy, but when I play a RPG I like to be able to pretend my character’s a real person in a real world, albeit with differences from reality, like magic – but still internally consistent. They are kicking that in the balls with each chapter of 4e rules. From the preposterous economics to movement only being in “squares,” to marking – it’s nearly impossible to “pretend you’re there,” and not just be playing a board game. They’re deliberately moving away from immersion as a chief goal of an RPG. It’s a board game now, not an imaginary world.
And the ripoffs from World of Warcraft are just sad. I know WoW is awesomely successful and they’d shoot their CEO to get 1/10 of its business. But the character “builds,” and talent trees, and disenchanting magic items into magic dust, are blatant ripoffs. I’ve always hated derivative crap in D&D – when someone makes an adventure with monsters obviously taken from the movie Aliens, I don’t think “yay,” I think “boo.” It’s not that I don’t like WoW, either; I’ve got a level 69 priest who’s about to go raiding, but it’s not the same experience as D&D or any real RPG. Orcs and spells aren’t what makes a RPG a RPG – you can have a novel, a computer game, a picture, or a RPG sharing the same fantasy dress. It’s the ability to live in another world and look through another person’s eyes for a short time that defines a role-playing game. And 4e has decided that’s no longer in scope.
Was Third Edition perfect? No, and it’s gotten heavy under its weight. I support initiatives like Pathfinder that look to fix what’s wrong with 3e. But 3e is the highest point in the D&D game’s evolution – it’s to be built on, not thrown away. 4e throws it away, along with much of what makes D&D unique and what makes RPGs an interesting and distinct hobby. Epic fail.
Geek it up:
This entry was posted in reviews, talk and tagged 4e, 4th, D&D, dungeons dragons, edition, fourth, review, RPG, RPGs, sucks, wotc. Bookmark the permalink.
236 responses to “D&D 4e’s Out… And It’s Awful. Here’s Why”
Lo'Jakz | June 6, 2008 at 9:24 pm | Reply
Interesting take. I agree with you on most of your points but, I do disagree about it’s success. I think it will be successful, but I do think it’s a completely different market than you or I that they are targeting.
I do whole-heartedly agree with your last statement about 3.5. The beauty of the system is it’s consistency and tweakablity.
I’m going to check out the rest of your reviews, thanks for taking the time for your thoughts.
BTW: I love Castles & Crusades, I guess there’s no taking critism for nostalgia 😀
mxyzplk | June 7, 2008 at 8:11 am | Reply
Well, I think that they think that they’re addressing a different market – “these kids nowadays.” But are they right?
Firstly, their equation of WoW to young males is incorrect based on WoW demographic surveys. Secondly, I don’t think they understand what it is that makes people play, or not play, RPGs.
The “kids nowadays” aren’t much on the novel reading or even the comic reading – that’s for us old folks; they read mangas. They don’t play RPGs, they play MMORPGs. Is taking a RPG and making it about 10 percent different really going to bridge that gap? Or adding some pretty crap computer software to it? I don’t think they have what it takes or even know what it takes to hit those other markets, and they will be unsuccessful at it while alienating some of their base.
I don’t see anything in the new D&D that says “broader appeal” or “convert WoWers.” In fact, by becoming too derivative of WoW they invite a comparison that’s unfavorable to themselves. WoW is much preferable to a slow, paper-based WoW simulator.
It’s like Steve Jackson Games’ “Frag,” a board game emulating a first person shooter like Quake. In their case they understand it’s simply a novelty and not a serious attempt at “luring FPSers”. The more D&D becomes WoW, the more of its comparative benefits it gives up (flexibility) and people then compare “Hmmm. Roll dice for 10 hours or click the buttons for 1 hour?”
Brian | June 7, 2008 at 11:52 am | Reply
Pity? Really? Why?
As for the review, spot on, from my brief perusal of the game. Complicated, too heavily grounded in the battle mat, bizarre choices (gutting most of the “utility” spells from the wizard’s repertoire, and replacing them with a sprinkling of “rituals” that can’t be used in the heat of an exciting moment), and utterly hostile to verisimilitude. The books are surprisingly poorly laid out and the illustrations are range all over the place. Paizo puts out better looking and more professional free PDFs than these core books.
I’m not sure who the audience is, honestly. The design appears geared to appeal to folks who played CCGs like Pokemon and Magic. The log-with-breasts dryad and the oversized weapons and armour look very Warhammer. There are lifts from WoW. It really looks all over the place, just like the art.
In fact, I think that’s the central feel I get from this edition: all over the place. It’s like they couldn’t decide on a theme or feel or goals, and just kinda threw in anything that looked cool, while at the same time rigorously cutting down the mechanical options to preserve combat balance.
kelvingreen | June 7, 2008 at 5:28 pm | Reply
Far, far too combat-based (even for a game with its origins in wargames), and the art is shockingly awful for a professional product.
I’m also a bit concerned that bringing Warforged and other bits in, they’re undermining one of the key selling points of Eberron.
Patrick | June 8, 2008 at 3:19 am | Reply
As I read through the PH I could feel my blood pressure starting to rise 😮 This is no longer DnD – it’ something very different and I think it’s slap in the face to people who *liked* the way that the DnD core mechanic worked. I cetrainly won’t be switching to 3.5. My party has a monk and a druid…I see we’d have to wait until a “later volume” to use those classes. Huh? Aren’t these established classes that have been in D&D forever? As far as I can see, all the spell casting classes (bar the warlock) have been completely ruined. The selection of wizard “powers” is pitiful for a class that had 300+ spells. The per enounter limitation on some of these powers is also bizarre and arbitrary (clealry a “balancing” attempt, but that does not make it sensible in the context of the game). I always played a spell caster strategically and was never bored – I think that’s a problem with player and/or DM. Supposedly this was one of the reasons for “templatizing” the classes…because some people felt left out and weren’t constantly “having fun”. Well, imho, they should find another game to play if they have a short attention span or want constant action. An evolution of 3.5 which incorporated some of the balancing ideas of 4 would have been fine. This is an abortion.
vomitbrown | June 8, 2008 at 8:39 pm | Reply
A buddy of mine read the book. His response to it was, ” I rather go to the dentist than play 4e.”
Pete | June 9, 2008 at 1:37 am | Reply
WoW. (intended) D&D 4.0 (make NO mistake it is the beginning of 4.1, 4.2, 4.3…) is like what a really, really old person must think “the kids” “are sure” to enjoy. Here’s what I imagine might have taken place:
Wizards: “The kids, they like the MMORPG’s right?, Let’s give ’em one, but not with computer’s, with books! That’ll be kewl. That’s how kid’s say cool now right? Why do they play the “Wow”… why don’t they love 4.0…. hey… oh. I peed myself a little. It’s hard bein’ old and stupid.”
Somebody else: “Don’t forget, in 4.0 there MUST BE crap artwork and the WORST art design ever!
Wizards: “Great! We’ll do it!”
4.0 is born. Soon 4.1 will replace the error of 4.0’s ways!
All Hail 4.2.1!
Mikey | June 9, 2008 at 2:37 am | Reply
I concur. I hate it. I was always going to get the core books – cos I am a collector at heart and now in my mid 30’s I can afford to get RPGs without having to work shtty Saturday morning jobs or wrangle sheep (one full Saturday so I could buy AD&D’s Battlesystem).
But the changes they have made look unwieldy and overly complex. Weeee everyone now has “spells” – cos that’s going to speed things up. Minions die at any damage? My gawd that’s the greatest Turkey in RPG history. Skills got condensed – which is a good thing in some spots – but things like Craft/Profession gone completely. NPCs are basically hand waved “normal men” as per basic D&D. Vancian magic – which has been the golden thread running throughout D&D’s all other editions has been cut. Thanks X box generation for that.
The squares thing especially irked me – and thanks for pointing that out. Because we can’t possibly say ‘feet’. That’s too complex to say feet. I get the feeling it was some marketing nob who made the decision because people conducting combats in their hears without benefit of a battle map don’t move battle maps and so forth.
Some things I liked. But by and large you know what it reminded me of? Baldur’s Gate … on playstation. Running around clicking your left front button selected “spell” power to do kewl stuff.
It’s not D&D. It’s something else. Like you said if this was released on its own without the brand it would have had a minor review then sunk without a trace.
I loved converting old modules and old NPC collections over to the new editions because every new edition was a step forward. This is one massive step back.
3.5 had its problems – power creep through prestige classes being a core grumble of mine. But 4th ed basically replaced it with their special school inbred cousin Billy-bob.
They got my $150 for the core books. That’s all they’re getting.
adamx20 | June 9, 2008 at 3:42 am | Reply
In Response to Patrick:
“An evolution of 3.5 which incorporated some of the balancing ideas of 4 would have been fine.”
That’s what we are doing. That is what Pathfinder is doing. I think that is what everyone should be doing. After scanning through the 4e books I’ve formulated a basis for that idea. Taking the idea from Pathfinder that cantrips and orisons can be cast ‘at-will’ (pretty much), all the at will powers can be become a cantrip or orison; or we can give other classes a new name – i.e. ‘maneuver’
The rest of the new class material can be translated as regular Feats or feats from Class Progression. I admit some of the material is nice … but giving the Rogue an exploit that basically pushes someone is outrageous. (i.e. Positioning Strike) I mean, what happened to the Player saying, “I want to ‘try’ and push the opponent.”? (AoO, Opposed Strength Check; that’s what I would do.)
You can check my website and join this crew, or you can start your own crew. Either way you dice it, you should do the same. Hopefully we can all work together to create an Open Source or OGL version of 3.5+ (3.55, 3.65, 3.75, 3.78, etc…).
Brock | June 9, 2008 at 12:35 pm | Reply
I’ve always hated derivative crap in D&D – when someone makes an adventure with monsters obviously taken from the movie Aliens, I don’t think “yay,” I think “boo.”
Which adventure was that? Did you run it for us, or was that one that Scott ran?
Anyway, “Wulf’s Animals” will be sticking with 3e for the foreseeable future, until we run out of material to run.
I haven’t had the chance to read all the way through the 4e PHB yet. It’s hard for me to tell how a game will play until I’ve played it, so I’m reserving judgment for the time being.
McBard | June 9, 2008 at 5:32 pm | Reply
“it’s nearly impossible to ‘pretend you’re there,’ and not just be playing a board game.”
Agreed. After DMing one session of the Keep on the Shadowfell module, I felt like I had just played Robo Rally: what with all the pushing and scooting and bells and whistles going off from the various powers.
I suppose this is an inaccurate analogy to base a negative criticism on: I actually like Robo Rally.
mxyzplk | June 9, 2008 at 6:18 pm | Reply
@Brock – yeah, actually I think one of the other guys ran it. Derek maybe? For the rest of you who have no idea what we’re talking about, there was one of the early third party 3e scenarios which was an Aliens ripoff; I remember it unfondly. One of the guys in our Memphis gaming group ran it.
I wonder if there’s a German word for “lame because it emulates something too much.” It could be used on many of the SciFi Channel movies.
Matthias Feser | June 10, 2008 at 6:12 am | Reply
@mxyzplk: Actually, there is such a word. It is “Abklatsch”, for your pronouncing convenience think of it as written like “upclutch” :).
This word derises some object or thought as obviously fashioned to the likeness of a preexisting object or thought under the pretense of creative originality. It translates as rip-off / poor copy.
As a technical term an “Abklatsch” is a cast taken from a flat surface.
mxyzplk | June 10, 2008 at 6:53 am | Reply
I knew the Germans would come through with a single word for such a concept! Thanks Matthias!
Greyhawk Grognard | June 10, 2008 at 7:14 am | Reply
Those wacky Germans have a word for everything. 🙂
I think McBard had the best analogy yet; RoboRally. Everything is so mechanical; you don’t describe your actions, you pick a power to deploy, just like selecting a card in your hand in RR. Plus thee battlemat/game board comparison…
That doesn’t reflect poorly on RR at all, of course, because RR doesn’t _pretend_ to be anything other than a combat/race board game.
Jonny T | June 10, 2008 at 7:22 am | Reply
I think 4e looks great. I can’t wait to switch from 3e. Also I am not a kid, I have never played a CCG, and I have never played WOW or any MMO.
Sure there are big changes, but everything is nice and streamlined now, and GMming will be a breeze. Yes magic works differently, but Vancian casting sucked, so I’m not sad to see it go.
There were identical reactions when 3e came out. It wasn’t D&D. It was awful. Now everyone is arguing that 3e *is* D&D.
I’m glad to see that I’m not just crazy, and that other people get the same impression off the new rules. And some people excuse it with “well, it can be houseruled…” But D&D is no longer the only game in town. When it was – yeah, you took it and made it work. But now I have to ask myself “Why would I do that work exactly?” In 1e, 2e, and 3e (and Basic set) I felt like there was enough cool core there to justify tweaking the bad parts. (Although even though I houseruled the crap out of 2e – adding Perception as a seventh stat, for example – I never felt the need to in 3e, except for a simplified skill mechanic eventually.)
But reading 4e, I have the problem in that I don’t see the “soul” of D&D in there that would motivate me to put together a bunch of mods and forge forward with D&D. As I read through the thirty pages of combat legalese, I don’t think “neat!” as I read any individual bit, I just think “damn this is tedious.” And “Capture the Tedium!” isn’t a great marketing slogan.
elc | June 11, 2008 at 6:50 pm | Reply
Well…I’m not one of “kids these days”. I’ve been playing d&d since the basic box with a dragon on it. I will admit to a couple of years on WoW, though 🙂
So…4e looks totally amazingly awesome to my group. We’re all very excited. Of course, what we love are are the combats. When I’m running things I aim to spend 90% of the time in combat (not that I often achieve that kind of ratio, but it’s a great session when I do).
To those of you griping about “roll-playing” (which doesn’t sound the least bit pejorative to me!) — well, we are the ones who need the rules. All the character stuff and story telling…well that’s where you need a decent dm, who shouldn’t need storytelling rules anyway!
A little off track — I do remember that Pendragon managed to make personality more interesting in game terms by have stats and something akin to ‘challenges’ in order to decide how you wanted to act. So … yeah I liked it when the psychological aspect was made to involve dice-rolling, ha ha.
Anyway, there is absolutely a d&d populace being catered to by the new rules, fyi 🙂
james dean | June 11, 2008 at 11:24 pm | Reply
Listen, DnD will need to go online at some point, the technology is just getting too good.
The rules need to be compatable with online play, Vancian spellcasting? doesn’t work online. Munchkin multi-classers? nope. fighters auto-attacking while wizards shoot lasers out of their behinds and belch fire?
With DnD online they realized the rules as they stood, sucked for online play. The trick was, can we make dnd 4e a rules system that can be used online?
Hopefully, they’ve done it, because Greyhawk online would rock.
It’s not that DnD4e is a WoW clone…it’s that if done right DnD4e could be the WoW killer.
Ruban Towr | March 16, 2011 at 3:12 pm | Reply
closest to the mark
Jeremy | June 12, 2008 at 8:18 am | Reply
I’m always glad to see real gamers saying how awful this new edition is. I’ve been a loyal (and loving) fan of D&D since first edition. I wasn’t quite old enough to play the box sets, though I do own them.
I have to admit, I’m horribly biased towards second edition, and resisted third edition with all my heart and sole…until I actually played it. Well, in the guise of Star Wars, but still…same mechanics. And I liked it. 3.5 still leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and I’m not entirely sure why yet.
Anyway, getting back on topic here, 4e is a flop. No matter what the sales will say, it’s a flop because there’s nothing about it I find interesting that aren’t possible with a couple of house rules in 3e, or even 2e. The focus on death being a primary factor for you to be intelligent has slowly drizzled away into a feeling that death is just a part of every adventurer’s daily commute to the next dragon’s lair.
And I’m glad to see that, after the release, most of the “OMG!!itsSOsuperGOODmmmmmNOMNOMNOM!” reviews have started to dwindle away in favor of “WTF is this?” reviews. That means the old school gamers, who remember “save vs. death or die” are finally starting to reject WotC intervention in D&D. Or should I say WoDnD?
Luther | June 12, 2008 at 2:11 pm | Reply
Actually, I played 3E for a while, but was never as satisfied with it as I wanted and ditched it completely when WFRP V2 came out (I’m a WFRP player from the old V1 days and it replaced D&D then as well).
D&D 4E, whatever it is, is not D&D anymore, and we are not alone in saying that. Yesterday I went and picked up Castles & Crusades from my FLGS and the guy behind the counter was reading the new Core books and grimacing the entire time. He said he had to force himself to read them so he could answer customer questions, but like me, he thought WotC screwed the pooch on this one and was thinking of returning to WFRP.
As for Castles & Crusades, I think I’ve finally found a version of D&D that I’m happy with. It’s like OD&D/AD&D 1e streamlined with the best ideas from 3E and a few other great ideas thrown in, sort of what a lot of people hoped 3E would be. Not only that, but it’s completely compatible with my old 1e stuff (only have to switch the AC around, so my Birthright campaign will live again!) AND the two core books only set me back $40. When it comes to needing my old school adventuring fix, I’m set for the forseeable future…
Fian3 | June 13, 2008 at 11:41 am | Reply
I’m just a young player — I discovered RPGs only two years ago. But I had been a huge MMORPG fan for a couple years before that. Completely different experiences, and different groups of friends who gather to play. I love that D&D lets me create a character I can mold and guide; 4e seems really restrictive and seems to mimick my online gaming experiences. If I want to play an MMORPG, I will. I don’t want to waste my time duplicating that experience around a table with a pen and paper. Our group has decided to continue with 3e for the foreseeable future.
nix4 | June 13, 2008 at 1:22 pm | Reply
Dungeons and Dragons Online didn’t change the game in order for better online play.
Honestly, Neverwinter Nights does a better job of sticking to the rules that DDO just arbitrarily uses at a whim. DDO is such a diversion from the ruleset that I don’t think it should carry the label honestly. But as long as they have kobolds I guess its ok.
Could DnD be put into a computer game and still follow the rules. Absolutely. Why they dont do it? Marketing and Money. DUH!
There are applications like Fantasy Grounds out there that let you play the pnp game over the internet w/o sacrificing. Great product, only downside is its slower than a live game because some people go afk.
There is allot of heat about 4e going around and my 2cp is that its too great of a diversion of what my vision is for fantasy. Giving a fighter magical abilities like the kind found in book of the nine swords is too much. Its now being turned into moreso into hack n slash game and less role playing and problem solving/character development.
Well WoTC needs to make money too right? Thus Marketing…
Taigen | June 15, 2008 at 12:36 pm | Reply
I disagree with your review on most of its points. Yes given the first 3 books out, its hard to run ‘classic’ games due to changes in the races/classes (though classes change so much between every edition that if you can’t get over the fact that your sorceror now is a warlock… your missing the point). Its not to hard to look at the back of the MM to get your classic races though, and noone says you have to let eladrin and dragonborn in your temple of elemental evil…
As to whineing about squares… a square is still 5’… I know adding 5 and 5 can be difficult sometimes.. but really, is it so bad?
On to vanceian… how was this not completely a game balanceing mechanic. How did you rp off suddenly forgetting spells cause you cast them… Fighter asks “why can’t you cast fireball again’.. oh its just to tireing.. METEOR SWARM.. Fighter ” woah.. that was huge… thought you were tired?
The vancian system was also flawed in terms of game balance. Most DMs didn’t run 10 some encounters per day to actually run a mid-high level wizard out of spells, so the idea that haveing a limited amount of vastly more powerfull abilities balanced you to another class that had unlimited use of less powerful abilities was flawed logic. There was never a time for the fighter to shine, cause the wizard always had a few spells left that overshadowed his most powerfull abilities.
4e fixed so much that the few things it lost along the way (and you can bet we will see them again after a few more books) can be easily forgiven. 4e is a huge step forward, and just cause it used a few things from MMOs that btw work very well to have both the feeling of power without it getting out of hand, doesn’t mean its ripping anything off. Many more RPGs then WOW have these same dynamics, and all WotC has done is make them work for pen and paper as well.
D&D still has something MMOs will never have, and thats the freedom to do whatever you want whenever you want in the game. Thats what makes 4e ten times better then WOW, and why I will be playing it instead of hideing from your level 69 priest.
Zachary D Smith | June 15, 2008 at 5:36 pm | Reply
My impressions after starting my new campaign setting in 4E:
– combat is fluid, interesting and FAST
– there is far less paperwork to do as a DM
– things get a little ‘arcadey’ at times in combat..
In practice, here’s the comparison of my old 3/3.5 sessions to 4e. A 3.5 session would usually be one combat encounter which ate up the entire session, then meager time for plot advancement. At higher levels, we had encounters span more than one session, especially if the cleric or wizard had to fill out the dozens of spell islots prior. Vancian magic is a sacred cow that had to go. However, in 4E, combat goes so fast that we can have hours of NPC conversation, mysteries solved, lands explored, and still have several encounters.
Also: minions are the best thing ever to happen to the game! Hordes upon hordes of goblins crashing against you in a wave! Zombies roaming the countryside in huge groups! And I don’t have to freakin’ track their hp!
adamflux | June 15, 2008 at 9:11 pm | Reply
4E *is* indeed a different game from 3, and there are a lot of people with mixed thoughts on it. Here’s my take.
4E is a heavily developed combat system lacking in nearly any roleplay rules of any kind, it’s written in the context of dungeon delving and combat, so things like craft are absent. Even paladins, long hamstrung by the LG alignment, are no longer so restricted. (And that’s neither good or bad, it creates all new concepts for how the class works, bane can have paladins and we don’t have to create a blackgaurd for it. just change the flavor.)
I’m not happy about being bound to grids, but I have to admit that the combat spices up when the classes participate together with their abilities, and the grids do achieve the goal of simplified battles.
My friends and I have played a three hour session, and I’ll tell you what, the only thing that changed in any dramatic way was the combat.
Since there are no heavy roleplaying rules (and mind you this is playing without the DMG) we were able to have a game very similar to the one I remembered from all theses years. Outside of combat, everything was as it was, we were hunting for food and the others helped me with my nature check, and that was the only other real rule that we ran into, and it was blessedly easier than 3E, a simple over 10 rule. In short, we spent two and a half hours roleplaying and about 30 minutes in a single combat (by the end of which everyone understood how to play among a group of almost all newbies, a first for me).
Now it’s true what you all say, combat is not as it was. However, I think you’ll find that- if you actually sit down and hear the game out- combat feels more like FF Tactics than world of warcraft. And this works out in fun ways. There’s nothing to keep you from doing all the things we loved before except boundaries that I see you creating for yourselves. For example, Fey Step has a 5 square teleport range. There are trees on the Shadowfell encounter maps. There is absolutely no rule saying that I am bound to the 2d map, or even to think in squares, but nearly everyone seems to be locked into that mindset already. The grids are tools to simplify distance and effect, not the be all and end all of what the world looks like, not a cage for your characters. So I teleported into a tree to throw spells from, and the kobolds were confounded. Later on, we had a conversation with a sage, and I ended up teleporting again (old man who never shuts up type) and later on yet I ended up using prestidigitation to foul the beer of a sour tavern wench. All the same stuff I was doing before, except that I can use magic more regularly, which is a taste issue. If the DM wanted me to use magic less frequently, we could actually do some cool roleplaying, like the people being afraid of the otherworldly powers rather than saying “Oh well, he’s thrown around two fireballs, he can’t have too many more, no need to call the guard.”
It’s true, 4E doesn’t give you much in the way of roleplaying, but if you really are so dedicated to roleplay, you’ll remember that we don’t need rules for it, and that you can carry on just fine.
As for character customization, 3E was originally pretty shallow on the point. It’s unfair to compare the two on that because all your basing off of is the multitude of supplements that have risen over the years. In the beginning, 3E was a shadow next to 2E Players Option, today, there are more 3E player supplements with optional rules than ever in the hobby.
Don’t be bound to letting so-called professional game designers (who you all seem pissed at anyway) to bind you into ways of thinking and being creative that come only out of published works. To create Thil Thalad (tolkien fan) of the Winter Winds, I took a wizard, and defied their template, changed some spell descriptors (with DM approval) and came up with a level one frost mage who was a hell of a lot of fun to play. When you stop thinking “this class is for AOE and this spell is for single target” and start thinking “yeah, ice powers!” that sort of thing happens. I changed the Acid Arrow spell to a freeze arrow (“The kobold falls to the ground as a gathering layer of frost emanating from the icy arrow covers it’s shivering body”), and renamed all my spells with more interesting names, (ray of frost became Blades of the Winter Wind) and around the character my DM and I have evolved the idea of the Wizards of the Winter Winds, a secluded school of frost mages living deep in the feywild, commanded by a gheale of winter sorceress and seer.
As with the beginning of 3E, there are no options forbidden to you, the books that hand you ideas on a platter simply haven’t been written yet, and if your either willing to wait for those supplements or – god forbid- do something creative yourselves, I think you’ll find that you can have the same experience as before. Backwards compatibility? I thought you didn’t want a video game clone and we’re using catchphrases that came out with the PS2.
You wanna play a monk? What’s to keep you from renaming fighter skills and applying them to unarmed damage? What keeps your wizard from spending time and effort- a roleplaying function- researching the ritual to summon a familiar? Want a craft skill? Is your pencil broken or your character sheet just full? Back in my 2E days, we had to do all this kind of tweaking as well, it just took another twenty minutes where here it’s three. The point I am trying to make here is that the edition is not a failure in that it is a poor design, but rather that it is being compared to over ten years of predecessor by an audience got lazy in the wealth of ideas-on-a-plate, which 3E also had to compete with, except at that time, everyone was so desperate to get away from THAC0 that it didn’t matter. The difference here is that 3E is a perfectly viable system that is still fun to play, however 4E provides a quicker game in terms of mechanics, and if you’re interested in getting through the dice and into the story quicker, there you are. 3E has the advantages of a vast library of supplements, and highly detailed and customizable description system with with many are familiar, so if you want that gritty detail instead of fast and loose rules with more story, then have at it.
It seems to me that the majority of complaints are coming from rules lawyers who have read the books from cover to cover without actually sitting down to play. Yes, you horrible creatures of the dark, a whole new rule set will keep your wolf pack off us art-players for a while, and even when you do get it all memorized, this edition isn’t complex or arcane enough for you to spend twenty minutes debating the benefits and requirements of flanking with us anymore. Flanking happens in ways that are dramatically appropriate and mechanically simple. And the Wish ritual works however I want it to. ha ha.
Last, no matter what you think of the other things I’ve said here, one point I’m going to be very clear on, and that’s art complaints. This is supposed to be a community of creative, imaginative individuals, cookie cutter thinking like that is what makes white-wolf-only gamers scoff at d&ders. If your imaginations bind you to the illustration of a monster drawn in a book, then clearly an MMO where they all look alike is where you belong, where other people dictate the world and it’s creatures to you. If you still want willowy forest women for dryads, then you may still see that in your minds eye- if you can.
And for the record, when it came out, I made all the same defenses for 3E, “you don’t need Players Option and granted powers to do excorsim, just say that your turn undead applies to demons.”
bananular | June 16, 2008 at 11:56 am | Reply
it seems to me there’s a lot of “AAWWWRGGGHHHHHH I HATE 4E BLARGH YOU SHOULD TOO GRAAHHHHH” going on here, first of all, and I think the asshats who figure it’s their job to tell everyone how to play dungeons and dragons need to get off their high horses and look at this from a new player/old, bored player perspective. if you’re dissatisfied with 3e, 4e is a much better alternative to look at. it’s faster, easier to pick up and play, you don’t have to spend hours planning your dungeons out only to have the pcs say “hey, lets go through this happy forest” and ignore the crap out of all of your hard work. seriously, me and my buddy cameron got on the phone with a couple of friends last night at like 9:00 with NOTHING to start up a session, and by 10:30 we had 6 characters, four dungeons, and an entire adventure planned. we were finally done, after hours of laughter and fun, by about 4am. and you know what? only one player in the group had been playing dungeons and dragons for more than a month. that adventure kicked so much more ass than what any of the people in my game had come up with during the whole duration of our 3.5 experience. honestly, we kinda suck at the whole rules-learning stuff. we weren’t certain after two weeks how to make a 3.5 character, much less an adventure. I freakin dmed a 5-hour session last night that gave us so much joy, and I picked up the rulebooks and read for an hour in prep time.
so maybe you hate 4e because it’s not d&d. maybe it betrays some crucial part of 3.0 or 3.5 that you loved. but if you say to yourself, “hey, this is fun, let’s play a different game!” 4th edition is undefeatable as a fun, person-to-person sort of game that the impersonal, mechanical, “cyber-sex”-esque computer game just can’t match. it retains the interaction, without all the hassle of rules crunches, and yet gives you a speedy, easy to understand format to express what you’re doing without needing a computer screen to tell you or an apparently shitty dm to fail at attempting to help you roleplay. plus, it clearly took you guys less than a week to learn the rules so deeply inside-and-out that you can make educated complaints, so either you have too much free time or it really is ridiculously easy to learn and play 😉
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So if you don’t like 4e, you’re an Asshat, hm?
It’s great that you think 4e ROXXORZ!1!, but no need to get your knickers in a twist and get insulting because there are those of us who dislike the paradigm shift from ‘the original fantasy RPG’ to CCG/MMO/BG for the ‘Kewl Powerz’ set or whatever paradigm WotC have shifted the brand over to now.
The whole point made in this blog entry is not whether the game is ‘better/worse’ than’ or ‘more/less difficult’ or even ‘fun/not fun.’
The point made is that it is not a game that depends heavily on verisimiltude and role-play, but rather a game that depends on being ‘balanced to the Nth Degree’ and havign lots of minitures to move around. One example of this design philosophy: most of the ‘powers’ make no sense in a role-playing environment and seem to exist solely to facilitate moving minatures about in a neat way.
Not only that but the powers are all pretty much the same in everything but name and the classes have all been blanded out in the name of ‘making everyone as equal as possible in combat.’ It’s like the RPG version of communism.
I accept the fact that others might find this fun. I don’t and niether do many others. Enough ‘others,’ in fact, to make me wonder if WotC might have misunderstood the ramifications of trying to draw in people who would rather sit and just play a MMO, let the computer do all the hard work and just get down to the business of whacking things and going on ‘runs’ into ‘quest areas,’ while alienating the older players who make up the lions share of their niche market.
I played 3e until I saw the direction it was going and 3.5 pretty much hung it up for me. I thought I’d get into 4e, but then I read the books and said, ‘This isn’t D&D to me, this is a bloody videogame that makes me do all the work.’
No thanks, I’ll stick to WFRP and C&C. If I want to play a minatures game, I’ll stick to WFB or any number of boardgames in my closet and if I want to be part of the vidiot generation, I’ll start a WoW account, but there’s no way I’m spending $100 on psuedo-D&D…
Taigan:
Just thought I’d enter my two cents in here on this. For starters, there are such things as “material components”, which, once they are exhausted, casting the spell is impossible. You could use that theory and say “you’re out of bat guano.” Or however you spell it…the primary component for Fireball. I forget what the material component for Meteor Swarm is, but I’m sure it’s much more than batsh*t.
But, since there are spells with no material components, I take it one step further. All mages carry two spell books: a reference book which is huge and bulky, and a combat one, which is small and magical. When he ‘memorizes’ spells, what he does instead is casts the spell into his magical book, which uses a page. Script appears on the page, and allows the caster to read it out, loosing its magical power on unsuspecting people. He also prepares his material components in a pouch on his belt, for easy access. His level (and previous experience) tells him how many spells should be sufficient for one day. Thus, a first level (and quite naive) mage would think a single first level spell sufficient, while a 20th level (and highly experienced mage) would prepare more.
This idea even works in 3e and 3.5e with wizards getting more spells per level than in 2e, since it’s intelligence based. A smarter wizard would prepare more than a less intelligent wizard.
There are ways a good DM can justify Vanceian spell casting, and have it make sense.
Applecrow88 | June 19, 2008 at 1:57 pm | Reply
“4e Brings Balance! Now the other classes have a chance to shine!”
Sorry, if you are letting the mage do all the work you are not playing your class to the hilt. Make called shots, pull off crazy stunts. I play Hackmaster (KenzerCo.) and the fighter rogue in our party could totally waste my druid/mage if he wanted to. Not because of rules, or powers, or munchkin uber-builds; because he effin knows how to play his character to the hilt. If we were on an adventure and i blew all my spells every 2-3 encounters and then begged for a rest, the party would spike me in a room and continue on. If this is how you are playing and whining about batman mages then its not the ruleset thats the problem. 4e simply gives everyone an excuse to blow their dailies and encounters, spike themselves in the room and rinse repeat.
Balance? The new Wraith is nothing but a block of pulp stats and abilities, now that save v. die is gone (4e players are cowards, there i said it). I remember back when the logical answer to coming across a Wraith was to effin run. By the way, RAW it is better in 4e to let a wraith kill you. Seriously. “Whenever a Humanoid is slain by a (x type)wraith it is raised as a FREE-WILLED (x type) wraith on its creator’s next turn.” WTF so now i have a good reason to seek out wraiths and get killed by one. Now i have undead bonus’, some new at will abilities, and because monsters can be leveled now and i’m free willed, i’ll just keep on truckin. Sweet now i’m an xp-mine, because every monster i get killing blow on creates another monster in its place. Or, as a DM, i have the BBEG Kobold Shaman bind a wraith, now when the party shows up i have it kill my own loyal minions and voila, TPK.
I seriously believe that the designers of 4e deliberately castrated the wizard just to laugh at him. All of the iconic spells of earlier editions are pathetic. They shouldn’t have even left cloudkill and disintegrate in with the way they trashed them.
KnightQC | June 19, 2008 at 8:29 pm | Reply
I’ve been playing 2nd edition for a long time (never went to 3rd, didn’t like it) and I think 4th looks great.
What I disliked about 2nd edition was the level vs power of classes… Level 1 to 6-7, warrior were THE rulers. If you had a warrior in the group, he was the one dealing damage. Level 9 to 18 was now mage level, where the spells got so strong it was a joke. There was also a flaw with THACO vs AC, where player could pick stuff and hit EASILY a lot of monsters at level 8-9.
For 3rd edition, only experience I had is NWN2, which had me take a LONG text file to make a good rogue/assassin build. This is a matter of taking the right level at the right time with the right skill to own. I’m not a “I WANNA BE UBER” player and hate people doing it, so 3rd edition is out.
In 4th edition, every classe is strong at every level. Players doesn’t die from 1 attack at level 1 if they are unlucky. Taking skill is easy and you can’t combine bonuses to OWN EVERYONE. There is a LOT of combat options (warrior doesn’t have to attack with weapon, attack with weapon, attack with weapon)…
I bought the book and will play that edition for sure 🙂 I think it’s a new D&D that everyone will adapt with their way of playing.
Songwind | June 19, 2008 at 8:50 pm | Reply
I have been playing / DM’ing for around 25 years now and remember the red box fondly. That said, I would rather retire than play 4E.
Hilli | June 23, 2008 at 2:00 am | Reply
It’s the incompatibility issue that bothers me most. What will I tell my players in an FR campaign when they want to play a dragon born? What about the gnome PCs? Do they just vanish?
Are there any conversion rules at all?
This is the least successful D&D project since a certain cartoon series …
See my 4E review “Everyone’s A Wizard Now” at
http://www.evilhell.net/?p=635
Shadai | June 25, 2008 at 3:20 pm | Reply
I find whats the most interesting is not really the review, or the posters opinions. Its the ever living, breathing, crying, dying, drama, love, hate, backlash that is the internet’s worldwide soapbox.
I mean really people.
4E sucks cause its different from 3e.
If thats all you got, go back to 3.5. You know, the version they didn’t have right the first time, so that they could sell you all the same books with minor rules tweaks. You know, when the rules tweaks that by themselves weren’t enough to warrant the next jump. You remember the drama. I’m sure you can search the net for all the whining, crying and bitching by EVERYONE and their brothers about having to buy all the books over again and this is not fair and blah blah, WotC die of VD and rot in hell.
Damn. Does nothing satisfy you?
Worse then that is all the fools who get on here to bitch and moan about nothing. You don’t like it? Fine. Fix it. Make up your own rules. Pencil in your own names for abilities. Wait for them to release more supplemental books. Or don’t. Go back to 3.5 where you can make your super-tricked-out-character-and-bend-the-rules-to-your-will. Just don’t come here bitching about how you happened to roll a 1 and got killed by a save-or-die effect. Cause that helps foster good RP when the character you’ve spent so much time, energy and experience on just up and dies without asking. Very rude.
