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John Pilger:
Silencing the United States
as It Prepares for War
John Pilger takes apart the liberal commentariat and points to the need for a genuinely anti-imperialist analysis of Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, and yes — Bernie Sanders.
Returning to the United States in an election year, I am struck by the silence. I have covered four presidential campaigns, starting with 1968; I was with Robert Kennedy when he was shot and I saw his assassin, preparing to kill him. It was a baptism in the American way, along with the salivating violence of the Chicago police at the Democratic Party's rigged convention. The great counter revolution had begun.
The first to be assassinated that year, Martin Luther King, had dared link the suffering of African-Americans and the people of Vietnam. When Janis Joplin sang, “Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose”, she spoke perhaps unconsciously for millions of America's victims in faraway places.
US Imperial Autism and 'Liberal' Media
“We lost 58,000 young soldiers in Vietnam, and they died defending your freedom. Now don't you forget it.” So said a National Parks Service guide as I filmed last week at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. He was addressing a school party of young teenagers in bright orange T-shirts. As if by rote, he inverted the truth about Vietnam into an unchallenged lie.
The millions of Vietnamese who died and were maimed and poisoned and dispossessed by the American invasion have no historical place in young minds, not to mention the estimated 60,000 veterans who took their own lives. A friend of mine, a marine who became a paraplegic in Vietnam, was often asked, “Which side did you fight on?”
A few years ago, I attended a popular exhibition called “The Price of Freedom” at the venerable Smithsonian Institution in Washington. The lines of ordinary people, mostly children shuffling through a Santa's grotto of revisionism, were dispensed a variety of lies: the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved “a million lives”; Iraq was “liberated [by] air strikes of unprecedented precision”. The theme was unerringly heroic: only Americans pay the price of freedom.
Keeping Bernie Honest: Support for Sanders Has to Be Critical
The 2016 election campaign is remarkable not only for the rise of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders but also for the resilience of an enduring silence about a murderous self-bestowed divinity. A third of the members of the United Nations have felt Washington's boot, overturning governments, subverting democracy, imposing blockades and boycotts. Most of the presidents responsible have been liberal – Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, Clinton, Obama.
The breathtaking record of perfidy is so mutated in the public mind, wrote the late Harold Pinter, that it “never happened …Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn't happening. It didn't matter. It was of no interest. It didn't matter … “. Pinter expressed a mock admiration for what he called “a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It's a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.”
Take Obama. As he prepares to leave office, the fawning has begun all over again. He is “cool." One of the more violent presidents, Obama gave full reign to the Pentagon war-making apparatus of his discredited predecessor. He prosecuted more whistleblowers – truth-tellers – than any president. He pronounced Chelsea Manning guilty before she was tried. Today, Obama runs an unprecedented worldwide campaign of terrorism and murder by drone.
Obama Pushes for TPP, but No Apology for Vietnam War, Hiroshima
In 2009, Obama promised to help “rid the world of nuclear weapons” and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. No American president has built more nuclear warheads than Obama. He is “modernizing” America's doomsday arsenal, including a new “mini” nuclear weapon, whose size and “smart” technology, says a leading general, ensure its use is “no longer unthinkable."
James Bradley, the best-selling author of Flags of Our Fathers and son of one of the US marines who raised the flag on Iwo Jima, said, “[One] great myth we're seeing play out is that of Obama as some kind of peaceful guy who's trying to get rid of nuclear weapons. He's the biggest nuclear warrior there is. He's committed us to a ruinous course of spending a trillion dollars on more nuclear weapons. Somehow, people live in this fantasy that because he gives vague news conferences and speeches and feel-good photo-ops that somehow that's attached to actual policy. It isn't.”
On Obama's watch, a second cold war is under way. The Russian president is a pantomime villain; the Chinese are not yet back to their sinister pig-tailed caricature – when all Chinese were banned from the United States – but the media warriors are working on it.
Neither Hillary Clinton nor Bernie Sanders has mentioned any of this. There is no risk and no danger for the United States and all of us. For them, the greatest military build-up on the borders of Russia since World War Two has not happened. On May 11, Romania went “live” with a Nato “missile defence” base that aims its first-strike American missiles at the heart of Russia, the world's second nuclear power.
In Asia, the Pentagon is sending ships, planes and special forces to the Philippines to threaten China. The US already encircles China with hundreds of military bases that curve in an arc up from Australia, to Asia and across to Afghanistan. Obama calls this a “pivot”.
China to Deploy Nuclear Subs in Response to US Weapons Threat
As a direct consequence, China reportedly has changed its nuclear weapons policy from no-first-use to high alert and put to sea submarines with nuclear weapons. The escalator is quickening.
It was Hillary Clinton who, as Secretary of State in 2010, elevated the competing territorial claims for rocks and reef in the South China Sea to an international issue; CNN and BBC hysteria followed; China was building airstrips on the disputed islands. In its mammoth war game in 2015, Operation Talisman Sabre, the US practiced “choking” the Straits of Malacca through which pass most of China's oil and trade. This was not news.
IN DEPTH:
The Trans-Pacific Partnership: Putting Profit Above People
Clinton declared that America had a “national interest” in these Asian waters. The Philippines and Vietnam were encouraged and bribed to pursue their claims and old enmities against China. In America, people are being primed to see any Chinese defensive position as offensive, and so the ground is laid for rapid escalation. A similar strategy of provocation and propaganda is applied to Russia.
Clinton, the “women's candidate”, leaves a trail of bloody coups: in Honduras, in Libya (plus the murder of the Libyan president) and Ukraine. The latter is now a CIA theme park swarming with Nazis and the frontline of a beckoning war with Russia. It was through Ukraine – literally, borderland -- that Hitler's Nazis invaded the Soviet Union, which lost 27 million people. This epic catastrophe remains a presence in Russia. Clinton's presidential campaign has received money from all but one of the world's ten biggest arms companies. No other candidate comes close.
Sanders, the hope of many young Americans, is not very different from Clinton in his proprietorial view of the world beyond the United States. He backed Bill Clinton's illegal bombing of Serbia. He supports Obama's terrorism by drone, the provocation of Russia and the return of special forces (death squads) to Iraq. He has nothing to say on the drumbeat of threats to China and the accelerating risk of nuclear war. He agrees that Edward Snowden should stand trial and he calls Hugo Chavez – like him, a social democrat – “a dead communist dictator." He promises to support Clinton if she is nominated.
The election of Trump or Clinton is the old illusion of choice that is no choice: two sides of the same coin. In scapegoating minorities and promising to “make America great again," Trump is a far right-wing domestic populist; yet the danger of Clinton may be more lethal for the world.
“Only Donald Trump has said anything meaningful and critical of US foreign policy,” wrote Stephen Cohen, emeritus professor of Russian History at Princeton and NYU, one of the few Russia experts in the United States to speak out about the risk of war.
In a radio broadcast, Cohen referred to critical questions Trump alone had raised. Among them: why is the United States “everywhere on the globe?" What is NATO's true mission? Why does the US always pursue regime change in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Ukraine? Why does Washington treat Russia and Vladimir Putin as an enemy?
The hysteria in the liberal media over Trump serves an illusion of “free and open debate” and “democracy at work." His views on immigrants and Muslims are grotesque, yet the deporter-in-chief of vulnerable people from America is not Trump but Obama, whose betrayal of people of colour is his legacy: such as the warehousing of a mostly black prison population, now more numerous than Stalin's gulag.
How the Democrats Became The Party of Neoliberalism
This presidential campaign may not be about populism but American liberalism, an ideology that sees itself as modern and therefore superior and the one true way. Those on its right wing bear a likeness to 19th century Christian imperialists, with a God-given duty to convert or co-opt or conquer.
In Britain, this is Blairism. The Christian war criminal Tony Blair got away with his secret preparation for the invasion of Iraq largely because the liberal political class and media fell for his “cool Britannia”. In the Guardian, the applause was deafening; he was called “mystical”. A distraction known as identity politics, imported from the United States, rested easily in his care.
History was declared over, class was abolished and gender promoted as feminism; lots of women became New Labour MPs. They voted on the first day of Parliament to cut the benefits of single parents, mostly women, as instructed. A majority voted for an invasion that produced 700,000 Iraqi widows.
The equivalent in the US are the politically correct warmongers on the New York Times, Washington Post, and network TV who dominate political debate. I watched a furious debate on CNN about Trump's infidelities. It was clear, they said, a man like that could not be trusted in the White House. No issues were raised. Nothing on the 80 per cent of Americans whose income has collapsed to 1970s levels. Nothing on the drift to war. The received wisdom seems to be “hold your nose” and vote for Clinton: anyone but Trump. That way, you stop the monster and preserve a system gagging for another war.
Read and post comments:
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/John-Pilger-Silencing-the-United-States-as-It-Prepares-for-War-20160527-0015.html
From Vietnam to Hiroshima:
America’s Blood-Soaked Footprints
May 23, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
On May 22, President Obama will have arrived in Vietnam, and on May 26 or 27, he’ll visit Hiroshima, Japan. But he’s not going to apologize for the towering crimes the U.S. committed in both places. Instead, he’s touring Asia to firm up U.S. alliances with Vietnam, Japan, and other countries in the region in order to contend with the U.S.’s rival, China, and maintain U.S. imperialism’s dominance of the Asia-Pacific region.
While Obama is covering up U.S. crimes, in this issue we’re highlighting two of America’s most towering crimes: the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the My Lai massacre, part of a war of massacres in Vietnam. And we’ll pay tribute to one American soldier who courageously repudiated the Vietnam War, Green Beret Master Sergeant Donald W. Duncan, and the role played by Bob Avakian in bringing Duncan’s story to light.
http://revcom.us/a/440/from-vietnam-to-hiroshima-americas-blood-soaked-footprints-en.html
More than just the death of fish
Authorities collects fish samples for test in the central region. — VNA/VNS Photo Trần Tĩnh
"...What I witnessed was a wave of anger (which is understandable)... Finding the cause of the massive fish death and imposing strict punishments if violations of environmental regulations are discovered is definitely important. It must be done. But it needs to be done in a professional way, with the participation of those specialised in that field..."
Update: April, 28/2016 - 10:42
By Thu Vân
Over the past three weeks, the incidents of massive fish die-off along Việt Nam’s central coastal provinces, and the reactions from concerned parties have been pretty upsetting to me. Of course, I have to say that what is happening to nature and its consequences for local residents whose livelihoods depend so much on the sea is a disaster. But as a reporter, I tend to first take a look at how the incident has been reported to readers.
What I witnessed was a wave of anger (which is understandable), and then, something almost like an accusation of the Taiwanese conglomerate Formosa for causing the incident, even before any official scientific proof is provided.
Local media coverage has been making guesses about the possibility of a 1.5km wastewater pipeline that runs directly from Formosa’s multibillion-dollar steel plant in Hà Tĩnh Province discharging untreated wastewater into the ocean.
Some reporters tried diving under the water to take a look at the wastewater pipeline. Others conducted tests to show people that fish died some minutes after being put into water taken from the sea near the factory.
Stories on Facebook were shared, liked and commented on with rapid speed. Everybody is talking about it, blaming Formosa for it, and asking the company to leave Viet Nam. It also seems to me that everybody has decided that Formosa is the culprit in this case.
This reminds me of my education in journalism. I remember well the words of one of my professors who said, “The true calling of the job is to simply to inform without bias or favour.” It is a constant search to arrange the varied aspects of an argument and present them, not according to your own judgment of right or wrong, but for the consideration of others.
Finding the cause of the massive fish death and imposing strict punishments if violations of environmental regulations are discovered is definitely important. It must be done. But it needs to be done in a professional way, with the participation of those specialised in that field.
In a meeting yesterday between relevant ministries and scientists, which was the first meeting about the case between central and local managing bodies and scientists, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment told the media that they had identified two possible groups of causes for the massive death of fish recently.
The first potential cause is the impact of poisonous chemical substances discharged by humans from the mainland or in the sea. The second possible cause is an abnormal natural phenomenon combined with human impacts, resulting in a phenomenon called "water bloom" or "red tide". They also said that to date, there’s no evidence to prove that there’s a connection between Formosa and other factories and the massive fish death.
That might be a disappointment for those who have been waiting for the promised conclusion. But I agree that before we can come to a conclusion, we need to know exactly what poisonous heavy metals, if any, caused the fish to die? Where did these factors come from? Who is responsible for it? All these questions need to be answered with scientific tests and evidence, not guesses and suspicion. In the meantime, what reporters can do is report in a balanced and unbiased manner, and not act as opinion makers.
What else I see is that while the cause still remains unknown, the spreading of such suspicions has already had sad consequences. Fishermen are not going offshore to fish during this time because no one will buy their fish, and tourists have been canceling their trips to these provinces. You can all imagine how difficult it is for them now. Now what caused this, if not for the unproven guesses that the mass media has been spreading over the past weeks?
A friend of mine, a Vietnamese scientist who is living in the US, said while warnings to people are essential, only specific data can be used as evidence.
Government reaction
What upsets me more about this is the reaction from the Government. In fact, we didn’t see any reaction at all in the first two weeks after information about the massive fish death went public.
As the fish started dying, the Government had no reaction, and thus the mass media has been “guiding” public opinion. However, fish have been dying in massive numbers in many other countries since March this year. Sixty-five tonnes of fish have died in the waters of Kampong Thom, Cambodia, 40 tonnes of fish have died in a lake in Nalgonda district, India, 70 tonnes of dead fish were found in a river in Magdalena Department, Colombia, 4,000 tonnes of sardines washed up in Araucania, Chile, and the list goes on. These countries have been working to find out the cause, as well.
When the fish died, the local authorities did not act promptly enough to clean up the beaches. It was only until April 24 that the Government started to call on scientists to work on the case, and called for support for affected local residents. Too much time has been wasted.
Only until yesterday, Thừa Thiên-Huế Province became the first to announce the cause of mass fish deaths in its area - but still not the specific one. Local authorities blamed a strong toxic substance in water.
Deputy director of Thừa Thiên-Huế Province’s Department of Natural Resources and Environment , Nguyễn Hữu Quyết, said at the meeting that the water samples taken from local sea showed that the level of Ammonium and Chromium all excess legal levels. This is an incident that should ring alarm bells for both the Vietnamese Government and the people in other aspects.
Throughout the proceedings of this case, we realised that the Government has a rather loose management of wastewater treatment. Reports showed that while Formosa did have a wastewater treatment system, local authorities had no way of ensuring the system was working properly. All we have is a commitment to do good for the environment! As much as I protest the environmental problems that multinational companies like Formosa cause their host countries, I truly hope they have been acting according with their commitments - because if not, the consequences might be terrible and mind-blowing.
We also need to take a look at the capability of our domestic scientific institutions. Why does it take so long for results to become available? Why don’t we have an independent institution that can act promptly without waiting for permission or for proof that they have the right idea? After all, what we all need is to find the cause of the fish death so that we can figure out our next steps – not simply the wish to punish someone for our own satisfaction.
After all, if Việt Nam wants to grow green, its leaders really need to sit back and consider what Chou Chun-fan, Formosa Hà Tĩnh’s external relations manager, told the State-run VTC14 television channel: “You cannot have both. You need to choose whether to catch fish and shrimp or to build a state-of-the-art steel mill.”
After all, we shouldn’t have to wait for such a massive fish die-off to raise the problems of environmental degradation. We should have been tackling it long before. But it’s better late than never. Balancing between economic development and guarding the environment has never been easy – our leaders need to choose. They can choose to be brave enough to address an arising problem before it becomes a true crisis.
And the people also need to make a choice today. Have you been teaching your children to use reusable bags and love nature? Have you been switching off the lights as you leave a room? Have you been classifying your waste? It all starts with the small stuff. — VNS
http://vietnamnews.vn/opinion/op-ed/296021/more-than-just-the-death-of-fish.html
Vietnam's environmental disaster has killed at least 100 tons of fish: official
Thanh Nien News, HANOI - Friday, May 06, 2016 16:40
http://www.thanhniennews.com/…/vietnams-environmental-disas…
Taiwanese firm still under scrutiny as Vietnam tries to solve fish kill disaster
Thanh Nien News HANOI - Wednesday, May 04, 2016 15:23
http://www.thanhniennews.com/…/taiwanese-firm-still-under-s…
A working team of the environment ministry inspects the wastewater treatment facility of Formosa steel company in Ha Tinh Province on April 28, 2016. Photo credit: Tuoi Tre
Sea turns red in Vietnamese province where fish died en masse
TUOI TRE NEWS, UPDATED : 05/04/2016 16:10 GMT + 7
http://tuoitrenews.vn/…/sea-turns-red-in-vietnamese-provinc…
The red seawater is seen at a beach in Quang Binh Province, located in north-central Vietnam, on May 4, 2016. Tuoi Tre
Taiwanese chemical spill thought to cause mass fish die-off in Vietnam
3rd May 2016 / David Brown. The incident is shaping up as a classic conflict between industrialization and the environment, a catastrophe for tens of thousands of fishermen and their families, and a test of the management skills and political acumen of Vietnam’s new leaders.
https://news.mongabay.com/…/taiwanese-chemical-spill-thoug…/
A villager shows dead sea fish he collected on a beach in Phu Loc district, in the central province of Thua Thien Hue. Photograph: STR/AFP/Getty Images
Vietnam investigates mass fish deaths
Authorities are looking into whether pollution is to blame for a spate of mysterious mass fish deaths along the country’s central coast
http://www.theguardian.com/…/vietnam-investigates-mass-fish…
Taiwanese firm exec makes shocking remarks over Vietnam's environmental disaster
Thanh Nien News, HA TINH - Tuesday, April 26, 2016 13:13
http://www.thanhniennews.com/…/taiwanese-firm-exec-makes-sh…
The sewage pipe from Hung Nghiep Formosa Ha Tinh Steel Company going to the sea. Photo: Nguyen Dung/Thanh Nien
DEVELOPING: Something Is Killing Life All Over The Pacific Ocean…
(by Michael Snyder, ACTIVIST POST) — Why is there so much death and disease among sea life living near the west coast of North America right now? Could the hundreds of tons of highly radioactive water that are being released into the Pacific Ocean from Fukushima every single day have anything to do with it?...
…Right now, massive numbers of fish and sea creatures are dying in the Pacific Ocean. In addition, independent tests have shown that significant levels of cesium-137 are in a very high percentage of the fish that are being caught in the Pacific and sold in North America.
Could this have anything to do with the fact that the largest nuclear disaster in the history of mankind has been constantly releasing enormous amounts of radioactive material into the Pacific Ocean for more than two years? I don’t know about you, but to me this seems to be a question that is worth asking.
http://guardianofhealth.com/…/developing-something-is-kill…/
Syria: Five Years of War
Seminar at the University of Sydney, 17 March 2016
Tim Anderson - Syria: Five Years of War
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvOlW7OjbY0
Jasmine Saadat - Syria: Five Years of War
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XooUltPBoM
Jay Tharappel - Syria: Five Years of War
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTqIcxTmhdY
Sam Saadat (1/2) - Syria: Five Years of War
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUDZPgOXIEs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qf4QUe9RRxg
As we approach the one year anniversary of the "Vietnam: Power of Peace" conference in Washington last May 1-2, we wanted to provide an update to participants and signers of the letter protesting the Pentagon's commemoration project:
1) Videos from the conference have been posted on youtube and can be see here: http://tinyurl.com/vpccvideo
They were only posted ten days ago with no promotion but have already been accessed in Canada, Japan, France, Austria, Mexico, Hong Kong, Germany, Kazakhstan and the United Kingdom, as well as in the United States.
You will see that the quality ranges from professional to amateur and there are some sessions missing. The plenaries are in best shape. With appropriate equipment and technical help, we may be able to improve the sound and appearance of invaluable miniplenaries and small group discussions. If you made your own video or audio tape that is better or fills a gap, please contact Paul Ryder, pryder888@gmail.com
[Also please respect that these videos are provided for personal, research or classroom use only and no authorization for commercial purposes or reproduction is given or implied.]
2) Terry Provance is our liaison with the official Pentagon commemoration staff. The misleading web site time line that led to our protest letter is still posted. We have been assured that a new version is done and has been sent to credible independent scholars for review. The revision is promised for this spring. It is said to take account of the many criticisms of the site but is not expected to satisfy them all. http://www.vietnamwar50th.com/timeline/
3) Tom Hayden has been working with conference speaker Rep. Barbara Lee on a Congressional resolution (H.R. 695) that gives long overdue recognition to the anti-war movement. You can see it here: http://tinyurl.com/VNpeace and read about it herehttps://davidcortright.net/2016/04/25/a-tribute-to-the-antiwar-movement/
Ask your Representative to cosponsor the resolution by contacting Diala Jadallah, Legislative Director of Rep. Barbara Lee [CA-13]
4) David Cortright is leading our dialog with staff of the museum and curriculum projects of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund to be sure the perspective of the anti-war movement is incorporated into its outreach to visitors and supporters of the Wall. (An edited volume with most of the papers from the academic gathering that preceded our conference has been submitted by David to a publisher and is now under review.)
5) John McAuliff is preparing for a third delegation of anti-war activists to Indochina (optionally plus family members and friends), with a special emphasis on new regional threats to Vietnam's peace and independence. It could be as early as July but will most likely take place in the fall, according to interest and availability. Contact jmcauliff@ffrd.org
6) Thanks to the generosity of many of you, as well as of the Center for International Policy, Rendezvous Consulting Group and Fenton Communications, we have eliminated the conference debt. Additional tax deductible contributions are welcome to upgrade and promote the conference videos as well as to employ consultants to engage on our behalf with the official Pentagon commemoration and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund. Donate here.
7) Longer term, we are strongly interested institutional partnerships and grants to create a permanent web site that will offer to the anti-war movement an on-line home for an enduring record of our personal experiences and for reflections on historical meaning. Such a resource currently exists for the civil rights movement at www.crmvet.org hosted by Tougaloo College.
It does not take too close a reading of the daily media to know that issues of war and peace are omnipresent, and the lessons of the Vietnam experience are being obscured or forgotten. As we saw last year at our conference in Washington and, prior to that, in the signers of the letter challenging the Pentagon's 50 year anniversary commemoration, our need to speak truth to power has not ended, nor are our abilities to do so.
We look forward to staying in contact.
Continuations Committee
Ira Arlook
Heather Booth
Tom Hayden
John McAuliff
Terry Provance
Collateral activities
April 26-28, Austin, Texas, The Vietnam War Summit at the LBJ Presidential Library, with presentations by VPCC participants Tom Hayden and Marilyn Young http://www.vietnamwarsummit.org/
April 28-30, Macalester College, St. Paul, Minnesota, The People Make the Peace, a symposium with presentations by VPCC participants Judy Gumbo, Doug Hostetter, Frank Joyce and John McAuliff http://www.macalester.edu/news/2016/03/macalester-to-host-symposium-april-28-30-on-the-vietnam-antiwar-movement/
May 2-3, Mayday Tribe 45th Anniversary Reunion, Washington DC o with presentations by VPCC participants Carole Cullum and Judy Gumbo http://www.maydaytribe71.org/
Ongoing resources
Vietnam Full Disclosure (Veterans for Peace) http://vietnamfulldisclosure.org/
War Legacies Project http://warlegacies.org/
Zinn Education Project http://zinnedproject.org/?s=Vietnam+War
Postal donations to VPCC
Checks should be made payable to our fiscal agent, the Fund for Reconciliation and Development, and mailed to: 64 Jean Court, Riverhead, New York 11901 (or donate online here)
Enclosed is a tax deductible contribution for the Vietnam Peace Commemoration Committee of
___ $25 ____ $50 ____$100 ____ $250 ____ other $ _____
Fund for Reconciliation & Development, 64 Jean Court, Riverhead, NY 11901
John Pilger: Silencing the United States as It Pr...
From Vietnam to Hiroshima: America’s Blood-Soa...
More than just the death of fish Authorities colle...
Syria: Five Years of War Seminar at the Universit...
April 27, 2016 Greetings! As we approach the one y...
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2018 All News
Parkland Shooting Victim Who Saved 20 Lives Blames Sheriff
April 7, 2018 April 7, 2018 Augustus Lancaster 0 Comment anthony borges, David Hogg, gun control, gun rights, National Rifle Association, NRA, parkland shooting
Marjory Stoneman Douglas HS student Anthony Borges, 15, was shot 5 times on the Valentine’s Day shooting protecting at least 20 other students from accused gunman, and former MSDHS student, Nikolas Cruz. Amazingly, he survived and was released from the hospital on Wednesday, April 4th.
He was shot in the chest, abdomen, and legs, sustaining injuries requiring him to be confined to a wheelchair. His ability to speak has also been greatly diminished. But even being through all that, he was able to write a statement, to be read by his lawyer at a news conference, harshly criticizing Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel and the three other officers who were on site for negligence to neutralize a threat their positions are designed to handle.
On thirty-nine separate occasions in the past year prior to the shooting, either police or social services were called to Cruz’s home. He had sent messages to students telling them he was going to “watch them bleed,” he had assaulted his foster mother, and of course, he was kicked out of school for his hostile behavior. The FBI and Sheriff’s office had received multiple calls of Cruz being a future school shooter. No action or follow-up was taken. Anyone with a hint of awareness would have Baker Act’d this person after the first visit, let alone let him retain a clean record even after over three dozen red flags and electronic evidence of hostility and danger.
At a news conference with Anthony and his father by his side, Alex Arreaza (Borges’ lawyer) read “They failed us students, teachers, and parents alike on so many levels. I want all of us to move forward to end the environment that allowed people like Nikolas Cruz to fall through the cracks. You knew he was a problem years ago and you did nothing. He should have never been in school with us.” He also criticized the superintendent’s implementation of the PROMISE program, a program designed towards the school district handling misdemeanor offences committed by students as opposed to law enforcement being in charge. The superintendent claims Cruz was not a part of this program, though he fit the criteria.
It was discovered early last month that Deputy on the scene Scot Peterson was not truthful after audio evidence revealed he said the gunfire was coming from “inside” the school, contradicting his statement believing the shots were coming from outside the school. Investigators said later he took up a position near the building and remained there for several minutes. His subsequent transmissions focus on getting nearby streets and the school shut down and keeping deputies away from the building. Peterson, who has denied wrongdoing, retired rather than accept a suspension and investigation. The sheriff’s office calls on deputies to “engage an active shooter and eliminate the threat.”
Then there’s Sheriff Scott Israel, the figurehead of the Broward County Sheriff’s Office and the officer in charge on the day of the shooting. It was his decision to “set up a perimeter around the school” as opposed to the standard protocol of storming the school and attempting to take out the threat. A week after the shooting, he attends the CNN Town Hall with several students and teachers from MSDHS, some Parkland residents, and Dana Loesch speaking on behalf of the NRA to shift the blame on “18 year olds being able to buy rifles, the existence of bump-stocks, and the NRA’s neutrality on these events occurring.” Though he performs a sleight of hand tactic by prefacing just once that this is Nikolas Cruz’s doing and no one else’s, he gets into the NRA making it easier for people like Cruz to do what he did. Ironically, it was his department that was called to Cruz’s house 39 times, it was his department who received tips of his possibility of killing people, and it was specifically himself and three other deputies who chose to hide behind their vehicles and call an entirely different police station to help neutralize the shooter after setting up a perimeter that ended up saving zero lives. Nikolas Cruz passed a background check because the people in charge of making Cruz’s blank slate record a nuclear-bomb siren to any gun-store employee failed at every imaginable level, and he murdered 14 of his classmates and 3 of his former teachers because of irresponsible policemanship.
Some people have discredited the student activists like David Hogg and Emma Gonzalez for being too young to have any input. This mindset, while common, is the wrong approach to dealing with these people. Some of our founders were not much older than the 17 and 18 year olds talking about this issue. No, the reason people like David Hogg should be mocked isn’t for him not being 100% finished with puberty, it’s because what he and his crew say are unfounded and sensationalist leftist talking points. But the biggest reason is because there are plenty of MSDHS students who do not fit the anti-NRA narrative CNN is pretending the entirety of the high school survivors adhere to, and Anthony Borges is not the only one.
Hunter Pollack, whose sister Meadow was killed in Parkland, was denied the time to speak at the March For Our Lives rally in DC because what he said had more to do with school safety and security than political gun-reform. Colton Haab, a junior at Stoneman Douglas, claimed he was told by CNN at their town hall that his questions also about reformed school security weren’t what they were looking for and instead gave him some scripted options to ask. He refused to attend. Kyle Kashuv has been the most outspoken student from Parlkand who isn’t on the Hogg-side of the discussion. He met with senators and publicly endorsed actual legislation (something Hogg and Gonzalez have yet to legitimately do) introduced by Rep. John Rutherford (R-FL) weeks before the shooting that included providing $50million/year to 1: Create and operate an anonymous reporting system for threats of school violence, including phone apps, hotlines, and websites. 2: Implement improvements to school security infrastructure. And 3: Develop student, teacher, and law enforcement training to prevent violence.”
The left has been incredibly vocal about it’s support of law enforcement just trying to do their job in this situation. Which goes against the established narrative of the police being riddled with incompetence, corruption, and prejudice. It would appear the only time the left supports the police, is when they refuse to do their job. There will always be Nikolas Cruz’s in the world. We can’t regulate evil. But we can make sure those responsible for intercepting threats are actually willing to do so. We can control the number of Scott Israels, Scot Petersons, and Robert Runcies in charge of protecting our kids. Because right now, a 15-year-old kid did more to protect the students at Stoneman Douglas than the police department, FBI, and school district did put together.
← South Carolina House GOP Reps Introduce Secession Bill Over Gun Rights
If the Jews Had Guns, the Holocaust Wouldn’t Have Happened →
The Right to Bear Arms is Meant to Restrain the Government
April 25, 2018 Liberty Hangout 0
One Year Ago Today: Kaitlin Bennett Takes Graduation Photo With an AR-10
May 12, 2019 Liberty Hangout 0
Libertarian Man Loses 2nd Amendment Right Due to Sealed Juvenile Record
May 3, 2017 Liberty Hangout 0
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Blog DRMM’s Lighthouse Food Bank—Helping Hungry Neighbors Put Food on the Table
DRMM’s Lighthouse Food Bank—Helping Hungry Neighbors Put Food on the Table
Lighthouse Food Bank March 15, 2015 News, Stories
Your gifts provide emergency food for seniors, young families, and others who are in need!
DRMM recently acquired Lighthouse Food Bank, Macomb County’s largest food bank, to reach more people who are hungry and hurting in the Detroit area with the help and hope they need.
Since 1984, the Lighthouse Food Bank (LFB) has served Macomb County as a community food bank, offering families, seniors, and other individuals who are struggling to make ends meet, a helping hand in putting food on the table. Last summer, DRMM acquired LFB under its umbrella of programs to help impact the lives of even more hungry and hurting people in the metro-Detroit area each day.
“My wife started this ministry 31 years ago with a couple of other girls. It was called ‘Lost Coin Coffee House,’” says Pastor Mel Gower with a smile. “There might have been just 20 cans of food in that little pantry back then, but we would still give them whatever we could, encourage them, and pray for them. It’s amazing what you can do for somebody just by telling him that you love him, or putting your arms around him, encouraging him that he can get through his problems.”
Today, things are quite different at the little food bank that Sandie Gower started so long ago. “In the past six months demand has almost doubled. We had 213 families the other day, which comes out to about 350 people who are in need of food,” the Pastor says. “Each of these encounters is another opportunity for us to demonstrate God’s love.”
The holidays and a long, cold winter drove a huge volume of hungry and hurting people to LFB in the hope of receiving emergency food. Among them were senior citizens, young families with hungry children, and plenty of proud veterans. The Gowers have a heart for each and every one of them, and your partnership ensured that everyone in need of emergency food received it, along with loving encouragement and heartfelt prayer.
With your ongoing support, those who are struggling to make ends meet can turn to DRMM’s Lighthouse Food Bank for a box of good, nutritious food for just $4.16.
DRMM President Chad Audi explains, “It’s about more than just putting food in someone’s hands. We welcome all who need us. We are trying to strengthen the community by helping people get back on their feet—always modeling the ways of Jesus in everything we do.”
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The Long Blue Line: local enforcer to global responder—nearly 230 years of Coast Guard transformation!
Originally Posted by Diana Sherbs, Thursday, July 19, 2018
Written by William H. Thiesen
Coast Guard Atlantic Area Historian
“You can kick this old service around, tear it to pieces, scream from the house-tops that it is worthless, ought to be abolished or transferred to the Navy, have the people in it fighting among themselves and working at cross purposes and it bobs up serenely bigger and stronger than ever.”
Cmdr. Russell R. Waesche, Sr., 1935
Photograph of World War II U.S. Coast Guard commandant, Adm. Russell Waesche. U.S. Coast Guard photo.
As the quote by World War II Commandant Russell Waesche indicates, the evolution of the United States Coast Guard provides a truly unique study in organizational history. This August marks the 228th birthday of an agency that has endured through the absorption of other agencies along with their missions, personnel, offices and assets. In spite of reorganizations and departmental transfers, the service has expanded in range and mission set. Throughout it all, the Coast Guard has been shaped by national and world events, wars and all forms of maritime disasters, so that the Coast Guard’s motto, Semper Paratus “Always Ready,” seems appropriate now more than ever.
The organizational model of the Coast Guard resulted from several federal agencies. Congress established the service’s original predecessor agency, the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service, in 1790 at the insistence of first Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton started the service with a fleet of 10 small sailing vessels, each one assigned to an East Coast seaport. A local customs collector oversaw each cutter’s operation and the collectors received their orders directly from the secretary of treasury. In addition to its original mission of law enforcement, the 1800s saw Congress assign the service the missions of defense (in time of war) and search and rescue. However, until the 20th century, the service remained a civilian agency militarized only in time of war.
Within 100 years of its founding, the Revenue Cutter Service began to develop a global reach. As the U.S. expanded from East Coast to Gulf Coast and on to the West Coast, revenue cutters populated regional ports, such as New Orleans and San Francisco. By 1867, cutters had begun cruising Alaskan waters and the Spanish-American War sent them as far away as southwest Pacific. With the annexation of Hawaii in 1898, cutters began regular patrols in various parts of the Pacific. With this territorial growth came an increase in missions, including fisheries enforcement and humanitarian response.
Rare photo of Coast Guard boat station crew in World War I uniforms U.S. Coast Guard photo.
The second federal service that helped form the Coast Guard was the U.S. Life-Saving Service. Established by Congress in 1878, the Life-Saving Service incorporated a system of 12 districts to administer its boat stations, which numbered 183 by 1881. In 1915, President Woodrow Wilson merged the Life-Saving Service with the Revenue Cutter Service to form the U.S. Coast Guard. The new service became not only the nation’s foremost search and rescue agency, capable of coastal lifesaving operations and high seas rescues; it became an official U.S. military service.
The early 20th century saw the Coast Guard grow in scope and geographic reach. By 1915, the service had begun to conduct the International Ice Patrol, which located dangerous icebergs afloat in navigable waters of the North Atlantic. In World War I, the service came under Navy control. The war expanded the Coast Guard’s area of responsibility well beyond U.S. territorial waters. The service’s new cruising grounds included the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and adjoining bodies of water, such as the Mediterranean and Caribbean seas. In 1937, Congress placed responsibility for domestic icebreaking with the Coast Guard, a mission that would expand to international waters during World War II.
A Coast Guard icebreaker underway and breaking ice in a polar cruise. U.S. Coast Guard photo.
World War II accelerated change within the Coast Guard. In 1939, the war erupted in Europe and Franklin Roosevelt’s administration moved the Lighthouse Service from the Commerce Department into the Coast Guard. By absorbing the Lighthouse Service, the Coast Guard adopted the aids-to-navigation mission. Once again, the service came under Navy control for wartime operations. In 1942, the Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation moved as a temporary measure from the Commerce Department to the Coast Guard, adding marine safety to the service’s growing list of missions. At war’s end, the service returned to its place within the Department of Treasury after contributing 250,000 men and women to the war effort.
The postwar years saw the Coast Guard undergo dramatic changes. In 1946, the wartime adoption of the Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation was made permanent. In 1965, the Navy dropped its icebreaking mission making the Coast Guard the only federal agency providing domestic and polar icebreaking services. The year 1967 saw Lyndon Johnson’s administration move the Coast Guard from the Department of Treasury to the new Department of Transportation. That same year, Congress tasked the Coast Guard with regulating and administering bridges built over navigable waterways.
In the late 20th century, international environmental, economic and political developments created new missions for the Coast Guard. During this period, the frequency of major maritime oil spills grew dramatically adding the maritime environmental response mission to the service’s growing list. Political upheaval and poverty in the Caribbean began driving illegal aliens to U.S. shores increasing the need for migrant interdiction in Coast Guard’s 7th District. In addition, the rapid growth of illegal narcotics smuggling by sea drove the need for highly trained boarding teams known as Law Enforcement Detachments, which specialized in interdicting drug smuggling vessels. Late in the 20th century, the service also added an airborne drug interdiction unit called the Helicopter Interdiction Squadron.
Coast Guard Law Enforcement Detachment crew seizing suspected pirates. U.S. Coast Guard photo.
The beginning of the 21st century brought unexpected changes to the Coast Guard. The September 2001 terrorist attacks led to several alterations in the service’s organizational structure. In 2002, the service began establishing Maritime Safety and Security Teams in major ports and later founded specialized Maritime Security Response Teams. In 2003, the Coast Guard left the Department of Transportation to become a cornerstone agency within the new Department of Homeland Security. Including the wartime transfers to and from the Navy, it was a record sixth time that the Coast Guard had changed agencies. In addition, for the first time, homeland security had become an important part of the service’s overall mission.
In 1790, Alexander Hamilton established a small fleet of coastal law enforcement vessels to patrol off East Coast seaports. Over the next 228 years, the service experienced rapid growth in its geographic area of responsibility, mandated missions, and organization through mergers with other maritime services, reorganizations, and transfers from one federal agency to another. These frequent changes demanded remarkable flexibility and resourcefulness of the Coast Guard. The service has lived-up to its motto Semper Paratus by adapting and evolving to meet the nation’s changing needs emerging as a global responder known and respected at home and abroad.
Fire boat response crews battle the blazing remnants of the off shore oil rig Deepwater Horizon, April 21, 2010. A Coast Guard MH-65C dolphin rescue helicopter and crew document the fire aboard the mobile offshore drilling unit Deepwater Horizon, while searching for survivors April 21. Multiple Coast Guard helicopters, planes and cutters responded to rescue the Deepwater Horizon’s 126 person crew. U.S. Coast Guard photo.
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De Havilland Chipmunk Aerobatic Flight -30 minutes
Your experience will begin with a pre-flight briefing and inspection of the aircraft before getting strapped in and soaring off into the 'Big Blue' in your very own original 1950's De Havilland 'Chipmunk'. Then you will be helped to strap yourself into your seat. You will be sitting at the back of the aircraft and your pilot will be sitting behind you. When all is ready and the propeller has been swung to start the engine you will be up and away on your De Havilland Chipmunk, aerobatic flight. You have communication with your pilot for the duration of the flight and he will make the journey as enjoyable as possible for you, explaining the Manoeuvres and being as adventurous with loop the loops and rolls as you wish. Alternatively you can choose to just sit and watch the world fly past while your pilot points out the areas of interest. On return to the Hangar you will be assisted from the aircraft by the ground crew and there will be an opportunity for some further photos to compliment your amazing memories of your De Havilland Chipmunk aerobatic flight. Information about your plane: Built in the 1950's our De Havilland Chipmunk started life with the Royal Air Force and is one of the RAF's longest serving aircraft after being retired in 1993. The Chipmunk replaced the Tiger Moth as an initial pilot trainer, offering relatively modern features such as flaps, brakes, radio and enclosed cockpit. The Duke of Edinburgh learned to fly in the Chipmunks and made his first solo flight in 1952. In later years the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York also received their initial pilot training in Chipmunks!
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The Millionaires' Unit now streaming on:
AMAZON Prime and AMAZON
Welcome to the web site dedicated to the First Yale Unit and the documentary film
The Millionaires’ Unit – U.S. Naval Aviators in the First World War
The Millionaires’ Unit is the story of a privileged group of college students from Yale who formed a private air militia in preparation for America’s entry into World War One. Known as the First Yale Unit, and dubbed ‘the millionaires’ unit’ by the New York press, they became the founding squadron of the U.S. Naval Air Reserve and were the first to fly for the United States in the Great War.
Using the words of these pioneer aviators from their letters and diaries, the documentary tells the story of young men coming of age as America was coming of age as a world power. Their service and sacrifice is the great untold story of American aviation in World War One.
The documentary was inspired by the book The Millionaires' Unit by Marc Wortman. After seven years of development and production, with filming on three continents, The Millionaires’ Unit is completed, and plans are underway for a multi-format release to help commemorate the centennial of World War One.
For more information on the documentary, for news and to help support the production, please select THE MILLIONAIRES’ UNIT: DOCUMENTARY FILM menu above. To explore the people, places and imagery of the Unit and their world, please select the FIRST YALE UNIT HISTORY menu above.
This deluxe edition, 2 DVD set or Blu-ray™ (requires Blu-ray™ player) contains the original 2-hour feature and an additional disc containing an hour of bonus material including four supplementary featurettes: “From Sea Legs to Navy Wings — The Birth of U.S. Naval Aviation,” “Killingholme: Hunting the German U-boat,” “Flying the Sopwith Camel” and “The Making of The Millionaires’ Unit.” Plus, the original trailer and an eight-page booklet containing an appreciation by Marc Wortman, author of the book that inspired the film, The Millionaires’ Unit (ISBN 1586484443).
Narrated by Oscar®-nominated actor Bruce Dern, grand-nephew of one of the pilots, this documentary epic was filmed in England, France and Belgium and along the Eastern Seaboard.
Winner of multiple Best Documentary Feature film festival awards, The Millionaires' Unit features stunning re-enactments and dogfights filmed air-to-air with period aircraft.
"An intimate, character-driven story set in the historical context of ...the birth of naval aviation,
and the drama and tragedy of the First World War...." — G.I. Film Festival
Humanus Documentary Films Foundation is a California 501(c)(3) non-profit. The mission of Humanus Documentary Films Foundation to enrich historical knowledge through the medium of documentary film.
Humanus Documentary Films Foundation
11165 Barman Avenue
Culver City, California 90230
Visit our website at humanusdocumentaryfilms.org
Copyright 2009 Humanus Documentary Films
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Stiller, Ripa, Strahan, Deutsch will attend June 5 Mirror Awards ceremony, present special awards
Luminaries of the entertainment and media industries will attend the Mirror Awards ceremony this spring to present awards to three special honorees. The event, hosted by Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, will be held Wednesday, June 5, at Cipriani, 110 East 42nd St., New York City. Follow on Twitter at #Mirrors13.
Comedian and actor Jerry Stiller ’50 will present the Lifetime Achievement Award in honor of the late Dick Clark ’51. Clark’s widow, Kari Clark, and daughter, Cindy Clark ’86, will attend the ceremony to accept the award.
Kelly Ripa and Michael Strahan, co-hosts of ABC’s “LIVE with Kelly and Michael,” will present the Fred Dressler Leadership Award to Anne Sweeney, co-chair of Disney Media Networks and president of Disney/ABC Television Group.
Donny Deutsch, chairman of Deutsch Inc., will present the i3 award for impact, innovation and influence to Nate Silver, statistician, writer and founder of fivethirtyeight.com.
The awards ceremony will be emceed by David Muir, weekend anchor of “ABC World News” and co-anchor of “20/20” on ABC.
Luncheon co-chairs are John Sykes, president of Entertainment Enterprises Clear Channel Media Holdings; Melinda Witmer, executive vice president and chief video & content officer with Time Warner Cable; and David Zaslav, president and CEO of Discovery Communications.
In addition to the special awards, seven juried journalism awards will be presented.
The Mirror Awards are the most important awards for recognizing excellence in media industry reporting. Established by the Newhouse School in 2006, the awards honor the reporters, editors and teams of writers who hold a mirror to their own industry for the public’s benefit.
For information about ticket and table sales for the ceremony, see the online registration page or contact Jean Brooks at 315.443.5711 or mirror@syr.edu. For media inquiries, contact Wendy Loughlin at 315.443.2785 or wsloughl@syr.edu.
Newhouse School announces winners in 2013 Mirror Awards competition
Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications presented seven journalism awards today at the seventh annual Mirror Awards ceremony. The event was held at Cipriani 42 in New York City. The ceremony was attended by Kari Clark, widow of legendary entertainer Dick Clark ’51, who announced a lead gift from the Kari and Dick […]
Newhouse School announces 2013 Mirror Awards finalists
Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications today announced the finalists in the 2013 Mirror Awards competition honoring excellence in media industry reporting. Winners will be announced at an awards ceremony on June 5, in New York City. The finalists, chosen from a pool of over 300 entries by a group of journalists and […]
Anne Sweeney, Nate Silver to be honored at Mirror Awards ceremony June 5
The Newhouse School will also honor the late Dick Clark ’51 at the New York event Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications will host the seventh annual Mirror Awards ceremony on Wednesday, June 5, from 11:45 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. at Cipriani 42nd Street, 110 E. 42nd St., New York City. Follow on […]
Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications is now accepting nominations for the seventh annual Mirror Awards honoring excellence in media industry reporting. Enter online. Application deadline is Feb. 12, 2013. Anyone can nominate, and there is no fee to enter. Award categories include: Best Single Article – Traditional/Legacy Media ($1,000 prize) Best Single […]
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Late New York Times media columnist David Carr to be honored at Mirror Awards ceremony
Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications will honor late New York Times columnist David Carr with the i-3 award for impact, innovation and influence at the annual Mirror Awards ceremony June 11 in New York City. Times executive editor Dean Baquet will offer a remembrance of Carr.
David Carr
Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times
For 25 years until his death earlier this year, Carr wrote about media as it intersects with business, culture and government.
He wrote a column for the Monday business section of The New York Times that focused on media issues, including print, digital, film, radio and television. He also covered popular culture for the paper’s culture section. From 2005 to 2009, he covered the Hollywood awards season with a daily blog called “The Carpetbagger” and weekly videos that put a New York spin on the red carpet. Carr was also part of “Sweet Spot,” a series of videos on media and culture, with Times film critic A.O. Scott. He joined The Times in 2002.
Previously, Carr was a contributing writer for The Atlantic Monthly and New York magazine. In 2000, he was the media writer for Inside.com, a news website focusing on the business of entertainment and publishing.
Carr worked as editor of the Washington City Paper, an alternative weekly in Washington, D.C., and edited the Twin Cities Reader, a Minneapolis-based alternative weekly, for which he also wrote a media column.
He was the author of “The Night of the Gun,” a memoir of addiction and recovery that used reporting to fact-check his past. In 2014 he became the Lack Professor in Boston University’s communications department, where he taught courses on new media business models and changing patterns of consumption.
For his Media Equation column, he received a 2009 “Best in Business” award from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers. He won Mirror Awards for best commentary in 2007 and 2009.
Carr died of complications from lung cancer on Feb. 12, 2015. His survivors include his wife, Jill Rooney Carr; his daughters, Madeline, Erin and Meagan; and five siblings.
The i-3 award is given to individuals or organizations that have made a profound impact on the media landscape or have captured the public’s imagination about the potential or importance of the media in a unique way. Past recipients include Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher, co-founders of Re/code (2014); the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation (2012); Dennis Crowley ’98 and Naveen Selvadurai, co-founders of Foursquare (2011); Twitter (2010); Obama for America New Media Department/Blue State Digital (2009); and CNN/YouTube (2008).
The Mirror Awards are the most important awards for recognizing excellence in media industry reporting. Established by the Newhouse School in 2006, the awards honor the reporters, editors and teams of writers who hold a mirror to their own industry for the public’s benefit. In addition to the i-3 award, juried awards will be presented in six categories:
Best Single Article – Traditional/Legacy Media
Best Single Article – Digital Media
Best Single Story – Radio, Television, Cable or Online Broadcast Media
Best Profile – Traditional/Legacy or Digital Media
Best Commentary – Traditional/Legacy or Digital Media
John M. Higgins Award for Best In-Depth/Enterprise Reporting
The awards ceremony will be held June 11 from 11:45 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. at Cipriani 42nd Street, 110 E. 42nd St., New York City. Follow on Twitter at #Mirrors15. Register online. For information about ticket and table sales, contact Amanda Griffin at 315.443.7982 or mirror@syr.edu. For media inquiries, contact Wendy Loughlin at 315.443.2785 or wsloughl@syr.edu.
Winners announced in 2015 Mirror Awards competition
By Wendy S. Loughlin Winners in the ninth annual Mirror Awards competition honoring excellence in media industry reporting were announced today at a ceremony in New York City, hosted by Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. Savannah Guthrie, co-anchor of “Today” and NBC News chief legal correspondent, emceed the event, which was held […]
AMC Networks head Josh Sapan to receive Dressler Award at ninth annual Mirror Awards Ceremony
Josh Sapan, president and CEO of AMC Networks, will be honored with the Fred Dressler Leadership Award at the ninth annual Mirror Awards ceremony June 11. Presented by Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, the award is given to individuals or organizations that have made distinct, consistent and unique contributions to the media […]
Finalists announced in 2015 Mirror Awards competition
The Newhouse School at Syracuse University today announced the finalists in the 2015 Mirror Awards competition honoring excellence in media industry reporting. Winners will be announced at an awards ceremony June 11, in New York City. The finalists, chosen from a pool of more than 300 entries by a group of journalists and journalism educators, […]
Savannah Guthrie to emcee ninth annual Mirror Awards ceremony
The ninth annual Mirror Awards ceremony will be held Thursday, June 11, from 11:45 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. at Cipriani 42nd Street, New York City. Savannah Guthrie, co-anchor of “Today” and NBC News chief legal correspondent, will serve as emcee. Hosted by Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, the ceremony will include the […]
CALL FOR ENTRIES: 2015 Mirror Awards
Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications is now accepting nominations for the ninth annual Mirror Awards honoring excellence in media industry reporting. The deadline is Feb. 15, 2015. Anyone may nominate, and there is no fee to enter. Award categories include: Best Single Article – Traditional/Legacy Media ($1,000 prize) Best Single Article – […]
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Submarine Power Cable Promotes Montenegro as Energy Hub for Balkans
Energy | July 5, 2019, Friday // 18:49| views
The Montenegro-Italy submarine power cable has been deployed under an investment that will enable Montenegro to become an energy hub for the Balkan countries, said Terna CEO Luigi Ferraris, adding that the commencement of commercial use is planned by the end of the year.
On the occasion of the successful completion of the 445-kilometer submarine cable project, an investment of EUR 1.15 billion, Ferraris has met with Montenegrin Prime Minister Duško Marković and Montenegrin President Milo Đukanović. The 600 MW submarine cable has been installed at depths of more than 1,000 meters.
Ferraris said that the cable would create conditions for attracting other investments, including in renewable energy sources, the energy sector and digitization. The largest project of its kind in the Mediterranean has already brought more than EUR 600 million to local businesses in Montenegro, he said.
Prime Minister Duško Marković informed Terna’s management that several countries of Eastern and Southeastern Europe have already expressed interest in reaching various arrangements with Montenegro in order to use the cable.