Personally, I like most of the changes. I like that rogues are now ACTUALLY useful against undead. Or that every class has a heal mechanic but it doesn’t take away the usefulness of a cleric. Or that the fighter can actually tank so the mobs don’t just ignore him or I as the DM have to ROLL A DIE to figure out who the random fool is that is about to be attacked by the bout of randomness the monster is suddenly experiencing.
That doesn’t mean I like them all. I personally don’t like the removal of gnomes as a player race. But the funny thing is, I CAN STILL PLAY THEM. Oddly enough they still appear in the back of the Monsterous Manuel.
So my advice is to not listen to me or anyone else for that matter. Look it over yourself, then make your own informed decision. Cause any character that lets themselves be railroaded is the fault of both the idiot who feels he has the real pulse of the situation going on, and the other guy for listening.
Enjoy 4E! Or not. Whatever you decide.
mxyzplk | June 25, 2008 at 4:25 pm | Reply
@Shadai – the main problem with your line of reasoning is that it assumes D&D is the only RPG in existence. It’s not.
4e isn’t bad because it’s “different” from 3e. It does, however, make design and implementation decisions that are bad IMO.
Someone should only spend time fixing up 4e if that’s likely to be better than just using some other game – 3e, a 3e variant like pathfinder, or another game altogether (Savage Worlds, Eldritch, etc).
Sure, I encourage everyone to make up their own mind, but I think it’s a little retarded to say “Buy all three books, then play them for months, then make up your mind!” That’s a used car salesman’s dream pitch. How about I do some logical analysis first to see if it’s good enough to even try out?
Actually, it doesn’t. Read Carefully.
If you don’t like D&D, don’t play it. Play whatever your heart desires. If L5R is your bag, who am I to bash it? If you really like World of Darkness, Why would I come out and try to convince you not to like it?
If you don’t want to “Fix” it, as you suggest, then don’t. Play something else. Play 3E. I don’t care. Neither does anyone else.
1. I’m not a used car salesman (my poor attempt at humor, sorry)
2. I never said that. Once. Not even close.
3. Logical analysis does not include listening to random people’s opinion. What qualifies the random person’s rants and thoughts? Who are they to bash/praise the book? What makes them know more then someone else? No one stops to think of these things. Listen to people you trust, or, better yet, read it yourself. If you don’t want to go and buy the books, borrow them from a friend. Or steal em from the net. Whatever blows your skirt up.
I welcome your opinion as to you thinking the design is bad. Fine. Just don’t try to tell everyone that you are right and everyone else is wrong. That’s not logical analysis. That’s not even a good opinion. Its the same crap that pervades the internet that makes this such a soapbox for everyone to bitch about nothing.
Besides, its just like the internet, all cycles. First there is a buzz about how awesome something is, then its released and the backlash/bashing begins as everyone thinks it sucks, then like a few months later everyone backlashes the backlash and its “not as bad as everyone thought”.
If you think I’m making commentary about 4e, read carefully. 4e is just the medium I’m using to make a larger, more interesting point that your missing entirely.
If you don’t think people should share their analyses and opinions of things, why the hell are you reading someone’s blog anyway?
Anyway, I like to think my opinions in my 4e writeups are fairly well reasoned. “Opinion” does not mean “arbitrary.” We all choose the people we trust, and often in this Internet age we choose to trust people on the Net whose inclinations seem to be similar to ours and whose analyses seem cogent.
Anyway, it’s a silly argument to have, because by your reasoning you shouldn’t be posting Internet comments trying to get people to listen to you either. “My opinion is that people shouldn’t listen to your opinion because opinions are worthless!” is a pretty old and wearisome logical fallacy.
Endgamer | June 26, 2008 at 5:19 am | Reply
I like D&D 4th edition. It is not perfect, however it is fun. I ran 3.5 edition a while back with an evil campaine and burnt myself out on D&D altogether.
I had a group of 6 people together from level 3 to level 24 and after a while combat and the likes just got tedious. I had fighters making 5 attacks. Wizards with spells that required somewhere in lue of 20 D6s to roll.
4th edition has got me playing D&D again. While the faces have changed I don’t think its terrible. I have never shoved myself into one realm or another in terms of D&D realms like forgotten realms and it’s ilk. I take everything and make it my own. So its overarching line makes little diffrence to me. I like to read what they are doing with it but then I go off and dream my own stuff up instead.
Abilities are a bit combat thick with little outside of it, but now I can have a fighter with skills. Not just the few points I desperately put into spot to make sure I’m not ambushed. I can have knowledge skills and what not to show my character has been fairly worldly.
Lastly I like some of the shoving and knock back rules. In some cases they make sense. My halfling rogue is not going to be able to muscle an orc into that pit trap (let alone an ogre) however I can force him into it through combat positioning and the right kind of feints.
While I dislike things that force me to use a game board to keep track of things I still use a gameboard for combat in almost every other system I run. Its easier to keep up with combat positions and show room sizes. The imagination is what fills in the rest.
All and all I give it a thumbs up. Combat is fun though a board is basically required. I like the skill system. Much broader and less inhibiting by class then it was in the past. Give it a whirl. It’s not the best it could be but having played many RPG systems since I was 12 I can certainly say its far from the worst.
Bill Castello | June 27, 2008 at 10:34 am | Reply
I wrote a pretty long rant about DnD 4e on my blog, where I try to characterize the 4E haters. They’re generally, the min-maxers, the 40 year old virgins and the folks who missed the point all along. To me, the best part about 4E is the idea that it boils down to roleplaying again. Gne is the ability to make the wu-jen/ninja/anti-paladin/sorceror who wears plate. Now, you have to RP a little bit. Build a bridge and get over it.
The 2E holdouts are my faves. have a good read, enjoy!
http://web.mac.com/phantomtbird/Sloth_Central_v5.1/The_Raving_Rant/Entries/2008/6/13_Dungeons_%26_Dragons%2C_4th_Edition.html
Epic Healer | June 27, 2008 at 5:09 pm | Reply
I have all the core books. I am enjoying reading them but I agree with many of you. This is not D&D, AD&D or anything close to it. This actually is a new game. I still have all my old D&D and AD&D books from 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Ed. and I think, in the end, I will be going back to the ol’ 2ed. I liked it better. I was always the AD&D Variant guy. So, now that I have all these books, I have materials to pull from. The 4th ed. is fine for new players. Folks that never played before. For us experienced players, the old books are where I would go back to.
I forgot to comment on the Combat stuff. I do like how so many things are taken into account but in the end, I truly do HATE having to figure out so many bits and pieces. Give me a few numbers and my dice. If there are some numbers to add, then my question to the player will be simple. ” what is the magical bonus your item gives you?”. heh heh
Thegreenman | July 2, 2008 at 8:28 pm | Reply
This has been an interesting read, especially the comments. I’m a very long time intermittent D&D player. I must admit I still have nostalgic reverence for 1e. That’s what drew me to Castles and Crusades. it brings back the old feel without the min/maxing.
I never enjoyed 3e as the rules were too tedious. The munchkins and rules lawyers drove me mad.
having just bought the 4e phb yesterday and creating two characters last night, I agree that this isn’t D&D, it may be what some people
are looking for, but not me. IMO They should have called it Draconics and Demonics.
The good thing is that now there are so many good alternatives out there. Castles and Crusades, Pathfinder, Epic rpg, Lejendary Adventure, True20 and even the old guys Gurps and Rolemaster. If you like the new D&D fine, if not move on, I did.
Luther | July 2, 2008 at 10:18 pm | Reply
The real problem isn’t ‘moving on.’ The real problem is reading a review in which an authour doesn’t like the game or simply commenting that you’d prefer to spend your money on and play something else. God forbid it shouldn’t be to your taste, because you’ll get ripped a new one in the comments section as the 4e cheering section takes you apart. They’re like friggin’ piranha.
Really. And it’s usually the same lot shouting down anyone who disagrees with the idea that 4e was handed down from WotC like the Ten Commandments from God.
The game isn’t D&D anymore and the game that is there isn’t really any different from Descent, outside of the fact that Descent is easier to play and comes with an assload of models, dungeon tiles, cards and other material, and all for cheaper than the three core books (which now require minis and dungeon tiles to play properly as wel las a tone of notecards to keep track of al lthe friggin powers). Considering that, and the fact that the 4e fanatics are so odious I’ve been totally put off of the idea of anything with the D&D label, I’d rather get Descent and Road to Legends instead…
alias | July 7, 2008 at 12:18 pm | Reply
I’m going to quote what I wrote on Bill Castello’s blog:
“2nd remains my favourite but you know what? That’s actually mostly because of the wide mix of different settings. Planescape, Dark Sun, Spelljammer, Ravenloft, Birthright, and even goddamn Mystara. I’m a settings whore. I liked 3rd Edition alright as well, even though I never actually played it, I kept up with some of the books and have a few friends who used it. I liked how it updated some things (wizards can now HOLD swords) while keeping a lot of the flavour, mythology and cosmology intact, even if they did gut Planescape.
I tried 4th Edition a few weeks ago and it just doesn’t seem to have as much personality to me. It’s not the rules changes that turned me off really (although I didn’t like certain things, like marking) it’s what I saw as an almost complete removal of the old school flavour that I liked. It’s not a big deal to me though, I still have my books and I can look at them and play a game set in Greyhawk or Sigil or Taladas anytime I want to.
And hey, I like new editions of many RPGs myself. I liked the Rifts Ultimate Edition (even if it was not really a new edition, more like D&D 3.5) I like the new(er? is it still being supported?) Pendragon much more than the old one. In fact the only other game where I completely do not like the new edition is White Wolf’s WoD, and that’s also for flavour/setting reasons.
Enjoy 4th Edition, I’m glad you do, and you doing it doesn’t spoil my fun.”
Basically I think a lot of the people who don’t like 4th Edition just don’t like the new flavour.
Dave | July 31, 2008 at 10:36 am | Reply
Spot on – the best critique yet of 4.0 from an older, experienced gamer who knows the previous editions of Dnd well. I second this line of thought. I agree completely with the original post. I almost thought “Did I write this, lol”
FYI: For my DND gaming Im going with either pathfinder or 3.5 with monte cooks book of experimental might. If I want to play WOW, Ill play WOW online, not with books………
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Wraith | August 7, 2008 at 3:12 pm | Reply
4th ed. is just another RPG with a D&D logo plastered on it. I’ve never in my 28 years of playing rpg’s picked up a rules set and thought “Hey this is perfect!”. I’ve always tweaked the rules to suit my desires and am doing the same with 4th ed. Am I going to shelve my 3.5 books? No. But I’m not going to soil myself over the complete rewrite in 4th ed. either. It’s just another game to have fun with. Play what you want and stop being a bunch of pissy babies.
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Cadis | November 10, 2008 at 3:52 pm | Reply
This is why i’m going to attempt to create DnD 3.9
I play a pen and paper RPG, because it ISN’T A COMPUTER GAME THAT IS BASED ON CODE AND NOT ON IMAGINATION.
Sadras | January 8, 2009 at 4:02 am | Reply
I’m from South Africa and I have been playing DnD for 20 years now, using as a basis the Mystara setting – mostly DMing and this is my take as well as the others of my crew:
4E rules are actually quite good – (we’ve played). Its actually a lot more solid than 3.5, it requires less tweaking. As for the Gnomes and other classes – they’re coming out be patient (and as someone already mentioned they’re in the MM at the back).
The main issue most experienced gamers have with the new edition is 1) that not enough time has passed since the last edition – we havent had our fill – we’re still enjoying the multitude of options we have available from 3.5 – we as players havent had the time to try out even 50% of all that has been released and already a new edition with new look is upon us. 2) the new system is that completely new, not an update or an improvement but a fresh variant system with an old name. We’re not used to it – resistance to change is understandable 3) and with point 2 is the fact that the new system doesnt support all the dnd literature that came before it – the novels, the settings…etc Everything we grew up with – can you imagine Raistlin in 4E. Difficult!
In my opinion 2nd Edition had the soul of DnD with a system that required much needed tweaking, but the spirit of DnD was strong with rich detailed classes and monsters. 3 and 3.5 was an improved system which eventually lost the plot with their over commercial zealousness – and its too much room for lawyering and combat time, but still maintained the fun aspect, 4E is balanced, simplified and scientific – and it encourages co-op and synergy between players like never before (in combat), its greatest flaw is that it is the creation of a souless cold system of WoW one which a DnD player of old can never align to – even though the mechanics work fine.
4E is arrogant in that it ignores all previous fantasy literature – it doesnt compliment, it stands alone, yet it is classified as DnD.
The system is good but different, Im still quietly developing a 3.5 4E mix played with the soul of 2nd Ed. Wish me luck!
hitnrun | February 2, 2009 at 11:32 pm | Reply
“if you’re dissatisfied with 3e, 4e is a much better alternative to look at. it’s faster, easier to pick up and play”
If you can honestly say that 4E is faster than…well, anything you can think of, God bless you.
About the only thing that’s fast about 4E for anyone of my experience is learning the rules, and that’s because there’s only one rule and it’s “try to remember all the modifiers applying to you this round before you roll”.
Anonymous | February 6, 2009 at 6:58 am | Reply
Just had to post with a comment to Applecrow that if your group really could beat the druid/mage (what a terrible choice of classes btw) that the druid/mage is a complete idiot. You are also an idiot if you’d just ‘spike’ a character for wanting to rest, and for wanting to be killed by a wraith. You’re a bad roleplayer.
Oh and most of you are grognards with no imagination. I said it.
Most Games Have a Purpose | February 9, 2009 at 12:21 pm | Reply
Wow for MMORPGS
D&D 1, 2 or 3 for roleplay
Puerto Rico/ Power Grid for boardgames
D&D 4e for scrappers to recycle the paper for worthy games
Ron Ferraro | February 26, 2009 at 1:51 pm | Reply
Speaking as a gamer since the 1st edition, and a retailer who earns a living from the sale of RPG products, 4e to me is a failure in all respects. The best thing to come of 4e is that all my OOP 3.5 books started selling like hotcakes. Scratch that.. nobody really knows what that means in sales figures; 3.5 books started selling like Cabbage Patch Kids in December of 1985. Now I’m all sold out, can’t get any more, and I got only 4e books coming out and sitting unsold on the shelf, looking forlorn. I actually had a girl come in a couple weeks ago, buy a 4e DM’s Guide, then bring it back later that day saying its not the one she wanted. She didn’t know the difference at first, but then she said she wanted the “old one.” Luckily, I found a distributor that had 5 copies of the 3.5 DMG left, and I was able to snatch them all up. She’s happy now, and I sold two more 3.5 DMGs just yesterday. 4e books just sit.
Now, as a DM, I absolutely loathed running last year’s Worldwide D&D Game Day with 4e. Hobgoblins with 38 hit points? It seriously took an hour and a half to resolve one encounter with 4 1st level characters against two hobgoblins. Miss, miss, miss, hit, 4 damage (everybody still has 20+ hp left), someone starts to get low on life, healing surge, everybody’s full again, hobgoblin misses, hobgoblin gets hit, he takes 6 damage, he’s at 28 now, miss, miss, miss… yawn, yawn, snore.
This is how it should go: Quick! Roll initiative and get the drop on them! Fighter swings first, takes off one hobgob’s arm; that’s what I call a disarm attempt!~ The wizard drops a daze cantrip on the other one so the cleric can grapple him without suffering an AOO, and the cleric then holds down the gobby while the rogue lays down the coup de grace. Whimpering and moaning, the one-armed hobglob tries to make a run for it, but the fighter whips out a throwing axe and lobs it at the back of his head, shattering his skull. One round- OVER. Next!
What they did was try to make 1st through third levels more interesting by beefing everything up, when all they really did was make you spend more time fighting stupid hobgoblins and orcs. We all know that what we really want to do is kill beholders and ride on the backs of dragons, so the quicker we get to that point, the happier we’ll all be.
Also, the 4e wizard is about as intelligent as a bag of hammers. So the party stops at a deep, narrow gorge that can’t easily be crossed, it’s just too far to jump, about 30 feet wide. The wizard says, “I think I have a spell for this,” and he promptly casts Freezing Cloud. “Hmm… cold doesn’t seem to work on this gorge, perhaps a Flaming Sphere will do the trick.” Fwoosh! nothing. “Egad! This gorge is similarly immune to fire! Perhaps if I put it to sleep first…” sleep spell, “There. That seems to have done the trick. It’s completely docile now, captain. With a utility jump spell I can even add a square to your movement, should you dare to leap across. Of course you’ll need to already have the ability to leap 5 squares on your own…”
“What is a square, wizard? What are these obscure measurements you riddle me with?”
4e is an excellent combat system that works. However, it is an excellent combat system that works outside of the realm of fantasy role-playing. In here, with our gamer’s imaginations, the system is too confining, too pre-optimized. There are character builds which just obviously work better than others, and those are the ones that will be used, over and over. Unfortunately, they are not based on any previous fantasy literature or even on any previous editions of D&D. These new archetypes, like the Dragonborn Warlord or the Tiefling Warlock seem more like classic villains than heroes of any kind. It’s hard to imagine characters like Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, Elric of Melnibone or even Elminster of Shadowdale ever fitting in with this edition.
Finally, the books seem to be written for morons: “Play a Dragonborn if you want… to look like a dragon.”
Wedge | February 26, 2009 at 2:30 pm | Reply
I hesitated to buy 4th edition, but I finally took the plunge and could not be happier. The rules are streamlined and consistent across the board. Once you “know” how to play 1 class then you know how to play them all. And I for one am completely and utterly happy that they “fixed” Wizards. They were so grossly underpowered at low levels and then overpowered to the point of ridiculousness in the upper levels in 3rd edition that I actually considered banning them from my game at one point because nobody wanted to play anything but.
To me, once we got passed the differences and just let the mechanics work, it felt more like it did when I was a kid leading my neighbors and brothers through the beginning adventure in the back of the blue book. The fun was back and the accounting system was gone.
I’ve played wow (and many other MMOGs) and yes it is quite interesting how many correlations can be drawn with that style of game. But I guess I might be in the minority as one who welcomes the evolution of D&D and is glad the “spreadsheet required” part is all gone now.
And aren’t you glad that there is zero mention of Drizz’t? I mean come on! Put that cow out to pasture already!
mxyzplk | February 27, 2009 at 3:10 pm | Reply
@Wedge – 4e lovers, 4e haters, that’s one thing we can all agree on. Death to Drizz’t.
Rancher!! | March 2, 2009 at 6:30 am | Reply
Hey, I might as well add my 2cp. Well, i do admit that the rules are optimized and that they are all balanced. However, at least for now, 4e lacks the customization of 3x. I as a GM find 4e too constraining and while all the classes are balanced, the casting classes lack the utility spells that once made them useful. 4e appears to be mainly combat-based.
Now, my group of players once went three full sessions in 3.5e without going into a single combat encounter. There are otehr times when the entire session is nothing but combat encounters. Though, we do tend to game for, roughly, 72 hours straight then crash and repeat it all again the next week.
We’ve recently started to play in the WoD. mostly as whatever we want to play as. While the D10 system is sleek in the fact that it can go into any setting and make any character you want and still be balanced, it lacks the fine details that 3.5e had and 3.5e lacks the sleek balance of 4e. No system is perfect, just find one that suites yourself and be done with it.
3.5e Rulez!
none | March 3, 2009 at 10:48 am | Reply
Wedge is an employee of WOTC, or a designer of the game. What a suckered little pu$$y.
4E is not D&D..and I hated it the moment the first details emerged. Most commentators know absolutely nothing about reviewing and said, “Oh this is great!” “Hey what a great idea” when it was anything BUT…makes me sick
Andy Bates | March 4, 2009 at 1:45 am | Reply
Wedge: “Once you ‘know’ how to play 1 class then you know how to play them all.”
Wait a second…and that is supposed to be a GOOD thing?? Whatever happened to different classes having different playstyles and abilities? Now with 4e, every class is the same. Sure, wizards have “spells” and fighters have “feats,” but they are all just the same thing with different names. They gave every character the equivalent of spells, so that every class is special. And when everyone is special, no one is.
Steve | March 4, 2009 at 3:20 pm | Reply
I hesitate to comment, since if “none” decides to jab back, I’ll inevitably be pointed to as a WotC spy (I’m not, I swear).
@Andy: No one class should be better than the others. That wasn’t the point in any edition. It’s why they gave wizards d4s for HPs in most editions and why in 4E they still get less for HPs, though it is harder to kill them at 1st level. There was never any grand plan that new players would play rogues and fighters, well-versed players would play mages/sorcerors and that the punk who started playing 3 sessions after everyone else got stuck being the cleric. Every edition has tried to make the classes more equitable, though not the same. I would argue that 4E has made them as equitable as possible, though I would concede that to many the classes now seem too similar and so now people don’t get to feel as special when they play the party mage.
Maybe they went too far. Maybe it doesn’t suck to be the fighter in the group now. To be honest, if you want a game to be universally played(as WotC should as a business), introducing a learning curve is not going to help. Thus the simplification (or over-simplification, if you prefer) of the rules.
In my opinion, play what you like to play. If 3.x floats your boat or even earlier editions, go nuts.
Andy Bates | March 4, 2009 at 3:44 pm | Reply
@Steve: Yes, the classes DO seem very similar now, which was my point. I have no problem with classes being balanced, with benefits and drawbacks to each. But they should at least FEEL different, and when every class has at-will spell-like powers, they all feel the same.
And again, I never thought that the difference between a fighter and a mage had to do with the expertise of the player. It had more to do with that player’s preferences and playstyle. Some people like to be the unstoppable juggernaut, while others prefer to be the glass cannon flinging magical energy around. But with 4e, everyone has those “special powers.”
And I’m sorry, but why do you need a special attack to (say) knock someone back with your shield? Whatever happened to role-playing? Whatever happened to, “Okay, I’m going to charge this guy with my shield and push him into a pit”? Marking, attacks of opportunity, healing surges…they all seem designed to make the system more gamey, and less fantasy-realistic. You shouldn’t need instructions printed on a card to figure out that you can charge someone.
tim jaeger | March 11, 2013 at 7:13 pm | Reply
“You shouldn’t need intstructions printed on a card to figure out that you can charge someone.” True, but does the DM’s job become easier when there are instructions on how to resolve that attempt? Sure any experienced DM would be able to handle that situation without any hard-coded mechanical answer (more probably a soft coded one of her own designing), but does having that backtop make it simpler to jump into DMing? I think so.
And maybe that’s a two edged sword. As wealth and the means of production become more concentrated in the hands of the few, so does a larger percentage of the world become consumers. I think an analagous situation may be occuring (though lagging temporally behind) in the ability to create imagistically in the minds of people. In other words, perhaps fewer and fewer people are capable or willing DMs while more are fitting the profile of a player.
Why a two-edged sword, then? If we need more DMs then this 4e ruleset (which i have not read any of, i’m just basing this on the above comments), should serve to help people jump into DMing, with the mechanics of combat being quite spelled out. And in fact i think this is probably correct. More DMs mean more people who will learn to be good DMs, abandoning the mechanical constructions they may have initially seen as inescapable for their own _____s (be they mechanical, constructed, ethereal or otherwsie).
But so could it encourage people to become DMs just cuz they can. And that might lead to a lot of bad DMs who rely too much on the rules.
Personally, i like 2e and i find it a bit odd that 3e fans seem to be complaining that 4e “made things too balanced”. I guess i see the point that you want classes to feel unique. But the 3e multiclassing revolution was a big mechanics change to circumvent the powergaming possibilities afforded to 1e/2e human-dualclassers. No one ever forced anyone to level to 20 as a fighter (or to 9 or to 20 as a cleric) and then again to 20 as a magc-user, but powergaming forced out class being about style and characters being about character (from a game design standpoint, when marketing), and forced class selection to be about balance. Otherwise “everyone” would just the most combat and utility worthy min-max point and there would only be one class.
Anyway i’ve rambled about enough, i hope you find what you are looking for.
mxyzplk | March 4, 2009 at 4:42 pm | Reply
I do dislike how “the same” the classes are now. As a player, I don’t feel like I’m getting a different experience with a different one.
Also, isn’t learning curve one of the things people love about D&D? And World of Warcraft, for that matter? A lot of the satisfaction WoW players (I’m not hating, I was one of them) get is not from purely levelling and getting treasure, it’s from mastery – you start being a PvE noob, then you get decent at PvP, then you do endgame instances, then you get into raiding… I’m not saying it has to be that way in an RPG, but clearly historically D&D has traded on increasing skill (Gygax goes on about this for an uncomfortably long time in his book Role Playing Mastery).
Steve | March 5, 2009 at 11:24 am | Reply
I agree that there should be a learning curve, but most of that curve in previous editions were about picking your spells optimally. There was very little that the “martial” classes had in the way of neat things to do.
Also, since mages could develop their own spells and there were a million and two spells in both the PHB and other books (e.g. Tome of Magic), mages ceased to be glass cannons since they could make themselves immune to damage (stone skin) and increase their armour as well (several different spells did this).
Last minor point: Any character in 4E can just shove someone. It’s called “Bull Rush”. The difference is that a fighter with “Tide of Iron” can do that AND do damage. Why? Because they’re better at hitting people with shields and doing more than just shoving them. After more than 20 sessions of 4E so far, my players aren’t complaining about how their characters all feel the same, they’re mainly worried about what they’re doing in the setting, which is how I like it.
Anyway, I’m not discounting your points. They’re very valid. I’m just not experiencing that with my game and no one has complained about the game system so far… although it does seem strange that warlords can use “inspiring word” on themselves 🙂
Well, I agree that the martial classes needed spiffing up with something to do. Heck, I’m a Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords fan. In fact, it’s weird, when they were starting to talk about 4e and said “More like ToB, and Star Wars Saga!” I thought, “Boss!” But it just seems like what each class can do with their powers becomes so much more interchangeable.
The Pathfinder approach with the barbarian rage abilities and whatnot seems to me to give a lot more martial options without making each class more “the same.” Just from reading the 4e PHB it seemed like so many of the powers were functionally identical from class to class.
Though I’m glad your group isn’t finding it so. I’m sure it’s possible to run 4e in a way where that isn’t so glaring.
MoonStoneOracle | April 7, 2009 at 11:32 am | Reply
Well, I’ve been playing D&D all my life and I’ve played all the editions except the first. And I really can’t say that I’m disappointed or anything with D&D4e. Everyone says it isn’t the same game anymore but I can’t help but feel like people aren’t really giving it a chance. I feel like they were trying to make vast improvements on a pretty confusing gaming system.
Maybe you think they dumbed it down or whatever, but I don’t know I think they’re trying to allow more people into the Dungeons and Dragons world, and isn’t that a good thing? That seems a bit elitist don’t you think?
I personally like it just as much as the old editions. They all had something good about them but I felt like each one was trying to progress with the time and allow newer generations to get into it too.
I think I read someone say something about how there’s no immersion or whatever. But I mean, you can make the game whatever you want to be so if you can’t get into it, isn’t that your dm’s fault really?
I think there was just too much going on in the old edition. Just looking at some of the things were enough to make my head spin. There was too many skills to learn, the multiclass was all over the place, and spells were tedious and half of them weren’t even worth learning. Granted some of the skills in 4e are a little “eh”. But I think the goal was to make all of the races/classes more balanced so a wizard isn’t hiding in a corner after he’s run out of spells for the day.
But this is just my opinion. If you aren’t a fan of 4e then continue to play 3 or 3.5e or whatever you wish. I don’t think anyone is forcing you to play the newest edition and I don’t think anyone’s going to call you crazy for it. I think 4e for most people is a 20 or 1.
Forgive my horrible joke.
Master Sage | April 7, 2009 at 2:38 pm | Reply
Yum, Battle System, drool; Ok sorry drifting back to the days for the Blood stone pass modules. I wonder if I can dig them out and convert them to 4e.
I picked up my first DND set when I was 12 and have been playing ever since. Four seven foot high book shelves, stacks of boxed games, countless dollars, and 22 years later; I can safely say I’m a Pen and Paper nut bag.
When Fourth Edition was announced the earth shook and the dark clouds swathed over head as a result of my anger. Wizards had once again found a way to over commercialize and drain yet more of my hard earned scratch. “Not this time” is said. “No way am I forking out over hundred dollars in books” I thought.
I have a fairly solid gaming community that I talk with; not as much as I would like since I work 60 + hours a week and have little time to play. At first when we talked about fourth edition they were on my side of things. I noticed however that over the past year their tune was changing. Words like, easy to just sit down and play, little to no prep time, and fun began to escape their lips. I finally borrowed a friend’s core set and began reading. There were things I like and things I did not that’s to be sure. At first the almost required use of miniatures made me mad but then as I thought about it, I play so many table top war games and have armies of miniatures; why did that bother me? In the end it did not. Long story short for me it is a very fun game. Having a wife, two kids, and a relentless work schedule, it is ideal that I can sit for a couple hours with friends and knock out a good RPG session.
I would have to agree that the Role-playing should not be affected by any system. The RPG aspect of almost all games is left largely to the imagination of the group you are playing with regardless of the system.
I just started running “The keep on the Shadow Fell” and while the module is a bit dry; I did not find it hard to spice up with a little flair.
I will say I have made the following observations about those that I play with;
Old timers like me really struggle emotionally with it at first, but in our groups case; the more they play it the more they like it, largely due to the speed of play. The first encounter in the module took us around 30 min. We played it out again a month later using the pre made characters; it took less than 15 minutes from the first init roll.
Recent gamers, people who started with 3e, seem to really digit.
We had one new guy join us, never played PnP, in his life. He loves it. The thing I noticed about 4e was how easy it was, compared to its predecessors, to teach and learn.
Lastly I love the rituals, with a few exceptions like Knock, most of the rituals should be rituals in my not so humble opinion.
Over all I would have to say that 4e rates about 7 out of 10 for me. Not the best I have seen but its gaining ground. If they get the tools implemented well, it could shoot up to 8 or 9. The character generator drove me up from 5 to 7. The very fact that you can crank out a character in detail in less than 30min just makes me giggle. The other thing to consider is that I suspect 4e core will stick around for a long time, if they are basing computer tools around them they will have a hard time switching the mechanics around.
Master Sage
Matthew Lane | April 26, 2009 at 10:47 pm | Reply
what it boils down to in the end is this handy little maxism i have devised.
“3E is to fantasy novels, what 4E is to World of Warcraft Porn.”
3E is about infinite veriety in infinite combination. Yes it could be wroughted but it was upto the GM to put a stop to this.
4E is just about self gratification, its about getting to the next sex scene… um *cough* i mean combat encounter, with as little talking as possible.
4E haters have their buzz words, but most of our grievances are legitimate. 4E lovers also have their buzz words to describe pretty much any problem we have with the new system: Balanced & streamlined are their favourites.
Just because something has been simplified or balanced doesn’t make it good.
mxyzplk | April 27, 2009 at 6:24 pm | Reply
@Matthew – heh heh, “Fair and balanced”, should be 4e’s new tag line.
Steve | April 28, 2009 at 6:16 am | Reply
To be honest, a lot of virtual ink has been used to both prop up and denounce 4E (and 3E for those who just love 4E that much). I’m running a 4E game and it’s fun and people are enjoying it. That’s the bottom line. It mostly comes down to how you play any RPG. I’ve played games that have chapters and chapters of info on game worlds and player character interaction and role-playing that were completely ignored… because we blew stuff up in the game and that’s why we played it. I’ve also run 4E since July and, while you have to keep in mind that our game sessions are only about 2.5 hours, we’ve spent entire sessions in combat, but also entire sessions doing some pretty good role-playing as well. Yes, there aren’t 50 pages dedicated to how to role-play in the 4E PHB. That’s not great for new gamers, I’ll admit it. But there’s nothing in the new game that stops people from RPing to their heart’s content. To be honest, it almost harkens back to the original D&D in the sense that D&D used to be some roleplaying overlayed over the fighting mechanics of Chainmail. It didn’t mean that you couldn’t have fun or run a good gamewith lots of roleplaying. It meant that the books were there for the mechanics since the rest is essentially up to the players and the GM, as they always are.
mxyzplk | April 28, 2009 at 7:01 am | Reply
Just read a good blog post, “First game of 4th Edition D&D” from Robertson Games, who does a lot of D&D session podcasts. His conclusion is “mixed, but worth improving rather than dismissing outright.” But the pros and cons are telling.
– Combat takes too long
– Marking adds complexity
– Tactical minis focus harms the RP
– Jarring game terminology hurts immersion
– Get to design cards, terrain, maps, etc.
– Tactical mini play is challenging
– Enemies had various attack effects
This is a great analysis and shows how you’ll like or not like 4e depending on where your values lie. If you are not particularly moved by the “fiddly bits” of tactical minis combat and power cards and all, you probably will find this a net negative. If you are, then you’ll want to get on board.
For me personally, “It harms the immersion but hey, minis are fun” is very very far from a compelling game description. But I can see how casual and tactical gamers are drawn to it. And the “have lits of widgets to play around with” factor – I know people who really are drawn by that, and it certainly helps as a revenue model when you can sell high profit margin addons like battle mats, minis, tokens, power cards, etc.
But in the end, since D&D isn’t even close to the only game in town any more – it has to really hit close to the mark to merit spending time house-ruling etc. If you prefer 3e, or Basic – play those! (Or better, Pathfinder.) Or one of the hundreds of other extant RPGs. Back in the 1970s-1980s, sure, D&D was the only meaningful game in town and it was mod that or do without (or play Rifts or GURPS with one of the two groups of scary people).
Taullan | May 5, 2009 at 10:34 pm | Reply
I’m glad I found a place to vent. I really immersed myself in the D&D mythology developed over the past 25 years and I am really upset about it’s disappearance. Forget the rules, simplicity vs. depth argument, or whatever. I feel most betrayed by the complete destruction of the old stories and lore.
They did away with so much of the richness and diversity in 3.x (even though I did like the rules better), yet at least there was a degree of continuity. In 4e, it’s almost all gone. what has been done to the Great Wheel? To the Realms? Why why why all the arbitrary changes?!!
If you think it was done to “clean up some of the mess,” it could have been done with FAR LESS radical changes.
Rules can be modified. I enjoy the complexity of the earlier editions, yes, probably because I like to admitedly powergame a bit. But rule changes I could live with…
I stuck with D&D through all the editions mostly because they created a living, breathing world (or multiverse considering I’m still a huge Planescape fan), and now 80% in my estimation is destroyed. I became invested in that world and watched it grow well into 3 decades.
Imagine if WotC got the rights one day to something like LOTR. At that point maybe Sauron will never have existed or they could change the fundamental nature of elves and call them…eladrin.
To the 4e lovers, I don’t blame you, this hatred is obviously tailor made for many of us who grew up with the old editions.
What a mess. Goodbye D&D, I’ll miss ya.
Matthew Lane | May 10, 2009 at 8:36 pm | Reply
Here are a collection of moto’s for 4E some of us have been working on, during our 4E campaign.
– Making 3E cooler since 2008
– 4E, because who really wants 30 years of history anyway.
– 4e, because playing power rangers is cool.
– Fair and Balanced… to a fault.
– If at first you don’t succeed, you obviously haven’t “optimised” your character build.
– 4E, now with 80% more chess
– 4E, needless change for changes sake since 2008
Not all of these are mine, but they all sum up how many of us seem to feel about this new edition of *cringe* D&D
Chief | May 26, 2009 at 11:27 am | Reply
Just wanted to say that I have played a lot of 4e because that is what my group decided to do.
It is boring. All characters seem the same. All have spells in one way or another. Enjoyed 3.5 with this group so I have to believe the rules and the chucking of “traditional” magic and roles are the reason why I don’t enjoy it anymore.
I find myself falling asleep waiting for my turn.
I’m done with 4e. Never playing it again.
Tenshi | June 1, 2009 at 11:50 am | Reply
Reading the main article and all of the comments really is an enlightening thing. All the differing opinions talking about the pros and cons of 4E.
I have not been playing DnD for 5 years let alone 30 like some people here. I am really a new comer to DnD in a lot of ways. I started with 3.5 when it was at the end of it’s cycle.