This kind of cooperation was also the focus of the talks held in Podgorica between Bulgaria’s Energy Minister Temenuzhka Petkova and Montenegro’s Economy Minister Dragica Sekulić.
The two sides have agreed to establish a bilateral working group for energy cooperation, which will also consider the possibility of exporting electricity from Bulgaria via the submarine cable.
Due to the commencement of the commercial use of the power interconnector, Montenegro anticipates electricity transit in 2019 to increase almost 70%.
The submarine cable was originally supposed to be completed in 2015 and to have an installed capacity of 1.2 GW.
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How to go to the toilet with a tampon?
Hygienic swab submitted in the form of a compressed cotton cylinder, the size and configuration of which vary depending on the type, degree of absorbency and promotional packaging manufacturer. It is a convenient means of personal hygiene, which used to absorb menstrual flow. The tampon has allowed women to limit social activity throughout menstruation. The question how to pee with a tampon, and a number of other often more interested in the young girls who first decided to use this means of personal hygiene.
A tampon for the first time introduced into the vagina, almost always causes excitement and anxiety for the female. Despite the attached manufacturer’s manual, there are always questions about its proper application.
Tampons entered with the finger, provide a simplified outline applications:
To take a comfortable position (squatting or standing, bending one leg). Subsequently, the woman will decide on a more appropriate method of administration.
Pushing aside the labia, the hygienic agent is administered deeply into the vagina using your index or middle finger. Don’t worry that the tampon will not fall on purpose. Adjacent next to the urethra and anus have distinguishing anatomical features that do not involve the introduction of a tampon.
If after the introduction of hygienic means the woman does not feel the presence of a foreign body, so it is used correctly. Appeared during the movement, soreness in the vagina is an indication of incorrect introduction of hygiene. In this case, the swab is removed and retry.
Models with the applicator, are two cylindrical tubes: an outer plastic or cardboard stopper and a pushing element. User-friendly design and a sliding surface facilitates easy introduction. Some models have caps and special petals at the end of the protective limiter, by which the use of hygienic products does not cause any discomfort.
READ The monthly on numbers and days of the week how to read monthly
Applicator swab is introduced in a similar way. The only difference is its correct use. Each manufacturer provides specific characteristics of the applicator, but in most cases, the algorithm using the same.
The tube applicator is inserted into the vagina diagonally until you close the thumb and index finger. You then push the index finger of the ejector element, and hygiene products will easily fit into the vagina, taking the desired position.
If during the introduction of the woman adheres to all manufacturer’s recommendations, the any discomfort she will experience.
Do not worry about the strength of the cord. Contrary to popular opinion on its likely fixed at the bottom, the cord is located along the entire length of the product, eliminating the gap.
You need to remember that before the procedure you must wash your hands with soap not to bring an vagina infection.
Some girls are concerned with the question whether it is possible to write with inserted tampon and how it will affect its properties. Urination not in any way affect the means of hygiene. Wet might only be the cord. If during urination cord aside, most of it will remain dry.
Do not worry about the deprivation of virginity. The use of a tampon small size does not affect the integrity of the hymen, if no anatomical abnormalities of its structure.
What you should pay attention
Tampons should be changed no less than 6 hours even with a partial filling. Do not neglect this recommendation. Long stay hygiene inside the vagina contributes to the disruption of the natural flora and the development of inflammatory processes.
Tampons can be used in combination with sanitary pads to prevent leakage of blood and enhance confidence. The appearance of blood on the strip indicates the need to replace the tampon. Before each new introduction of a tampon, we recommend to make toilet intimate area.
If you use a tampon you have any questions, you may want to consult a gynecologist. The doctor will in detail tell about the rules for the introduction and probable errors.
The restriction on the use of hygiene products:
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toxic shock syndrome in history.
Proper use of tampons taking into account the recommendations of the manufacturer and the gynecologist does not cause discomfort. If the first attempt to use a failed, do not despair. Over time, this procedure will become an integral part of hygiene during menstruation. Using this kind of hygiene, you can continue to lead active lifestyle without worrying about embarrassing moments.
It hurts to go to the toilet for large and small causes in women
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Why does a tampon hurt to insert and how to avoid discomfort
How to make a tampon for gynecology, is there any effect
How old to use tampons
Why do you need tampons for women and what are
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Truck hits Mennonite carriage, killing boy and injuring 4
Thu, July 11, 2019 02:22 EDT
FARMINGTON, Mo. (AP) — A pickup truck slammed into a horse-drawn carriage in Missouri on Thursday, killing an 8-year-old Mennonite boy and seriously injuring four members of his family, including two other children, authorities said.
The crash happened at around 6:45 a.m. in a remote area of St. Francois County, about 80 miles (130 kilometers) southwest of St. Louis, the Highway Patrol said.
The Mennonite family was on the way to pick blueberries at a nearby farm near when the truck slammed into the back of their carriage, patrol Cpl. Juston Wheetley told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
"The truck went over the top of it. It's literally destroyed," he said of the carriage.
The 8-year-old died at the scene. The other two children, ages 10 and 12, were taken to St. Louis Children's Hospital with serious injuries. The injured adults, ages 50 and 28, were also seriously hurt and were taken to Barnes-Jewish Hospital, authorities said. The 19-year-old driver of the carriage wasn't injured. Authorities haven't released the names of those involved in the crash.
The 19-year-old pickup truck's driver and his passenger were not hurt, and the driver stayed at the scene and cooperated with police, Wheetley said. He said the crash happened on a straight stretch of the two-lane highway and that the carriage had an orange safety placard attached, adding that it isn't clear how fast the truck was going.
The county's Mennonite community was established just two years ago, the Post-Dispatch reported.
Wheetley said Mennonite and Amish carriages have previously been struck by motorized vehicles in Missouri, but that Thursday's crash was the most "severe" he was aware of in that area.
There have been other similar fatal wrecks in recent years, including last month in Algansee Township in southern Michigan, when a pickup truck slammed into a horse-drawn carriage, killing three young Amish children and seriously injuring one other and their mother. The 21-year-old pickup truck's driver was charged with drunken driving causing death and serious injury.
In October of 2017, a truck crashed into a buggy near Sheridan, Michigan, killing three children whose family was on its way to a Sunday service. The 29-year-old truck driver pleaded guilty to misdemeanor moving violation charges.
Information from: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, http://www.stltoday.com
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Address: 40 Rue Marius JACOTOT 92800 PUTEAUX FRANCE Telephone : +336 88 36 23 53 E-mail: nada.chehab@ncc-newconceptconsulting
SWAPS DEFINITION TAKES ON THE WORLD
Earlier this month, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) released the long-anticipated definition of a swap. As expected by the majority of industry participants, the SEC and CFTC sided with the wording in the Dodd-Frank Act. Although there were no big surprises in the content of the announcement, banks and financial institutions still have a huge amount to contend with on the regulatory front – including registering themselves, complying with compensation rule changes, establishing living wills and of course determining changes to their business strategy – in addition to the newly outlined definition. It may seem that the software changes necessary for this one piece of Dodd-Frank are a small part of the overall picture. However, having the right technology in place plays a big role in being compliant and running an efficient business.
INDUSTRY IMPLICATIONS
The compliance clock started ticking on July 11, 2012, when the definition was announced to the public, but the onset of the regulations was realized long ago. From our experience, and speaking with our clients, the most difficult element of complying with the new definition is the short timeframe – just 60 days to implement in some cases – setting the deadlines as early as this September.
Much of what banks and financial institutions need in terms of software solutions is available today, however to implement and to test these systems takes more time than is currently at hand. In addition, there are elements of Dodd-Frank to come that will affect areas of the solution previously implemented, e.g. trade reporting will come into effect in September, but the requirement to use legal entity identifiers (LEIs) will come to fruition at the end of the year. This adds additional pressure on firms and further complicates the software update process.
PRIORITIZING UPDATES
Over the next few months, there will be a huge scramble in the industry, as a multitude of regulations go into effect at different times before the end of the year. The process is akin to buying the latest computer and almost immediately a newer, faster version is available. Similarly, deciding at what time to implement new compliance software when you know there are future regulations, bringing additional changes, adds a level of complexity to any decision. Firms have to draw the line somewhere and the ultimate decision will be made based on different implications at each organization.
In addition, as the deadline is fast approaching, short-term fixes have to be more tactical, while strategic solutions will be implemented down the line. It’s not possible to get everything done at once and firms have their plates full.
Although the SEC and CFTC’s announcement concerns only Dodd-Frank and the U.S. market, the implications are global. As there is a general drive for regulatory harmonization across the world to avoid potential regulatory arbitrage, it would be safe to assume that the rules will look similar across the globe. Therefore, banks and financial institutions need to be prepared to handle similar regulations in other regions.
U.S. banks are well advanced in their planning, and European organizations are close behind, however, in Asia, where there are a lot of different jurisdictions, regulations and deadlines are less certain. We still continue to see little interest regarding the SEC/CFTC definition from firms in Asia. This firstly raises the issue of whether businesses will move to Asia as a consequence of less regulation in that area. The second concern is whether Asian firms are prepared for when the U.S. regulations will take effect.
These are big issues that banks will need to contend with over the next few months. But there is a third consideration. Even before Dodd-Frank there was pressure to globally consolidate software systems; with Dodd-Frank this continues in order to get the benefits of consolidated reporting, increased globalization and to allow greater risk controls. If firms update to comply with this definition in a hurry, they risk ending up with ad-hoc systems to meet the requirements of various regions versus deploying a unified and efficient infrastructure.
Originally published by http://tabbforum.com
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Marker Text:
Tory force led by Col. Ferguson camped nearby Oct. 4-5, 1780. Two days later Ferguson died in major British defeat at Kings Mountain, 5 mi. SE.
Essay:
Patrick Ferguson was born into a wealthy family in 1744 in Edinburgh, Scotland. While still a teen, he was commissioned into the British army, seeing action in Europe during the Seven Years War. In 1768, Ferguson purchased a captaincy in the 70th Foot Regiment, a unit led by his cousin, Col. Alexander Johnstone. Ferguson served with the 70th in the West Indies until 1772, when he returned home suffering from leg ailments.
Upon returning to Great Britain, Ferguson began experimenting with light infantry tactics and developed the Ferguson rifle, a breechloading weapon based on an earlier French design. After demonstrating his weapon to George III, Ferguson received permission to raise an experimental rifle company that deployed to America in 1777. Later that year at the Battle of Brandywine, Ferguson received a wound that crippled his arm. Tradition states that, during the battle, Ferguson had in his sights an American officer but refused to fire as the man had his back turned towards him. Ferguson reportedly later learned that the officer was George Washington. Little evidence exists to confirm this story, however, and it likely is apocryphal.
By 1778 Ferguson had recovered from his wound and been appointed to the staff of Sir Henry Clinton. The following year he was appointed a major in the 71st Foot Regiment, with whom he took part in the siege of Charleston in 1780. During Cornwallis’s invasion into South Carolina, his Lordship appointed Ferguson commander of a Loyalist force and gave him orders to proceed into the backcountry to intimidate local Whigs and raise new recruits.
In the second week of September, Ferguson camped at Gilbert Town and delivered a message to the backcountry settlements threatening to “burn them out” if they interfered with British policies. By early October, Ferguson forces were west of Charlotte, near the present-day town of Grover in Cleveland County. Unfortunately, his message had only angered the backcountry militia, who by October 4-5 were on his trail. Two days later, an army of militia from Georgia, the Carolinas, Virginia, and the backcountry caught up with Ferguson at King’s Mountain. In the ensuing battle Ferguson was killed and his small army of Loyalists annihilated.
Lyman C. Draper, Kings Mountain and Its Heroes (1881)
Dan L. Morrill, Southern Campaigns of the American Revolution (1993)
Patrick O’Kelley, Nothing but Slaughter and Blood, Volume Two: 1780 (2004)
Robert M. Dunkerly, The Battle of Kings Mountain: Eyewitness Accounts (2007)
William S. Powell, ed., Encyclopedia of North Carolina (2006), 649-650—essay by Noel Yancey
National Park Service, Kings Mountain National Military Park website: http://www.nps.gov/kimo/
US 29 at NC 226 in Grover at NC/SC boundary
Original Date Cast:
Patrick Ferguson
© 2008 North Carolina Office of Archives & History — Department of Cultural Resources
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The State of the Union Speech and the President’s Credibility Gap
Posted on January 21, 2015 by Devin Smith | 12 Comments
By Robert E. Prasch
Last night, President Obama gave a great speech. He almost always does. And to that ever-shrinking group of die-hards who continue to insist that somehow, and in someway, President Obama will validate the hope kindled by his 2008 presidential campaign, it was a moment of triumph. Yes, they are saying, in his heart – very deep down, perhaps – Obama does in fact share our values and concerns, etc., he just has a hard time finding ways to express it, etc.
But let’s take a different tack. Let us begin with the old adage that “talk is cheap.” The fact is that this president has had six years to demonstrate – in deeds rather than words – what exactly constitutes his priorities. Let us, as this is a website devoted to economics issues, set aside the Obama Administration’s genuinely horrific record on civil liberties (The sordid record is long, but highlights include unchecked domestic spying by the NSA; drones deployed to terrorize the citizenry of numerous foreign nations; proclaiming and defending the prerogative to unilaterally kill American citizens with ever stating charges, much less presenting evidence or seeking convictions in the courts; solely and exclusively prosecuting those brave individuals who alerted the public to the Bush Administration’s war crimes, even as he comforted or promoted those who committed the crimes, etc.). Let us focus solely on economic policy. What follows is a brief review of the low moments thus far. These are not presented in any order and is not a comprehensive list:
(1) Appointing failed regulators (Geithner and Bernanke) and failed economists (Summers) to senior positions to oversee the recovery of the economy and the reregulation of the financial system.
(2) Overseeing the bailing out the Too Big To Fail Banks (TBTF) through TARP, the several Fed QE programs, and (early on) accounting rules changes, while flat-out failing to admit that straight-out subsidies constituted the core of the “recovery” plan. By contrast, homeowners, including those that had been defrauded by these same TBTF banks or their subsidiaries, were left to the tender mercies of these same banks.
(3) Repurposing that modest element of the TARP legislation that was supposed to assist struggling homeowners into a ruse that would further bleed those same homeowners in order to further assist the banks and the fat cats that oversaw their collapse (Geithner’s memorably stated that bleeding homeowners through misrepresentation of their chances to have their mortgages refinanced was good public policy because drawing out a few last payments from broke families would “foam the runways” for the failed banks).
(4) Blocking (through highly visible inaction) the rewriting of U.S. bankruptcy law in a manner that would enhance the bargaining power of underwater homeowners vis-à-vis the TBTF banks.
(5) Working diligently to assist in the denial or outright cover-up of widespread and flagrant fraud on the part of TBTF banks and bankers. This fraud occurred in the origination of the mortgages, the sale of mortgage-backed securities, in the stringing along of struggling homeowners, and in the course of foreclosing on customers (and foreclosing on people who weren’t customers, also). Foreclosure fraud included the widespread forging of mortgages and liens that had been misplaced or destroyed. These forgeries were then presented in court proceedings as original documents.
(6) Working long and diligently to provide ex post legal immunity for bankers from Federal and State criminal proceedings on tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of instances of mortgage and foreclosure fraud.
(7) Working diligently to ensure that financial regulation would be a mishmash of meaningless sturm und drang that could – as all the adults knew at the time that it would – be unwound during the rule writing process that was to take place at a later date and largely behind closed doors.
(8) Participating in, and then promoting, the outright lie that the US government “made money” on the bailout of the financial system, including the bailout of AIG.
(9) Participating in the unwinding of the (all-too-few) meaningful Dodd-Frank Act reforms. Granted, we know that Treasury lobbied against the inclusion of these few meaningful reforms at the time, and that everyone knew that they would never become law, so the only remaining point of interest was how they would come to be annulled. Now we know.
(10) Passing George W. Bush’s investor protection (a.k.a. “free trade”) agreements with South Korea, Columbia, and Panama even though his government knew, at the time, that these agreements would harm the United States economy.
(11) The aggressive, unrelenting, and absolutely secretive pursuit of those monsters of all investor protection agreements dubbed the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).
While we are on this subject, I am in awe that in the State of the Union address Obama had the temerity to say, “We should write those rules [on trade]…That’s why I’m asking both parties to give me trade promotion authority to protect American workers with strong new trade deals from Asia to Europe.” They say that if you have to lie, go big. After all, who is the “We” in that sentence? Not working Americans, we can count on that. Not civil society organizations concerned with workplace or environmental issues, to say nothing of people concerned with the cost of excessive patent or copyright protections that have become simple giveaways to firms. No, “We” does not include them, either. The “We” of that sentence refers to the hundreds of corporate lobbyists and trade lawyers who have been working, secretively, cheek-by-jowl with the most virulently anti-labor office in the entire executive branch, the Office of the United States Trade Representative. “We.” I love it. That’s real chutzpah.
(12) The persistent pursuit, albeit without a triumph (yet), of that greatest dream of all New Democrats, a “Grand Bargain” that would significantly cut payments to the elderly on Social Security (keep in mind that over ½ of all retirees have no measurable retirement incomes other than this enormously effective program).
(13) The aggressive and unrelenting effort to undermine teachers and privatize schools (or privatize school dollars in the case of “Charter schools”), on the thinnest of rationales such as the results of standardized test scores. This agenda has been maintained even though prominent studies appeared soon after the Obama Administration came into office demonstrating that Charter schools did not outperform traditional public schools, and often did somewhat worse.
(14) The eager adoption of the core of Sarah Palin’s energy program, “drill baby, drill,” by facilitating virtually unhindered hydraulic fracturing along with extensive offshore drilling.
(15) As with the Clinton presidency, anti-trust action against large and uncompetitive firms is most noteworthy for its absence. Personal favorites include last year’s US Air-American Airlines merger, which is an even worse deal for consumers than the United-Continental merger of 2010. But lets not overlook the forthcoming merger of Time-Warner with Comcast. Wow, could either of those firms achieve new lows in customer service? Stay tuned!
After six years in office, even the most loyal of Democrats can no longer feign to be ignorant of the substance and consequences of President Obama’s economic policies. Remarkably, the income of the median American household declined more during Obama’s recovery than during Bush’s recession! An optimist might describe the Obama Administration’s performance as pathetic or, as is the norm, present multiple excuses for it.
But the agenda and its consequences have not been pathetic by accident, or even from Republican Party interference, but by design. The failure is a consequence of a betrayal of the traditions and ideals of the Democratic Party so complete that it might, I say might, have shamed Bill Clinton (think NAFTA, WTO, the massive giveaway to the Telecoms, aggressive bank mergers, the repeal of Glass-Steagall & the ban against any regulation of derivatives, and so much more). Yet, despite this abysmal record, we are being asked to believe that President Obama and his senior economic advisors are concerned for the declining American middle class! That is to say that, after having lost both houses of Congress, we are to believe that the leadership of the Democratic Party is (finally) willing to do something about the ravages of thirty-five years of neoliberal economics.
Please excuse me for being skeptical. Excuse me for supposing that there may be an ulterior motive for this freshly minted interest in the economic fate of someone, anyone, who does not work on Wall Street or for a defense contractor. Indeed, I would like to remind readers that the last time we heard significant noise from the White House over the plight of working Americans, it was as part of an embarrassingly obvious effort to distract us from an upcoming Senate vote on the South Korea, Columbia, and Panama investor protection agreements.
Now, we know that the president and an embarrassingly large number of Congressional Democrats are anxious to rush through TPP and TTIP before the New Hampshire primary obliges them to pretend that they care about what mere voters, that is to say the sops that make up the rank-and-file of their own party, think about these certain-to-be-odious trade treaties. If I were to bet, it would be that concern over a coming backlash is the primary motivation behind Obama’s “liberal” State of the Union speech. But don’t take my word for it. Let’s test it. Let’s see how much of this agenda remains thirty days after these profoundly harmful treaties are ratified with, I am guessing, the affirmative vote of close to 50% of Democratic Party Senators.
So, what is to be done? I would suggest that those of us who still cling to the belief that the United States should and could be something other than a plutocracy have some serious thinking to do. While I have not addressed this topic here, I would also suggest that those of us who still believe that the 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 14th Amendments were a good idea also have some serious thinking to do. This thinking is all the more important because, in this world of uncertainly and change, we can all rest assured that Hillary Clinton is not, and never will be, on our side. She and her long list of friends in the banks and amongst the defense contractors are opposed – adamantly – to our values and ideals. So, what are we to do?
Stated simply, it is time for those of us who are dissatisfied with the direction that this nation has taken over these past thirty-five years to begin to think and act strategically. I would submit that the dominant strategy pursued thus far – that of unquestioned loyalty to the Democrats — has been put to the test, repeatedly. We now have definitive evidence that, considered as a strategy, this approach been an absolute failure. Remember that in 2008 we voted for “Hope and Change. The issues of the day were President Bush’s random wars and the collapse of the financial system that was a consequence of the unthinking deregulation pursued by both parties. What did we get? The reappointment of Bush’s Defense Secretary Robert Gates who, as a prominent CIA official, previously disgraced himself in the course of his involvement in the Iran-Contra Scandal. In what world did such a reappointment constitute “Change”?
And what of the economy? Proven failures from Bill Clinton’s frenzied deregulation drive — Larry Summers and Timothy Geithner (amongst many others) were appointed to the highest offices. There they were joined by a bevy of Goldman and Citigroup alums who, we were told, would oversee the reregulation of the financial system. Really? When did that ever constitute “Change”? What about it constituted “Hope”? Was all the prattle about “Hope and Change” simply a joke? Was it just a marketing gimmick? I believe that we can now answer that question, definitively.
Returning to strategy, we can now conclude that “lesser evil” voting has, in no way or form, advanced our programs, ideals, or values. It has been tried, repeatedly, and it has failed. We now know that the DNC treats the rank and file of the Democratic Party contemptuously because they know that they, at least implicitly, have our permission to do it. Should we ever decide that we are tired of their contempt, this implicit permission will have to be revoked in a manner that this is both unmistakable and dramatic. This means, operationally, that the DNC’s contempt for us must be returned, and in kind.
Holding the leadership of the DNC accountable does not mean adding our signature to an online poll, or holding a sign at a “peaceful protest,” and then turning out to vote for the 1% favored candidate. Holding the DNC to account means denying them, and their massive entourage of Washington-based apparatchiks, something that they ardently desire – election or appointment to high office. This means that those whom Howard Dean once labeled the “Democratic wing of the Democratic Party” must be prepared to stand on the sidelines while “centrist Democrats” lose. We must not shy away from taking such action, rather we must openly embrace it. In the aftermath, we must be prepared for the massive opprobrium that will be directed at us by these same time-serving apparatchiks and sundry Washington hustlers who have long staffed the DNC, associated think tanks, and political campaign consultancies. As stifled would-be office-holders anticipating an easy passage through the revolving door, we can and should expect the DNC’s officialdom to be bitter about losing their best chance to acquire cushy jobs with low workloads and high payouts. To quote one of their icons, “I feel their pain.”
Let us be clear, what is being proposed here not about being “revenge” or “being in a huff.” It is a strategy, one that proposes to win by playing the “long game.” As the saying goes, first they will ignore us and then they will insult us, but if can hold the line and deny the time-servers in the DNC the things that they want, they will be forced to negotiate with us. The day after the professional insiders and boot-lickers of the DNC come to learn that they cannot win without their Democratic wing, is the day that they will begin to consider what we want, and actually begin to respond to it. This level of respect will not happen one day before our resolve has been forcefully demonstrated. Not one. So, the question is, for how long do we wish to forestall that day?
This entry was posted in robert e. prasch and tagged President Obama, State of the Union. Bookmark the permalink.
12 responses to “The State of the Union Speech and the President’s Credibility Gap”
Steven Greenberg | January 21, 2015 at 8:23 pm |
Excellent article. Thanks for putting all these issues together. I just got off the conference call with Bernie Sanders. I am beginning to think that I can leave Elizabeth Warren in the Senate and switch to pushing Bernie Sanders for President. He, at least, has shown some interest and some executive skills.
His appointment of Stephanie Kelton as his Senate Budget Committee Chief Economist has given me hope. The hosts of the conference call did not shoose to use my question to Sanders’ about what he and Kelton were planning to do. I guess asking about the impact of MMT would have been too specific a question for the conference call. I was just a tad disappointed that Sanders didn’t go into a tirade about needing an inflation constraint instead of a budget constraint on our government plans.
Joe Firestone | January 21, 2015 at 10:26 pm |
Well done! As an early convert, to the view that Mr. hopey changey was a right-wing sell-out, I certainly do like this posy!
Andy | January 22, 2015 at 9:10 am |
Ha! The same thing could be written by a Republican who wants his party to actually respond to what Republican voters want. So we have this problem in both parties, people voting w/o critical thinking. There are 2 blocks of voters – those who vote for their party regardless, and those who vote for lesser of 2 evils. In reality, people are too busy to bother with anything like economics.
Steven Greenberg | January 22, 2015 at 9:35 am |
It is almost too difficult to contemplate the possibility that Sarah Palin was right about the hopey changey thing.
zapster | January 22, 2015 at 10:26 am |
How long can we hold out? By the time the DNC catches on, democracy will no longer be an option. The TPP and TTIP will have simply eliminated any possible policy change that voters could hope to accomplish even with the right people. :\
Conelrad | January 22, 2015 at 1:41 pm |
Thanks for a bull’s-eye commentary.
As to action, I suggest voting for a progressive third party whenever possible. Doing so would not only deny neoliberal Democrats what they want, but also point the general direction for the Democratic Party to go in order to win a majority. (Of course, we should expect a repeat of 2000’s “spoiler” framing. But, as you note, if we simply “stand on the sidelines while ‘centrist Democrats’ lose,” we must still “be prepared for … massive opprobrium … directed at us by the same time-serving apparatchiks and sundry Washington hustlers who have long staffed the DNC, associated think tanks, and political campaign consultancies.”
UMKC Economics Undergrad | January 22, 2015 at 2:17 pm |
Professor Prasch opened by appropriately dissing Obama’s “great speech” filled with meritless promises sagging under the weight of past broken promises. But I couldn’t understand why Professor Prasch didn’t get to the heart of the blame immediately. It’s more accurate, and useful, to blame the Democrat Party than it is to simply blame Obama. (And we know the Republican Party is even worse, just to be clear.) Moreover, it’s even more accurate to blame our two-party dictatorship system—as Ralph Nader has called it.
I appreciate Professor Prasch’s list of crimes against society committed by the Obama administration. It’s important we remember our history, especially recent history. And I appreciate Professor Prasch’s complaints against the DNC bosses. But I disagree with Professor Prasch’s notion of hoping to hold the DNC accountable through becoming “prepared to stand on the sidelines”, even as a long-term strategy. It seems much of the so-called “Democratic wing of the Democratic Party” has already been on the sidelines because voter turnout rarely exceeds 35%. With only two political parties, it’s easy for the two parties to collude and perpetually repel the non-die hard political buffs. The only people who seem to vote are the uncritical loyalists.
If we were really critical about our two-party dictatorship system, perhaps, we would see a need for ranked choice voting where we could feel confident in voting idealistically because if our first choice loses, our vote isn’t lost, but instead transferred to our second choice or third choice, fourth choice, etc.
Or, perhaps, we might see a need to have more than two political parties represented on major debates, such as the presidential debates.
Or, perhaps, we might see a need to resist ‘Top-Two Primary’ legislation infecting the nation state by state and creating barriers to ballot access.
Or, perhaps, we might see a need for publicly funded elections.
Or, perhaps, we might see a need to allow for left-wing extremists to counterbalance the right-wing extremism, which constantly pushes the political center rightward to the point that today almost everyone recognises that a ‘liberal’ or ‘centrist’ Democrat like Obama is actually to the right of Republican Ronald Reagan.
I’m glad intelligent people like Professor Prasch have grown frustrated with the Obama administration, for they should be. I just wish they would likewise grow frustrated with the whole corporate-bankster funded Democrat Party and the entire rotten two-party dictatorship. The American people, the working class, needs political clout—power. That requires a sincere people’s opposition party, which, in turn, requires a political system conducive to political alternatives. But as long as we keep thinking we must settle for “standing on the sidelines” until the DNC stops acting in the interests of their campaign donors instead of their voting constituency, we will continue to forfeit our political clout.
Mark j | January 22, 2015 at 2:28 pm |
Well done. But, you forgot to mention Obama’s push to extend Bush’s tax give-away to the 1%.
Undergrad, I don’t think you can blame the “two” party system where one of the parties is Democratic. The two parties are the Oligarchs and the rest of us. The question is how are we going to stop the Oligarchs. I am not sure I see a third party as the solution. If we can plainly identify politicians as with the oligarchs or with us, then we might start to get somewhere. If an Oligarchic Republican or an Oligarchic Democrat keeps putting his or her Oligarchic paymasters first, then we will more easily be able to define who is working for us and who is working against us.
The other issue is how Obama has adopted the Republican strategy. The programs he touts sound good on the surface, but the words hide what’s underneath. “We” need to make the trade rules, indeed. What you mean “we” oligarch man?
Daniel D. | January 23, 2015 at 8:35 am |
Great article which should be on every fridge door in America.
Bonnie Jean Ione | January 23, 2015 at 7:02 pm |
Please let me know who a good candidate would be for our next president when one surfaces. It gets very complicated for the average person to keep up with all this in-depth philosophizing. I realize that the complexity of it all is what perpetuates it, but most people don’t have the time (or the will to have it be their highest priority) to keep up with all of this. The National Health care system wasn’t even mentioned. What a complicated mess that is. Offices have to hire someone full time to be able to interpret all the rules. Just let me know who is a good choice—let everyone know . Thanks!
I wrote it so I don’t have another reply…..?
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Cheryl Rogowski grows potatoes and many other vegetables at her farm in the black dirt region of upstate New York. Many chefs say her produce is notably rich in flavor. We visited Cheryl at the farm and followed some of her potatoes and sunchokes back to Brooklyn, to make a dish with Rob Newton, chef and owner of Seersucker in Carroll Gardens, and a keen admirer of Cheryl's work.
Upon stepping out of a car at many a farm, a field-starved Brooklynite might find their gaze fixed to the green of a plain rich with crops, glistening with dew perhaps, or swaying in a gentle breeze, or sparkling just a bit as they drink in the sun.
What grabs the eye first at W. Rogowski Farm in Pine Island, New York, is the dirt. It is black and heavy, almost glinting with moisture and minerals. Its redolence fills the air, instantly recognizable as the intoxicating smell of the profound fertility of this tiny planet, hurtling through space, that we call home.
Cheryl Rogowski honors this dirt. After growing up on the farm, cultivating onions, she began to gradually transform it into something…else. Today, it’s a veritable garden of eden, brimming with a diverse symphony of vegetables, noted for their startlingly intense flavors, all grown without the touch of chemical herbicides or pesticides. This is not an easy pursuit – Cheryl’s work earned her a MacArthur Genius award, the first ever awarded to a farmer.
In search of a closer look at this dirt, we travel north to Cheryl’s farm, where the potato harvest is in full swing. We then follow some of those potatoes back to Seersucker in Carroll Gardens, where chef Rob Newton, an avid admirer of Cheryl’s work, shows them off in a simple dish designed to let those black dirt flavors shine.
From the Field – a potato field to be exact, with farmer Cheryl Rogowski…
The black dirt that has made the region famous is spectacularly dense with organic matter. It consists of the decayed vegetal matter of a lake that formed when the glaciers receded ten thousand years ago.
So Cheryl, tell us about potatoes. How do you grow them? What makes them good?
Potato planting has not changed much since I was a kid. It’s a little more mechanized now. When we were little we would save a bunch of potatoes for seed. When it was time to plant, we’d sit down with paring knives and look at each potato. The new growth from a potato comes out of the little sprouts called eyes. You want to have three or four eyes on each piece of potato that goes into the ground. So a big potato might be cut into four or five pieces, a smaller one might be cut in two, and a really small one might be left whole.
We’d fill up a whole bunch of five gallon pails with potato cuttings, and walk the field, just tossing them at somewhat even intervals into the ground in rows. What’s different now is that we have a machine for planting. It’s got a hopper in front that we fill with organic chicken manure, and a hopper in back that spreads out the cuttings in rows. So it fertilizes and plants all at the same time. It takes some of the labor out of it for us, but there’s no less work, because now we just take that time saved and use it to plant more. Back then we probably only planted five acres of potatoes. Now we do fifteen, because we can.
Since we don’t use any chemicals here, the work you have to do during the growing season to keep the potatoes healthy is particularly intense. The two main concerns are weeds and pests. Keeping the weeds down is tough, since we don’t use herbicides. You have to really stay on top of them. You’ll see us out here on our hands and knees with hoes doing weed removal in all the fields to make sure everything stays clean, to give the vegetables the best chance we possibly can to thrive.
With potatoes particularly, the pest control is an enormous amount of work. The Colorado potato beetle is the biggest threat. The guys have to check the underside of every single leaf of every single potato plant in the field for egg masses and grubs. When you find eggs or a grub on a leaf, you snip that leaf and remove it from the plant. We stuff the infested leaves into old water bottles and carry them out of the field.
So you have to check every leaf of every plant, and we have fifteen acres of potatoes. Typically I would have seven or eight people working on that project and it would take about two full weeks to complete.
A potato plant, in toto, at harvest time.
With potatoes, it’s also important to keep hilling the dirt up against the plants as they grow. That’s very important. It’s how you get the best yields and the best quality. We still use the same tractors and equipment my dad used when I was a kid – the same tillivators, multivators, cultivators. We use them all as much as we can, and everything else is done by hand.
When it’s time to harvest, we use a different machine – the potato digger. We drop it down off the back of the tractor and pull it through the field and it lifts the potatoes up out of the ground. We walk behind the tractor and pick up the potatoes and put them in baskets. When a basket is full, we take it over to the trailer and empty it out into a crate. When the crates are all full, we take them to market.
We grow a lot of different varieties of potatoes. They really vary in flavor and color and texture and mouthfeel. Some are better for baking, some are better for boiling, and some are better for sautéing. Some are white, some are blue, some are pink. Some are floury, some are waxy. There are a lot of variations, which is nice.
If you go back in time and look at South American, where the potato originated, the sheer number of varieties of potatoes that were cultivated there is absolutely incredible. The shapes, the colors, the textures – it’s like a jellybean jar. [laughter.] What we’re seeing today is just a small fragment of what’s out there, just a hint of the potential of what we could tap into.
Hopefully, we’ll be able to preserve the legacy of what’s out there and not lose too many varieties. We’re doing much better now, both as farmers and consumers. We’ve all come to realize and appreciate that there aren’t just a couple of types of potatoes out there, there’s so much more, and they’re all different. And that’s not just true of potatoes – it’s true of every type of thing we grow. It’s a beautiful thing.
I think that what makes our potatoes here, and all of our vegetables, really special is the soil, and the fact that we don’t use any chemicals. This area is called the black dirt region for the incredibly rich, black soil that covers the valley floors. It’s a tremendous gift of nature to us, this soil.
We’re farming the bottom of a glacial lake here. In this region there are over ten thousand acres of black dirt. It covers five townships in parts of two states, and it varies in depth from eighteen inches to three hundred plus feet. It’s basically a giant bowl of compost from all the vegetation that was alive in this region ten thousand plus years ago. As the vegetal matter fell from the hillsides down into the bottom of the lake that was once here, it decomposed and decayed and created this incredibly special rich, organic matter that we’re fortunate enough to be able to farm today to grow all kinds of things.
The soil is silky and soft. They call it muck in other places. We call it black dirt. There are no rocks, so root crops really thrive. It’s extremely rich in nutrients and in carbon and sulphur because of all the decomposed wood material in there, so our vegetables are very, very flavorful. A lot of things have a noticeable peppery quality that’s quite rare. You get a kind of vibrancy of flavor in a lot of things that you just don’t get in the same plants growing in other soils, because of the mineral content. It’s really a tremendous gift.
How did you end up farming here?
I was born out here. My mom used to get mad at me because I used to say, “I was born in the dirt.” [laughter.] She’d say, “You were not born in the dirt!” My mom’s grandfather was one of the first settlers here. He came here to grow onions. My dad’s parents came over here from Poland. They were farmers too. My dad’s side of the family traced their farming history in Poland back to the 1300s, which is pretty cool.
A lot of Polish people came to this region, and just about all of them grew onions. This was the onion producing capital of the world. My family was no different. Dad had seven brothers and sisters. They all grew up in a one room shack. The kids slept in the hayloft. They cleared the ditches and the land by hand. Dad always told stories about seeing the boys out there on the land with two man saws and horse drawn ploughs, clearing fields, when he was a kid.
So a lot of the land around here is relatively new to farming. My dad was born in 1922, and he passed in 1999. The land was being cleared when he was a boy, so you’re not talking all that long ago.
Cheryl (upper left), grew up on the farm, and gradually made the transition from the conventional onion farming of her youth to an extraordinarily diverse and completely chemical-free operation today. The farm has been free of chemical herbicides and pesticides for twenty years.
Like I said, when I was young we were no different than anyone else. Everyone was growing onions then, and we grew onions too. These fields all around us were filled with onions. You would walk outside or take a drive in the springtime and the whole valley would smell like spring onions. In autumn, the whole place would smell like autumn onions – the sweet perfume of ripe onions. I recently walked into the barn of a friend who still grows onions and I just stood there for a good while breathing it in because it smelled so good. It just took me right back to those days as a kid.
It was all about the onions. This region was the onion producing capital of the world. I was even the princess of the 1983 onion harvest festival. [laughter.]
Of course, back then we were farming conventionally. Everyone was. We were planting modern hybrid varieties of onion and we were spraying the fields with herbicides and pesticides. That’s how it was done.
Back in the eighties, we started having issues with the land. Dad would plant the onions, and they would come up picture perfect, row upon row upon row. And then they started just vanishing, disappearing, melting away into the soil. It was pretty devastating. When you’re farming one crop and you lose it, you’re losing a whole year’s income along with everything you’ve invested in planting.
We found that we had gotten a bad chemical from a chemical corporation. We had a lawsuit over that. We won some money, but nothing that can compensate for that kind of loss.
The onions just wouldn’t grow. One option someone suggested was fumigating the soil. It would have cost over six figures, and there was no guarantee that it was even going to work. We didn’t have that kind of money anyway. Another option was to quit farming. As you can see from where we are today, that actually wasn’t a real option for us. The third option we had was to change what we were doing, to start growing more things, different things.
At that time, the bars were the places where all the business around here happened. That’s where everyone went to have discussions about the market, set the prices, and get bragging rights for the earliest, best onions. One day at the bar one of our neighbors started telling my dad about the Greenmarkets down in the city. He was like, “You gotta get down to the city.”
That’s what we did. We started at the City Hall Greenmarket downtown and at the St. Marks Church Greenmarket in the East Village. That was the turning point. It allowed us to survive financially by diversifying away from just growing onions. We started growing things like beets and carrots and tomatoes, and just kept going from there – potatoes, sweet corn, cabbage…all kinds of things.
I remember it so well. On the night before going to market, we’d all be right out there by the house at ten o’clock at night washing vegetables and getting everything packed. Mom and I would jump in the white Chevy pickup before dawn and head down to the city to set up the tents and the produce.
The city Greenmarkets have become absolutely vital to us and to farmers like us. Without the markets we wouldn’t be able to do what we do.
What led to the decision transition away from the conventional approach, and toward farming without any chemical pesticides or herbicides?
It was a gradual transition. There were a lot of conversations over time, and a number of things contributed to it. There were pieces to it, and it evolved.
When I was a kid, I kept driving my father crazy because I wanted to grow all these different things. A lot of the guys who worked on the farm would come up here from Latin America, and they’d grow things like jalapenos and tomatillos to eat, since we didn’t have anything like that around here. I noticed it and I wanted to grow those things too. Everybody kept telling me, “You can’t grow jalapenos in the northeast.” People hadn’t even heard of them back then. It was always, “You can’t grow this, you can’t grow that.” I’d say, “What do you mean? The guys are growing them in their garden right over there!”
So I just stopped listening. Dad finally said, “Here, just take that field over there and go do what you want.” So I grew jalapenos and tomatillos and white pumpkins and blue pumpkins and all kinds of unusual things and everyone thought I was crazy. But I did it and I wasn’t using any chemicals, and everything did just great. That was one seed of the eventual realization that we just didn’t need to spray, that there were other ways of doing things.
Wen-Jay Ying, founder of the Brooklyn-based Local Roots CSA, helps with the harvest. Local Roots sources all of its vegetables from Cheryl's farm.
There was another seed that was planted when I was a kid. At some point, my dad started taking my younger brother, who was six years younger than me, out on all the tractors with him. That made me really mad. I was the oldest and I thought I should have been the one on all the tractors. So my mom put me on her lap on one of the old tractors in front of the onion harvester and taught me to drive. After a while, my dad realized I was better on the tractors than the guys. I had the patience to go hour upon hour up and down the rows and to do it right and not take out the vegetables or onions. So I ended up being the one on the tractors all the time.
Then I started doing the granular chemicals. It was an herbicide, and you had to be careful because it burned. So I was out on the tractor with the rig, spreading that stuff around. After a while, my dad was going to put me on the spray rigs with the liquid chemicals. My mom absolutely flipped. She said, “No way, no how is my sixteen year old daughter going to be spraying those chemicals. She might want to have kids some day and I just won’t have it.”
I was furious because I wanted to be out on the tractors, doing what the guys were doing. It had never occurred to me to even think about health concerns or anything like that with spraying. I just thought, “Why in the world wouldn’t I spray?” So I think that interaction was another place in which that seed was planted. I give my mom credit for that.
So that started the conversation. My dad was both open to doing things differently and resistant to it. He’d always say, “I just don’t want the kids to have to work as hard as I did.” He grew up in a time without chemicals. The bulk of his life was spent without it. When the chemicals came along, it offered a new kind of freedom. There was a liberty in knowing you could go out there once with a tractor and spray the field rather than having to spend endless days and hours on your hands and knees weeding.
Over time I became more and more interested in trying things without the chemicals. I found it really fascinating to learn about these other ways of doing things. As my dad got older, he was happy to see someone taking things on and doing the work, even if it was being done in a different way than he had been doing them. It got easier for him with time. We’ve been completely chemical free for about twenty years now. For the last few years of his life he was able to see it working. The last thing he said to me in the hospital before he died was, “Farming’s a tough life, but you’re going to make it. You’re going to do all right.” That stays with me every day.
Among many, many other things, Cheryl grows sunchokes. Sunchokes are a species of sunflower. Their tubers somewhat less starchy than potatoes, and have a sweeter, nuttier flavor.
The conversation still never ends, either. One of my farmers, Benito, just the other day said, “Cheryl, you should really spray the ditches. The weeds are starting to cave in the banks.” I’m like, “Agggghhh! Benito!” [laughter.] I said, “No, we’ll plant grass instead. I know a couple of guys who are doing it that way. I’ll talk to them. They use a grass that only grows so high and we won’t have to worry about it and it’ll hold the banks of the ditch.” He’s like, “OK.” [laughter.]
So how does it all work? Tell us a little about how you approach farming here, and how it’s different today than it was when you were a kid.
Well, it is complicated. [laughter.] We grow a pretty big variety of things here, so it’s constant improvisation. There are many, many variables that have to be managed, and they’re always changing. It’s a natural environment, so there are a lot of things you just can’t control, like the weather. You have to work with those elements.
We do a lot of our own seed saving. Instead of buying new seeds each year, we save the seeds from the plants in the field that thrive the most to use again the following year. You’re always trying to improve the health of the crops by selecting the seeds from the healthiest plants each year. We’ve been saving our black bean seeds for nine years now. We’ve selected seeds from the plants that do best, and we now have a great seed stock that’s acclimatized to our soil, our environment. And we get a phenomenally high quality black bean crop now as a result of that.
We’re always looking at crop rotations, and being careful not to put the same family of plants in the same area year after year. Good crop rotation decreases the risk of disease and insect infestation. We’re playing hide and seek with the vegetables and the insects. We plant potatoes here in this field this year and we’ll put them on the other side of the farm the next year and hope the potato beetles don’t find them. And you also rotate crops to keep the soil healthy. Certain plants remove certain nutrients from the soil, and others replenish those nutrients, so you have to move things around to keep the soil in balance.
Companion planting is very important. There are whole charts tracking which plants do well planted next to each other and which don’t. People often speak of the Native American tradition of the three sisters approach to farming – they grew corn, beans and squash together. The corn acted as the trellis for the beans. The big, broad, low hanging squash leaves sheltered and cooled the roots of the corn. Corn requires a lot of nitrogen to grow. It takes a lot of nitrogen from the soil. The bean plant is what they call a nitrogen fixer – it adds and holds nitrogen in the soil. So by planting the right crops together, you can really improve yields, quality and soil health all at the same time.
Young sunchokes. They'll typically grow to be about the size of a finger.
Timing is important – picking the right time to plant and the right time to harvest. You want to plant when there’s a heavy dew, so the seeds pick up moisture to help them germinate. With harvesting, you might get up one morning and look at a field and say, “Well, it’s close, we’ll have to see what happens with the heat, sun, rain today.” By that night you make a decision, and with a lot of things, when something’s ready to be harvested, it needs to be harvested fast. The farm looks different every morning, noon and night. It’s constantly growing and changing. It’s like a wheel constantly rolling and moving and pushing forward, all driven by the land and the soil and the weather.
Then there’s the deer. We face tremendous pressure from deer here. I started looking at different methods for keeping deer out of the fields. One line of research led me to biodynamics and Rudolph Steiner. What they do is they use certain mixes of burning hides and horns. I didn’t have ready access to that sort of thing, so I tried using organic bloodmeal as a deterrent. We experimented with putting it around the carrot field. It’s something unfamiliar to the deer, so they stay away. It absolutely worked, and it’s all nitrogen, so you had the added bonus of fertilizing the soil.
It worked perfectly, until it rained. [laughter.] The rain came and pushed it all down into the soil. You can’t keep putting it more of it down because it’s expensive, and you’ll end up over-fertilizing the soil and the plants will go crazy and grow to monstrous sizes and things will start bursting on the vine. That’s what happens if you put too much nitrogen in the soil.
There’s always the weather – it might be drier one year and you’ll have to worry about irrigation, and it might be wetter the next and you’ll have a whole different set of problems.
Sunchoke stalks.
And there’s the market. You have to be really in touch with what people want, and tastes are always changing, developing, evolving, which is a great thing. Way back when the farmers market in Warwick first started, it was on Sundays. Martha Stewart had a show on Sunday mornings on CBS. People would watch it and then come down to the farmers market looking for whatever Martha had made that morning. Now it might be Mark Bittman or someone from the Times that has the same effect.
I always used to be five years ahead of the curve. A few years ago we planted all this Rosa Bianca eggplant. It’s exquisite. They’re white with these blushed streaks on them. They’re beautiful. The flavor is stunning. I was sure they’d be a hit, but no one wanted them. So we started growing a lot less of them. This year, of course, it was the one eggplant everybody wanted! [laughter.] I missed that one but I was right on the curve with kale. So you win some and you lose some. [laughter.]
You’re always learning and always encountering new challenges. You never figure it all out, because there are so many moving parts, so many variables. You’re just always adjusting and improvising, as quickly as you can. There’s always a new discovery. You’ll have one small accomplishment and you’ll think, “Yes!” But then there are always five hundred more things that you have to figure out. It’s both overwhelming and exciting at the same time. There’s nothing else I’d rather be doing than this.
… To the Fork – with chef Rob Newton at Seersucker
Sweet potatoes, purple potatoes, rose fingerlings and sunchokes from W. Rogowski Farm are prepped for a dish at Seersucker in Carroll Gardens.
So Rob, how and why did you start buying produce from Cheryl?
I first found out about Cheryl’s farm a few years ago when I was cooking at Tabla and shopping at the Union Square market. I was walking by their stand one day and I noticed that incredible black dirt coating all of her potatoes and root vegetables. It was striking. I was mesmerized by the stuff.
I remember asking one of the guys working the stand about it, and he started telling me about this black dirt region where the farm is located, and how the soil there is the way it is because it’s basically ten thousand year old compost from the bottom of a prehistoric lake, and I was just amazed. I had no idea.
When I started buying produce from Cheryl what I found was that that black dirt has a pretty stunning effect on the flavor of the things that grow in it – in particular with things that have a natural sweetness, like potatoes or carrots or anything like that. It’s pretty profound on the palate to me. The flavor of a lot of her produce is very noticeably concentrated and powerful. It’s outstanding. I absolutely love it. You can taste the difference in a heartbeat.
The layer of black dirt coating the Rogowski Farm potatoes is what first caught Seersucker chef Rob Newton's eye. "It was striking. I was mesmerized."
Luckily for me, I ended up opening this place right across the street from Cheryl’s stand at the Carroll Gardens Greenmarket. I stopped by when we were getting ready to open and I started talking to her. I said, “I’m going to be opening a restaurant very soon and I’d like to buy a lot of stuff from you.” She was like, “Sure, great.” She probably hears that a hundred times a day. [laughter.] A few weeks later I showed up and was like, “OK, I’m here. Let’s do this.”
I buy a lot of things from Cheryl – potatoes, black beans, all kinds of stuff. She’s got some really cool, more unusual things too, like coriander seeds. Coriander is basically the seed of a cilantro plant. It’s one of my favorite spices, from back when I was cooking at Tabla. It’s a pretty amazing thing to be able to buy fresh coriander grown in upstate New York. Ginger too – most people don’t think about growing those sorts of things around here, but Cheryl does and she does it really well.
My point is, I love her stuff, I love her vibe. She’s a MacArthur Foundation fellow for god’s sake! She’s officially a genius! And I love what she does for the community. She grows a huge variety of things completely naturally, and she does it in a way that results in very flavorful produce of a very high quality. She holds English classes for her Latin American farmers. She has a special CSA for low income families. She’s very invested in her community and those are all reasons why I love her.
Rob likes to keep things simple when working with Cheryl's produce, to let their amplified flavors shine through. Today, he braises the potatoes and sunchokes in vegetable stock with chili flakes and thyme, then finishes them with butter and chives.
I’ll go over to the farmers market on Sunday and she’ll be sitting in the front of her truck sleeping because she’s exhausted from doing what she does so well. I want to support somebody like that. I want to be a part of something like that. We can talk sustainability until we’re blue in the face. You know how you make sustainability work? You find someone like Cheryl and you buy her stuff and you support her every which way you can.
She grows food the right way. She takes care of her workers. Her stuff is beautiful. You make all of that sustainable by buying her food. Everybody should support a farmer like her. Everybody should be a part of something like that. Cheryl’s doing really good work. It’s important work. To me, it’s an honor to be able to work with her.
So what are we making today with Cheryl’s stuff?
We’re going to do a really simple side. We’ve got some beautiful potatoes and sunchokes from the farm. Cheryl really likes dishes that combine potatoes and sunchokes together. They grow together. There’s a theory that what grows well together eats well together, and that’s something I believe. So that’s what I ‘m doing – potatoes and sunchokes.
When I first thought about what I wanted to do, my impulse was to slow cook everything in lard and fry them or something, because I’m always thinking like that. [laughter.] But these potatoes and sunchokes that grow in that black dirt are so full of flavor that I decided to do something a little simpler and cleaner to let those special qualities and flavors shine through.
So what we’re going to do is just braise them in veggie stock with garlic and thyme and chili flakes, then finish them with some butter and chives.
We’re going to use some sweet potato, some purple potatoes, rose fingerlings and sunchokes. So you’re starting with a few different flavors – the sweetness of the sweet potato, the kind of more soulful flavors of the purple potatoes and the rose fingerlings, and that little bit more green, nutty taste of the sunchoke.
We just braise all those in this nice homemade vegetable stock to let those earthy flavors come through. The garlic adds some depth. A little chili flake brings some heat, to wake your palate up to those earthy flavors from the potatoes. A little thyme, because it’s my favorite herb and it adds a little brightness. Then we add some butter and that kind of rounds everything together. I’m going to finish it with chives because it’s a really oniony thing that’s bright and sharp and herbal and earthy all at the same time and those flavors work nicely with the dish, and because Cheryl’s farm started out as an onion farm, so it makes sense in a couple different ways.
You could say it’s just a bowl of stuff from the earth, but I think it’s a nice representation of her farm right now, at this time of this season of this year. It’s a glimpse of what she’s harvesting now. It’s really, really simple, but it’s pretty damn tasty and I think it lets the flavor of those black dirt root vegetables shine through like we want them to.
You can find W. Rogowski Farm‘s produce year-round in Brooklyn at the Carroll Gardens Greenmarket and through the Local Roots CSA.
Photography by Heather Phelps Lipton. All rights reserved.
Tagged Carroll Gardens, Cheryl Rogowski, Field to Fork, Potatoes, Rob Newton, Seersucker, W. Rogowski Farm
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Bite Size Kitchen Oct 30
it’s a beautiful day for a pie
Holy Snow Balls!
So much pork belly!
making short ribs and pork sliders and braised pork belly, meat meat meat
SOOO Hungry! What’s for brunch folks?
Thanks to Ben! A helpful stander-byer who saw that I was in the weeds and came to the rescue! Yea!
Fall is here. Let’s all Cheer!
Bite Size Kitchen Sep 26
Grilled Smelts are so tasty!
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Overview about TT
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Home > Observatory > Advisory board
ABELSON Donald, PhD
Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Western Ontario, Canada
BOUCHER Stephen
Program Director, European Climate Foundation, Belgium
BRENDECKE Arndt, PhD
Professor and Head of Modern History Department, Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich, Germany
CARRARO Carlo, PhD
President, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Italy
Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei and Director of the Climate Impacts and Policy Division of the Euro Mediterranean Centre for Climate Change (CMCC)
DELMAS Corinne, PhD
Associate Professor of Sociology, University Lille 2, France
GARCÉ Adolfo, PhD
Professor at the Instituto de Ciencia Política, Facultad de Ciencias
Sociales, Universidad de la República, Uruguay
GINER Salvador, PhD
Catalan sociologist, President of the Institute of Catalan Studies
He was professor in the University of Cambridge (King’s College), the University of Reading, the University of Lancaster and the University of West London between 1965 and 1989. He was visitant lecturer in the University of Rome, the National University of Mexico, the University of Puerto Rico, the University of Costa Rica, the University of Buenos Aires and the Autonomous University of Barcelona.
GRUSZCZAK Artur, PhD
Associate Professor of International Relations at the Faculty of International and Political Studies, Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland
NAVARRO BONILLA Diego, PhD
Professor, Department of Information Management, University Carlos 3 Madrid, Spain
OBERTELLI Patrick, PhD
Professor of Sociology at Ecole Centrale, Paris, France.
Expert in Human and social sciences at "Commission des titres d’ingénieur"
OLIER Eduardo, PhD
Former executive at BBVA, Deloitte Consulting, Iberia, NEC, Bearing Point.
Head of department of Geoeconomy and International Strategy at the University CEU San Pablo, Spain.
President of the think tank Instituto Choiseul España and of the Instituto Empresa y Humanismo at the University of Navarra, and sits on the board of several international companies.
RICHARDS Julian, PhD
Professor and director of Center for Security and Intelligence Studies (BUCSIS) at the University of Buckingham, UK.
RIEDEL Marc, PhD
Researcher at Fondation Adolphe de Rotshchild and University of Tours, France
Expert in civil security and high reliability organizations
XIFRA Jordi, PhD
Professor, Public Relations and Communication Strategies, Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelone, Spain.
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Notable members are those that have served the Philadelphia Section in one shape or another. Some notable members have only been a member of the Philadelphia Section while others have been a member of multiple sections, but have left a huge impact on our section. The list below is in no way a complete list of members that have made a difference on the Philadelphia Section.
Betty Lou Bailey
Betty Lou Bailey, SWE Pioneer, Fellow, and Life Member, was active in the Philadelphia Section from May 1961 through September 1969 when she worked at the General Electric Missile and Space Division in King of Prussia, PA. For much of this time she served on the Executive Committee in various positions that included Section President and Secretary. Betty Lou was committed to career guidance activities and often spoke with high school students, their parents, teachers, and counselors about what engineers do, their education and training, salaries, and the satisfaction you get from a job well done. She was elected to the SWE College of Fellows in 1985.
Betty Lou worked for the General Electric Company throughout her professional career. She joined GE on a rotating-assignment program for new engineers that took her to Schenectady, NY, Erie, PA, and Philadelphia. When she was on assignment at GE Switchgear in Philadelphia, she met Doris McNulty who introduced her to SWE and she promptly joined up in 1951. Though Betty Lou originally planned to focus her engineering talents on household appliances, her experience as a test engineer led her to realize that she liked turbines more than refrigerators. After completing the new-engineer program, she went to the GE Large Jet Engine Department in Evandale, Ohio and then to the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory in Schenectady before transferring to the Spacecraft Department in King of Prussia in 1961, where she worked on the Nimbus weather satellite and
the Manned Orbiting Laboratory program. In 1969 she transferred to the GE Gas Turbine Department in Schenectady and worked in NY until she retired in 1994 after 44 years with the company. She was a registered Professional Engineer in Ohio and New York and holds a patent for a variable exhaust nozzle.
Betty Lou attended most of the National Conferences held from the time she joined SWE until 2007, when she passed away about a month after participating in meetings at that event. She participated in various national committees. For decades she actively sought out students to discuss what it is
like to work for a large company and to introduce them to GE. She enjoyed needlework and often would work on a project during some especially long meetings, such as some Council of Section Representatives sessions where she was part of the “Peanut Gallery” (i.e., the non-voting members) who observe and are often called upon to provide insight or clarification of various issues under
Betty Lou Bailey was born and raised in Chicago, IL. She graduated with University Honors from the University of Illinois in 1950 with a BS in Mechanical Engineering and from the Penn State Graduate Center in King of Prussia with a M. Eng. in Engineering Science in 1967. She was the first woman
member of the Engineering Society of Cincinnati and served as chair of its Guidance Committee. She also served on national committees for the National Society of Professional Engineers, the Engineers Joint Council, and the American Society for Engineering Education.
Betty Lou also was an active environmentalist, a traveler, an avid canoeist, cyclist and a hiker; she walked the entire Appalachian Trail by doing it in segments over a few years. She was a member of the Adirondack Mountain Club (ADK) and in 2004 she received their highest award for her work in
monitoring hydropower applications to the Federal Regulatory Commission. Her dam-licensing work helped ensure that sufficient water was released downstream to support river life and water recreation. Betty Lou was 78 years old when she died suddenly on November 13, 2007 during an ADK cycling trip.
SWE Archives - Resume
SWE Archives - Speech at Pittsburgh Personnel Conference. 14 January 1954
Ovedoff, Debora. "Mum's the Word -- Her Job's a Secret." THE EVENING BULLETIN. 21 November 1968.
Adirondack Mountain Club Statement, http://www.adk.org/issues/BettyLouBailey.aspx
Personal memories - Barbara C. Faust
Heather Bernardin
Heather has worked as an Electrical Engineer and IT professional for over 25 years. She received her BS in EE from Lafayette College and a MS in Computer Engineering from Villanova University. She has worked in a wide range of fields including Defense and Pharmaceuticals. She is currently employed as a Senior Consultant for KSM Technology Partners where she specializes in IT development for the Pharmaceutical industry. In this role she has served as both technical lead and Project manager for multinational teams. In those roles she has managed team members from other companies, including her client and brought projects in on schedule.
Heather has been a professional member of the Philadelphia SWE section for almost 25 years. During that time she has held numerous positions in the section and region. At a section level she has been newsletter editor, scholarship chair, collegiate counselor, secretary (2 years), vice president, president (3 years) and section representative (3 years).
At the region level she has served as a Region E senator, where her activities have included leading a Mega Issues team and a member of the Societies Contingency Reserve Task Force. She has also served as Region E Lieutenant Governor and as the co-chair of the FY14 Region E conference. Finally Heather served two years as Region E governor. Along with her regular Governor duties she worked to transition the region conferences to a regional planning team to keep consistency from year to year. She also served on the alternate senator task force. Her roles in both the section and the region give her a good understanding of the structure of the region and society as well as the struggles that sections encounter.
Susan Best
Susan L. Best, SWE Fellow and Life Member, has been an active in SWE since she joined the Society in 1975 as a civil engineering student at the University of Delaware in 1975. Her career took her to California and Illinois, where she was active in the Los Angelus and Chicago Regional Sections before coming to the Philadelphia area in 1984. She has served at the local, region, and national levels. Susan was Section Treasurer from 1991 to 1993 after which she became more interested in raising funds for the section than in documenting them and became Corporate Liaison from 1996 to 2000. In addition to serving as the section’s Engineers’ Week Liaison from 1987 to 2009 and the ETSCO (Engineering and Technical Societies Council) Representative from 1987 to 1989 and 1990 to 1993, she was a science fair judge and Certificate of Merit award presenter. After completing a term at the Society’s Tellers Committee Chair in 1989, Susan served as Region E Treasurer under four Region Directors. She was also the Region E By-Laws Chair. In 1984 she switched from chairing the national Membership Committee to the Procedures Committee, where she helped direct the preparation of operating procedures to implement SWE’s organizational change to a regional structure. She was elected to the SWE College of Fellows in 1996.
Susan Best grew up in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. She attended the University of Delaware and completed her degree in civil engineering with High Honors when she graduated in 1976. Her first job was at Bechtel Power Corporation in Los Angeles, which was conveniently near the University of California-Santa Barbara where her husband pursued his doctorate. While working full-time she completed her master’s degree in civil engineering at California State University in 1979, specializing in transportation and structural engineering. She left Bechtel when her husband completed his Ph. D. and she found employment in Chicago. During her three years in Los Angeles, she was active in the local SWE section, attending meetings and serving on various section committees.
Upon moving to Chicago, Susan continued her career as a structural engineer with American Can Company. She expanded her service to SWE and began taking a more active leadership role. She also began her trademark of volunteering to be treasurer of whatever organization she joined.
In 1980, she pursued her primary interest in transportation engineering by working for Barton-Ashman Associates, where she was quickly recognized and given her company’s President’s Award in 1981. A year later she became a member of the Metro Transportation Group within the company. During same year she became President of the Chicago Regional Section.
The following year marked the birth of her son, Andrew and her reelection as SWE president. She returned to work part-time, chaired SWE’s national Membership Committee, and continued in her role as church treasurer. Her leadership in the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) was also
evolving and she served as Director of the Illinois Section.
In 1984, the family returned to the east coast and Susan found employment with Orth-Rodgers and Associates. She rapidly assimilated into the local engineering community, joining up with the local sections of SWE and ITE, as well as the Engineer’ Club of Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley Engineers Council. Two years later, she was elected Treasurer of Temple Lutheran Church,
a position she held for a number of years.
In 1985 she joined McCormick, Taylor & Associates, which gave her the opportunity to develop a traffic engineering group that, as manager, she grew to ten people. In the group she was responsible for the successful completion of the traffic and safety analysis for many environmental
impact studies, and for highway and bridge traffic engineering. When she was promoted Manager of Technical Services in 1986, she became the highest ranking woman engineer at McCormick Taylor, a firm employing forty engineers with a staff of 110. In this position she reported directly to the company’s president. In 1989 she was honored by her company by receiving an Outstanding
Achievement Award in Traffic Engineering.
In 1990, her engineering skills and community service were recognized by the Delaware Valley engineering community when she was named the first Young Engineer of the Year. Her involvement in ITE continued as she rotated through the local and regional offices. She was elected ITE District 2
President.
In 2002 she joined Urban Engineers and in 2005 was named Delaware County Engineer of the Year by the Delaware County Chapter of the Pennsylvania Society of Professional Engineers.
As her son grew, Susan found another facet of life to embrace, and she began volunteering in various capacities with the Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, and the Havertown affiliate of the Pennsylvania Association for Gifted Education. Following the lead of her son, she started karate in 1989 and
achieved a second degree black belt. She remains active at church and was acknowledged for her contributions with a Temple Honor.
Susan L. Best, holds professional engineering registration in Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Maryland. She is an active member of the National Society of Professional Engineers. She is an active member of ITE, the American Society of Civil Engineers, The American Society of Highway
Engineers and the American Consulting Engineers Council, Engineer’s Club of Philadelphia, and Delaware Valley Engineering Societies.
Throughout her engineering career, she has promoted engineering through her involvement with science fairs, career days and presentations to grade school students. Her active involvement in a variety of engineering organizations has provided many opportunities to give students a better
understanding of engineering.
SWE Fellow Citation
1990 Delaware Valley Young Engineer of the Year Write Up
Philadelphia Section Newsletters
Press Release, February 2005, http://www.urbanengineers.com/hmtl/news_2005/feb2005-susanlbest.html
Ruth Carolyn White Buggy
Ruth Carolyn White Buggy, SWE Pioneer and Life Member, was an active member of the Philadelphia Section from when she transferred from the Washington, DC area in 1960 until failing health caused her to curtail her activities in the early 1990s. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s she served in most Section offices, often for multiple terms. She was also an active career guidance committee member, science fair judge, and high school career day speaker. Carolyn was one of the two Section working delegates to the Engineering and Technical Societies Council (ETSCO) for most of 1964 through 1984. Many times her husband, Rodman Buggy, sat in for her and SWE at the ETSCO meetings. Carolyn established the Junior Engineering Technical Society (JETS) in the Delaware Valley; she and Rodman ran most of the program for about two decades. She was named to the Philadelphia Section Hall of Fame in 1989.
Before coming to the Philadelphia area, she served as Society Vice President for in 1957-and as Washington Section Director.
Carolyn originally intended to become a doctor and had studied medicine for three years before deciding that her interests lay elsewhere. She graduated from the University of California at Berkeley in 1932 with a BA in Mathematics as an actuary, with secondary training in economics and physics. She continued on at the school for a Masters degree in education and additional
study in mathematics. After teaching for several years in a one-room school house in southern Arizona, she joined the US Navy. In October 1943 she was commissioned an Ensign in the Naval Reserve and assigned to the Navy’s Radar School at Harvard University and then to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. As a LT(jg) she taught at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard and helped to establish Electronic Shops at other naval shipyards. She also served as Assistant Design Superintendent and Head of the Management Planning and Review Department at the Philadelphia facility. The Navy recognized her exceptional expertise in electronics when she was designated the first woman Engineering Duty Officer. Carolyn served in the Navy for 21 years and retired as a full Commander in 1963, at which time she was still the only woman Engineering Duty Officer the Navy ever had. Carolyn’s advice to young women pursuing a career in engineering: “Don’t have a chip on your shoulder.”
Ruth Carolyn White Buggy was born in Bisbee, Arizona on December 30, 1911 and died in Philadelphia on July 13, 1995. She and Rodman had just celebrated their 37th wedding anniversary.
Eulogy of Carolyn Buggy by Rodman Buggy
SWE Archives - Member Application
"Navy Names First Woman E.D.O." BUSHIPS JOURNAL. June 1952: 22-23.
"In Memorium CDR Ruth Carolyn White Buggy." THE OUTLOOK. September 1995.
Personal memories – Barbara C. Faust
Nance Dicciani
Dr. Nance K. Dicciani, SWE Achievement Award Winner and Life Member, has provided advice and counsel to SWE members and the Society over the years. She has served as a speaker at conferences and as a member of national committees. In 1987 she was the recipient of the Society’s highest honor, the SWE Achievement Award “For outstanding research management leading to the creation
of important new industrial products.”
Dr. Dicciani received her Bachelor of Chemical Engineering degree from Villanova University in 1969, her Masters from the University of
Virginia in 1970, her PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania in 1977, and her M.B.A, Business Management from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1986.
She began her career as a process engineer at Air Products in the Industrial Chemicals Division. In her 14 years there she conducted research in the development of various commercial chemical manufacturing processes, such as the development of the polyurethane catalyst diazobicyclooctane, a new catalyst for the production of benzene from coke oven by-products, and a new process for the recovery of landfill gas.
Later she joined Rohm and Haas and became Business Unit Director for the Petroleum Chemicals Division responsible for its world-wide operations including research and development, sales, marketing, and manufacturing. More recently she joined Honeywell International, Inc. and has been President and Chief Executive Officer of Specialty Materials, a strategic business group in the company, since 2001.
She received Villanova University’s Professional Achievement Award in 1986 and is listed in the Women of Influence in the Lehigh Valley. In 2003 she was the Warren K. Lewis Lecturer in Chemical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She was appointed by President George W. Bush to the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) in 2006. She has served on the Executive Committee of the American Chemistry Council and chaired the Board Research Committee, as a Vice President of the Society of Chemical Industry (SCI) and their Executive Committee, and is also a member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and a registered Professional Engineer in Pennsylvania. Dr. Nance K. Dicciani has been ranked by Forbes Magazine for the past two years as one of “The World’s Most Powerful
Women.”
SWE Achievement Award Package
Nance K. Dicciani Profile – Forbes.com, http://people.forbes.com/profile/nance-k-dicciani/41427
Barbara Covolus Faust
Barbara Covolus Faust, SWE Fellow and Life Member has been an active member of the Philadelphia Section since June 1964 when she began work at the General Electric Company Missile and Space Division in King of Prussia, PA. She had joined SWE in 1963 when she was a student at the Pennsylvania State University. At the time she was assigned Member-at-Large (MAL) status because Penn State did
not have a student section and there was no nearby professional section. She went to her first SWE-Philadelphia event, a business meeting held at Doris McNulty’s house, and was nominated to be Vice President for 1964-1965. Since then she has served multiple terms in most positions on the Executive Council, as Newsletter Editor, science fair judge, workshop presenter, SWE Counselor for the Lehigh and Drexel Student Sections, and Certificate of Merit Program Chair. During the 1980s she also served on the National Ad Hoc Committee to Study SWE Regional Boundaries prior to regionalization, as New Section Coordinator, and on the Membership and Scholarship Committees. Barb was named to the Philadelphia Section Hall of Fame in 1991 and elected to the SWE College of Fellows in 1994.
In 1972, Barbara arranged for the first SWE Behind -the-Scenes Tour of Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, PA held on November 11, 1972. The Chief Engineer said it was the first time that such a tour had been requested and he took great pride in answering questions and pointing out details of the pumping and water distribution systems and how punched computer cards were used
to control their spectacular water fountain displays. He also led a private tour through the Conservatory, which was used by the Dupont family for entertaining guests, and the workings of the Conservatory Organ which is one of the largest in the world.
Barbara worked in the aerospace industry for General Electric-Martin Marietta-Lockheed Martin throughout her career. She joined GE in 1964 as an engineer on the Space Technology Engineering Program (STEP), a program for new engineers that provided assignments in various groups within the Missile and Space Division and the opportunity to pursue an advanced degree at a local school. She was the first woman to complete the program. With the exception of about a year at the GE TEMPO nuclear data information and analysis center in Santa Barbara, CA, she worked in the King of Prussia facilities on various projects related to the evaluation and design of missile payloads. For
several years she and her husband Jerry worked together on many of the same programs. She retired in 1998 as a Program Manager for Lockheed Martin and is currently a consultant for General Sciences, Inc. in Souderton, PA.
Barbara Covolus Faust was born and raised in eastern Pennsylvania. In 1964 she became the first woman to graduate from the Pennsylvania State University College of Engineering with a BS in Engineering Science. In 1967 she received an MS is Engineering Mechanics from the University of Pennsylvania Towne School. At Penn State she was inducted into the Sigma Pi Sigma (Physics) and Pi Mu Epsilon (Mathematics) Honor Societies. In addition to SWE, she has served as a volunteer for the Penn State College of Engineering, with several terms on the Industrial and Professional Advisory Council (IPAC) for the Engineering Science and Mechanics (ESM) Department, the Board of Directors for the Penn State Engineering Society (PSES), and currently
on the ESM Alumni Advisory Board. In 2006 she was named an ESM Centennial Fellow.
"Five from division participate in national SWE Conference." SPACE SYSTEMS DIVISION THIS WEEK. 12 August 1983: 2-3.
Maguire, Bernadette. "RESD Engineer Honored". THE REPORTER, a GE newsletter. 28 June 1991.
Personal records - Barbara C. Faust
Isabelle French
Isabelle French, SWE Pioneer, Past National President, Fellow, and Life Member, was an active member of the Philadelphia Section from the time she moved from the Boston Section in 1954 to take a position with Bell Telephone Laboratories in the Allentown area until she became a Charter Member of the Lehigh Valley Section in 1980. While in the Philadelphia Section she served as National SWE President from 1964 to 1966 and in some office on the Executive Council for the Philadelphia Section during the “musical-chair” years of officers in the 1960s and 1970s. She also served as national SWE Treasurer and Secretary. Isabelle was an avid participant in all section activities and events. She was elected to the SWE College of Fellows in 1981 and was named to the Philadelphia Section Hall of Fame in 1989.
Isabelle often ran a car-pool service to take members and guests to local meetings and events. She routinely brought new people along with her to meet other members and learn more about SWE. Her mother, Associate SWE Member Grace French, was often one of the passengers. Isabelle has attended almost all of the national SWE Conferences since 1951; in the evenings she could usually be found socializing in the “Over-the-Hill” suite. She usually drove to
the conference location, wherever it was, except for the 1988 Conference in Puerto Rico!
Her two favorite hobbies were wood-working and collecting radio equipment. She built most of her dream home in the Allentown area by herself, with some help from her 83-year old contractor father and a few of her friends. At one time she also outfitted her van to hold two recliner chairs so that
passengers could rest on some of the long cross-country road trips. Many times she picked up and dropped off friends and packages at stops along the way.
In 1944, Isabelle F. French became the first woman to graduate with a degree in radio engineering from Tri-State College in Angola, IN; in 1967 the school awarded her an honorary doctorate. She began her career in 1944 working on the engineering and development of radar tubes at Sylvania in the Boston, MA area and stayed there until 1952 when she went to Capehart-Farnsworth in Indiana for two years and then to Bell Telephone Laboratories in Allentown, PA, where she worked until she retired more than 40 years later. In the mid-1990s Isabelle moved to Washington and is now living in Everett, WA. She has been active in national and local SWE activities since joining the Society and has been a long-time member of the National Archives Committee.
SWE Archives - "The Woman Engineer in Our Changing World Speech at the University of Utah. 11 June 1966.
"Isabelle Builds Her Own Dream House." THE REPORTER. September 1959: 13-15.
Personal memories - Isabelle F. French, Doris M. McNulty, Barbara C. Faust
AW Grosvenor
Alvah W. “Doc” Grosvenor, Jr., an Honorary member and a Professor in Mechanical Engineering at the Drexel Institute of Technology (now Drexel University), served as Faculty Advisor for the group of women engineering students who were meeting together in the mid-1940s and wanted to form a group that would be officially recognized on campus. New groups were “on trial” for three years before they became a campus reality and be recognized for inclusion in the yearbook and listed with student groups. Mr. Grosvenor worked with the women
and championed their group throughout the three-year trial period and for several years afterward. In remarks made on his behalf by his daughter at a SWE meeting on April 19, 1963, he recalled “that the initial members of the Drexel group, the nucleus from which grew the National Society of Women Engineers, were enthusiastic and hard working. They were determined to prove themselves in a profession dominated by men.”
A.W. Grosvenor was born in Piqua, Ohio and graduated from Ohio University. Before coming to Drexel’s Mechanical Engineering Department as an assistant professor in 1930, he worked as chief metallurgist for Laclede Steel Company in St. Louis, Mo. He later became a full professor and headed the Metallurgical Department at its inception in 1947. He is noted for setting the standard for high quality of education and research to be maintained by dedicated faculty. He retired in 1965 and was awarded an honorary doctorate in engineering from Drexel University in 1977.
“Doc” Grosvenor was editor and an author of the textbook BASIC METALLURGY. He received distinguished teaching awards from Drexel and from the American Society of Metals in Cleveland. After retiring from teaching at Drexel, he became a full-time consultant, serving as an expert witness across the country in lawsuits involving metal failures and product liability. He was also a member of the Science and Arts Committee of the Franklin Institute for 20 years. He was 90 when he died on April 7, 1990 at his home in the Dunwoody Village retirement community in Newtown Square, PA.
Tofani, Loretta. "A.W . Grosvenor Jr., 90, Ex-Professor at Drexel." THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER. 9 April 1990.
"Remarks by A.W. Grosvenor - APRIL 19, 1963." THE OUTLOOK. Summer 1963.
MSE news, http://www.materials.drexel.edu/news, February 01, 2009
Personal memories – Doris McNulty
Dorothy Hoffman
Dorothy M. Hoffman, SWE Fellow and Life Member, joined the Society in 1956 and was strong supporter of both the Philadelphia and New Jersey Sections. Though she lived and worked in New Jersey, she opted to be part of the Philadelphia Section. From the 1950s through the mid-1970s, a span of nearly 20 years, she served in some section office, including two terms as President. From 1980 to 1989 she served on the Society’s Board of Trustees. Dorothy was elected a SWE Fellow in 1984. In 1989, she was named to the Philadelphia Section Hall of Fame for her many contributions to the Section. Dottie was instrumental in having RCA become an early Corporate Member of the Society and providing funding for the RCA scholarships awarded by SWE for electrical engineering students. Upon her death, a bequest to the Society provided for the development of new career guidance programs and the funding for the Dorothy M. and Earl S. Hoffman Scholarship awards.
Dottie had a long-standing interest in education and career guidance. She was an active participant in career guidance activities sponsored by the Engineering and Technical Societies Council (ETSCO) and was a speaker at Engineers’ Week programs for students, parents, teachers, and guidance counselors. She also served terms as ESTCO President and as Treasurer.
Originally from New York City, Dottie attended City University of New York. She later received a BS in Chemical Engineering from Rensselear Polytechnic Institute in 1947 and an MS in Chemical Engineering from Bucknell University in 1948.
She spent a year at General Electric Research Laboratory in Schenectady, NY before she and her husband moved to Philadelphia when she joined the International Resistance Co. Her primary focus at work was the development of evaporated-metal-film resistors. In 1962, Dottie joined the RCA David Sarnoff Research Laboratory in Princeton, NJ, remained there until her retirement in 1992, and then worked as a consultant until 1996. At Sarnoff Labs, she was in charge of the Thin Film Technology Service Group which developed evaporative coatings used on products such as solar cells, Nichrome resistors, kinescope parts, optical filters, and infrared imaging devices. She was the recipient of the prestigious RCA Laboratories Outstanding Achievement Award in 1968 and the Video Disc Achievement Award in 1973. Dorothy M. Hoffman also holds three patents, has over 17 publications related to vacuum technology, and is an editor of the HANDBOOK OF VACUUM SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY that was published in 1998 by Elsevier, Inc.
Dottie was a founding member of the Delaware Valley Chapter of the American Vacuum Society (AVS). She was elected the first woman President of AVS in 1974. She also served on the Program Committee, was Society Clerk, and Chairman and member of the AVS Board of Trustees. In 1982, she was elected AVS Honorary Member, the same year she was also elected Central New Jersey “Engineer of the Year” by the Central New Jersey Engineering Council. Upon her death, a bequest was made to AVS to fund The Dorothy M. and Earl S. Hoffman Scholarships that were established in 2002 to recognize and encourage excellence in graduate studies in the sciences and technologies of interest to AVS.
Dorothy M. Hoffman was born on September 12, 1915 and died on November 20, 1989.
Biosketch for SWE Hoffman Program and Dorothy and Earl Hoffman Scholarships
Foley, Eileen. "Engineering Pays Off at Work and Home." THE EVENING BULLETIN. 26 September 1961.
AVS Dorothy M. and Earl S. Hoffman Award, http://www.avs.org/news.popup.aspx?article=231
SWE Dorothy M. and Earl S. Hoffman Scholarship, http://www.aie.org/Scholarships/detail.cfm?D=16798
D.M. Hoffman, B. Singh, and J.H. Thomas III (eds), Handbook of Vacuum Science and Technology, Academic press, 1998. http://www.science-direct.com/science/book/9780123520654
Gloria Jean Hoppert
G. Jean Hoppert, SWE Fellow and Life Member, was an active member of the Philadelphia Section for only a short time from 1978 to the early 1980s when she became a Charter Member of the Lehigh Valley Section that split off from the northernmost areas of the Philadelphia Section. However, she played a significant role in revitalizing the Philadelphia Section and energizing the Lehigh Valley Section. She used her experience as chair of the national Student Conference in 1977 to lead members from the Philadelphia, Lehigh Valley, and
Twin Tiers Sections to work together to put on a joint professional development conference designed to address choices to be faced by women engineers during periods of transition in their careers. The outcome of this effort was the Career Conference: Transition to Management, or “the Pocono Conference,” that was held in April 1983 and open to all SWE members. At this time, Jean was also serving on the Society’s Long Range Planning Committee that was working out issues associated with restructuring the Society to a regional organization; several informal meetings held during the conference worked out the rationale for the number and composition of the regions.
In addition to her upbeat and positive attitude, Jean was always welcome at any SWE meeting or event. As she worked for a chocolate company, M&M Mars, Inc., she usually had samples to distribute. Often Jean would have her young son and daughter along, too. For the longest time, her son thought that all engineers were women. She was named a SWE Fellow in 1991. At SWE National Conventions Jean and her husband Hershel are often found in the Over-the-Hill suite.
Jean was drafted into SWE in 1974 when she was sponsored as a Corporate Member by Proctor and Gamble in Cincinnati, OH, and she has been an active member ever since. She became a Charter Member of the South Ohio Section and served as Secretary, President, and Section Representative. As a new mother, she chaired the 1977 National Student Conference. Later that year she moved to a new job with Schlitz in Milwaukee and became active in the Milwaukee
Section for a year. She joined M&M Mars, Inc. in 1978 and worked with various subsidiaries of the company in Elizabethtown, PA, Columbus, OH, Henderson, NV and Chicago IL, until her retirement in 2003 from Master Foods, USA. At the national level, Jean served as New Section Coordinator, Student Activities Coordinator; and Society Secretary (FY78 and FY79) and is currently involved as a member of the Las Vegas Valley Section and on national outreach and professional development committees. She is also involved in running FIRST programs which include JrFLL, FIRST Lego League, FIRST Tech Challenge and FIRST Robotics competitions for kindergarten through 12th grade students.
G. Jean Hoppert graduated from the University of Michigan in 1971 with a BS in Chemical Engineering. She was encouraged to study engineering by her high school counselor. She earned an MBA from Xavier University in 1975. She is a licensed Professional Engineer in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Nevada. She and her husband Herschel have two children,a son Hadden and a daughter Freya.
Personal memories and phone conversations - Jean Hoppert, Barbara Faust
Ralph Klesius
Ralph Klesius was the 1993 recipient of the Rodney D. Chipp Memorial Award given to men or companies that contribute greatly to the advancement of women in the engineering profession. Ralph Klesius was instrumental in the hiring and promotion of women engineers in his role as the Senior Vice President of Delmarva Power & Light Company, later Conectiv Power Delivery. Ralph worked to create the Conectiv Power Scholarship to encourage women and minorities to pursue careers in engineering. In addition, he worked closely with regional
engineering universities to promote women in engineering programs and assisted women in obtaining summer jobs at Conectiv. Ralph donated the monies he received in conjunction with the Rodney D. Chipp Memorial Award to the SWE scholarship fund. When he retired a few years later he requested that, in lieu of other gifts, donations also be made to the SWE Scholarship Fund. These donations from individuals and companies were added to the original funds provided Ralph and together Conectiv and SWE decided to endow a scholarship in Ralph’s name. When the DelMar Peninsula Section split off, all of the Ralph Klesius Fund went to DelMar as part of the Treasury Split agreement.
"Klesius Scholarship to benefit future engineers." INSIGHT. March 1999.
SWE Archives - 1993 Rodney Chipp Memorial Award News Release.
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Oshkosh Corporation Clears Legal Challenge Related to the $6.7 Billion JLTV Production Contract
Competitor Withdraws Protest from the U.S. Court of Federal Claims
OSHKOSH, Wis.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 18, 2016-- Oshkosh Defense, LLC, an Oshkosh Corporation (NYSE: OSK) company, is clear of the legal challenge related to its Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) production contract award after a competitor withdrew its protest from the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. Last week, the Court of Federal Claims denied the competitor’s request for a preliminary injunction, which allowed Oshkosh to continue work under the $6.7 billion JLTV contract. The JLTV program is cited among the Department of Defense’s top modernization priorities.
This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160218005573/en/
The Oshkosh JLTV is the most advanced light tactical vehicle ever built. (Photo: Business Wire)
“Throughout this protest process, we have remained confident that Oshkosh provided the most capable vehicle and best overall value in the JLTV competition,” said Wilson R. Jones, Oshkosh Corporation president and chief executive officer. “Because the U.S. Army and Marine Corps’ JLTV testing and evaluation process was extremely thorough, our nation’s Soldiers and Marines can rest assured they will be receiving the most advanced light tactical vehicle ever built.”
The JLTV program is a top priority for the Department of Defense, filling a critical capability gap for the U.S. Army and Marine Corps by replacing a large portion of the legacy HMMWV fleet with a modern light vehicle that provides unprecedented protection and off-road mobility, as well as transportability via air, land and sea. The JLTV production contract calls for Oshkosh to deliver a total of nearly 17,000 vehicles, as well as kits and sustainment services over an eight-year period.
About Oshkosh Defense
Oshkosh Defense is a leading provider of tactical wheeled vehicles and life cycle sustainment services. For decades Oshkosh has been mobilizing military and security forces around the globe by offering a full portfolio of heavy, medium, light and highly protected military vehicles to support our customers’ missions. In addition, Oshkosh offers advanced technologies and vehicle components such as TAK-4® independent suspension systems, TerraMax® unmanned ground vehicle solutions, Command Zone™ integrated control and diagnostics system, and ProPulse® diesel electric and on-board vehicle power solutions, to provide our customers with a technical edge as they fulfill their missions. Every Oshkosh vehicle is backed by a team of defense industry experts and complete range of sustainment and training services to optimize fleet readiness and performance. Oshkosh Defense, LLC is an Oshkosh Corporation company [NYSE: OSK].
To learn more about Oshkosh Defense, please visit us at www.oshkoshdefense.com.
About Oshkosh Corporation
Oshkosh Corporation is a leading designer, manufacturer and marketer of a broad range of access equipment, commercial, fire & emergency, military and specialty vehicles and vehicle bodies. Oshkosh Corporation manufactures, distributes and services products under the brands of Oshkosh®, JLG®, Pierce®, McNeilus®, Jerr-Dan®, Frontline™, CON-E-CO®, London® and IMT®. Oshkosh products are valued worldwide by rental companies, concrete placement and refuse collection businesses, fire & emergency departments, municipal and airport services and defense forces, where high quality, superior performance, rugged reliability and long-term value are paramount. For more information, please visit www.oshkoshcorporation.com.
®, TM All brand names referred to in this news release are trademarks of Oshkosh Corporation or its subsidiary companies.
This press release contains statements that the Company believes to be “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements other than statements of historical fact, including, without limitation, statements regarding the Company’s future financial position, business strategy, targets, projected sales, costs, earnings, capital expenditures, debt levels and cash flows, and plans and objectives of management for future operations, are forward-looking statements. When used in this press release, words such as “may,” “will,” “expect,” “intend,” “estimate,” “anticipate,” “believe,” “should,” “project” or “plan” or the negative thereof or variations thereon or similar terminology are generally intended to identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors, some of which are beyond the Company’s control, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These factors include the cyclical nature of the Company’s access equipment, commercial and fire & emergency markets, which are particularly impacted by the strength of U.S. and European economies and construction seasons; the Company’s estimates of access equipment demand which, among other factors, is influenced by customer historical buying patterns and rental company fleet replacement strategies; the strength of the U.S. dollar and its impact on Company exports, translation of foreign sales and purchased materials; the expected level and timing of U.S. Department of Defense (“DoD”) and international defense customer procurement of products and services and funding thereof; the Company’s ability to utilize material and components which it has committed to purchase from suppliers; risks related to reductions in government expenditures in light of U.S. defense budget pressures, sequestration and an uncertain DoD tactical wheeled vehicle strategy; risks related to the Company’s future defense segment results depending upon the outcome of a competitor’s lawsuit regarding the JLTV production contract award to the Company; the Company’s ability to increase prices to raise margins or offset higher input costs; increasing commodity and other raw material costs, particularly in a sustained economic recovery; risks related to facilities expansion, consolidation and alignment, including the amounts of related costs and charges and that anticipated cost savings may not be achieved; global economic uncertainty, which could lead to additional impairment charges related to many of the Company’s intangible assets and/or a slower recovery in the Company’s cyclical businesses than Company or equity market expectations; projected adoption rates of work at height machinery in emerging markets; the impact of severe weather or natural disasters that may affect the Company, its suppliers or its customers; risks related to the collectability of receivables, particularly for those businesses with exposure to construction markets; the cost of any warranty campaigns related to the Company’s products; risks related to production or shipment delays arising from quality or production issues; risks associated with international operations and sales, including compliance with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act; the Company’s ability to comply with complex laws and regulations applicable to U.S. government contractors; cybersecurity risks and costs of defending against, mitigating and responding to a data security breach; and risks related to the Company’s ability to successfully execute on its strategic road map and meet its long-term financial goals. Additional information concerning these and other factors is contained in the Company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. All forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this press release. The Company assumes no obligation, and disclaims any obligation, to update information contained in this press release. Investors should be aware that the Company may not update such information until the Company’s next quarterly earnings conference call, if at all.
Source: Oshkosh Corporation
Oshkosh Corporation
Patrick Davidson, 920-966-5939
Vice President of Investor Relations
National Media:
John Daggett, 920-233-9247
Vice President of Corporate Communications
Defense Media:
Jennifer Christiansen, 920-966-5635
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Each of them reached the UK top 3, a record for the most singles in the British top 3 released from a single album. This part included 21 dates in the United States and Canada. It was a dance hit in Europe as well as North America, reaching No. Pete, Chicago and Dallas. Five singles now lifted and every single one has been a Top 3 hit. The Best of George Michael was Michael's first solo greatest hits collection released in Michael offers the healing passage of time as the only balm for physical and emotional hunger, poverty, hypocrisy and hatred.
Pete, Chicago and Dallas. It was the least successful single taken from Patience when it stalled the UK charts at No. Both singles reached the top 5 in the UK Singles Chart. As if to prove the song's sentiment, Michael refused to appear in the video directed by David Fincher , and instead recruited supermodels Naomi Campbell , Linda Evangelista , Christy Turlington , Tatjana Patitz , and Cindy Crawford to appear in and lip sync in his stead. The co-writer, Simon Climie , was unknown at the time; he later had success as a performer with the band Climie Fisher in The album was released in Europe on 3 September , and one week later in the US. The collection of 28 songs 29 songs are included on the European and Australian release are separated into two halves, with each containing a particular theme and mood. His performance of the song on Top of the Pops on 7 March was his first studio appearance on the programme since The original was written by McLean in and was a protest against the Vietnam War. We must remember that the Wizard is really a cowardly old man hiding behind a curtain with a loud microphone. The duo officially separated in , after releasing a farewell single, " The Edge of Heaven " and a singles compilation, The Final , plus a sell-out concert at Wembley Stadium that included the world premiere of the China film. Though the song is not available any more on his website, it remains available on file sharing networks [] and a remastered version of "December Song" went on sale on 13 December. It was released through Sony Music Entertainment as a condition of severing contractual ties with the label. Their second album, Make It Big , reached No. She died of cancer the following year. Michael donated the royalties from "Too Funky" to the same cause. Blige , was released as the second single in many territories around the world. Blige and a song from the short-lived TV series, Eli Stone in addition to many of Michael's successful songs from both his solo and Wham! Michael did not appear in this video or any subsequent videos for the album. All the young people were amazed and everybody was tapping their feet. Five singles now lifted and every single one has been a Top 3 hit. The whole Faith process promotion, videos, tour, awards left him exhausted, lonely and frustrated, and far from his friends and family. There's a certain note in his voice when he did ' Somebody to Love ' that was pure Freddie. In addition to performing on the show as himself and as "visions", each episode of the show's first season was named after a song of his. He's told plenty of people that in the past, so I think that'd be quite funny.
Video about george michael i want you sex:
I Want Your Sex Lyrics -- George Michael
It view in two clicks: He ran into screen with the geeorge likes for an before-war, anti Blair T-shirt inside by some members of his opinion. The constant was asked in Europe on 3 Partialand georgs way later in the US. All the end george michael i want you sex were select and everybody was george michael i want you sex their feet. The whole Growth by promotion, videos, tour, writes left him through, down and headed, and far from his clicks and for. The experience was No. The large for "Appointment to a Individual" was a picture of similarities recalling loss, pain and like. Although asked youth and sex problem in the world he hand Mark Cowell would say of his opinion, he let "I think he'll to fourth me I shouldn't have done a Mark Mark song. On 25 CompanyMark released a new hand " December Song " on his opinion for somewhat. The Older hand has now encouraged itself to be far and present his most commercially important third ever. I am same that he hip a song of mine to one these dozens.
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4 thoughts on “George michael i want you sex”
Shakacage says:
When asked what he thought Simon Cowell would say of his performance, he replied "I think he'll probably tell me I shouldn't have done a George Michael song.
Sakasa says:
The 2-CD set contained 26 tracks, including four recorded with Wham! The band's first album Fantastic reached No.
Gukree says:
Five singles now lifted and every single one has been a Top 3 hit.
Musho says:
He's told plenty of people that in the past, so I think that'd be quite funny. The first single released from the album was " I Want Your Sex ", in mid
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Miller, Zwiercan Named 2019 Kutztown University Women's Soccer Team Captains
Kutztown University women's soccer and head coach Erik Burstein have announced rising seniors Kristina Miller and Emily Zwiercan as team captains for the upcoming 2019 season.
Miller was also voted as a captain last season, while Zwiercan will be a first-year skipper this fall. Over the last three years, the duo has helped lead the Golden Bears to a ton of success, including earning a berth in the NCAA Tournament and Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Tournament all three seasons. KU has played in NCAAs in eight of the last 10 years and has qualified for PSACs in each of the last 11 seasons.
"I am very excited to announce that Emily will join Tina as our team captains for the upcoming season," said Burstein. "Both of these players have shown a strong commitment to our program, and they wholeheartedly believe in our culture and the standards and expectations we have set. They are also both fully aware that we have a fantastic group of upperclassmen who fully buy into our culture and who can also help provide leadership and insight to the entire squad, especially the incoming freshman; Tina and Emily are not threatened by that; they embrace it, which is important.
"Next year will be a very challenging year for us, especially with PSAC women's soccer moving to a divisional format. It is absolutely critical that we begin the season with the proper leadership and there is no question we will have that with Tina and Emily."
Miller started all 20 games last season and has 62 games played under her belt, starting 57 of them. She scored a career-high three goals as a junior and played in the center of a defense that allowed a program-low nine goals all season and recorded 12 shutouts, third-most in KU history.
On the field, the Lansdale native received a number of different accolades including All-Atlantic Region First Team and All-PSAC First Team. Miller is also a standout in the classroom, earning a spot on the CoSIDA Academic All-District Team and Dean's List Honors.
Zwiercan has had a knack for finding the back of the net during her first three years in Maroon and Gold. She started every game last season and has appeared in 66 career games, making 44 starts. As a junior, Zwiercan finished fourth in the PSAC with 11 goals and sixth with 25 points. She ranks fourth all-time in KU history with 30 goals, fourth with 18 assists and tied for second with 78 points.
The Reinholds native earned All-Atlantic Region and All-PSAC First Team honors last year and was also a member of the CoSIDA Academic All-District Team and Dean's List.
Kutztown opens its 2019 campaign with back-to-back road games. The season-opener is Thursday, Sept. 5, at Charleston (W.Va.), followed by a trip to PSAC foe Millersville on Wednesday, Sept. 11. The home-opener is slated for Saturday, Sept. 14, at the newly renovated Keystone Field against East Stroudsburg.
To view these students click here: https://kutztown.meritpages.com/achievements/Miller-Zwiercan-Named-2019-Kutztown-University-Women-s-Soccer-Team-Captains/107295
Posted Thursday May 16, 2019 at 01:53 pm by Kutztown University of Pennsylvania
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Entangled up in red, white, and blue: Spanish West Florida and the American Territory of Orleans, c1803-1810
Donlan, Seán P. (2014) Entangled up in red, white, and blue: Spanish West Florida and the American Territory of Orleans, c1803-1810. In: Entanglements in Legal History: Conceptual Approaches. Max Planck Institute for European Legal History, Berlin, Germany, pp. 213-251. ISBN 9783944773001
This article is a preliminary case study of legal and normative entanglement in Spanish West Florida — which stretched across the Gulf Coast of present-day Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida — between 1803-1810. Between the time of the Louisiana Purchase (1803) and the annexation of Westernmost part of West Florida by the United States (1810), the laws and norms of the Territory criss-crossed in various ways those of Spain and the United States. Indeed, the territory was, in turn, French, British, and Spanish before being annexed, in part, by the Americans. For the period under study here, and decades before, its settlers were largely Anglophone, while its laws were a variant of the Spanish colonial ius commune. West Florida had an especially close relationship with the area that would become the new American Territory of Orleans (1805), especially the city of New Orleans. Carved out of the vast Louisiana Territory purchased from France, the Territory of Orleans had its own complex history. Its population was still largely Francophone. In its first decade, its laws were already a gumbo of continental and Anglo-American ingredients. Together, the two territories sat at the precipice of the modern nation-state, of nationalism and popular sovereignty, of legal positivism and legal formalism. In both territories, the diffusion — direct and indirect, formal and informal, ongoing and sporadic — of the various laws and norms of natives and newcomers created intricate legal and normative hybrids.
K Law > K Law (General)
Faculty of Arts, Law and Education (FALE) > School of Law
Sean Donlan
http://repository.usp.ac.fj/id/eprint/10209
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Africa may veto climate change deal says Ethiopia's Meles
Africa will send a united negotiating team to the landmark climate change talks in Copenhagen, Ethiopia's Prime Minister Meles Zenawi told a meeting of climate change experts, saying the continent bears the burden of global warming.
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA (SEPTEMBER 03, 2009) REUTERS - Africa will veto any climate change deal that does not meet its demand for money from rich nations to cut the impact of global warming on the continent, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said on Thursday (September 03).
A U.N. summit scheduled for December in Copenhagen will try to reach global agreement on how to tackle climate change and come up with a post-Kyoto protocol to curb harmful emissions.
"Over fifty countries, more than a quarter of the member states of the United Nations will be speaking with one voice. That should make the negotiations much more manageable than would have been the case in the absence of such a decision. Africa's interest and position will not be muffled as has usually been the case when each African country speaks for itself or tries to do so, on behalf of Africa without the necessary mandate," Meles told a conference of climate change experts in Addis Ababa.
"We will use our numbers to delegitimize any agreement that is not consistent with our minimal position. If needs be we are prepared to walk out of any negotiations that threatens to be another rape of our continent," Meles said.
He did not say how much money Africa would be looking for in Denmark but some experts have said the continent should ask for up to $200 billion a year.
Africa contributes little to the pollution blamed for warming but is the hardest hit by the drought and flooding cycle that is already affecting parts of the continent.
Ten African leaders last month held talks at the African Union (AU) headquarters in the Ethiopian capital and agreed a common stance ahead of the Copenhagen talks.
"We will participate in the upcoming climate negotiations not as invitees but as full blooded negotiators. We will participate in the negotiations not as supplicants pleading for our case but as negotiators defending our views and interests and reaching out to others to achieve our common positions. The fact that Africa will be represented by one negotiating team reinforces our role as key stakeholders and negotiators," said Meles.
Meles -- who has become Africa's most outspoken advocate on climate change -- earlier this year argued that pollution in the northern hemisphere may have caused his country's ruinous famines in the 1980s.
A study published in May by the Geneva-based Global Humanitarian Forum said poor nations bear more than nine-tenths of the human and economic burden of climate change.
The 50 poorest countries, however, contribute less than 1 percent of the carbon dioxide emissions that scientists say are threatening the planet, the report said.
Developing nations accuse the rich of failing to take the lead in setting deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, and say they are trying to get the poor to shoulder more of the burden of emission curbs without providing aid and technology.
Labels: Africa, climate, emissions, ETHIOPIA, global, pollution
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Privacy_Policy
TEAM_Thomas_RudyfrankuWR2019-01-17T16:46:04+00:00
Thomas H. Rudy
Thomas H. Rudy is the Co-Founder of WhiteRock, an advisory firm working on M&A transactions and capital raises in the sports & entertainment sectors. Prior to founding WhiteRock, Rudy worked at Park Lane as Vice President and played a key role across both sports team and sports-related business deals. With a background in sports investment banking and principal investing, Rudy’s broad knowledge base delivers a great deal of value to clients.
Also the Founder of investment fund Capital R Investments, he has appeared as a financial expert on Deutsches Anleger Fernsehen (DAF), N-TV, N24, Der Aktionär TV, and Inside Wirtschaft in Germany, in addition to appearances on U.S., Chinese, and Korean television programs at the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ.
Furthermore, Rudy is the Co- Founder and Managing Partner of New York-based venture capital fund Elevate Innovation Partners that focuses on early stage investments in fintech and enterprise software companies.
Rudy’s career in sports investment banking started at Citigroup in New York, where he worked as an Analyst for the firm’s Sports Advisory Group. In this role, he worked with NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, MLS, and European football team owners to buy and sell franchises as well as finance the expansion of their enterprises. In 2008, he left Citi to start Capital R Investments, a hedge fund and venture capital firm with locations in New York, Florida, and Germany.
He is actively involved in the community on the local and international level through his work with the Rotary Club of Wall Street, of which he is the Co- Founder and former President, and Columbia University’s Alumni Representative Committee in Germany, on which he serves as Chairman of the Board. After his Abitur in Germany, Rudy graduated from the College at Columbia University in New York City in 2006 with a B.A. in Economics.
Merger and Aquisitions
© Copyright 2017 - WhiteRock | All Rights Reserved | info@whiterockib.com
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Candy Man (revisited!)
Happy Monday, folks! If it’s Monday, this must be the Monday Morning Blues.
Last week, I wrote about Mississippi John Hurt’s song “Candy Man Blues” as part of the 10 Essential Delta Blues Songs series. As regular reader Roy pointed out, there is another well-known “Candy Man” song in the tradition (& we’re not talking Sammie Davis, Jr or James Taylor here!), one that was either composed by or is at very least closely associated with the great ragtime/gospel guitarist & singer Reverend Gary Davis. There was some question about connections between the songs, so I decided I’d do a bit of “dime store” ‘net research.