I have played 4E, I still play 4E because that is what the people I hang out with play and yes I would have to agree that the enjoyment of the game really depends on the people you are with and things like that. That being said, I do not like 4E. I really would prefer 3.5 over 4.0. The game is just too homogenized. Like everyone is the same thing with a little different flavor to them.
In combat everyone has a role to play in 4.0, but to me that makes no sense. Why can’t you have a party that some people are great in combat, but others are great for getting the group through trapped areas, or even keeping them out of combat. Why do you have to have everyone be balanced.
I mean it makes no sense to me. Mage characters should be cut down in open combat. They rely on magic and intellect, not brawn to get by in life. Rogues attack the unprepared, and run when their luck turns south. Bards should talk their way out of fights and know how to use people against each other. There is nothing wrong with having “unbalanced” classes, because the balance was in the full aspect of the game not just combat.
Making all of the characters combat oriented just makes them bland. Suddenly you are criticized if you are a rogue shotting from the shadows instead of being out there with everyone else. I mean it’s and RPG a Role Playing Game. What is the point to Roles… if they are all the same.
Ghostlore | June 26, 2009 at 9:18 pm | Reply
I suggest playing the game first (as opposed to just reading the books) in order to have a truer opinion of the game. I was, as many, saddened at first by this ‘video game’ version of my favorite rpg,…right up until I played it.
Is it perfect? Nope.
Is it better than 3.5? Absolutely.
It’s faster. The rules are cleaner and better written for combat (which, let’s face it, is a huge part of the game).
There is much, much, much more strategy and tactical planning required for party survival and the game focuses upon teamwork more than it ever has in the past.
Though perhaps a savvy marketing element, the visual element (using miniatures and gridded maps), fleshes out a level of accuracy and cohesion that has never been seen in previous versions.
To people who say the game is “homogenized” and that all the characters are the same, I would suggest a thorough re-examination of every race and class and some substantial play time. The classes are all quite different, and – whoa – balanced!
I don’t know about anyone else, but in older versions of the game it truly SUCKED waiting for a spell to return or waiting for hit points to recover. 4E makes these problems non-existent, but in a believable and playable way. In the end this means more play time and less down time. How anyone can oppose this idea is beyond me.
The element of role-play has always and will always continue to be there. A solid DM will never have a problem in crafting a compelling adventure for players to participate in, no matter what the version of the game is.
Thankfully this is a newer, fresher and much more welcome edition in my opinion.
I should also add that I have played the game for 30 years, and my first gaming experience came in the form of an adventure in that infamous keep, somewhere along the borderlands I believe 😉
Joaquin Menchaca | July 21, 2009 at 9:41 pm | Reply
I agree with most of what you said. I think 4e is the death of DnD. I didn’t happily go to DnD 3e, as I like some elements of 2e, but I felt DnD 3e streamlined so much, I was willing to move on. 4e changes the game so much, I cannot recognize DnD in it, other than the name, and I feel like I am reliving a video game on paper, rather than real RPG. If I want a video game, I will just well, play the video game like WoW, and redo it on paper…
My future post-3e will most likely be Pathfinder, and then I’ll look at Castles and Crusades. I can at least use older game material and some great classics with both.
brewksy | July 24, 2009 at 12:12 am | Reply
A rallying cry from an RPG enthusiast for 20-some odd years:
1. If there’s one thing that is NOT lost in any RPG, is the roleplaying element. If you think “fewer/simpler rules” is a bad thing, then you’ve missed the boat entirely. There were NO SKILLS in Basic D&D – this didn’t make the game unplayable, it made it better because you got to act it out. 4e does away with a lot of the fat that D&D had become known for.
2. If you think there is no class-optimization in 4e, you have not played it. However, if you’re upset you can’t have a 4-class spellcasting, sword-wielding, 5 attacks per round juggernaut, you lost your way a long time ago. We will miss you…
3. Vancian spellcasting had to go eventually – I liked it when I started playing (26 years ago now), but it has no place in a fantasy setting designed for new people to play.
4. Speaking of new people, 4e seems to be designed around making it easy for new people to pick up and play. These people are the same people that will never post on a blog about how betrayed they feel about the new D&D edition. That’s because they’re mostly girls that are new to the game. I think this is a good thing.
5. Will 4e impress everyone? Of course not. But I certainly didn’t frequent websites/blogs to snarl at 3e and 3.5e when it didn’t impress me – probably the most unwieldy D&D IMO. When everyone got 5 attacks per round a single battle could have pretty much lasted an entire night (or was over in one round because the DM couldn’t possibly come up with something powerful enough to beat the PCs…)
6. Do I like 4e? It’s alright, but the more I’ve played the more it’s grown on me. The DDI Character Builder? I haven’t made characters this fast since original D&D. iplay4e? I can now hand out simple digital character sheets to all of my PCs.
7. I am an avid gamer, from D&D, to Robotech/TMNT/Rifts, to Battletech, and now back to D&D. And my gaming group consists of 2 girls and 2 guys (only the second time I’ve seen a girl pick up a set of dice to play).
I say well done.
Matthew Lane | July 24, 2009 at 11:53 am | Reply
I though we were done with this, but i suppose it would be nice to show the counter arguments to the previous post. So here i am Answering your points.
1. 4E modules possess not even the rudiment of roleplaying (look at Dungeon Magazine). The problem here is that the world that is being presented is not internally consistent (due to disassociated rules). Its not even internal logical to any particular meta-fictional reality. This means most roleplaying is going to be strained as people just go through the motions of roleplaying.
2. Thats true. The flip side of the coin (as some may call it, the less extreme side of the coin) is that you can no longer play statistically interesting characters (wheres my trick archer). Players play combat roles. I wanted to play a wizard, but got stuck with instead playing a Arcane Controller & was told this was a wizard (which incidentally handles like arse).
3. Vancian spellcasting had to go? so does the sun, as it burns out the earth. Change doesn’t necessarily have to be bad, but at least make it an improvement on what came before. I’ve played a lot of different games, but in the end this new powers system does not stand up to close logical scrutiny. Everything just feels muddled now.
4. Sure this game is simple to be picked up… it will also be dropped just as quickly by these new players when some new shinnier game comes along. this is also why they won’t post on Blogs, they don’t really care, they are what my FLGS refers to as “trendies.” With trendies they play what ever is new & then ditch it a month later. But don’t worry, its not like WotC ditched 40% of your previous core demographic to chase these trendies… oh wait, they did exactly that.
5. 3.5 was smooth and intuitive. It only got stupid when GM’s let it get stupid. When GM’s let players run rampant. As for everyone having 5 attacks per round, that sounds a little like a HUGE overexaggeration. i played everything from Clerics to Rogues & would be pushing it to get 2 attacks a round.
6. Do I like 4e? It’s alright, but the more I’ve played the less i like. The DDI Character Builder is a good concept, but a crappy follow through (I refuse to pay to use something twice, especially when i can make characters by hand). I haven’t made characters this fast since original D&D, then again the only piece of creativity i need on my character sheet is inventing a character name (everything else is overly mechanical mathematics).
7. I am an avid gamer, from D&D, to Mutants and Masterminds, TMNT: after the bomb (the best TMNT setting), Spirit of the Century, to Hackmaster, and now back to D&D. not that this has anything to do with the main point.
I’ve tried to keep emotion out of my answers, but some of the points made were pretty silly & one sided. I can see both sides of the argument because i thought that 4E was the second coming of Jesus (the mexican baseball player, not that other guy) as well. As time went by (a couple of sessions) i found that the game just didn’t feel like roleplaying at all, it felt more like playing a table top wargame, with occasional player monlogues.
camazotz | August 6, 2009 at 10:31 am | Reply
Fun thing about reading this “year in comments” is knowing that all anyone has proven with the edition wars is that you get what you want out of a game. I’ve been running two regular 4E games for the last year now, and I have found that the only meaningful difference between the 4E games and my prior edition campaigns is minis combat is a bit more fun and less laborious. Beyond that, it remains as fun and entertaining as always. For the record, I also play Castles & Crusades, and intend to pick up and run Pathfinder as well. I have run weekly campaigns for 28 years now and have run and played all prior editions of D&D and numerous other RPGs. I see no contraditions or need for exclusivity here….just different flavors of role playing entertainment. I’ve been gaming consistently since 1980, and the secret to my enjoyment of the hobby is letting go the pathos and angst of playing favorites and just enjoying the game. And yes, I’ve been told before by others that 4E doesn’t “let them” enjoy the game. Doesn’t change a thing I have said; if it doesn’t work for you, that’s your issue; I know for a fact that your experience does not translate in to mine, and vice versa.
Spanky | August 7, 2009 at 12:12 am | Reply
First, a little about my own gaming experience:
I’ve been gaming regularly since ’89, right about the time that 2E was hitting the stores. However, I was exposed to the Basic red box edition of DnD several years earlier. Since then, I’ve played a variety of games from Travellers to Masterbook to WEG d6 Star Wars to today’s incarnations of Star Wars and 3E DnD. Also, just before LUG hit everyone with there Star Trek system, a bunch of my friends and I had come up with own Star Trek system that worked for us.
Second, as for my thoughts on 4E…
I see many people mentioning that 4E is more combat oriented. Let’s be honest…unless a game is strictly skills-based, any rules for an RPG that is class and level based is going to be combat oriented. DnD has it’s roots in miniatures combat simulations. OK, so 4E is a more tactically oriented combat system that requires miniatures and a battlemat. Guess what, DnD went that direction with the move from 2E to 3E. Did anyone really expect it to return to the more story oriented one minute combat round? The game moved things one step further along the tactical combat track.
Personally, I’m not a fan of 4E, but then again, I’ve never been completely sold on 3E either. I want combats that are less tactically oriented and more fluid. That just doesn’t exist with either edition.
As for the magic set-up, ok, no more vancian magic. I’m a bit attached to that format, but then I’ve played with it from the start of my gaming experience. I like the premise that Jim Butcher set up in his Dresden Files series and what the Shadowrun game attempts – it’s not about “forgetting” your spells, it’s about magic causing a physical drain on the body.
All in all, 4E, at least from my perspective, promotes a style of play that doesn’t suit what I’m looking for. Does that make it bad? No, it’s just not for me.
Brewksy | August 19, 2009 at 10:18 pm | Reply
I guess I will counter-riposte then! 🙂
1. Modules? I hesitate to think you’ve even tried to play some of the modules. Many of them have an RP element to them and leave much room for ad lib and creativity. I’m not sure what you mean by disassociated rules – there are rules to roleplaying? There are some good basic non-combat skill foundations that can be utilized many different ways. And consistency? In not exactly sure what you mean here either – a well-played dnd session is as consistent as the GM makes it and that is true of any version of dnd.
2. The optimization in 4e is far more statistically creative than you mention here. Prestige-multiclass abberations aside, you can create almost any kind of character that you could make in other versions. A wizard’s path to control can be done in many different paths – area damage (traditional invokers), battlefield movement (old teleport mages), etc. Limiting your synopsis to just “control” is rather short-sighted.
3. Vancian spellcasting was horribly balanced and a pain to manage as a DM. And while it is exciting to circumvent entire portions of any adventure, it’s not as fun for other pcs and DMs.
4. Your stats here are entirely subjective – it’s been a year now and these “trendies” are still having a blast playing. Your mileage may vary, but to assume 40% of oldies dropped the game entirely (or even that this was a bad omen) are again subjective.
5. I’m happy you found it smooth – my argument was that it certainly required much more effort in part for the DM. I agree I over-exaggerated the 5 attacks per round – how many did fighter-monks get at level 15-20 anyhow?
6. All versions of dnd have had overly-complicated mathematics (whether it was tables, thac0, etc.). What 4e does is remove some of the specifics (profession: fishing?) and gives the player more flexibility instead of worrying about whether to take a background-specific skill or a combat-affecting skill.
I feel the same with some of your arguments – but I guess an argument without two sides doesn’t really leave room for discussion 🙂
I believe the combat does feel like a tactical tabletop game, but the rp sessions have never felt that way (not much different than any other version)
Kaiser | August 24, 2009 at 3:56 am | Reply
So I didn’t read the mountain of comments that others left, but you realize all of those you thinks you said were WoW rip offs were from other things right? Also the “builds” are just suggested level templates they had those in 3e, I don’t see anything like Talent trees in 4e (and even if I did, it wouldn’t be bad nor from WoW) and magic items being able to return to be broken down for components is A. not original to WoW B. has been done in DnD and C. not as horrible as you seem to think it is…
I’m not saying I’m 100% pro 4e, I like 2e, 3e, and 4e all for different reasons, but people need to be a little realistic about what they are complaining about.
mxyzplk | August 24, 2009 at 7:42 am | Reply
1. The WoW comparison is one of 19 paragraphs in the article
2. Sure, WoW didn’t do anything truly original, but bringing that many things together in one place goes past “coincidence, you know some D&D product somewhere had that once” to “Hey, for some reason all these things that came together are the same things that came together in WoW….”
Taullan | August 27, 2009 at 1:21 pm | Reply
Sorry I keep coming at this from such a different angle, but I want to know if anyone is as upset as I am about a major part of the game that has changed.
I can’t imagine that some of the seemingly arbitrary changes to the game that have nothing to do with combat have been so drastically changed.
Hopefully someone can explain why the following changes have occured:
1. Why drop 4 out of 9 alignments?
2. Why dismantle the organization of the planes and all 30 years of its fluid and well developed lore (though admittedly sometimes dijoint).
3. Why butcher its most popular world (FR) and completely drop one of its longest running (Greyhawk).
I just bought the new MM2 and have found such arbitrary changes as chromatic dragons being “unaligned”. I almost feel like history has been completely rewritten. It’s sad really.
Matthew Lane | August 27, 2009 at 10:35 pm | Reply
I can answer this one. Its what happens when you take something of limited appeal & the redesign it for the mass market. Can’t have every day people feeling left out… even though they wont continue to pay for something like D&D
1. Because people are stupid. Both the people who “Played Alignments” under 3.5 & the people who designed 4E & didn’t get that you need to design bad guys properly.
2. Drop the chrisitian overtones and religious background… so we don’t offend some religious people, now that D&D is being mass marketed.
3. Greyhawk cannot work under 4E because it was based completely around the Vancian Spellcasting System, Greyhawk fans just wouldn’t stand for it. FR’s on the other hand is full of obsessive fans… you win them over & you will have a 4E fan base for life.
I’ve read the MM2 for 4E & its full of a lot of things i wouldn’t have done. The Dragons are only the tip of the crap iceburg.
brewksy | September 2, 2009 at 2:10 am | Reply
Because there’s no real difference between Neutral and Chaotic. You either believed in the Laws, or you don’t. Simplify the alignments and you create much less confusion for new players.
2. Well, the Planes were the first thing I took out in every session I played – usually designed my own mythos based on the world I created. Nothing stopping you from keeping the Planes in, of course, or houseruling them in. Again, the aim is for newer players to be able to pick up the game quickly and understand it.
3. I would agree with Matthew on this one.
4. If you really want to play a Gold Dragon as “good”, then do so. D&D has always, and remains, completely malleable. This is not M:TG where the rules-lawyers would berate you for changing the text on a card.
Taullan | September 3, 2009 at 8:28 pm | Reply
I appreciate your response brewsky and it is well thought out. I just don’t believe in the “make it that way” philosophy. So much, from novels to published adventures and accessories all revolve around the core rules.
If so much of this core changes for relatively arbitrary reasons, the developed history just becomes useless.
Try playing this “game” with other worlds (like LOTR). The Balrog was actually good, hobbits were taller than the average human. Uruk-Hai were orcs with giant bunny ears…
Do they care so little for consumers that have followed them for 20+ years?
I have to say, I have no problem with the previous edition changes. I got used to the rules and found that I liked each new set better, but none have thrown out what came in the past so completely as 4e.
Also, the is a HUGE difference between how you can play a NG or CG character. Conan doesn’t strike me as just “good.”
Carlos | September 4, 2009 at 11:32 am | Reply
I’m about to start GMing a 4E game. It’s my first GM experience, but I played 2E and 3.x. I can assure you one thing, I will take what I like, and dump/modify the rest. There is no way I’m going to let my gaming be ruled absolutely and blindly by what’s written in a book. Of course, I can’t publish it due to the lack of openness.
I’m making a big assumption, based on no evidence empirical or otherwise, which is mere speculation or a”hunch”, but it feels like the radical move (other than the attempt to streamline) is coming from something entirely outside the scope of the game itself, and more likely due to corporate politics.
That is how I feel, I’m not stating it as fact.
Matthew Lane | September 5, 2009 at 12:03 pm | Reply
@Carlos.
You will have trouble taking what you like and dropping the rest, because unlike previous editions, 4E is trully intergrated, with every aspect of the game playing of another aspect, which plays on another etc etc adnuseum.
It can be done, but its not easy & rarely pretty. We tried it & realised we had basically started to play 3.5 again. LOL.
As for alot of the game design being based on coporate stratergy rather then solid game design, i would have to agree. They have decided to go with MMO style marketing, which is not necessarily the right way to procced.
Taullan | September 13, 2009 at 9:57 pm | Reply
I think a good compromise would have been a split, similar to the really old D&D vs. AD&D split. One set of rules could have supported, or possibly updated, the 3.5 ruleset (what I would call AD&D) and 4e could just be D&D to rope in newbies/MMO crowd.
I know they have argued in the past that splitting their product causes them to compete against themselves (I once read that this is why the old 2e worlds were consolidated to just a few). However, I think that could easily be overcome…both sets could be included within the same product, appealing to both types of fans.
I know the good people over at Paizo have been running something similar in their Pathfinder game. When they had control of Dungeon Magazine, I think they produced the best adventures since the magazine’s creation, so I may give that a try. It’s not Realms/Greyhawk/Planescape though, so I will certainly never be 100% happy.
Peter FdH | February 15, 2010 at 2:56 pm | Reply
Interesting how everyone at the start of this thread hates 4e. Towards the end of it, the balance has shifted to the majority in favour of 4e.
I’m not surprised. 4e does require a totally different mindset and I’d agree that it’s the biggest change to D&D so far. That’s maybe a step too far for some.
For me, I’m quite glad. A lot has been mentioned about 4e being balanced and streamlined as if that’s a bad thing. I’ve been running 3.5e (and in fact still am finishing off a Kalamar campaign) for years. Every time that the party approaches level 10 the game system starts to implode. In my current game (level 13), my once epic campaign has been reduced to a slapstick cartoon.
So you might say that as DM I could restrain the PC’s. Yes, I could but I don’t want to spend my precious free time inventing new rules to nirf the party or to patch up the large number of 3.5 rules that are totally broken (Touch AC, the skill system, save DC’s, and so on).
4e isn’t perfect. Combats last way too long – the only saving grace is that you get to do a lot in each one so they are fun. Also the two scenarios I’ve played so far – Keep on the Shadowfell and Thunderspire Mountain – both suck big time. They are a missed opportunity to showcase what 4e could do – yes, there are the combats but more roleplaying opportunities would be great.
Matthew Lane | February 15, 2010 at 9:02 pm | Reply
Shakes head. I my friend do not agree with your statement. I don’t think that this page is getting more pro-4E. What i think is happening is a real life version of that old chesnut “The opposite of love is not hate. The opposite of love is disinterest.”
3.5 players have moved on, as the white hot burning geek rage has turned into luke warm warm geek disinterst for 4E.
Alot of 3.5 players have investigated there own disinterest in 4E & we are perfectly happy with 4E players enjoying there own game. Because unlike many 4E players we don’t demand that everyone love our system. We don’t yell “you hate change” or “you just don’t get it.”
I personally have no interest in 4E. to me personally 4E is the one thing worse then a buggy system. Its tepid, uninspired, middle of the line, designed my committe tripe.
When i say i am disinterested in 4E, what i mean to say is that i have no interest in a poorly written system which balances a house of cards on a pile of disassociated mechanics & pretends to have a working exception based mechanics.
Sure 3.5 was far from perfect & it got worse when DM’s didn’t stop players from mini-maxing & playing the system rather then the game, but at least with 3.5 there was actually a place for “the player”.
Alot of 4E i wonder if this was meant to be played by humans at all, or if this is the system we teach to computers, who eventually turn into skynet and destroy us all. because it has the finesse of skynet (oh, it moved & its not one off us… better kill it to death).
To be honest, if this game came out with any other name then D&D it would have been heaped with scorn & derision for the two days it existed before falling into the pit of badly designed games, never to be heard from again. This game continues to exist based only on name recognition & brand loyalty.
Guess we’ll agree to disagree then. I just read through the whole thread and it is a fact that while almost 100% of those at the top of the page think 4e is awful, that figure is more like 60/40 near the bottom.
Yes, some are disinterested but I think that others have actually grown to like it.
Hardly scientific I know but…
Playing 4e and running 3.5e at the same time has certainly been interesting. The combinations available to the 4e player are amazing, the game is more tactical and you know where you stand with the rules. I also like that as a player you are not told that you cannot do stuff or that something has no effect. With 3.5e I am constantly forced to ban stuff just to make the game playable. Alternatively, the scenario just bans stuff anyway (look at any high level 3.5e scenario). As for the rules themselves, they are so open to mis-interpretation that it beggars belief. Yes, that’s where a DM steps in to make a ruling but it does start to get tedious when you spend most of your time arguing about rules or making rulings.
4e is actually written in such a way as to prevent a rule from being misinterpreted.
don’t mistake lack of hatred from enjoyment. I think you may find taht quite a few of the people are saying things more akin to “I’ve played this 4E & its not for me… though it does have an interesting mechanic or two.”
If you were constantly being called to ban things its probably because your players wanted to play the system rather then the game. If this is the case then 4E is for you. Its all about playing the system.
4E is really for people who want to game, but don’t really want to put in any effort. They want to GM, but that would take up some level of time & maybe some sort of skill.
Comparred to any other rpg on the market today, 4E is the hamburger helper of RPG’s. Its lazy, concieted & generally dull.
Advocates of the game keep on saying things like: Its fast, its tactical, its impossible to misinterpret rules. I would have to agree with you on all these things. But this streamlining is has also made the game dull, unimaginative, & down right silly (in that it emulate Eragon more then anything sensible).
I bleieve in letting people enjoy the game they enjoy, but i can also tell the difference between good mechanical design and bad. 4E is full of poor design & many of them were put in on purpose as a way to sell more books in the future.
mxyzplk | February 16, 2010 at 11:00 pm | Reply
Well, I’d say most of the recent traffic on 4e has been more along the lines of people saying “We tried it for a year, but are giving it up…”
Matthew Lane | February 17, 2010 at 6:27 am | Reply
I would agree. Outside of Wizspace (which is full of fanatics on both sides of the fence) the love for 4E is dropping alot. Some people are trying Pathfinder but i found its not really my speed. I prefer 3.5 for my fantasy needs, Eclipse Phase for my tanshumanism needs, Spirit of the Century for my indi pulp fiction & a plethora of other games to fill niche appeal spots.
Minstrel | February 23, 2010 at 2:04 pm | Reply
Just a minor clarification, Castles & Crusades is not actually a 1e derivative. It’s in fact a d20 product (the mostly openly licensed core system on which 3.x is based). While it has the “feel” of AD&D era oldschool gaming, and none of the number-crunch of 3.x, it’s actually running more modern mechanics.
Fizz | August 29, 2011 at 8:52 am | Reply
Actually, C&C is not a d20 product. No where on it will you find the d20 logo, and the licensing part is completely separate from d20. I think of it as 1st Ed crossed with 3E. I like the modularity of it. It’s a simple game at it’s core, but it’s quite easy to tweak the rules and add rules to get the level of complexity that you want.
Drew (http://dnd-realm.blogspot.com/) | March 23, 2010 at 3:45 pm | Reply
“I view players of “1e derivative” products like Castles & Crusades and OSRIC with pity” – cough – tosser – cough. I’ve ran and played every edition of D&D since it first came out. My first foray as a DM came in 1976, and although I have to agree on the “not D&D-ness” of 4e. Your remark of pity for C&C/Osric players really is unfair. C&C fills a void for people who prefer the simplicty of some of the Core “D20” mechanics, but enjoy the retro feel/look of AD&D. OSRIC is a great addition to the retro-clone field, hes done a lot of sterling work. It was a very good review marred by a totally unreasonable remark.
mxyzplk | March 23, 2010 at 6:47 pm | Reply
Yeah, well, YMMV of course. I played a session of C&C and my general response was “Oh, right, this is what it was like back when my D&D character couldn’t do anything.” I mean, I like that C&C at least tried to update some of the mechanics, it’s better than the true retroclones that totally capture the wonkiness, but it was just – boring. “Yay I’m a second level cleric and I can cast one spell a day, light!” I so do not hearken back to that. Rerolling a character about every other game session, demihuman level limits, that kind of thing; IMO it’s one of the good parts of the evolution of D&D that we’ve left all that behind.
I like some things about old school play and the principles – “rulings, not rules,” sandboxing, etc – but the actual old rules are just crufty as hell.
It’s fine that you like them – in auto hobbies there are people who work on super old cars and others that work on their sports cars. But I’m not the old car type. I mentioned it here to explain that I’m not just a grumpy grognard who pines for the past and rejects 4e because it’s not “old” or whatever. I looked forward to 3e and liked it, was kinda surprised by 3.5e but didn’t hate it, and was looking forward to 4e but it sucked (and the WotC bungling that way foreshadowed it, too).
” I played a session of C&C and my general response was “Oh, right, this is what it was like back when my D&D character couldn’t do anything.” ”
Well, the beauty of C&C over a game like 3E, is that you [i]can[/i] do what you want. In 3E, if you don’t have the feat / skill, you simply can’t do something. In a game like C&C, you can [i]attempt[/i] to do anything. Just say it, and the GM can assign a difficulty to it. It’s a fast resolution for anything you can think of.
I agree with your review overall. I liked 3E and played it a lot. But i find simpler games like C&C can move along much more quickly (particularly in combat). I think my ideal system is somewhere in between C&C and 3E.
Matthew Lane | March 24, 2010 at 1:41 am | Reply
I would have to agree with you that i personally don’t dislike 4E because i’m a crusty old grognard who doesn’t like 4E because its not old or because i prefer 3.5. I dislike 4E because it is not good. It was pitched as a narrativist game up until the second it was released & then it became obvious that it was an uninspired gamist game.
4E fails to hit any of the goals i set for my personal standard of roleplaying, in fact the goals that 4E has, puts them in direct conflict with the goals i want to achieve.
In this way its funny that you mentioned a car based analogue because i was using one to describe the entire edition war just the other day.
X-POSTED FROM ANOTHER SITE
A group of race car fans are sitting around discussing there mutal love of race cars when someone comes along & loudly declares “TANKS ARE BETTER THEN RACE CARS!”
The race car fans look at him quizzically & then tries to explain that they really do prefer race cars to tanks.
“Tanks could totally blow up a race car & there nothing a race car could do about it!” the tank enthusist declared loudly, ignoring the race car fans intelligent observation.
To counter this the race car fans tried to explain that while a tank was armoured & could blow up a race car, they were fans of race cars because they were used in racing & thats what they were actually fans of.
To which the Tank fan looked confused. “TANKS ARE BETTER THEN RACE CARS!” he screamed with mounting frustration of his obvious logic “IF YOU DON’T AGREE I’M JUST GOING TO STAND HERE AND YELL THAT YOU ARE COMPLETELY STUPID & THEN THREATEN YOU WITH PHYSICAL VIOLENCE! BECAUSE TANKS ARE THE BEST!”
The morale of this story is not that a tank is better then a race car, but that each is good at there own thing (regardless of how stupid you may think that thing is). You are allowed to hate tanks because they aren’t race cars, just as i dislike 4E because it fails to do the things i want it to do.
smooth | March 28, 2010 at 9:19 pm | Reply
“Tieflings are emo…horns…hurr hurr hurr…”
“You said horn! ahahahah…”
Yeah, they’re kewl! Dragons are kewl too…”
“Dragonpeople for my bunghole…bungholio…”
“And everyone should get spells, all the time, that’d be awesome. And heal without magic and crap.”
“Ahahahahaha….and we can sell plastic and online subscription and everything is core so they buy everything and everything and olio!”
“Yeah, scam the customer, screw the decades of old fluff, we can make better fluff…”
“for my holio!”
“like Eberron, that was kewl! hurr hurr hurr….let’s make FR into Eberron, that sucked, we know better…hurr hurr hurr…”
“Kewl!…olio….brand management rules! We’re good at this, we’re copying WOW and emo! For my bunghole! emolio!”
Jake | April 1, 2010 at 10:10 pm | Reply
4e has been out for quite some time now. When it released, I was considerably less skeptical of whether it would ‘destroy D&D’ than some I knew, though admittedly curious as to just what kind of reinventions of the wheel I’d see this time around.
Ancillary to my point, I’m an old-hat gamer like a fair few posting here seem to be. Started with original D&D as a wee lad, moved on to 1e as soon as we realized it existed, then to 2e ’cause that’s all we could find stuff for (we actually wanted more 1e stuff and wound up stuck in 2e more as an initial fluke of availability combined with being 12-14 year olds operating on allowance budgets).
I’ve got nothing bad to say about OD&D. 1e really made us go “WOW!” for how developed and sophisticated (Advanced indeed!) things got compared to the old “red-book, blue-book, green-book, gold” way of things, and 2e really didn’t seem to push that envelope until much, much later in its run.
Then along came 3e. I hated the idea of 3e from the first game I played of it, and grew to hate it even more with every successive session.
By then, I was well into college (still avidly gaming 2e with the small but loyal nutjobs like me, whenever I could find them) and hated 3e for two reasons, neither of which being because its treatment of settings sucked or because it wasn’t any good as a system.
It changed the players. Almost overnight, people began cropping up that “wanted to play D&D”, but the D&D they wanted to play wasn’t the D&D I’d spent decades playing.
It was this other fiasco that, while a-ok as a system and extremely customizable (which I rather did favor as a superior meshing of the admittedly clunky 2e attempts), was turning the available players for D&D gaming into number alchemists armed with mechanical pencils and obsessions with perfect arrangements of feats, classes and PRC’s.
On the flipside, I rather liked the 3e system the more I played with it, but as my liking for the system grew, my revulsion at the increasing body of gamers also grew.
Now, one could easily say “That’s simply a matter of style incompatibility; you were used to relying heavily on roleplay and non-mechanical solutions to gameplay caveats” and they’d be technically correct., as that’s really the synopsis of it.
However, it changed after a few years. The first couple of years saw a lot of shallow comers join the D&D gamer pool. People with little to no interest in story, with even less interest in thinking and to whom notions such as studying things (such as history) for hours just to get a better grasp on how ‘things in a medieval time might’ve been like’ were totally alien.
I saw DM’s by the scores assembling in newly revitalized (and sometimes simply outright new) game/book/hobby stores with their gaming groups, and this would have pleased me immensely if many of them in those initial years were even remotely friendly, or interested in anything but seeing how silly they could be in taking over Forgotten Realms with level 218 characters.
Did they have fun? Sure, prolly. Do I begrudge them their having fun with the total crap they, in my opinion, were doing? No, not really.
It just made being an old-hat gamer a differently-lonely experience, ’cause where it’d previously been common to be the only D&D player in a room of 50 people, I was rather abruptly the only D&D player that still subscribed to notions of lovingly crafting anything.
And so time passed. The orgiastic masses thinned out, some realized a love for storytelling and grew into being ‘my’ type of gamer, and overall, things got a lot ‘better’ in terms of the playerbase maturing and expanding.
There were still plenty of the mental mutants obsessing eternally over their numerical alchemies on character sheets, but for me to call the heydays of 3e (and even 3.5 despite it’s late appearance) anything short of a renaissance of roleplaying interest would be false.
And I speak purely anecdotaly; I was able to find gamers like me with increasing ease, which made me far more forgiving of WotC seeming to pander to the mechanics jockeys.
And so more time passes. 4e is announced, sampler material comes out, and again I felt that old dread, only with a new twist.
I shoved it off to one side, however, as fear of change or difference is tacky, and I wasn’t going to guide my actions by it. So, I didn’t.
4e released, I bought the core books, got them home, poured over them…and if cringing were audible, I’d have deafened my neighborhood.
I didn’t like it. At all. Prior to playing it, it appeared to be that everything not immediately relevant to thing-killing had been excised, and only absolutely mandatory nods to anything not immediately relevant to thing-killing were even included.
I didn’t like where that was pointing, ’cause hey, people tend to go (and think) in the most readily available direction, and from the get-go, I saw where 4e was going to be pointing players.
I summed it up in one forum rant by saying “4e does not require you to have human intelligence. In fact, possession of human intelligence and creativity will be detrimental to your 4e experience, which appears as though it could be summed up in a three-part cycle sans any unnecessary descriptions; make character, hit things, if win proceed to next thing to hit, if lose proceed to ‘make character’ phase.”
However, I lampshaded my misgivings as grognard-grade paranoia. I told myself that, surely, 4e would not have to go that route. Some would, sure, but it was extracting from an already refined and developed body of tabletop D&D gamers, not from a void like 3e had been.
So, now it’s some years later. I have played 4e with sufficient frequency to be well enabled and realized in my reasons for saying that I absolutely abhor this game.
I hate it. I hate it with fire, I hate it with acid, I hate it with passion and verve and many, many verbs.
Combat is streamlined. Yes, that’s very nice for it. However, if I wanted to play Warhammer and be tied at the hip to a bushel basket of minis and 50 grid mats…well, I would be.
The ruleset and system? Yes, it’s very sleek and elegant in rendering every single PC pretty much locked into either a uninspiring clone-stereotype or a hybrid thereof.
But none of that really actually matters, as there’s really no point in playing this at all. The best advice I’ve seen anyone given (echoed above on this very comments list, no less) has been to ‘Fix it to be how you want it to be’.
I did, some months back. I fixed it by giving all my 4e books away to this teenager in the gaming store I routinely hang out in.
I hated to feel like I was perpetuating the spread of this prettily-bound and premium-printed disease of the mind, but the fellow seemed to be about as intelligent as a fencepost anyway, so what harm could it do?
It seemed fitting, in fact.
Do I hate it because of WotC’s slapstick marketing ploys? No. WotC is out to make money and so it comes as no surprise that they, like every other company, will go through hyper-greedy phases.
Do I hate it because I’m just a lame ol’ grognard that can’t adapt to the iPod era of gaming? Nerp. Big, big nerp, in fact.
Do I hate it because it demonstrates in a single stroke that WotC learned nothing from TSR’s failures and seems to have become obsessed with repeating them? Yeah, in part; way to go on pulling a Dragonlance on FR by the way, WotC. Real brainiac move there, guys. Hope you weren’t, y’know, paying the marketing and development folks that came up with that maneuver.
Do I hate it because it’s repelled most everyone that could even loosely be lumped into the description of ‘my type of gamer’ while, at the same time, fostering and catering to the most hideous-to-socialize-with lot of idiots I’ve ever had the displeasure of breathing the same air as?
Now, I get around to conventions pretty frequently. Now that I’m all growed up and have enough disposable income to just about do whatever I damn well please with my life, and this frequently finds me rubbing shoulders with a very wide-spread and diverse body of people.
Gamers, in this case. D&D gamers, to be specific as to the gamers I speak of.
Here’s what I see more and more of every time I so much as go to my local gaming store, let alone to a D&D table at gaming cons.
Idiot DM running a game out of a module book and, about half the observable time, rendering him (typically not her)self as being replaceable by said book.
Also, 3-6 players trying to ignore anything resembling fluff to get to ‘the good parts’ of killing shit and getting the xp.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
4e didn’t invent this; it isn’t new. However, 4e has not merely enthroned it, but forcibly ejected even the illusion that it was going to cater to any other style of gaming.
So, here we are, in the era of DM’s that frequently don’t know how to DM without a campaign module (at all. No exaggeration) and players that don’t even try to diversify their interests and, instead, are simply encouraged to buy over $1000 worth of books and twice that in miniatures so they can partake of the experience of having some (very typically) dude read to them out of a book and roll dice with them.
Thinking? Optional. Entirely optional. I’ve been proving it here and there for the past couple of years by deliberately ‘sabotaging’ my own games and throwing exactly nothing out there that wasn’t in a campaign module, just to -observe- the reactions.
With my long-standing veteran group? They won’t have any of that. They want story, they want intrigue, they want intelligent dialogue with NPC’s and situations that don’t always invariably hinge on combat.
The new crop of gamers? Oh, they love it. All they have to do is declare their actions, fan out their cards during their tap phase and make sure they have enough land in play to–o’wait, was I talking about M:TG or D&D?
It’s gotten so hard to tell anymore. Speaking of Magic, I’ve also been an avid player of M:TG since it came out. It’s great for what it is; there is no story that you need to worry about, and there is no over-complexity of mechanics.
You build a deck and from there, it’s a sophisticated game of chess utilizing fantasy-themed mechanics. It’s a very intelligent game that I enjoy a great deal.
What I do not enjoy is having my D&D games arbitrarily forced into being M:TG with dice and character sheets. -I-, for one, do not play D&D for the M;TG experience.
Neither do I play it for the WoW experience.
So, in conclusion…I hate D&D. It succeeds at many things, but tragically, none of them are at being a worthy successor to the D&D name or genre.
And as for all you 4e lovers posting here/yet to post here…seriously, ditch 4e and play Magic.
Everything you like about 4e is done better in M;TG. Way better. Everything is combat, it’s all immensely tactical, it’s all very, very economical in terms of keeping the ‘fluff’ minimized to an occasional short paragraph of descriptive text on a card and, beyond that, you get raw combat.
I’m dead serious; if you like 4e, you’d love M:TG, and chances are, you’d have -way- more fun with it, ’cause everything you 4e-lovers declare yourselves as loving about 4e isn’t new either.
WotC’s been providing that streamlined experience for quite some time in M:TG. You can even sate some serious completionist urges; collectible card games are great for that.
Just, please, get the hell out of my D&D pool. You’re probably not stupid people, but quit pretending you’re interested in stories or intricate plots or anything more creatively demanding than is called for by short paragraphs of strictly-unnecessary fluff.
You can play M:TG without ever reading /any/ of the fluff. But there’s fluff if you want to read it, and quite a few novels too!
So really, think about it. You’re just wasting your time with 4e. I mean, c’mon, you need pencils and books and stuff for 4e.
Why not streamline your game even further and just wrap stories around your turns in M:TG, for that matter? It’s the same advice some of you have given we ‘grognards’ in the form of ‘just change it to be how you want it’ or the oh so loveable ‘Go back to playing 3.5 if you love it so much!’ crap.
So, there you have it. The final conclusion of someone that tried (really hard) to get into and like 4e.
Suck on it.
mxyzplk | April 1, 2010 at 10:27 pm | Reply
Nice, that was pretty epic!
TheExodu5 | April 3, 2010 at 2:22 am | Reply
I’m loving your bitter, bitter tears smooth. Keep them coming.
Lee | April 20, 2010 at 12:59 am | Reply
Well I guess a simpleton like yourself refuse to realize is that in d&d combat also plays a large part in the game. Each party member in the group need to at least hold his salt in combat since they’re adventuring in a world full of deadly monsters and foes.
camazotz | May 6, 2010 at 9:56 am | Reply
@Jake: actually, you need to get out of my D&D pool, please. Guys like you do not know how to let go, relax, and enjoy the game. I’d dissect your post, but it’s easier to just let you know every moment of your analysis and take is utterly wrong…even for you, I would argue; your own little narrowly defined experiences inthis hobby DO NOT CONSTITUTE THE WHOLE OF THE HOBBY. Please. My own experience with 4E and every other iteration of D&D is so far removed from what your describing I can’t even relate to whatever reality you’re dwelling in. And I’m only being snppy here because your turgid little post was effectively insulting me and anyone else who doesn’t try to experience/view the game in the same shallow, unpleasant manner you have chosen to.
Matthew Lane | May 6, 2010 at 12:04 pm | Reply
@camazotz: Even though i don’t agree with everything that Jake said or the intensity that he said it with, i do agree with the general sentement.
I personally don’t hate 4E, because the oppposite of love is not hate. The opposite of love is disinterest. I tried 4E & i found it wasn’t for me, end of story. I packed up the 4E books and moved on with my life.
There are many games i do enjoy, why would i agonise over the one i do not? I found that 4E was short on fluff, repeditive in both combat and story & had the depth of a kiddy wadding pool… As far as i’m concerned 4E is “Power Rangers” of the RPG world.
So i kept my 3.5 books & even started snapping up other 3.5 books, while i continued to play other games that struck my fancy: Mutants and Masterminds, Savage Worlds, Spirit of the Century & Eclipse Phase all grace my book shelf, because i personally found them to be compelling & in the end thats the mark of a good RPG in my books… Is it compelling and fun, if not stop playing.
If you are enjoying the game go right ahead & continue to enjoy it, but some of us can see it for what it is: Something we aren’t enjoying.
Zak | May 8, 2010 at 3:51 pm | Reply
I think 4E does a good job satisfying the target group it was designed for.
¨Play a dragonborn if you want . . .
✦ to look like a dragon.¨
ehh, ok.
I´m not in that group and this by itself doesn´t bother me. What I don´t like is they slap the ¨Dungeons and Dragons¨ label on this new game. I stress ¨new game ¨
But it´s not really suprising or important. D&D has a 25 year history of good stuff to explore and play before the corporate greed got a hold of it and started milking the label.
Yes, but it was inevitable that WotC would become a corporate power house, that cares more for money then producing a decent product. It started to happen near the end of the 3.5 run.
As for 4E catering to a different sort of player then true D&D did, i would also have to agree. As i said to a friend of mine: 3.5 is to 4E as Roast Turkey with all the trimming is to Roast Tof-urkey.
Why would some one want to eat Roast Tof-urkey in a universe that has roast turkey in it? Oh because it has all these health benefits & its better for you. In fact health nuts can sit there for hours and point out the “improvements” of Roast Tof-urkey over turkey
– It looks like Roast Turkey (kind of, if you squint at it, even though its a complete fiction)
– It has no bones so it has more meat (co-opting a word you like “meat” to represent something you don’t like “Tof-urkey”)
– Its just generally better for you (Much like 4E’s claim to speed)
However if like me you love Roast turkey for its flavour & texture, then none of these “improvements” make a bit of difference if the main feature of flavour and texture fall short.
I liked the flavour and texture of 3.5. 4E lacks for a similar sort of flavour to what 3.5 had. I don’t like the flavour or the texture of 4E. If you do, thats fine, just don’t invite me around for thanks-giving.
Angelo | May 31, 2010 at 8:17 am | Reply
I have always played 3.5 ed, it was where I joined D&D from. I also play 4e, with a different group, and I enjoy it too.
But they are in no way the same game.
I’ll always prefer 3.5 for its realism, but 4e is more accessable to my friends and people new to the game – simpler mechanics. There are several of my friends that I play 4e with who I’ve introduced to 3.5, and they’ve enjoyed it too, sometimes more so than 4e.
4e is more accessable and is increasing the numbers of players in my age group (therefore my friends), but once they’ve learnt it I show them something better and more intelligently played. More people to play with now.
Matthew Lane | May 31, 2010 at 8:33 am | Reply
@Angelo Don’t expect it to last. While i agree that 4E got dumbed down to the point where any idiot can play, the lack of complexity that kept away the trendies no longer exists. The trendies who you play with now, will be the first ones too drop you once the newest geek trend comes through.
I’m old, so i can say with some authority that i’ve seen it before. I saw it with Magic, i saw it with Spellfire (right before the bottom fell out of the CCG market), i’ve seen it with clicky minitures, i’ve seen it with little pieces of cardboard in the shape of pirate ships & i’ve seen it with a plethora of other games that gain extreme interest by trendies, atleast till the next thing comes along.
The trendies come and go, but only the real fans stick around. Its the number 2 top reason why i don’t see 4E lasting… Number one being is thats its a pretty shallow game & shallow games with the amount of buy-in that 4E has never lasts.
mxyzplk | May 31, 2010 at 1:12 pm | Reply
Well, that’s not bad per se. D&D was quite a million-person fad back in the early days too and many fell away.
I would ask Angelo though, and I am asking this seriously – is that really true? Are you really getting newer people into 4e because it’s more accessible?
Because it doesn’t seem all that much more accessible to me. The Red Box pulled in loads of D&D players and started them up the chain because it was totally accessible. But 4e is still a huge ass set of books, practically requiring an electronic service subscription (Insider)… I really want to know, are you “just saying that” or is 4e really getting in new players, and if so, why? Is it really simpler, or is it just the game y’all are recruiting people to play?
yeah, but you started with the red book, yes? The red book was not exactly complex… try starting with 3E or god forbid, try starting to play with a complete set of “Advanced.” Trying to reverse engineer what you really needed out of all the sillyness.
And yes 4E players like to recruit. Problem is 4E players have some sort of hearing problem. You say something like “no thank you, 4E is not for me, i think i’ll stick with 3.5” & what they here is “HA! you are a giant moron for playing 4E & i have obviously made up my mind on your perfect system due to bad information given to me by the 3.5 terrorist orgainsation which wants to destroy 4E, mums apple pie & everything thats good. I would also like to have you change my mind for me, by ranting at me for 40 minutes about how good & perfect 4E is… If you could please start with the part where your system is so perfect that if i just gave it a shot, it would have the power to replace both government and religion.”
I don’t hate 4E, but i am starting to hate its players… especially the ones who don’t play anything but 4E & claim that they are gamers. No game is perfect, and maybe you would kow that if you played some other game as well as 4E.
Ok, rant over.
EDDDDIIII | August 8, 2010 at 2:23 am | Reply
3.5 was the edition that i learned to play dnd on. when 4e came out i felt the same way. it true that their trying to relate to this generation. hey, mabey in 8 to 10 years 5.0 with be better!!! -_-
glyph | August 12, 2010 at 4:09 pm | Reply
Wow, a two-year old thread that’s still alive! I suppose I’ll share some of my experiences.
I started playing PnP games with the original AD&D, then 2e, as well as Champions, Cyberpunk, Mekton, Chill, and various WW games, to name a few. I played a little 3e, but I guess I didn’t really get excited about it enough to get much of an impression.
Through various life changes, I drifted away from most gaming for a good many years, but then got back into it with Classic Battletech, of all things. I then transitioned to playing board games pretty much exclusively (Catan/Spacefarers, Godstorm/2210, Days of Wonder/Fanasy Flight type stuff). This ended up working out pretty well, since I had gotten married to a wonderful woman who did not hail from the realms of geekdom. Board gaming ended up being something my wife and I could do with our friends for a night of fun. We’ve collected lots of different kind of games, and depending on the players and general mood our game nights have sometimes been more ‘beer & pretzels’, and sometimes been more ‘coffee & tactics’. So, dice were still rolling, and fun was still had.
I still really missed the open-ended storylines and world exploration of the old RP days, though. Enter D&D 4e. It’s a nearly perfect fit for me. I’ll be the first to agree that the combat definitely takes a little getting used to, as in prior games we almost never used minis or maps. I do somewhat miss the more open-ended, imagination-driven combat, and find 4e combat somewhat limiting compared to my 2e experiences. But, by the same token, I enjoy and appreciate the new mechanics that encourage cooperative effects in combat, and have no problem visualizing the scene and imagining effects and interactions. So yeah, combat’s vastly different. I also kind of like the changes to the magic-user classes, as I’d never really enjoyed the old models.
While the mechanics have certainly changed, I don’t see anything in the new rules that hinders creative DMs from crafting engaging, interesting stories taking place in well-crafted worlds, with interesting NPC interactions, or anything that hinders players from creating and developing well crafted and emotionally satisfying characters. In almost every role-playing game I’ve ever played in, the DM chose to largely create their own world and campaign setting, instead of using the prewritten stuff (i.e. instead of just ‘reading it out of the book’). So, the scrapping of the lore doesn’t bother me much– although I can certainly see how it’s regrettable to those who’ve heavily invested their RP experiences in the prewritten campaign settings.
Perhaps most importantly, taken in the right spirit it’s actually fun to play! All of the classic RPG elements still apply: exploration, investigation, red herrings, dungeon-crawls, tavern brawls, drinking games, practical jokes, daring and hare-brained schemes, unraveling evil plots, discovering eldritch horrors and ancient greatness, bravely facing unspeakable evil, and rescuing lost kittens for some poor villager… all of these things are still possible in 4e, and it’s telling stories like this that I play the game for.
@Jake: I think you have some valid points, but your main gripe seems less like a critique of the rule system and more analogous to bitter hipsterism with regard to a new wave of players attracted to a game that’s more open to new players– i.e. “now that it’s popular and all these ignorant newbs are here, the scene is totally ruined”. Well…they’re new, and they don’t know any better. I think that’s exactly when greybeards like yourself should step in and show the new players how to create great adventures and fun and interesting characters in any system. I suppose the alternative would be to stand on your lawn and shake your fist at those rowdy kids. But, if you care at all about giving back to the hobby by encouraging the next generation of gamers, I’d suggest a more positive approach.
From what I’ve seen at my LGS, 4e is not going away anytime soon.
Matthew Lane | August 13, 2010 at 4:34 am | Reply
@glyph congrats on finding a game you enjoy. I am happy that you have found a game that is such a perfect fit for you. As a fan of many sorts of games, i think i can speak for most of us here when i say we don’t agree with you. Not that you enjoy 4E, i’m sure you do.
We don’t hate 4E, we just find that its not a perfect fit for us & so we stopped playing it… Its actually been a while since this blog discussion has been actively frequented, but i thought i’d take a second to once again congratulate you on finding a game that perfectly fits your particular style & gaming needs. 🙂
glyph | August 13, 2010 at 8:11 am | Reply
Cheers for gaming in general! 🙂
Thanks for holding the space.
Totally, we’re happy for you to be happy with 4e 🙂
I don’t begrudge new people coming into the hobby via 4e – but I fear that 4e behaves very differently to a player of a previous edition, like yourself – you know “how D&D should be” and you just use 4e to fit that. For a lot of new people getting in, 4e on its face is not at all about the role-play and the daring schemes and whatnot – meaning if there aren’t enough greybeards around to show them the ropes, and the 4e books are their only teachers, they get taught bad ropes. Uncle Bear (I think, but I can’t find it) had a good post about trying to DM for some “started with 4e” players at a con and it was a nightmare, they hated his game with real roleplay in it and all.
4e is a tool, it can be used for “good” or “evil” – but like knives, there are some that are just more dangerous to their user than others, and 4e’s like that.
And don’t discount its long term effect on you either. When I went back and played some 2e last year, it made me realize a lot of the things that 3e/3.5e had done to me as a gamer over time without me even realizing it, and I didn’t like some of those things. It’s like “you can still eat healthy, even at McDonald’s!” Sure, but I’ll put down money after a year of eating at McDonald’s daily, you won’t be eating healthy any more. It’s human nature.
But there are positive changes inthe game too, and maybe you get more mileage out of them than drag out of the other stuff, and that’s cool too.
Alfred Bonnabel | August 13, 2010 at 4:04 pm | Reply
mxyzplk makes some very good points. While retro gaming seems to be making a comeback it is still a very small niche market. But everywhere I go I see 4e books stacked up. Book stores, video game shops, lan centers, I can’t escape 4e!
Fourth edition is a tool like any other gaming system. However, as an introductory system (as it is for a great many young people of the World of Warcraft generation) it places so much emphasis on combat and a bleak world with only a cursory nod to actual roleplaying. The only 4e gamers that I have personally witnessed roleplaying in a game are veteran gamers. The tables of new people are predominantly focused on maximizing their “talent build” and hack n slash.
I can’t help but wonder if this is only going to polarize the market. To an extent it has already done so with Pathfinder breaking off and heading in its own direction with few players that I know of playing both games.
There may be some very good elements to 4e that could be mined and added to an existing mature game system to the benefit of everyone. But on its own I still contend that 4e is not the way I want to go with my gaming.
DnDrake | August 24, 2010 at 12:15 pm | Reply
Hi there. For starters, I apologize in advance for any gramatical or orthographical error made in this comment. I’m portuguese so, as you may imagine, English isn’t my native language.
I don’t have the time to read all the comments here but, from the ones I did, I see this is a community of mostly 3rd edition lovers.
I’m no noob in D&D, i’ve played since 2e and refused to switch to 3e when it came out, and i’m glad i did. 3e had confuse rules, lot’s of “tweaks” from the original rules each month and like a bajillion class/race/prestige class combinations. But, when 4e came out, i gladly and happily switched over to 4e.
I think the power system is a great improvement to the game, ESPECIALY to spellcasters. What sense does it make to cast a magic missile and then have to sleep 8 hours to be able to cast it again? If you see some fantasy movies/read some fantasy novels, you’ll see that wizards are capable of conjuring more than 1 magic missile or whatever spell per day, even the most young wizards (no, i’m not going into harry potter with this).
Also, the power system gave new combat options to other non-spellcasting characters. For example, a fighter in every edition just had 1 option: “I strike it with my [insert weapon name here]”. Now, the powers translate themselves into real life combat possibilities, like bashing your foe with your shield, protecting yourself, or stab his foot to slow him down. And no, I never was the guy with the 10k HP serving as meatshield to a horde of goblins. I actualy played a rogue most times in 2e, and i even think the rogue is better in 4e.
I don’t see 4e as a hindrance to role-playing as i saw 3e (frankly, i do think 3e was roll-playing, not role-playing, since you could make a lwafull good paladin/rogue/assassin that murders people for a living and still make it work, wich i think it’s unthinkable).
So, for all you 3e lovers, a big “shove it”. 4e has come as the best inprovement to D&D since AD&D 2e!
Matthew Lane | August 24, 2010 at 8:26 pm | Reply
@DnDrake: Nope, your wrong… Not subjectively wrong, you’re 4Evenger style wrong. I wont go into great detail, but pretty much everything you said is wrong.
You’re welcome to your belief that your system is superior, but don’t try and discredit something you freely admit you didn’t play. 3.5 players don’t hate 4E, but we do hate 4Evengers. That is all.
p.s “Obvious Troll” is obvious.
mxyzplk | August 24, 2010 at 10:58 pm | Reply
Well @DnDrake, you brought that on yourself – your comment was fine till you decided to be a cockknocker at the end there.
To address some of your points before you decided to flex your Internet Muscles ™, I like 2e as well and definitely think there’s some things that 3e doesn’t do better than it – in fact, read a separate post I did on that topic. 3e/3.5e isn’t perfect.
And I’m happy you are enjoying 4e, even though I disagree with pretty much all your other points.
DnDrake | August 25, 2010 at 3:38 am | Reply
Well, for starters, Mathew, I did in fact play 3e, cuz if you want to know if you like something, you need to try it first. And let me tell ya, I didn’t like it at all. The system is unstable with lots of holes in the “over 9000!” rules. I’m not a 4Evenger or whatever you 3e lovers call it, I’m just a guy who likes games that are well designed. I belive 4e is superior cuz I didn’t welcome it like the most of you, with pure desbelief. True, when I first read the 4e rules I though “hey, what a big piece of crap!” but I tried it out. Friends of mine, 3e and 3.5e lovers, refused to play 4e since it got out. I convinced them to try it out, they did and now they’re playing 4e every friday night. And no troll comments please. I realy think you guys are above of that type of things.
Also, mxyzplk, don’t start on the verbal abuse there. Cockknocker…
I didn’t disrespect noone. I know “shove it” wasn’t at all apropriate, and I apologize for that. Is that I see too much irrational hate among 3e lovers that I realy needed to say that. Anyway, you 3e lovers promptly refuse to try anything new cuz your system is so perfect and its rules covers everything, even if you want to take a dump I’m sure that it’ll have a rule for that. Also, Internet Muscles? Come on man! First of all, I never do that, second of all, I don’t realy need to do that, cuz I think that logical debate is better than fisical or verbal violence, wich seems not be your opinion with that comment…
And I realy can’t belive you disagree with a mage only being able to cast one spell per day after eight hours of sleep, or that a paladin/rogue/assassin is a viable character (come on man, that’s ridiculous!). If you realy do…I pity you…indeed I do…
To finish, 3e is, mostly, a big pile of poorly crafted skills, feats, rules and costum content, while 4e picks up what’s best in 3e (yes, there are some things that 3e does right. I never said that 3e is 100% bad…just like 90, 85% bad) and fixes what it did wrong.
Now, if someone wants to comment on that, I’d apreciate they did so by taking mathew for an example…on how not to comment.
THE RETURN OF OBVIOUS TROLL: This time its personal. 😀
@DnDrake: And you’re still wrong. As for the term 4Evenger, it refers to any person who runs around declaring that 4E is the best thing since the invention of blow jobs & if you would just give it a shot, you’d see that its not only superior to 3E, but also better then all religion & forms of goverment combined.
I think i can say with relative safety, that we have all tried 4E & found it lacking in some fundamental way, to our prefered gaming style. Hence we didn’t bother with it. I can also say with some confidence that all of us here also play other games, outside of D&D. Heck i’ve got an entire shelf dedicated to my active games: Eclipse Phase, Spirit of the Century, 2E D&D, Mutants and Masterminds 2E, Alliance LARP (using its PnP rules in the back), Hackmaster Basic & TMNT after the bomb. Those are just the active games.
If you want to be argumentative about it however, you cannot build a paladin/rogue/assassin as a legal character, nor does a 1st level wizard only throw a single magic missile before needing a rest. Thats the kind of hyperbole 4Evengers use as facts to prove there system is superior, which only goes so far as to prove its subjective inferiority. If 4E were as superior as you seem to think it is, you wouldn’t have to make up shit to discourage people from trying 3.5.
Enjoy the game you want to enjoy, but don’t try and tell us all that we are less intelligent then you becuase we don’t enjoy playing your prefered system.
Ok, if you want to start offending people, Mathew, let’s offend people.
First of all, stop with the troll abuse. It’s getting kinda idiotic, and I realy think, or thought for that matter, that you are above it.
Second, I never told that 4e was the best thing around. I still do prefer 2e above anything, although I also like 4e and dislike 3/3.5e.
If your prefered gaming style is power gaming (wich it does seem it is) then go ahead with 3e. 3e is still roll-play for me, not roleplay.
Also, I never said “hey you n00b you only play 3e duh and you suck and stuff”. I’m glad to hear that people play other games as well. I for one would love to try out LARPing, but I lack the time and people to do it (portugal isn’t very adept to that 😦 )
And if you realy think I told you you are less inteligent for playing 3e, than you realy lack inteligence. Go review my comments, you’ll find nothing of that sort in there. And no, I’m not trying to convince anyone to dump 3e, I’m only pointing out what 4e has to offer that 3e didn’t. If anyone want to quickly dump the format they love for another one just because of I say, hell yeah your less inteligent! If you realy like one style of playing, you should stick to it and defend it, not change your mind when the first person you meet says it suck.
Also, I’m not making up shit to do whatever your saying I’m doing. So, if you wanna keep flex your “Internet Muscles”, like mxyzplk said, go ahead. Uninteligent comments don’t realy affect me. But if, instead, you wanna talk without your “ring of master assholeness +5”, I’d be must happy to.
Obvious troll is still obviously wrong.
3.5 does the things we want it too do, 4E does not. Our system is subjectively better then your, because we enjoy it & we don’t enjoy yours. End of story.
As for calling you Obvious-Troll, i’m afraid i’m going to have to continue calling you that, as its obvious that the only reason you commented was to troll; hence “Obvious Troll.”
Thank you for commenting Obvious Troll & have a nice day 😀
Well it seems that now your getting out of arguments mr “you’re a troll cuz i say so and i rulez!”
“My system is betters cuz i likes it betters”? What kind of stupid argument is that?
If you think i’m just trolling, well think again. Have i come here to insult people, make off-topic comments or otherwise spoil the discussion? I may have gone a bit overboard in my first post, with the shove it, but i apologized after. I also didn’t came here to make a point, cuz, in the end, it all goes down to a matter of taste, but to give my 2 cents about the topic and maybe get some constructive criticism out of someone on the other side of the argument. And what do i get? Some dude flexing it’s internet muscles at me saying “I know stuff, you’re a troll, you suck and everything you say sucks…cuz…er…you suck!”
Now, i point it out again, if you wanna discuss things rationally, i’d love to. If ya don’t, go insult people somewhere else.
@Obvious_Troll: Actually when it comes down to preference, then yes, being subjectively better is in fact based on personal preference, as what i want out of my game is different from what you want out of your game. So yes, the game i enjoy because it does what i want, is a perfect rational for me enjoying he game that does the thing i want. Seems like basic circular logic to the uninitiated but there it is, the be all and end all of your Edition War.
As for you coming here to having a rational discussion, nothing says rational like ending your opening post with & i quote: “So, for all you 3e lovers, a big “shove it”. 4e has come as the best inprovement to D&D since AD&D 2e!”
Obvious Troll is Obvious.
Once again, you don’t cease to amaze me. In a bad way of course. Have i not apologized for being rude? Anyway, that’s out of context…
In context: If you like 3e better, then it’s your preference. It does not make it better than 4e just because you like it better. I like 4e better but it still doesn’t make 4e better than 3e. I expressed my opinion (even with that sad shove it comment on the end, for wich i again apologize) and tried to point out why i though 4e was better, not just “me sa likes it betters!”. Now, if you still want to call me obvious troll, be my guest! I think i’ll start using it as my forum nickname and such. I do like irony!
@Obvious_Troll: Actually thats exactly what “subjectively better” means. I hold that 3.5 is better, because i like 3.5 & it does what i want, while 4E does not, hence it is subjectively better from my point of view. You think 4E is better hence subjectively from your point of view 4E is better. Neither one can claim any sort of superiority, so the best one can hope for is for people to understand subjective qualities.
Does not seem to be what you expressed in your previous posts, where you claim 3e superiority, but since you don’t seem to be coherent throughout your comments, let’s leave it at this:
Yay you win, I’m a troll, your the best! Kudos for you!
Now, as a troll, i’ll take my leave to my dark cave away from society where i can just troll around and do trollish stuff with my troll friends and such.
There. Happy? Don’t bother to reply.
– (not so)Obvious_Troll
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Sean Wheeler | December 14, 2010 at 6:38 am | Reply
I love D&D 3.5 and I have been playing 4ed a while now as well. It’s best to think of them both as completely different games, because they are. 3.5 is role play game with combat. 4ed is combat with a bit of role play, it’s more or less a tabletop version of the game with all the small rules chucked out, so you can get down to the fun combat. It took me a while to get into the 4ed game but once you’ve played it a while and stop comparing it to 3.5 you can start to enjoy the game. If you have a group that has a DM learner or not brilliant at DMing then 4ed is for you. It’s less about the story and more about the encounters. You have fewer skills and spells to worry about that can tie up some players. It is a fun good game. 3.5 is great as a RPG while 4ed is great as a tabletop game with RPG elements. But while they are related they are different game systems.
mxyzplk | December 14, 2010 at 6:51 am | Reply
Yeah, I wouldn’t be as incensed if they had just marketed it as “Advanced D&D Minis” or “Chainmail 4″… It’s just that by saying “no, this is what D&D is now” they are effectively going to be limiting exposure to real roleplay for a whole new generation of “what is this I see in Barnes & Noble” types.
Samael | January 17, 2011 at 11:32 pm | Reply
I don’t quite get the reasoning here, sorry. The core rules in a roleplaying game are about the game part, not the roleplaying one. I still vividly remember playing Pathfinder with roleplaying newbies last year – hell, I still vividly remember my own first steps – and from a roleplaying perspective it sucked. I remember AD&D groups of veterans dedicated entirely to hack&slay. A few months back I started a 4e group and the roleplaying is stellar.
So, is 4e inherently better for roleplaying? Hell no. I told my players not to bother buying the rulebooks and filling out a character sheet at the beginning. I had them imagine a character they would like to play (not fighter, not mage but Timmy who happens to be a bit smarter then the rest, has some interesting flaws and so on) gave them a rough template of basic stats without a class and powers and threw them into an adventure. Play your character and we see how he turns out. RPGs usually do it the other way around, you learn all about the crunch first and foremost. If you’re lucky you’ll end up in a group with seasoned roleplayers who’ll lead by example but usually the first dozen sessions are utterly devoid of that.
Take of the nostalgia filter and take a long, honest look back.
mxyzplk | January 18, 2011 at 7:53 am | Reply
So if you ignore the rules, it becomes a better roleplaying game. Yes, that’s what I’d expect.
Anyway, you’re engaging in an obvious logical fallacy. Yes, people *have* performed great roleplaying with just about any system, and people have performed awful roleplaying with any system. That doesn’t change the fact that certain systems are more conducive to it, and that a larger percentage of groups/campaigns/sessions will therefore be roleplaying vs. tactical gaming. It’s a basic, obvious point, go read “System Does Matter” if you need in depth explanation of that.
Andy Bates | January 18, 2011 at 2:42 am | Reply
My problem with “play your character and see how he turns out” with regards to D&D 4e is that you have rules like, “You are Marked, so everyone gets a bonus to hit you” or “This guy gets a free attack of opportunity if you try to move away” that pull me out of the role-playing mentality. Those are gamey rules, not rules based on role playing.
Pinniped | March 15, 2011 at 9:28 am | Reply
Those aren’t new to 4e, though. “Everyone gets a bonus to hit you” has always been in D&D. Step in something sticky? Rust monster ate your shield? Everyone gets a bonus to hit you. “Attacks of opportunity” weren’t named and standardized until 3e, but haven’t they always been there? I can’t remember if 1e had them, but I know 2e did.
(Less importantly, that’s not what Marked is. Marked is “This guy is harrying you, which makes it harder for you to attack anyone but him.”)
Matthew Lane | March 15, 2011 at 10:53 am | Reply
Sure, but theres a difference between a system containing those traits & a system made up almost completely of those traits. Whats more it has a tendency to take me out of the game, as unlike say AOO, its not consistent.
Pinniped | March 15, 2011 at 2:35 pm | Reply
What was 3e’s combat system made out of, then, if not “those traits”? I’m not even sure what “those traits” are, exactly — combat effects?In that case, The only real difference that I see is that 4e streamlined “those traits”, making them _more_ consistent.
For example, as much fun as it is to read about exactly how many targets Magic Missile can hit at each level and the various rules surrounding what groups of enemies it can target, with respect to distance between enemies, line of sight between enemies, line of sight to the caster, etc., in play it’s more of a hassle than anything else. Relying on bursts, blasts and walls makes it easier to internalize the rules and thus not have to consciously focus on them.
As another example, removing effects that lowered base stats due to the number of recalculations that required. No more having to recalculate your encumberance penalties mid-battle if your strength changes! That seems like a positive thing to me, if not a purely positive thing. It’s certainly more consistent than 3e’s “every spell has its own rules block” philosophy.
mxyzplk | March 15, 2011 at 10:20 pm |
Here’s a good article that goes into depth about why 4e’s mechanics are more dissociated than 3e’s, which is the heart of the problem really.
That’s not to say nothing in 4e is an improvement on 3e. As you note, 3.5e had already started to go down the way-too-many-rules rabbit hole. But while 4e made some strides forward in simplifying core mechanics, it unfortunately hit the “worst of both worlds” – the legalism mentality of 3.5e added to the simplicity going too far into restriction ends up creating a game that is a game, not a fictional world.
Shep | March 15, 2011 at 11:57 pm |
(the article turned out to be longer than I thought, so I’ll start by replying to the first part)
I guess I’ve never had the problem he has with martial powers. In particular, he says:
“If you’re watching a football game, for example, and a player makes an amazing one-handed catch, you don’t think to yourself: “Wow, they won’t be able to do that again until tomorrow!”
It’s a fair point, but at the same time, nor do you think, “Well gee, why doesn’t he just do that every time? They’d win this game easily if they simply stuck to performing at the absolute peak of athleticism!” Physical exertion takes focus and concentration, which are not in unlimited supply. Specific maneuvers tax specific muscles. Those are two separate, realistic ways to explain why a Rogue might only use Trick Strike once per day.
You could explain it narratively — rarely, the Rogue has the opportunity to string together an incredible series of feints, and the player is given (limited) agency to decide when this occurs.
You could explain it magically — that even a low-level Rogue is already equivalent to the real world’s best athletes, and beyond that our understanding of athleticism doesn’t just scale up. By the time that Rogue is questing through the Far Realm to steal Hope itself, we can’t expect to explain his abilities based on what a mere football player can do.
And then there’s mechanically, as in the Rogue has all manner of springs and hidden blades built into his equipment that can’t be properly re-set until the party has the time and the security to make camp for the night.
Any of those feel much more grounded in reality to me than “the wizard can ‘store’ a very specific number of spells, neatly arranged into discrete levels, because: It’s Magic”. It works, and it’s a part of D&D history, but it doesn’t make more sense to me just because it has doesn’t have any grounding in the real world.
If I had to choose the more realistic/versimilitudinous/associated explanation for physical feats, I would go with “some particularly difficult feats tax the character in a way that requires him to rest before attempting it again” over “a character can never perform a physical feat that exerts him in any way — if he can perform it once, he can perform it non-stop, all day long, without pause.”
Pinniped | March 15, 2011 at 11:58 pm |
I’d just rather have a game that supports the fictional world than one I have to jump through hoops to justify. It really hinders you from getting into character, which not everyone does, but I do.
Paul McQueen | February 28, 2011 at 1:02 pm | Reply
Thank you everyone it is so refeshing to come to a site and speak your mind and be called arcahic or 4e basher and end up with your posts deleted and a rude pm from the admin of the site. Mind you those same people can take pop shots at all earlier edtions unscathed.
OK now with that off my chest when I DM or play in a game I like one with a balance of hack and slash and rpg to play in so in other words no 4e. Don’t mistake 4e’s approachability and streamlined nature for simplicity. Just ask any power gamer there is as much in tactical depth in 4e as there is in any other game, even if a few items didn’t make it onto the equipment list and some skills are left to the discretion of the DM.
And that’s just on the mechanical level. Obviously, on the Role playing level, there’s nothing reducing the amount of depth possible. In fact, there are those that argue that the removal of “social skills” as numerical constructs deepens the game play in this respect.
I know some like 4e it and thats great for you, I tried it and to me it came off as a World of Warcraft crammed into to a bastardised D&D system if it was called something else I may have not been as critical.
Andy Bates | March 17, 2011 at 5:58 pm | Reply
My problem with the “You can explain daily feats away narratively or magically or mechanically” is that you are tacking an explanation onto an unexplained mechanic, which makes it impossible to tie that explanation into the game in any meaningful way.
For example, let’s say that you have a modifier: “Player defends at -2 to any attacks from behind.” Without an explanation of why that penalty is there, you can’t determine when it does or doesn’t apply. What if the player gains the ability to see in a 360° arc? If the penalty is due to vision, then it would no longer apply; if the penalty is due to limitations of his ability to reach backwards, then it would apply; if the penalty is due to a weakness in the back of his armor, it would also apply. Defining abilities as statistics, instead of in storytelling terms, means that the game system is divorced from the game world itself.
Another example: You explain the rogue’s ability as “the Rogue has all manner of springs and hidden blades built into his equipment that can’t be properly re-set until the party has the time and the security to make camp for the night.” Now he ends up staying overnight in a palace…but all of his items are taken away. Does he get to reset his power or not?
Simply put, if you separate the system from the storytelling, the players and GM have no way to simulate their roleplaying within the system, except as rigidly defined beforehand.
Matthew Lane | March 17, 2011 at 10:22 pm | Reply
@Andy “Defining abilities as statistics, instead of in storytelling terms, means that the game system is divorced from the game world itself.”
I’m a fan of many games inculding Mutants and Masterminds & that game showed me how important it is for powers/abilities to be linked to an actual story reason for doing things.
For example i ran a 1 shot adventure a monsth or two ago including a nanite swarm that communicated via ulta frequency noise, that can be heard by most humans. However two of my PC’s had ultrahearing, 1 in the form of a suit of armour & the other naturually. The armour suited character just turned off that particular sensor, but the Shazam like paragon had to keep her distance or be overwhelmed by it…
That story would have been very different if not for the grounding in the reality of the narrative form.
S_L | April 6, 2011 at 1:19 pm | Reply
hehehehehehe I love how 3E grognards love a not real RPG as well as 4E, both games are battle oriented, as the worst part 3E has such quantity of rules that RPG itself and interpretation of one character are left aside to a roll system, RPing it’s not going to a town talk with people and roll dice to see if you have succeed or not being nice or intimidating them.