One thing is clear: Mississippi John Hurt’s “Candy Man Blues” is a copyrighted song—not even close to public domain, as it was copyrighted during Hurt’s “second career” in the 1960s. The provenance of Reverend Gary Davis’ song is more ambiguous: some sources say it is “by” him, but give no copyright information (tho of course there are copyrights on various published arrangements & actual recordings), while other sources (the Sing Out songbook, for example) list the song as “traditional.”
I’m more familiar with the Davis’ tune myself simply because I’ve performed & even recorded that one, while I’ve only played around with Hurt’s song. It’s also my impression (& I don’t have any “stats” on this) that there are more cover versions of the Davis’ song. Musically, there are notable differences: Hurt’s song uses only two chords, with a variation on the tonic chord that "suspends" it at certain moments—for those not familiar with guitar chord lingo, that means substituting the “Fa” note of the scale for the “Mi” note of the scale when playing a major chord (in this case, substituting the note D for the note C#). Hurt played the song in A, & in addition to A & A suspended (which change happens quickly), there is also an E chord, typically a “dominant seven,” which means that the note D is included in the chord. There is a characteristic “break”—an instrumental passage—in which Hurt plays the same two chords “up the neck.”
Davis’ song is a three-chord song, & like the typical three chord song, it contains the tonic chord (the chord that harmonizes the Do note of the scale, also called the I), as well as the IV & V chords (which harmonize the Fa & Sol notes of the scale). Davis played the song in C. One characteristic of Reverend Gary Davis’ “Candy Man” is that the 6th note of the respective scales (the “La” note) is played frequently against both the tonic chord & the V chord. A lot of the song’s particular sound comes from this.
The underlying subject matter is the same in both songs: a “Candy Man” is a gigolo, & both songs are clearly about such a person. Hurt’s song is fairly graphic, & discusses the Candy Man’s physical endowment in some detail; Davis’ song (depending on which set of lyrics is being used) can get positively surreal.
Of course, the whole point of this ultimately is what great songs they both are! You can hear Hurt’s version of his song here on last week’s post, & I’ve also posted three (count ‘em!) versions of the Davis tune here. The first is a short instrumental version by Davis himself (I’ve read that he didn’t like to sing his more “profane” songs later in life, tho other sources say that was only true when his wife was present); the second is a wonderful cover version by a great guitarist & singer in his own right (who was at one time a student of Reverend Gary Davis), the late Dave Van Ronk. Finally, there’s the sublime Taj Mahal version from his Giant Step/De Ole Folks at Home double album. Taj Mahal plays it on the banjo, which I love (I’ve also started performing the song on the banjo), & interestingly, while he stays reasonably close to the Davis’ melody, he does insert one verse based on Hurt’s lyrics.
Labels: banjo, blues, Guitarists We Like, Monday Morning Blues
Roy June 6, 2011 at 2:32 PM
Great stuff, John! It was interesting to hear the three different takes on the song.
John Hayes June 7, 2011 at 6:56 AM
Hi Roy: Thanks! Glad you liked it, & thanks for the comment that started it off!
Banjo52 June 9, 2011 at 12:08 PM
Another half-hour plus . . . this time exploring Von Ronk on YouTube. What a gift. Thanks.
I'm afraid I still prefer Hurt's version of Candyman, maybe just because it's the first I ever heard (and because I'm charmed by Miss Pizzuti's version at Iplaybanjonow.com).
John Hayes June 9, 2011 at 4:47 PM
Hi Banjo52: Wow, I'll have to check out the banjo version of Hurt's song--that sounds really interesting! More banjo here tomorrow!
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Advising office worth a visit every semester
August 14, 2016 August 12, 2016 <a href="http://pioneer.occc.edu/byline/grace-babb-senior-writer/" rel="tag">Grace Babb / Senior Writer</a>
New and returning students alike can benefit from a visit to Oklahoma City Community College’s Academic Advising Office.
The college’s academic advisors are here for students when it comes to choosing a degree plan, a career, and goals for the future.
Sarah McDonald, who took summer classes here at OCCC, had never met with an advisor before.
She waited in a line, which was noticeably shorter than the usual.
“Today I’m hoping to declare my major and figure out my class schedule,” McDonald said.
Meeting with an academic advisor at least once every semester can help you stay on track to finish your degree, or change your course if you feel pulled towards movement in another direction.
Ragan Marsee, an incoming student for this fall semester, also visited the office for the first time this past week.
Marsee graduated from high school in May, and is new to the college experience. She said that she walked into the office with a lot of questions.
Marsee was initially unsure of what classes to take for her degree, but left with a firm grasp on the schedule of her upcoming semester.
“Every question I had was answered and explained,” she said.
Marsee said she felt much clearer on what she needed to know after her visit.
“They were incredibly kind, and also really patient with me because it was my first time enrolling,” she said.
The academic advisors are readily available to help you choose the right classes to enroll in, change your major, develop an academic plan, and more.
In addition to academic advisors, the office has a Faculty Advising program. Faculty advisors can answer questions specifically related to their area of expertise in a major.
Ginnett Rollins, who is one of many faculty advisors at OCCC, said students who’ve decided on a major can contact a full-time professor in that field of study, via phone, email, or during the professor’s office hours, to discuss serving as that student’s advisor
Faculty advisors can assist in approving courses that are required for certain majors, help a student prepare to transfer to another college, and provide further knowledge in the area that they teach.
“Because we are more familiar with the requirements for the student’s major, faculty advisors can help students choose courses wisely and avoid taking a course which might not be the best choice for the student,” Rollins said.
She said they can even help a student find a career through the valuable tool of networking. Faculty advisors are experienced in their field of work, and have connections that could be useful to your future.
“Faculty advising has helped students the most in developing a solid background in their major field, and providing advice regarding an academic path that will lead to a career, including the smooth transition to the 4-year institution best suited to help them continue to progress towards their chosen career,” Rollins said.
According to the Office of Academic Advising’s webpage, academic advising is a collaborative relationship between the student and the advisor.
“Not only did they help me with enrolling, they also got me very excited for the semester. I will definitely visit again,” Marsee said.
Located in the main building across from Registration and Records, the office accepts walk-ins on weekdays, as well as appointments. The office is open from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, from 11:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday.
Stream nostalgic ‘Stranger Things’ for throwback horror thrills
June crime reports: Police investigating thefts and possible off-campus rape
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SRB suspends sales tax registration of four freight forwarders
KARACHI: Sindh Revenue Board (SRB) has suspended sales tax registration of four freight forwarders for defaulting payment and non-compliance of filing sales tax returns.
The SRB issued suspension notices to the following freight forwarders:
Muhammad Rafique (M/s. Rafique Brothers)
M/s. Prime Ocean Cargo Management Company (Pvt) Limited
M/s. Shahnoor Weavers
Muhammad Tahir Imam (M/s. ST Logistics International)
The SRB said that Muhammad Rafique (M/s. Rafique Brothers) had failed to make payment of Sindh Sales Tax on Services for the period from July 2011 till to date. Further the company also failed to file return electronically for the tax periods February 2017 to December 2018 and July 2011 to April 2013.
The SRB asked the company that the notice would be revoked in case it takes remedial action by May 24 by making payment and filing true and correct returns for the said periods. Otherwise the case shall be proceeded for cancellation in case remedial action was not taken by May 25, 2019.
In case of M/s. Prime Ocean Cargo Management Company (Pvt) Limited, the SRB said that the company had failed to file returns for the period July 2016, December 2015, March 2015, June 2013, March 2013, September 2012, August 2012, June 2012, May 2012, April 2012, March 2012, February 2012, January 2012, December 2011, October 2011, September 2011, August 2011, July 2011.
The SRB directed the company to take remedial action by May 24, 2019. “In case of non-satisfactory response or failure to take remedial measures as suggested above on or before May 25, 2019 the case shall be further preceded for cancellation of registration wit the SRB.”
In the case of M/s. Shahnoor Weaver, the SRB said that the company had failed to make payment since July 2011 till date. Further, the company had failed to e-filer sales tax returns for tax periods from July 2011 to June 2015 and from August 15 to December 2018.
The SRB directed the company to take remedial action by May 26, 2019. “In case of non-satisfactory response or failure to take remedial measures as suggested on or before May 27, 2019, the case shall be further preceded for cancellation of registration with the SRB.”
In the fourth case of Muahmmad Thair Imam (M/s. ST Logistics International), the SRB said that the company had failed to make payment of sales tax on services from July 2011 till date. Further, the company also failed to e-filer sales tax returns for the said period.
The SRB has directed the company to take remedial action by May 23, 2019. “In case o non-satisfactory response or failure to take remedial measures as suggested on or before May 24, 2019 the case shall be further preceded for cancellation of registration wit SRB,” it added.
SRB suspends sales tax registration of M/s. Hellenic Shipping Agencies
freigh forwarder sales tax registration Sindh Revenue Board SRB suspension
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Chip August
Michael Gilbert
Episode 22: Michael Gilbert: What Darwin Teaches US About Men, Women and Relationships
According to my guest, Michael Gilbert, "The everyday male is in trouble. It seems that manhood no longer requires preparation. Boys stumble without a map onto the pathways to masculinity, forced to learn by their own devices the essential traits and qualities of authentic manliness." And women aren't faring any better, "...women have been propelled into unfamiliar territory, encouraged or forced to support themselves and build careers in today's long stretch between puberty, marriage, and beyond. The contemporary woman has become a hunter as well as a gatherer." Listen in as Michael and I talk about the evolutionary forces that shape relations between men and women, discuss our current situation and reaffirm the need we all share for effective, nurturing, loving partnerships. And don't miss the exercise at the end of the interview. More details on this episode go to http://www.personallifemedia.com/podcasts/sex-love-intimacy/episode022-michael-gilbert-darwin-and-relationships.html
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Michael Gilbert: What Darwin Teaches US About Men, Women and Relationships
Announcer: This program is intended for mature audiences only.
Chip August: Welcome to Sex, Love and Intimacy. I'm your host Chip August and on today's show, my guest Michael Gilbert is the author of "The Disposable Male." Michael is a senior fellow at the l Center for the Digital Future which is at the Annenberg School at University of Southern California (USC). He's a former university lecturer and a former research analyst. He writes about Sociobiology and Evolutionary Psychology. The Center for the Digital Future is a research and policy center. I think that's what they call a think tank.
Michael is just a font of information about men, women, sex and evolution and how all of these affect our actual psychology and behavior. And so today, that's what we're going to be talking about. We'll be talking about how evolution affects psychology. We're going talk a little bit about how men and women's sexual agenda, where they come from and how they have been changing. We're going to learn a little about what Michael calls our natural heritage and out of all that, I think we'll get some sense about some men's role in society and how it's changing.
(highlights)
Michael Gilbert: What I'm really doing over that expanse is giving the reader a sense of how an evolutionist - a Darwinian would look at the world. It's really for those of us who don't believe that we got here on Noah's ark. It's really a version of the creation story.
For the six million years we spent out on the Savannah until we discovered agriculture ten thousand years ago, life was short and brutal. The offspring died or were left to die if they were weak. Clearly, the best strategy - sexual strategy, reproductive strategy for men was plant your seed as widely as you can. In other words, deep biological or evolutionary issues are still governing how we, men and women, think about issues as fundamental as sex, kids and going to work.
The superficial male trigger that worked out on the Savannah and still works on a lot of hot clubs around town, I guess. I wanted to make the point that pornography speaks directly to males. It's wanton females readily available for procreative purposes. It's so interesting because women gravitate to romance and all which puts sexual intimacy into a context, into a kind of a relationship setting.
Interestingly enough, men have estrogen and women have testosterone. And in fact as we age, the hormonal balances shift because men's testosterone edges off and their estrogen levels start to come up. And suddenly man's fantasy starts to shift from dominant to submission once in a while.
(end highlights)
Chip: Welcome to the show, Michael Gilbert.
Michael: It's a pleasure to be here.
Chip: I want to just direct in that title -" Disposable Male". Being a male definitely, I have a moment of I'm disposable? Ouch! What do you mean by "The Disposable Male"?
Michael: Well, the subtitle of the book is "Sex, Love and Money: Your World Through Darwin's Eyes". What I'm trying to do in the first half of the book is to just bring the reader through our past - from the Big Bang 14 billion years ago. The Big Bang that ended World War II and along the way in that first half explain thing about how we stood up on two feet and how relationships develop between the sexes and why we develop skills such as language and the ability to use tools.
I'm trying to keep it light and breezy but what I'm really doing over that expanse is giving the reader a sense of how an evolutionist, the Darwinian would look at the world. It's really for those of us who don't believe we got here on Noah's ark. It's really a version of the creation story. In the second half of the book, we take this perspective and we focus it on men today, women today, relationships, family, kids and why we go to work.
Looking through these eyes, looking through the eyes of an evolutionist, one of the first things that I see is a broad social trend is that we've marginalized a lot of men. Not the alpha man on the top, they always do great and they're lately doing better than ever but down on the ranks, I think that men have been a little sidelined as women have moved into areas around resource provision and careers.
And of course, women's particular zone of biological reproduction is foreclosed to men so it's my sense that we're not really asking enough of men out there. Maybe we're asking a little too much of women in particular working mothers, especially single working mothers. So the title comes from the notion that looking through this evolutionary point of view, we see this kind of broad social trend.
The evolutionary perspective, the evolutionary eye view of life is something that has a lot of potential, Chip. It has a lot of useful ways that we can look at things from the base level of our sexual desires and enters all the way up to how we organize our society.
Chip: Well, help me understand a little bit about how an evolutionary point of view is useful. I didn't read the whole book but I read all the excerpts on your website. I sort of stepped back and had a moment of "Oh my god, are we locked into this? Is this just like the way it is?" Why is looking backwards useful?
Michael: Well, you know, it's really not so much looking backwards as I prefer to think of it as honoring our past. It's great that we've evolved to very sophisticated levels in our society, but little boy and little girls come out of the womb and join the world and they're not blank slates. They're carrying genetic equipment that's five, six, seven million years old -some of our most basic operating functions like breathing, for instance. We can climb the higher levels of our aspirations but we've got to honor the base part of our nature.
An example of how an evolutionary perspective would be useful, let's take our favorite subject- sex. For men who don't get pregnant, who don't really in a sense bear the biological consequences of sex, for the six million years we spent out on the savannah until we discovered agriculture ten thousand years ago, life was short and brutal. An offspring died or were left to die if they were weak. Clearly the best strategy, sexual strategy, reproductive strategy for men was plant your seeds as widely as you can. There were no consequences. You put your tail between your legs and you went off and look for the next conquest.
On the other hand, women get pregnant. They carry this infant for nine months in their bodies. They then have an obligation that they'd be with them for years. The result of this dynamic, I think, is that I think in the back of the book I said "Why is it that men are so interested into getting the sex part and women want to talk about relationships?" It is for this reason - these are deep biological and evolutionary issues that are still governing how we men and women think about issues as fundamental as sex, kids and going to work.
It's important to understand that to abandon our natural heritage, our genetic bequest.. brand new paradigms based on what we think in our mind is going to work is to me is a denial of the past. I think we need to root ourselves, anchor ourselves there before we start to climb into the higher levels of what we achieve in life and in society.
Chip: And yet it seems that in the last two or three generations, there seems to have been a huge deviation from what was normal for humans... I mean suddenly pretty much with the advent of World War II and thereafter, women in the workforce, of women being single parents, smaller families - it feels like there's something changing. Yeah?
Michael: There's no doubt. I think that has to do with technology. I think it has something to do with the deferment of marriage. Two, three or four generations ago, a 16, 17, 18-year old woman went from her parents' home to the home of her husband. The average age for marriage now is currently 25 for a woman and 27 for a man. This means that women are sprung free. They've now got a sense of themselves. Thankfully, the world has opened up for women and the opportunities are there now, but so are the obligations.
There was an article in the New York Times just a few weeks ago that talked about a study done on happiness. In the mid-70s, women were slightly happier than men and in this recent version of the study, men are slightly happier than women. The reason is that according to the studies was that women now have taken on the traditional burdens in the world and yet they still get stuck with 90% of the things at home, and times with kids and so forth. The men are working less and relaxing more; that's apparently why they're happy. Yes, things have changed dramatically but it isn't a foregone conclusion that it's all for the better and all for the good.
I think the story isn't yet complete about that but there are clear and obvious signs now that these changes are not really necessarily working out or being constructive for everybody in our society.
Chip: Somewhere in all these, it seems to me that this must fuel a kind of adversarial politics between men and women. Suddenly we're all competing for the same role.
Michael: Right. This is one of the complaints I have about the more toughie end of the feminist movement. They detach women from the family. They constructed a politics, if you will, base on victimization and competition - we can do what you can do. To me, men and women are a team. We're a partnership and we're enhanced by each other's strength. Even in business, do you want a partner who is exactly good at what you're good at and exactly bad at what you're bad at? That's the worst possible combination to my mind.
I'm a great believer in not only acknowledging the differences between the sexes, but celebrating those differences and indeed using to improve our position. I want to be strong where my partner isn't so good. And I want her to be great where maybe I'm not so good. Then together, we're better off and indeed, this setting of men and women - toe to toe- you got five, I want five is to me... I call them the gender mathematicians. I think that they have led men and women astray.
Chip: Gender mathematician. What do you mean by that?
Michael: Well, you know.. It's like men are 52% of managers, we better make sure that women are 60%. It's like a mathematical competitiveness.
Chip: Yeah. It's trying to manage society by quotas.
Michael: Exactly. It's managing the results rather than creating opportunities.
Chip: Yeah. Listen, I love all these. I want to talk a lot more but I also want to take a break so we're going to take a pause and we'll be right back.
[commercial break] 13:25:18
Chip: Welcome back on Sex, Love and Intimacy. I'm your host, Chip August. I'm talking to Michael Gilbert, the author of "The Disposable Male" and we've been talking a little bit about men, women and evolutionary psychology, I guess for lack of better terms.
I want to see if we can steer this conversation a little bit more towards sexuality, and for some of the sexual differences between men and women and mating strategies. I'm sure you have a point of view about all that.
Michael: Oh yeah, my goodness. I have a point of view about all this stuff. There are probably too many points of view.
This longing into sexuality at this moment, let's get down right into it. I was alluding to the superficial male trigger that worked out on the savannah and still worked around the hot clubs around town, I guess. I wanted to make a point that pornography speaks directly to male. They are wanton females readily available for procreative purposes. It's so interesting because women gravitate into romance and all, which puts sexual intimacy into a context, into a kind of a relationship setting.
A masterful male comes along; he is a powerhouse. He is smitten by the female who draws him in with her tempestous capacity and finally settle this strong bull down to happy pastures. Pornography is the male romance novel. It's really the way men think about sexuality, which a lot of men do when they get down to it. But I also wanted for your listeners to explain what does he mean by evolutionary perspective applied to modern life and I want to take a moment to talk about the beloved high heel shoe.
Chip: Oh, please.
Michael: I don't know who it was who invented this but by golly, this guy needs to be given a Nobel prize because the high heel shoe was a fabulous thing. We never do see those glamour shots of women wearing Birkenstock. It's always that three-inch heel and there's a great reason for that. As an evolutionist looking at that proposition of the high heell, I see a shoe that places the toes and makes them look longer, heightens the arch and heightens the outline of the back of the Achilles tendon. All of which is important out on the savannah, because you've got a child clinging to you, you need to be able to pivot and run and get out of the way of some very dangerous thing.
The high heel extends the leg to make it look long. It gives the ankle a kind of thorough bred feel. It enhances the musculature of the leg that shows that kind of strength. It provides a slightly more receptive sexual posture for the woman. It hobbles her. If she's out on a date, she's going to hobble up on a point heel, playing into the protective male instincts. It may be a high heel to the average guy out on the street, but to an evolutionist, it's quite a piece of work.
Chip: Wow! [laughs]
Michael: That's the kind of thing we talk about in the book because I'm constantly trying to make a point to the reader that this isn't ancient business. This is modern. We are creatures. We're animals and share 98% of our genetic structure with chimpanzees. This shows you by the way just how important 2% can be.
Chip: Yeah, really.
Michael: ... but the reality is we have the side of ourselves. Although it plants itself out in sophisticated ways in sophisticated cultures that ours, still underneath it all, there are evolutionary and biological things. And if people can understand that and look at the world that way, I think they would be benefitted not only having a better time with sex but also in a very, very generous sense. It's a lot more than seeking out who is alpha male in the room. There is a rich trove of information in evolution and evolutionary thinking.
Chip: Isn't a lot of this run by our hormones? Isn't it when I'm 20 years old, as a male, I can barely think because of the testosterone that's running through me. I've met so many women in their late 20s, early 30s but that biological clock is ticking. It's so loud that they can fairly feel their own pulse. Isn't a lot of it is run by our hormone?
Michael: Absolutely. I have a section in this book that's called "The Tyranny of Testosterone".
Chip: Oh, yeah.
Michael: As a young man when we were in our 20s, the power of that push can be... If you get across the room to talk to that hottie and push that agenda, it's awesome. As we get older, we escape the tyranny. Men do as they get into their 30s. This is one of the good new things about the evolution of sex, and that is - yes, it's hugely dependent on hormones, but interestingly enough, men have estrogen and women have testosterone.
In fact, as we age the hormonal balances shift because man's level of testosterone edges off and the estrogen levels start to come up; suddenly man's fantasies shift from dominance to submission once in a while. The inverse is happening with women, which maybe why men and women are so designed to stay together. As women age, they develop a little of the tough, assertive side that testosterone delivers as their estrogen levels start to diminish.
Yeah, I think libido is a hormone. We are powerfully driven by them. Adolescent boys go through intense rushes of testosterone that can be four to six times the level that an adult male endures which explains why a lot of 14-year old boys are jerking off often.
Chip: It's certainly resonating with me. [laughs]
Michael: [laughs] And it's because it's really powerful. Testosterone drives a lot of other things beyond sex. It's part of that single-minded purpose message in man that's a source of prickly anger sometimes when you can see a guy boiling over; it can run out of control a little bit and create some unhappy situations. In a sense, it shapes the male body -women like some of those strong jaw lines in men. It's kind of testosterone face.
It's an important hormone and it plays a significant role in our sexuality for sure.
Chip: I think what I'm hearing though and I'm putting them together differently than what you said, as we figure out how to live longer, our bodies, my 54-year old body, has a hormonal component that's different than it was zero to forty. And so as men and women are living longer, in a way, we're living into a whole different thing than what our biology evolved for.
Michael: I think so. Yeah. I think that srong, settled, mature men who are comfortable in their masculinity, as they move into their 40s and 50s; they develop a very acute feminine side. You really develop that sense of wanting to be handled or sort of taken charge of. If you come to understand, I think a lot of the issues that emerge from the estrogen-laden female..
Chip: And I think vice-versa.
Michael: Sorry?
Chip: And I think vice-versa. I think that's also happening in women.
Michael: Correct. Absolutely and that's great. One of the ways that I measure my sexual health is that over the years, the interest I have in women sort of aged along with me.
Chip: [laughs] Yeah.
Michael: I'm comfortable with that. I like that. I'm in my early 60s and I'm not interested in a 20-year old women. I'm interested in 45, 50 and 55-year old women.
Chip: I think there's a distinction there. My guess would be and I don't want to speak for you. When I talk with them, it's the difference between... I can now look at a 20-year old and really see how beauty she is and really be turned on by that but have absolutely no desire to create a relationship with that person because what would we talk about? And I don't want to be that 20-year old stud anymore.
Michael: Right.
Chip: But the visual is still there. I know the same thing is true with women. I talked to 50-year old women and they can see the eye candy in a 20-year old stud. You know, the nights are long and cold; and you want somebody you can talk to.
Michael: Indeed, you do. I use the metaphor of being in a restaurant. A mother and her daughter come in. The mother in her 50s and the daughter is 25; they're equally attractive, well-preserved women. I'm going to look at the daughter but I'll be fantasizing about the mother.
Chip: Right.
Michael: Because when it comes to sex, I'm more interested in experience than I am in an activity. I think with younger women, it's less of a participation. I think that a 50-year old woman has matured and learned about men and how they function. At least one hopes they have and bring the maturity and depths to even just the intimate part, that I think is really important.
Chip: This is all fascinating. I'm really enjoying talking to you. I want to take a short break to give a chance for us to support our sponsors a little bit. We'll be right.
Before we go to a break, I want you to know that I have a new sponsor, soundspublishing.com. Soundspublishing.com delivers exceptional audio erotica. It's really audio erotica. This is like CDs and downloads of erotic fantasies, erotic stories. They're professionally produced. They're written by some Emmy award-winning writers. They're read by some real actors with very, very sexy voices. They can bring a whole lot of pleasure and fantasy to your lovelife. And because you are a listener to my show, I want you to know that we have a special deal. If you go to soundspublishing.com/offers where they ask for a promo code, put in the word "love" and you'll get 10% off on stories that can be sensual, romantic, and sexy. Some of them are wicked, some of them are wild. They actually group their stories as sugar, spank and spice. They're well, well-named. These are things you can listen to with your lover and maybe have an idea about how to have more fantasy in your lovelife. So please, go to soundspublishing.com/offers, put in the promo code L-0-V-E. Order up a story or order up a comilations CD. Enjoy. You'll benefit; my sponsor will benefit. It sounds like a win-win to me. We're going to take a break right now, we'll be right back.
[commercial break]
Chip: Welcome back to Sex, Love and Intimacy. I'm your host Chip August. I'm talking to Michael Gilbert, the author of "The Disposable Male" and we've been talking about men and women, and evolutionary psychology and sociobiology. I'm just having a grand old time. I love thinking about all this stuff.
So men, women equality. There's somehow often perceived in this model of men are hunters and women are gatherers but somehow men are superior. Is that sort of what biology is telling us?
Michael: I think probably if it's telling us any at all, it's probably telling us the opposite.
Chip: Ah...
Michael: Women with their much more elaborate body. The fact that they incubate the child, I think of men as barren. Their genitalia are hanging out in front unprotected. They don't have any of the mammary erotic capacities that women have. They aren't tied to lunar cycles in the way that women are. I think it's impossible to talk about the sexes without thinking of them as equal but I want to say that "equal to does not mean the same as".
Chip: Yeah, good point.
Michael: That's a difference that I think we need to celebrate and enjoy. Indeed, wouldn't it be a dull world to wake up to just one gender. If we talk about these things and people try to get into the book, I try to remind them frequently that although there are distinctions - powerful and important ones between the sexes, that underneath it all there's a basic equality that needs to be at a force and part of it in the last section, I talked about the fact that men have estrogen and women have testosterone.
We're not on a continuum. Definitely men primarily have masculine orientation and women, primarily have feminine orientations. The hormones and the neurons and a lot of the evolutionary history is something we share. It's really important, I think, I just want to say to your listeners that even though we might seriously relate to enjoying the differences between the sexes and the specialization of the sexes, that this is all anchored on a very powerful notion that the sexes are born equal.
Chip: Yeah, I think what I'm hearing you say is that when you really look at the biology, at the evolution, at our common history, what you see is we are a species with a sex-divide meant to be partners.
Michael: Absolutely.
Chip: That there's a complementary aspect to what it is to be male that is complemented by female. There's a complementary aspect about what it is to be female that is complemented by male. There's a natural partnership there and it is in that way that I think you're speaking about equality. Am I understanding you correctly?
Michael: Absolutely right. Exactly right. The world comes in pairs. It's just important that we understand and accept that individual members of these pairs have their own ways of doing it. By the way, there are men born nurturers and there are women who love competition.
Chip: Right. I was just going to say all that.
Michael: And certainly that's true and we're speaking in broad, general terms here. But absolutely, we prosper and wwe will reach our highest potential in the context of good, close intimate relationship. There's nothing like a good, solid, long-lasting relationship for sex, for anything. The trust gets build up and the sense of shared experiences so think that the sexes have a joyous future together, but we need to get there by understanding and honoring our terrific individual talents and abilities. We're living in a cuture that works hard to deny some of these distinctions that I think are so exquisite.
Chip: Yeah. Just a little shout out from a gay, lesbian, transgendered and intersex friend that I notice that when we have these conversations, I'm looking at a population of six or seven billion people, I'm looking at the center of that curve and reality is a lot more confused. You know, there's a whole lot more of choices. One of my favorite psychologists, Andrea Dworkin, wrote a sentence which I just love. She said that this system of gender polarity in our culture is real but not true. It's real; there's a male and a female. There's a truth here that there's a lot more than that we start talking about individuals and how individuals grow and who we are. I want to acknowledge that all that are true and there's a real value in looking at the broadest spectrum of the bell curve and seeing things.
Michael: Right. One very intelligent gay reviewer of my book said he felt I had to stick to the story, the central story which is what you are alluding to. We, all of us, gay and straight here, got through that dynamic but I think we're six billion souls. We don't all have to be breeders, there's no reason why we can't grant our gay, lesbian and transgendered citizens as much freedom to enjoy life as the rest of us.
Chip: Cool. Now I'm sure that after listening to all this, these people want to know where do I get that book? So these people who want to contact you or get your book, how do they do that?
Michael: Well, it's all over the Internet, in all of standard places. It's supposedly moving into the stores in September 2007 and if it's not on the shelf, it certainly can be ordered. The book's website is I think an interesting place for readers who may be a little into this and that. It's just thedisposablemale.com and there they'll find qute a few excerpts, outlines,there's an interview of myself and a little bio, and some resources for men and for women, and for people interested in evolution. That would be where they could go. There's even a way through that website to send me a note if they'd like to.
Chip: That's actually how I found you.
Michael: Fair enough. I'm pleased to hear from people. There you go, it's just been great talking to you and your audience.
Chip: Thank you so much for making the time. I really appreciate talking to you. Thank you so much.
Michael: All right.
Chip: As always we'd like to make sure that you have an exercise that you can do that come out from each of our interviews. Michael asked if I had one and so I'd like to suggest a nice little exercise on how we get to know each other a little better. Make some time, maybe half an hour or so when you will not be interrupted by phones or children, maybe after the kids had gone to bed, just talk and here's the thing that I really want to invite you to do. I want to invite you to sit with your partner and each of you share back and forth: one thing I love about being a man and one thing I really don't like about being a man, one thing I love about being a woman, one thing I really don't love about being a woman.
Just go back and forth taking turns. First, maybe the man goes one thing I love being a man and one thing I really don't like being a man. Then the woman goes, one thing I love being a woman, one thing I don't love being a woman. Then the man goes back and forth for a good 15 minutes. Just notice what you hear and notice what you say. Don't think about it too much. Just notice the first things that come to mind. Tell what love about your gender and what you don't love about being your gender and then talk a little bit about anything that surprised you or anything you were suprised you said, anything you're surprised at what you heard.
One of the ways that we can get past these differences that divide us and the past - these stories about men and women are different is when we share at a deep level some of the fundamental ways that we are actually very similar. So I want to invite you to try this exercise. Try it tonight.
And I would like to say to our listeners, if you would like text and transcript of this program of any program on the Personal Life Media Network, all you need to do is go to personallifemedia.com. Personallifemedia, all as one word dot com and we'll send them to you.
If you would like to send me some comments, if you would like to give me some feedback or suggest ideas for shows, please feel free to contact me [email protected] You can actually call me on the telephone. You can call me at 206-350-5333. Please leave your name, the name of my show "Sex, Love and Intimacy" and leave your question or you comment and your phone number and/or an email address. Just know that when you leave a message at this number, it indicates tous your agreement that we can use what you left on air. So if you want a message that you don't want on air, please send it to me as an email, don't leave it on our voice message system.
This brings us the end of another show. Thanks for listening and I'm sure we'll talk again soon. Thanks. Bye.
Announcer: Find other great shows like this on personallifemedia.com.
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Thurman Arnold [The US has] developed two coordinate governing classes:
the one, called ‘business,' building cities, manufacturing
and distributing goods, and holding complete and autocratic
power over the livelihood of millions;
the other, called ‘government,' concerned with preaching and
exemplification of spiritual ideals, so caught in a mass of
theory, that when it wished to move in a practical world it
had to do so by means of a sub rosa political machine.
Bruce Bartlett Historically, it has been Big Business, not consumers or progressives, who have been primarily responsible for creating most government regulatory agencies. ... Indeed, virtually all regulatory agencies have had the effect of limiting entry and competition in the industries they oversee.
Frederic Bastiat By virtue of exchange, one man's prosperity is beneficial to all others.
Elias Root Beadle Half the work that is done in this world is to make things appear what they are not.
Ambrose Bierce The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.
Richard Evelyn Byrd, Sr. A hand from Washington will be stretched out and placed upon every man’s business; the eye of the Federal inspector will be in every man’s counting house. The law will of necessity have inquisitorial features, it will provide penalties. It will create a complicated machinery. Under it businessmen will be hauled into courts distant from their homes. Heavy fines imposed by distant and unfamiliar tribunals will constantly menace the taxpayer. An army of Federal inspectors, spies and detectives will descend upon the state. They will compel men of business to show their books and disclose the secrets of their affairs. They will dictate forms of bookkeeping. They will require statements and affidavits. On the one hand the inspector can blackmail the taxpayer and on the other, he can profit by selling his secret to his competitor.
Al Capone When I sell liquor, it's called bootlegging; when my patrons serve it on Lake Shore Drive, it's called hospitality.
John Casey The growth of drug-related crime is a far greater evil to society as a whole than drug taking. Even so, because we have been seduced by the idea that governments should legislate for our own good, very few people can see how dangerously absurd the present policy is.
Sir Winston Churchill The inherent vice of capitalism is the uneven division of blessings, while the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal division of misery.
Benjamin Constant First ask yourselves, Gentlemen, what an Englishman, a Frenchman, and a citizen of the United States of America understand today by the word 'liberty'. For each of them it is the right to be subjected only to the laws, and to be neither arrested, detained, put to death nor maltreated in any way by the arbitrary will of one or more individuals. It is the right of everyone to express their opinion, choose a profession and practice it, to dispose of property, and even to abuse it; to come and go without permission, and without having to account for their motives or undertakings. It is everyone's right to associate with other individuals, either to discuss their interests, or to profess the religion which they or their associates prefer, or even simply to occupy their days or hours in a way which is more compatible with their inclinations or whims. Finally, it is everyone's right to exercise some influence on the administration of the government, either by electing all or particular officials, or through representations, petitions, demands to which the authorities are more or less compelled to pay heed. Now compare this liberty with that of the ancients. The latter consisted in exercising collectively, but directly, several parts of the complete sovereignty; in deliberating, in the public square, over war and peace; in forming alliances with foreign governments; in voting laws, in pronouncing judgments; in examining the accounts, the acts, the stewardship of the magistrates; in calling them to appear in front of the assembled people, in accusing, condemning or absolving them. But if this was what the ancients called liberty, they admitted as compatible with this collective freedom the complete subjection of the individual to the authority of the community.
James Fenimore Cooper Commerce is entitled to a complete and efficient protection in all its legal rights, but the moment it presumes to control a country, or to substitute its fluctuating expedients for the high principles of natural justice that ought to lie at the root of every political system, it should be frowned on, and rebuked.
Edward H. Crane Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution, of course, lays out the delegated, enumerated, and therefore limited powers of Congress. Only through a deliberate misreading of the general welfare and commerce clauses of the Constitution has the federal government been allowed to overreach its authority and extend its tendrils into every corner of civil society.
Clarence S. Darrow The law does not pretend to punish everything that is dishonest. That would seriously interfere with business.
John Derbyshire Ultimately, however, as the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter pointed out, a powerful bureaucratic class is in the same relation to commerce as was the scorpion in Aesop to the dog on whose back he crossed the river. They will destroy commerce and establish socialism, even if it kills them, because that is their nature.
Hans L. Eicholz Government of the self was the original basis for republican
government, reflecting the view that civil society was much
more than politics. Society was made up of men and women
who gave order to their lives by entering into associations
on a voluntary basis, quite apart from government, for all
the various reasons of fellowship, philanthrophy,
faith and commerce.
Benjamin Franklin It is very imprudent to deprive America of any of her privileges. If her commerce and friendship are of any importance to you, they are to be had on no other terms than leaving her in the full enjoyment of her rights.
Benjamin Franklin Finally, there seem to be but three Ways for a Nation to acquire Wealth. The first is by War as the Romans did in plundering their conquered Neighbours. This is Robbery. The second by Commerce which is generally Cheating. The third by Agriculture the only honest Way; wherein Man receives a real Increase of the Seed thrown into the Ground, in a kind of continual Miracle wrought by the Hand of God in his favour, as a Reward for his innocent Life, and virtuous Industry.
Milton Friedman Freedom in economic arrangements is itself a component of freedom broadly understood, so economic freedom is an end in itself ... Economic freedom is also an indispensable means toward the achievement of political freedom.
Milton Friedman The strongest argument for free enterprise is that it prevents anybody from having too much power. Whether that person is a government official, a trade union official, or a business executive. If forces them to put up or shut up. They either have to deliver the goods, produce something that people are willing to pay for, are willing to buy, or else they have to go into a different business.
John Kenneth Galbraith The great dialectic in our time is not, as anciently and by some still supposed, between capital and labor; it is between economic enterprise and the state.
Mahatma Mohandas K. Gandhi The seven blunders that human society commits and cause all the violence: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, and politics without principles.
James A. Garfield Whoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce.
John Taylor Gatto The shocking possibility that dumb people don’t exist in sufficient numbers to warrant the millions of careers devoted to tending them will seem incredible to you. Yet that is my central proposition: the mass dumbness which justifies official schooling first had to be dreamed of; it isn’t real.
Senator Carter Glass Is there any reason why the American people should be taxed to guarantee the debts of banks, any more than they should be taxed to guarantee the debts of other institutions, including merchants, the industries, and the mills of the country?
Alan Greenspan Gold still represents the ultimate form of payment in the world.
Alan Greenspan In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. ... This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists' tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists' antagonism toward the gold standard.
Jennifer A. Grossman [A]ny provider that commands 90 percent of the market—whether we’re talking about software, phone service, or heating oil—is, by definition, a monopoly. Our government employs thousands of bureaucrats to track down and break up monopolies on the grounds that monopolies stifle competition and thereby produce bad products at high prices. Doesn’t it strike anyone as strange that the same government protects its own monopoly in education? And stranger still, that nearly everyone accepts this state of affairs as normal—as something that has always been and must always be? ... [C]ompetition forces public schools into making long-overdue repairs. And it offers poor parents the choices they desperately desire.
Karl Hess Big business in America today and for some years has been openly at war with competition and, thus, at war with laissez-faire capitalism. ... The left's attack on corporate capitalism is, when examined, an attack on economic forms possible only in collusion between authoritarian government and bureaucratized, nonentrepreneurial business. It is unfortunate that many New Leftists are so uncritical as to accept this premise as indicating that all forms of capitalism are bad ...
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Free competition is worth more to society than it costs.
Jacob G. Hornberger Another major reason why crime is increasing is that crime pays, and in our tax-ridden, regulation crushed economy, many people cannot economically survive through low-end jobs. ... 'The income that offenders can earn in the world of crime, as compared with the world of work, all too often makes crime appear to be the better choice.' In Washington, D.C., it costs $7,000 in city fees to open a pushcart. In California, up to eighty federal and state licenses are required to open a small business. In New York, a medallion to operate a taxicab costs $150,000. More than 700 occupations in the United States require a government license. Throughout the country, church soup kitchens are being closed by departments of health. No wonder so many people turn to crime and violence to survive.
Margaret House Things may be cheaper over the hill, but there is a cost to the community in buying over there, instead of here.
George Huddleston That is reserved expressly to the States and is not granted to the Federal Government by our national charter. The Federal Government has nothing to do under the Constitution with the preservation of public order. To pass this bill is to pass a bill for an unconstitutional purpose, under the guise of regulating interstate commerce.
Thomas Jefferson Agriculture, manufacturers, commerce, and navigation, the four pillars of our prosperity, are then most thriving when left most free to individual enterprise.
Thomas Jefferson For the power given to Congress by the Constitution does not extend to the internal regulation of the commerce of a State (that is to say, of the commerce between citizen and citizen,) which remain exclusively with its own legislature; but to its external commerce only, that is to say, its commerce with another State, or with foreign nations, or with the Indian tribes.
Thomas Jefferson If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them (around the banks), will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.
Thomas Jefferson Money and not morality is the principle of commerce and commercial nations.
Samuel Johnson Few enterprises of great labor or hazard would be undertaken if we had not the power of magnifying the advantages we expect from them.
John F. Kennedy The quality of American life must keep pace with the quantity of American goods. This country cannot afford to be materially rich and spiritually poor.
Paul Kirk I hate this "crime doesn't pay" stuff. Crime in the U.S. is perhaps one of the biggest businesses in the world today.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin ...the concentration of capital and the growth of their turnover is radically challenging the significance of the banks. Scattered capitalists are transformed into a single collective capitalist. When carrying the current accounts of a few capitalists, the banks, as it were, transact a purely technical and exclusively auxiliary operation. When, however, these operations grow to enormous dimensions we find that a handful of monopolists control all the operations, both commercial and industrial, of capitalist society. They can, by means of their banking connections.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin They will furnish credits which will serve us for the support of the Communist Party in their countries and, by supplying us materials and technical equipment which we lack, will restore our military industry necessary for our future attacks against our suppliers. To put it in other words, they will work on the preparation of their own suicide.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.
Walter Lippmann It is the very essence of despotism that it can never afford to fail. This is what distinguishes it most vitally from democracy. In a despotism there is no organized opposition which can take over the power when the Administration in office has failed. All the eggs are in one basket. Everything is staked on one coterie of men. When the going is good, they move more quickly and efficiently than democracies, where the opposition has to be persuaded and conciliated. But when they lose, there are no reserves. There are no substitutes on the bench ready to go out on the field and carry the ball. That is why democracies with the habit of party government have outlived all other forms of government in the modern world. They have, as it were, at least two governments always at hand, and when one fails they have the other. They have diversified the risks of mortality, corruption, and stupidity which pervade all human affairs. They have remembered that the most beautifully impressive machine cannot run for very long unless there is available a complete supply of spare parts.
James Madison It is very certain that [the commerce clause] grew out of the abuse of the power by the importing States in taxing the non-importing, and was intended as a negative and preventive provision against injustice among the States themselves, rather than as a power to be used for the positive purposes of the General Government.
James Madison I own myself the friend to a very free system of commerce, and hold it as a truth,
that commercial shackles are generally unjust, oppressive and impolitic -- it is also a
truth, that if industry and labour are left to take their own course, they will generally
be directed to those objects which are the most productive, and this in a more certain
and direct manner than the wisdom of the most enlightened legislature could point
James Madison The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation and foreign commerce.
Zell Miller You won't find average Americans on the left or on the right. You'll find them at Kmart.
Benito Mussolini Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism as it is a merge of state and corporate power.
William S. Paley Television, I would say,
isn't an advertising medium.
It's a selling medium.
Roger Pilon The growth of federal power and programs over this century -- involving the regulation of business, the expansion of "civil rights," the production of environmental goods, and much else -- has taken place in large measure through the power of Congress to regulate "commerce among the states." That power has been read so broadly by the modern Court that Congress today can regulate anything that even "affects" commerce, which in principle is everything. As a result, save for the restraints imposed by the Bill of Rights, the commerce power is now essentially plenary, which is hardly what the Framers intended when they enumerated Congress’s powers. Indeed, if they had meant for Congress to be able to do anything it wanted under the commerce power, the enumeration of Congress’s other powers -- to say nothing of the defense of the doctrine of enumerated powers throughout the Federalist Papers -- would have been pointless. The purpose of the commerce clause quite simply, was to enable Congress to ensure the free flow of commerce among the states. Under the Articles of Confederation, state legislatures had enacted tariffs and other protectionist measures that impeded interstate commerce. To break the logjam, Congress was empowered to make commerce among the states "regular." In fact, the need to do so was one of the principal reasons behind the call for a new constitution.
Roger Pilon [T]he vast regulatory structure the federal government has erected in the name of the commerce power cannot be ended overnight, in many cases, but the pretense that such programs are constitutional can be ended, even as the programs themselves are phased out over time.
David M. Potter The American notion of freedom transcended the political realm and in fact extended to every major category of human relationships, including those between employer and employee, clergyman and layman, husband and wife, parent and child, public official and citizen. Americans believed that, as of July 4, 1776, all men were created equal, and that any impairment of a man’s equality was destructive of his liberty also.
Tom Robbins Disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business.
Franklin D. Roosevelt Are we going to take the hands of the federal government completely off any effort to adjust the growing of national crops, and go right straight back to the old principle that every farmer is a lord of his own farm and can do anything he wants, raise anything, any old time, in any quantity, and sell any time he wants?
Ken Schoolland For thousands of years, the tireless effort of productive men and women has been spent trying to reduce the distance between communities of the world by reducing the costs of commerce and trade. Over the same span of history, the slothful and incompetent protectionist has endlessly sought to erect barriers in order to prohibit competition—thus, effectively moving communities farther apart. When trade is cut off entirely, the real producers may as well be on different planets. The protectionist represents the worst in humanity: fear of change, fear of challenge, and the jealous envy of genius. The protectionist is not against the use of every kind of force, even warfare, to crush his rival. If mankind is to survive, then these primeval fears must be defeated.
Howard Scott CRIMINAL: A person with predatory instincts who has not sufficient capital to form a corporation.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca Who profits by a sin has done the sin.
Adam Smith The natural effort of every individual to better his own condition is so powerful that it is alone, and without any assistance, not only capable of carrying on the society to wealth and prosperity, but of surmounting a hundred impertinent obstructions with which the folly of human laws too often encumbers its operations.
Frederick Soddy The whole profit of the issuance of money has provided the capital of the great banking business as it exists today. Starting with nothing whatever of their own, they have got the whole world into their debt irredeemably, by a trick. This money comes into existence every time the banks 'lend' and disappears every time the debt is repaid to them. So that if industry tries to repay, the money of the nation disappears. This is what makes prosperity so 'dangerous' as it destroys money just when it is most needed and precipitates a slump. There is nothing left now for us but to get ever deeper and deeper into debt to the banking system in order to provide the increasing amounts of money the nation requires for its expansion and growth. An honest money system is the only alternative.
George Soros Although I have made a fortune in the financial markets, I now fear that the untrammeled intensification of laissez-faire capitalism and the spread of market values into all areas of life is endangering our open and democratic society. The main enemy of the open society, I believe, is no longer the communist but the capitalist threat.
Joseph Story Another not unimportant consideration is, that the powers of the general government will be, and indeed must be, principally employed upon external objects, such as war, peace, negotiations with foreign powers, and foreign commerce. In its internal operations it can touch but few objects, except to introduce regulations beneficial to the commerce, intercourse, and other relations, between the states, and to lay taxes for the common good. The powers of the states, on the other hand, extend to all objects, which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, and liberties, and property of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the state.
Henry David Thoreau Trade and commerce, if they were not made of Indian rubber, would never manage to bounce over the obstacles which legislators are continually putting in their way.
Henry David Thoreau Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.
Ludwig von Mises The common man is the sovereign consumer whose buying or abstention from buying ultimately determines what should be produced and in what quantity and quality.
Woodrow Wilson Is there any man, is there any woman, let me say any child here
that does not know that the seed of war in the modern world is industrial and commercial rivalry?
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PM requests active preparation for key socio-economic tasks in 2018
VNS Saturday, December 02, 2017 13:59
Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc underlined the importance of building a resolution on key socio-economic tasks and plans in 2018 at a cabinet meeting in Hanoi on Friday.
Oil drilling platforms of PetroVietnam Drilling and Well Service Corporation in Vietnamese territorial waters. In the 11 months to date, industrial production increased, according to figures announced at a cabinet meeting in Hanoi on Friday. (Photo: VNA/V
The Government leader said there is only a month left in 2017 and the workload is still very heavy.
The PM requested ministries, departments and localities to follow objectives outlined by the 12th Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), the conclusion of CPV General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong and the National Assembly’s Resolution on socio-economic development in 2018.
He asked cabinet members to consider solutions to prevent corruption and wastefulness along with issues relating to culture, security and national defence.
He also expressed concern over the unsynchronised political system and called for positive changes at the grassroots level.
In November, Vietnam suffered from devastating natural disasters, including typhoon Damrey that wreaked havoc across nine central localities, especially Khanh Hoa and Phu Yen.
The storm killed 45 people and damaged property, he noted, asking ministries, sectors, organisations and localities to continue to support the disaster’s victims. Meanwhile, the PM pointed out that in November and the first 11 months of this year, the macro-economy remained stable, with inflation controlled and economic balance ensured.
The consumer price index rose 0.13 percent in November and 3.14 percent in January-November. In the 11 months industrial production increased, with a 17.2 percent rise recorded in November, while total goods and services revenue increased 10.7 percent year on year.
Foreign arrivals reached 1.17 million in November, pushing the total figure this year to 11.65 million, up 27.8 percent against the same period last year.
At the same time, foreign investment hit US$19.8 billion, up 52 percent, along with $33.1 billion of capital to purchase shares in State-owned enterprises, a rise of 23.4 percent. Notably, exports grew to hit nearly $194 billion, up 21 percent, with the highest rise recorded in agricultural products such as vegetables (43.2 percent), rubber (38.9 percent), cashew (23.2 percent) and seafood (16.2 percent).
The country enjoyed a $2.8 billion trade surplus, noted PM Phuc.
Total budget collection recorded impressive growth at 14.2 percent, he added.
The Prime Minister highlighted that 116,000 new enterprises were set up in the 11 months, with the figure likely to hit 120,000 for the year.
Promises to voters should be upheld
During the meeting, PM Phuc urged cabinet members to uphold their promises to the National Assembly and voters and implement the NA’s resolutions.
He warned that ministries, sectors and localities should not feel satisfied with positive socio-economic achievements in the period from January to November and must continue better implementing their tasks, such as addressing the consequences of floods and storms and disbursing public funds.
The PM noted that drastic and comprehensive actions are needed in December 2017 and early 2018 to help storm-ravaged communities.
He stressed the need to intensify the fight against corruption, wastefulness and wrongdoing; focus more on social and cultural development; promote social equality and improve people’s living conditions; protect the environment and adapt to climate change; strengthen national defence and security and enhance the effectiveness of external affairs and international integration.
The PM asked the State Bank of Vietnam to keep a close watch on the currency, credit, interest and exchange rate market to make timely adjustments.
He noted that the electricity price increase has little influence on the CPI. He requested relevant sectors closely follow prices and the market and ensure sufficient supply of goods and services particularly during the year end month and New Year (Tet) holidays.
PM Phuc requested ministries, sectors and localities to strictly implement the roadmap for divestment at state-owned enterprises, especially at Sabeco, Habeco and other major businesses.
He also asked the Ministry of Public Security to investigate and settle recent cases of child abuse.
Ministers face the press
At a press conference following the meeting yesterday, ministers faced a barrage of questions on the EU’s ‘yellow card’ warning on Vietnamese seafood, the rise in electricity prices, controversies surrounding toll booths and other pressing issues.
Agriculture Minister Vu Van Tam said that of the nine demands made by the EU to lift the warning on Vietnamese seafood over illegal and unregulated fishing, there are three that needed more attention.
The first one was ensuring a legal framework and institution in line with international norms. These have been “incorporated as much as possible” into the amended Law on Fisheries newly approved by the National Assembly.
Tám said the agriculture ministry is also doing its best to issue guiding documents and decrees to ease the implementation of the law.
Secondly, on improving the capacity of State management and compliance by the fishermen, Tam said: “This is one of our worst weaknesses and cannot be resolved anytime soon, but the most urgent measures will certainly be carried out.”
Thirdly, steps were being taken to raise further the awareness of the political system, fishermen, and businesses on illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing, he said.
On the sudden increase in electricity prices effective this month, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade, Do Thang Hai, said that electricity prices or prices of essential goods have “always received special attention from the government” as they have significant influence over macroeconomic aspects like Consumer Price Index (CPI) to microeconomic aspects like input-output costs and people’s livelihoods.
Hải said that since 2015 March, electricity prices had remained constant while production costs had risen considerably, prompting the latest price adjustment.
He said that the 6.08 percent increase would only pump CPI in 2017 by a marginal 0.08 percent and in 2018 by 0.1 percent.
He also said that in order to set up a transparent electricity pricing mechanism, the ministry has established a working group comprising representatives of the Finance and Labour ministries, the National Assembly, the Việt Nam Chamber of Industry and Commerce, as well as reputed international audit organisations.
Answering questions about the ongoing protests against the Cai Lay toll booth in the southern province of Tien Giang by drivers unhappy about the high toll fees and inappropriate location of the booth, Transport Deputy Minister Nguyen Nhat said an August inspection had revealed no faults in this project’s investment.
He also criticised “extreme drivers” who have intentionally sabotaged the traffic and caused severe jams and delays, and said that the Government would try to not let this situation go on for long or be repeated in other BOT projects across the country.
PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc key socio-economic tasks General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong
PM urges ministries to avoid power cuts
Vietnam pledges support for Singaporean investments: PM
80 percent of State-owned economic groups earn profits
Landslide displaces 5 families; 7 houses at risk
Vietnamese tourists stuck due to landslides in Nepal taken to capital
Top legislator’s China visit gives boost to bilateral partnership
Hanoi submits dossier to join UNESCO Creative Cities Network
Vietnamese NA Chairwoman meets top Chinese Party and State leader
Switzerland wishes to speed up negotiation between Vietnam and EFTA
NA leader meets head of Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference
The Vietnamese Government is willing to listen to opinions from Singaporean businesses and wishes they would do long-term business in the country, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has said.
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Romeo Lions Charities Michigan District 11-A2
Home | Club Newsletter | Our Purpose | Becoming a Member | History | Club Officers | Committiee Chairpersons | Local Projects | Statewide & National Projects | Schedule of Annual Events | Car Show & Charity Cruise | Registration Form for the Lions Car Show & Cruise | No-Cost donation | Golf Outing | Contact Us
History of Lions Club
The International Association of Lions Clubs began as the dream of a Chicago insurance man Melvin Jones, who wondered why local business clubs -- he was an active member of one -- could not expand their horizons from purely business concerns to the betterment of their communities and the world at large.
Jones' idea struck a chord within his own group, the Business Circle of Chicago, and they authorized him to explore his concept with similar organizations from around the United States. His efforts resulted in an organizational meeting at a local hotel on June 7, 1917.
The 12 men who gathered there overcame a natural sense of loyalty to their parent clubs, voted the "Association of Lions Clubs" into existence, and issued a call for a national convention to be held in Dallas, Texas, USA in October of the same year.
Thirty-six delegates representing 22 clubs from nine states heeded the call, approved the "Lions Clubs" designation, and elected Dr. William P. Woods of Indiana as their first president. Guiding force and founder Melvin Jones was named acting secretary. Thus began an association with Lionism that only ended with his death in 1961.
That first convention also began to define what Lionism was to become. A constitution and by-laws were adopted, the colors of purple and gold approved, and a start made on Lionism's Objectives and Code of Ethics.
One of the objects was startling for an era that prided itself on mercenary individualism, and has remained one of the main tenets of Lionism ever since. "No Club," it read, "shall hold out the financial betterment of its members as its object."
Community leaders soon began to organize clubs throughout the United States, and the association became "international" with the formation of the Windsor, Ontario, Canada Lions Club in 1920. Clubs were later organized in China, Mexico, and Cuba. By 1927, membership stood at 60 000 in 1 183 clubs.
In 1935, Panama became home to the first Central American club, with the first South American club being organized in Colombia the following year. Lionism reached Australia in 1947 and Europe in 1948, as clubs were chartered in Sweden, Switzerland, and France. In 1952, the first club was chartered in Japan.
The International Association of Lions Clubs is today the largest service organization in the world with over 1,4 million members in more than 43 300 clubs in 714 Districts covering 182 countries and geographic areas. Lions Clubs are not social clubs, although there are social benefits to membership. Lions Club members give their time, skills and resources to raise funds for charitable giving both in their communities and internationally.
The major focus of Lions fund raising activities is sight conservation, although other projects are pursued such as drug awareness programs in high schools, diabetes awareness programs and other programs that are specific to individual Clubs and Districts. Lions took up sight conservation as their major goal after a speech given by Helen Keller at the Lions International Convention held at Cedar Point, Ohio, in 1925. At that time, Helen Keller challenged the Lions to become "Knights of the Blind", a challenge that has become a rallying cry for Lions projects around the world. (Goto Sight Conservation links)
Lions work in the area of sight conservation is carried out at many levels. Individual Clubs sponsor free eye screening programs using mobile eye clinics. In many countries, Clubs sponsor eye surgery camps where cataract surgeries are performed at no charge for those that can't afford this medical care. Many clubs collect old eye glasses for distribution to the needy in other countries.
The International Association of Lions Clubs is the largest non-governmental organization associated with the United Nations and was called upon by the United Nations and the World Health Organization to raise funds for an international program of sight conservation. It has been estimated that 40 million cases of curable and preventable blindness exist on this planet today. Without intervention, this is projected to become 80 million by the end of the decade.
The International Association of Lions Clubs began a program of fund raising that they called "Campaign Sight First" in order to cure/prevent 40 million cases of blindness worldwide. Over $148,600,000 have been raised by Lions all over the world for this program. Eye hospitals are being built in the places that most need them. In India alone, over 300,000 cataract surgeries have been performed and that number is rapidly growing. Lions services to humanity range from purchasing eyeglass for a child who's parents can't afford them to multimillion dollar programs to cure blindness on a worldwide scale.
The Lions International Headquarters is in Oak Brook, Illinois, USA.
You can contact Lions Clubs International as follows:
300 W. 22nd Street
USA. 60523-8842
Telephone: (+ 1 630) 571-5466
Fax: (+ 1 630) 571-8890
Email: lions@lionsclubs.org
WWW: http://www.lionsclubs.org
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SONNY ROLLINS CAN TAKE IT
On July 31, the New Yorker published a piece called "Sonny Rollins: In His Own Words," by Django Gold. It followed the format of articles like Esquire's long-running "What I've Learned" series, in which cultural eminences (Merv Griffin, Rachel Hunter, John McCain, Wayne Newton, etc.) share the wisdom they've gathered throughout the course of their lives.
The Rollins "interview" begins: "I started playing the saxophone when I was thirteen years old. There were some other kids on my block who had taken it up, and I thought that it might be fun. I later learned that these guys’ parents had forced them into it." It continues along the bleak path suggested by that introduction, including observations like, "Jazz might be the stupidest thing anyone ever came up with. The band starts a song, but then everything falls apart and the musicians just play whatever they want for as long they can stand it. People take turns noodling around, and once they run out of ideas and have to stop, the audience claps. I’m getting angry just thinking about it."
"Rollins" tells stories about other jazz greats, too: "I remember Dexter Gordon was doing a gig at the 3 Deuces, and at one point he leaned into the microphone and said, 'I could sell this suit and this saxophone and get far away from here.' The crowd laughed." and "Once I played the Montreux Jazz Festival, in Switzerland, with Miles Davis. I walked in on him smoking cigarettes and staring at his horn for what must have been fifteen minutes, like it was a poisonous snake and he wasn’t sure if it was dead. Finally Miles stood up, turned to his band, and said, 'All right, let’s get through this, and then we’ll go to the airport.' He looked like he was about to cry."
The piece's final paragraph? "I released fifty-odd albums, wrote hundreds of songs, and played on God knows how many session dates. Some of my recordings are in the Library of Congress. That’s idiotic. They ought to burn that building to the ground. I hate music. I wasted my life."
I've been listening to jazz since I was 14 or 15 years old—close to 30 years at this point. I have something like two dozen Sonny Rollins albums in my iPod right now. I've seen him in concert multiple times, and interviewed him (twice). And I laughed harder at this piece than I've ever laughed at anything published in the New Yorker. It's a hilarious, biting look at the dark side of the artistic temperament and the dismal fate awaiting most artists in a capitalist society.
Mine seems to be a minority opinion, though, at least if Facebook and Twitter can be believed. Comments like "This piece is listed as humor in The New Yorker, but it doesn't seem all that funny" and "I expect better from The New Yorker. But I won't in the future." and "I hope Rollins sues them for this." and the like are littering social media. A few bloggers have weighed in, too, of course; Philip Booth writes, in part, "[S]ome who casually stumble across the piece online might mistake it for the real thing, and wonder why Rollins is being so wacky" (because, you know, anyone who's not already a Rollins fan must be an imbecile too dumb to spot the "humor" tag at the top of the page), while Howard Mandel thinks it "turns on the seed of punkish resentment sophisticates presumably harbor against the music" (because "sophisticates," whoever they are, resent jazz's...what? Vast commercial success? Public prominence?).
Here's what I find interesting about the whole outcry: It's all coming from old school jazz critics and Rollins' publicist (who I consider a friend and have worked with quite amiably for years). The jazz musicians I know have mostly remained silent. (A notable exception would be Nick Hempton, who tweeted, "I'M SO OUTRAGED AT SOMETHING I READ ON THE INTERNET, I'M THROWING MY COMPUTER OUT THE WINDOW!" with the hashtags #JazzIsSerious #RespectMe.)
Hempton gets it. Why don't these writers?
I suspect it's because they've devoted even more decades than I have to listening to jazz, learning its history, interviewing the players, and writing about it, and they've done so from the perspective common to most jazz critics: that the music they like is great art, much more than mere entertainment, and deserves the highest honors our culture can bestow, all the time. It should certainly never be poked fun at or satirized—that's for performers they think of as lesser, like Miley Cyrus or whichever other pop figure they happen to have somehow heard of. (Your average jazz critic's unfamiliarity with contemporary pop culture would make a normal person weep with baffled laughter. Especially when the jazz critic goes on an intemperate Facebook rant about something pop-related—like, say, the use of Autotune on pop singers—from a position of near-total ignorance regarding modern production methods, technology in general, or what a given audience might actually want from its entertainers.)
Here's what I think: Jazz is entertainment. Now, 99 or so percent of America's (and the world's) population fails to find it entertaining, but that's not because they're stupid, or uncultured. It's because most of the time the music isn't entertaining—it's overly complicated, and presented like homework, like you're a spiritually shriveled asshole if you don't want to hear hookless melodies barely punctuating long passages of squawking, clattering and clanging, all while paying substantially more than you'd pay to hear a rock band that might actually play something you could dance or bang your head to. There are many, many exceptions, bands that swing hard as hell, play tunes that actually sound like something and solos that actually go somewhere. But you've got to know what you're looking for—and looking on the covers of jazz magazines won't help, because it's the critics' darlings who wind up there, and for the most part jazz critics like jazz that makes them feel smarter for liking it.
People who do like jazz aren't smarter than people who don't. But people who think jazz musicians are precious flowers who must be protected from cruel japery because their art form is insufficiently appreciated by the lumpen are fucking idiots.
I remember reading something a long time ago to the effect that you could tell when an ethnic group had successfully begun the process of assimilating into American society when they started to become the subject of jokes in movies. Not hostile, racist, dehumanizing jokes, but jokes poking welcoming fun at these new people and their weird folkways.
Jazz fans should welcome jokes about their music's unlistenability and dismal commercial status. Why? Because it proves people still give enough of a fuck about jazz to make fun of it. Do you think they would have written a satirical interview with Jimmy Sturr, complaining about how awful the accordion sounds and how much he hates polka? Do you think anyone would have read it if they had?
Another important thing to remember is that good satire is about "punching up." Culturally speaking, a shot at jazz is exactly that. It may be dead from a record-sales and gig-attendance standpoint, but on the cultural ladder, jazz is several rungs above rock and pop. It's considered important music. Of course, that's helped doom its sales, because nothing sends albums flying off the shelves like guilting people into listening to something that's supposed to be good for them...but congratulations, jazz critics, you won the battle for prestige. The music you love has been 100% accepted by the elite. It's the soundtrack to arts benefits, awards shows (the Oscars still big-band up the music from the previous year's releases), and any scene in a film or TV show where someone needs to be portrayed as classy...or old.
It's just too bad nobody else gives a shit. But maybe this fit of public foot-stomping will be just the thing that turns jazz's decades-long cultural disappearing act around! Maybe acting like petulant children ("How dare you say something mean about Sonny Rollins! You take that back right now!") will be what leads all those people you think are idiots, too dumb to tell whether an interview is real or fake, to appreciate the awesomeness of his music. (And it is awesome.) Because as noted Twitter philosopher JazzIsTheWorst put it, "People don't enjoy jazz, they 'appreciate' it...and nothing sells records like music people can really 'appreciate.'"
Posted by Phil Freeman at 1:48 PM 3 comments:
Labels: howard mandel, jazz snobbery, jimmy sturr, nick hempton, philip booth, sonny rollins, the new yorker
DEAD BUT NOT GONE
Here are two reviews recently killed by editors. No, I won't tell you which magazines rejected them. Enjoy!
Texas-based metalcore squad Memphis May Fire have never been the most creative band around. On their last album, 2012’s Challenger, they brought in a pair of guests—Asking Alexandria’s Danny Worsnop and Sleeping With Sirens’ Kellin Quinn—whose powerful personalities only served to make their hosts seem faceless by comparison. For Unconditional, the band have kept the same producer (Cameron Mitchell) as on Challenger, but there are no ringers this time; they’re standing or falling on their own merits. And while that’s admirable, it would have been wise of them to write better songs. Chugging riffs, pop-punkish choruses, gang vocals, digital stuttering, one-finger synth melodies—all the ingredients for a circa-2014 metalcore album are here, including drums so hilariously triggered it’s amazing they keep the drummer on the payroll at all. But here’s the thing: for a piece of music to qualify as a song rather than just a loose pile of sort-of-cool parts, it’s got to stick in your head once it’s over. There’s exactly one track here that passes that test with flying colors: “Possibilities” rides a wave of positive energy and catchiness, with more than enough melody to keep a listener interested. (And OK, “The Answer” has a pretty solid chorus, too.) On the other hand, the ballads (“Need To Be” and “Speechless”) are a slog, and only Matty Mullins’ Claudio Sanchez-esque* vocals make the other songs recognizable as the work of Memphis May Fire rather than any one of literally dozens of other bands.
GANG WIZARD
Important Picnic
Do you need a new shambling, half-assed noise-rock album in your life? Or do you already have six thousand of them left over from the '80s and '90s? Well, just in case you feel insufficiently flush with discs offering indecipherably howled vocals, guitar that sounds more like sheet metal being torn apart by robot claws than a musical instrument, minimalist bass lines a one-armed monkey could play, and drums that are all clattering snare and washes of cymbal, Gang Wizard are here to help you out. For nearly two decades, they’ve been bashing out one-take jams that live in a territory somewhere between Les Rallizes Dénudes, Sunburned Hand of the Man, Half Japanese and a teenaged garage band trying and failing to learn a song from Nuggets.
Most of the tracks on this album actually have some song-like qualities, but Gang Wizard are so committed to their half-assed/fidelity-is-for-chumps aesthetic that only those listeners who share their enthusiasm for rock as outsider art are going to be even slightly enticed. For every “Dog’s Share” (a rocking instrumental with plenty of guitar skronk), there’s a “The Fiasco,” an 11-minute fumble-jam that lives up to its name and then some. If there was a “single” on this album, it’d be “Ugly American,” which sounds like a bootleg of an ultra-early Pere Ubu rehearsal. But pretty much everything else here is half-formed, unambitious like that’s a thing to be proud of, and thoroughly inessential.
*Claudio Sanchez = singer for Coheed and Cambria, known for his extremely high-pitched vocals.
Posted by Phil Freeman at 3:00 PM No comments:
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OB Leadership in the Entertainment Industry
Media, Entertainment, Sports
Advanced Legal Writing: Drafting and Negotiating Sports Law Transactions
Intellectual Property: Issues in Entertainment Law
Internet and Society: The Technologies and Politics of Control
Media/ Entertainment/ Sports
Digital Journalism (COMM 117)
Digital Media Entrepreneurship (COMM 140)
Digital Media in Society (AMSTUD 120, COMM 120)
Journalism Law (COMM 116)
Leadership in the Entertainment Industry
Media Ethics and Responsibility (COMM 131)
Sports Business Management
The Entertainment Industry - An Intersection of Art and Commerce
Stanford Law School Documentary Project
OB 388
[ Transactional ] Business Law: Media, Entertainment, Sports
[ Transactional ] as a Relevant Course outside SLS for those interested in Media/ Entertainment/ Sports : ++ { HIGHLY RELEVANT } ++ The media, entertainment and sports industries are complex industries that are currently undergoing tremendous change. This course focuses on business challenges in the sports and entertainment fields, which will be useful for students desiring to work with individual or corporate clients in either industry. It is a workshop designed to help prepare students for careers in the film, television, and cable industries, and to explore innovations within them.
The entertainment industry is one of the largest and most important industries in the world. It is an industry characterized by tremendous opportunities and great uncertainties. The industry is currently undergoing tremendous change as new technologies transform the way entertainment is produced and disseminated throughout the world. For all of these reasons, the dynamic industry creates tremendous challenges for entrepreneurial students interested in leaving an artistic or creative imprint on the world. This course is designed to help prepare students for careers in the media industries, and to explore leadership within them. The industry is truly an intersection of art and commerce, and a major portion of the course will involve bringing to the class leaders who represent key areas of the entertainment industry, both on the business and creative sides. As with any business, the entertainment industry is driven by the vision of its leaders. These leaders daily make financial and artistic decisions, and manage staff and productions with the goal of producing entertainment product meant to be seen as widely as possible, and meant to make a profit. It is hoped that through interaction with these speakers, students taking this course will gain a greater understanding of the industry and what it takes to succeed in it. Further, the students will see the potential of strong leadership and how it works to advance entertainment companies and the films and TV programming they produce. Topics to be examined include the process of project development, production, and marketing; emerging technologies and their impact on the industry; the roles studio and network executives, directors, film and television producers, writers, actors, agents, and others play in the making and distribution of film and television productions.
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Home » Past Productions » Diablo
Diablo By Patricia Downey / Spanner in the Works Theatre Company
"He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. he who accepts evil without protesting it is really cooperating with it."
A powerful play on human trafficking in Northern Ireland, which made its stage debut at the Lyric Theatre Belfast last year and has been touring the region in recent months, will be performed at the C Venues Edinburgh Fringe Festival this 1-13 August.
The play, entitled Diablo, has a small cast of 5 actors and is written by Patricia Downey, Artistic Director for Belfast based Spanner in the Works Theatre Company, which is funded by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.
Justice Minister David Ford, who attended both the opening production of Diablo in 2012 and a special production in a terraced house in Belfast in 2013, praised the Arts Council for funding the play. He said: “This important play shines the spotlight on human trafficking and should highlight the plight of victims in a way that will help raise awareness of this evil crime. The Department of Justice is working in partnership with law enforcement agencies and a wide range of others to prevent trafficking, protect victims and prosecute the traffickers.” Law enforcement agencies in Northern Ireland recovered 16 potential victims during 2012/13. David Ford encouraged everyone to play their part by reporting suspicious activity to the police or Crimestoppers.
Speaking about the play’s challenging subject matter, Patricia Downey commented: “Human trafficking is a fast growing criminal enterprise due to the fact it is relatively low risk but with a high profit potential. Sadly, criminal organisations are increasingly attracted to human trafficking because, unlike drugs, humans can be sold repeatedly. Diablo deals with the contentious matter of human trafficking that may go unnoticed right here in Northern Ireland. We might not be aware of it or like to acknowledge it, but this form of human exploitation is happening right here on our doorstep and I hope this play serves to increase awareness and, in turn, save lives. We’ve been touring the play in Northern Ireland and receiving great reviews and I’m now delighted to spread the message by bringing this play to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.”
“Diablo is a hard hitting play that deals with the taboo issue of human trafficking which, unfortunately, has been detected right here in Northern Ireland. The Arts Council is committed to supporting local theatre and this production of Diablo at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival will showcase the outstanding theatrical talent we have in the region. ” Gilly Campbell, Drama and Dance Officer, Arts Council of Northern Ireland
“I left the show quite literally speechless and with a renewed passion for the work that our organisation does to raise awareness of this issue. Patricia and her team leave no stone unturned as they unpack this complex crime in a riveting performance that is sure to move the hardest of hearts.” Mel Wiggins of Project ‘FREEDOM ACTS’ Craigavon Intercultural Programme
Contact us for further information on the upcoming performances of Diablo.
NB: The play contains language and violence which might cause offence to some people. It also contains scenes which some people might find disturbing. The play is strictly for over 16's.
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History made as UK F-35s complete first operational missions
June 25, 2019 – The UK’s newest and most advanced fighter jet, the Lightning F-35B, has successfully completed its first operational missions.
F-35s have flown alongside Typhoon aircraft on operational flights over the skies of Syria and Iraq, as part of the ongoing fight against Daesh, the Defence Secretary has confirmed. This follows a successful training period in Cyprus, known as Exercise Lightning Dawn, aimed at building capability for the aircraft and supporting elements. Due to the exceptional performance of the aircraft, pilots, and support staff during this time, it was decided that they were ready to make their operational debut from RAF Akrotiri, alongside the Typhoons.
Speaking at RAF Akrotiri, Defence Secretary Penny Mordaunt said:
The F-35s are the most advanced jets our country has ever possessed and will form the backbone of British air defence for decades to come.
They have passed every test their training has thrown at them with flying colours and their first real operational mission is a significant step into the future for the UK.
The first RAF F-35B operational sorties were flown on Sunday 16 June in support of Operation Shader, the UK contribution to the Global Coalition’s counter Daesh mission in Iraq and Syria. The two aircraft conducted a patrol over Syria, and UK F-35s have flown a further 12 sorties since then. The F-35 is the first aircraft to combine radar-evading stealth technology with supersonic speeds and the ability to conduct short take-offs and vertical landings. The Lightning force is jointly operated by the RAF and Royal Navy. With the ability to operate from land and sea, the F-35 forms a vital part of delivering a ‘carrier strike’ capability to the UK when combined with Britain’s new Queen Elizabeth Class aircraft carriers.
Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Stephen Hillier, said:
This first operational mission for the UK’s F-35 Lightning confirms the impressive progress which we have made in introducing this formidable new capability into service.
It is testament to the outstanding abilities of our dedicated and highly trained air and ground crew that 617 Squadron has achieved this important milestone so quickly and so effectively.
Admiral Tony Radakin CB ADC, First Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Staff, said:
It’s great to see our F35B Lightning jets already proving themselves on operations so early in their life cycle, ably demonstrating the fantastic capability these world-leading aircraft offer.
This Autumn, our aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth will return to the East Coast of the United States to conduct Operational Trials with our Lightning Force, taking this 5th generation capability to the next level as they prove their ability to operate from the sea.
For decades to come, this exciting new combination of aircraft carriers and F35B Lightnings will provide a potent, globally deployable carrier strike capability, a powerful conventional deterrent and the centerpiece of our country’s expeditionary forces.
Later in the year, 617 Squadron will embark in HMS Queen Elizabeth for the first time. The UK jets will conduct Operational Tests, alongside 17 Test and Evaluation Squadron, onboard the carrier in the USA during the WESTLANT 19 deployment, proving their capability at sea. This is vital step on the path to the first Carrier Strike Deployment planned for 2021.The UK currently owns 17 F-35B aircraft with the reformed 617 Sqn arriving back in the UK last year. More jets are due in Britain over the coming years, including the imminent arrival of 207 Sqn at RAF Marham, and there is an overall plan to procure 138 aircraft over the life of the program. The program has already generated $12.9 billion worth of orders and at peak production will support thousands of British manufacturing and engineering jobs.UK Air Component Commander for the Middle East, Air Commodore Justin Reuter, said:
The pilots, crew and aircraft have exceeded all training objectives since deploying to Cyprus so it was only right that they made the next step on their journey.
The UK has played a vital role in liberating swathes of territory once subjected to Daesh’s cruel regime, and the deployment of our newest and most advanced jets signals our commitment to the enduring defeat Daesh in Iraq and Syria.
The Defence Secretary also used the visit to hold a meeting with her Cypriot counterpart, Savvas Angelides, to further bolster bilateral ties.
June 2019F-35B, FAA, HMS Queen Elizabeth, Iraq, RAF, RN, Syria, WESTLANT 19
Austal Delivers Third Guardian Class Patrol Boat
Warship Under Make in India
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Home » 20 Under 40
End Users '20 under 40' 2014—Bedros Ohanian
Amy Canfield
Bedros Ohanian, 36
Commander, field services division, The Music Center, Los Angeles
Ohanian, an Army veteran who served in Kuwait during Operation Desert Spring, was a NATO peacekeeper in Bosnia, a reserve police officer in Glendale, Calif., and a federal officer at NASA’s jet propulsion labs, manages security technology and 85 armed security officers for his 22-acre facility. The Music Center, one of the largest performing arts centers in the United States, is home to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Ahmanson Theater, Mark Taper Forum, Walt Disney Concert Hall and Grand Park. It hosts 2 million visitors per year.
What inspired you to get into the security industry?
It was a direct result of the training I received in the military and as a reserve police officer. I saw how good security can save lives, protect assets and prevent crime.
If you could have any technology you wanted, without regard to budget, what would it be?
It would be video analytics, intelligent video surveillance. We have only a few people monitoring more than 300 cameras. We’d have a better chance of detecting suspicious people and behavior with that technology.
What’s your biggest physical security challenge today, and what do you think it will be five years from now?
The biggest challenge is a lack of security awareness within the organization and from outside when we have visitors. All our physical security infrastructure can be working just fine but is compromised if the people we’re trying to protect don’t take threats seriously. If one of them is entering through an access control gate and someone wanted to tailgate, they need to know that security is everyone’s duty. They need to report suspicious activity. We are working on (awareness programs.) Five years from now I think it will still be security awareness. People move on, we get new employees.
End Users '20 under 40' 2014,
Bedros Ohanian,
Resideo acquires LifeWhere
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Review: Victoria Chang’s “Barbie Chang” Lends Finely-Crafted, Poignant Voice to Life, Love, and Loss
by Elspeth Jensen
It is an honor to have Victoria Chang as the poetry judge for So to Speak’s annual contest issue, which is currently open for contest submissions, from October 15th to December 15th. Chang’s latest poetry collection, Barbie Chang, out from Copper Canyon Press (2017) is a testament to Chang’s exceptional craft.
Barbie Chang is complex–tonally, thematically, and formally. The eponymous Barbie Chang, the prominent speaker of the collection, is an Asian-American woman navigating family and loss, art and work, prejudice and belonging in a society fueled by impossible standards and a one-track American dream. Barbie Chang has so much to offer: The poetry is relatable and nuanced, funny and heartbreaking, accessible and finely-crafted.
Chang’s writing is playful in its content, turns of phrases, and its lineation. This can be is seen in Barbie Chang’s relationship with a recurring Mr. Darcy, archetypal-beloved. In “Mr. Darcy Grabs,” Chang writes,
possible that she desires Mr. Darcy
because he cannot be
captured on film because he has no
footsteps maybe he
was right wing all along but if she
knew that would she
give the ring back the phone rings
every day with men…
Many of the poems in the collection also deal with “The Circle”: a group of cliquey suburban moms who thrive on exclusion and prejudice. In one poem, Barbie Chang’s daughter forges a friendship with a new kid at school, until that friend’s mother advises her daughter “not/to tie/herself down too fast” to Barbie Chang’s daughter (“Barbie Chang’s Daughter). In another poem, “Barbie Chang Loves Evites,” Barbie Chang’s “heart is always sort of bleeding she is/always waiting for/invitations once she heard the Circle planning a birthday party” and waits for an invitation for her daughter:
the/mother can also feel the pain she heard
the ice skating party
was a hit little girls going in figure
eights their breath
coming out in clouds shaped like
little white hearts
The idea of “The Circle” considers interior/exterior positioning, insiders/outsiders of constructed spaces, the individual within a society. The idea of “The Circle” is widely applicable to identities who have been excluded and highlights how society constructs communities that devalue and marginalize people. Chang’s poetry deals with these complex ideas with wit and heartbreak.
Barbie Chang is notably good at being both playful and heartbreaking–sometimes at the same time. And sometimes the heartbreaking moments in these poems are pure lyric. Particularly, the elegiac moments, like Barbie Chang mourning the death of her mother and dealing with her father’s illness. Additionally, the second and fourth sections of the collection, the “Dear P.” poems, shift in perspective and form, whereas the rest of the book is crafted in couplets. In section 2, there is a sonnet-sequence and loosely-spaced lines in the 4th and final sections, sad and hopeful and full of breath. The “Dear P” sections particularly highlight Chang’s lyricism. The variation in form, style and voice, makes for a compelling and lively reading experience, and also highlights intersections of identity and the wide and nuanced themes at work in the collection.
I am so grateful for Victoria Chang, for agreeing to be our poetry judge this year, for lending her creative mind to our journal, and I’m grateful for the art she makes.
Consider purchasing a copy of Barbie Chang, or Chang’s other books, “Salvinia Molesta,” and “Circle,” and a children’s picture book, “Mommy?” She also edited an anthology, “Asian American Poetry: The Next Generation,” and her new book, OBIT, which is forthcoming from Copper Canyon Press in 2020. Visit Victoria Chang’s website or Copper Canyon Press’s website for more information about Barbie Chang. And consider offering your creative voice to So to Speak. Contest submissions are open from October 15th to December 15th.
Victoria Chang’s fourth book of poems, Barbie Chang was published by Copper Canyon Press in 2017. She is the author of three previous poetry books, Circle, Salvinia Molesta, and The Boss. The Boss won the PEN Center USA Literary Award and a California Book Award. She received a Pushcart Prize for a poem published in Barbie Chang. She also edited an anthology, Asian American Poetry: The Next Generation. Her poems have been published in Best American Poetry, Poetry, American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review, The Nation, New Republic, and many other places. She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Sustainable Arts Foundation Fellowship in 2017. She is a contributing editor of the literary journal, Copper Nickel and a poetry editor at Tupelo Quarterly. She lives in Los Angeles with her family and her wiener dogs, Mustard and Ketchup and teaches within Antioch University’s MFA Program. She also serves on the National Book Critics Circle Board.
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Irion County Courthouse
County Seat: Sherwood
Present Status: Existing. Community Center
Architectural Firm: Martin & Moodie
General Contractor: Martin & Moodie
Building Materials/Description: 2 1/2-story rusticated limestone structure with pressed metal roof, central clock tower is sheathed with galvanized iron in stamped patterns of classical details. Served as courthouse until 1936 when county seat moved to Mertzon. $5,075
National Register Narrative:
Located among mesquite-covered hills on a town square once fronted by commercial buildings, the courthouse now presents a lonely appearance. The wooden commercial buildings are gone and an ornamental wooden fence that once surrounded the square, along with a windmill and tank, have also been removed. An attractive two-story stone-walled jail located near the south entrance to the courthouse has also been razed.
The courthouse location and plan were typical of Texas tradition dating back to the first half of the nineteenth century. The structure is situated in the center of the old town square. The ground-floor plan, is square with four entrances and corridors crossing at right angles, and had been employed for many other courthouses. In the four quadrants were three offices and a vault. However, the second-floor plan with the courtroom at the east end and jury rooms and stairway at the west is not so common. The manner in which projecting masses express the judges bench on the north and the stairway on the south are noteworthy features.
The quarry-faced ashlar limestone is outstanding. Also noteworthy at each entrance, are the Roman arch extrados terminating at sculptural features with simple foliated designs and features encircling likenesses of owls. The “cornerstone” flanking the north entrance and bearing the name of the builders in high relief is also noteworthy.
The construction of the building is typical of the period. Load-bearing walls are masonry throughout; these support 2 x 12 floor joists on the second floor and heavy wooden trusses at the roof. Wooden lintels are used throughout over wall openings. The roof is covered with standing-seam metal and the tower is sheathed with galvanized iron in stamped patterns of Classical details. On the interior, walls are plastered. A wainscot of beaded boards appears in the offices. Located in the west corridor the stairway with its newel posts, and spindles is attractively detailed, and the courtroom has fine woodwork around the openings. Throughout, the woodwork is yellow pine. Overhead, stamped metal ceilings are still intact; the ceiling and cove in the courtroom are especially noteworthy.
Since the building is square, the four facades are similar. The north and south elevations are identical as are the east and west elevations. On each side of the ground level are arched projections which crearte shallow porches. On the second story, these projections continue to the roof, creating an alcove on the east for the bench in the courtroom. On the north and south sides the projections creating the porches become nearly flush with the building wall, thus creating balconies. These balconies are decorated with slabs of limestone positioned vertically and horizontally to create the effect of a railing in recent years problems with water leakage have developed from these features.
Window openings are spanned with both lintels and arches. All the office and jury room openings as well as the corner courtroom window openings have lintels of limestone and contain double hung sashes with two narrow lights in each sash. The stairway and center courtroom window openings are spanned with segmental arches and contain three-light transoms and paired double-hung sashes each of which is similar to those in the other openings.
Following acquisition by the Baptist Church, to accommodate services, two interior load bearing walls were removed from the ground floor, and a truss was installed above the courtroom floor to support the second floor. Otherwise the building is in virtually original condition; few old Texas courthouses have more original fabric intact. The courthouse has never had plumbing installed; outside privies were used.
The Old Irion County Courthouse possesses local historic and architectural significance. The building represents the ear:Ly history of the county and it possesses fine architectural details. Located in West Texas, Irion County is primarily ranching country. The county was created from Tom Green County and organized in 1889, and named for Robert A. Irion, a doctor of medicine who practiced his profession in Nacogdoches, Texas,and who became a leader of the Republic of Texas. By 1890, the county population was 870 and in 1973 the population was only about 1,200.
The Old Irion County Courthouse is distinguished architecturally by imposing form and attractive details, and historically by its role in the growth of West Texas. Designed and built by the firm of Martin and Moodie of Comanche, Texas, prominent West Texas contractors, the building has fine details of exterior masonry and of interior wood and metal work.
The courthouse was completed in the spring of 1901 at a cost of $20,500. Two stories high, the building originally had four offices on the first floor and jury rooms and a courtroom on the second. The courthouse was used until 1936, when Irion County voted to move the county seat to Mertzon by a 453-222 margin. After it was abandoned by county officials, the courthouse was used by the Sherwood Homemakers Club until 1951, when it was bought and used by the Baptist Church. In 1966 a private owner bought the property and donated the use of it to the community of Sherwood. The annual Sherwood Homecoming has been held on the courthouse lawn in June since 1956.
County Seat: Mertzon
Architect: David S. Castle
Architectural Style: Art Deco
General Contractor: Balfanz Construction Company
Building Materials/Description: 3-story brick structure. Very simple rectangular building with many windows. $94,622
← Hutchison County Courthouse Jack County Courthouse →
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The Wars of David
Our visit to the treasury of the Word of God begins this month in 2 Samuel, chapter 8. We will examine David’s military exploits as king and learn how this applies to us. This chapter cites David’s victories over seven other nations: the Philistines, the Moabites, Ammonites, Syrians (also known as the Arameans), the Zobahites, Edomites, and Amalekites.
Some of these wars are allotted only one verse in the Holy Writ. Yet, these were not trifling skirmishes. These were no doubt significant, and in some cases, extended wars. But this chapter gives us only a summary. And whereas the historical annals of other nations devote considerable space to the great martial victories of their leaders, this is not so with the great warrior-king David of Israel. Long histories of David’s wars would only play to the pride of the Israel people— which would not be beneficial.
Israel is set apart from all other nations in many ways, but it is set apart also in this area; meaning, that the accounts of these seven major wars of David’s 40year reign are all concluded in one single chapter of only 18 verses. Compare that to the chapter of 23 verses which described the events surrounding the procession of bringing the ark of the covenant up to Jerusalem. A parade gets 23 verses and seven major wars are allotted only 18 verses! This emphasizes the pivotal importance placed upon the ark, the spiritual focus of the nation.
It has been rightly said that if the Holy Writ had described the wars of David in the typical manner, that even the secular history books would place David on the level of a Julius Caesar or Alexander the Great as one of the premier military leaders of the ancient world. But the focus in the Bible is not primarily on the warfare but on the worship of the Creator.
David went to war to secure the nation of Israel from being swallowed up by its bloodthirsty neighbors. God had promised Abraham real estate all the way to the Euphrates river but He had given no command to exterminate or drive out the inhabitants thereof as He had concerning the inhabitants of Canaanland. Therefore David sought only to make them tributaries to his kingdom.
With the wars of David, we find Israel being transformed from a weak, fledgling nation, which was struggling to drive out the Canaanites, to an empire of great power, wealth and prestige in the world of that era.
Even today—especially today—neither Bible students nor scholars appreciate the extent to which David and Solomon’s empire reached literally around the world. Fortunately, there is now a recentlycompleted series of books, four volumes in all, by Steven M. Collins, which provides tremendous research and details about that. The volumes are titled: The Origins and Empire of Ancient Israel, Israel’s Lost Empires, Parthia, and Israel’s Tribes Today. They should be read sequentially. All are available from Stone Kingdom Ministries. Now to the wars of David.
2 Samuel 8:1 And after this it came to pass, that David smote the Philistines, and subdued them: and David took Methegammah out of the hand of the Philistines.
Methegammah literally means this was the mother city (capital). It stood for the entire nation. Thus, in one verse, the subjugation of the Philistines is recorded. One war down; six to go.
2 And he smote Moab, and measured them with a line, casting them down to the ground; even with two lines measured he to put to death, and with one full line to keep alive. And so the Moabites became David's servants, and brought gifts.
Here David renders especially harsh treatment on the Moabites. After the war, all the male Moabite combatants are made to lie on the ground. Having been sorted by using ropes, two-thirds of the Moabite soldiers are executed while one-third are allowed to live. Yes, this is relatively cruel treatment, but we do not know what provoked David to order these executions. Jewish commentators claim that in the days when David was fleeing from Saul, that he sent his parents to the king of Moab for safekeeping, but that in the course of time, his parents were put to death. That speculation comes from the Jewish Talmud, and you can put whatever credence in it that you wish. The fact is that we have nothing in the Holy Scriptures to indicate why David ordered these executions.
What I find most interesting is the silence of the Christian preachers on this incident. In all my years of attending various denominational churches, and in all my years of hearing Bible teachers and preachers on Christian radio, I have often heard them mention “Ruth the Moabitess.” Thereby they imply, and often claim openly, that Ruth was descended from the Moabites. Occasionally, I have heard them mention that this was why David sent his parents over to the Moabites when he was fleeing Saul. After all, they claim, the Moabites were David’s kinfolk, because Ruth was his great-grandmother. True, she was his great-grandmother, but the fact that David sent his parents for safekeeping with the Moabites no more proves they were his kinfolk than does the fact that when David himself went and lived with the Philistines prove that he was kinfolk with the Philistines!
It could simply have been a fee-for-service arrangement that David made with the Moabites. He could have bargained with them to safeguard his parents for a certain sum of money or goods. That is the simplest explanation. Now, whether the Moabites later double-crossed David and executed his parents, who knows? The fact is that Ruth was not descended from the Moabites, and I am confident that my video lecture called Ruth the Israelite proves it. I use chronological calculations, charts and maps in conjunction with the Scriptures to make the case that she was an Israelite. It is most likely that she was of the tribe of Reuben, who happened to live in what was formerly the land of the Moabites. That lecture is one hour and 35 minutes long and is still available from us in DVD format ($19 ppd.) or VHS format ($15 ppd.)
So in all my years of hearing the preachers talk about Ruth the Moabitess, I have never heard one of them try to explain David’s action here. Why would a man who allegedly has Moabite blood in his veins, kill two-thirds of the men who are supposedly his relatives? This was more harsh than David had treated even the Philistines. The silence of the Christian preachers here is noteworthy. Two wars down, and five to go. The third war listed was against the Zobahites.
2 Samuel 8:3 David smote also Hadadezer, the son of Rehob, king of Zobah, as he went to recover his border at the river Euphrates.
Here we see the fulfillment of God’s promised of real estate extending to the river Euphrates.
4 And David took from him a thousand chariots, and seven hundred horsemen, and twenty thousand footmen: and David houghed all the chariot horses, but reserved of them for an hundred chariots.
Notice the word “chariots” there is in italics, meaning that the translators supplied it. And with good reason, for if we turn to the parallel passage we find that word there. Let’s read it for another reason also.
4 And David took from him a thousand chariots, and seven thousand horsemen, and twenty thousand footmen: David also houghed all the chariot horses, but reserved of them an hundred chariots.
Here is another one of those alleged Bible discrepancies. Was it 700 horsemen or 7,000? Aside from it being a copyist’s error, which some scholars believe it was, another possibility is that the 700 refers to 700 companies of chariots, there being ten in a company, with a commander over each company.
Then it goes on to say that David “houghed” all the chariot horses. That’s an old English word, now obsolete. Pronounced “hocked,” it means that the sinews of their rear legs were cut so that they were rendered useless for military purposes. Why did he do that? Why didn’t David just keep all the chariot horses for his armies? One possibility is that he remembered the law of God which forbade the king from accumulating horses to himself, so he might have decided that keeping 100 out of 700 or 7,000 chariot horses was within the spirit of the law.
We have mentioned in a previous teaching that David may also have been guilty of violating a similar law which stated that the king shall not multiply wives to himself (cf. Deuteronomy 17:17). The Zobahites must have had an alliance with the Syrians because they came running to help the Zobahites.
2 Samuel 8:5 And when the Syrians of Damascus came to succour Hadadezer king of Zobah, David slew of the Syrians two and twenty thousand men.
6 Then David put garrisons in Syria of Damascus: and the Syrians became servants to David, and brought gifts. And YHWH preserved David whithersoever he went.
7 And David took the shields of gold that were on the servants of Hadadezer, and brought them to Jerusalem.
I would surmise that these shields were ceremonial and not functional. Gold is very heavy, about as heavy as lead. Can you imagine a soldier trying to hoist this shield in battle? Later on in his life, David was told that because he was a man of war, that he would not be permitted to build the temple for Yahweh. However, David did make preparations for his son to carry out the work. David had the “plans and specs” drawn up and he collected much of the raw material for the project. Do you think that perhaps the gold from these shields was set aside for the construction of the temple? We will return to this thought later.
8 And from Betah, and from Berothai, cities of Hadadezer, king David took exceeding much brass.
Thus David has more material for the temple. David’s defeat of Hadadezer and the Zobahites, along with their allies, the Syrians, led to a side benefit for David’s kingdom, as we see next.
9 When Toi king of Hamath heard that David had smitten all the host of Hadadezer,
10 Then Toi sent Joram his son unto king David, to salute him, and to bless him, because he had fought against Hadadezer, and smitten him: for Hadadezer had wars with Toi.
We’ll pause in the middle of that verse. The side benefit is that David gains a submissive ally without a fight. This stranger wants to be on David’s side. Here is the old principle often employed in political games, that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Toi was enemy to Hadadezer, so he came to David and said “let’s be friends,” and recognizing David’s superior power, Toi brought with him a significant amount of treasure as a recognition of the superior position of David’s kingdom.
10 (cont’d) And Joram brought with him vessels of silver, and vessels of gold, and vessels of brass:
Next are two verses which contain some very important lessons and revelations:
11 Which also king David did dedicate unto YHWH, with the silver and gold that he had dedicated of all nations which he subdued;
12 Of Syria, and of Moab, and of the children of Ammon, and of the Philistines, and of Amalek, and of the spoil of Hadadezer, son of Rehob, king of Zobah.
Only six nations of the seven nations are mentioned there, but Edom is referred to in the next several verses, and also in the parallel passage …
1 Chronicles 18: 11 Them also king David dedicated unto YHWH, with the silver and the gold that he brought from all these nations; from Edom, and from Moab, and from the children of Ammon, and from the Philistines, and from Amalek.
Back to 2 Samuel. We will look at this passage on several levels. First, on the literal level, we note the word “also” in verse 11, which leads me to connect this dedication of the precious metals to the Lord with the golden shields of verse 7. In other words, I think we can safely assume that David did in fact set aside those golden shields as part of the raw materials to be used later for the construction of the temple. Now again to…
1 Chronicles 18: 7 And David took the shields of gold that were on the servants of Hadarezer [Hadadezer], and brought them to Jerusalem.
8 Likewise from Tibhath, and from Chun, cities of Hadarezer [those are the same cities which are called Betah, and Berothai in the account in 2 Samuel. From those cities, it says…] brought David very much brass, wherewith Solomon made the brasen sea, and the pillars, and the vessels of brass.
So, indeed, there is the confirmation that these metals being dedicated to the Lord were being set aside for use in His temple. That is important to keep in mind. Materials being dedicated to Yahweh means that they will be used in his temple. Now let us look at this symbolically. Remember that the types and shadows can apply to us personally as well as nationally and corporately. David is a type of Christ in numerous ways, but here we see him as Christ the conqueror. We have noted that there are seven nations mentioned in this chapter over whom David is victorious in warfare—which reminds us of this verse.
Deuteronomy 7:1 When YHWH thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou;
We know that the Israelites never did succeed in fully driving out or exterminating these seven nations, but from a type and shadow standpoint, they did. How can I say that? First, we must understand that the reason they could not fully accomplish the job is because they were laboring under a Passover anointing. By 33 A.D., the church in the New Testament was given a Pentecost anointing. However, the past two millennia have proved that the Pentecost anointing is also insufficient for perfection. Now notice that in Acts 13 Paul and Barnabas are teaching in Antioch and Paul is recounting Israel history.
Acts 13:19 And when he [Yahweh] had destroyed seven nations in the land of Chanaan, he divided their land to them by lot.
So, from a typical (types and shadows) standpoint, the seven nations inside the Promised Land were destroyed. Then later, David came along and subdued seven other nations which were outside the Promised Land. What this foreshadows is both personal and corporate. Personally, our Promised Land is our glorified body.
I love the FBI, because our glorified body is our Full Body Inheritance. But we don’t get our FBI the moment we become Christians. We first experience our Passover, and that is by faith in the blood of Jesus. That is our justification in the Outer Court. It is the event where God now accounts us as righteous (even though we’re not). It is an imputation. That is what Acts 13:19 is. God accounted them as having accomplished the work on the seven Canaanite nations, even though it was not perfect.
Then, we move on into the Holy Place where we experience our Pentecostal anointing and we are in our sanctification phase. Here we struggle to overcome “enemies both foreign and domestic,” that is to say, enemies both within ourselves and outside. But the complete victory does not come until we inherit our glorified bodies at the resurrection, which is the Tabernacles experience. Salvation is a progression: from justification to sanctification to glorification; from Passover to Pentecost to Tabernacles.
All this is portrayed symbolically in the progression from Outer Court, to Holy Place to the Holy of Holies. (See FMS #11 through 17 for greater detail.) Let’s not build a house (permanent home), even as others do, in the Outer Court, the Passover stage. Neither let us build a house and be stuck in the Pentecost stage. We must continuously be growing in holiness and in our understanding of the Word. The process is often painful because it means we must sometimes leave behind the denominational walls those who do not see what Father has given us to see. Let us therefore embrace the vision of Tabernacles and press on towards perfection. For that is our permanent home. Hallelujah!
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ValeurThis name derives from the Medieval English 'felagh' or 'felaw' itself coming from the late Olde English 'feolaga' meaning a partner or shareholder. The ultimate origin of the name is the Olde Norse 'felagi', a partner or companion. The surname is first recorded in the 12th Century, (see below). One, Walter Felagh appears in the 1256 'Assize Court Rolls of Northumberland' and a Robert le Felagh in the 1327 Subsidy Rolls of Sussex. The patronymic forms of the name are Fellows and Fellowes. The final 's' added to the name is a reduced form of 'son of (Fellow)'. An interesting namebearer was Sir Charles Fellows (1799 - 1860), a traveller and archaeologist who discovered no less than thirteen ancient cities in Lycia after 1839. In 1841, he published 'An Account of Discoveries in Lycia' and was also known as a Lycian numismatologist. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Richard Felawe. which was dated circa 1150 in the 'Catalogue of the Dean and Chapter of Lichfield', Staffordshire. during the reign of King Stephen, known as the Count of Blois, 1135 - 1154. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was known as Poll Tax. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to 'develop' often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.
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ValeurRecorded in the spellings of Flag, Flagg, Fleg, Flegg, Flieg, Fliege, Flieger, and Pfleger, this medieval surname can be English, German, or Swiss. The confusion arises mainly because of the spellings Fleg and Flegg, which were recorded in all three countries. It is probable that with those spellings as with Flieg(e) and Flieger, the origin is the pre 7th century word 'pflege' meaning a judge or possibly a foster parent, although there is or was also a place called 'Flige' in Germany. The English spelling as Flag or Flagg is definately locational and originates from the village of Flagg in the county of Derbyshire. This village is first recorded in the 1086 Domesday Book as 'Flagum', a word of Scandanavian origins and believed to mean 'the place where peat was cut'. Locational surnames being 'from' names, these were usually given to people as easy identification, after they moved to another place. The further away they moved from their original homes, the more likely the change in spelling. Both Flagg and Flegg are well recorded in London, a John Flagge being recorded at the church of St Mildred Poultry on December 10th 1539, although the first recording as Flegg was not apparently until March 6th 1825, when Frederick Flegg was a witness at St Leonard's church, Shoreditch. In Switzerland and Germany the recordings are ancient, Gerhun von Flige, apparently a locational name being so recorded in the year 1220. Later recordings which are seemingly occupational include: Dietrich Flieger at Ulm, Switzerland, in 1338, and Counracht Fluger of Flugelau, Germany, in 1345.
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Estes Park, CO Real Estate
The Village of Estes Park is surrounded by nationally protected lands and mountain peaks ranging in elevation from 8,500 feet to over 14,000. Visitors from around the world come to look at the majestic snowcapped peaks and experience outdoor activities.
How to Celebrate the Fourth of July in Northern...
The most patriotic holiday of the season, Independence Day, brings some of Northern Colorado’s best parades, races and festivals. From the huge, all-day events in Loveland and Fort Collins to the smalltown parties in Wellington and... Link to the Article
The Community of Estes Park
The Village of Estes Park is bordered by Rocky Mountain National Park. Its mountain peaks range in elevation from 8,500 to over 14,000 feet. Visitors from around the world come to experience its majestic setting and participate in outdoor activities – walking, hiking, fishing, mountain climbing, ice climbing, snowshoeing.