Anyway points I don’t play 3e for a long time (and that doesn’t mean I don’t like 3e or that I strongly assume that I’m right and any other thought is wrong), are the next:
I hated 3E DM or player love rulers, because anytime some pc wanted to do something and the rule was not well described or not understand well, we have to go back to books read over and over and deliberate for it was or not possible to make the action suggested then you had another discussion if it was right whether or not to make certain roll dice, after 30 or 60 minutes let’s back to play.
3E DMing was a laborious task; many of DMs routed to their dungeon anyway because of their spending time on generate it, and the background history became more and more linear, and the feeling was almost null that as players affecting the world; as a DM I tried not to have a dungeon pre generated but it came the part to improvise over the march, even though you prepared the story for so long before…
3E it’s about rules, it’s about skills and it’s about hitting the monster. As one player said in one narration to our DM: “talking doesn’t give experience let’s kill the bas…ard”, having a combat take a lot of time 3 to 4 hours most of the time, and realizing that most of the spells our mage has were crap for this encounter or he with a simple move blew out the room, poor consistency of what players can do from one day to the other.
Any way it’s not that I hate 3E it’s that it consumes too much time and for now I work and have a new family, I’d rather play other games which illustrate more the RP side of the hobby, less complicated battle rules, and more liberty and less debating about the rules. And please don´t take it to the bad side but for me, in order to enjoy D&D I strongly prefer 4E has more options with less books, it’s more about telling what you are doing in order to flavor your pc even in combat, less rules more given to your imagination and your little list of your skills, and DMing has become also a lot of easier and gives me space to work more in the history than in the battle; and pcs I play with, love more the history than the battle… But once again it’s just my point of view.
Finally I’m trying to give a shot to Dragon Age, it’s lots of simpler, I got a little bored with Vampire and werewolf, so I’m back to fantasy RPG’s 😉
Matthew Lane | April 10, 2011 at 7:17 am | Reply
“3E it’s about rules, it’s about skills and it’s about hitting the monster”
Okay, that seems to be the heart of your opinion & i have to say “No, you are wrong.” It could be all about combat if thats what the DM wanted to run, but one could also play a more social, city building, urban, intrigue game, where you need not role a single “to hit” the entire story. An yet it still worked.
You try that in 4E & people would quit your game by the end of session 2. 4E is nothing but dice rolling combat & non combat stuff that works exactly like combat. Its books are empty of fluff & without the fluff the game devolves into mindless empty combats, with no surprises.
Sure DMing has become easier, but ease has nothing to do with quality & does nothing to entice new players into the game (at least not players who aren’t going to get bored 2 weeks into it, or as soon as something new and shinny appears on the scene).
Just my opinion of course, but 4E has already shown it does not have the staying power of even 2E, let alone 3E.
And I think this is the heart of the problem.
“Can” a DM insert more role-playing and exploration into 4e? Sure.
But 4e has deliberately marginalized the role and authority of the DM. And people that play “stock” 4e with other groups will expect nothing but killfest, with a skill challenge thrown in because that’s what “role-playing and exploration” have been reduced to.
Uncle Bear had a story (Don’t have a link, his blogs go up and down so much I can’t keep up) about going to run 4e at a convention and trying to run it RP-heavy; his group of players rebelled.
It dumbs down the overall player pool and thus it becomes harder and harder for someone to do something better with the game. And yes, that’s a value judgment. Because when it comes down to it, it’s like music. You may like pop better than classical music. But it’s obvious which is a more refined version of the form. 4e is to role-playing what Guitar Hero is to music. It encourages you to ape the externalities, but the skills it requires are not sufficient for actual music-making.
Svafa | April 21, 2011 at 4:21 pm | Reply
I could see having trouble running an RP-heavy 4E game at a convention, but then I could as easily see having trouble doing the same in 3.x. My experience is one-off and weekend games, like those found at conventions, tend to be more roll-play than role-play. Maybe your experience is different.
When 4E first came out, I grabbed our usual 3.5 group and we sat down to play through Keep on the Shadowfell. It took us about three months playing once a week to finish, because most of our sessions were spent role-playing. The first session we sat down to play didn’t even include an encounter of any sort. Most sessions had one, maybe two encounters, but half of each session was easily spent roleplaying their characters: visiting the local farms, hanging out at the blacksmith, convincing each other to drink the Wizard’s dubious potions, barging in on old men bathing, chatting up a goblin (once they eventually got to the keep…), etc.
Sure, our group tends toward roleplay, so maybe they are the exception. But, I don’t see how the system is responsible for the play styles of the players. It can go either way easily. Still, I prefer 3.x to 4E personally.
mxyzplk | April 22, 2011 at 10:07 pm |
See, this is the fallacy that it’s hard to see.
If you are used to playing a given way, like with roleplaying, when you take up a game that is less conducive to it, you do it anyway.
However, new gamers just taking up RPGs don’t. They don’t have the legacy experience you do. So soon you are confronted with a player base that just wants to wargame, not roleplay.
And it changes you over time, too. In retrospect I see gaming tendencies that 3e installed in myself and other gamers that “snuck up on us” and were undesirable (CharOp, for example).
As for “how can the system be responsible” – understanding is as easy as reading two seminal articles on roleplaying. First, System Does Matter, which explains how system affects gameplay, and second, Dissociated Mechanics, which specifically explains how 4e’s mechanics affect gameplay and inhibit roleplay and immersion.
Speusippus | April 27, 2011 at 12:47 pm | Reply
Interesting converation. Thanks for the link to “Dissociated Mechanics”–that article put together in a very thoughtful way several concerns I’ve had only in a vague and inarticulate way til now.
However, I think the author misses a way to resolve the problem of dissociated mechanics in 4e. Near the end ofthe article he contrasts narrative style gaming with roleplay style gaming. He says neither is inherently better–and cites with approval a system called “Wushui” whicch focusses on narrative rather than rolep.lay. But the author says then that 4e is focussing on mechanics instead of roleplay. I think the author should consider the possibility that 4e provides an ouopportunity to engage in narrative based gaming as well.
For examplle, how to explain the mechanics of daily powers? The author is right that it makes little sense within the game world to say “I can only use this power one time” if the power iss omething like shifting your opponent arround during an encounter. But this can be explained in _narrative_ terms. A story in which a character just constantly pulled off these kinds of powers all the time would not be a very good story. One in which he does it only once or twice is able to be a better story.
Not a perfect resoultion–we still need to explain, in any particular story, why the character in fact _doesn’t_ do the same thing later the same day. But that’s not at all an insurmouintable obstacale. A good DM (or player) should be able to come up with something if it becomes an issue. (On one occasion, perhaps, it’s because the opponent has been warned about the character’s trickiness in combat. On another occasion, perhaps, it’s because the character just isn’t in “the zone” as much as he was before. Make up whatever you like for each incident in which the questioncomes up for some reason.Sure, this is adhock, but since when does roleplaying not involve a lot of stuff that’s adhoc? It’s just that in this case, what’s adhoc is not figuring out how to resolve a proposed action, (thought hat occurs in 4e plenty, of course!) but rather explaining why things have turned out as the mechancis require, in _story_ terms.
My apologies for the spelling errors–there’s something wrong with te forum post field on this page (on my computer anyway) making it very difficult to reliably place the cursor on errors and correct them, .
You are right, 4e has some narrativist elements. However, narrativist != immersion – as you start to see all the things you “have to explain away” in your response. Frankly, a lot of the current crop of indie games are composed of a gamist/narrativist mix that leaves me cold.
According to the old Threefold Model There are three primary creative agendas you can serve with a RPG – gamist (rules and winning), narration (story and authoring), and simulation (world and character). Simulation is the stance that lends itself to character immersion. Some people talk about ‘story immersion’ but that’s a BS coopting of the term, being engrossed in something isn’t immersion. We used to call it “roleplaying” but then all the morlocks insisted that playing minis combat games *was* roleplaying, so it got renamed “immersion,” and now people insist they are “immersing” in the rules or the story. Sigh.
Also if you’re interested in this you may want to check out the new post currently under discussion about immersion vs. metagaming!
Andy Bates | April 27, 2011 at 10:09 pm | Reply
But see, that’s the entire problem: You say that the game doesn’t have to focus on mechanics over narrative, but you’re using narrative to explain the mechanics, instead of the other way around. The mechanics should fit the narrative, not the other way around.
The problem with coming up with a narrative to explain the mechanics is that it’s tacked on, has absolutely no bearing on gameplay, and breaks down if you try to use it in gameplay. For example, let’s come up with an explanation for the “once a day” powers: say that the character gets too tired to use the power more than once. Fine. Now say your character finds a Potion of Rejuvenation: Does that mean that he can use his powers again that day? Or what if he runs into a spell that instantly ages him a day. Or he experiences a magical sleep that doesn’t let him rest overnight. Can any of these narrative elements override the game mechanics? No.
The very fact that you have to bend over backwards to find an in-game explanation for technical mechanics (and those explanations can do nothing to change the mechanics) shows that the game’s creators prioritized mechanics, at the expense of narrative. The other website has more examples, but when you can name multiple gameplay elements that have no narrative explanation (like marking, attacks of opportunity, and so on), it shows that narrative loses to mechanics.
MayaSummers | September 27, 2012 at 12:45 am | Reply
I know that this was discussed a while back, so forgive me for jumping into this so late. I’m a relatively new player of DnD, and started with 4e. I was just wondering what was keeping the DM from explaining how daily powers worked and sticking to that? If a daily refreshes after eight hours rest, and we decide as a group that Potions of Rejuvination are now going to act as granting eight hour rests, wouldn’t that kind of logically refresh the daily without having to bend over backwards? Or if the player gets captured and prevented from resting, no, you don’t get the power even though it’s the next day because that makes sense?
I just feel like there are so many ways to explain why different things happen and don’t, and it really isn’t very difficult at all. I don’t get how the mechanic is stopping any narrative and halting any changing of said mechanic, as long as it is consistent.
Unless i’ve entirely missed the point, in which case could someone please explain it to me? I’m reading a lot of posts about how 4e is awful and the new people that are playing it are unintelligent and just want a hack and slash experience, which is offensive to someone like me who is super new at this game and who really, really enjoys good role-playing.
So if i’ve misunderstood something, i’m really sorry. Please help me understand what’s going on here?
The Enigma | September 27, 2012 at 5:15 am | Reply
” I was just wondering what was keeping the DM from explaining how daily powers worked and sticking to that?”
Because its consistently inconsistent. We are talking about having magic, fighting technicques & just basic use of combat skills, all apparently being used in an unnatural way. Why does a per encounter magic spell work the exact same way as an per counter fighter ability… An why do per encounter fighter abilities work at all? If i use tide of iron, why do i need to wait until the next encounter to use it again?
The only excuse i ever had a GM give me is “well your opponent knows you have learnt that technique.” Sure that seemed rational until i pointed out “what happens if its knightly combat tourney & you’ve fought an opponent, you both take a break & then you go back for round 2. He still knows you can do it, such does it still work? What about tomorrow? Next week? An why do spells work the same way?”
Needless to say, that was pretty close to the end of 4E for me. Whenever you find yourself trying to create narrative to fix a problem with the rules, thats called a “disassociated mechanic.” Every game has a few of these lurking around, but when your game is predicated on them, thats really bad. Bored games can get away with it, but not a roelaplying game & lets be honest 4E is most certainly a board game… a board game with pretentions, but a board game none the less.
An the 4E engione version of Gamma World is even worse… If that system came with a dice rolling determined name generator, it wouldn’t actually require players at all.
Speusippus | May 23, 2011 at 7:12 pm | Reply
What’s the quintessential example of an RPG that focusses on roleplaying instead of narrative? (Preferably one I can find out quite a bit about onlineif possible.)
drooles | June 15, 2011 at 6:15 am | Reply
Look, Heinsoo doesn’t understand mythological resonance, and likes arbitrary confected fantasy crap that he thinks is equivalent to traditional tropes and archetypes, but is very, very wrong. The result is uncool concepts and uncompelling worlds.
The result of this stank up and sank Dreamblade, and now has stunk up and is sinking D&D. Heinsoo is now gone, but the team and culture who supported his vision is still there, so WOTC cannot be trusted with D&D for the foreseeable future.
Speusippus | June 15, 2011 at 7:13 am | Reply
Drooles, that’s a really interesting post. Are you talking about things like shardminds, seekers, etc? Does Heinsoo indicate in some interview(s) somewhere that he thinks these are traditional fantasy tropes?
tyrecies | June 30, 2011 at 6:51 pm | Reply
Granted I have only played every version and half version since AD&D was still new(’84), but I also play all other forms of games from cards, to miniatures to video games(all sorts). To me 4e is the next evolution of gaming. When we play 4e we are using full size battle maps, cards dice, miniatures you name it and soon DDI will have the virtual table top and bring in the video aspect of sorts. I was skeptical at first myself, but after I played it a few times I realized that this is gaming and I have all the fun I had as I did when I was 12 and playing. Game on!
Matthew Lane | June 30, 2011 at 8:41 pm | Reply
One minor problem with that logic: 4E has been a commercial failure.
Even Pathfinder has done better then 4E. In fact last year Paizos market shares for Pathfinder equalled those of WotC Market Share for 4E, not including digital sales, which honestly, i’d say Paizo kicked WotC arse in.
Every mistep WotC has made, Paizo has been there to capatalise on. $e comes out Paizo releases Pathfinder, WotC brings out collectable cards Paizo brings out books, WotC cancels its Mini’s Paizo starts making the same sort of mini’s from the same company. Mistep and step.
As for the virtual tabletop, its a concept that wont take off, with anything but you 40 year old gamer who still wants to game, has moved away from his gaming friends for work & is to set in his ways to find a new group. Everyone else prefers the face to face nature of RPGs.
charna | July 4, 2011 at 12:02 am | Reply
its amazing how long people have been arguing about this. literally years. it makes me happy for some odd reason. i think everyone should appreciate all the gaming passion that is represented here it doesnt matter what version of what game your prefer. to me its just great that people enjoy being creative and imaginative so deeply that they feel the need to defend what they love most about gaming. everyone plays differently and therefore enjoys different elements. all of you are what makes me love the community
justin | July 10, 2011 at 9:26 am | Reply
The way I look at it its up to the DM to set the stage. I haven’t touched the 4e books because of the stigma and lack of will from my group to run it. But for anyone to say it lacks roleplaying they are nuts. The rules are the system the game is set upon. For all the people complaining about the number jockies of new players. Well if that’s what works for them then awesome. If they can’t adapt to roleplaying then there are two things. One they only like the number crunch (very few stay in this state for long) or the GM isn’t doing his job.
I started on 3.5 with our GM running HIS story and if it fell outside his jurisdiction it went into dungeon crawl. After about a year of this the few friends we got into it wanted more. So we started delving into our own stories and adapting 3.5 or d20 modern into our tastes. Now we have played full sessions running everything from Mouseguard, Burning Wheel, Kobolds ate my baby, Firefly, QUAGS, to just making our own systems.
A rule book should not define roleplaying. I am actually interested in some 4e because I find combat in 3.5 to be the worst thing about it. Hell 4e might be worse but I’m willing to give it a look. I respect the people that tried it and didn’t like it but some of this board on both sides are rediculous. The GMs job isn’t to run the game the GMs job is to make the setting for the players to run the game on.
Andy Bates | July 13, 2011 at 12:34 pm | Reply
Justin, it’s not about the rulebook defining roleplaying; it’s about the game mechanics making roleplaying more difficult. Take Chess as an example: Sure, you could add roleplaying elements on to Chess, but the game would quickly fall apart.
“Okay, I want to attack the guy in front of me.”
“You can’t. You can only attack the guy diagonally in front of you.”
“Why? I don’t understand how I can’t attack a guy who is standing right there…!”
Sure, the GM could make up some fancy explanation for why pawns can’t attack straight ahead of them (or can’t move backwards, or whatever), but the fact is that the rule was made up without roleplaying in mind. That’s what D&D 4E is like.
Take a D&D example: There is one move that makes the attacker and the target switch places, presumably because they are jockeying for position or something (although this is never explicitly spelled out). On one of the D&D podcasts, they used this when a guy on the ground was attacking a guy on a cliff above him. The player said, “Wait, if I’m attacking him up there, do I still get to switch places with him? He’s on a cliff!” And the GM said, “Well, the rules don’t say anything about exceptions, so sure! You switch places with him.” The rules are based around a mechanic which sounds good, but doesn’t actually work in some situations. There is no RP way to explain how, in the middle of a battle, one player could scramble up a cliff and force his opponent to move down.
It’s those kind of mechanics that really take me out of the RP experience.
Francois424 | July 20, 2011 at 12:13 pm | Reply
Long Discussion. I enjoyed it for the most part 🙂
I’ve been playing Tabletop RPGs since 1984, so not as song as some, but still
a considerable experience with the D&D (and variants) genre.
Now I am a huge fan of the 2nd edition, but never get to play it (as a
player) because everyone is afraid of the rules and dont want to DM it, so I
had to plunge into the 3/3.5. I was immediately struck as to how 3.5 turned
everyone into a power-gamer, it was insiduous at first. Remember stats from
2nd ed? there was no real difference between a huge range of stat (say 8-13
I think ? for charisma). Then comes the 3rd where every point counts. Your
wizard’s Fireball still does 10d6 of damage; however that 20con
dwarf-fighter (equal to a 19con in 2nd ED) has 300hps instead of 175 or
whatever. That is only one of the problem with 3.5. But because of it’s
underlying agility, my group was able to craft characters that truely made
each of us unique. After a while of grumbling over power-gaming changes,
I got used to it and we started to adapt rules to incorporate the best of
2nd ED into 3.5 and by so doing curbing the power-play to an extent.
Then comes the 4th ED. I bought it right away. Seems that I fit with the
disgruntled group on these rules. I am now (as of last satursday) trying
for the 5th time to play it. After the session, the DM (which has played D&D
even before I started it) came to me and said: “Is it just me or these combat
rules are all too mechanical and complex ? We used to be able to grab a
newbie and give him a fighter and he grasped the game slowly without fuss.
Now our new player is lost with all these new “spells” we all have”.
All I could say was: “I told you so… but I wanted your opinion on it”.
Now our DM is willing to keep doing this small scenario he made, but with the
ever increasing amount of Marks for “X” round (for each mark), my money is on
going back to our 3.75 (as we call it) ruleset.
IMHO, supplement material barred :
2nd Edition won because it put little emphasis on stats and power-gaming feats
and the likes, while still allowing some nice builds via multi classing.
Even rolling a 15 on IQ didnt mean you where limited to 5th level spells
non-sense, and nobody was a god in every saving throws (a difference of 6
between weak/strong isn’t as marking as a cleric’s “vs Death” being 2 while
some classes had difficulties getting under 10).
3rd Edition won because it simplified saving throws, attack bonus, and
balanced a lot of classes/races (especialy 3.5 on that). It also put mages on
more even terms at highter level, but it needs DM tweaking of the rules some.
4th Edition? My bet would be playing that for a non-campaign, with my country
12yo (or less) cousins that never toutched Table-top RPGs. All I am missing are
cards with powers hat they can just drop on the table when they use them, and
it would be simplistic to an extend. To me this 4th Ed dosen’t feel like D&D
but for a quick strategy tabletop war game, it’s actually pretty good. It’s
just that if I would ever consider making a campaign, no way would I be
putting with it. I loved it’s minion system and already started incorporating
it in 3rd and 2nd edition games I run as a DM from time to time. I also like
the Eladrin, which makes a nice +INT race to put into 3.5, but it’s not my
favorite ruleset.
Bottom line: for quick, nice, and disposable, go for the 4th edition rules.
Hovever, for extended campaings ranging thru the levels, go for 3rd or 2nd ED.
With few minor tweaks you have sturdy material to build your players on, and
everyone will feel this “I am unique” which makes everyone happy.
That is in my opinion, of course.
Have a nice day all
— Francois424
Lawrence DuBois | September 20, 2012 at 6:09 pm | Reply
Little off topic from the main discussion, but I just wanted to comment. I do see where you are coming from in your preference to 2e, but I actually prefer the “every point counts” part of 3e. Well, every 2 points. EVERY point would be overkill, I agree.
Anyway, it makes those smaller changes matter more and I didn’t really like how you could potentially have huge gaps in things like ability scores, and yet it didn’t really matter.
Just a random, personal preference thing. As I said, I do understand your own preference. Just thought I’d explain mine.
P.S. Also, I’ve always been wanting to incorporate aspects of older editions into my own games, but never could quite figure out how. Thanks for giving me an idea or two.
Sorry for the formatting I did that in notepad and it went out like garbage on this site. Oh well
Joshua Toulouse | August 3, 2011 at 12:58 am | Reply
I had never played any version of D&D prior to joining a group playing 4th Edition about a year ago. I hate WOW and a lot of RPGs because they are so hard to immerse myself into. In short, I don’t find them very believable.
I honestly thought that would be the case with D&D as well, considering that it is turn based (which always annoyed me in Final Fantasy and the like) and required dice rolls, etc.
Yet when I started playing, and got into my character and interacted with the rest of the group in their character, I found it incredibly addicting.
I have since joined another game and have had the same experiences.
I am shocked to see the people, including the author of this post, talking about how little role playing or narrative story telling there is in this game compared to other editions. Now, I have never played other editions, so the story telling opportunities might in fact be better, but I would find that hard to imagine since our sessions are so strongly reliant on role playing and narrative. The story and the characters are what makes it so immersive.
The fear that new gamers would come in and view it as just a fight based game, almost point and click, who do I hit and how much experience do I get after killing him, I suppose that there are people who do that, but that is not how I have experienced the game at all. In fact, my party generally tries to talk our way out of any fights if it is at all possible.
I also don’t find it hard to get into my character and the world we are in completely (although I was sure when I started that such a thing would be impossible) despite the things that could possible take you out of realism such as turn based fighting, marks, encounter and daily limits and the like. Because the characters (the ones I play I created myself completely from the ground up and that certainly helps) and the story are so strong and worthy of investing in, I can easily accept the rules that allow me to join into this other world and play in the shoes of my character and in the world in which he inhabits.
I don’t deny that many of you who have strong connections to past editions (or other games completely) will continue to prefer those games, but I also find it extremely hard to believe that 4e is going anywhere since all of the complaints that you seem to have or worries that you have regarding those that play it simply have no bearing on the reality that I’ve experienced.
Matthew Lane | August 3, 2011 at 1:41 am | Reply
Thats an “argument from ignorance” mate. If you haven’t played anything but 4E, then how can you know that 4E isn’t as stupid to roleplay in as we “the people who have extensively played both” are telling you. Your argument is the equivilant of a blind person trying to convince the sighted that Blue does not exist, because he’s never seen it.
” I also find it extremely hard to believe that 4e is going anywhere since all of the complaints that you seem to have or worries that you have regarding those that play it simply have no bearing on the reality that I’ve experienced”
Because Blue doesn’t exist, because i can’t see it, so all the people who can see it are wrong, because i can’t see Blue. You see how stupid an argument that is.
The fact is that 4E is on the outs… Its sales figures are so low that D&D at this very point in time is completely unmarketable. Yet Paizo’s Pathfinders sales are up. In fact in the last two fiscal quarters Paizo has been edging WotC out.
So i’d say you are right, 4E is going no where, because there are very few people who give a shit about the product line.
mxyzplk | August 3, 2011 at 6:20 am | Reply
Well, I’m happy that 4e has opened the doors to roleplaying for you. For all its flaws, it is certainly a more personal experience than WoW. But consider all these comments as feedback that there are a lot ofother RPGs, including all other versions of D&D, that are even more immersive and focus even more on character and story and less on the tactical combat. “If you like 4e, you’ll love them!”
Kaye | December 28, 2011 at 10:40 am | Reply
Well said, mxy– As someone that now plays RPGs of all kinds (though mostly online unfortunately since I’ve had difficulty finding open-minded gamers in my area) someone being opened up to and enjoying rpgs in general is fantastic– however, it will be even better if instead of sticking to the game with which you start… if you allowed it to be a doorway, because there are so many games out there– other versions of D&D, other fantasy rpgs even dozens and dozens of rpgs in genres outside the realm of fantasy if maybe post-apocalypse, horror, sci-fi or any other various genres of game could be of interest.
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lioness rampant | August 17, 2011 at 8:41 pm | Reply
Ok so here are my 2sp on 4e. One I skipped the middle 5th of the comeents because there are a whole bunch of them (what 3 years or something). Background info HS student with a really busy life (band, orchestra, theater, college search, AP classes etcetra) but for the past few years I have made time for D&D. I got about half a year of 3.5 and then it switched (which sucked because I had dropped $150 dollars on books and didn’t want to buy a whole new set) so I tried 4e by buying them on eay. There are pros and cons to it but I definatly prefer 3.5e. I had 3 major problems with 4e. 1) classes were ONLY for PCs, I don’t see why a 5th level human scythe fighter PC is any different than a 5th level human scythe fighter NPC. It makes it seem like anyone who isn’t a player is a monster no matter what the race. I liked orcs with class levels (memorable encounter with a orc bard masquerading as an elf in the capital of the elvish empire, great adventure)/ 2) whats up with the alignments? Good Characters can only be lawful or neutral?. And you can’t have LE people? Seriously the two axis have nothing to do with each other. 3) Casters have no variety, what happened to necromancy, illusiojn, and enchantment!!!! My beloved chaming sorcerers and bards are gone!!!! no longer can I suggest the orcs let me by without having to chop them to bits CG characters if I ever saw them!!!
mxyzplk | August 20, 2011 at 2:41 pm | Reply
Yeah, I totally agree with all your points, especially the PC being different from an NPC. “It makes it seem like anyone who isn’t a player is a monster no matter what the race” is a great way of putting it – it subtly signals “no soul here, don’t treat them like they’re a real person,” which is extremely corrosive to real role-playing. Glad to hear from the new generation of D&D players, keep on gaming!
I noticed that about the alignments, too! I always thought it was neat to have them as loose concepts at least… lawful evil is more like a cold-calculating individual… plotting and scheming… while chaotic evil just reigns terror and slaughters mercilessly– no thought required. And Chaotic good is so much more fun than just your average goody, goody… kind of the batman or Boondock Saints hero rather than a thoughtless drone– the laws of the land say THIS is right, so it must be right! (Even though the next land over disagrees)
As being a player and a GM both, I like having npcs that were similar in ways to pcs, too… npcs can be people, too… better at some things than others and so-forth.
Sadrelahon | August 23, 2011 at 6:46 pm | Reply
I looked at the 4e monster manuals and other books with monsters in and could not find description of what the monster look like. The monsters to me in 4e are just a picture or two and that is it. The description that are missing would also tell you how tall and how much the monster weighed. The monster just seem just like they are just combat stats and abilities and nothing more. Also I have thought that some of the art of the monster is from the 3/3.5 edition.
Mike | August 26, 2011 at 3:06 pm | Reply
Wow! A three-year running discussion on the pros and cons.
Even more amazing tho is all the haters out there who have spoken against nearly every positive post about 4th Edition with counter-arguments… Well… some have made an attempt to say they don’t hate the game. Rather, they’re thoroughly disinterested. That being the opposite of love and all. Disinterested enough to carry on a crusade for three years in an internet forum. I think that goes a little beyond disinterest.
So what is it about 4E that can drive folks to argue so vehemently for so long, with people they’ll never know, about a game they’ll never play? Initially maybe – the dropping of the past connections… leaving out things like the Gnome, who made his grand entrance a book later, or the Psionicist who didn’t show up till book 3… But all that is history now. In perfectly good marketing fashion, Wizards held back just enough content to make those books something worth buying right? I don’t see a problem there…
More likely tho, it’s just that some ppl just don’t like change. We had a game that was great… and believe me I played 2E more than most. In between running BBS’s and playing Nintendo, we had our niche game that 99% of the world either didn’t know about or wasn’t interested in. It was awesome! Some of the best times of my life…
But let’s face it a game that 99% of the world is not interested in is not going to drive a company to make more. TSR was a niche company that had a niche market, at a time when it was cool to hang out in little downtown comic shops and oogle over the back of D&D modules, deciding which ones to get next. Nowadays selling like that is simply nonexistent. You have to compete with MMORPGs, video games, and even more advanced board games. Wizards needed to make this appealing to more than a tiny fraction of the world, or the cost of producing would simply not pay off.
So why am I here? Well, we played 4E the other day. And as a result, I’m looking at buying the books… A friend bought the basic books and wow – what a blast from the past. Dug out my old stuff and we compared them to the 2E stuff. A few things jumped out! A few alignments were dropped. Gnomes were missing, but there were new Eladrin and Tieflings (kinda cool?) Fighters had spells. Armor class was inverted from Thaco minus Armor plus modifiers to hit, to just Armor plus modifiers.
But, a few things seemed the same. Wizards still had Cantrips. Armor class was still there, tho now there were 3 kinds of armor class. Still used the same dice, and most of the same monsters.
We gave it a try! My friend had perused the DMG, but never played 4E before. In about 2 hours, I was able to read the PHB enough to get a feel for how to play (given, I’d played 2E for many years, so many of the concepts were just a refresher and not a full on learning curve)… but after that, we were able to download character sheets and get started making characters. They built up pretty quick. Even with non D&D regulars… I was able to walk the other ppl thru the process, taking many of the recommended spells, etc. I was pretty happy with this.
We got into playing then… the default campaign that came w the DM Box Kit. It was just a trial anyways. Went pretty smooth! At first picking trait scores didn’t quite click in as to their repurcussions, but then once you play your first 30 min, you quickly realize how Dex/Int factor toward your Reflex, etc. A very nice mechanic! So now a wizard who may be weak in physical defense will be high in intellectual defense. Warriors who are physically strong will be mentally weak. It exaggerates the tradeoffs which was great.
Combat was totally new. The whole emphasis on the spacial instead of the imaginary. Not sure I like this part of it. Keep in mind I play Descent (RTL) too, and regularly… a game in which it’s all about combat tactics. D&D to me always seemed more imaginary. I think that’s my main dislike so far.
I think part of the challenge is to *not* let the game become Descent. If your players tended to play 3E / 3.5E and wanted to min/max, then I think they missed the point of D&D. You shouldn’t be playing to optimize the dice by choosing silly proportions for your character, you should be playing to build a character and let the dice be what they are. The dice should be a physical representation of the probability that your character can hit… not your character be “whatever” it is cuz you chose some numbers that will make for optimal hitting. After all the relative strength is irrelevant… if you have a +4 damage or +2 damage from the start, your DM will just alter the difficulty so as to be a good fight for all. (at least a good DM should). So too in this game, if you let it just be like so many have said above… battle, cutscene… battle, cutscene… then you’ve failed to pick up on the motivaiton behind playing D&D at all.
Which sort of amazes me, cuz those who claim the game is reduced to battles are also those who claim to be old school players. Why are you letting the game devolve so? I thought it played well. My wife asked me afterwards why I wasn’t actively helping them in the battle, and so I had to share some of how D&D is different from Descent… you’re not a unit trying to clear a level… you’re individual characters living in an environment. If you play it that way, then most of those arguments above against 4E really don’t seem to hold water. Once you’re on the battle map, do you play your character / personae, or do you play to optimize who you can give a +1 to? If you do the latter, then it’s not surprising you’ve found 4E less enjoyable. You never worried about things like that before. Why are you now, just cuz they gave you a mechanic whereby you can micromanage these effects?
Like take some leader skill that gives players within 3 spaces a +1 attack or some otherwise techno-mumbo-jumbo ability. In the old days, this would just be Bless and it would apply to all your party. You can still make them that way. Grease doesn’t have to just give a defense bonus for a set turn… if you play it that way, you are reducing the game to an action being a token modifier, instead of something visual. Use your imagination… Grease can still do all the cool things it used to in 2E. But now it can ALSO do the more specific thing it says for board combat. In the past DM’s didn’t know how to deal w “how big is the grease spot?” “Can my other monsters just go around it?” “If a monster trips and a player kicks grease in his eyes, will he be temporarily blinded?” And so on… so the giving physical spaces to things like that are more to help a DM who couldn’t figure it out before… not to limit a DM who could deal with it.
You should not feel limited by the specific writing on the abilities. I take those more as guides, to give you an idea of how big an area of effect might be (approximately). The DM should always have final say.
This is not M:TG. The card / rule does not rule all. The DM does. If you are playing it as a RAW type game then I think again you’re missing the point.
Other ppl complained about the Daily abilities being exhausted… Like a Fighter can do a whirlwind attack, but after he does, he’s too tired to do it again but he could do instead a backflip-double-twist spin attack. To this, I’d say again you’re just reading the rules and not using your imagination. Maybe the first time he used his attack, the land situation presented itself, and the 2nd time, it didn’t fit quite right, or the other ability fit better, or maybe your fighter just has an ego and wanted to fluorish his weapon with a different move to show off, or maybe the hot chick in the party wasn’t watching, so he didn’t want to bother w a fancy move. Imagination, folks! Quit looking at the rules as silly limiting stated requirements, and use your imagination.
Thus I really don’t see why some ppl are arguing so hard against 4E. I’m by no means pro-it as I’ve only tried once, but it picked up really fast, and I don’t seem to have had a bad experience. I don’t feel I was as “confined to the grid” as others claim it is. I came out to the web just to get some opinions on it, and I was kinda floored by how much those who hate it have proactively spoken out against it for 3 years. I have to wonder if you are that incapable of making this work, what you’re doing playing D&D anyways. 🙂
Matthew | August 26, 2011 at 9:07 pm | Reply
“Thus I really don’t see why some ppl are arguing so hard against 4E”
Then you are strawmaning the real reasons we are not interested in it, as an intellectual property.
Jeansl10 | September 18, 2011 at 8:34 pm | Reply
Everybody here is butthurt because of change lol!
DEERRR IT’S NOT EXACTLY LIKE THE GAME BEFORE!!!! SHIT SHIT SHIT GO AWAY!!!
Fucking grow up, stuff changes and you have to accept it! If you don’t like 4th Ed, play 3.5 or pathfinder, homerule stuff, whatever! Stop bitching about wizards changing the game.
mxyzplk | September 18, 2011 at 10:49 pm | Reply
Ha, clearly 4e is the thinking man’s game.
Matthew | September 18, 2011 at 9:39 pm | Reply
@Jeansl10: “Everybody here is butthurt because of change lol!”
so i take it you didn’t actually read anything that was written. People aren’t ragging on it because its changed, they are ragging on it because the change was not accompanied by improvement. In fact the game has some giant errors in game theory that are excessively obvious to anyone who understands basic design theory.
They essentially killed not just a game, but an entire franchise: Paizo over the last 2 years has equalled the sales on Pathfinder that WotC made on 4E (not including digital sales). At every step WotC has mad mistep after mistep from a business point of view: 4E was just the first mistep.
What’s extra fun about that: Paizo is largely advertised by reputation and word of mouth. I’m not sure I’ve seen more than one or two ads for their stuff – if any – on any of the gaming sites I frequent (not counting the ones specifically for Pathfinder).
On the other hand, I challenge you to go to any gaming site and see if you can go more than 3 pages without seeing 4e advert.
The fact that a company can equal – or even just thrive (I don’t know the figures, myself and am just going off of what you’ve said. I do know they’re doing very well, though.) in such an environment definitely says something.
Maxwe3 | September 29, 2011 at 4:19 am | Reply
When you’re talking about RPG’s you should say “an rpg” not “a rpg”.
Ian M | December 8, 2011 at 4:02 pm | Reply
Thank you for so neatly laying out the argument here. I was a regular player through 2ed, but then stopped playing for fifteen years so missed 3-3.5eds. Recently, some friends and I decided to start campaigning again and they wanted to playtest 4ed. So far, it’s been a disaster. I find the new modules more focused on monster outlines and battleground strategy and not so interesting on the plot, so I’ve been updating 1ed and 2ed modules (we’ve been running the U1-3 series to start with).
The first thing I realized was exactly what you said, the WoWization of the game, and without a processor crunching the numbers, there’s just no way to keep track of what’s going on. I began to replace monsters with minions as a way of speeding up combat, but even then, any balanced battle between PCs and enemies comes out to an hour of nitpicking. As the players grow more comfortable with their stack of powers, feats, minor moves, major moves, move moves, etc., it’s sped up, but only to, say, 50 minutes per combat. It makes the game essentially unsustainable since one can’t get through the modules and the larger external game plot.