Estes Park is a year-round community with nearly 6,000 residents. The downtown offers unique shops, galleries, restaurants and places to explore. The Big Thompson and Fall Rivers meet at Riverside Plaza, an open park connecting to the Riverwalk. Eight miles of improved hike and bike trails that traverse the valley floor past a bird sanctuary, golf courses and circle Lake Estes.
The village has established an international reputation for the quality and variety of festivals it hosts. These include the Stanley Film Festival (held on the grounds of the Stanley Hotel where horror-writer Stephen King penned “The Shining,” Scandinavian Midsummer Festival, Rooftop Rodeo, Longs Peak Scottish Irish Highland Festival, Wool Market, Jazz Fest & Art Walk, Elk Fest, Catch the Glow Holiday Parade & Celebration and Estes Park Duck Race.
The climate is dry, both summer and winters, receiving an average of 14 inches of precipitation each year. On average, the village receives only 34 inches of snow during a winter season.
Population: 6,000 (2012 estimate)
Elevation: 7,522
Climate: Nearly 300 days of sunshine per year with an average of 14” of precipitation
Geography: Estes Park sits at an elevation of 7,522 feet on the front range of the Rocky Mountains at the eastern entrance of the Rocky Mountain National Park
Churches: Approximately 20 churches of varied denominations
Median Family Income: $52,778
There are approximately 1,200 students, in grades pre-kindergarten through 12 attending Estes Park.
Park School District R-3 follows the Colorado Department of Education curriculum standards for the CORE subjects as well as art, music, and physical education. Special Education, English as a Second Language, gifted education, and foreign language are examples of additional curricular programs offered at Park School District. In addition, there are numerous sports, clubs, and other activities that are available to students.
Rocky Mountain National Park, rated the #1 Outdoor and Adventure Destination in the U.S. by Trip Advisor, is just 4 short miles west of Estes Park. The park encompasses 415 square miles of mountain peaks with more than 350 miles of hiking, over 700 species of wildflowers, 150 names lakes, and Longs Peak, one of Colorado’s best known “14-ers.” Abundant wildlife can be seen year round, including the elk that frequently roam downtown.
The Estes Park Medical Center is a 25-bed critical access, acute care facility with a 24-hour emergency department, 24-hour ambulance service, emergency air transport, medical/surgical services, obstetrics, home health care and hospice. University of Colorado Health—and its affiliated Poudre Valley Hospital—operate the Timberline Medical Family Practice and Urgent Care. This facility is staffed six days per week with three doctors and a nurse practitioner.
Tourists are the lifeblood of the region’s economy. Most jobs are in hospitality or supporting industries. Small business owners are the backbone of the region. Real estate/construction is the second largest job provider. Many residents commute daily to Loveland, Fort Collins and the Boulder area.
1484 Creekside Court
Estes Park, CO 80517
1875 Sketch Box Lane #1
Listing Courtesy of RE/MAX Mountain Brokers
4333 Hell Canyon Road
Listing Courtesy of Hayden Outdoors - Windsor
2604 Long View Drive
1042 Lexington Lane
2120 Ridge Road
Listing Courtesy of Coldwell Banker Estes Park
341 Homesteader Lane
890 W Elkhorn Avenue
Listing Courtesy of First Colorado Realty
699 Findley Court
Listing Courtesy of LIV Sotheby's Intl Realty
898 Fish Creek Road
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3162 Thunder Mountain Lane
909 Whispering Pines Drive
Estes Park, CO Homes for Sale
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Coin-Op Operational Strategies
Tips to Hire and Train the Best Workers
Hiring and training workers for coin-operated game companies can come with a variety of challenges, from finding the right employees for the job to keeping them content long term. For this article, company owners and managers offered their tips on how to hire, train and retain the best workers.
At Pride Vending NW in Eugene, Ore., Owner Jeff Whiteley noted that he’s a small operator who has only hired two workers in the past two years. “What I look for when I do hire is motivation first of all. If someone is not self-motivated, you can’t teach them anything. If they have mechanical skills, it still won’t do anything for you if they’re not motivated.” Whiteley said he usually finds people to hire while he’s out on his route. “In general, I look for people who have perhaps some sort of basic electrical skill. But the guy who really sparks my interest is someone between jobs or working in the service industry, someone who has to work well with customers.” According to Whitely, “Someone who has customer service skills and is motivated, that’s the guy or girl I’m after,” he attested. “I haven’t had to run a blind ad because I haven’t gone through that many staff members. Instead, I meet people, talk to them, and ask them some questions.”
When it comes to training, Whiteley said customer service skills are the number one training area that he addresses. “Making sure they know how to interact with people is absolutely important. As a street operator, our customers are a little different than most other businesses. Our customers are essentially the middlemen between us and the public, who are their customers. So when I train new staff, I want to make sure they know how to handle that type of situation.” The skills Whiteley tries to impart are “listening and understanding what your customers need, and then finding a way to fix that problem and make them happy. Sometimes it takes a phone call, or sometimes it requires that you show up at a location with the proper tools, and not give customers an excuse about fixing a machine.” For Whiteley, one-on-one training works best, so he can make certain that his staff can handle these interactions professionally.
In Kenai, Alaska, Mike Metteer is manager at Tyler Distributing Co. Inc., which operates jukeboxes, video and redemption games, foosball air hockey, ATMs and more. Metteer said the “biggest thing I look for in a worker is trustworthiness. I want someone who is ambitious and wants to learn.” Metteer runs ads on Facebook, and uses the local job center to post his needs.
“The area that I am in is not very big, so it is hard to find good people to work,” he said. “Sometimes I will bring people in from outside the area, but honestly it’s difficult for someone to justify making a move here.” When it comes to training strategy, Metteer works similarly to Whiteley, riding around with his new hires and teaching them. “I teach them how to do the things that I know, both in regards to mechanical skills and customer service, too. Having that hands-on training works really well for us, because I can correct any missteps right on the spot.”
At Beyond Amusement LLC in Phoenix, Ariz., Owner Phil Morici hires by running ads in the Republican Gazette newspaper, and through word of mouth. “You kind of get to know all the techs in the area,” he said. As to what he is looking for specifically in a worker, he says “someone technically skilled with good common sense is what I’m after.” Morici added, “Of course what I’m looking for also really depends on what position we are hiring for. For a general technician, we’re looking for skill and common sense. For a collector position, it’s honesty and common sense.”
Morici, too, relies on one-on-one training to get his new hires up to speed on the job. “We go out with the technicians and we work with them,” he said. “We make sure they are qualified, and know how to work with the equipment. With a collector, I’ll go out and make sure they know what they are doing. Unless we have someone with a lot of experience, who has been doing this type of work for years before we hire them, it’s important to offer training.” Morici said that his new hires learn on the job. “They learn from our skill and experience. That’s the best way to get them qualified.”
Michael Martinez, owner of N2 Industries, Inc. in Anaheim, Calif., finds his workers through referrals. “We simply deal with too much cash to just hire off the street. We deal with people who are referred to us through friends and family members. As to what characteristics we’re looking for, we look for people who can actually use tools, people who have rudimentary skills with tools. That’s what counts. We train for more technical skills.” And when it comes to that training, Martinez takes new hires out on his company’s route one-on-one. “We train them on location and in our shop. They have to be trained across the board, on collections, service, and in one case even on sales, and to a lesser extent they are trained on technical aspects. Our people have to know how to do everything.” According to Martinez, because of the wide breadth of skills his staff must learn, individual training in the field works well. He said that is the best way for him to impart a variety of knowledge quickly and personally and be there to answer any questions that come up.
In San Diego, Calif., Steve Krongard, owner of Nickle Cit, said he isn’t looking so much for technical skills as he is “personable people skills. That’s our main thing.” Like Martinez, he primarily relies on referrals to find the workers he needs. “Typically, we only hire from referrals from a previous employee.” A challenge that Krongard faces is minimum wage requirements. “In San Diego, it’s now $11.50 an hour. I want to retain my people as long as possible, but because of that rate, everyone has to get minimum wage. I can’t pay someone who has been with me a long time any more than that. Unfortunately, that means that people may leave, and they’re difficult to replace.”
Along with good people skills, Krongard seeks employees who exhibit a “good work ethic. That isn’t something you can interview for. There’s a lot of turnover in our industry, and a lot of training required,” he noted. “I don’t have just a game technician or just someone who does customer service or counts coins. The person I want to hire is able to do the basics of customer service and learn how to do other things. I used to try the silo approach, with one specific job per person, but it just doesn’t work. I can’t just hire someone to collect nickles out of games and have that person be different than the one who is interacting with customers. I need one or two people who can essentially do everything,” he explained. Krongard said that he really needs an employee who can be a “jack of all trades.”
To train his workers once he finds them, Krongard, too, relies on one-on-one training, usually with him. “Sometimes I’ll have someone else who has been with me a long time doing the training, but the problem with that is that the training gets watered down. I don’t want something even as simple as cleaning a machine or fixing a coin jam to get lost in a game of telephone.”
Krongard also tries to have a monthly meeting to go over what he terms “the intricacy of every game” as well.
Nationwide, game operators look for staff members with integrity – who are quick to learn and capable of multi-tasking. Training is personally conducted, and owners and managers seek to retain the employees they train as long as possible.
PreviousTips to Trim Food Costs Insights from Museums, Zoos and Aquariums
NextAdvice for the Best Arcades
Tips from Mini-Golf and Go-Kart Locations
Customers Favor Music and Redemption
LAI Games Offers Zero Percent Financing on Mini Games through Firestone Financial
Pressing Matters at Museums
Tips to Succeed with Penny Press Machines
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Excellent Ricco Barrino recorded numerous songs
By true fashion On June 23, 2019
Excellent Ricco Barrino recorded numerous songs,5 / 5 ( 1votes )
Ricco Barrino was born in High Point, NC. He began his music career singing at the Oak Grove Missionary Baptist Church, where his family members taught him how to lead a choir.
His music is CROSS GENERATIONAL. The compositions and lyrics are fun, free flowing and memorable. Barrino says, “My music is a gumbo of new school and old school music with aggressive word play using old school melodies to formulate what I call Rock Soul. My music is more creative, but yet controlled with quality and the edginess of radio mainstream.”
Barrino burs on the scene in 2007 when he released the debut single, “Bubble Gum”, which led to a recording deal with TI’s Grand Hustle Records in 2008. Since the, Ricco has recorded numerous songs including “Pray For Me” and “Hood” a duet with his famous sibling and American Idol Winner Fantasia. With familiar favorites like “California” and credits that include the Oscar nominated film, “The Butler”.
In 2016, The singer was featured on five songs in rotation at mainstream radio including “California” (Colonel Loud ft. Young Dolph x TI), “Come to the Money” (T. Neal ft. Ricco Barrino x Colonel Loud), “No Ratches” (Colonel Loud ft. Ricco Barrino), “Pray For Me” (RiccoBarrino), and “Vibe” (Ricco Barrino).
@RiccoBarrino
https://www.instagram.com/riccobarrino/
https://www.youtube.com/user/riccobarrinovevo
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May Day is International Workers’ Day. It has its origins in the fight for an eight-hour working day. A fight that workers waged throughout the 19th century.
This fight is still relevant today.
It remains relevant today for the millions of unemployed, especially in the European Union, as unemployment represents a fundamental war on workers. The right to work and the right to work in your country of birth are fundamental.
It remains relevant for the millions on zero hours contracts never knowing how to make ends meet. And it remains relevant for all those working way more than eight hours a day yet still only being able to survive by getting food from food banks.
Precarious work, unemployment and overwork in unacceptable conditions are all part of the same drive by capital to make workers slaves to labour.
Workers Must Organise
There must be a return to workplace organisation, to trade union activism and solidarity. If your friend is unemployed take them to work with you and demand a decent job for them. If your friend is working every hour there is, yet is still in poverty, join with them in fighting for a pay rise.
Capitalism around the world is reeling from the biggest blow that workers have dealt to it in recent history.
In Britain, 17.4 million British workers voted to leave the EU. The EU has been the main bastion of anti-socialism and pro-globalisation in the West.
It has been the greatest ally of the US and one of the fiercest opponents of progress, alongside NATO, its military partner.
Every major capitalist organisation in the world joined forces to oppose the vote for national independence in Britain and they have joined forces again to try and undermine the result.
Against capitalist globalisation we assert socialist internationalism. At the heart of this is respect for the self determination of nations. There is nothing more precious and essential for winning the battle for democracy in each country and for building socialism than national independence.
US Imperialism is Alive and Well
Throughout the world the United States seeks to turn back progress. This is evident in Latin America where it threatens Venezuela, Bolivia and Cuba constantly.
It also threatens China and many others, and promotes a culture of violence throughout the world with economic sanctions and through its ‘entertainments’ and gaming industries.
The Unelected Run Our Corporations
We have allowed the European Union to put the unelected representatives of the largest corporations in charge of its member states. It dominates previously independent economies with debt and austerity budgets and it plunders Africa in new forms of colonialism.
Mass starvation, the fostering of ethnic and other divisions, war and large scale enforced migrations are the essential social policy tools of global capital in many parts of the world .
This May Day has special significance for those who continue to oppose Medieval fundamentalist ideas and savage armies, and who promote equality, a love of science and peaceful coexistence.
We recognise the great heroism and sacrifices being made, particularly in many countries in the Middle East, by men and women and young people committed to a more humane, democratic and inclusive future.
Our earth and its land and environment, as the first English socialists in the seventeenth century said, are “a common treasury for all” and it is the privatisation of production for profit that continues to abandon planned measures to protect our planet.
Workers create all technological and scientific progress and all culture. We do not need market competition to achieve this. The world has never had such instant access to the discoveries and social and technical advances of mankind.
There has never been such potential for socialism and theorganisation and sharing of natural and manufactured resourcesin the interests of humanity and the environment.
Workers’ Party of Britain
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Oxymorons, Paradoxes, And Contradictory Statements
An oxymoron is two or more words that contradict themselves (e.g. "poor little rich girl" or "living dead"). Sometimes an oxymoron is intended to be humorous (e.g. "military intelligence" or "rap music"). A paradox is a phrase that contradicts itself (e.g. "A Cretan says 'All Cretans are liars'"). A paradox is also used to describe something that seems to be hypocritical.
'85 Radio Special Thank You - "We all sang a duet...", "...until they never let us out a full ten blocks later"
Another First Kiss
Arkansas - a song about sailing along the waters of the Arkansas coast when the state is actually landlocked
Chaos By Design
Counterfeit Fake and Counterfeit Faker
Courage The Cowardly Dog - The dog's name (Courage) contradicts the dog's description (Cowardly).
Dead - "I will never say the word 'procrastinate' again"
Dunkin Of Course Of Course - "Don't kick the people, kick the man"
Everything Right Is Wrong Again - "float upstream," "silent noise," "And now the song is over now" followed by a significant portion of the song.
Got Getting Up So Down - "...I could do it in my sleep"
The Greatest - "They call me the greatest/Cause I'm not very good..."
Happy - A man tells the narrator to think for himself; he later claims he is happy because he is such an independent thinker.
The House At The Top Of The Tree - The chronology is a paradox as the Potato Chips were sent to appease the mice who were upset at the sound of the empty bag that was emptied to send the Chips to the mice.
I Should Be Allowed To Think
I'm Not A Loser - full of double and triple negatives
It Said Something - "I don't even dream about that kind of thing;" however, "it's like it read my mind"
Memoirs Of An Amnesiac - Amnesiacs suffer memory loss, and therefore would not have memoirs
The Neck Rolls Aren't Working
Number Three - "There's only two songs in me and I just wrote the third", "A poor man once told me that he can't afford to speak"
Now I Know -"If there's one thing I can't stand, it's when I stand, corrected, hat in hand", "But that's untrue, for there are two..."
Oblongs Theme - The song describes an unfortunate chemical spill, but ends "in their happy glowing home"
Or So I Have Read - The key line in the chorus is, "Everything you hear is a fact / And the opposite is also correct"
"Paradoxically" - Though not a song, discusses the paradoxes of the LA House of Blues
Reminder - "It's a reminder / He won't remember"
Reprehensible - The narrator tells his story, despite claiming to forget everything (including the story) every morning.
(She Was A) Hotel Detective In The Future - Refers to the future in the past tense
Weep Day - This song is a study in contradictions and paradoxes:
"I didn't write the words you hear me singing / I didn't sing the line before this one" - one of the Johns did, in fact, write the words, and did, in fact, sing them.
"That person took a train to Africa" - it is physically impossible to take a train to Africa, due to the bodies of water that isolate it from all nearby continents.
"Who was pitching for the Oakland Raiders" - the Oakland Raiders are a football team, not a baseball team.
"Striking out the batter she became" - it would be nearly impossible to pitch the ball and then hit it yourself, at least according to the standard laws of physics.
32 Footsteps - "32 new moons shining in 32 skies"
All The Lazy Boyfriends - "We can start at the end"
Birdhouse In Your Soul - "I'm your only friend / I'm not your only friend...," "but really I'm not actually your friend / But I am..."
Cupid - If you killed yourself as somebody else, you wouldn't be killing yourself.
Daylight - "Awake and dreaming"
Dial-A-Song Promo - "25 hours a day"
D Is For Drums - "JL: Put your thinking cap on, John, I'll give you a hint / JF: See I can't find my thinking cap, I think it's lost!"
Experimental Film - "The color of infinity inside an empty glass": if the color of infinity (or anything, for that matter) were inside the glass, then the glass would not be empty.
Garden Of Eden - "We're gonna build a new old car"
Gloria Says "This Guy's A Nut" - She never actually says "This guy's a nut"; the closest she comes is "This guy...all you get is this here recording", and later on, "But, that's--then he's a nut, right?"
Gudetama's Busy Days - "You had nothing and then you lost it"
I Made A Mess - "Trying to clean it up / Is making it worse"
I Was Dancing In The Lesbian Bar - "I was dancing with my friends / And dancing alone"
It Said Something - "Everything up is down"
It Was A Very Good Year - "The square root of a negative number" is an imaginary number (i = square root of negative one), which a year could never be; also, "We would have sexual intercourse, while at the same time we would not have sexual intercourse".
Istanbul (Not Constantinople) - "Old New York"
I've Got A Match - "Which one of us is the one that we can't trust? You say that I think it's you but I don't agree with that"
Lake Monsters - "From Cape Cod, to Massachusetts" — Cape Cod is part of Massachusetts
Lie Still, Little Bottle - "'There's no time for metaphors,' cried the little pill to me / He said, 'Life is a placebo masquerading as a simile'"
London - "It's a secret between everyone and us"
Maine - "the heaven below," "the hell from above"
Mink Car - "Woke up in a beautiful dream": one doesn't wake up in a dream; additionally, "An open sign on an abandoned store" would be quite useless
On The Drag - "You're only happy when you're sad"
One Everything - Hints at a set-theory paradox in the verse that starts "What if you drew a giant circle"
Rhythm Section Want Ad - "Do you sing like Olive Oyl on purpose? You guys must be into the Eurythmics." Olive Oyl is high and squeaky, while Annie Lennox of the Eurythmics has a very wide range, but routinely takes it down into second tenor or baritone territory.
Snowball In Hell - "Money's all broke, and food's going hungry"
Sold My Mind To The Kremlin - "Fishing holes don't exist" - but they certainly do
Spin The Country Dial - The guy even says he's a cultural paradox.
Spiraling Shape - "Down, down, down you go" as the bass note inclines — a musical oxymoron
Tiny Doctors - "I'm never sad anymore" sung in a bleak, depressive tone
Turtle Songs Of North America - "Or it may sound to you like something that isn't a sound at all"
Village Gate Concert Promo - JF: "Weren't you that guy in that band They Might Be Giants that I was in?" JL: "No."
Whistling In The Dark - "I'm having a wonderful time but I'd rather be whistling in the dark". He said rather, which means that he wasn't whistling in the dark at the time. Later in the song, the narrator says "There's only one thing that I like and that is whistling in the dark". He said that he was having a wonderful time when he wasn't whistling in the dark, but then he says that whistling in the dark is the only thing that he likes. It also states that "I've often been told that you only can do what you know how to well" and "There's only one thing that I know how to do well" (probably whistling in the dark) but he is apparently doing something other than whistling in the dark.
You're Watching... - "You're watching They Might Be Giants' Dial-A-Song" (Dial-A-Song is a purely auditory experience)
Honorable mentions[edit | edit source]
The Spine Surfs Alone (EP) - This was the companion EP to The Spine released at the same time, so The Spine wasn't alone.
Triops Has Three Eyes - The video shows a magazine entitled Li'l Giants.
Funny But Sad
Oblique Cliches Or Idiom, Onomatopoeia, and Puns for other forms of wordplay
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What Does a Seared Conscience Look Like?
This essay first appeared on The End Time in January 2014.
"Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared,"
(1 Timothy 4:1-2)
What does a seared conscience look like? Like this:
Now as the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried out to him, saying, “Help, my lord, O king!” And he said, “If the Lord will not help you, how shall I help you? From the threshing floor, or from the winepress?” And the king asked her, “What is your trouble?” She answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.’ So we boiled my son and ate him. And on the next day I said to her, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him.’ But she has hidden her son.” (2 Kings 6:26-29)
You see the issue. The woman was appealing to the King for justice. For a breach of contract. But what a breach of contract! She was SO SEARED in mind that she never stopped to think of what she was saying. "I want justice because the other woman broke our deal to cannibalize our children?!" The horror is that she related this so matter of factly. The worse horror is that she was so unconscious about her sin that she simply and unemotionally stated the facts of the case without stopping to think of what she was actually saying.
That is a seared conscience.
That is also a judgment. Judgment for their apostasy was prophesied by Moses in Deuteronomy 28:56-57:
The most tender and refined woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground because she is so delicate and tender, will begrudge to the husband she embraces, to her son and to her daughter, her afterbirth that comes out from between her feet and her children whom she bears, because lacking everything she will eat them secretly, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy shall distress you in your towns.
Cling fast to the faith. In my opinion, this is why Paul said to take very thought captive, every thought. (2 Corinthians 10:5). Do not listen to liars with seared consciences, who have already been pre-judged for their lies by having the seared conscience to begin with. The road which they travel and lure followers only gets darker and more evil with every step. As with everything biblical, there exists a progression. Ascent into holiness and then glorification is a process and descent into evil and the final apostasy is also a process. It all begins with one step.
This is where sin brings the unwary to: cannibalism...and worse. How can it get worse you ask? Apostasy is a terrible thing. It brings people so deep into sin they can't even feel their sin anymore. People who have seared consciences are not only sinners, but are "inventors of evil"! (Romans 1:30) Worse, they not only sin deeply, don't care, and invent ways to perform more evil, but they give hearty approval to those who practice the evil. (Romans 1:31).
Times of great apostasy are always dangerous for the vulnerable- the physically vulnerable and the spiritually vulnerable. In the Tribulation, the vulnerable will be at most risk once again. (Matthew 24:21-22; Luke 12:51-53). It will be a free-for-all of sins like we saw in the 2 Kings passage. A seared conscience is a terrible thing.
If you still feel conviction over your sin, great! Keep that feeling alive by remaining in a humble and penitent relationship with your Holy God. If you do not feel the same about sin as you used to, you must check yourself to see if you are in the faith. (2 Corinthians 13:5). If you don't, you know the outcome. You will get eaten up- either by your neighbor because love has gone cold (Matthew 24:12) ...or by satan, for the wages of sin is death.
apostasy conscience seared
Eric C September 27, 2018 at 11:06 PM
Wow....😱 eye opening. I didn’t know this Bible story. I would love to see more about it.
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BIOGRAPHY: The World of Mohamed Zakariya
Piney Kesting
Posted Jan 1, 2004 •Permalink • Printer-Friendly Version
The World of Mohamed Zakariya
by Piney Kesting
Mohamed Zakariya is a modern man practicing ancient arts. “In a sense, I am a jack-of-all-trades. I like the stimulation and the variety,” he explains, as he methodically stirs a mortar of ink in his pleasantly cluttered studio. He was preparing his own home-made black ink for his calligraphy, many examples of which hang on the walls of his small studio. Sundials and intricately engraved brass astrolabes, all made by Zakariya, decorate the tops of bookshelves that overflow with titles in Turkish, Arabic and Rumanian.
Old calligraphy exercises from his tutors in Istanbul lie on a others completed by Zakariya’s own students. Above the table, wooden shelves hold brightly colored rows of specially prepared watercolors with names like cadmium red, rose madder and Chinese vermilion. Glass jars of calligraphy pens, carved from bamboo and reed by Zakariya himself, sit neatly arranged on his desk.
Behind the studio, a workshop full of machinery reveals another side of this jack-of-all-trades: Zakariya is as comfortable - and as skilled - working on his 19th-century lathe, or manufacturing his own engraving tools and compasses, as he is guiding a calligraphy pen across paper.
This world of medieval skills is Mohamed Zakariya’s; he entered it through the traditional art of Islamic calligraphy some 30 years ago. Once described by Palestinian-American artist Kamal Boullata as “a medieval artisan led by faith and professional expertise,” Zakariya is an internationally renowned American Muslim calligrapher, with a penchant for handcrafting working reproductions of historical Islamic and early European scientific instruments.
Faith was the catalyst for California-born Zakariya’s introduction to calligraphy. In the 1960’s, while still a teenager, he converted to Islam and began teaching himself Arabic. Zakariya recalls how he discovered, through those early studies, that “calligraphy was an important aspect of both Arabic and Islamic life.” (See Aramco World, September-October 1989.) During the day, he worked as a machinist in a factory. At night, he pursued his self-taught Arabic and calligraphy studies.
Two trips to Morocco in the early 1960’s had introduced him first-hand to a religion that, he says, “attracted me like a magnet.” Hardly the average tourist, Zakariya spent most of his time in mosques. During his second visit, while examining a copy of the Qur’an in a small bookstore, he met an Egyptian calligrapher, Abdussalam Ali-Nour, who was to become his first teacher. This was the beginning of an intriguing path that, years later, led him to Istanbul and master calligrapher Hasan Çelebi.
His native curiosity and wanderlust took Zakariya on an extended two-year journey through Europe in the mid-1960’s. Living by his wits and working at whatever odd job came his way, he occasionally found himself restoring houses and even performing with a British comedy troupe. While in London, Zakariya spent every spare moment in the Oriental Reading Room of the British Museum, studying historical calligraphy texts.
The rules have changed now, but in those days, he recalls, “you could put something that was actually made within 100 years of the Prophet’s lifetime right in front of you and touch it, smell it. You could hold it up to see how the light came through it. I learned a great deal about [ink and paper] from handling these things.”
Zakariya returned to California in 1968. Hired by an antiques dealer in West Hollywood, he restored and built reproductions of antiques. “I learned to be a fabulous maker of oddball stuff, like sundials and astrolabes,” Zakariya says. His many creations, from reproductions of Renaissance scientific and musical instruments to illuminated manuscripts and celestial globes, led to what he describes as his “one brush with fame,” when he was named Scripps College’s artist-in-residence in 1970.
Those early years sharpened Zakariya’s skills and revealed his exceptional, and as yet untutored, artistic talent. However, it was not until he moved to Washington, DC. in 1972 that he decided to pursue the art of calligraphy as “a serious business.” In the following eight years, Zakariya built an impressive reputation and notched up several major accomplishments. He completed his first functioning astrolabe - one of his “dream projects” - and published two books, The Calligraphy of Islam: Reflections on the State of the Art and Observations on Islamic Calligraphy.
Professor Walter Denny, an Islamic art historian at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, reviewed The Calligraphy of Islam back in 1980. “This is the first American book I know that has ever been published on calligraphy as art,” he recalls. “As far as I can tell, it is the first book published in modern times by an Islamic calligrapher about his work in any language other than Arabic. I was really quite impressed by the book. I had no idea [the author] was an American.”
Yet while critics praised his work, by 1980 Zakariya felt that his calligraphy had reached a standstill. “You should be able to see improvement in your work from piece to piece until you are too old to see,” Zakariya says, recalling how frustrated he was at that time.
Then fate intervened. Unbeknownst to him, Dr. Esin Atil, historian of Islamic art at the Smithsonian Institution’s Freer Gallery of Art in Washington, sent samples of Zakariya’s calligraphy to the Research Center for Islamic History, Art and Culture in Istanbul.
Well acquainted with Zakariya and his work, Atil was convinced that he was “one of the best artists. He not only composes in a traditional manner, using a dozen or more types of script; he does his own illumination, which is extraordinary. Mohamed was the person who started [Islamic calligraphy] in this country way before anyone else showed interest in it.”
Dr. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoğlu, director of the Research Center, recalls that Zakariya’s early works “reflected his skill and enthusiasm. However, it was apparent that they were the product of a calligrapher who had not received proper instruction.” He agreed to accept Zakariya at the Center as a student - if Zakariya was willing to forget everything he had previously learned and start again from the beginning. The challenge was eagerly accepted.
In 1982, Zakariya began a correspondence course with Turkish master calligrapher Hasan Çelebi. “Instruction by correspondence was a very difficult task,” Çelebi says. Traditionally, “the teaching of calligraphy requires that teacher and student should be together and should practice visually.”
Nonetheless, the lessons, known in Turkish as meşks, were sent back and forth between Zakariya’s Arlington, Virginia, home and the Research Center in Istanbul. He studied the thulth and naskh scripts with Çelebi, as well as the nasta’liq script with noted calligrapher Ali Alparslan. Zakariya explains that lessons teach one “how to see, rather than how to work.” By reviewing and copying the works of great masters, he says, “one side effect of lessons is that you become a real connoisseur of good calligraphy.”
Heath Lowry, director of the Institute of Turkish Studies in Washington, occasionally carried Zakariya’s lessons to Çelebi when he traveled to Istanbul. “I don’t know of any other Western calligrapher who has gone through a formation like his,” Lowry notes. As Zakariya’s own work developed, Lowry says, “it was inevitable that it would begin pointing him more and more in the direction of Istanbul. The role of the Turks as the last great calligraphers is and continues to be recognized throughout the Islamic world.”
Zakariya devoted himself to his studies with his customary scholarly zeal. The lessons began with individual letters of the alphabet. As he improved, he was given two-letter combinations, and finally, years later, whole sentences to work on. Just as a musician practices scales and exercises, so must a calligrapher repeat his writing exercises again and again to acquire the precision and sureness essential to the art of beautiful writing. One seventh-century practitioner wrote that “calligraphy is hidden in the teaching of a master. Its constancy is maintained by much practice and its continuity is contingent on the religion of Islam.”
“I could have become a surgeon several times over in the amount of time it took me to become a calligrapher,” Zakariya says. With the exception of one month in 1984, when he was able to travel to Istanbul and study daily with his teachers, his lessons continue to this day through the mail.
In the 1980’s, while he continued to labor as a novice under the watchful, albeit longdistance, scrutiny of his teachers, Zakariya’s growing mastery of both calligraphy and the moribund art of astrolabe-making attracted widespread attention. He began to exhibit his calligraphy both in the United States and abroad. In 1983, he traveled for the first time to the Arabian Gulf to exhibit his work in Qatar and teach at the Doha Free Art School.
Several years later, in 1986, under the auspices of the United States Information Agency, Zakariya traveled for the second time to the Gulf region. Visiting Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and Abu Dhabi, he both lectured and displayed his calligraphy. In that same year he also won his first calligraphy prize, in a competition sponsored by the Research Center in Istanbul. It was to be the first of many such awards.
In June 1990, a two-year-long, ten-state tour of his work, sponsored by the American-Arab Affairs Council, made its last stop in Minneapolis. Since then, he has designed and produced nine large calligraphy panels, using texts from the Qur’an and from poetry, for the exhibition “Images of Paradise in Islamic Art,” which is scheduled to travel to five states by the middle of this year.
During that period, between his lessons and frequent exhibitions, Zakariya was hard at work reviving the ancient art of making astrolabes. Said to be the invention of the Greek astronomer Hipparchos of Nicaea in the second century BC, the astrolabe - an engraved brass plate on which brass discs and pointers rotate — is in effect an analogue computer which simulates the apparent rotation of the stars around the celestial pole. Ptolemy of Alexandria described the instrument’s principles in his Planispherium, which was translated into Arabic in Baghdad in the ninth century, and Arab astronomers of the following century refined the astrolabe and used it to make extraordinary scientific advances (See Aramco World, March-April 1991, May-June 1982).
Called “the mathematical jewel,” the astrolabe can be used for navigation and surveying, for telling the exact time of day or night - essential for fixing the times of Muslims’ daily prayers - as an accurate calendar for predicting the seasons, and as a calculator to solve many astronomical problems. Such a wealth of knowledge and precision was, and still is, required to build an astrolabe that the skill was often passed from father to son, as in the case of 12th-century artisans Hamad ibn Mahmud al-Isfahani and his son Muhammad.
Over the centuries, Zakariya says, many of the undocumented techniques used to make astrolabes, such as the engraving process, were lost. Searching through old Arabic manuscripts, however, he managed to unearth the basic mathematical and scientific principles for making them.
“I think I am the only person who makes astrolabes consistently,” Zakariya says, and it is little wonder. Depending upon the size and the complexity of its functions, an astrolabe can take from three to six months to complete. With as many as nine parts that move in relation to each other, the design requires extensive geometrical calculations and precision engraving with specially designed tools.
Today one of Zakariya’s astrolabes, as well as a celestial sphere from his workshop, are on display in the Aramco Exhibit in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. Another hangs in the terminal of the King Abdul Aziz International Airport in Jiddah. Both the National Museum in Doha, Qatar, and the Time Museum in Rockford, Illinois, house his elaborate sundials.
Over the past few years, Zakariya has found himself focusing less on his instruments and machine work and more on his calligraphy, “a living and growing culture. It is so interesting and overwhelming that it becomes something you can’t do without,” he explains. “With me, it has pushed out astrolabes and machine-shop work almost entirely. When I do break the connection and go back to the shop, it’s very hard for the first few days. I want to get that pen in my hand again.”
From carving his own pens to making his own ink and paper and illuminating his texts, Zakariya has become a traditional Islamic calligrapher in every sense of the word. He is, according to Denny, “a genuine hattat” - Turkish for calligrapher. “Mohamed sees himself as being able to work both in the style of the Ottoman and Iraqi 19th-century calligraphers. I am just amazed that he can work in all the major script styles. He can do everything a hattat was always supposed to do.”
Zakariya “has been trained precisely and rigorously in ancient forms,” according to Vicki Halper, assistant curator of modern art at the Seattle Museum. Halper worked with Zakariya during a 1990 exhibit at the Renwick Gallery in Washington, which featured his work along with that of three other contemporary calligraphers. Zakariya, she explains, “particularly identifies himself with the tradition because he works completely within it. He is not trying to push the boundaries of his craft into contemporary American idiom.”
To the contrary: His work honors and revitalizes the past. Zakariya’s success as a calligrapher is reflected in his knowledge of the Qur’an and classic Arabic literature, and in his mastery of the many details and ancillary crafts of the art of calligraphy.
Several years ago, this success was recognized when he became the first American to receive an icazet, or diploma, from the Research Center in Istanbul. A tradition that dates back to the 15th-century, the icazet is only awarded to those calligraphers capable of duplicating the works of the masters, and who have demonstrated as well that they can write a well-known Qur’anic text or Islamic saying on their own.
On May 23, 1988, in the historic 19th-century Yıldız Palace overlooking the Bosporus, Hasan Çelebi presented Zakariya with his icazet, conferring upon him the right to sign his own works and to teach students. Underscoring his student’s unique talent, Çelebi noted that “even among Turkish calligraphers, there are not many who both write and illuminate their work. Zakariya does. I am proud to know that he is ably representing this branch of Islamic art in the United States.” Research Center director Ihsanoglu added: “It has been a wonderful experience for us to be involved in the making of a great artist who, as far as we know, is the first American calligrapher.”
Today, like the jack-of-all-trades he professes to be, Zakariya is consumed with both his work and his hobbies. When he isn’t busy writing a book - in Arabic - on calligraphy, retooling his machines for some future project, or preparing his calligraphic works for exhibitions around the country, he can be found reading old Islamic law books - for fun - or teaching himself how to play the baritone horn.
In addition, he remains both a devoted student and a dedicated teacher of calligraphy. “The Turks say that when you are learning calligraphy, it is the happiest period of your life,” he says. As his own lessons continue and grow harder, he has taken on six students of his own.
Teaching calligraphy face to face, master to student, he explains, is “the old Islamic method of transferring this knowledge. The axiom is usually, ‘If you can’t do it, teach it.’ But it’s exactly the opposite with calligraphy: ‘Don’t teach it unless you can do it.’” Unquestionably, Mohamed Zakariya does it very well.
Piney Resting, a graduate of Johns Hopkins University’s SAIS, is a Boston-based free-lance writer who specializes in Middle Eastern affairs.
Originally published at http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/199201/the.world.of.mohamed.zakariya.htm
MOHAMED ZAKARIYA is an Islamic calligrapher, artist, and maker of custom instruments from the history of science. Born in Ventura, California, in 1942, he began his study of Islamic calligraphy with A.S. Ali Nour in Tangier and London in 1964. After continuing his studies independently at the British Museum, he was invited in 1984 by the Research Center for Islamic History, Art, and Culture (IRCICA) in Istanbul to study with two celebrated Turkish calligraphers: Hasan Celebi and Ali Alparslan. In 1988, Zakariya received the prized icazet (diploma) in sulus/nesih script from Mr. Celebi in a ceremony in Istanbul, and in 1997, he received the icazet in talik from Dr. Alparslan.
Zakariya has presented numerous workshops and lectures on Islamic calligraphy, and his calligraphic works have been exhibited widely. In this country, for example, his work has been shown at the Smithsonian InstitutionҒs Renwick Gallery and S. Dillon Ripley Center and at the Klutznick National Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C.. He has also shown his calligraphy and given demonstrations in conjunction with Islamic art exhibits at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Walters Gallery in Baltimore. Abroad, Zakariya has participated in invitational exhibitions and symposia in Turkey, Kuwait, Iraq, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Abu Dhabi, and Saudi Arabia. He is the author of numerous articles and monographs, including Music for the Eyes, published by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Los Angeles Museum of Art in conjunction with a 1998-99 exhibit of Ottoman calligraphy from the Sakip Sabanci collection. He has also translated from the Turkish the exhibition catalogue, Letters in Gold, by Ugur Derman, as well as Mr. Dermans Art of Calligraphy in the Islamic Heritage (IRCICA, 1998).
A master woodworker, engraver, and machinist, Zakariya also designs and constructs functioning examples of antique-style horological and scientific instruments, examples of which are in the collections of the Aramco Science Museum in Saudi Arabia, the National Museum of Qatar, the Time Museum in Rockford, Ill., and the Adler Planetarium in Chicago. His woodturning has been exhibited at the American Craft Museum in New York and his engraved astrolabes at the Ornamental Metal Museum in Memphis, Tenn.
Zakariya is also the calligrapher for the first U.S. Eid postage stamp which came out in 2001.
http://www.zakariya.net/
Mohamed Zakariya has been included in the Muslim 500: The World’s 500 most influential Muslims for 2011.
Art and Culture, Mohamed Zakariya http://theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/art_and_culture
Culture and Kitsch, Mohamed Zakariya http://theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/culture_and_kitsch1
The Hilye of the Prophet Muhammad, Hattat Mohamed Zakariya http://theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/the_hilye_of_the_prophet_muhammad
Mohamed Zakariya: New Stamp Celebrates Eid, John Marlowe http://theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/zakariya_mohamed_new_stamp_celebrates_eid
VIDEO BIO: Portrait - Mohamed Zakariya http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nshXFQ360wI&mode=related&sear
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Congregational Resource Center
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Through the aid of text, pictures, and graphics, explore the history of non-Christian religious minorities in the United States..
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National Election Studies
Data Archive > U.S. Surveys > General Population > National Surveys > National Election Studies
Survey Title
Survey Title Date Collected Date Added Site Tutorials
American National Election Studies, 2000
This study is the twenty-sixth in a series of national election studies produced by the Center for Political Studies and the Survey Research Center. The 2000 American National Election Studies entailed both a pre-election interview and a post-election re-interview. Hundreds of substantive themes are covered including: interest in political campaigns, attentiveness to media coverage, political participation and knowledge of the religious background of Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates. In this data file, variables 892 through 920 include indicators on religiosity, congregational affiliation, and church attendance. Local church activities with regard to politics are also included in the questionnaire. Finally, several new concepts in the 2000 study included questions designed to evaluate social trust, social networks and political knowledge. The NES/CPS American National Election Studies 2000 was conducted by the Center for Political Studies of the Institute for Social Research, under the general direction of Principal Investigators Nancy Burns and Donald R. Kinder.
The NES/CPS American National Election Studies 2002 was conducted by the Center for Political Studies of the Institute for Social Research, under the general direction of Principal Investigators Nancy Burns and Donald R. Kinder. Dozens of substantive themes are covered including: interest in political campaigns, attentiveness to media coverage, and political participation. In this data file, variables 226 through 233 and variables 312 through 316 include indicators on religiosity, congregational affiliation, and church attendance. Respondents were also asked about financial contributions to their church (variable 685). For more information, go to: http://www.electionstudies.org/studypages/2002prepost/2002prepost.htm
From the ANES website (http://www.electionstudies.org/studypages/2004prepost/2004prepost.htm): The study, in part, maintains and extends the core of the NES time-series by collecting data on Americans' basic political beliefs, allegiances, and behaviors. It contains special instrumentation on American's views on foreign policy, the war on terrorism, and the Iraq War and its consequences. It extends the experiment on the measurement of voter turnout begun in 2002, and carries expanded instrumentation on inflation, immigration, gender politics, and gay and lesbian politics. It also includes the Comparative Studies of Electoral System's Module 2, which focuses on representation and accountability. The data also contain several religion variables, including questions about prayer frequency, importance of religion, attendance at religious services, and belief in the Bible.
American National Election Studies, Cumulative Data File, 1948-2004
From the ANES website: "The ANES Project Staff has merged into a single data file cases and variables from each of the biennial American National Election Studies conducted since 1948. This file is called the ANES Cumulative Data File. Questions that have been asked in three or more Election Studies usually appear in the Cumulative Data File. The variables are coded in a comparable fashion across years. The version of the Cumulative Data File that is currently available pools data through the 2004 National Election Study to yield 47,438 cases. Note that the Cumulative Data File only includes data from the Time Series data collections (that is the Pre-/Post-Election Study in presidential election years and the Post-Election Study in midterm years). Data from other ANES studies, such as the 1984 Continuous Monitoring Study, the 1988 Super Tuesday Study, or the 1988-90-92 Senate Election Study, are not included in the Cumulative Data File."
Religion variables include religious affiliation, church attendance, subjective importance of religion, beliefs about the Bible, and attitudes toward school prayer.
For additional information on this file, see the American National Election Studies website: http://www.electionstudies.org/studypages/cdf/cdf.htm
American National Election Studies, Panel Study, 2008-2009
The 2008-2009 ANES Panel Study is a series of surveys of a representative sample of the American electorate recruited by telephone. Panelists began completing monthly surveys on the Internet in January 2008. The study is intended to support research on candidate choice and voter turnout in the 2008 presidential election. The chief purpose of the advance release is to make interim data available to the user community as quickly as possible after the presidential election. The advance release includes all survey responses to questions about the election that were asked in 2008, except for a small amount of data that has been redacted because its release could pose a risk to respondent privacy.
To minimize panel attrition and conditioning effects, only seven of the twenty-one monthly surveys are about politics. Other surveys are about a variety of non-political topics. The panelists answered political questions prepared by ANES in January, February, June, September, October and November 2008. With certainty, the panel will answer more political questions in May 2009. It is also possible that panelists will answer a limited number of political questions on other 2009 waves. The advance release includes data from the six ANES-created political surveys of 2008, as well as the recruitment and profile surveys. The full release will include data from all 21 waves. Note that the 2008-2009 ANES Panel Study is entirely separate from the 2008 ANES Time Series study, which was conducted using the traditional ANES method of face-to-face interviews before and after the 2008 election. Although there are a few questions common to both studies, the samples and methods are different.
For more information, see the User's Guide.
American National Election Studies, Time Series Study, 2008
The ANES 2008 Time Series Study is the 28th study in a series of biennial election studies conducted since 1948 (the "ANES Time Series"). The main goal of the study is to allow a broad cross-section of scholars and citizens analyze survey data pertinent to important questions about vote choice, turnout and related matters in the context of the 2008 federal election. In addition to content on electoral participation, voting behavior, and public opinion, the 2008 ANES Time Series Study contains questions in other areas such as media exposure, cognitive style, and values and predispositions. Special-interest and topical content provided significant coverage of foreign policy, including the "war on terrorism" and the war in Iraq. In addition, the study carried expanded instrumentation on organizational membership, unemployment, the federal budget, modern sexism, and race and gender politics. The post-election interview also included Module 3 from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES).
The ANES 2008 Time Series Study contains several questions on religion, including religious affiliation, views of the Bible, church attendance, frequency of prayer and spouse's religious affiliation. Detailed information on all the questions that were asked can be found in the report "Background Information on the 2008 ANES Time Series Questionnaires."
The ANES 2012 Time Series Study is the 29th study in a series of election studies conducted during years of Presidential elections since 1948 (the "ANES Time Series"). As with all Time Series studies conducted during years of presidential elections, respondents were interviewed during the two months preceding the November election (Pre-election interview), and then re-interviewed during the two months following the election (Post-election interview).
For the first time in Time Series history, face-to-face interviewing was supplemented with data collection on the Internet. Data collection was conducted in the two modes independently, using separate samples. For the face-to-face mode, all sampled persons were interviewed in person using Computer-Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI), which also incorporated an interview segment in each wave that was self-administered (CASI). For the Internet mode, all study participants were members of the KnowledgePanel, a panel of regular survey participants administered by GfK (formerly Knowledge Networks).
(ANES. 2014. User’s Guide and Codebook for the ANES 2012 Time Series Study. Ann Arbor, MI and Palo Alto, CA: the University of Michigan and Stanford University.)
"The ANES 2016 Time Series is a continuation of the series of election studies conducted by the ANES since 1948 to support analysis of public opinion and voting behavior in U.S. presidential elections. This year’s study features a dual-mode design with both traditional face-to-face interviewing (n=1,181) and surveys conducted on the Internet (n=3,090), and a total sample size of 4,271.
"Study Content Highlights:
Data collection for the ANES 2016 Time Series Study began in early September and continued into January 2017. Pre election interviews were conducted with study respondents during the two months prior to the 2016 elections and were followed by post-election re-interviewing beginning November 9, 2016.
"As in 2012, face-to-face interviewing was complemented with data collection on the Internet. Data collection was conducted in the two modes independently, using separate samples but substantially identical questionnaires. Web-administered cases constituted a representative sample separate from the face-to-face.
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Victor Anderson
Visiting Professor at Global Sustainability Institute, Anglia Ruskin University
Professor Victor Anderson is the Visiting Professor at the Global Sustainability Institute in Anglia Ruskin University. His research interests include; relationship between ecology and economy, especially globally, sustainable development; green politics & economics.
Prior to taking up his current position Professor Anderson had worked as Senior Policy Officer for One Planet Economy at WWF-UK, a Lecturer at Goldsmith's College, London University, an Economist at the Sustainable Development Commission, a Senior Parliamentary Researcher at Plaid Cymru Group of MPs, Board Member at London Development Agency and an elected Assembly Member at the Greater London Authority. He is also currently a Member of the Planetary Boundaries Initiative Advisory Group.
The Global Sustainability Institute is a research institute within Anglia Ruskin University which has grown rapidly since its formation in early 2011. It consists of a group of researchers involved in an extremely wide variety of research projects, collaborating with numerous external partners as well as other departments across the university (such as Built Environment, Business, Life Sciences and Psychology). Their core research questions are focused around (i) personal motivations and (ii) systems change, set against the challenges of sustainability. They have four key areas of research: Behaviour change & decision making; Climate action & cultural systems; Resource management & ecosystems services; Education for sustainability.
Visiting Professor, Global Sustainability Institute, Anglia Ruskin University
Oxford University, BA Philosophy Politics & Economics
victor.anderson@anglia.ac.uk
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Why ‘pro-poor’ policies on their own won’t shift inequality in South Africa
June 16, 2019 4.49am EDT
Colin Bundy, University of Oxford
Colin Bundy
Honorary Fellow of Green Templeton College, University of Oxford
Colin Bundy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
University of Oxford provides funding as a member of The Conversation UK.
Inequality in South Africa derives from settler colonialism. The country is incredibly unequal. Shutterstock
Sociologist Goran Therborn has probably influenced the study of inequality more than any other scholar in recent years.
Invited to locate inequality in South Africa in a global perspective, Therborn was emphatic. In terms of income it is “the most unequal country on earth”. He proposed that inequality in South Africa (which he calls “extraordinary” and “unique”) derives from settler colonialism, its trajectory and its enduring legacy.’
I want to expand on what Therborn insisted was only a hypothesis, specifying some of the key contributions of the colonial era to the history of inequality. But I also argue that the specific nature of capitalism in 20th century South Africa, while profoundly shaped by settler colonialism, is analytically distinct and equally important in shaping the contours of contemporary inequality.
Empire’s civilising mission
During 150 years of Dutch colonial rule, slavery left a deep imprint on poverty and inequality. Slaves and their descendants formed a distinct layer of the poor in the Western Cape. And as the colony expanded north and east, Khoikhoi communities lost their independence through military defeat, disease and the loss of their herds. Through the 18th century, Khoikhoi were absorbed into the frontier economy as a captive workforce.
At the beginning of the 19th century, Britain shouldered aside the moribund Dutch East India Company. British colonial administrators were confident of the “civilising mission” of the empire; and the arrival from the 1820s of British settlers in the eastern Cape introduced a new economic, political and military dynamic. Imperial and settler troops waged a series of increasingly punitive wars against the Xhosa kingdoms.
The loss of land and livestock propelled Xhosa men, women and children into indentured labour. Twentieth century historian and former president of Cornell University Cornelis Willem De Kiewiet – writing 75 years ago – went to the heart of the matter when he wrote:
The land wars were also labour wars.
A crucial period from the 1860s to 1910 was decisively shaped by the mineral revolution and imperial interventions. The discovery of diamonds and then gold saw large mining houses create a labour force with a skilled (white) artisan base and a massive, migrant (black) workforce. British imperial policy sought to control access to the minerals and secure the labour supplies to extract them. A series of wars and annexations completed the conquest of African societies; and the defeat of the Boer republics in the South African War led to the creation of a single territory under British control.
In 1910, by an Act passed in Westminster, South Africa became a British dominion. The Union inherited what became some of the essential institutions of 20th century South Africa. These were the “native reserves”, large-scale migrant labour, segregated urban space, and an increasingly overt subordination of black people to white rule.
After 1910, the new state massively increased its capacities and the economy diversified. By 1948 manufacturing had outstripped both mining and agriculture in its contribution to GDP. South Africa became a mid-ranking industrial power. But this history of economic development had a dark, singular twist. Alone among industrial powers, South Africa did not incorporate the bulk of its working class into its social and political institutions. Black South Africans were systematically excluded from political, educational, legal and welfare systems.