Back in the old days, a group running into 3 lizard men (figure 2 hit dice) could clean them up in a few turns with some lucky rolling. Now it’s an accounting seminar. I’d love to switch off back to 2ed or even reboot with d20, which I’ve heard good things about, but with the monetary investment already in place, it seems like a waste.
I have had some luck upgrading 1st and 2nd ed modules, but the problem comes in with magic items, of which few transferred.
All in all, it’s a wash. I’m glad somebody’s taking them to task, but alas, it seems like my campaign’s stuck with it for the near future. (I mean, three saving throws against death?)
There are so many things I dislike about 4e. I went to make an attempt at creating a 4e character because any face-to-face gamer in Tennessee now only plays 4e (it’s terrible) and every time I read a paragraph I had to stop and complain inwardly about how stupid everything is now.
To me, Clerics and most spell-casters are nearly useless now. I’m not big on playing spell-casters, but it has always been neat to have the help of one such character– but now?
Also, I may be odd about this particular thing but I don’t know if I like the healing surges either… it’s a bit much if you ask me… before, you carried stuff on your person or had a healer or both and at the end of the day, you rest. I was fine with that… NOW, a cleric might as well just be a fighter because adventurers of all kind miraculously heal after combat 8 times a day for 6hp like we’re all Wolverine! We don’t need a cleric anymore– we’re able to gain double our max hp worth in healing every day on our own and still be able to rest when all’s said and done.
The “powers” also come across very MMORPG… At-wills are your two “basic” attacks, pretty much, this other power can only be used once every fight because it’s charging…. yada, yada… I remember when creativity was a big part of things on the player’s part– now a card tells you what most of your attacks are like and what is too cool to use more than once an encounter.
And of course… the “squares” movement irks me a bit, too, as mentioned in the review… I remember you had the option of playing D&D straight up with pen, paper and imagination back in the day, if you tried that now… “The enemy is 3 squares away from you!” “How big are the squares and what are they doing in the forest?”
And when I play an rpg, as has been said, I like the rp part of an rpg– otherwise it’s merely a game… but there is so much to know battle-wise and so little of anything devoted to the world outside of combat that the only rp you might get much of is if you intimidate a foe before you attack him… even then it’s like “Oh, how witty. I don’t know anything else about her, but good to know she’s witty and can use a blade– I suppose that justifies us traveling together.”
One last thing before I bring it to a close– no skill points anymore? I like the idea of a character being better at some things than they are at others– it’s more realistic… but if you’re trained in something and you just get 5 and the mod for the skill and MAYBE a 1-2 point bonus on something… your skills are rarely more than a couple of points apart. So essentially, a rogue is almost as good at swimming as they are at thieving… Great, if I steal from someone with a moat now– I suppose this will come in handy…
mxyzplk | December 28, 2011 at 11:41 pm | Reply
Where in Tennessee? I helped start the FORGE gaming club in Memphis and they do a lot of Pathfinder Society, I believe…
Ah. I’m in east Tennessee… Memphis is a bit if s trip for me, unfortunately.
*of a NOT “if s” touchscreen phones… yeesh.
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Mike | March 20, 2012 at 1:23 am | Reply
Great article and sums up this “grognards” complaints. Now with 5th on the way, will some of the 4ever people admit there must have been something wrong with the game. It didn’t bring in enough people to even offset those it tossed by the curb. WFRPG does the tactical RPG better, why try to compete with it. Warhammer has better fluff , but only because its terrible in 4th. Anyway it was nice to read some actual thought put into this as most criticism was deleted on many forums.
I can say as someone who has played 4E al the way to epic on one occasion and to paragon many, that after almost 4 years I can say I have sampled it. In fact I have lost MANY characters. How might you ask? Because our DM liked to use some of his house rules from 3.5 and took away any sort of res. The biggest issue was by trying to make the game more situationist it literally ruins the game. How can every creature you fight, just happen to be carrying treasure, and not just a treasure package but the stuff you need to advance your feated out weapin/armour/implement. Yeah there are ways to houserule that, but I can tell you after not finding regular treasure (except looting my corpses from critcal hits,we had a chart for everything to making it a random die roll of damage to severing parts of you including your head) the people who stayed aliove were less able to attack and defend in the game. Even from a tactical combat side the game is broken if it has to be roleplayed in anyway.
For starters our players in the epic campaign didn’t even min max their stats with 15’s as highs and 8’s for “flavour” In 4th edition, you pretty much just make sure you never hit that way regardless of class. Add to that the low treasure and by level 8 you are easily needing a 14 to just hit the bad guys. Some would say this is the DM’s fault. Yes and no. The problem lies in having all the mechanics so tied together for balance. You pull one string and everything else unravels. So you have to play exactly as the rules state, even if the change the rules a month after they come out and you may or may not apply them because they seam to change the balance of the established ruleset.
I still play with our 4E group, but mostly because they are good gamers and its too much work for our DM(or myself) to do Rolemaster, or even 3.5 The only good thing in 4th is the ease of DMing compared to some systems. Dungeons and Dragons is still the big name in town when it comes to roleplaying, even if it doesn’t to roleplaying without an astrix.
Cheers and lets hope 5th is better than 4th. I have a feeling it would be hard to be worse, but when it comes to money and WoTC you never can tell.
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Sarah | May 30, 2012 at 5:11 pm | Reply
I am currently DMing a 4e group. They’re level 16 now and have been playing since Heroic Tier.
We mostly run combat out of the book, although I give the guys points for creativity in combat (eg. they roll *just* too low to hit, but came up with a creative and fun way to carry out their turn so I let it slide every now and again, custom rules for spending action points so combat is more exciting and fun, things like that) and if they say that they want to attempt to push / pull / whatever a monster, I usually let them, even if the power doesn’t say they’re allowed to do that because, well… it’s supposed to be fun. We set a timer on the combat turns to keep things moving, and it’s considerably more exciting and fast-paced that way. I also created status cards for each status and the effects of it. One player is in charge of the cards, and when a monster or PC is affected by a status, they get the card put with their piece on the map to remind everyone that they’re prone for one turn or whatever the case may be.
The way speed is handled is really lame (especially out of combat), and we just got too lazy to deal with it by the book. We created our own custom world and campaign, and we know how far it is to travel from point A to point B based off of that, and we just try and run it realistically without the speed restraints printed in 4e.
Surprisingly, we’ve had some excellent non-combat encounters and great role playing situations while we’re not in combat. I think that much of making the best of 4e is how flexible your DM / players are willing to be. The group loves to have a generous mix of combat and quality exploration, and so I do my best to make exploration as interesting as possible. I’ve bent a lot of rules just for the sake of fun, and I often ask for input from the players as to how they think something will work best. I make up all of my campaigns because, frankly, the premade ones are crap. I find that more or less following the book rules while making any one-time or long-term adjustments as they make sense works the best with this rule set. Interesting puzzles and problem-solving that the players actually have to figure out for themselves (meaning not a simple “insight check” to “figure out” the answer – they’ve got to do the brain work themselves) also help to make varied and fun exploration.
We’re not looking for tournament or sanctioned play, so consistent house rules work great in our case. Not the best situation, but I think it’s the best of the situation, if you know what I mean.
Long-winded post, but just wanted to share my ways of making the most of 4e. =]
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Q | August 23, 2012 at 4:04 pm | Reply
Just to chime in here…
I’m fairly new to D&D. I played one campaign in 3.5 and felt overwhelmed by all of the “role playing” things I had to actually keep track of. I wanted something that felt a bit more lax. I got into 4e by starting up a new campaign with friends and I’m enjoying it a bit more. We don’t do *everything* by the book, and our DM is pretty open about us all playing the way we want. I seriously don’t think it’s as bad as the OP made it out to be. If you want the feeling of 3, then just play that. I think for newer people who want it to feel more like a game, 4e is where its at.
Chiming in here a few years after release. It’s interesting to take a retrospective and compare.
To address my own “cred” and background with D&D: I was introduced to 3.5e in middle school and learned the system from scratch, myself since I was the first in my group of friends to learn about the game. I checked out older versions and actually have the core AD&D books that I keep around, but while parts are interesting enough to regularly bring into my 3.5e campaigns, overall I found the mechanics either too simplistic or convoluted (lower AC is good, but you have to roll higher in order hit? I understand your pity). 3.5e had a fair amount that was complex (from grappling to the sheer number of official classes, feats, and so on), but also held a lot more functionality than earlier versions (skills are, for me, one of the game’s highlights).
And then 4e went and threw all of that out of the window. Skills are too complicated (they do add quite a bit of time to character creation if nothing else)? We’ll just get rid of all the ones that can’t be used in combat. And a few that can, just for the hell of it. Players say the alignment system is broken? We’ll just hack that up, too (seriously that was one of the biggest WTF moments for me). It’s ironic that the goblin became Pathfinder’s mascot because 4e had a very goblin-esque mindset in its construction – if it looks at us funny, blow it up.
From my own experience with real life game groups (and I’d like to add that since my first back in middle school which lasted for only a year, I have always been the new guy joining the group, not the DM running it) the one group that started with 4e converted to 3.5e without me doing any more than messing up and bringing my older books with me to our first meeting (well, my first with them. Their hundredth for all I know.) I even tried to avoid exposing them to it because I didn’t want them to have to learn a new system or feel like they wasted money on the 4e books. ^_^’ No, true story.
4e was a commercial success, but I attribute it largely to marketing. Older systems were largely constrained to advertisements in gaming magazines and word of mouth, which limited their exposure to the populace. By the time 4e came around, the internet had solidified its place in daily life and the online ads alone could have been enough to inflate the game’s sales.
After my initial rage with 4e, I was able to acknowledge that it has a few good points. Most of them were also done in Pathfinder, though so they get credit since it was done as improvements on the existing system rather than starting from scratch. I will admit that 4e makes a great base for a video game and in fact, I would genuinely love to see a real 4e RPG made, reminiscent of Baldur’s Gate and Icewind Dale (suitably updated, of course so more like KotOR and Dragon Age). …And not in Faerun. It’s a good setting and all, but done to death. Aside from DDO and a handful of novels EVERYTHING happens in Faerun. Give Eberron some more love. Or Dark Sun, since they’ve resurrected it.
P.S. I’m amused to see that they’re already working on a new edition. I haven’t really made up my mind on it yet, but it isn’t better than Pathfinder and it would need to be a LOT better than that system in order to convert me back. Wizards has lost a lot – pretty much all of my faith in them.
andysdead | February 10, 2013 at 6:11 pm | Reply
Reblogged this on Video Gamers and Modders Anonymous and commented:
My recent experience with a certain game that will remain nameless (due to NDA restrictions) has led me to conclude that D&D 4e rules are the worst thing that’s ever happened to D&D, ever. Basically, I totally agree with everything this guy says.
Lathos | May 13, 2013 at 1:59 pm | Reply
I agree that they did make some changes, and I won’t argue over the validity of your dislike for the combat style. I find giving people useful powers and such in combat very helpful, and i always felt combat as a major downfall of 3e, so I rather enjoy the pace of the combat here, everyone is useful, clerics and paladins don’t start as just warriors with rules, and so on. I disagree of the Roleplaying point however. from my experience, every group ran the roleplaying part differently, many not even according to the skills there. Most competent players have their own way to roleplay these things, so I think giving a sturdy (in my opinion) framework for the combat, which was always the hardest to personally rule but opening the roleplay with less useless, and more streamlined skills, is a good thing. What they’ve made (or attempted to) is a sturdier combat system with more freedom to play the other parts of the game as you wish. Veteran players of D&D already know how to do the roleplay part, so having 2 different skills with roughly the same effect (search and spot) and having only modifiers to saving throws removes the surprise of a trap. The moment you ask someone to make a spot or a reflex check, everyone starts searching. I agree, it feels far more like world of Warcraft, but I wouldn’t consider that a bad thing. I think it’s a bold evolution and, in my experience, it has turned out well.
ahnehnois | May 29, 2013 at 6:09 pm | Reply
It’s sad. But this was a really well reasoned point of view when it was written, and it remains so five years later. It’s not a question of old vs new or one style vs another. It isn’t about spite directed at the company or personal disputes. In style and in substance, the business side and the creative side, regardless of why or how you play D&D, 4e is just a really bad game.
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Adam | July 10, 2013 at 5:10 pm | Reply
Well, I’m going to offer my opinion now, as I’ve read all of yours.
I’m completely new to D&D. I have read the 4E books, and played twice, once as a player and once as a DM. Those were two of the best days of my life. Our group focused heavily on role-playing, but I never (neither as player nor as DM) felt limited by the range of skills or whatever.
I have never played 3.5, so my opinion isn’t as informed as it might be, but it seems to me that 4E has split D&D into two sections: combat and role-playing. Combat is essentially a board-game: each player has a miniature on a grid and they use teamwork and strategy to fight monsters, also on the grid. During role-playing, the nearest you get to grids and sheets of paper is in a Skills Challenge. As a DM, I enjoyed throwing sudden skills checks at the players, but really role-playing was about telling a story. It was exhilarating just to see characters develop and relationships to form and change. As a player, it was always thrilling to push the borders of the DM’s world; as a DM, it was always thrilling to see how the players would react to my world and to each other.
That is the draw of D&D for me. So far I love 4E. I don’t find it combat-heavy, because our group isn’t combat-heavy. Instead I find the combat easy to understand and quite interesting. Is it really so bad as many of you claim? I mean, all the gnomes and so on have been reintroduced, haven’t they?
Anyway, if by the description of my style of play (i.e. role-playing intensive) you feel obliged to tell me that 3.5 would suit my purpose the better, please do so.
mxyzplk | July 10, 2013 at 7:59 pm | Reply
Eh, hard to get worked up about it now that they’re retiring 4e and playtesting D&D Next, which may or may not be good but at least corrects some of 4e’s more egregious mistakes.
As you continue to play D&D, you might consider that role-playing and combat are not and should not be mutually exclusive, and that by treating combat “scenes” as board games it robs the game of a lot of its potential drama.
Matthew | July 10, 2013 at 8:31 pm | Reply
/facepalm.
You enjoying your first attempt at attempt at roleplaying doesn’ty say anything about 4E as a system. Firstly you’ve not had enough experience to make an informed choice, but when your favourite part is something from outside of the system (in this case roleplaying), you can’t place the emphasis on the system.
That’s like me stating that connect 4 is the best sex game in the world, because when I win my girlfriend gives me a blow job. That’s not a quality of the game, its something outside of the system.
Heck you can roleplay in chess too, doesn’t make chess a good roleplaying game either
Dom | September 25, 2015 at 2:54 am | Reply
If you have trouble roleplaying in 4e the problem is with you, not the system. I’ve played every RPG under the sun since the early 80’s, so I’ve definitely had enough experience.
Oh noes I actually have to use tactics and knowledge instead of playing “mother may I” and gaming the DM. There are far better Role Play games out there for the actual RP then D&D and sans 4e D&D is barely a game.
Why this ill informed “waaaahhhh” pops up high on a search I don’t know.
Adam | July 11, 2013 at 5:06 am | Reply
That seems fair enough. I did say that my opinion couldn’t be well-informed but that doesn’t make it invalid. It might have been nicer if you’d just said, have a go at 3.5 – it’s fun. 4E is clearly not so bad that we should all commit suicide. What I was saying was, I enjoyed it. Is that so stupid?
Perhaps if you like 3.5 better, you should play 3.5. Although personally I think Connect 4 sounds pretty good.
mike | July 14, 2013 at 10:22 am | Reply
Adam, its not so much what 4E does well. ANd it does do some things well. Its what it removed from its past. Sometimes you here people say its more stripped down like 2nd edition. The problem with that is its also way more rules heavy for combat than second edition. 4E is all about the boardgame aspect of tactical wargames. The roleplaying aspect can be good or bad, but mostly has to do with your group of friends. The rules do nothing to help in this regard.
Sometimes I have friends with nothing in diplomacy who are very eloquent in real life, change the mind of the king or a pirate captain or whatever, even when their character can’t. You should roleplay your stats, its the whole point of making a character, otherwise its storytime not roleplaying. Problem is the way they define the rules for roleplaying it leaves you too many options or none at all. I have a 15 in athletics. Guess what I can do everything athletic? If thats the case then just have skill rolls based on major stats like str like other games do. Why even ask if you are trained. Because swim and climb are apparently identical skills. This is a major flaw, but its for game speed and balance, and WOTC won’t even say thats true. Which of course infuriates roleplayers.
They also tell you to generate stuff in your character background to describe skills not covered. Two problems with that. One some people build their backstory from the stats and skills(like I do) or let the character be mysterious. Either because they want to see the character develop as they play, or because they don’t want anyone to know they are secretly evil, or some weird backstory they don’t have fully formed.
Second what happens if along the way you want your character to learn something not covered. Say learn fletching or play an instrument. OK the dm say yeah you made some arrows gratz, now go fight. But what if you are trying to win over the tavern or need some spare coin? HOw do you know how well you did, just toss the d20? If you really aren’t good at a skill, say playing the french horn, and roll a 19 you are still pretty crap at it even if its the best you have ever done. Certainly won’t earn your keep for the night, a common dungeon trope.
I think DnD has a big problem by trying to be just too epic, like a vid game. Many of us like a little more grit than you always were, you currently are, and forever will be awesome. Sometimes the journey to awesome is much more rewarding than starting out that way. Epic removes the mundane, but the mundane its what makes a game realistic. Sure you don’t need to describe taking a dump, but sometimes going off to do your business can save you from the ambush your friends are about to have unleashed on them, maybe because you wondered from your post. Real life things aren’t always bad, but 4E makes it harder than it would be to simulate it anyway.
For all those that say combat is so great, well it isn’t. Its great at certain levels. Others not so much. Grinding down brutes with at wills is so boring when you are level 16 and you are out of daily/encounters because of the last fight you had against what you thought was a boss. Then it becomes who has the better rolls over the next hour. Tactics go out the window at that point. SO there goes the big plus for 4E.
I would recommend that despite enjoying 4E you try other systems. You may like them more. I introduced some 3.X players to Rolemaster(very long char gen process but very in depth game) and they loved the tweaking and variation you could do. Weapons mattered more because a hammer is great against heavy armour but sucks against guys in leather or robes. Classes are more general but have greater variation. Though 4E in the last couple of years has finally put out enough books to have some variation, it also cost an arm and a leg to get done what rolemaster or other systems do with far fewer books required.
A lot more grit and realism and can be played in a low magic world. No need for treasure packages to make sure your guys keep up to the monsters. So when you do find a magic item it is a reward, not just a handout designed for your character to not fall behind.
No matter what have fun and spread the word. I still play 4E because our DM likes the system, its easier for him. Sadly using the original broken rules as written in 2008. But we do play other games form time to time. This lets me realise how some of the other games are much more fun because they are in fact more streamlined or more in depth. DnD seems to want to do it all and doesn’t do well at anything.
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MB | January 30, 2014 at 8:44 pm | Reply
4E is complete trash, but there’s a problem WotC is trying to solve. The people who would play 1E D&D just don’t exist any more. At least not in the quantity that would make a company any money. Trust me, I’m one of them and I just don’t have RPG time any more. There are fifty trillion WoW players though, and they spend money like it doesn’t come out of their parents’ asses fast enough.
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solomani | September 20, 2015 at 6:17 am | Reply
So 5e has been out for a year+ now and I didn’t like 4e so skipped it after a few games. I had plenty of boardgames to play which I thought did a better job than 4e (like Descent for example). However, I will have to give credit to 4e’s creature design philosophy now I have run 5e non-stop for 12 months+
The creature in 4e are unique and thematic, while 5e are pretty mundane. 5e’s monster design philosophy suffers from the same issue 3e (and all its iterations) had which was shoehorning monsters in to the same rules as PCs. The most egregious issue is the spell casting monsters. Its not as bad as 3e but its weaker than 4e design.
I ended up essentially reworking monsters to make them 5e conversion of 4e instead of the default stat blocks in the 5e MM. 4e monsters had a lot more flavour and work well when converted to 5e. And the spell casting monsters are a lot easier to run using a 4e philosophy. Long lists of spells are pointless when combat rarely goes more than 3 rounds.
dorkybobster | April 25, 2016 at 10:33 am | Reply
I’m trying to start a D&D 4e campaign, but after all this criticism, I want to make some house rules/make a variant of it. These are the things that I have compiled from everyone’s comments on different websites and reviews:
-Less combat
-No warforged/advanced technology
-less wizard and warlock spells
-higher minion HP, so they don’t die immediately
-describing rooms in feet, not in squares
-realistic exploits (rogue), cantrips (wizard), and evocations (warlock)
-leveling up like in OD&D
-no bull rushing with other classes
-remove marking
-use descriptions, not miniatures/tiles
-make interactions with creatures open, not just fighting
-Monsters also go to negative HP, and make them more realistic living creatures
-have players describe their actions, not just rolling dice
Any other additions/removals?
theCowboy | June 1, 2016 at 4:39 pm | Reply
So what do you think of v5?
I like it a lot better… See various articles: https://geek-related.com/tag/5e/
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john | January 5, 2018 at 12:04 am | Reply
would recommend that despite enjoying 4E you try other systems. You may like them more. I introduced some 3.X players to Rolemaster(very long char gen process but very in depth game) and they loved the tweaking and variation you could do. Weapons mattered more because a hammer is great against heavy armour but sucks against guys in leather or robes. Classes are more general but have greater variation. Though 4E in the last couple of years has finally put out enough books to have some variation, it also cost an arm and a leg to get done what rolemaster or other systems do with far fewer books required.
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Ryan Allen | May 25, 2018 at 2:22 am | Reply
What a load of elitist bullshit. 4E is fantastic. Every complaint stems from lack of imagination and an unwarranted nostalgia for the bloated, inflexible rule systems from the past. I’ve never read or heard a complaint about 4E that isn’t nitpicky bullshit, or purely a personal failing to genuinely understand what role playing is.
Matthew | May 26, 2018 at 4:45 am | Reply
“4E is fantastic”
No it wasn’t. 4E was an attempt by WotC to turn D&D in to World of Warcraft. The end results other than the fact it utterly ruined the canon of every setting it adapted, was a mess of internally inconsistent rules, predicated on disassociated mechanics that themselves made no sense.
And that’s before we even talk about the class system, or the failure of the magic system. The class system turned every character in to a fighter, a magic fighter, a healing fighter, a ranged fighter, but always a fighter.
As for the magic system, you can’t put a magic system with long casting times & hugely expensive usage costs in to a game with a level locked treasure accumulation system. It meant that anyone stupid enough to waste a feat to gain the capability would essentially be rendering their future character less effective with every single usage of said feat. Not that you’d ever use the feat since the spell selection was completely useless.
So I don’t know where you got this idea that 4E was more flexible than previous games, it wasn’t even as flexible as 2E, whose “Skills and Powers” rule set was it’s self not as flexible as 3E’s prestige class & feat system built right in to the base system.
So congrats Ryan, today is the day you hear someone point out the actual flaws of 4E.
solomani | May 27, 2018 at 2:58 am | Reply
I wasn’t a fan of 4e but the things they did right, I thought they did very well and still use them today:
* A D&D specific pantheon.
* A D&D setting which accommodated all the other settings in some manner (points of light setup).
* The Nentir Vale as a mini-setting/adventure site is excellent as well.
* Monster design was a lot more fun than 3e and 5e. The approach was imaginative even if I didn’t agree with the execution (a level 1 ghoul and a level 20 ghoul for example). I still use the 4e monster database when designing/converting monsters for 5e for inspiration.
* Though I use theatre of the mind for combat when I do break out the minis my go-to source of maps and inspiration is 4e. Combat designs were tactically interesting.
* Some the adventures are actually better designed than 5e ones. For example, the 4e Against the Giants is way more cohesive and has a more satisfying story than the 5e version. In fact, I converted and played that over the 5e one (combat, of course, had to be toned down).
pdunwin | October 29, 2018 at 3:57 pm | Reply
I loved 4th Edition when it came out and I love it now. I played from the 1983 Red Box onward and 4th Edition was the first edition (and so far the last) to do things I always wanted from D&D, such as work right out of the box, without needing the DM to balance things.
Anthony Cloak | June 14, 2019 at 12:53 am | Reply
It is nearly impossible to pretend you are there and not just be playing a board game.
centauri | June 17, 2019 at 10:15 pm | Reply
For you. What breaks immersion for others, many others, is when basic game options consist of incredibly good choices (like clerics and druids) and incredibly bad options (like fighters and monks) offered as if they were somehow equal.
My 4th Edition games are nothing like boardgames. If yours are – assuming you’ve made an actual effort to try it and aren’t just parroting a decade-old canard – then that’s a shame, but it has far more to do with your approach than the nature of the game and you’re overlooking huge amounts of improvements on decades of poor design.
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Doderman Defense Network | November 8, 2019 at 3:55 pm | Reply
Couldn’t agree with you more on this point, my friend! 4E was total garbage!
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Home / Happy Holidays Blog / Manston Airport for Holiday or Business Flights: Leisure and Freight Fly via Kent’s International Airport
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There is more than 90 years of aviation history behind the airport at Manston, near Ramsgate. The air field was constructed during the first world war, around 1917, and was a military air base until 1999. Civil aviation from Manston began in 1935 along side Royal Air Force requirements. The RAF left the air field and it became a solely civilian airport in 1999 when in was bought by Wiggins, a construction company who are no longer in business.
The Cargo of Kent’s International Airport
It is freight which is landing and taking off along the runway every day. In 2018 it handled 33 tonnes of but Infratil Airports, who currently own the airport, is set on expansion and expect freight to treble in 2019. The expansion plans are to make the most of linking with the Ramsgate ferry port and the improved road network.
Light Aircraft, the Red Arrows and Flying Lessons
Manston is a convenient stop of point for many aircraft because it is close to the coast and Europe, although, being surrounded by sea in three directions does mean that it can be quite windy. It is ideal place for those people who love to spot aircraft. The Red Arrows display team frequently land here in the summer months when they take part in coastal air shows.
Because it is not a busy airport it is also an ideal location from which to take flying lessons or fly experiences. These are offered by a number of businesses. Thanet Flying Club, known as TG Aviation, is also based at Manston.
Passengers at the Kent International Airport
In 2019 flights were available to Jersey and for package holidays across Europe, this was on a small scale. Infratil’s Master Plan is to expand flights with a record number of one million passengers expected in 2020 and for this to double by 2020. The airport owners believe they can achieve this because of a number of attractive features to travelling via Manston in comparison with Heathrow or other busy airports:
Easy to reach by road and rail;
Cheap car parking close to the terminal building;
A long, wide run way which is suitable for most aircraft;
A small terminal which is not too busy means passengers can be processed quickly on departure and arrival.
Cheap Flights, Budget Travel and Package Holidays via Manston Airport, Kent
Package holiday flights for the masses began in the 1960’s and Manston airport was at the centre of this new business. Air Ferry started flying from Manston in 1962 and in its first year took more than 70,000 passengers, each year this number grew, in 1967 Air Ferry took 179,000 passengers to their holiday destinations. These people were being bought from far away by coach and were on the first package holidays. In 1965 competition at Manston emerged from Invicta Airways which eventually merged with British Midland in 1968.
Thanet was busy with international travellers in the 1960’s, in addition to aeroplanes, there were Ferries at Ramsgate Royal Harbour and the Hovercraft to Europe also left Ramsgate from the newly built Hoverport at Pegwell Bay. At the same time, most people still had their holidays within the British Isles. The seaside resorts of Ramsgate, Broadstairs and Margate were very popular with English families coming to stay in the many guest houses for a week or two.
Since the 1970’s and 80’s, with the growth of cheap package holidays abroad for the masses, the Isle of Thanet has suffered because its local economy relied heavily on tourism. In the 1970’s the package flights also moved from Manston to Heathrow and other airports.
The airport was banded London Manston only a few years ago and in 2004 a budget airline called EUJet launched a great number of regular services to British and European destinations. This was a financial disaster resulting in the failure of EUJet. Since then a number of companies have offered a modest number of flights from the airport, some with more success than others. Planned flights to and from Virginia in the U.S.A. had to be abandoned in 2018 for lack of bookings.
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Reel Quick: The Dark Tower
By Brian @ Hard Ticket to Home Video August 7, 2017 Chris Pine DC Comics Gal Gadot Patty Jenkins Wonder Woman
The Dark Tower (2017)
Starring: Idris Elba, Matthew McConagley, Tom Taylor, Katheryn Winnick, Abbey Lee, Fran Kranz, President Palmer, Jackie Earl Haley for some reason
Directed by: Nikolaj Arcel (A Royal Affair; Truth About Men; Island of Lost Souls [I’ve never heard of any of these, either])
Synopsis: Crazy boy Jake travels to strange world and goes on very short adventure with gunslinger man to kill wizard man who wears dark clothing.
IF you’re a big Stephen King fan, which I am, this movie has enough Easter eggs to fill all the heads on Easter Island with Easter eggs with enough left over for all the giant turtles to eat Easter eggs for the rest of their lives.
They were seemingly trying really hard to make you feel like this movie is the hub of the Stephen King movie universe. Although Jake has psychic abilities in the books, they’re never referred as the “shine,” as in The Shining. And I actually thought that made things more interesting.
Idris Elba is great, and absolutely carries the film. And for all the seeming uproar his casting caused due to his imaginary inaccurate skin color, he made it not matter (the only hangup I had was Roland’s perfectly groomed hair and beard).
While the runtime was too short, we saw this at 10 p.m. on a Friday, so I didn’t have a chance to doze off, which was nice.
What fails:
This felt less like a movie and more like a pilot episode (which it should have been). For a property with an unbelievably vast amount of ground to cover, it is stunningly short, and is really over before it even gets going. Roland, Jake, and Walter are the only characters who get more than a moment’s worth of screen time. For example, Jackie Earl Haley, while not a huge star, is recognizable enough to make you think he’s going to have some kind of role, but he basically licks a bullet, then takes a bullet. That happens to essentially everyone. I remember following the production of this picture, and when Abbey Lee was cast people thought she might be playing Susan Delgado or even a white Susannah, but she ended up playing Tirana, who basically did nothing.
This is kind of the same point but separate. For all I liked about bringing in the King universe, there was a blue minivan-load of shoehorning. Tirana in the books is a small role (she’s the can-toi who knocks the Skoldpadda out of Father Callahan’s hand at the Dixie Pig) and in the movie she’s just entirely different. Still a can-toi, but just not the same character whatsoever. That goes double for Pimli, played by Fran Kranz. Pimli in the books is warden of the Devar-Toi, and does something very crucial that affects everything, not to give it away. In the movie, he’s a lackey who is pretty much Walter’s computer nerd.
For a movie this short with a plot that’s a little hard to follow, especially if you go into it cold, the action scenes should have been great, but while there are some cool moments, they don’t stand out like they should.
Overall: While it is great that The Dark Tower finally got made, it just wasn’t right. It’s fine, and presents some fun fan service, but it’s just kind of there. I wouldn’t say it’s bad, it’s just confusing. They were saying before the movie came out that it was essentially a sequel to the books, following the ending of the final book, but watching it that really doesn’t seem to be the case. It may very well be, but that’s not addressed whatsoever. And if it is, why would so many of the characters be so different? Apparently they’re still moving forward with a TV series, based on Wizard and Glass, but with a pretty poor box office showing this weekend, who knows if that will actually come to fruition. The producers are saying that it will, and that it will all still be one huge TV and movie wonderland, but I have a bad feeling that they’re going to let it drop off a bridge. Just the fact that this movie came out and ends on a setup cliffhanger but there’s nothing really solid to be set up for is sketchy. But I hope it does, because it could be great, and may it shoot for many long days and pleasant nights.
Score: 6.5 Father Faces Forgotten (out of 10)
Posted in Reel Quick
12 thoughts on “Reel Quick: The Dark Tower”
I still happened to doze off. I don’t think it matters though.
Long days and pleasant nights, we all say thankya.
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Think and Do
Public History MA student, Andre Taylor launches podcast
November 13, 2019 | Ingrid Hoffius
The Department of History is pleased to announce that Public History MA student, Andre Taylor, has launched a podcast, “Speaking Culturally.” The podcast will explore various aspects of cultural heritage and methods used to preserve the heritage of each culture.
Having spent fifteen years as a print journalist and then coming to grad school as a Public History student, Taylor felt he was losing part of his own cultural heritage. He wanted to explore that idea of how people preserve their cultural heritage so utilizing the skill set he had gained as a journalist and the methodology and concepts he learned as a public historian the podcast “Speaking Culturally” was born. With help from DH Hill Library sound engineers, Taylor officially launched Friday, November 8.
The first episode of the podcast features Queen Quet of the Gullah Geechee people discussing cultural heritage, sea level rise, climate change and adaptation. Because she also happens to be a very large part of Taylor’s thesis research and he had to meet with her anyway, he asked her if he could also interview her for his podcast. Having his first guest be an internationally known person was quite a coup for Taylor.
Each episode will launch on Friday. This Friday’s episode (Nov 15) will feature NC State Public History PhD candidate Matthew Champagne and is entitled “The importance of including the history and cultural heritage of LGBTQ+ people in interpreted spaces.” The episode will discuss how an inclusive interpretation is critical to the success of any museum or historic site. Presently, despite very tangible connections to the history and culture of the LGBTQ+ community, many public history arenas avoid curating conversations that center gender and sexual minorities in affirmative ways.
Listeners can find “Speaking Culturally” on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify and TuneIn+Alexa as well as through social media platforms, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.
Andre Taylor, Gullah Geechee, Matthew Champagne, podcasts, Public History, Queen Quet, Speaking Culturally
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Claire Du Laney, Graduate Public History Alumna '18, named Outreach Archivist and Assistant Professor for the Archives and Special Collections department at the University of Nebraska Omaha.
Department of History Establishes John F. Hester Scholarship for Under-represented Students
The Department of History is pleased to announce the establishment of the John F. Hester Scholarship: This scholarship will provide support for undergraduates enrolled in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences and majoring or minoring in History.
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Cousteau’s granddaughter talks world water woes
By The Daily Advertiser
http://www.theadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009904240338
MARRERO – Like Jacques Cousteau, her famous grandfather, Alexandra Cousteau tells stories about the world of water, but her film crew has worked mostly from above the waves on a 100-day journey to document the world’s water woes and their interconnections.
That isn’t the only difference between her work and that of her grandfather the undersea explorer and her father, Philippe Cousteau.
"They were extraordinary storytellers. They really made people feel as if they were part of the journey. … I don’t think anyone has really been able to live up to the standards they set," she said Thursday during a stop at a swampy national park 20 minutes from New Orleans.
But theirs was a different world, technology and audience, said Cousteau, who interviewed David Muth, resource manager for the Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve as part of her coverage of the Gulf of Mexico dead zone – a huge oxygen-depleted area of sea bottom born each summer from fertilizer and other runoff from throughout the 31-state Mississippi River basin.
"They could spend three or four months filming a one-hour film, and that film would be a novel thing, whereas today, documentaries are a dime a dozen," she said.
Her look at the dead zone – from the Midwest farm fertilizer that feeds it to its formation beyond the end of the Mississippi River, is the fourth of six topics she’s including in a video and blogging project called "Expedition: Blue Planet – exploring the life support system of our world."
What has most struck her? "Everyone we’ve spoken with has just on their own, without any prompting, said in the course of conversation, ‘Water is life.’ And it is.
"It’s our most important life-support system. It’s the vehicle through which we’ll feel the impacts of climate change. Managing this resource has never been more important."
Her journey started in India with a look at pollution of the Ganges River: the trash disposed there, the living who enter the river to wash away their sins, the dead whose bodies are put into the river for the same reason, and a project to create sewers to drain the wastewater of slum villages.
They’ve also been to Botswana, where herdsmen and fishing people have blocked a water diversion project that would irrigate farmland, provide drinking water and supply a diamond mine but threatens Africa’s largest oasis, the Okavango Delta.
And to the Middle East, to look at how water projects have aggravated the divisions between Israel and its neighbors, and a nonprofit group that brings people from Israel, Jordan and Palestine together to study peace, leadership and the environment.
The next stops will be the ruins of Angkor Wat in Cambodia, and Perth, Australia.
Some historians "believe Angkor fell because of mismanagement of water resources," Cousteau said. "Australian scientists believe that Perth may be the first modern ghost metropolis for the same reasons that Angkor fell."
They also plan to film a coral reef in the Red Sea, where much of her grandfather’s Silent World series was filmed.
Ultimately, Cousteau plans for a book to be published in 2010. Her group provides video and other content free to seven media partners including the National Geographic, CNN, Grist, Rodale.com and earth911.com. The group hopes to produce TV specials and perhaps even a miniseries or short films for theatrical release, said executive producer Justine Schmidt.
A half-dozen sponsors, the biggest of them Coca-Cola Corp.’s Dasani bottled water, underwrite the project.
"I think the challenge is to take the storytelling to a tech-savvy audience and make it widely available, free of cost," Cousteau said.
Alexandra Cousteau, right, granddaughter of famed underwater explorer Jacques Cousteau, interviews David Muth, resource manager for the Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve, at its swampy Barataria Unit on Thursday outside New Orleans. Cousteau is working on a 100-day video and blogging series about the world’s water problems and their interconnections. She was in Louisiana to discuss the dead zone that forms in the Gulf of Mexico every summer, fed by fertilizer, sewage and other runoff from the 31 states in the Mississippi River Basin. (The Associated Press)
Leslie Smith2017-01-17T09:22:20+00:00April 27th, 2009|News|Comments Off on Cousteau’s granddaughter talks world water woes
Worldʼs Oceans Are Losing Oxygen Rapidly, Study Finds
Midwestern Farm Runoff Creates Headache For Louisiana Shrimpers
Missouri Farmers Try To Reduce Runoff, But Cleaning Gulf Dead Zone May Take Decades
Mississippi Beaches Have Been Vacant For Two Months As A Toxic Algae Bloom Lurks Offshore
Polluting Farmers Should Pay
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Zimbabwe appoint new cricket captains
Williams to lead in Tests, Chibhabha in ODIs and T20s
Published: January 08, 2020 17:33 IANS
Zimbabwe’s Sean Williams. Image Credit: AFP
Harare: Sean Williams has been named Zimbabwe’s new Test captain while Chamu Chibhabha will be leading the national team in ODIs and T20s on an “interim” basis.
Zimbabwe Cricket said the appointments were recommended by former captain and current director of cricket Hamilton Masakadza, who were then “unanimously endorsed” by the Zimbabwe Cricket Board at a meeting in Harare.
Williams has played 179 international matches, while Chibhabha, with 139 international games to his name, will lead in international cricket for the first time. Chibhabha, however, hasn’t played international cricket in more than a year, having last featured in a T20 against South Africa in 2018.
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Greece at the crossroads: the Civil War and its legacy
Title Greece at the crossroads: the Civil War and its legacy
Authors Iatrides, John O., and Linda Wrigley
Publisher Pennsylvania State University Press
City University Park, U.S.A.
Revised papers presented originally at a conference organized by the Lehrman Institute and held in the Vilvorde Conference Center in Copenhagen, Denmark, June 3-5, 1987.
Greece at the crossroads, 1944-1950 / John O. Iatrides
The 1940s between past and future / George Th. Mavrogordatos
The National Liberation Front (EAM), 1941-1947: a reassessment / Hagen Flesicher
Communist perceptions, strategy, and tactics, 1945-1949 / Ole L. Smith
The changing structure of the right, 1945-1950 / David H. Close
The executive in the Post-Liberation period, 1944-1949 / Nicos C. Alivizatos
Stabilization, development, and government economic authority in the 1940s / Stavros B. Thomadakis
Soviet policy in areas of limited control: the case of Greece, 1944-1949 / Peter J. Stavrakis
The Tito-Stalin split and the Greek Civil War / Ivo Banac
The impact of the Macedonian question on Civil Conflict in Greece, 1943-1949 / Evangelos Kofos
Greece, 1939-1952: a chronology of political events.
Military & Military Systems
Guerilla Warfare & (Military) Resistance
Militias & Volunteers
Military & Society
War & State-formation
War & Nation/Nation-building
War & International Politics
War & Warfare
War, Gender & Home Front
War & Violence
War Traumas
Global Cold War (1947-91)
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Office of the Governor > News > Press Releases > 2017 Press Releases > Justice Calls Special Session On May 4
Justice Calls Special Session On May 4
CHARLESTON, WV — Today, Governor Jim Justice announced that he is calling the West Virginia Legislature into a special session on Thursday, May 4.
“There’s been a lot of dialogue with both sides of the aisle, the House, the Senate and I believe we are on the verge of doing something great for the people of West Virginia,” said Governor Jim Justice. “The first budget sent to me from the Legislature would be devastating to our people because it would mean walking away from higher education, our veterans, our public schools, our seniors, a teacher’s pay raise, marketing our state with more tourism jobs, and 48,000 road building jobs. It would’ve been catastrophic.”
Justice added, “We have the chance to put West Virginia on a pathway to prosperity in a bipartisan way. The budget can’t just kick the can, it’s got to bring opportunity, hope, and jobs to our people.”
Grant Herring — Grant.W.Herring@wv.gov
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FoxSports.com (inc. other sports)
Greg Couch on Tennis
"I GOT INSIDE INFORMATION. MY MAN GREG COUCH, GREATEST TENNIS WRITER EVER…" – Jason Whitlock, ESPN's Pardon the Interruption (Jan. 24, 2014)
Tag Archives: Eugenie Bouchard
AUSTRALIAN OPEN: Twirlgate Just for Show? Calling BS on Billie Jean King’s Sexism Claim
By gregcouch
Maria Sharapova has talked about her passion for fashion, and how she enjoys helping with the designs of the tennis dresses she wears, including the little black tennis dress. Last year, Glamour magazine called her clothes “saucy.” A few years ago, Forbes said she likes “tank dresses with kicky skirts.”
Who can argue with that? And who can forget Serena Williams’ catsuit? I was at the Australian Open a few years ago when Venus Williams explained that she had designed skin-toned underwear for a natural look.
Awkward? You bet. But on Wednesday, Eugenie Bouchard won her match at the Australian Open, and when she did her post-match interview on court for the crowd, she was asked to give “a twirl” to show off her dress.
It is now a fullfledged scandal, with Billie Jean King posting on Twitter that the request to twirl was “out of line. This is truly sexist. If you ask the women, you have to ask the men to twirl as well.”
Go ahead. Ask Roger Federer to twirl. Ask Rafael Nadal. Ask Andy Murray. You know what? They won’t do it.
Bouchard, and earlier Serena Williams, did because it’s part of women’s tennis.
And God bless King for all she’s done to set a path for girls, including my daughter, with Title IX and the women’s tour. But on this one, I’m calling BS. She’s coming off like Al Sharpton, looking for any opportunity — genuine or not — to push the cause.
Look, it was an uncomfortable request, yes. It’s an unfamiliar balance, too, that the tour is selling. Bouchard, 20, is one of the best tennis players in the world. But the truth is, if this is a serious issue of sexism, then it’s not about what some guy asked Bouchard to do to show off her dress.
If there is need to change, then the women’s tour needs to take a hard look at what the women’s tour is selling.
1 Comment | tags: Australian Open, Billie Jean King, Eugenie Bouchard, Serena Williams, twirlgate | posted in Australian Open, Billie Jean King, Eugenie Bouchard, Serena Williams
WIMBLEDON: Genie Bouchard Goes from Tennis’ Next Big Thing to its Biggest Question Mark…Oh yeah, Petra Kvitova Wins, too
Petra Kvitova wins 2nd Wimbledon
The theme of the match was Genie Bouchard, her emergence. That’s what the moment was about. Tennis has a new superstar, one who is young, fresh, and tough as nails with marketers already drooling over her good looks.
Come see her crowning.
Well, the match didn’t live up to that. The other person won. It wasn’t even close. Petra Kvitova won 6-3, 6-0 in 55 minutes, playing great and knocking Bouchard into a stupor. That’s two Wimbedon titles for Kvitova, who came from nowhere to win the first one three years ago, when she was 21, and then disappeared for three years, and now came back to win again.
The problem is that the match never was going to be about Kvitova. The tennis world just saw Kvitova, loaded with talent but not enough focus or footwork, put it together again for two weeks and win Wimbledon. I wish I had the feeling that the rest of the sports world saw it that way, and not, roughly, this way:
That next-generation Canadian Sharapova lost. Big time. With Sheldon, from Big Bang Theory watching.
You know how people dress up to play a character on TV, and then look totally different when you see them on the late-night shows or something? Sheldon — Jim Parsons — wore a suit and sunglasses in the friends box at Wimbledon and it was incredible: Even without his Flash shirt, he still managed to look like a science geek anyway.
In fact, it looked as if he had beamed himself into Centre Court and was trying to remain incognito.
Honestly, I’m not sure what’s going to happen with Bouchard now. This hurt her. She doesn’t look quite as sure of a sure thing as she did before the match. She is just 20, and has reached the semis in two majors and the finals in one this year. She has played in just six majors, and is already the most consistent player in majors on tour this year.
But, as ESPN’s business writer, Darren Rovell tweeted after the match, “Marketers now face dilemma. Is she worth big $?” He had said just before the match that she was poised to be an ad idol.
I think they will, on spec. She is still the most marketable new face to come out of this tennis season, and tennis is still the only women’s sport to have broken into the mainstream. Bouchard is too hot of a prospect to let someone else get to first.
Sheldon, still a geek
That said, she was demolished Saturday, and didn’t even make it a fight.
Anyway, welcome back, Petra Kvitova. Welcome to the Hall of Fame when it’s all over for you. Which won’t be for another decade.
She is just 24 and had somehow managed to already be forgotten. She didn’t fit in with the 30-something stars, Serena Williams and Li Na. She hadn’t done enough to
3 Comments | tags: Big Bang Theory, Eugenie Bouchard, Jim Parsons, Petra Kvitova, Roger Federer, Venus Williams, Wimbledon | posted in Genie Bouchard, Petra Kvitova, Venus Williams, Wimbledon
FRENCH OPEN: Old Lady Sharapova, Erases Generation, Becomes Queen of Clay
In the end, this French Open will be remembered for the Old Lady, I guess. If that’s what we can call Maria Sharapova. She’s just 27, but she single-handedly wiped out a moment that was all about the emergence of Generation Next.
When Serena Williams and Li Na lost early, the tournament was suddenly defined by Simona Halep, Eugenie Bouchard, Garbine Muguruza and Sloane Stephens. It wasn’t the best moment for marketers and TV networks, but women’s tennis needs a refresh. And all four of those young women are compelling and thrilling.
They feel like the right ones. It turned out, Stephens wasn’t ready, isn’t at that level. And then, the marketing dream, Sharapova, wrecked the whole thing, beating Serena-killer Muguruza in the quarters, then Bouchard in the semis, and then Halep 6-4, 6-7 (7-5), 6-4 in the final.
There were just too many backward things going on. Sharapova cannot exactly wreck a moment in a sport with so few faces the general sports public wants to see. She cannot possibly be seen as fearless at the same time that she’s afraid to hit her serve. And more importantly: Sharapova, who once described herself on clay as a cow on ice, is now. . .
The best claycourt player on tour. That’s two French Open titles in the past three years for her, and three finals in a row.
We can celebrate Sharapova’s incredible stick-to-itiveness, as always. But she won this match, this tournament because of her years of experience. That was her advantage.
You can see it as veteran street knowledge, so to speak, or possibly just as gamesmanship. Either way, the woman who has been here a million times knew how to get through this match, and the one here for the first time – first of many – did not.
Sharapova was in an all-out stall. Halep likes to rush, and Sharapova knew how to throw her off. Setting and re-setting before her first serve, and then doing it all again before the second. And all those tosses on her serve that she caught and said, “Sorry’’ as if they were just bad tosses?
I’m not buying. It’s true she has struggled with her toss over the years, but so many of those seemed intentional. Toss and catch. . .and. . .toss. . .again. That was more stalling to get Halep out of her rhythm and give her a whole lot of time to think about what it was she was trying to do. If that was enough time for nervousness to creep into a newcomer’s brain, which has never had to deal with these thoughts before?
Well, so be it.
Halep will be back. We’ve seen some pretend stars emerge, or place-setters the past year or two while Williams starts to lose a little more often. Not sure what happened to Sabine Lisicki. Marion Bartoli was never going to be the real deal, even after she won Wimbledon.
Halep is the next longterm star for tennis. Bouchard is right behind her. Muguruza is not as sure of a thing, but odds are with her. Stephens is going to have to learn to fight, and determine whether there is the needed killer inside of her.
The amazing thing about Sharapova is that she’s doing it on clay. We figured when she emerged as a teenager at Wimbledon, crushing the ball, that the fast courts would be best for her. Now, Roland Garros is her place.
A learning curve? That would be a nice thing to point to. Really, she just seems to be moving better and holding her nerve.
Except on her serve. It’s amazing how she can just blank out flaws, just partition them out of her brain while she keeps fighting. Can’t serve? OK, I’ll be ruthless at all non-serving moments.
She was nervous against Bouchard. You could see it. Bouchard is tall, ruthless, powerful and blonde, and it was almost as if she was a replacement.
Yet despite nerves, despite seeing your replacement, despite a bad serve and iffy moves, Sharapova somehow found a way to be mentally relentless.
The only mental block she hasn’t overcome is Williams. So Sharapova, with five majors, will not go down as the best player ever. I don’t think she’s going to figure that one out.
But if a cow on ice can figure out how to become the Queen of Clay, I wouldn’t bet against her, either.
2 Comments | tags: Eugenie Bouchard, French Open, Maria Sharapova, Serena Williams, Simona Halep, Sloane Stephens | posted in French Open, Maria Sharapova, Simona Halep
Greg Couch is an award-winning sports columnist based in Chicago. He covers college football for BleacherReport.com, NFL for RollingStone.com and freelances at several other places, including The New York Times. Lots of tennis, mostly here. He has traveled the world covering tennis and is a member of the International Tennis Writers Association. A former sports columnist at the Chicago Sun-Times, his tennis writing has been in the book "The Best American Sportswriting."
Follow on Twitter: @GregCouch
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Cincinnati Open
crip walk
IMG gambling scandal
Jimmy Connors
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Acapulco drug wars Aga Radwanska Amer Delic Ana Ivanovic Andrea Collarini Andre Agassi Andy Murray Andy Roddick Australian Open AustralianOpen Bjorn Borg Bryan Brothers Caroline Wozniacki Chris Evert Cincinnati tennis David Ferrer and baby Davis Cup Donald Young Eugenie Bouchard Fed Cup French Open GOAT grunting James Blake Jim Courier Jo-Wilfried Tsonga John Isner John McEnroe Juan Martin del Potro Justine Henin Kim Clijsters Li Na Madison Keys Marcos Daniel Mardy Fish Maria Sharapova Marion Bartoli Martina Navràtilova Milos Raonic NCAA gambling No. 1 Novak Djokovic Olympics Olympic tennis Oracene Price Patrick McEnroe Petra Kvitova Rafael Nadal Robin Soderling Rod Laver Roger Federer Roland Garros Ryan Harrison Sabine Lisicki Sam Querrey Serena Williams Serena Williams' stalker Serena Williams Twitter avatar Sergiy Stakhovsky Sloane Stephens Stan Wawrinka Steve Darcis Taylor Townsend Ted Forstmann Tomas Berdych Twitter U.S. Open U.S. tennis US Open USTA US tennis Venus Williams Victoria Azarenka Wayne Odesnik Wimbledon
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First-Person Humanism: Becoming Captain of My Own Rational Ship
Think Humanity Is Making Progress? This Book Could Disillusion You
November 2018: Planning Livable and Resilient Communities
LisaBeth Barajas, Heather Worthington, Lucy Thompson, Audrey Kingstrom
A panel at our November chapter meeting discussed the challenges of long-term urban and regional planning in our area as the population grows and issues like racial disparities and climate change loom.
Moderated by HofMN president Audrey Kingstrom, the panel included LisaBeth Barajas, community development director, Metropolitan Council; Heather Worthington, director of long-range planning, Minneapolis Office of Community Planning and Economic Development; and Lucy Thompson, principal planner, St. Paul Department of Planning and Economic Development.
They highlighted the range of factors that planners consider as they try to ensure the region grows in a methodical, rather than haphazard, way—for example, affordable housing, accommodations for older and disabled people, environmental impact, water, sewers, and transit (light rail today, autonomous cars tomorrow).
As anyone who has followed reaction to the Minneapolis 2040 plan knows, planning for increased density is one of the more controversial aspects of this work. Some welcome a world of more multi-family (and affordable) housing, retail outlets, and public transit that could reduce car use. Others worry about the impact of the increased activity on traditional single-family neighborhoods.
But Barajas noted that the Metropolitan Council projects that the Twin Cities region will grow by 800,000 residents by 2040. So, said Thompson, it’s not a matter of “wanting” density, “it’s going to happen.” She added that cities also have to think about the bottom line when they plan new developments —for example, the expensive revamping of the old Ford Site in St. Paul. The reality is that a mixed-use project creates a big enough tax base to undertake such a project; single-family homes alone do not.
Worthington said planners are taking into account studies showing that Minneapolis suffers from high levels of racial and educational disparities. She said the 2040 plan is built around 14 goals and six values that attempt to understand “more holistically how communities develop and how to support residents in succeeding.” She said transit, housing, a living wage, and child care are critical. “If you have those four things, you have the foundation for being successful as a family.”
—Suzanne Perry
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NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — New presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg traveled to the city that hosts the world’s largest Navy base on Monday and blasted President Donald Trump over the recent ouster of the nation’s Navy secretary. For the first stop of his Democratic campaign, Bloomberg went to...
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AIDSConditionsWomen's HealthYour Body
UPDATES:MUMS TARGETED FOR AIDS DRUG
The anti-AIDS drug AZT (Retrovir) is suddenly being pushed as a treatment for preventing HIV-positive mothers from passing on the condition to their unborn children.
This new approach follows hard on the heels of the Concorde trials that showed the drug did not delay the onset of AIDS among HIV-positive people.
And as happened with the launch of the drug, the clinical trials among pregnant women have been stopped early because preliminary findings have been so positive.
AZT, also known as zidovudine, manufactured by Burroughs Wellcome, came on to the market in 1987 and was rushed through usually stringent US trials in just 20 months, so beneficial was it believed to be.
But the exhaustive Concorde trials, which ran from 1988 to 1991 and which compared the progress of 877 HIV patients given AZT against 872 given a placebo, showed that AZT had little or no effect in slowing the disease. Both groups showed a rate of progression to full blown AIDS and/or death of 18 per cent (The Lancet, 9 April 1994).
While Burroughs Wellcome, the American arm of Wellcome in the UK, never claimed the drug originally developed in 1963 to fight cancer could cure AIDS, the company said it would slow the progression of HIV by reducing the rate of duplication. Alarming side effects were reported, and Wellcome was criticized for selling the drug for £128 per 100 capsules, far above the usual price for drugs. Profits rocketed as did the share price, from 73.5p to 374.5p in 1987 when the drug was launched.
Despite the major setback of the Concorde findings, HIV-positive pregnant women are now being targeted for the drug following a 59 centre study. The study, by the US National Institutes of Health and the French Agence Nationale de Recherches sur le SIDA, claims the drug can reduce by two thirds the chances of women transmitting the virus to their unborn child.
The trial was stopped early when researchers found the transmission rate among mothers given 100 mg doses, five times a day of AZT was just 8.3 per cent against 25.5 per cent in the group given a placebo (BMJ, 5 March 1994 and JAMA, 16 March 1994).
Despite abandoning the trials prematurely, researchers are still concerned about the possible long term effects of the treatment.
In the US, AIDS is the fifth commonest cause of death among children under the age of 15.
l Researchers have located yet another virus, human herpesvirus 6 (HHV-6), which is found in AIDS sufferers (Lancet, 5 March 1994). The virus was isolated in a laboratory in 1986, and researchers at the National Cancer Institute at Bethesda, Maryland, first noted that HHV-6 could contribute to the depletion of CD4 T cells in AIDS patients about five years ago.
Tagged asAIDS/HIVanti-AIDS drugsAZTefficacypregnancyRetrovirside effectsWhat Doctors Don't Tell Youzidovudine
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Home›Interviews›#HxppyThxxghts Exclusive: Interview with Noé
#HxppyThxxghts Exclusive: Interview with Noé
Interviews, Music, Video
Noé breaks new ground with the release of “La Fève,” the fourth single off her forthcoming i by noé EP. Despite her original roots planted firmly in the Aix-en-Provence of France, the LA-based artist has never released a song composed or delivered in her native tongue. In fact, the new release is only the second song Noé has ever written in French. Fortunately, Noé broke past the barriers that had previously kept her from doing so – because “La Fève” is a winsomely delivered and enchantingly received record that certainly deserves a place in the spotlight. Co-written by Hannah Epperson and produced by STINT, Noé’s latest draws inspiration from a childhood tradition that, in short, involves cake, a small figurine and the crowning of a king or queen. “La Fève” details the singer’s desire for attention and approval, juxtaposing this craving with the dissatisfaction of receiving it unless it has been rightfully earned. The praise means little if one does not feel they deserve it – the song dances with self-love and self-approval as much as it alludes to the approval of others.
Of course, I don’t speak the language. But this is one of the characteristics of “La Fève” that makes the song so special – the music and the energy present throughout transcends any language barrier. Simply by watching and actively listening, Noé’s audience is able to pick up on, feel and experience the inner and emotional dissonance.
In addition to the new video, which highlights Noé’s quirky personality, Hxppy Thxxghts is happy to share an exclusive interview with the songstress. Noé speaks on her evolution as an artist, her creative process, the upcoming EP and more. You can watch “La Fève” and read our interview with Noé below.
While the i by noé singles may be your highest profile – and best – releases to date, these aren’t the first pieces of music you’ve made available to the public. However, I noticed your previous work has a much stronger electronic foundation, whereas your music as of late is a finely tuned blend of pop and R&B. What inspired or influenced your sonic evolution?
I think part of what influenced my sonic evolution is me finally not being afraid of liking what I like, and not being so concerned with fitting into a mold. I used to call some of my favorite artists my “guilty pleasures” because they weren’t what was trending and none of my friends really liked them. Honestly, I think I felt embarrassed, because I liked such indie sad music. But with time I gained confidence and realized there was no point in feeling guilty. Once I took that step, I think I allowed a lot more of the music I truly loved to influence me, instead of forcing inspiration from what I thought was “current.” Now I let everything and anything that makes me feel inspire me, even when it comes from unexpected places.
Each release off the upcoming EP thus far has been notable for the personal nature of the records, albeit in differing ways from track to track. Wrapped up in your wondrous storytelling is bits and pieces of your own story. That being said, who is Noé and what does the artistic moniker represent to you as a person?
Noé is more than my creative outlet. Noé is me, being as honest as I can be. I really don’t differentiate my artistic moniker from myself as a person. The only thing I would say is that no matter how honest I am through “Noé”, there is only so much a few songs, visuals and social media can show about me and my personality.
Can you offer some insight into the creative process and artistic vision that goes into the creation of your music videos? In their own ways, they have all been so aesthetically pleasing and really work to capture the essence of the song attached to them. Do you come up with the concepts or is it a team driven effort?
It definitely varies – I love when it’s more of team driven effort. I think it’s beautiful and so much fun when multiple creatives get together to collaborate and share ideas or visions. Sometimes I can get pretty stuck in my own vision because I’ve been thinking about it for so long and can’t see things any other way, but it makes it harder to achieve because no one is in my head and sees the things I see. So I definitely like it better when everyone is involved from the start. That way the ideas bounce around, grow and develop in everyone’s heads at the same time, and you get the best of everyone’s brains and talents! And you get to have fun while doing so!
“Pity Party” and “Puzzles” were littered with tongue-in-cheek self-depreciation. Is it important for you to be able to poke fun at yourself, to laugh at some of the choices or decisions you make/have made? And then, in turn, flip that humorous outlook into something as beautiful as both those records are?
Yes, it’s important to me. But more so I think self-deprecation comes really naturally to me and is part of my personality. I’m always making fun of myself because I’m not oblivious to the patterns I find myself stuck in and the bad decisions I make. I’m very well aware. And I think it’s important not to take yourself so seriously all the time.
On the other hand, “Color” left the self-depreciation at the door, instead serving as an empowering anthem dedicated to self-love and finding light amongst the darkness of depression and anxiety. What made you decide to compose an ode to your personal trials with emotional well-being?
I honestly don’t think it was ever a conscious decision. I think it just happened. I was having a pretty hard time when I first moved to LA, and went through some rough patches mentally. I wrote that song when things started to get better, because I was paranoid I might fall back into it at anytime. I was so terrified of waking up one morning and being in a state of numbness again. I couldn’t really enjoy the “good” that I was feeling because I felt like it was only temporary. So “Color” came when I needed it most – at a time when I really needed to feel in control, especially of my mental health.
You’ve said you’d rather leave the storyline featured in the “Color” video up to interpretation – we see you playing multiple characters, burying items, etc. Is there any chance you want to shed some light on the meaning behind the ambiguous scenes and perhaps explain what the story taking place is all about?
Sure! So basically there are two characters: the protagonist and the stalker wearing a wig. The stalker takes videos of the protagonist, manifested through the VHS effected shots. She later watches the films she took of the protagonist. The deeper meaning is that the stalker character is actually an embodiment of depression, and how it is omnipresent. No matter where you are, or what you are doing, even if you are feeling fine, depression is always watching. I’d still leave the burying of the tapes up to interpretation, because honestly my own interpretation varies depending my mood. Is she hiding the tapes only to make more or is she done with the stalking? Is depression a vicious cycle or has the protagonist overcome it? I think it’s whatever the audience wants it to be.
Of course, all three singles – “Pity Party”, “Puzzles” & “Color” – will find life on your forthcoming EP. Do you have a specific release date in mind or a time frame you’re aiming for?
Shooting for the end of May!
In regards to the musical direction of i by noé, will the EP include any features? And who are some of the artists responsible for production on the project?
No features on this EP, but hopefully on whatever comes next! And only a handful of talents produced and wrote on this project with me. I like to keep my collaborators limited to a few people whom I trust. I was truly so lucky to have worked with and found a safe space in Matt Parad, Jerry Folk, Stint, Hannah Epperson and Jason Hahs.
Should we be expecting more self-depreciation, more empowering vibes or a balanced spectrum?
A little bit of both!
Any plans to release more singles or videos prior to dropping the EP?
Releasing 2 more songs before the EP! I actually shot a little last minute DIY lyric video in my living room for the latest release, “La Fève.” I hope you’ll like it! Other than that, you can maybe expect another visual. 😉
I saw on your Instagram you’ve been sharing some quick acoustic covers, most recently taking on Noah Kahan’s “Mess.” I’m a sucker for a good cover, especially when it’s stripped back to just an artist and a guitar. What are the chances we see you release any full covers, complete with live visuals?
No plans to do so as of right now but maybe someday!
Most importantly – how’s life? On all levels – physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually – how are you doing?
I’m doing great, thank you. Music is keeping me busy busy which I love. I wouldn’t have it any other way. LA has grown on me 🙂 So grateful for the positive feedback the new music has been getting, really hope you’ll love i by noé! And thank you so much for all of your support, truly appreciate it <3
Connect with Noé: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
TagsNoé
Watch Now: Jahan Nostra - El Chapo ...
Watch Now: Romaro Franceswa - Please Don't ...
Zachary Humphrey
Watch Now: Noé - Pity Party
Listen Now: Noé - Rabbit Hole
Watch Now: Marie Lang - Comfort Zone [prod. Elliott Beenk]
La Cebolla Grande 3 April, 2019 at 06:00 Reply
Hey dude, nice interview! What I really like is that it was straight and flowed between professional and personal. Very well-balanced. Glad you were able to connect. One follow-up: does Noé have any plans to tour east coast U.S.??? 🙂
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The hydrogen story
Port of Hastings
Hastings Planning Scheme Amendment confirmed
19 Nov, 2018 | News
November 2018: Hydrogen Energy Supply Chain (HESC) Project Partners are pleased to confirm that approval has been granted for a planning scheme amendment to the Mornington Peninsula Planning Scheme under the Planning and Environment Act 1987.
This amendment to the Mornington Peninsula Planning Scheme allows the use and development of highly-suitable land owned by BlueScope (and to be leased by the project) for a pilot scale hydrogen liquefaction plant and loading terminal at the Port of Hastings.
The approval marks an important step towards the demonstration of a world-first, integrated supply chain for hydrogen between Australia and Japan. The HESC Project has the potential to establish a new export and domestic industry in Australia, built around clean hydrogen and related technologies.
The amendment only relates to the pilot scale project which is likely to operate for approximately one year from 2020.
HESC in brief:
The HESC pilot supply chain includes:
The conversion of brown coal to hydrogen gas in the Latrobe Valley
The liquefaction of the gas in the Port of Hastings area
Storage and loading of the liquefied hydrogen onto a special-purpose built carrier for shipping to Japan.
Read more about the supply chain.
The Hastings hydrogen liquefaction, storage and loading facilities will have an overall site footprint (including the wider study area and bushfire buffer zone) of around 2.5 hectares.
It will be built and operated on an existing, secure industrial port, owned by BlueScope. The site is highly-suitable for the small scale pilot, because it has existing jetty facilities and is accessible using existing road transport routes.
The pilot project will be built and operated under strict environmental regulations. Before the development can commence, a number of detailed plans and reports must satisfy the Minister for Planning to receive the required approvals.
The pilot scale hydrogen liquefaction and loading operations at Hastings do not require any dredging, or any works on water.
HESC will commence construction of the small-scale pilot facilities in 2019 and the pilot phase will operate for approximately one year from 2020.
We encourage interested community members and organisations to subscribe to the HESC e-news.
For further information, visit our online FAQs page or contact us.
Key documents associated with the planning scheme amendment are now available online (via the Victorian State Government Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning).
© 2020 Hydrogen Energy Australia. All Rights Reserved.
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2000 in hockey, 2001 in hockey, Deutsche Eishockey Liga season
2000-01 DEL season
2000-01 Deutsche Eishockey Liga season
League Deutsche Eishockey Liga
Season champions Adler Mannheim
The 2000-01 Deutsche Eishockey Liga season was the 7th season since the founding of the Deutsche Eishockey Liga (German Ice Hockey League). The Adler Mannheim won the DEL Championship the fourth time in 5 seasons, extending their dominance in German ice hockey. It was also the fifth time in their history they held the German Champion title.
A change was brought to the format of play. The fist 8 placed teams in the regular season would go into playoffs, while the season would end for the other teams. There would be no relegation.
All teams played each other 4 times, for a total of 60 rounds. The first 8 placed teams qualified for the playoffs.
GF:GA
1. Adler Mannheim 60 31 9 4 16 205:144 115
2. Kölner Haie 60 29 6 12 13 186:154 111
3. München Barons (M) 60 29 5 7 19 175:150 104
4. Nürnberg Ice Tigers 60 27 7 8 18 191:171 103
5. Kassel Huskies 60 28 6 7 19 176:156 103
6. Revierlöwen Oberhausen 60 25 12 3 20 187:151 102
7. Hannover Scorpions 60 29 3 6 22 203:182 99
8. Berlin Capitals 60 25 7 9 19 191:173 98
9. Krefeld Pinguine 60 23 4 11 22 182:177 88
10. Frankfurt Lions 60 23 5 8 24 189:189 87
11. Düsseldorfer EG (N) 60 17 10 5 28 133:164 76
12. Schwenninger ERC Wild Wings 60 20 4 8 28 174:207 76
13. Eisbären Berlin 60 19 6 4 31 192:221 73
14. Augsburger Panther 60 18 8 3 31 187:242 73
15. Iserlohn Roosters (N) 60 16 7 6 31 152:189 68
16. Moskitos Essen 60 15 7 5 33 173:226 64
GP = Games played, W = Win, SOW = Shootout Win, SOL = Shootout Loss, L = Loss
= Qualified for playoffs = Season end
Playoff Edit
The playoffs were played in a best-of-five format.
Quarterfinals Semifinals Finals
1 Adler Mannheim 3
8 Berlin Capitals 2
7 Hannover Scorpions 0
2 Kölner Haie 0
3 München Barons 1
6 Revierlöwen Oberhausen 0
5 Kassel Huskies 1
4 Nürnberg Ice Tigers 1
Quarterfinals Edit
Quarterfinals started March 23, 2001.
Adler Mannheim – Berlin Capitals 3:2 5:1 3:4 4:3 2:3 3:0
Kölner Haie – Hannover Scorpions 0:3 1:3 1:5 3:4 – –
München Barons – Revierlöwen Oberhausen 3:0 4:2 3:2 4:2 – –
Nürnberg Ice Tigers – Kassel Huskies 1:3 3:2 1:2 3:4 3:4 –
Semifinals Edit
Semifinals started April 3.
Adler Mannheim – Hannover Scorpions 3:0 7:2 7:5 6:1 – –
München Barons – Kassel Huskies 3:1 3:2 2:3 3:1 6:5 –
Finals Edit
The DEL finals started on April 14 with a homegame for Adler Mannheim who had a better regular season standing.
Adler Mannheim – München Barons 3:1 4:1 1:4 2:1 2:1 –
The Adler Mannheim extended their dominance by winning the DEL Championship for the 4th time.
Team Photos Edit
Frankfurt Lions
This page uses content from Wikipedia. The original article was at 2000-01 DEL season. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with Ice Hockey Wiki, the text of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License 3.0 (Unported) (CC-BY-SA).
Seasons of the Deutsche Eishockey Liga
1994-95 • 1995-96 • 1996-97 • 1997-98 • 1998-99 • 1999-00 • 2000-01 • 2001-02 • 2002-03 • 2003-04 • 2004-05 • 2005-06 • 2006-07 • 2007-08 • 2008-09 • 2009-10 • 2010-11
Retrieved from "https://icehockey.fandom.com/wiki/2000-01_DEL_season?oldid=285965"
Deutsche Eishockey Liga season
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Turn Your Keyboard Into a Typewriter With Lofree
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Mac and PC geeks alike have a new toy to obsess out over.
A device called LOFREE turns any keyboard into a cute and colorful typewriter featuring shiny round buttons. The keys are inspired by old-style typewriters though the keyboards themselves are made small enough to be portable. Lofree’s site reads: “We engineered round keycaps to give lofree a classic, yet contemporary feel.”
The device is available for Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS and can be paired with up to three devices at once! To purchase one must sign up here to receive details as soon as available.
Lofree
LofreeKeyboard
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38-year-old reality star Kourtney Kardashian just revealed her exact weight on the latest episode of 'Keeping Up With the Kardashians!' Kourtney tells her sister Khloe and their friend Simon that she (Khloe) went for a quick run in the heat! Khloe then tells Simon: "You know she’s 97 lbs.?” Kourtney interjects, and corrects Kourtney by saying: "Guess what? I gained a pound. I’m 98 . You know Mason is 62 ?” Can you BELIEVE Kourtney is only 98lbs? Watch her big reveal below and let us know what you think: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4C4aSHUtE0
Ben Affleck Starts Drinking Again at Halloween Party, Cannot Walk!
47-year-old 'Tripe Frontier' actor Ben Affleck has publicly struggled with sobriety for a very long time! Affleck however seemed to have suffered a major setback at recovery last night, when he was spotted having trouble walking after the UNICEF Masquerade Ball in West Hollywood, California. He had to use a SUV to steady himself on his feet because he was so incredibly drunk! A source says of the incident: "Sobriety is difficult and elusive for everyone struggling with addiction…Ben has acknowledged he’s going to slip up from time to time. It was never as if this was simply behind him." Just hours before the incident, Afflectk had talked about his own recovery on his Instagram page, writing: "I have been in recovery for over a year and part of that is helping out others. @themidnightmission is an incredible organization that helps those in need with housing, training, development and recovery. I’m making a donation today because there are people battling addiction every day that don’t have the resources and need help. @raya, you in? Who else is with me?" Video of Ben in a state of drunkneness below and let us know: DID BEN AFFLECK SABOTAGE HIS OWN RECOVERY? HOW...
Adele Files for DIVORCE From Husband of Seven Years Simon Konecki!