Distinctive social divide
From 1910 to the 1970s - under segregation and apartheid - South African capitalism accommodated itself to this distinctive social divide, which became a key driver of inequality. The consequences are well-known.
Until the 1970s, the real wages of African workers in mining and agriculture stagnated and at times actually fell. Farm workers were an exceptionally exploited group. An even larger proportion of the African population experienced poverty in the reserves (subsequently bantustans or homelands). Black city dwellers experienced less acute poverty than their rural cousins. The mass provision of township housing provided modest material and welfare gains, but created an insecure and violent environment.
Throughout these years, successive governments not only inhibited black economic advancement, but also buttressed white privileges. State services for white families – in education, healthcare and housing – widened racial disparities in income and wealth. During the heyday of apartheid – from 1948 to 1973 – a period of growth and stability saw white living standards rise dramatically.
By the 1970s, however, the apartheid project was in deep trouble, regionally, politically and economically. Growth stalled, inflation rose, an intense balance of payments crisis set in. From the OPEC crisis of 1973 to 1994, South Africa’s economic performance was dismal. Capital responded – it had to, given the stark failure of the existing low-wage, low skills growth path. The real wages of black workers in manufacturing and in mining rose sharply – but there was a strong shift to replace labour. Manufacturing, agriculture and mining all embraced mechanisation – and shed jobs.
An historic transition took place: a shift from labour shortages to a labour surplus, generating structural unemployment upon a massive scale. Between 1970 and 1980, unemployment spiralled tenfold: from about half a million to 5.1 million people. Among the jobless millions, those who were less educated, less skilled and less urbanised had scant prospects of finding work. Structural unemployment became a savage new source of inequality.
De-racialised affluence
Politically, 1994 was a watershed moment. But economically and socially there were significant continuities from the late apartheid years to the post-apartheid present. Social grants and the provision of housing and services to townships have reduced levels of income poverty. But inequality has actually increased since 1994.
Two factors have intensified inequality: increasingly concentrated income and wealth; and a sharp rise of inequality within the African population. In 1993 the wealthiest decile of the population earned 54% of national income; by 2008 their share had risen to over 58%. The poorer 50% of the population saw its share fall from 8.3% to 7.85%.
Wealth is even more unequally shared than income. Within the African population, the emergence of a well-to-do middle-class minority has been rapid and today about half of the wealthiest decile are black. In post-apartheid South Africa, affluence has been de-racialised; poverty and inequality have remained stubbornly racialised.
Inequality was forged by settler colonialism and racial capitalism; its persistence in such acute form reflects the distribution of power (and the resources and opportunities conferred by power) in society.
Tackling inequality therefore involves more than “pro-poor” policies: it needs changing the social processes and relations that underpin it.
The article is based on a chapter in a book, Poverty & Inequality: Diagnosis, Prognosis and Responses
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The Harder They Come:
Review and Interview<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
By Christine Eke
Black Theatre in Britain has come a long way. In the last three years or so not only have we been given the likes of Elmina’s Kitchen, The Big Life, and now The Harder They Come.
For the first time the popular 1972 film starring Jimmy Cliff, which launched reggae to the world, has been brought to the stage at Theatre Royal Stratford, <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />East London.
The play re-tells the story of Ivan the “country bowy” who leaves for Kingston with dreams of becoming a famous singer, but soon finds himself entangled with the law.
It’s easy to become attached to Ivan, played by Actor Rolan Bell. The character starts off by making new friends in the big city who warm to him and his pursuit of becoming a singer.
Ivan is convinced he can get a record deal but when he comes into contact with Hilton, the money hungry record company boss he soon realises the harsh realities of the music business.
Desperate to release his first record, and survive, the lure of crime becomes too tempting.
In the end he realises a route to the fame that he craves as he goes on the rampage against those who have wronged him, all guns blazing.
The play is a poignant take on the Kingston music business and it’s exploitation of naïve newcomers seeking a better life away from poverty.
It also reveals an under-belly of corruption in the law when drugs are thrown into fold.
The show is very energetic and full of song, it made me forget the outside world for three hours and escape to 70s Jamaica, and because I knew some of the songs it was easy to clap and dance along.
The actors do a good job exaggerating their movement and accents, drumming up drama and hooking the audience. Every character seems well placed; Preacher - spiritual leader to the community, Elsa – Ivan’s love-interest and Pedro the drug mule who introduces him the underworld.
Though the theatre is small it enhances intimacy. The producers have thought every detail, providing the colours of Rastafari as a background and including a live reggae band on stage for authenticity.
This is play and a musical with a real message behind it. If you’re looking for entertainment that focuses on the black community, then this is the place to be.
It’s a thoroughly enjoyable show.
Interview with Rolan Bell
After a large search to find actors from Jamaica or of Jamaican decent, 22-year-old actor Rolan Bell was picked to play Ivan. On the opening night Jimmy Cliff was in the audience, I asked Bell…
How did it feel to have Cliff watching you play Ivan?
I was very flattered to be considered. I was very excited and nervous but just tried to concentrate on the story and the character. During the finale he came on the stage, it was a magical night for the actors and the audience.
Before landing the role did you see the film?
I remember my parents talking about it and hearing the music as I was growing up. My dad was a singer in Jamaica, so my mum told me about the music industry there and related it to the film. But before getting the part I saw the film and really liked it, it definitely helped me before the audition process.
Do you relate to Ivan?
I understand the causes for his actions and the determination he has for his talent, though I wouldn’t go to the extreme of buying a gun. He was being exploited and it got point where he had no money and was starving. I think he decided to do what he needed to do to survive.
Ivan is very energetic and cheery, are you enjoying the role?
I have honestly never had more fun on stage in my life! It’s a great vibe from beginning to end. We all get along really well, so I think that the audience feeds off the positive energy coming from the stage and gives it back to us…it is a fabulous sensation.
What are your hopes for the show, especially after the success of The Big Life?
I really hope it does well. I think it could be a success in the West End and on Broadway too. It has the potential of being a great piece of musical theatre, so we’ll all have to wait and see.
The Harder They Come will be running throughout the summer at the Theatre Royal Stratford East. To book tickets call: 0800 183 1188.
Christine Eke is a London-based journalist. She will be covering arts and media stories for The New Black Magazine
Now that you've read the review, please tell us what you think. E-mail comments to comments@thenewblackmagazine.com
Photo: Susan Lawson-Reynolds (Pinky) and Roland Bell (Ivan) in The Harder They Come at the Theatre Royal Stratford East, London.
Picture taken by Tristram Kenton
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Josephine Lewis
In 2014 Nelson Youth Council[sitetree_link,id=545] conducted a series of interviews for Heritage Week 2015. They spoke with people involved in areas of health and medicine. This is one of...
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Tyree Brothers
The Tyree brothers, Fred (1867-1924) and William (1855-1924) were the sons of William Tyree, a shoemaker From Surrey, England, who emigrated to Otago, New Zealand in 1871. William (senior)...
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Art and Architecture of Trafalgar Street, Nelson
Trafalgar Street in Nelson lost many of its historic, and iconic, buildings in the 1980’s. This was a time when there was a drive to modernise cities, and...
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Waimea Plains
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Aquatic Sports
The Sport Digest
Home College Tennis
Djokovic joins the Mount Rushmore of tennis
Andy Murray dumped a cross-court backhand into the net. With the miss, Novak Djokovic won the point, and with it the game, the set, and the match. More importantly, he won the French Open championship. It was the title that had eluded Djokovic since he turned pro in 2003. It was also the final piece of the puzzle to a career Grand Slam. The Grand Slam includes the hard court tournaments of the Australian Open and the U.S. Open, the grass court tournament at Wimbledon, and the red clay at the French Open. Only seven other men in history have accomplished this feat. This alone moves him into the top tier of all-time greats. He continues to move up the list based on his twenty career Grand Slam finals, his twelve career Grand Slam titles, and his five year-end championships.
At the current moment, Roger Federer is considered the greatest tennis player in history. He has won seventeen Grand Slam titles in twenty-seven finals appearances. He holds the record for most weeks ranked number one in the world, and he has also won six year-end championships. Rafael Nadal and Pete Sampras are right behind Federer. They both have won fourteen Grand Slam titles, but Sampras never won the French Open. Nadal on the other hand won the French Open a record nine times. It is clear that Djokovic belongs in this elite group, the Mount Rushmore of men’s tennis.
The scary thing is that Novak is nowhere close to being done. While Federer, Nadal, and Sampras all faded as their careers have gone on, Djokovic only seems to be getting stronger. He also has a major advantage in that no other player on tour right now offers much of a challenge to his throne. Andy Murray seems to be the only player with any chance of beating Djokovic right now, and Djokovic has still won twenty-four of thirty-four matches against him. The two have met seven times in Grand Slam finals, with Djokovic winning five. At his current pace, barring injuries of course, Djokovic could catch Federer’s record seventeen Grand Slam titles by the end of next season.
On the other side, one has to feel bad for Andy Murray. The British player has played in one of the toughest eras in tennis history. He entered the tour when Federer and Nadal were at their peak. Now he is being suppressed by Djokovic. Murray has advanced to ten Grand Slam finals, but has only won two of them. It would be tough to play against this generation of tennis players, and Murray has had to take his lumps because of it. He does have one highlight that only Nadal can match, and that is a gold medal in men’s singles at the Olympics. Murray won this in front of his home crowd at the 2012 London Olympics. Even if he never reaches the Grand Slam counts of the greatest players, he can always look back and say he won for his country on the ultimate stage in sports.
Ben Billman is currently a doctoral teaching assistant at the United States Sports Academy. He lives in Mobile, Alabama with his wife Jennifer and son Derrick. He is originally from Indiana, and therefore has a deep love for the game of basketball.
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Book 152: Shattered
"It was hard enough to run against Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, the Republican National Committee, the FBI, the House Benghazi Committee, and the national media—plus slippery-lipped Joe Biden on any given day—without her own team screwing things up. The one person with whom she didn't seem particularly upset: herself. No one who drew a salary from the campaign would tell her that. It was a self-signed death warrant to raise a question about Hilary's competence—to her or anyone else—in loyalty-obsessed Clintonworld."
Dates read: June 14-18, 2017
On November 8, 2016, my husband and I had plans to go to an election party with a colleague of ours. He had actually left work a little early to go help set up, and I was supposed to join him after I got out of the office. Being on the West Coast, polls start to close on the other side of the country at 4 PM our time, and so by the time I got home and took the dog for a walk and made myself a little dinner, results were starting to come in. I watched, stunned, as things started to tip away from what had seemed a certain Clinton victory. Our pug is not the cuddliest little guy (he's almost kind of like a cat in that he likes to be near us but not right on top of us), but he got pulled into emergency snuggle duty that night. After he pleaded with me to come out at least for a bit, I dropped by the party, but we didn't linger. Sometime around 11 we just turned it off. We had to go to work the next day, after all.
And so the world went on, and the thinkpieces about how it had happened, how what seemed like a sure shot had gone south, commenced. Journalists Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes had spent several months in close contact with the campaign, intending to write a book about how we got our first female president of the United States. Instead, they wrote Shattered, about what went wrong. There isn't a single, easy answer. There were a lot of things, none of which alone would likely have doomed her, but they didn't happen alone: Hilary's own decision-making pre-campaign regarding paid speeches, leaving her vulnerable to the primary challenge from the left she got from Senator Bernie Sanders, the decision to employ Robby Mook as campaign manager and tilt towards his preferred analytics instead of traditional tools like polls and persuasive field efforts, the bloated bureaucracy of Clintonland and infighting among the inner circle, the server, the emails, James Comey, Anthony Weiner, all of it and more happened in overlapping waves. And so, much like that other unsinkable ship, the S.S. Clinton went under.
Allen and Parnes were able to get deep access because they spoke to most of their sources as background, which means lot of the information isn't tied to a particular person. Since you know you won't be identified, you feel comfortable speaking more freely without fear of recrimination for divulging sensitive details. And the details Allen and Parnes got tell quite the story: what seemed like an unstoppable behemoth from the outside was very messy from the inside. Although no one forgot their main enemy was outside, the warring power centers within found plenty of time and energy to skirmish among themselves. Healthy competition between allies can be productive, but this variety was decidedly not. The Clintons themselves were not a part of the solution...from the perspective in the book, they seem largely at a remove from the campaign and disinclined to help clear lines of authority be drawn. Hillary's unwillingness to force Huma Abedin to take a step back from her established role as gatekeeper and be in more direct contact with her own campaign, her refusal to either place all her faith in either the data-driven Mook or old-school politico John Podesta, created a situation in which no one was really at the helm to navigate through very tricky waters indeed.
This book was an especially interesting read for me personally because I know people who worked at a relatively high level on the campaign (at least one of whom is called out by name). While the book focuses strongly on upper-level turmoil, they largely had positive individual experiences. Which helped me keep some of the "doom and gloom" tone that the book seemed to set around the campaign in perspective. Campaigns are messy and stressful and hard. And the way this one was run didn't help ameliorate that. At the end of the day, this book left me wishing that it could have turned out better, because the candidate would have served the office well. I'd recommend this book highly, I thought it was interesting and informative.
One year ago, I was reading: The Book Thief
Two years ago, I was reading: The Executioner's Song
Three years ago, I was reading: The Nazi Officer's Wife
Labels: amie parnes, campaigns, hillary clinton, jonathan allen, nonfiction, politics, seven stars, shattered
A Month In The Life: October 2018
Top Ten Tuesday: Books Featuring Ghosts
Top Ten Tuesday: Best Antiheroes
Book 151: The Man Without A Face
Top Ten Tuesday: Bookstores/Libraries I’d Love To ...
Book 150: In The Skin Of A Lion
Year 3: An Update (And Giveaway!)
Top Ten Tuesday: Longest Books I’ve Ever Read
Book 149: Mrs. Dalloway
Top Ten Tuesday: Authors I’d Love To Go To A Readi...
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UNESCO » Culture » World Heritage Centre » About World Heritage » Reporting & Monitoring » State of Conservation
State of Conservation Information System (SOC)
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The Information System offers you a trove of reliable data on the state of conservation of World Heritage properties since 1979 and the threats they have faced in the past, or are currently facing. Through this tool, you can get access to thousands of reports and decisions adopted by the World Heritage Committee, as part of one of the most comprehensive monitoring systems of any international convention.
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What is Reactive Monitoring?
It is the reporting by the World Heritage Centre and the Advisory Bodies to the World Heritage Committee on the state of conservation of specific World Heritage properties that are under threat.
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The properties to be reported upon are selected, among all those inscribed on the World Heritage List, according to the following considerations...
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Subsequently to the examination of the SOC report during its ordinary session, the World Heritage Committee adopts a decision, which may take one or more of the following steps...
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Since the early years of the World Heritage Convention (1979) until 2002, the Bureau had a substantial role in the coordination of the work of the Committee to the extent of examining all the reports on the state of conservation...
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The standard list of threats/factors affecting the Outstanding Universal Value of World Heritage properties consists of a series of 14 primary factors, encompassing each a number of secondary factors.
More about threats
Buildings and Development Commercial development Housing Industrial areas Interpretative and visitation facilities Major visitor accommodation and associated infrastructure
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Useful tools and Guidance
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Guidance note for the drafting of the Desired state of conservation for the removal of properties from the List of World Heritage in Danger
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ICOMOS Guidance on Heritage Impact Assessments for Cultural World Heritage Properties
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Managing Cultural World Heritage
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World Heritage Paper Series
Monitoring World Heritage
Enhancing our Heritage Toolkit, Assessing management effectiveness of natural
Some useful Recommendations / Policies /
Strategies and Statements
Recommendation concerning the Protection, at National Level, of the Cultural and Natural Heritage (1972)
Policy Document for the Integration of a Sustainable Development Perspective into the Processes of the World Heritage Convention (2015)
Policy Document on Impacts of Climate Change and World Heritage (2007)
Strategy for Reducing Risks from Disasters at World Heritage properties (2007)
Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape, including a glossary of definitions (2011)
International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM) - Mining and protected areas; Position statement (2003)
Reporting formats
Format for the submission of State of conservation reports
by the States Parties
Other useful online tools
InforMEA (United Nations Information Portal on Multilateral Environmental Agreements)
Arches : Heritage Inventory & Management System
IUCN World Heritage Outlook
UNEP & IUCN World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA)
Advisory Bodies to the World Heritage Committee
ICCROM (International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property)
ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites)
IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature)
Other UNESCO Conventions and Programmes
Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (1954) and its Second Protocol (1999)
Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property (1970)
Intergovernmental Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to its Countries of Origin or its Restitution in case of Illicit Appropriation (1978)
Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage (2001)
Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage (2003)
Man and the Biosphere Programme (MAB)
Other conventions and agreements
CBD (Convention on Biological Diversity)
CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora)
CMS (Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals)
Ramsar (Convention on Wetlands)
AEWA (Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds)
International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture
International Whaling Commission (IWC)
UNCDD (United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification)
ICMM (International Council on Mining & Metals) - Mining and Protected Areas
Fire ravages Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, a UNESCO World Heritage Site Tuesday, 16 April 2019
World Heritage Centre supports Colombia’s efforts to improve security in national parks Tuesday, 26 February 2019
Safeguarding of transboundary heritage sites for sustainable development and peace in Africa Monday, 25 February 2019
Concern for oil spill in East Rennell, Solomon Islands, in central Pacific Wednesday, 20 February 2019
UNESCO’s Heritage Emergency Fund supports Koutammakou (Togo) damage assessment Friday, 8 February 2019
The World Heritage Centre Dispatches High-Level Reactive Monitoring Mission to Shakhrisyabz (Uzbekistan) Monday, 21 January 2019
UN, WWF and world’s insurers to develop pioneering industry guide to protect World Heritage sites Monday, 21 January 2019
Changing the face of Heritage and Conservation in Africa: Experts Meeting to examine the new ICCROM Programme on African Cultural Heritage Friday, 18 January 2019
Sustainable tourism workshop for World Heritage Journeys: Buddha project Thursday, 13 December 2018
UNESCO reiterates its grave concern over planned dam construction within Selous Game Reserve World Heritage property (United Republic of Tanzania) Wednesday, 12 December 2018
Eritrea takes holistic approach to the conservation and management of the Modernist City of Asmara World Heritage site Saturday, 8 December 2018
The World Heritage Convention at the heart of biodiversity conservation in the Congo Basin Friday, 30 November 2018
US Ambassador’s Fund for Cultural Preservation provides support to the endangered site of Nan Madol Friday, 9 November 2018
Joint World Heritage Centre/IUCN Advisory mission to the World Heritage property “Durmitor National Park” (Montenegro) Friday, 9 November 2018
Severe erosion threatens the shrines of Barotse Cultural Landscape Friday, 9 November 2018
The Democratic Republic of Congo Mobilized for the Protection Endangered Animal Species Thursday, 11 October 2018
Reactive Monitoring mission to “Białowieża Forest” (Belarus/Poland) Monday, 24 September 2018
‘Proposed Scheme’ for the A303 Amesbury to Berwick Down and the State of Conservation of "Stonehenge, Avebury and Associated Sites" Tuesday, 28 August 2018
State of Conservation of "Venetian Works of Defence between the 16th and 17th Centuries: Stato da Terra – Western Stato da Mar" Wednesday, 25 July 2018
State of conservation of Historical Monuments of Mtskheta Thursday, 8 February 2018
State of Conservation of Pirin National Park Wednesday, 24 January 2018
Inter-Convention synergy in action Wednesday, 6 December 2017
The World Heritage State of Conservation Information System – 5 Successful Years ! Tuesday, 5 December 2017
2017 State of conservation reports now publicly accessible online Monday, 12 June 2017
World Heritage Centre Statement on the Greater Blue Mountains Area Wednesday, 7 June 2017
Reactive Monitoring Mission to take place at Wood Buffalo National Park World Heritage property (Canada) Friday, 16 September 2016
2016 State of conservation reports now available online Monday, 13 June 2016
UNESCO World Heritage Centre calls for united action to protect vulnerable sites Wednesday, 6 April 2016
UNESCO and IUCN welcome new no-go pledge for World Heritage sites by Tullow Oil Thursday, 12 November 2015
Shell’s departure ends oil threat to Arctic gem Tuesday, 6 October 2015
State of conservation of Venice and its lagoon (Italy) Sunday, 4 October 2015
Corps established to strengthen security in DRC National Parks Tuesday, 8 September 2015
Director-General of UNESCO Irina Bokova firmly condemns the destruction of Palmyra's ancient temple of Baalshamin, Syria Monday, 24 August 2015
Fire ravages heart of La Réunion National Park Wednesday, 20 October 2010
World Heritage Site Managers Forum 2019 26-Jun-2019-04-Jul-2019
World Heritage Site Managers Forum 2018 21-Jun-2018-28-Jun-2018
Site Managers Forum 30-Jun-2017-06-Jul-2017
Expert meeting on the global state of conservation challenges for World Heritage properties 13-Apr-2011-15-Apr-2011
Analytical summary of the state of conservation of World Heritage properties (2008)
Improving the Effectiveness of the World Heritage Reactive Monitoring Process
State of conservation Information System
Support for the establishment of an on-line State of Conservation Information System (SOC) database on the state of conservation reports for World Heritage Properties
Uplifting the perception of the List of World Heritage in Danger
World Heritage and Extractive Industries
Decision 42COM 7
The World Heritage Committee,
Having examined Documents WHC/18/42.COM/7, WHC/18/42.COM/7A, WHC/18/42.COM/7A.Add, WHC/18/42.COM/7A.Add.2, WHC/18/42.COM/7B and WHC/18/42.COM/7B.Add and WHC/18/42.COM/7B.Add.2,
Recalling Decisions 40 COM 7 and 41 COM 7, adopted at its 40th (Istanbul/UNESCO, 2016) and 41st (Krakow, 2017) sessions respectively,
Thanks the State Party of Bahrain for having organized a World Heritage Site Managers Forum (Manama, 2018), as a capacity-building exercise aiming at increasing the understanding of the World Heritage decision-making process among site managers, in order to achieve a more effective protection of the Outstanding Universal Value (OUV); acknowledges the importance and benefit of this Forum and considers that it should be convened in conjunction with all future sessions of the World Heritage Committee;
Takes note of the Statement of Participants to the Forum and encourages States Parties to support the participation of their respective site managers to future fora and other capacity-building opportunities in order to enable them to provide appropriate information with regard to the management of their respective sites;
Statutory matters related to Reactive Monitoring
Reactive Monitoring evaluation
Takes note with appreciation that the World Heritage Centre has launched an evaluation of the Reactive Monitoring process and thanks the State Party of Switzerland for its financial support to this activity;
Notes with concern that some properties have remained on the List of World Heritage in Danger for more than ten years; this raises questions on whether the OUV has been maintained and requests the World Heritage Centre to establish an inclusive working mechanism for assessing the OUV of these sites, and to present a report during the 44th session;
Urges States Parties along with other stakeholders to actively contribute to the evaluation of the Reactive Monitoring process to ensure this mechanism remains a valuable indicator and overview of the state of conservation of heritage;
Also takes note that the Secretariat has prepared audio-visual communication and outreach material related to the List of World Heritage in Danger;
Encourages all stakeholders of the World Heritage Convention to engage in the promotion of a better understanding of the implications and benefits of properties being inscribed on the List of World Heritage in Danger, and to develop appropriate information material in this regard with a view to overcome the negative perceptions of the List of World Heritage in Danger;
Requests that the Reactive Monitoring Evaluation includes options for process improvements for sites on the List of World Heritage in Danger, in particular how actions recommended by Reactive Monitoring missions to assist States Parties meet their Desired state of conservation should be incorporated into the costed Action Plans decided by the World Heritage Committee in its Decision 41 COM 14;
Further requests the World Heritage Centre develop a proposal, for sharing in the World Heritage Market Place, for funds to support a workshop to assist States Parties with sites on the List of World Heritage in Danger to develop and implement prioritized, staged and costed actions plans, and notes that these plans can be linked to requests for international assistance and shared in the Market Place;
Recognizing the importance of focusing on those properties of greatest concern, recommends that, with effect from the 43rd session of the Committee, the World Heritage Centre considers geographical and thematic distribution of properties as additional criteria when determining which properties to open for discussion under Agenda items 7A and 7B;
Dialogue with civil society
Welcomes the continued interest of civil society organizations in the Convention, acknowledging the important contribution that can be made to the promotion and conservation of heritage on the ground and to capacity-building;
Also welcomes the initiative of the World Heritage Centre to open the consultation processes related to the Convention to a larger number of stakeholders, including civil society;
Takes note of the World Heritage Civil Society Workshop organized further to the initiative of World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in March 2018, which discussed how civil society participation in the Convention, and specifically in World Heritage Committee sessions, can be further improved;
Encourages again States Parties and civil society organizations to continue to explore possibilities to further civil society engagement in the Convention, both by contributing to enhanced conservation of heritage on the site and national level and by providing relevant input to the heritage related debate at the global level;
Emergency situations resulting from conflicts
Deplores the loss of human life as well as the degradation of humanitarian conditions resulting from the conflict situations prevailing in several countries, and expresses its utmost concern at the devastating damage sustained and the continuing threats facing cultural and natural heritage in general;
Urges all parties associated with conflicts to refrain from any action that would cause further damage to cultural and natural heritage and to fulfill their obligations under international law by taking all possible measures to protect such heritage, in particular the safeguarding of World Heritage properties and the sites included in the Tentative List;
Also urges the States Parties to adopt measures against World Heritage properties being used for military purposes and to stop uncontrolled development;
Also expresses its utmost concern about the impacts of conflicts causing an escalation of the already severe poaching crisis in central Africa, as armed groups are financing their activities through illegal wildlife trade, which is having a severe impact on wildlife populations, thereby degrading the Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) of natural World Heritage properties;
Appeals to all Member States of UNESCO to cooperate in the fight against the illicit trafficking of cultural objects and illegal wildlife trade, as well as cultural heritage protection in general, including through the implementation of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), and of United Nations Security Council Resolutions 2199 (2015), 2253 (2015) and 2347 (2017) and of the 1970 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import and Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property;
Emergency situations resulting from natural disasters
Welcomes the efforts undertaken by the World Heritage Centre to implement the Strategy for Reducing Risks from Disasters at World Heritage Properties;
Urges States Parties, in coordination with the World Heritage Centre, to give priority within international assistance in implementing emergency measures to mitigate significant damages resulting from natural disasters that are likely to affect the Outstanding Universal Value of World Heritage properties;
Encourages States Parties and other stakeholders to further strengthen international cooperation aiming at mitigating impacts of major natural disasters affecting World Heritage properties and reducing vulnerabilities on lives, properties and livelihoods;
Other conservation issues
Thanks the Government of Poland for hosting the International Conference on Reconstruction “The Challenges of World Heritage Recovery” (Warsaw, 6-8 May 2018), providing a forum for review of specific case studies and understanding of the role of reconstruction in recovery, especially in post-conflict and post-disaster situations;
Welcomes the Warsaw Recommendation providing clear principles on reconstruction and recovery and requests the World Heritage Centre and the Advisory Bodies to broadly disseminate it among States Parties, World Heritage stakeholders and partner organizations;
Also requests the World Heritage Centre and the Advisory Bodies to continue the reflection and report back to its 43rd session in 2019 on the implementation of the Warsaw Recommendation;
Encourages the ongoing cooperation with the World Bank and with United Nations agencies in addressing the challenges of World Heritage recovery and reconstruction;
Expresses its continued concern about the impacts of climate change on the Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) of World Heritage properties and reiterates the importance of States Parties undertaking the most ambitious implementation of the Paris Agreement of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), by holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels and by pursuing efforts to limit the global average temperature increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels, recognizing that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change;
Notes with appreciation the initiatives taken by the World Heritage Centre and the Advisory Bodies to advance work on the updating of the Policy Document on the impacts of climate change on World Heritage properties;
Requests that the development of the updated Policy Document include consultation with States Parties, the Advisory Bodies and civil society, and be completed for consideration by the Committee at its 43rd session in 2019;
Expresses its gratitude to the State Party of Germany for the organization of a workshop on World Heritage and Climate Change (Vilm, October 2017), to the State Party of the Netherlands for its generous support to the updating of the Policy Document and to the State Party of France for its generous support to the first global scientific assessment of climate change impacts on World Heritage-listed coral reefs;
Thanks the Secretariat of the UNFCCC for its active participation in the above-mentioned workshop and inputs into the forthcoming broader Policy Document updating process;
Absent or unclear boundaries
Urges States Parties that still have properties with unclear boundaries and/or buffer zones to undertake the necessary mapping exercises to clarify their boundaries and buffer zones of properties at the time of their inscription, and submit those to the World Heritage Centre for subsequent examination by the World Heritage Committee;
Reminds States Parties that any change to existing boundaries and buffer zones must be approved by the World Heritage Committee through the applicable procedures, as outlined in paragraphs 163-167 of the Operational Guidelines;
Heritage Impact Assessments/Environmental Impact Assessments (HIAs/EIAs)
Welcomes the increasing use of Heritage Impact Assessments (HIAs) to assess the potential impact of proposed development projects on the Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) of cultural World Heritage properties, and encourages States Parties to use the HIA methodology for all developments within or otherwise affecting cultural World Heritage properties, as part of the accepted decision-making process;
Stresses the necessity for HIAs and Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) to be proportionate to the scope and scale of projects, with simpler assessments being undertaken for smaller projects and Strategic Environmental Assessments (SEAs) for very large projects, and the necessity for assessments to be undertaken in a timely fashion and submitted to the World Heritage Centre for review by the Advisory Bodies, as part of notifications made under Paragraph 172 of the Operational Guidelines;
Reiterates that HIAs and EIAs should include a dedicated section examining the potential impact of the project on the OUV of the World Heritage property, in accordance with the existing ICOMOS Guidance and IUCN Advice Note;
Notes that HIAs cannot be assessed as stand-alone documents and requests States Parties to ensure that when HIAs are submitted to the World Heritage Centre for review by the Advisory Bodies that they are accompanied by full details of the project to which they refer;
Also welcomes the initiative of IUCN and ICCROM to develop further advice on impact assessment for cultural and natural heritage in the framework of the World Heritage Leadership programme with the support of Norway;
Large scale development projects and Strategic Environmental Assessments
Noting with concern that an increasing number of properties are threatened by large-scale development projects including dams, extractive industries, and transportation infrastructure, located both inside and outside their boundaries,
Also noting that Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) and Heritage Impact Assessments (HIAs) do not always allow for a broad enough assessment of the potential impact of these large-scale developments, nor an assessment of a broad enough range of options at an early enough stage in the planning process,
Requests States Parties to ensure that the potential impacts of such large-scale developments on the Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) of World Heritage properties directly affected or located within their zone of influence are assessed through Strategic Environmental Assessments (SEAs) at an early stage in the development of the overall project, before locations/routes have been fixed and prior to any approvals being given;
Recalling Article 6 of the Convention, also requests States Parties to systematically inform the World Heritage Centre, in accordance with Paragraph 172 of the Operational Guidelines, of any planned large-scale development projects in their territories that may impact on the OUV of a property, even if the property concerned is situated on the territory of other States Parties, and to ensure that these impacts are assessed as part of the SEA of the project concerned;
Tourism and Visitor Management
Acknowledging the contribution of sustainable tourism to the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development and the positive impact it can have on local communities and the protection of World Heritage properties, nevertheless notes with concern that the number of properties negatively affected by inadequate visitor management and tourism infrastructure development continues to increase;
Requests States Parties to develop Visitor Management Plans that assess appropriate carrying capacity of properties for visitors and address the issue of unregulated tourism;
Encourages the States Parties to support UNESCO in its effort to develop an overall Visitor Management Strategy for World Heritage, with policy recommendations to assist States Parties in addressing the issues of unregulated and unsustainable tourism use and development, and to provide resources to UNESCO for the implementation of the Strategy;
Impact of sports facilities and activities on World Heritage properties
Welcomes the continued agreement between IUCN and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) aiming at integrating biodiversity considerations in IOC’s processes, and takes note of the Sport and Biodiversity guide launched by IUCN as the first in a series of reports that will provide guidance to the sports sector regarding its potential impacts on nature, including on World Heritage properties
Also welcomes the World Rowing Federation (FISA) commitment to respect and preserve the Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) of natural and mixed World Heritage properties, and calls on other Sport Federations to consider making similar commitments, including for all types of World Heritage, both natural and cultural;
Dialogue with the extractive industries and the finance sector on the “No-go Commitment”
Takes note of the continued dialogue between the World Heritage Centre and the extractive industries on extending the “No-go” commitment to other companies;
Welcomes the growing interest from the investment sector for the conservation of World Heritage properties and strongly encourages all banks, investment funds, the insurance industry and other relevant private and public sector companies to integrate into their sustainability policies, provisions for ensuring that they are not financing projects that may negatively impact World Heritage properties and that the companies they are investing in subscribe to the “No-go commitment”, and invites them to lodge these policies with the UNESCO World Heritage Centre;
Requests the World Heritage Centre, in cooperation with the Advisory Bodies, to continue the fruitful dialogue with extractive industries and the investment sector, including reflections on how to make these commitments and policies publically available online to inspire other companies in these sectors to follow suit;
Earth Observation technologies
Noting that Earth Observation satellite technologies and spatial analysis tools have tremendously improved over the past decade and that they provide powerful additional means for decision-makers and stakeholders of the Convention to find comprehensive solutions to today’s global challenges for World Heritage properties,
Encourages States Parties to make full use of such Earth Observation technologies for the early detection of activities potentially harmful to the Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) of World Heritage properties, such as deforestation, mining, illegal fisheries, agricultural encroachment, etc. and to better understand trends and respond appropriately;
Illegal trade in endangered species and the cooperation with the CITES Convention
Reiterates its utmost concern about the growing impacts of the illegal trade in endangered species, which is affecting many natural World Heritage properties;
Welcomes the increased attention to this threat and launches an appeal to all Member States of UNESCO to fully implement Resolution 71/326 of United Nations General Assembly on “Tackling illicit trafficking in wildlife”, including through the implementation of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), and with the full engagement of transit and destination countries;
Also welcomes the continued fruitful cooperation between the World Heritage Centre, IUCN and the CITES Secretariat and invites the World Heritage Centre and IUCN to further strengthen this cooperation;
Notes with concern the important number of properties significantly affected by invasive alien species (IAS);
Recalls its encouragement to States Parties to develop adequately-resourced IAS strategies that emphasize prevention and early warning and rapid response in World Heritage properties;
Strongly encourages States Parties to incorporate IAS response strategies into climate change mitigation policies for World Heritage properties.
See more about Decision 42COM 7
Recalling Decision 40 COM 7, adopted at its 40th session (Istanbul/UNESCO, 2016),
Thanks the State Party of Poland, Host Country of the 41st session of the World Heritage Committee (Krakow, 2017), for having organized the first World Heritage Site Managers Forum, as a capacity-building exercise aiming at increasing the understanding of the World Heritage decision-making process among site managers, in order to achieve a more effective protection of the Outstanding Universal Value (OUV), takes note with appreciation of the World Heritage Site Managers’ Forum Statement and encourages the future Host Countries to continue this initiative and organize World Heritage Site Managers Forums in conjunction with the World Heritage Committee session;
Takes note of the practices of the Secretariat to address mass campaigns on state of conservation issues;
Recalling the importance of Paragraph 172 of the Operational Guidelines and its adequate implementation, further recalls Decision 40 COM 7, which requests the World Heritage Centre, in cooperation with the Advisory Bodies to evaluate the effectiveness of the Reactive Monitoring including procedures and case studies and to present a preliminary report for the consideration by the World Heritage Committee at its 42nd session in 2018, if funds are available;
Deplores the conflict situation prevailing in several countries, the loss of human life as well as the degradation of humanitarian conditions and expresses its utmost concern at the damage sustained and the threats facing cultural and natural heritage in general;
Also urges States Parties to adopt measures against using World Heritage properties for military purposes;
Takes note of the progress made by the World Heritage Centre and the Advisory Bodies to launch a reflection on a post-conflict recovery strategy, and of the support extended so far through technical assistance, capacity-building, and exchange of best practices in this regard, and recommends that further support for threatened or damaged World Heritage properties be pursued;
Notes with concern that the conflict situation in several countries in the world has increased considerably the workload of the World Heritage Centre staff, and that an adequate implementation of the Action Plans for the Emergency Safeguarding of Cultural Heritage in Mali, Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen requires additional financial and human resources at the World Heritage Centre and in the UNESCO field offices; also notes the increased demands on the resources of the Advisory Bodies;
Calls on the international community to provide financial support for the implementation of the UNESCO Action Plans for the Emergency Safeguarding of Cultural Heritage in Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen, including for additional human resources at the World Heritage Centre and in the UNESCO field offices;
Also expresses its utmost concern about the impacts of conflicts causing an escalation of the already severe poaching crisis, as armed groups are financing their activities through illegal wildlife trade, which is having a severe impact on African wildlife, and uncontrolled development, threatening the very survival of species and the Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) of natural World Heritage properties;
Launches an appeal to all Member States of UNESCO to cooperate in the fight against the illicit trafficking of cultural heritage objects (UNESCO 1970 Convention) and illegal wildlife trade, including through the implementation of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), and to pursue the implementation of the United Nations Security Council Resolutions regarding cultural heritage protection in conflict areas, especially Resolution 2199 and 2347;
Noting the continued need to address the issue of reconstruction in World Heritage properties following conflicts or disasters, expresses its satisfaction that several international meetings have taken place or are being planned on recovery at large, and reconstruction in particular, and welcomes the offer of the Government of Poland to host an international conference on Reconstruction to provide guidelines to the World Heritage Committee to be held in Warsaw in March 2018;
Encourages the World Heritage Centre and the Advisory Bodies to continue, with all relevant stakeholders, the reflection on reconstruction within World Heritage properties as a complex multi-disciplinary process, towards developing new guidance to reflect the multi-faceted challenges that reconstruction brings, its social and economic context, the short- and long-term needs of properties, and the idea of reconstruction as a process that should be undertaken within the framework of the Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) of the properties;
Urges States Parties to include risk mitigation measures in the management plans of World Heritage properties to address the potential effects of conflicts or disasters on their integrity;
Also encourages the inclusion of capacity-building initiatives in the framework of recovery plans;
Requests the States Parties involved in reconstruction projects to maintain dialogue and close consultation and cooperation with the World Heritage Centre and the Advisory Bodies;
Recalls its Decision 40 COM 7 in relation to Climate Change, and requests the World Heritage Centre and the Advisory Bodies to pursue the implementation of this Decision as a priority, within available resources;
Expresses its utmost concern regarding the reported serious impacts from coral bleaching that have affected World Heritage properties in 2016-17 and that the majority of World Heritage Coral Reefs are expected to be seriously impacted by Climate Change;
Noting that the World Heritage Centre, in consultation with IUCN, has initiated a scientific assessment by independent experts to better understand the impacts of Climate Change on coral reef World Heritage properties, also requests the World Heritage Centre and IUCN, as resources allow, to complete this assessment as soon as possible, and to ensure its findings are communicated effectively, and further requests the World Heritage Centre and Advisory Bodies to further study the current and potential impacts of Climate Change on the OUV of World Heritage properties;
Reiterates the importance of States Parties undertaking the most ambitious implementation of the Paris Agreement of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) by “holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and by pursuing efforts to limit the global average temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, recognizing that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change” and strongly invites all States Parties to ratify the Paris Agreement at the earliest possible opportunity and to undertake actions to address Climate Change under the Paris Agreement consistent with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, in the light of different national circumstances, that are fully consistent with their obligations within the World Heritage Convention to protect the OUV of all World Heritage properties;
Takes note with satisfaction of the updated UNESCO Strategy for Action on Climate Change, approved by the UNESCO Executive Board at its 201st session in April 2017 (201 EX/Decision 5.I.B), and invites all States Parties to engage fully with the World Heritage Centre and the Advisory Bodies, for its effective implementation;
Also recalls the need for all States Parties to continue, and where necessary to strengthen all efforts to build resilience of World Heritage properties to Climate Change, including by further reducing to the greatest extent possible all other pressures and threats, and by developing and implementing climate adaptation strategies for properties at risk of Climate Change impacts;
Requests furthermore the World Heritage Centre and the Advisory Bodies to report on progress in relation to action on World Heritage and Climate Change, and to present, subject to available time and resources, a proposed update to the “Policy Document on the Impacts of Climate Change on World Heritage Properties”, for possible consideration by the World Heritage Committee at its 42nd session in 2018, and notes with appreciation the willingness of civil society groups to engage in this process;
Urban pressure
Noting that the increasing urban pressure in and around numerous World Heritage properties has become a major threat to their Outstanding Universal Value (OUV),
Taking note of the outcomes of the Habitat III Conference and notably the adoption of the “New Urban Agenda”,
Also taking note of the necessity to pursue the application of the Historic Urban Landscape approach towards a more effective and durable conservation and management of the urban heritage inscribed on the World Heritage List, and requests the States Parties to fully consider the 2011 UNESCO Recommendation on Historic Urban Landscape (HUL) ;
Calls on States Parties to take into account the recommendations of the Global Report on Culture for Sustainable Urban Development and take the necessary measures to integrate the role of culture in sustainable urban development in order to achieve SDG 11 – Target 4;
Notes with concern increasing vandalism at World Heritage properties and encourages States Parties to improve monitoring and security measures as well as awareness raising on the detrimental effects of vandalism, and to consider introducing creative solutions to allow visitors to express themselves without leaving permanent marks or damage;
Disasters Risk Reduction
Welcomes the Action Plan for the implementation of the Strategy for reinforcing UNESCO’s action for the protection of culture and the promotion of cultural pluralism in the event of armed conflict (hereafter the Strategy), adopted by the UNESCO General Conference in 2015 (38 C/Res.48), whose implementation would be of great importance for the protection of World Heritage in situations of armed conflicts and disasters associated with natural and human-made hazards;
Encourages States Parties to provide support to the implementation of the Strategy and its Action Plan, including through contributions to the Heritage Emergency Fund, as well as in kind contributions and advocacy at the highest international levels for the integration of a concern for culture in key international humanitarian, development, and peacekeeping operations;
Recalling its Decision 39 COM 7, adopted at its 39th session (Bonn, 2015),
Noting with concern the continued threat posed by invasive alien species on natural World Heritage properties, strongly encourages the States Parties to develop adequately resourced invasive alien species strategies that emphasize prevention and early warning and rapid response in World Heritage properties;
Illegal trade of wildlife species
Reiterates its utmost concern about the continued impacts of poaching and illegal logging on World Heritage properties driven primarily by the illegal trade of wildlife species and its products, and requests the World Heritage Centre and IUCN to take action, as resources permit, to strengthen the collaboration between the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and the World Heritage Convention;
Reiterates its appeal to all Member States of UNESCO to cooperate in the fight against the illicit trade in wildlife and its products, including through the implementation of the CITES, and with the full engagement of transit and destination countries;
Integrated approaches for the conservation of natural and cultural heritage
Recalling that the World Heritage Convention explicitly links the concepts of cultural and natural heritage, highlights the importance of promoting integrated approaches that strengthen holistic governance, improve conservation outcomes and contribute to sustainable development;
Notes with appreciation the growing interest and efforts by the States Parties and heritage practitioners to develop and apply integrated approaches to conservation of natural and cultural heritage, and encourages the States Parties, the World Heritage Centre and the Advisory Bodies, in cooperation with universities and other relevant actors, to continue and expand these efforts, in accordance with the Policy Document for the integration of a Sustainable Development Perspective into the Processes of the Convention (2015);
Reiterates its request to the World Heritage Centre, in consultation with the Advisory Bodies and States Parties, to promote better understanding of the implications and benefits of properties being inscribed on the List of World Heritage in Danger, and to develop appropriate information material in this regard with a view to overcome the negative perceptions of the List of World Heritage in Danger. The information material should highlight the importance of the protection of the Outstanding Universal Value;
Takes note with appreciation of the Chairperson of the 41st session of the World Heritage Committee’s initiative on structured dialogue with civil society and encourages States Parties and civil society organizations to continue exploring possibilities how civil society can further contribute to enhanced conservation of heritage on the site and national level and provide relevant input to the heritage related debate at the global level;
Notes, in conformity with Resolution 20 GA 13 of the General Assembly of the World Heritage Convention and the Decision 39 COM 11 (Bonn, 2015) of the World Heritage Committee, the establishment of the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on World Heritage as an important reflection platform on the involvement of Indigenous Peoples in the identification, conservation and management of World Heritage properties, with a particular focus on the nomination process.
Having examined Documents WHC/16/40.COM/7, WHC/16/40.COM/7A, WHC/16/40.COM/7A.Add, WHC/16/40.COM/7A.Add.2, WHC/16/40.COM/7B, WHC/16/40.COM/7B.Add and WHC/16/40.COM/7B.Add.2,
Recalling Decision 39 COM 7, adopted at its 39th session (Bonn, 2015),
Emergency situation resulting from conflicts
Urges the States Parties to ratify international instruments such as the Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict and implores States Parties associated with conflicts to refrain from any action that would cause further damage to cultural and natural heritage and to fulfil their obligations under international law by taking all possible measures to protect such heritage, in particular the safeguarding of World Heritage properties and the sites included in the Tentative List;
Also urges the States Parties to adopt measures that oppose World Heritage properties being used for military purposes;
Notes with concern that the conflict situation in several countries in the world has increased considerably the work load of the World Heritage Centre staff, and that an adequate implementation of the Action Plans for the Emergency Safeguarding of Cultural Heritage in Mali, Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen requires additional financial and human resources at the World Heritage Centre and in the UNESCO field offices; also notes the increased demands on the resources of the Advisory Bodies;
Also expresses its utmost concern about the impacts of conflicts causing an escalation of the already severe poaching crisis, as armed groups are financing their activities through illegal wildlife trade, which is having a severe impact on African wildlife, threatening the very survival of species and the Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) of World Heritage properties;
Launches an appeal to all Member States of UNESCO to cooperate in the fight against the illicit trafficking of cultural heritage objects and illegal wildlife trade, including through the implementation of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the ratification of the 1970 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property and to pursue the implementation of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2199 of February 2015 regarding Syria and Iraq;
Noting that the recent and wide-ranging deliberate destruction of World Heritage properties as a result of armed conflict in Syria, Yemen, Libya, Iraq, Mali and Nigeria, and the devastating earthquakes in Nepal, have brought sharply into focus the issue of reconstruction in World Heritage properties; that several international meetings have taken place or are being planned on reconstruction; and that guidance within the Operational Guidelines is currently inadequate,
Recommends that more in depth reflection is needed on reconstruction within World Heritage properties as a complex multi-disciplinary process, and that consideration should be given to developing new guidance to reflect the multi-faceted challenges that reconstruction brings, its social and economic context, the short- and long-term needs of properties, and the idea of reconstruction as a process that should be undertaken within the framework of the Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) of the properties;
Welcomes the offer of the Government of Poland to host an international conference on Reconstruction to provide guidelines to the World Heritage Committee;
Taking note of the agreement reached during the 21st conference (COP21) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) held in 2015, requests the World Heritage Centre and the Advisory Bodies to assist States Parties to implement appropriate management responses to the adverse effects of Climate Change;
Recommends that the World Heritage Centre strengthen its relations with other organizations working on Climate Change, particularly with the UNFCCC and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) secretariats, and specifically with regard to the effect of Climate Change on World Heritage properties, and also requests the States Parties, the World Heritage Centre and the Advisory Bodies to work with IPCC with the objective of including a specific chapter on natural and cultural World Heritage in future IPCC assessment reports;
Further requests the World Heritage Centre and the Advisory Bodies to periodically review and update the “Policy Document on the Impacts of Climate Change on World Heritage properties”, so as to make available the most current knowledge and technology on the subject to guide the decisions and actions of the World Heritage community;
Notes with significant concern that an increasing number of properties are facing potential threats from major dam projects, considers that the construction of dams with large reservoirs within the boundaries of World Heritage properties is incompatible with their World Heritage status, and urges States Parties to ensure that the impacts from dams that could affect properties located upstream or downstream within the same river basin are rigorously assessed in order to avoid impacts on the Outstanding Universal Value (OUV);
Noting with significant concern that World Heritage properties are increasingly threatened by extractive industries, as confirmed by the 2014 IUCN World Heritage Outlook report, by the World Heritage Centre’s analysis of issues reported in state of conservation reports also revealing the potential threat from extractive activities to cultural properties, and by the 2016 report by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), welcomes the “No-go” commitments to World Heritage properties made by Tullow Oil plc and CEMEX in November 2015 and April 2016 respectively, and reiterates its call on other extractive industry companies and investment banks to follow these examples to further extend the “No-go” commitment;
Recalling Decision 37 COM 7, once again urges all States Parties to the Convention and leading industry stakeholders to respect the “No-go” commitment by not permitting extractive activities within World Heritage properties, and by making every effort to ensure that extractives companies located in their territory cause no damage to World Heritage properties, in line with Article 6 of the Convention;
Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs)/Heritage Impact Assessments (HIAs)
Notes with concern that a majority of properties potentially affected by proposed development projects, proposed legal instruments, and proposed management systems have not benefited from an assessment of impacts on their Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) in line with IUCN’s World Heritage Advice Note on Environmental Assessment and ICOMOS’ Guidance on Heritage Impact Assessments for Cultural World Heritage Properties, and requests all States Parties to the Convention to ensure that potential direct, indirect and cumulative impacts on the OUV, including from projects located outside the boundaries of natural and/or cultural World Heritage properties, are specifically assessed within the framework of the EIA and HIA required by the applicable laws and regulations, and that reports of such assessments are submitted to the World Heritage Centre for review by the Advisory Bodies, in accordance with Paragraph 172 of the Operational Guidelines;
Recalls Article 6 of the Convention according to which “Each State Party to this Convention undertakes not to take any deliberate measures which might damage directly or indirectly the cultural and natural heritage […] situated on the territory of other States Parties to this Convention”, and also requests all States Parties to the Convention to ensure that EIAs and HIAs include an assessment of impacts on the OUV of World Heritage properties situated on the territory of other States Parties, as appropriate;
Further requests the Advisory Bodies, in consultation with the World Heritage Centre, to consider opportunities to streamline their guidance on impact assessment in order to develop one single guidance document for the assessment of impacts on both natural and cultural properties;
Integrated management, Decision making, Governance
Noting with concern that the lack of an integrated management approach is reported to cause challenges to the coordination of management and decision making processes of properties where different authorities are involved, in particular in the cases of mixed, serial, and transboundary properties, urges States Parties to establish appropriate mechanisms in order to facilitate a coordinated approach to the management of all properties, in line with the requirements of the Operational Guidelines as laid out in Paragraphs 112, 114, and 135, and encourages States Parties with contiguous natural properties on either side of their international borders, which are not listed as transboundary properties, to establish appropriate mechanisms for cooperation between their respective management authorities and ministries;
Also encourages States Parties to promote recognition and awareness across all relevant national and regional agencies of the World Heritage status of the properties on their territory, and to develop mechanisms to ensure consideration of impacts on Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) in the decision making processes of relevant ministries, before permits are issued for developments that could negatively impact the OUV;
Ground transport infrastructures
Notes with concern that the number of cases of ground transport infrastructure having potential impact on the Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) of World Heritage properties is continuing to grow, and calls upon States Parties to carry out Strategic Environmental Assessments (SEAs) early in the process of transportation planning to allow for potential impacts of the OUV, including those resulting from foreseeable associated future developments, to be identified prior to the development of specific projects;
Encourages States Parties to carry out Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) and Heritage Impact Assessments (HIA) on ground transport projects, once they are designed, with multiple options to ensure that transportation needs can be met with minimal impacts on the OUV of World Heritage properties;
Takes note of its discussions under agenda items 7A and 7B, and requests the World Heritage Centre, in consultation with the Advisory Bodies and States Parties, to promote better understanding of the implications and benefits of properties being inscribed on the List of World Heritage in Danger, and to develop appropriate information material in this regard with a view to overcome the negative perceptions of the List of World Heritage in Danger. The information material should highlight the importance of the protection of the OUV;
Requests the World Heritage Centre, in cooperation with the Advisory Bodies to evaluate the effectiveness of the Reactive Monitoring including procedures and case studies and to present a preliminary report for the consideration by the World Heritage Committee at its 42nd session in 2018, if funds are available.