30-year-old 'Set Fire to the Rain' songstress Adele has officially filed for DIVORCE from her husband of seven years - Simon Konecki! The singer's official publicists, Benny Tarantini and Carl Fysh, released a statement through the Associated Press that reads: "Adele and her partner have separated. They are committed to raising their son together lovingly. As always they ask for privacy. There will be no further comment." Adele and Konecki, a 45-year-old American businessman, began dating in 2011 and confirmed that they were married in 2017 when Adele stated it during her Grammy speech. Let us know: ARE YOU SHOCKED AT THE NEWS? DID YOU THINK THAT THEY WOULD HAVE BEEN TOGETHER FOREVER? DO YOU THINK THIS IS THE SIGN OF NEW ADELE MUSIC TO COME? LET US KNOW! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ri7-vnrJD3k
Celine Dion Removes “I’m Your Angel” Hit With R. Kelly From ALL Platforms!
50-year-old 'I'ts All Coming Back to Me Now' superstar Celine Dion is pulling her hit song from 1998 with R Kelly, 'I'm Your Angel,' OFF ALL STREAMING PLATFORMS! R Kelly is currently being hit with a slew of allegations regarding abuse of women in the documentary 'Surviving R Kelly.' Kelly has collaborated with many artists, though so far only Lady Gaga and Celine Dion have acted by "erasing" their work with him. Let us know: DO YOU LIKE 'I'M YOUR ANGEL?' WILL YOU MISS THE SONG? DO YOU THINK LADY GAGA AND CELINE DION ARE GOING TOO FAR??? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPCwPe4Tk-4
TWO NEW ‘Harry Potter’ Novels Arriving in October
Aaron Fernandes - July 19, 2017 0
HARRY POTTER FANS REJOICE! Two new books in the series by 51-year-old bestselling author JK Rowling will be released this October by publishing house, Bloomsbury. The new books will be titled 'Harry Potter: A History of Magic - The Book of the Exhibition' and 'Harry Potter - A Journey Through A History of Magic.' 'The Book of the Exhibition' will let the reader know the subjects learnt at Hogwarts while 'A Journey Through A History of Magic' will delve into subjects of ancient witchcraft, alchemy, and unicorns. The books' release coincides with the opening of the British Library's exhibition on Harry Potter titled 'A History of Magic;' which also happens to be the series' 20th anniversary. 'A History of Magic' runs until February 2018. No official dates for the release of the books have been announced yet.
Avril Lavigne Releases Comeback MUSIC VIDEO: “TELL ME IT’S OVER” Watch Here
34-year-old former 'Complicated' Canadian superstar Avril Lavigne has a new song out! Titled 'Tell Me It's Over,' the song details Avril's broken heart as she sings with powerful vocals: "I'm so tired of circular motions / They leave me dizzy and confused / My heart, oh no, is not your revolving door / I get stuck spinning and spinning and spinning / Oh, 'til I collapse on the floor" Watch the video below and let us know: WHAT DO YOU THINK OF 'TELL ME IT'S OVER?' DO YOU LIKE AVRIL LAVIGNE? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5wseA6HoNs
SCORPIO WOMAN: Kendall Jenner Wears a SNAKE to Lunch in Beverly Hills! 🐍🐍🐍
23-year-old supermodel Kendall Jenner was seen walking back to her vehicle in Beverly Hills after visiting a coffee shop, wearing SNAKE-SKIN! Jenner paired the top, derived from a real python's skin, with high-waisted jeans and left her hair untied to blow with the wind. Photos of Kendall in her snake-skin top below and let us know: SHOULD SHE BE SUED FOR ANIMAL CRUELTY? WOULD YOU EVER WEAR A SNAKE? IS IT BECAUSE SHE REALLY LOVES SNAKES?! SHE IS A SCORPIO AFTER ALL...🐍🐍🐍
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Archive for category Celebrity Candids
SELENA GOMEZ Suffers Awkward Technical Difficulty On Live TV (VIDEOS)
Posted by imoviezone in Celebrity Candids on August 1, 2014
SELENA GOMEZ suffered an awkward technical difficulty right before her live TV performance on “The View” on Thursday, according to the latest entertainment news.
Is Selena‘s song “Slow Down” jinxed?
Just a week after the pop star tripped and fell off stage during her performance of the song in Virginia for her “Stars Dance” tour, she suffered an unfortunate-and embarrassing-sound glitch on “The View” on Thursday.
And no, we’re not talking about her going out of tune.
Gomez was starting to sing her upbeat song when she made a false start, covered it up by saying she was “just kidding” and realized that something was wrong with her earpiece. She then later turned to her band and said:
“I can’t hear… I can’t hear myself.”
A few seconds of awkward silence ensued and the 21-year-old singer attempted to fill the dead air by scanning the room and offering small talk to a member of the crowd, before host Jenny McCarthy finally saved her and announced that they were cutting to a commercial break.
Selena had the chance to recover after the break… and she blew the crowd away with her sexy performance.
Watch the glitch and her performance below:
Do you think Selena handled the situation well?
Photo Via Video Screen Grab
Celebrities, celebrity candids, Gossip, Selena Gomez, TV, videos
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Posts Tagged ‘modi’
V. Shanmuganathan: Was he a victim, scapegoat sacrificed for wrong calculations ? (3)
Anti-BJP groups not properly identified, negotiated and satisfied: TUR leader Angela Rngad said while adding, “We want to show that the BJP’s anti people policies will not be tolerated.” Stating that the protest is also to show all that the BJP’s hate campaigns will not be accepted in the state, she alleged that the party, through the Ghar Wapsi and policies of grabbing of farmers’ lands, the make in India campaign are all efforts to enslave every citizens of country. Referring to the ban on beef and atrocities against the minority, Rngad accused the BJP of being a party that actually attacks the rights of people like attacking the lifestyle, food culture and habits and way of dressing. KNU general secretary S Diengdoh said that this indifferent attitude of the BJP against the minorities including Christians is totally undemocratic while adding that it is against the Constitution of India. HNPF president R Rani questioned why these issues have cropped up only after the BJP was voted to power. Here only, that the BJP had not properly understood the groups was revealed, to cite an example based on the media reports. He said, “We suspect that this is being instigated and we demand that the BJP central leadership respects all religious communities.” It is a futile exercise to have any negotiation with these separatist groups, as they have been carrying out their activities since independence supported by the US, Chinese and Pakistani forces with all facilities, where the BJP is not a match for them.
Shanmuganathan’s experiments with Christianity, Christians and Christmas (2015-16): His sudden praising of Christianity, Christians, their services were quite amusing, as he hid not have any experience in “inter religious dialogue”. Some of the Tamilnadu ideologists had gone there enjoying time, but, obviously misled them with their half-baked ideas and imagined details. Whenever, he visited Tamilnadu and Chennai, a coterie never allowed other friends known to him to approach him. This was openly revealed during the facilitation programme organized and Chennai. Because of his dual role here and there, he was rather confused with the inputs stuffed by the fellow-ideologists. The Church was so delighted to record that[1], “The Christmas celebration this year has got more meaningful since the head of the state the governor of Meghalaya Mr V. Shanmuganathan himself attended in the Christmas service at Laitumkhrah Presbyterian Church, Shillong on 25th December, 2016”. Of course, he had been so considerate with the Christians since 2015. He hosted Christmas at Rajbhawan with all fanfare. He gave discourse from biblical narratives, just like a pastor / priest from the pulpit. One website[2] characteristically as “Meghalaya Governor, V. Shanmuganathan while sharing inspirational stories said that churches have shown compassion and dedication towards the service of mankind”. The Presbyterian Church was so happy, as he participated the services with Bible in his hands[3]. Whether, he was experimenting with the different denominations, or dialoging in theology or otherwise, only God knows, as some of the websites started disappearing[4].
Inaugurated and praised Mother Teresa (September 2016): Meghalaya hosted a 4-day film festival titled ‘Mother Teresa International Film Festival (MTIFF)’ based on the life and teachings of noble laureate – Mother Teresa from September 6 to 9, 2016 in Shillong[5]. Addressing the inaugural function, the Governor stated that Mother Teresa represents the message of love, peace, enduring strength, hope and service to the world at large[6]. Underlining that understanding the pain of others is no easy a task, the Governor stated that Mother Teresa understood the pain of acute poverty. “She served the destitute, lepers, abandoned children, old people, the poorest of the poor and the downtrodden. Because she understood their pain, she was a solace, a helping hand and a source of comfort to them” he further stated. Showing his admiration for Mother Teresa for identifying herself with her love for the Almighty, he said that in a world where people identify themselves by the power they hold, or the money they possess, what truly marks Mother Teresa’s greatness is her identification of herself with her love of God. Applauding the great works and selfless services of Mother Theresa’s followers he further stated that their work must extend to all places. In August, when there was a photo of Teresa was there in the Spiritual Fair pur up by ASI, a huge cry was made and it was removed. However, they might not be knowing abut this!
Opposition to ADSPA, Left mobilization and BJP governor in isolation: In a recent Order of the High Court of Meghalaya[7] dated 2.11.2015 passed in Writ Petition (C) No. 127 of 2015, the High Court of Meghalaya has made a suo motu suggestion to the Central Government for the imposition of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958, in the Garo Hills area of Meghalaya[8]. “It is shocking and deeply disturbing that a draconian law like the AFSPA is being sought to be imposed through a judicial order. There have been protests against this order in the Garo Hills area and in Shillong. What follows is a statement which carries objections to this order endorsed by more than 60 concerned citizens, from various parts of India – some whom are well respected and accomplished individuals in their fields, like law, academia, journalism, films, bureaucracy and activism”[9]. As usual in letter supporting the radicals signed by the eminent, elite and secularists appeared in the media. Thus, when Shanmuganathan came, it was not known as to whether he was understanding the problems and issues involved there in and around Meghalaya.
Tribal youth festivals etc., have been a trap for him?: Of late, he was moving with different tribal groups and participating in their festivals. He participated the Wangala festival. Wangala is the festival of the Achiks (Garos), the post harvest festival where the harvest reaped is celebrated with thanks giving to the Gods ‘Misi Saljong’ and ‘Mima Kiri Rokkime’, the Gods of the fields and the paddy[10]. For the Achiks (Garos) the agrarian activities is not only physical labour but a spiritual journey as well which culminates in joy at the Wangala Festival. Thus, with joy in their hearts and sprint in their feet, they perform the Wangala Dance which is actually a synchronized movement of symbolic nature which co – ordinates with the drum beats. The Wangala dance is therefore a story of the Garos in rhythm. The word ‘wanna’ refers to dance and merry making and ‘gala’ refers to offering in thanksgiving. Thus, the word ‘Wangala’ means the dance of ‘Thanksgiving’[11]. Thus, he went on attending many tribal festivals[12]. He compared Wangala with Pongal. In any case, he could have restricted his program-attending agenda carefully. At every level, the intriguing point is who was the PA or advisor to him, when he was discharging his official duties. Definitely, that person must have been known to him or RSS person. Then, he must have gone into all details in the context of Meghalaya and NE complexities.
Was he a victim, scapegoat sacrificed for wrong calculations?: He has been a genuine worker without any selfishness. As already mentioned with his hard-work he has come up. Now, the media comes out with stories that “Shanmuganathan belongs to Saiva Pillamar community (a forward community)” and thus had / have difference with Brahmin-friends and so on[13]. This is mischievous, as RSSwalas never talked in terms of caste, in any context. Thus, the “Shanmuganathan-Ganesan” variance as raised by “The Wire”can be ignored in the context[14]. Then come the remarks of RSS media incharge – Sadagopan. “But the state unit of the RSS has a different take on this issue”, as noted by the Wire, picking from “The Hindu”, at least judging by their initial reaction to Shanmuganathan’s resignation[15]. “It is an unfortunate incident… A person occupying a high position should be doubly careful to avoid such allegations, as he represents an organisation such as the RSS and the BJP,” said N. Sadagopan, the sangh’s state media coordinator, in an interview to The Hindu[16]. His response has been in fact, unfortunate, intriguing, shocking and irresponsible too, as how he could have come out with such words. Instead of analyzing the issue, one should not try to show off himself indulging in such remarks. As explained above, the different complexities, intricacies and complications involved, Shanmuganathan has done excellent work, in spite of his health. He had an open heart surgery and in soite of such condition, he was performing his duties relentlessly. He has lamented many times that though he had many friends in Chennai, none visited him when he was admitted in the hospital for open-heart surgery. In fact, he pained that nonde came to sign the forms for the conduct of the operation. Of course, it went on well. In fact, he Unfortunately, as pointed out elsewhere, the Tamil and Tamilnadu friends have not analyzed the NE complex issues, Meghalya tribal politics, Congress-anti-national nexus acting against him and informed him. Perhaps, they have not been trained to understand, though, they have been making trips to NE under different banners like ABVP, Vidhya Bharati and so on. Therefore, the Sangh Parivar should assess, reassess and re-examine the involved complicated issues and political gameplans and respond accordingly. They should be trained in the NE affairs with national and international agendas, as they have many ramifications. As for as Shanmuganathan is concerned, his good deeds would liberate from his temporary problem. May God shower his blessings!
[1] http://spnewsagency.com/leit-jingiaseng-christmas-u-lat-ka-jylla-v-shanmuganathan-ha-iing-mane-presbyterian/
[2] http://thenortheasttoday.com/in-pictures-pre-christmas-celebration-held-at-raj-bhavan-in-shillong/
[3] http://spnewsagency.com/meghalaya-governor-mr-v-shanmuganathan-attended-christmas-service-at-presbyterian-church/
[4] http://www.e-pao.net/epSubPageExtractor.asp?src=news_section.Press_Release.Press_Release_2015.V_Shanmuganathan_Governor_Christmas_Message_20151226
[5] http://meghalayatimes.info/index.php/front-page/35466-meghalaya-to-host-international-film-festival-on-mother-teresa
[6] Nelive, Meghalaya: Mother Teresa International film festival gets underway in city, Sep 06, 2016 17:47, Shillong.
[7] Order of the High Court of Meghalaya dated 2.11.2015 passed in Writ Petition (C) No. 127 of 2015.
[8] THMA U RANGLI JUKI (TUR), Implications of Meghalaya high court’s suggestion to impose afspa in garo hills, NOVEMBER 26, 2015
http://raiot.in/implications-of-meghalaya-high-courts-suggestion-to-impose-afspa-in-garo-hills/
[9] http://raiot.in/implications-of-meghalaya-high-courts-suggestion-to-impose-afspa-in-garo-hills/
[10] http://meghalayatimes.info/index.php/front-page/36478-governor-adds-glitz-to-wangala-celebrations
[11] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/honourable-governor-attended-wangala-festival-11th-v-shanmuganathan
[12] http://meghalayatimes.info/index.php/front-page/36468-prelude-to-39th-hundred-drums-wangala-festival-begins
[13] The Wire, BJP Uses ‘Anti-Conversion’ Card to Defend Ex-Meghalaya Governor V. Shanmuganathan, BY R. RAMASUBRAMANIAN ON 29/01/2017
[14] https://thewire.in/103851/bjp-uses-anti-conversion-card-to-shield-ex-meghalaya-governor-v-shanmuganathan/
[15] The Hindu, Shanmuganathan’s exit shocks RSS, B. Kolappan, CHENNAI: JANUARY 28, 2017 00:00 IST; UPDATED: JANUARY 28, 2017 03:42 IST
[16] http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-tamilnadu/Shanmuganathan%E2%80%99s-exit-shocks-RSS/article17106406.ece
Tags:Amit Shah, anti-modi, beef, bible, campus, Chennai, christian, Christianity, christmas, civilization, congress, culture, drum, festival, Governor, inter religious, inter-faith, Meghalaya, modi, Mother teresa, pastor, politics, RSS, sex, Shanmuganathan, teresa, terrorism, Thamu u Rangli, Thamu u Rangli Juki, tribal, TUR, Wangala, women
Posted in Amit Shah, anti-hindu, anti-nationalism, beef, bias, bible, BJP, brahmaputra, Christ, christology, communism, complaint, congress, control, denomination, Governor, hugging, kissing, Liberation Theology, Meghalaya, modi, molestation, nationalism, pastor, preacher, pulpit, racialism, RAIOT, RSS, service, sex, sexual harassment, Shanmuganathan, theology, Thma u Rangli, Thma u Rangli Juki, Thma u Rangli Kuki, TUR, vegetarian, victim | Leave a Comment »
How BJP has gone in the Congress way to bend the law citing Shah Bano and taking ordinance route to Jallikkattu!
Environment, Animal Husbandry department of Agriculture Ministry, Law and finally Home – ministries engaded to clear the Ordinance (19 / 20-01-2016): The sport, which goes back to the Tamil classical period, was banned following a Supreme Court order in May 2014, but spontaneous protests in Chennai have thrust the issue into limelight and sent Tamil Nadu CM O. Pannerselvam rushing to Delhi to seek an ordinance to overturn the ban[1]. In December, 2016 the court had reserved its judgment on a clutch of petitions that challenged the central government’s notification in January 2016 allowing bulls to be used in JallikattuAs an interim order, a bench led by Justice Misra had on January 13, 2016, stayed the Centre’s notification, due to which the apex court’s original order of 2014 banning Jallikattu is still in force. [2]. How all these processes took place, why the involved kept quite, delayed or played safe and all are debated again and again. Later in the evening of 20-01-2017, the Centre cleared the final legal hurdles in holding Jallikattu in Tamil Nadu over the weekend by approving the state’s draft Ordinance. The draft Ordinance, which will add a state-specific exception in the 1960 Act, passed through four ministries during the day — Environment, Animal Husbandry department of Agriculture Ministry, Law and finally Home — receiving consent from each within hours. Again, it proved the hasty, urgency and injudicious act to settle the issue. In its comments on the draft, the Environment Ministry, which administers the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, is learnt to have taken the view that Jallikattu had to be viewed in its cultural context, and that a decision on banning the sport could not be purely legal in nature. The last nod had to be given by the Ministry of Home.
Now, it is clear that the issue is political: The final clearance of the Ordinance by the Home Ministry came just a day after Tamil Nadu Chief Minister O Panneerselvam met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and urged him to find a legal solution to the issue. Panneerselvam postponed his return to Chennai on Thursday (19-01-2017) and stayed put in the capital till Friday (20-01-2017) morning as his government prepared the draft Ordinance and handed it to the Centre. Top Tamil Nadu officials made the rounds of different ministries to hold consultations and decide the final language of the Ordinance that will put bulls on the list of performing animals in the state. A group of MPs from the state, led by Lok Sabha deputy Speaker M. Thambidurai, also met Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Environment Minister Anil Madhav Dave to press for the Ordinance. Whether the AIADMK was playing its internal politics or otherwise, the gameplan involved was exposed. With the Centre drawing flak, BJP sought to project that its government was actively engaged in resolving the issue[3].
The anti-Modi placards, sloganeering etc., are inexplicable: It is evident that sizable crowd of the “Jallikkattu” protesters were not students, but members of the radical groups like ma.ka.i.ka and its associated organizations. All the fringe Communist clusters also joined. The Muslim presence could be noted. Thus, the anti-Modi placards, sloganeering and shoutings appeared intriguing in the context. That too, several placards carried very vulgar, indecent and unparliamentary words and expressions. Why, how and for what purposes, they used, only, they have to explain. But, definitely, such aberration marred their cultural claims made on the civilization, heritage and tradition in the name of Tamil, Tamils and Tamilnadu. The separatist sloganeering also exposed the involvement of fringe elements. Asian Age reported that[4], “Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rejection of the state’s demand for a Central ordinance on jallikattu has triggered widespread anger in Tamil Nadu”. Residents geared up for massive protests on Friday (20-01-2017), with all sections of people joining students and youth fighting to save its traditional sport and preserve Tamil culture. Furious jallikattu protesters widened the canvass of the protests to include all issues in which the state’s rights were trampled. One of the students, Senthilnathan, who had gathered at the Marina asked, “If Narendra Modi is so concerned about respecting the Supreme Court, why had he opposed the apex court’s verdict to form the Cauvery Management Board?”.
Anti-national slogans were also raised: Protesting Tamil youth vowed to return the Aadhaar cards as a sign of declaration that they are no more the citizens of India. The protesters also targeted the railways blocking the trains in several parts of the state. Traders associations announced a total shutdown on Friday and cinema theatres would remain closed to express support the agitations. The Marina continued to be the epicentre of agitations for Tamil pride with the gathering of youth reaching about 90,000 for a stretch of about three kilometre on Thursday (19-01-2017) evening. The sound of waves were drowned by slogan shouting and drum beating youth, who supported jallikattu and demanded a ban on Peta, which was instrumental for jallikattu ban. There were hundreds of protests throughout the city, besides the agitations in every district and taluk of Tamil Nadu. The southern districts continued to vibrate with jallikattu protests centred around the historic city of Madurai. Besides boys and girls, children and working and housewives too joined the agitations throughout Tamil Nadu, voicing their anger against the unjust treatment to Tamil Nadu on a range of issues from the massacre of Sri Lankan Tamils to the non-formation of Cauvery Management Board[5].
Chennai had two faces in the “Jallikkatu” shows and bandhs: On 20-01-2017, the worst sufferers had been the office goers, regular teavellers and some students who attend private professional institutions. Autos and call taxis kept off the roads even as few government buses plied on the roads with improper announcement[6]. That the Banking operations took a hit with workers taking part in protests and Employees of various IT companies held placards and banners with slogans against NGO People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) etc., appeared artificial, perhaps, they too wanted publicity or showed them to be supporting for the cause with the vested interests. The “Jallikkattu” protesters purposely occupied the most-crowded junctions, bus-stands and such other places, just to get the attention of others. This only created nuisance at morning and evening hours. Many inter and intra-state trains were fully and partially cancelled while some others were diverted. The suburban EMU services ran late. In Chennai, all roads led to Marina beach with men and women, clad in black, besides children joining the protest that has transcended political and other differences. Though, the schools and colleges did not function, as leave was given to them, the office goers and regular travellers of buses and trains suffered heavily and the autos fleeced them as usual taking the opportunity.
[1] The Times of India, Centre gives nod to Tamil Nadu’s jallikattu ordinance, TNN | Updated: Jan 21, 2017, 03.24 AM IST.
[2] http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/centre-gives-nod-to-tamil-nadus-jallikattu-ordinance/articleshow/56696136.cms
[3] DNA- Daily News and Analysis, Under-pressure Centre steps in to resolve Jallikattu row, passes ordinance, Sat, 21 Jan 2017-12:58am , Chennai , PTI
[4] Asian Age, Jallikattu stir bristles with anti-Modi anger, THE ASIAN AGE. | N RAVIKUMAR, Published : Jan 20, 2017, 1:00 am IST; Updated : Jan 20, 2017, 1:36 am IST
[5] http://www.asianage.com/india/all-india/200117/jallikattu-stir-bristles-with-anti-modi-anger.html
[6] http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-under-pressure-centre-steps-in-to-resolve-jallikattu-row-passes-the-ordinance-2294582
Tags:act, anti-modi, beef, behaviour, BJP, buffalo, bull, bull fight, civilization, cruelty, culture, heritage, injury, jallikattu, jallikkattu, judgment, judicial, marina, modi, mutton, ordinance, ox, peta, placard, politics, rule, Supreme Court, tradition, unparliamentary, vulgar word
Posted in act, ADMK, animal, beef, bias, BJP, bull, bull fight, complaint, congress, control, cruelty, customs, DK, DMK, dravidian, evidence, injure, ordinance, ox, peta, race, racialism, racism, rule, tamil, tamil civilization, tamil culture, tamil heritage, tamil tradition, taming, vallalar, vega, vegetarian | 3 Comments »
The politics of burning effigies in 2016 by the Congress cons, Dravidian dons and JNU junkies!
Dravidar Kazhagam’s racial approach continues even in 2016: The misguided Dravidar Kazhagam, of various banners still, believes in Aryan-Dravidian racial hypotheses and theories” and work emotionally with raid radicalism. The day after Dussera was celebrated with the burning of effigies of King Raavan in many parts of the country on 12-10-2016, as announced, about 40 members of the Thanthai Periyar Dravidar Kazhagam [TPDK] landed at the Sanskrit College at Mylapore in Chennai on 13-10-2016 Wednesday to burn effigies of Ram, Sita and Lakshmanan[1]. The group had originally planned to hold the event outside the Madras Sanskrit College of Chennai to protest against the institution’s version of the Ramayana, but it was later shifted to a spot about a kilometre away due to police intervention[2]. While 11 of them were remanded under Section 285 of Indian Penal Code, 12 members of a Hindu group were detained near Sanskrit college in Mylapore[3]. Thus, the media differed in reporting the event.
PDK’s attempt to hold Ravan Leela flops[4]: Deccan Chronicle reported wth this caption. The attempt by Periyar Dravidar Kazhagam members to celebrate the Ravan leela deifying the demon king and projecting him as Dravidian stalwart, while belittling Lord Ram, turned into a fiasco with the police taking 55 persons of PDK into custody on Wednesday. Even before the members could assemble and burn an effigy in front of Sanskrit College, Mylapore, in the city on Wednesday evening, the police pre-empted their move and arrested 55 persons. The PDK had announced to stage Ravan leela as the outfit believed that Ravan was a Dravidian and burning his image during Dusshera celebrations in many parts of India amounted to “mocking” the Dravidians. “This is only a bid to stoke controversy and is intended to insult the Hindu gods and hurt the sentiments of the believers,” Hindu Makkal Katchi state president Arjun Sampath said reacting to the development. The staunch Hindu outfit has demanded the police to detain the PDK members under NSA and prevent such incidents in future. “The PDK is taking things a bit too far. The attempt to hold Ravan leela is an assault on our culture and it is highly condemnable,” Mr Sampath said[5].
Why Ravan leela? – the racist question asked by modernists!: The pro-Muslim media “Scroll.in” reported differently. This was the Periyarist group’s answer to Ram Leela – Ravanan Leela to demonstrate their opposition to the Ram Leela celebrations that depict the victory of King Ram over Raavan, who, according to Indian mythology, had kidnapped Ram’s wife Sita[6]. Amidst tight security, and all efforts of the police to stall the event, the members of the fringe group did manage to burn a few effigies, including that of Lord Ram[7]. Kumaran / Tinker Kumaron, a member of the TDPK said, “Every year, in North India, Ram Leela is celebrated by burning effigies of Raavan, This is being done to insult South Indians. We consider Raavan to be a Dravidian….As per our plan we broke the police chain around us and burned the effigy. 11 persons who were involved in burning effigies have been remanded by police.”
Why is the President participating in Ram leela programme?: Speaking to The Hindu[8], G. Ramakrishnan, general secretary, Thanthai Periyar Dravidar Kazhagam, said that the act was a reaction to the celebration of Ram Leela as a part of Dusshera celebrations across North India, a festival in which the effigy of mythological character Ravanan is set on fire symbolically to represent victory of Lord Ram over Ravanan. “To us, Ramayana, though a mythological story, was a Aryan-Dravidian conflict where Lord Ram was shown to have won against Ravanan, who we consider as a Dravidian. The epic represents Ram as a God and Ravanan as a monster. This is the basis of our opposition,” he said. Criticising the recent celebrations at the Red Fort lawns, which was attended by several high-profile dignitaries including President Pranab Mukherjee, and Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Ramakrishnan wondered if India really was a secular country. “Why is the President participating in such a programme? He is the president to whole of India,” he said. It is evident that these people are behaving in this way, knowing the truth that the whole country has been celebrating for many years. Even hundreds years back, it was celebrated in Asfganistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh and other countries.
Belief in race, racism and racialism: Condemning Ramayana’s ‘racist portrayal’ of ‘Dravidians as demons’, the TPDK said that the Ravanan Leela was their way of protesting against Hindu cultural hegemony. “It does not matter that ‘Ram Leela’ is not celebrated in Tamil Nadu. In Delhi, effigies of Ravanan and his two brothers are burnt, we believe that they are Dravidians and burning their effigies is mocking us. So to stop that, we have decided to celebrate ‘Ravana Leela’ in which we will be burning the effigies of Ram, Sita and Lakshman,” S Kumaran, another TDPL leader had told TNM earlier. He also added that they had written a letter to Prime Minister asking him to stop Ram Leela in Delhi but they did not get any response from his office. “It is clearly proven once again that the rulers of India will never care to respect the feelings of the Southerners,” said the group. “If they have cared so, then they would not have ventured to burn the effigies of the three choicest heroes of the Dravidian race in the guise of honouring a hero of religious epic.” Kumaron said that this protest against Ram Leela celebrations gathered momentum in 1974, when the group sent a letter to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi demanding a stop to the festivities. But at that time too, they received no reply. Over the next few decades, there have been at least three instances when the group has burnt effigies of Ram, and and been arrested for this.
Splinter groups playing dangerous games: Veeramani and “Viduthalai” Rajendran had a break and Rajendran started “The Thanthai Periyar Dravidar Kazhagam” in 2012, claiming that they would follow the teachings of social activist and politician EV Ramaswami Naicker or Periyar, who had also questioned the portrayal of Raavan in the popular version of the Ramayana. As reported in Outlook, some of the questions posed by Periyar were, “Isn’t it true that Ravaan abducted Sita as an honourable revenge for the insult heaped upon his sister? Isn’t it a Brahminical ploy to give the colour of lust to a most honourable kidnapping?” The DK spinter groups have always been attacking the soft target – the Brahmins! They cruelly cut a poor Brahmin at West Mambalam some years ago with aruval (study sword), and another Brahmin in Mylapore last year (April 2015)[9].
Splinter DK groups attack Brahmins following the path of Periyar: MT Saju writes that in the 1970s too, Periyarists conducted Ravanan Leelas. He reminds us that after Periyar died, his wife Maniyammai burnt the effigy of Ram at Periyar Thidal in 1974[10]. But since then, it has not been a popular event. Thus, for some reason, some people want to create ruckus now. Dravidian movement analyst K Thirunavukarrasu said that this anti-Ram sentiment has existed since the beginning of the Dravidian movement in the 1920s. The 1940s saw the publication of works such as Raavana Kaviyam (Raavana Epic) by Pulavar Kuzhandhai and Iranyan Allathu Inayatra Veeran(Hiranya or the Unparalleled Warrior) by Bharatidasan, which eulogised the characters Raavan and Hiranyakashyap, who had been depicted as asuras in popular versions of Indian mythological stories. “The asuras have been depicted in these stories in a manner that denigrates Dravidians,” said Thirunavukarrasu. As Periyar used to say, “If you see a snake and Brahmin, leave snake but kill Brahmin”, these goons are following such bloody method.
Dravidian King Ravana was a Brahmin: The atheist Dravidian ideologists do not believe Puranas, yet, they believe them for their myth-making. As they believe Aryan-Dravidian race theories, at one side they claim that Ravana was a Brahmin! “The intention of the Dravidian movement is to oppose the depiction of Dravidas as asuras in all these plays.” Tamil writer D Ravikumar said that according to the version of the Ramayana written by medieval Tamil poet Kambar, Raavan was not a Dravidian King but a Brahmin. “If you look at this from the lens of Kambar’s Ramayana, it is hard to say how he came to be associated with Dravidian identity,” said Ravikumar. Ravikumar said that around the 1960s, Tamil Nadu politics was based on antagonism towards North India, Brahminism, Aryans and Hindi. The protest against Ram Leelas rode on this sentiment, he said. But in the 1970s and 1980s, the issue became irrelevant. When the main parties in power were all Dravidian parties, it was no longer a vote-catching subject. “Now, this has been revived by some groups after the BJP has come to power,” said Ravikumar. “Raavan acts as an anti-BJP symbol. But we don’t know how successful it will be.”
Karunanidhi playing Ravana (1998): On October 1, 1998, Anoor Jagadeesan, president of PDK and 16 others were arrested when they tried to burn the effigies of Rama and Lakshmana in Chennai[11]. On October 18, 1998, Karunanidhi asserted that[12], “….if you insult Ravana, you are insulting me”. In Ramasethu issue also, he passed remarks asking “In which engineering college Rama studied” (so that he could build a bridge). Even, Kamal Hasan also used to utter that he came from Ravan geneology or something like that!
Ilangeswaran vs Ravana Leela: R. S. Manohar (1925-2006) used to portray all Asuras as heroes – Surapadman, Sisupalan, Narakasuran, Indrajit, Sukrachariyar etc., in his characteristic projection in his dramas, which were successful in 1970-80s. He too projected Ravana as “Ilankeswaran”, the Lord of Lanka, but, not the Dravidian way of contempt, hatred and blasphemy. In fact, he followed the Puranic narration and other hagiographical details. Understandably, he was never supported or honoured by the Dravidian leaders or even Periyar for his donning Asuras! And now, the fringe elements have started the old game, when the Dravidian CM, that too, a lady has been ailing in hospital.
Modi effigy burned by the Congress and JNU students[13]: A group of students of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) on 11-10-2016 Tuesday burnt the effigy of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP chief chief Amit Shah, Mahatma Gandhi’s killer Nathuram Godse and others to mark the “victory of truth over falsehood” on the occasion of Dussehra. Members of the Congress-backed National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) on Tuesday night celebrated Dussehra by burning the effigy of Modi and others to protest against the growing interference of the Centre in universities and attacks on Dalits.“We celebrated the victory of truth over falsehood in a modern and democratic country by burning effigies. For us Modi and RSS are symbol of untruth,” said Sunny Diman, an NSUI member[14]. So, the Congress party too has taken such method of politics of burning effigies exploiting the occasion of “Viyayadasami”. Ironically, the Congress leaders have been questioning the successful surgical operations on these days at one side and indulging in such cheap and vulgar activities at another side.
[1] The News Minute, Dravidian Ravanan Leela: Periyarists burn Ram effigy even as police try to stop them, by TNM Staff, Thursday, October 13, 2016 – 11:31.
[2] Scroll.in, Why a Dravidian fringe group burnt effigies of Ram and Sita in Chennai this year, by Vinita Govindarajan. October 13, 2016, 8 pm.
[3] The Hindu, TPDK Cadres arrested in chennai for burning effigy of Lord Ram, Chennai 13, 2016, Updated: October 13, 2016 07:23 IST
[4] Deccan Chronicle, PDK’s attempt to hold Ravan Leela flops, Published Oct 13, 2016, 7:00 am IST, Updated Oct 13, 2016, 7:01 am IST
[5] http://www.deccanchronicle.com/nation/in-other-news/131016/pdks-attempt-to-hold-ravan-leela-flops.html
[6] http://scroll.in/article/818922/why-a-dravidian-fringe-group-burnt-effigies-of-ram-and-sita-in-chennai-this-year
[7] http://www.thenewsminute.com/article/dravidian-ravanan-leela-periyarists-burn-ram-effigy-even-police-try-stop-them-51281
[8] http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/chennai/tpdk-cadres-arrested-in-chennai-for-burning-effigy-of-lord-ram/article9213004.ece
[9] http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/chennai/six-dvk-men-held-for-attacks-on-priests-in-chennai/article7127953.ece
[10] http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/Article.aspx?eid=31807&articlexml=TWIST-TO-THE-TALE-Reviving-Ravanlila-to-counter-13102016006020
[11] Ajith Pillai and A. S. Paneerselvan, Good Or Evil? The Politics Of Ravana, Outlook, Novemver.2, 1998.
[12] http://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/good-or-evil-the-politics-of-ravana/206444
[13] The Hindustan Times, Delhi: Students burn effigy of Modi, Shah, Godse at JNU campus on Dussehra, HT Correspondent, Hindustan Times, New Delhi, Updated: Oct 13, 2016 10:08 IST
[14] http://www.hindustantimes.com/delhi/students-burn-effigy-of-modi-shah-at-jnu-campus-dubbing-them-as-ravana/story-twLk2C05xBVCRaVR5ScVvO.html
Tags:ADMK, Anna, ashura, asura, atheism, congress, demon, DK, DMK, effigy, EVR, JNU, modi, naicker, Periyar, race, racialism, racism, rajendran, Ramayana, ramleela, ravan, ravana, ravanan, ravanleela, Valmiki, viduthalai, vijayadasami
Posted in ADMK, anti-hindu, anti-nationalism, aryan, bias, congress, delhi, DK, DMK, dravidian, historicity, historiography, history, mylapore, race, racialism, racism, Ramayana | Leave a Comment »
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