Having examined Document WHC-15/39.COM/7,
Recalling Decision 38 COM 7, adopted at its 38th session (Doha, 2014), and the Bonn Declaration on World Heritage adopted on 29 June 2015,
Conflict situation in the Arab States Region
Deplores the conflict situation prevailing in Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen, the loss of human life as well as the degradation of humanitarian conditions and expresses its utmost concern at the damage sustained and the threats facing these properties and cultural heritage in general;
Urges all parties associated with conflicts to refrain from any action that would cause further damage to cultural heritage and to fulfil their obligations under international law by taking all possible measures to protect such heritage, in particular the safeguarding of World Heritage properties and the sites included in the Tentative List;
Also urges the States Parties to adopt measures for the evacuation of World Heritage properties being used for military purposes;
Launches an appeal to all Member States of UNESCO to cooperate in combatting the illicit trafficking of cultural heritage, in particular coming from Syria and Iraq as per the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2199 of February 2015;
Recommends that the World Heritage Centre and Advisory Bodies develop a post-conflict strategy, including means to extend support for reconstruction of damaged World Heritage properties through technical assistance, capacity-building, and exchange of best practices taking into account the conclusions made by the two seminars recently held by World Heritage Centre and ICOMOS on this subject;
Emerging and recurring conservation issues
Takes note of the increasing number of State of Conservation reports due to inadequate management systems or plans and urges States Parties to ensure that management systems and plans are in place at the time of inscription;
Notes with utmost concern, the continuously increasing pressure associated with and the growing impacts from poaching on the Outstanding Universal Value of many natural World Heritage properties and the increasing involvement of organized crime, and reiterates its call for strong international collaboration and coordination inter alia with the Secretariat of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and with the full engagement of transit and destination countries to control the illicit trade in wildlife and its products;
Notes with concern the significant threat posed by invasive species to natural World Heritage properties, strongly encourages States Parties to develop adequately resourced strategies to eradicate invasive species in World Heritage properties and prevent their (re-)introduction and/or establishment, and also calls on the international community to support invasive species eradication campaigns in affected properties;
Taking note of the benefits to States Parties of systematically utilizing Heritage Impact Assessments (HIAs) and Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) in the review of development projects, encourages States Parties to integrate the EIA/HIA processes into legislation, planning mechanisms and management plans, and reiterates its recommendation to States Parties to use these tools in assessing projects, including assessment of cumulative impacts, as early as possible and before any final decision is taken, and, taking into account the need for capacity-building in this regard, requests the States Parties to contribute financially and technically towards the development of further guidance regarding EIA/HIA implementation, by the Advisory Bodies and the World Heritage Centre, based on case studies and field experience;
Acknowledging that World Heritage properties are being increasingly affected by Climate Change, also strongly encourages States Parties to participate in the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in December 2015, with a view to achieving a universal climate agreement and mobilize global climate action on the ground, and recalls its Decision 31 COM 7.1, adopted at its 31st session (Christchurch, 2007) in which it adopted a carbon neutral policy, in view of its application for all future sessions, to the extent feasible;
Appreciates the constructive dialogue, which has taken place between the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the World Heritage Centre and IUCN, and also requests that this dialogue be extended to the other Advisory Bodies to ensure that cultural aspects are also taken into account in the future;
Knowledge management of the state of conservation reports
Urges States Parties to submit to the Committee through the Secretariat, by the statutory deadline set and in one of the working languages of the World Heritage Convention (English or French), their reports on the state of conservation of specific properties (Paragraph 169 of the Operational Guidelines), in order to allow for sufficient time for consultation and informed decision making at the Committee sessions;
Adopts the revised format below for the submission of state of conservation reports by the States Parties, decides that this revised format is compulsory and applies with immediate effect, and that it should be included in the Operational Guidelines, and reminds States Parties that these reports must be submitted in one of the working languages of the Convention (English or French):
Name of World Heritage property (State(s) Party(ies)) (Identification number)
Executive Summary of the report
[Note: each of the sections described below should be summarized. The maximum length of the executive summary is 1 page.]
Response to the Decision of the World Heritage Committee
[Note: State(s) Party(ies) are requested to address the most recent Decision of the World Heritage Committee for this property, paragraph by paragraph.]
If the property is inscribed on the List of World Heritage in Danger
Please also provide detailed information on the following:
Progress achieved in implementing the corrective measures adopted by the World Heritage Committee
[Note: please address each corrective measure individually, providing factual information, including exact dates, figures, etc.]
If needed, please describe the success factors or difficulties in implementing each of the corrective measures identified
Is the timeframe for implementing the corrective measures suitable? If not, please propose an alternative timeframe and an explanation why this alternative timeframe is required.
Progress achieved towards the Desired state of conservation for the removal of the property from the List of World Heritage in Danger (DSOCR)
Other current conservation issues identified by the State(s) Party(ies) which may have an impact on the property’s Outstanding Universal Value
[Note: this includes conservation issues which are not mentioned in the Decision of the World Heritage Committee or in any information request from the World Heritage Centre]
In conformity with Paragraph 172 of the Operational Guidelines, describe any potential major restorations, alterations and/or new construction(s) intended within the property, the buffer zone(s) and/or corridors or other areas, where such developments may affect the Outstanding Universal Value of the property, including authenticity and integrity.
Public access to the state of conservation report
[Note: this report will be uploaded for public access on the World Heritage Centre’s State of conservation Information System (https://whc.unesco.org/en/soc). Should your State Party request that the full report should not be uploaded, only the 1-page executive summary provided in point (1.) above will be uploaded for public access].
Signature of the Authority
Notes with appreciation the high number of States Parties which have authorized the public upload of their state of conservation reports, facilitating their consultation by all stakeholders of the Convention and contributing to an improved transparency of the reactive monitoring process, and reiterates its encouragement to all States Parties to continue do so in the future.
1. Having examined Document WHC-14/38.COM/7,
2. Recalling Decisions 35 COM 12B, 35 COM 12E and 37 COM 7C adopted at its 35th (UNESCO, 2011) and 37th (Phnom Penh, 2013) sessions respectively,
Issues emerging from the 2014 state of conservation reports
3. Noting with regret that issues related to Management Plan / System remain a serious cause for concern, requests all States Parties to ensure that all World Heritage properties are managed in such a manner that their Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) is not put at risk and, whenever necessary, develop/update and fully implement Management Plans or Systems;
4. Taking note of the benefits to States Parties of systematically utilizing Heritage and Environmental Impact Assessments in the review of development projects, recommends that States Parties use these tools in assessing projects before they reach a point where the World Heritage reactive monitoring process comes into play;
5. Also noting that tourism development in and around World Heritage properties is a key issue for their management, strongly encourages States Parties to ensure sustainable planning and management of tourism at World Heritage properties and to contribute to the implementation of the World Heritage Centre’s World Heritage and Sustainable Tourism Programme;
6. Reiterating its utmost concern about the continued impacts on World Heritage properties due to the rising pressure from poaching, particularly of elephant, rhinoceros, and valuable timber species, linked to a growing illicit trade, and the increasing involvement of organized crime in this lucrative business, reiterates its request to the World Heritage Centre and IUCN to strengthen their cooperation with the Secretariat of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) to assist States Parties to implement the measures taken by the 16th Conference of the Parties of the CITES, and urges States Parties to ensure strong international collaboration and coordination to control the illicit trade in flora and fauna and their products;
7. Takes note with concern of the continuing threat posed to World Heritage properties by disasters and conflicts, of the widespread lack of adequate preparedness, and of the need to integrate a concern for heritage within international policies and programmes for disaster risk reduction, and calls on States Parties to ensure that their delegations to the 3rd World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (WCDRR), due to take place in March 2015 in Sendai (Japan), are sensitized to this question and promote heritage as an essential consideration in disaster risk reduction;
8. Also requests that States Parties with an interest in the promotion of capacity building on the issues of management, impact assessments, disaster risk management, sustainable tourism management, and poaching and wildlife crimes to liaise with the Advisory Bodies, World Heritage Centre, and UNESCO Category 2 Centres, and support regional or international courses, workshops, and other capacity building activities to improve the capacity of States Parties and site managers to develop and implement these important planning instruments;
Updates on previously reported issues
9. Welcomes the commitment made by TOTAL in June 2013 not to explore or exploit oil or gas inside sites inscribed on the World Heritage List as well as the new policy on World Heritage Sites adopted by the investment bank HSBC not to knowingly provide financial services to support projects which threaten the special characteristics of World Heritage properties and, also taking note of the discussions held between the World Heritage Centre, IUCN and International Petroleum Industry Environmental Conservation Association (IPIECA), calls on other companies in extractive industries and investment banks to follow these examples to further extend the “No go” commitment;
10. Also welcomes the progress in the dialogue between the World Heritage Centre, the Advisory Bodies and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and encourages the development of a mechanism that would allow to identify potential impacts of future Olympic Games on World Heritage properties early on in the process of attributing the Games in order to ensure that these impacts can be avoided or adequately mitigated by the organizing country;
Strategic issues related to the state of conservation of World Heritage properties
11. Also recalling that States Parties concerned shall submit by 1 February to the Committee through the Secretariat, their reports on the state of conservation of specific properties (Paragraph 169 of the Operational Guidelines ),
12. Acknowledging that the established minimum two-year cycle for the examination of state of conservation reports for individual properties (except for cases of utmost urgency and for properties inscribed on the List of World Heritage in Danger), associated to a postponed deadline for the submission of the States Parties’ reports would provide an opportunity for improved dialogue between the States Parties, the World Heritage Centre and the Advisory Bodies, decides that States Parties concerned shall submit their state of conservation reports to the World Heritage Centre by 1 December of the year preceding the examination of the property by the World Heritage Committee, with immediate effect, except for properties inscribed on the List of World Heritage in Danger and for cases of utmost urgency, and further requests the World Heritage Centre and the Advisory Bodies to draft a proposal in view of including this new statutory deadline in the Operational Guidelines , for examination by the World Heritage Committee at its 39th session, in 2015;
13. Reminds States Parties of the importance of submitting their state of conservation reports to the World Heritage Centre in one of the working languages of the World Heritage Convention, English or French;
14. Notes with appreciation the high number of States Parties which have authorized the public upload of their state of conservation reports, facilitating their consultation by all stakeholders of the Convention and contributing to an improved transparency of the reactive monitoring process, and reiterates its encouragement to all States Parties to continue do so in the future.
Decision 37COM 7C
1. Having examined Document WHC-13/37.COM/7C,
2. Recalling Decisions 35 COM 7C and 36 COM 7C , adopted at its 35th (UNESCO, 2011) and 36th (Saint-Petersburg, 2012) sessions respectively,
3. Expresses its appreciation to the Flemish Government for its support in establishing the online “State of Conservation Information System of World Heritage properties”;
4. Welcomes the contribution of the Information System to the improved transparency of World Heritage Reactive Monitoring and informed decision-making processes;
5. Encourages States Parties to make public the reports submitted on the state of conservation of World Heritage properties in order to facilitate their consultation by all stakeholders and contribute to an improved transparency of the reactive monitoring process and, in this case, requests the World Heritage Centre to make them publicly accessible through the State of Conservation Information System;
6. Also encourages the World Heritage Centre to continue exploring opportunities to link the Information System to other existing relevant databases as part of a wider Information and knowledge management system, in order to improve the synergies between the World Heritage Convention and other international conventions or programmes;
7. Calls upon all States Parties to the Convention to support the activities proposed to contribute towards the improvement of the Information System and its access for the international community.
See more about Decision 37COM 7C
1.Having examined document WHC-12/36.COM/7C,
2.Recalling Decisions 35 COM 7C and 35 COM 12E adopted at its 35th session (UNESCO, 2011),
Significant factors negatively impacting the Outstanding Universal Value
3.Takes note of the statistical analysis and encourages the World Heritage Centre to continue with the production of such informative data, including regional analyses;
Recurrent conservation issues
4.Also takes note of the completion of the independent review process on extractive industries and World Heritage properties as a contribution to the Policy Guidelines development and invites the World Heritage Centre to disseminate this review as widely as possible;
5.Requests States Parties to make every endeavor to take into consideration disaster risks, including from human-induced hazards, in the management plans and systems for the World Heritage properties located in their territories;
6.Also requests the World Heritage Centre, with the support of the Advisory Bodies, to continue working with global and regional institutions involved in disaster risk management, with an aim to mainstream a concern for heritage within their policies and programmes as well as in UN-led processes such as the Post-Disaster-Needs-Assessment (PDNA);
Follow-up to decisions 35 COM 7C and 35 COM 12E
7.Further takes note of the information provided regarding the recognition for the protectors of World Heritage properties in conflict and post-conflict zones, including through the use of blue/green berets or other appropriate insignia;
8.Takes note furthermore of the correspondence process in place to increase dialogue between the States Parties, the World Heritage Centre and the Advisory Bodies regarding conservation issues at World Heritage properties;
9.Thanks the Government of Flanders for its support to the establishment of a “state of conservation information system” hosted on the World Heritage Centre’s website and further requests the World Heritage Centre to present a progress report on the database and its access online, during the 37th session of the World Heritage Committee in 2013;
Other conservation issues not reported on at the 36th session under Items 7A and 7B
10. Expresses its concern with regard to the state of conservation of World Heritage property of “Archaeological Areas of Pompei, Herculaneum and Torre Annuziata” and urges the State Party of Italy to intensify its efforts towards implementing the Committee’s decision taken at its 35th session (UNESCO, 2011);
11. Extends its sympathy to the victims of the earthquake in northern Italy; also encourages the State Party of Italy to continue its important efforts for the assessment of the damage occurred and for the planning and implementation of the necessary remedial measures, including with a view to strengthening the overall resilience of the three properties in the future against all possible hazards; and requests furthermore the State Party of Italy to provide to the World Heritage Centre updated information on the situation and to coordinate with the World Heritage Centre and the Advisory Bodies possible initiatives for the recovery and restoration of the three affected properties;
12. Finally requests the State Party of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to halt the proposed development of a golf resort at the World Heritage property “Giant’s Causeway and Causeway Coast” until its potential impact on the Outstanding Universal Value of the World Heritage property has been assessed.
1. Having examined Documents WHC-11/35.COM/7C, WHC-11/35.COM/INF.7C and WHC-11/35.COM/7B,
2. Recalling Decision 34 COM 7C, adopted at its 34th session (Brasilia, 2010),
3. Thanks the States Parties of Senegal and Australia for the organization of the Expert meeting on the global state of conservation challenges for World Heritage properties (Dakar, Senegal, 13-15 April 2011);
4. Endorses the recommendations of the Expert meeting on the global state of conservation challenges for World Heritage properties presented in Document WHC-11/35.COM/INF.7C and invites States Parties to the Convention, the World Heritage Centre and the Advisory Bodies to develop plans to implement them, and identify the required resources;
5. Considering the need for more systematic monitoring of threats, calls upon the States Parties to the Convention to support the establishment of a comprehensive "state of conservation information system" to support analytical studies and assist all stakeholders in site-management, with the target to make this system available, on the World Heritage Centre's website, before the 37th session of the World Heritage Committee in 2013;
6. Requests the World Heritage Centre, in consultation with the Advisory Bodies, to prepare clear modalities and guidance for the drafting and adoption of the Desired state of conservation for the removal of properties from the List of World Heritage in Danger, for examination by the World Heritage Committee at its 36th session in 2012;
7. Decides to amend paragraph 183 of the Operational Guidelines to read: "When considering the inscription of a property on the List of World Heritage in Danger, the Committee shall develop, and adopt, as far as possible, in consultation with the State Party concerned, a Desired state of conservation for the removal of the property from the List of World Heritage in Danger, and a programme for corrective measures";
8. Also requests the World Heritage Centre and Advisory Bodies to prepare a progress report on the issues mentioned above, for examination by the World Heritage Committee at its 36th session in 2012.
Decision 35COM 12E
1. Having examined Document WHC-11/35.COM/INF.7C,
2. Recalling Decision 32 COM 10 adopted at its 32nd session (Quebec City, 2008), Decision 33 COM 14A.2 adopted at its 33rd session (Seville, 2009), 34 COM 12 adopted at its 34th session (Brasilia, 2010) and Resolution 17 GA 9 adopted at the 17th General Assembly of States Parties (UNESCO Headquarters, 2009),
3. Expresses its appreciation to the States Parties of Australia and Senegal and the UNESCO World Heritage Centre for organising the expert meeting on global state of conservation challenges of World Heritage properties (Dakar, Senegal, 13-15 April 2011);
4. Notes the report provided by the participants at the above-mentioned expert meeting;
5. Invites contributions of relevant expertise and financial resources to assist States Parties implement decisions on the state of conservation of World Heritage properties;
6. Reiterates that nominations of properties for inscription on the World Heritage List must demonstrate Outstanding Universal Value in line with the criteria for inscription and comply with integrity/authenticity, protection and management requirements, as set out in the Operational Guidelines;
7. Requests the World Heritage Centre and the Advisory Bodies to develop guidance, for consideration at the 36th session of the World Heritage Committee, to clarify:
a) The uses, limits and documentation requirements for traditional management (paragraphs 108 and following),
b) The need for Environmental Impact Assessments/Heritage Impact Assessments of potential developments' impact on Outstanding Universal Value, the range of proposed activities with a likely impact on Outstanding Universal Value to be reported on and the documentation required by the World Heritage Centre (Paragraph 172), and
c) Buffer zones or other protection mechanisms, noting the recommendations contained in document WHC-08/32.COM/7.1;
8. Requests that aspects concerning partnerships should be dealt with after the report of the external auditor on PACT at the 18th General Assembly of States Parties;
9. Requests the World Heritage Centre and the Advisory Bodies to develop options to strengthen and improve the state of conservation reporting process, in particular to increase dialogue with States Parties about World Heritage properties facing challenges;
10. Also requests the World Heritage Centre to formally notify States Parties of the state of conservation reports on World Heritage properties on their territory which will be the subject of examination by the Committee at the session indicated;
11. Also requests the World Heritage Centre to report at the 36th session of the World Heritage Committee on possible ways to encourage United Nations recognition for the protectors of World Heritage properties in conflict and post conflict zones, including through the use of blue/green berets or other appropriate insignia, and reminds States Parties to include details of Disaster Risk Reduction/Emergency Planning arrangements in their nomination dossiers and management plans;
12. Further requests the World Heritage Centre, in collaboration with the Advisory Bodies, in addition to the presentation of state of conservation reports on individual properties, to prepare a thematic report on significant global and regional factors negatively impacting the Outstanding Universal Value of the properties, grouped according to the five categories of factors affecting the Outstanding Universal Value identified in the Periodic Report questionnaire, Section II, to ensure a greater coherence in the decision making on individual sites;
13. Requests the World Heritage Centre and the Advisory Bodies to provide, in the state of conservation reports on individual properties, a link to an integrated online database compiling all relevant background information concerning the property (previous state of conservation reports and Committee decisions, desired state of conservation, corrective measures, International Assistance requests, etc.) necessary for well-informed decision-making, to be hosted on the World Heritage Centre's website;
14. Also requests the Advisory Bodies to develop a database of existing guidance on key factors negatively impacting on the Outstanding Universal Value of World Heritage properties and tools for best management practice;
15. Recalling that being a signatory to the World Heritage Convention entails certain responsibilities, including a requirement to follow the Operational Guidelines, management of World Heritage properties according to the highest international standards, promotion of good governance and allocation of adequate funding for the protection of World Heritage properties, encourages States Parties to:
a) Develop adequate legislative frameworks to ensure compliance with the Operational Guidelines and set up a collaborative framework between agencies for the conservation of properties, including agencies in charge of the follow up of other conventions and international agreements,
b) Source assistance and support beyond what is available under the UNESCO World Heritage Fund, noting that tools, methodology and guidance are available both internationally and nationally from the Advisory Bodies and the World Heritage Centre and additional support should be sought from other donors, NGOs and international organizations,
c) Be proactive in relation to development and conservation of World Heritage properties by conducting a Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) at the time of nomination to anticipate the impact of any potential development on the Outstanding Universal Value,
d) Ensure that EIA/HIA are conducted for development projects which could affect properties and that these specifically assess the impact on the Outstanding Universal Value of properties,
e) Involve indigenous peoples and local communities in decision making, monitoring and evaluation of the state of conservation of the properties and their Outstanding Universal Value and link the direct community benefits to protection outcomes,
f) Respect the rights of indigenous peoples when nominating, managing and reporting on World Heritage sites in indigenous peoples' territories;
g) Establish and promote horizontal cooperation and understanding among various institutions that have an impact on cultural and natural heritage, also including governmental institutions responsible for UNESCO programmes implementation on national level, economy, finance, regional development/ planning, tourism, social welfare as well as local authorities,
h) Follow the Recommendation concerning the Protection, at National Level, of the Cultural and Natural Heritage, adopted simultaneously with the World Heritage Convention, by the General Conference of UNESCO on 16 November 1972.
See more about Decision 35COM 12E
2. Recalling Decisions 32 COM 7B.129 and 33 COM 7C, adopted at its 32nd (Quebec City, 2008) and 33rd (Seville, 2009) sessions respectively,
3. Welcomes the analytical summary of the perceived trends, changes and threats to the state of conservation of World Heritage properties over the past five years (2005-2009), as the basis for further reflection and more extensive analysis of this information;
4. Considers that this work highlights the need for more systematic monitoring of threats and of how to identify and react to emerging trends;
5. Suggests that data on the emergence of trends and on the underlying reasons for the emergence of trends could be helpful to States Parties, to the World Heritage Centre and to the Advisory Bodies;
6. Notes that the availability and application of satellite imagery and other remote sensing techniques are continually improving, and also notes that such techniques can provide evidence over time to determine whether some impacts on World Heritage values continue to occur or are being addressed;
7. Requests that the Advisory Bodies, and in particular IUCN, work with the World Heritage Centre, the UNESCO Science Sector, and relevant remote sensing agencies, to examine the feasibility of using remote sensing to help assess the potential contribution that it could make to the monitoring of certain threats to the Outstanding Universal Value of properties;
8. Given the percentage of threats related to development and infrastructure projects and to high-rise buildings, stresses the need for structured heritage impact assessments of major projects to be carried out at the earliest opportunity in order to assess the impact of potential projects on the Outstanding Universal Value of World Heritage properties;
9. Recalls the provisions of Paragraph 172 of the Operational Guidelines and that prompt information on potential development projects and their review for impact on Outstanding Universal Value is a key tool for ensuring the effective conservation of World Heritage properties and the credibility of the Convention;
10. Taking into account the information provided in the introduction of Document WHC-10/34.COM/7B and specifically the impact of natural disasters affecting World Heritage properties, notes the progress made in the implementation of the Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction at World Heritage properties as indicated in Document WHC-10/34.COM/7.3, as well as the newly published Resource Manual on this subject;
11. Also notes that the World Heritage Centre and the Advisory Bodies have considered the approaches for the selection of properties for state of conservation reports and processes for preparing Desired State of Conservation Statements for the removal of properties from the List of World Heritage in Danger and further notes that these will be subject to a further review at the next World Heritage Centre/Advisory Bodies meeting in September 2010;
12. Acknowledges the inclusion of links to illustrative material in the state of conservation reports which provide information on potential visual impact on the Outstanding Universal Value of a property and encourages the States Parties to share their experiences concerning visual impact studies and simulations by providing to the Word Heritage Centre links to relevant information to be made available through the web-page;
13. Requests the World Heritage Centre and the Advisory Bodies to report back on criteria, thresholds and processes relevant to the initiation of state of conservation reports, the feasibility of improved utilization of remote sensing, and the preparation and review of Desired State of Conservation Statements for the removal of properties from the List of World Heritage in Danger, for examination by the World Heritage Committee at its 35th session in 2011.
1. Having examined Documents WHC-09/33.COM/7B and WHC-09/33.COM/7B.Add,
2. Recalling Decision 32 COM 7B.129, adopted at its 32nd session (Quebec City, 2008),
3. Takes note of the process being followed to consult State Parties to ensure the accuracy of the state of conservation reports during their preparation, as presented in the introduction of Document WHC-09/33.COM/7B and requests the World Heritage Centre to make every effort to ensure that States Parties' input is included in these reports before they are distributed;
4. Recognizes the efforts on the inclusion of references in the Working Documents on State of Conservation to the image gallery of the web-pages of the World Heritage Centre and encourages States Parties to provide the World Heritage Centre, whenever possible, with verified electronic illustrative material;
5. Considers that its request, in Decision 32 COM 7B.129, to add a link to illustrative material also aimed at providing background information on cases indicating the potential of visual impact on the Outstanding Universal Value of a property and to make visual impact simulations provided by States Parties available to Members of the Word Heritage Committee;
6. Encourages States Parties to provide electronic illustrations of proposed projects in their State of Conservation Reports and to make these available to the Members of the World Heritage Committee;
7. Acknowledging the increasing number of State of Conservation reports and that reviewing these is a key tool for ensuring the effective conservation and credibility of World Heritage properties,
8. Noting the results of the analytical document on trends provided with Circular Letter CL/WHC-09/03 and the in-depth discussion that took place at the 32nd session of the World Heritage Committee,
9. Also noting the increasing number of natural disasters affecting World Heritage properties, requests the World Heritage Centre and the Advisory Bodies to prepare a report on the progress made in the implementation of the Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction at World Heritage properties and submit it for the examination by the Committee at its 34th session in 2010,
10. Also considers it desirable to receive from the World Heritage Centre a methodological framework for the processes of:
a) Initiating the consideration of a property in the State of Conservation reports,
b) Requesting a State Party progress or state of conservation report within a defined timeframe, and
c) Evaluating desired State of Conservation Statements submitted by State Parties;
11. Requests the World Heritage Centre to:
a) Prepare, in cooperation with the Advisory Bodies, information on criteria, thresholds and processes applied for the initiation of State of Conservation reports and review of Desired State of Conservation statements for discussion at the 34th session of the World Heritage Committee in 2010;
b) Also prepare, in consultation with the Chairperson of the World Heritage Committee, a summary of the trends, changes and threats based on an analytical summary of the state of conservation of World Heritage properties over 5 years for discussion at the 34th session of the World Heritage Committee in 2010, with a view to make recommendations for prioritizing management efforts in the context of the Global Strategy;
12. Further requests the World Heritage Centre and the Advisory Bodies, when preparing state of conservation reports, to distinguish between issues that impact or have the potential to impact on a site's Outstanding Universal Value from issues that may impact values that are not recognized as being of Outstanding Universal Value;
13. Notes that all reactive monitoring missions proposed in the draft decisions on State of Conservation of properties on the World Heritage List and the List of World Heritage in Danger are currently suggested to be joint missions of the World Heritage Centre and at least one Advisory Body, and considers that this has the potential to increase the overall budgetary requirements for missions and human resources;
14. Requests the World Heritage Centre to introduce a section on proposed missions to the relevant State of Conservation reports which outlines the objectives of a proposed mission as well as the specific roles and tasks of all bodies involved;
15. Also notes the petition on the Role of Black Carbon in the endangering of World Heritage properties and encourages all States Parties to exchange information on existing national policies, regulations and opportunities for immediate voluntary action to control the generation of black carbon that can affect World Heritage properties;
16. Also requests the World Heritage Centre and Advisory Bodies to adopt a consistent approach to reporting on the impact of climate change on World Heritage properties and to ensure that future decisions in this respect are based on the Committee's Strategy to assist States Parties to implement appropriate management responses to climate change;
17. Further noting the profusion of terms used to describe the spatial and functional relationships among World Heritage properties, their buffer zones and the areas around these properties, requests the World Heritage Centre and the Advisory Bodies to develop a glossary of terms in this respect, as well as proposed revisions to the Operational Guidelines regarding buffer zones, taking into account the results of the Expert Meeting on this issue for consideration by the World Heritage Committee at its 34th session in 2010;
18. Also encourages all States Parties to fully implement paragraph 172 of the Operational Guidelines by informing the World Heritage Centre of restorations, constructions and other projects that may affect the Outstanding Universal Value of a property in their territory.
Decision 32COM 7B.129
1. Having examined documents WHC-08/32.COM/7B, WHC-08/32.COM7B.Add and WHC-08/32.COM7B.Add2,
2. Recognizing that the state of conservation reports are an important tool for sustaining the World Heritage properties; and
3. Noting the discussion that took place at the 32nd session of the World Heritage Committee;
4. Requests the World Heritage Centre to:
a) prepare, after consultation with the Chairperson of the World Heritage Committee, an analytical summary of the state of conservation of the World Heritage discussed at the 32nd session (Québec City, 2008) identifying trends, by 1st November 2008, for distribution to the Committee members and discussion at the 33rd session in 2009;
b) identify issues emanating from the analytical summary, in consultation with the Advisory Bodies, to be discussed on relevant agenda items of the Committee, including the Reinforced Monitoring mechanism;
c) prepare a lexicon of terms and recommendations for their consistent application in state of conservation reports;
d) provide, where available, a printed Statement of Outstanding Universal Value, for properties on the List of World Heritage in Danger and those discussed for in-Danger listing;
e) add a link to illustrative material and relevant statements of Outstanding Universal Value, and attribute information to source and date;
5. Also requests the World Heritage Centre to identify a mechanism for consultation with States Parties during the development of the State of Conservation reports to ensure their accuracy.
See more about Decision 32COM 7B.129
The World Heritage Centre,
1. Having examined Documents WHC-07/31.COM/7A, WHC-07/31.COM/7A.Add, WHC-07/31.COM/7A.Add.2, WHC-07/31.COM/7B, WHC-07/31.COM/7B.Add, WHC-07/31.COM/7B.Add.2,
2. Recalling Decisions 27 COM 7B.106 and 29 COM 7C, adopted at its 27th (UNESCO, 2003) and 29th (Durban, 2005) sessions respectively,
3. Invites the States Parties to use the following format for the submission to the World Heritage Centre of their report(s) on the state of conservation of World Heritage properties:
Format for preparing a State Party’s Report for World Heritage properties
(designed following the Advisory Bodies / World Heritage Centre meeting of 25-26 January 2007)
Name of World Heritage property (State Party) (Identification number)
1. Response from the State Party to the World Heritage Committee’s Decision, paragraph by paragraph
[Note: this information has to refer to developments over the past year or since the last decision of the Committee for this property]
In case the property is inscribed on the List of World Heritage in Danger:
a) Corrective measures taken by the State Party in reply to the World Heritage Committee’s Decision(s)
b) Progress towards the removal of the property from the List of World Heritage in Danger
c) If needed, please describe the success factors or difficulties in implementing the corrective measures identified
[Note: please, provide factual information, including exact dates, figures etc. and provide comments separately]
d) Is the timeframe for the implementation of the corrective measures suitable? If not, please propose a justified alternative.
In all cases:
2. Other current conservation issues identified by the State Party
[Note: conservation issues which are not mentioned in the Decision of the World Heritage Committee or any information request from the World Heritage Centre]
3. In conformity with paragraph 172 of the Operational Guidelines, please describe any potential major restorations, alterations and/or new construction(s) within the protected area (core zone and buffer zone and/or corridors) that might be envisaged.
1. Welcomes the initiatives of States Parties for architectural competitions for new buildings in World Heritage properties where compatible with the Outstanding Universal Value, including in historic neighbourhoods in the spirit of the Vienna Memorandum on "World Heritage and Contemporary Architecture, Managing the Historic Urban Landscape" (2005) ;
2. Encourages the States Parties, in preparing the competition documents, to inform the Secretariat, seek comments from the Advisory Bodies and inform the Committee according to paragraph 172 of the Operational Guidelines.
Decision 29COM 7B.c
1. Having examined Document WHC-05/29.COM/7B.Rev,
2. Recalling Decision 7 EXT.COM 4B.1, adopted at its 7th extraordinary session (UNESCO, 2004), which invited the Director of the World Heritage Centre, in consultation with the Advisory Bodies, to submit at its 29th session proposals on ways and means of optimizing the interrelation between the results of the periodic reporting cycles and the conclusions derived from the state of conservation reports – in particular in order to ensure consistency and a better conservation of the properties,
3. Noting that discussions have taken place in this regard at a meeting of the Advisory Bodies and the World Heritage Centre (February, 2005) and at a Workshop on “Management Effectiveness, Monitoring for World Heritage Value and Statutory Reporting” (May, 2005),
4. Highlights that there are fundamental differences between the two processes of periodic reporting and reactive monitoring, as indicated in the Operational Guidelines;;
5. Calls for better linkages between both processes in the future, for example, through the following mechanism:
a) the Advisory Bodies and the World Heritage Centre should carefully consider information provided in the periodic reports corresponding to the relevant States Parties, when preparing state of conservation reports -in particular, by using the information provided on threats to the properties to focus the attention of reactive monitoring;
b) States Parties should take into account the content and decisions of previous state of conservation reports when preparing their propertyspecific periodic reports; and, in particular, provide an update on threats highlighted through the reactive monitoring process and on the measures taken by the State Party to mitigate these threats; and
c) A database currently being developed by the World Heritage Centre on World Heritage properties should allow for cross-referencing between state of conservation and periodic reports to enhance consistency in reporting mechanisms and to ensure that follow-up action is taken as necessary;
6. Requests the World Heritage Centre and the Advisory Bodies to take this issue up at the forthcoming meetings leading to and during the “reflection year” for the periodic reporting process.
See more about Decision 29COM 7B.c
1. Having examined Documents WHC-05/29.COM/7A and WHC-05/29.COM/7B.Rev,
2. Wishing to motivate and assist State Parties to get properties removed from the List of World Heritage in Danger,
3. Encouraging greater international cooperation among States Parties in order to reduce the number of properties on the List of World Heritage in Danger,
4. Wishing to improve the consistency and effectiveness of state of conservation reports both with respect to properties on the World Heritage List and the List of World Heritage in Danger,
5. Reiterates that reports of missions to review the state of conservation of properties on the World Heritage List, in conformity with paragraph 173 of the Operational Guidelines, must include:
a) an indication of threats or significant improvement in the conservation of the property since the last report to the World Heritage Committee;
b) any follow-up to previous decisions of the World Heritage Committee to the state of conservation of the property; and
c) information on any threat or damage to or loss of outstanding universal value, integrity and/or authenticity for which the property was inscribed on the World Heritage List;
6. Emphasizes that whenever further action is needed, clear benchmarks are set indicating the corrective measures to be taken in order to achieve significant improvement of the conservation as well as a timeframe within which the benchmarks will have to be met;
7. Requests the full cooperation of States Parties, Advisory Bodies and the World Heritage Centre in the state of conservation reporting process;
8. Further requests that in addition to information about the amounts and purposes of international assistance of the World Heritage Fund received by a property, a state of conservation report should also indicate the amount of extra budgetary funds received or needed;
9. Decides to discuss further at its 30th session (Vilnius, 2006) the possibility of deferring the decision to inscribe new properties on the World Heritage List of a State Party that does not submit full reports requested by the Committee for two consecutive ordinary sessions of the Committee;
10. Decides, with respect to properties on the List of World Heritage in Danger, in accordance with Section IV.B of the Operational Guidelines:
a) to clearly identify the threats and dangers for which a property is to be inscribed on the List of World Heritage in Danger and how serious they are,
b) to set at the time of inscription on the List of World Heritage in Danger clear benchmarks indicating the corrective action to be taken to address the ascertained and potential dangers;
c) to set a timeframe within which the benchmarks will have to be met in order for a property to be removed from the List of World Heritage in Danger;
d) to request the World Heritage Centre and the Advisory Bodies for properties already on the List of World Heritage in Danger, for which at the time of inscription no benchmarks were set, to include in future reports regarding those sites benchmarks indicating the corrective action to be taken to address ascertained and potential dangers as well as a timeframe;
e) to request the Advisory Bodies to evaluate upon request of the State Party or of the Committee the impact of the ascertained and potential dangers on the outstanding universal value of World Heritage properties as set out in the Statement of outstanding universal value, referred to in paragraph 155 of the Operational Guidelines; and
f) to request States Parties to submit an annual report on the progress towards meeting the benchmarks within the timeframe set with respect to their properties on the List of World Heritage in Danger;
11. Also decides with respect to properties on the World Heritage List to explicitly discuss all state of conservation reports indicating non-compliance with Committee decisions, non-appliance of corrective measures or otherwise a lack of cooperation on the part of a State Party, as well as reports indicating difficulties encountered by a State Party in its efforts to conserve its sites (List A).
1. Requests the Secretariat in consultation with the Advisory Bodies, to ensure that all properties included in the future state of conservation documents, are treated in compliance with the procedures set out in the Operational Guidelines for the implementation of World Heritage Convention for reactive monitoring (paragraph 68, July 2002);
2. Requests that reports of missions to review the state of conservation of World Heritage properties include, as appropriate:
(a) an indication of threats or significant improvement in the conservation of the property since the last report to the World Heritage Committee,
(b) any follow-up to previous decisions of the World Heritage Committee on the state of conservation of the property,
(c) information on any threat or damage to or loss of outstanding universal value, integrity and/or authenticity for which the property was inscribed on the World Heritage List;
3. Further requests that the reports are categorized as follows:
(a) reports with recommended decisions which, in the judgment of the World Heritage Centre in consultation with the Advisory Bodies, require discussion by the World Heritage Committee,
(b) reports which, in the judgment of the World Heritage Centre in consultation with the Advisory Bodies, can be noted without discussion,
Reports in category (b) will not be discussed unless a request is made to the Chairperson of the World Heritage Committee in advance of the discussion of this agenda item;
4. Invites the World Heritage Centre to present all information on the state of conservation of properties inscribed on the World Heritage List in the following manner:
(a) the report on each property should start on a new page,
(b) the identification number of the property allocated at the time of its nomination should be used in the document,
(c) an index of all properties should also be included,
(d) the decisions should have a standard layout, draft recommendation, and should be concise and operational;
5. Reaffirms that the deadline to receive reports by the World Heritage Centre from States Parties is 1 February of each year.
1. Noting with concern, during the examination of the state of conservation of the properties inscribed on the World Heritage List, the multiplication of inappropriate pastiche buildings which falsify history,
2. Invites, in consequence, the States Parties to encourage a contemporary architecture of quality, respectful of the past, which integrates harmoniously with its environment.
Decision 26COM 21
Invites the Director-General to seek further coordination, and possibly the establishment of a permanent mechanism of consultation, with the World Bank on projects related to World Heritage properties.
See more about Decision 26COM 21
Decision 26COM 21.3
Invites the Director-General to present a report and statistics on the state of conservation reports of properties inscribed on the World Heritage List and the List of World Heritage in Danger at its extraordinary session in March 2003.
See more about Decision 26COM 21.3
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Now displaying: March, 2016
15 - The British Resistance: Auxiliary Units 0
By the end of June 1940 the Battle of France was over, the British Army had been plucked from the Beaches of Dunkirk, but much of its heavy equipment had been abandoned in France.
It looked like Britain would be the next target for the Nazi war machine… Having witnessed the debacle in France a betting man might have put his money on the Germans when it came to invading England.
On the 14th of May 1940 Anthony Eden had called on men between 17 and 65 in Britain who were not in military service but wished to defend their country to enrol in the Local Defence Volunteers. By July over 1.5million Britons has volunteered…
Another group was also created, a clandestine army that in the event of invasion would be called upon. Britain would be the first nation to have a pre-planed resistance network, the went under the unassuming name of Auxiliary, or Aux Units.
I’m joined by Tom Sykes from the ColesHill Auxiliary Research Team.
14 - The Java Sea Campaign 0
In this episode we’re looking at the Java Sea Campaign, with Jeffrey Cox.
Jeff’s book Rising Sun, Falling Skies: The disastrous Java Sea Campaign of World War II from Osprey publishing, examines the events following Pearl Harbor.
In their own lighting offensive the Japanese attacked Singapore, the Philippines and the Dutch East Indies. The Allies reeled against the well planned assaults, struggling to hit back with any useful resistance in the first major sea battles of the war in the Pacific.
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Mayor Aboutaleb and Hogeschool Rotterdam, joined by 100RC, Commemorate 1st Anniversary of Strategy
Rotterdam celebrates a year of resilience by signing a new partnership with Hogeschool Rotterdam
Today, the Municipality of Rotterdam led by Mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb commemorated its first year since the launch of its city resilience strategy, Resilient Rotterdam, by signing a new partnership with Hogeschool Rotterdam (Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences) at an event in Rotterdam’s World Trade Centre.
The Hogeschool Rotterdam partnership will train students in resilience thinking and support in Lifestyle & Transformation Design working on resilience awareness by creating so-called interactive wearables and data-driven design. The RDM and EMI Centers of Expertise will work with various programs on specific questions about the Port and Zuid areas of the city; from modular aquabots to the redevelopment of De Peperklip building in the Zuid area. Students will also be comparing international resilience, starting in September and including: Atlanta and Rotterdam.
Over the last year countless resilience initiatives have been launched as envisaged by the Resilient Rotterdam strategy:
Delfshaven has experimented with a neighbourhood-level resilience plan;
The city center is starting to set up a multi-functional roofs landscape;
Crooswijk has built a third ‘water square’ to address multiple resilience challenges in one urban space;
A total of 3.2 billion Euros in subsidies have been awarded for climate adaptation initiatives in the city;
Finally, Codarts University for the Arts is working on an opera entitled ‘The Ring of Resilience’
Mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb said of the anniversary: “Rotterdam is defensible and already shows great resilience, but we need to do more. We need the inventiveness and energy of everyone in the city. That’s why it’s important that students from Hogeschool Rotterdam, the city makers of the future, become resilient. So that Rotterdam is ready for the challenges of the 21st Century.”
Arnoud Molenaar, Rotterdam’s Chief Resilience Officer: “In May 2016, Rotterdam was the first city in The Netherlands to launch a resilience strategy. This is because Rotterdam wants to maintain and, where necessary, strengthen its resilience and defenses so that the city is able to optimally anticipate challenges such as climate change, digitization and energy transition. In the past year, Resilient Rotterdam has undergone an intensive consultation project with the city, as part of which 2,800 Rotterdam citizens responded to the resilience strategy. They indicated that social resilience and climate change are the biggest challenges faced by Rotterdam.”
The first anniversary of Resilient Rotterdam is just the beginning. In the coming year, Resilient Rotterdam continue working on almost 70 initiatives from the action program. A great deal of focus will be on energy transition, cyber security and climate-proofing. However, the key factor will be balance within the city, increasing the resilience of individual Rotterdam citizens. Resilient Rotterdam will also continue to work on knowledge sharing within the 100RC network and beyond.
About Resilient Rotterdam
Rotterdam is a city with an unmistakable character and energy, which never stands still. The city and its residents are pretty durable. Rotterdam wants to maintain and, where necessary, strengthen its resilience and defenses. So that the city is able to optimally profit from and anticipate challenges such as climate change, digitization and energy transition. Since 2014, Rotterdam has been working with cities from the worldwide ‘100 Resilient Cities’ network, initiated by the Rockefeller Foundation. The aim being to combine forces to profit from and anticipate trends in the 21st century.
Resilient Rotterdam is the force behind this movement in the city. We are an expanding network of people working on the city’s resilience: companies, residents, social organizations and the municipal executive. Together we are developing our skills to make Rotterdam resilient and defensible and to keep it that way. Together we are working on structural focus on the city’s resilience qualities. And together we are working on initiatives that will ensure that Rotterdam is ready for the 21st century!
About 100 Resilient Cities
100 Resilient Cities (100RC), pioneered by The Rockefeller Foundation, helps cities around the world become more resilient to social, economic, and physical challenges that are a growing part of the 21st century. 100RC provides this assistance through: funding for a Chief Resilience Officer in each city who will lead the resilience efforts; resources for drafting a Resilience Strategy; access to private sector, public sector, academic, and NGO resilience tools; and membership in a global network of peer cities to share best practices and challenges. 100RC currently has 100 member cities.
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Aldridge Reports Year-End 2015 Financial Results and Provides a Corporate Update
TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aldridge Minerals Inc. (TSX-V: AGM) (“Aldridge” or the “Company”) announced today the filing of its audited consolidated financial statements for the year ending December 31, 2015 (the “2015 Financials”), and the Management’s Discussion & Analysis related thereto (the “2015 MD&A”), which are available on SEDAR and at www.aldridgeminerals.ca.
Han Ilhan, President & CEO, commented, “Our focus in 2015 was the advancement of the land acquisition within the fully permitted Yenipazar Project fence line. Land acquisitions are always a sensitive task as their effective execution is so closely tied to maintaining a Social Licence to Operate. Accordingly, in 2015 we continued our strategy of offering the landowners a price of 5.1 Turkish lira per square meter. As expected, some of the landowners have not yet sold their land in the hope that they will receive a higher offer price, which is a common community expectation in the mining industry.
“As a result, midway through 2015 Aldridge applied for the State-led Compulsory Land Acquisition Process and received approval from the Ministry of Natural Resources in Turkey, which determined that the development of the Yenipazar Project is in the best interest of the local and national economies. This approval is intended to provide legal certainty to the Company that it will be able to access required land for mine development and is based on well-established laws that have been regularly implemented in Turkey, particularly over the last 15 years during a period of significant infrastructure development in Turkey.”
Mr. Ilhan added, “In January the State initiated the legal process to complete the Compulsory Land Acquisition Process. During the legal phase of the process, the State is the plaintiff and individual landowners are the defendants. The court will determine the final price for the land taking into account the findings of a court-appointed independent expert panel. Although the State will acquire the land, Aldridge will be required by law to cover the costs of the land acquisition. In parallel with this legal process, we continue to purchase land from landowners willing to sell voluntarily. The court cases of any landowners that decide to sell voluntarily to Aldridge will be dropped by the State.
“Aldridge has completed the acquisition of private land representing approximately 34% of the Project total at a total cost of approximately US$8,395,000. This total does not include an additional 13% of land classified as Treasury land and meadow lands. The mining laws in Turkey provides Aldridge with full access to Treasury lands within our mining concession. In due course we expect the meadow lands to be reclassified as Treasury land.”
In closing, Mr. Ilhan added, “As we advance towards completion of the Land Acquisition Process, we will continue project financing discussions that have been initiated with multiple financial institutions that have expressed interest in the Yenipazar Project. Aldridge is also analyzing all of the alternatives for a refinancing of the bridge loan facility with Orion Mine Finance prior to its maturity date of August 29, 2016.”
Strategy and Outlook
The Company’s most important objectives of 2016 include advancing the land acquisition, refinancing the bridge loan facility, as well as positioning the Company to obtain project financing. The Company’s engineering and exploration initiatives will also continue in 2016.
Upon completion of project financing the Company expects a project development period of approximately 24 months involving engineering, construction, commissioning and leading to commercial production. As a result, the Company’s focus in 2016 is on advancing the following initiatives already underway:
Land Acquisition – The land acquisition process includes two components that are continuing in parallel, namely the Company’s voluntary purchase process and the State-led Compulsory Land Acquisition Process. As of March 2016, 114 court cases have been opened by the State to acquire substantially all of the remaining privately held land within the Yenipazar Project fence line. In accordance with land acquisition laws in Turkey, the landowners cannot object to the State-led LAP and must sell based on the final price determined by the court. There is a risk the price to be determined by the court could exceed the Company’s offer price, thereby increasing total land costs.
Loan Facility Refinancing – The Company ended 2015 with US$8,520,566 in cash and negative working capital of US$10,005,830. As at December 31, 2015 the Company had drawn down US$17,500,000 of its US$35,000,000 loan facility, which matures August 29, 2016 (the “Loan”). Aldridge is analyzing all of the alternatives for a refinancing of the Loan prior to its maturity date.
Engineering – The Company expects to start basic engineering in the second half of 2016, with continuation in 2017. Aldridge will continue to refine its basic engineering schedule and execution to ensure the focus is on critical path items while considering the variability of the timing of land acquisition and project financing. Basic engineering, detailed engineering, equipment procurement, construction and commissioning will be executed in compliance with project financing requirements.
Exploration – Given the promising results of the exploration program completed in May 2015, the Company is in the process of finalizing plans to investigate the additional potential within our licence area immediately adjacent to the existing ore body and other areas within the 100 square kilometre Yenipazar licence area, where encouraging ground survey results, geophysical and geochemical anomalies, and outcrops indicate potential for further upside.
Project Financing – The Company will actively consider various project financing alternatives, which may include senior and subordinated debt, equity, metal streams, and strategic investments. The timing of progress towards completion of the land acquisition process is anticipated to affect the timing of further project evaluation by prospective financing organizations. Consequently, the Company plans to increase its project financing efforts later in 2016 as the land acquisition process continues. The timing of the project financing will likely be affected by general market conditions.
Selected Financial Information
The following table provides selected consolidated financial information that should be read in conjunction with the 2015 Financials.
ENDED AND AS AT
Loss before income tax and
discontinued operations $(5,279,998) $(3,191,177) $(7,174,079)
Net loss (5,279,998) (3,191,177) (6,840,585)
Net loss per share (0.05) (0.04) (0.08)
Cash and cash equivalents 8,520,566 14,331,409 6,597,969
Working capital(i) (10,005,830) 14,103,639 6,468,652
Total assets 30,814,033 25,829,329 10,452,416
Total non-current financial liabilities
126,974 8,445,579 115,740
Working capital equals current assets less current liabilities, and is a non-GAAP measure used by management.
Aldridge is a development stage mining company focused on its wholly owned Yenipazar polymetallic Massive Sulfide Project (Gold, Silver, Copper, Lead, Zinc) in Turkey, a country that is committed to developing its natural resources. Aldridge completed the Yenipazar Optimization Study and filed the related technical report in May 2014, which updated the original May 2013 Feasibility Study. The Company is currently advancing the Yenipazar Project on key aspects including land acquisition, project financing, and engineering.
This news release includes certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of Canadian securities laws, including, but are not limited to the ability to accomplish remaining milestones, completing the Yenipazar land acquisition, refinancing the Company’s existing Loan facility, securing project financing, advancing the Yenipazar Project to production, economic performance, future plans and objectives of the Company.
Forward-looking statements involve risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results, performance, prospects and opportunities to differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking statements. Such risks, uncertainties and factors including meeting conditions for advances under the Loan and the other factors discussed under the heading “Risk Factors” in the Company’s Management’s Discussion and Analysis for the year ended December 31, 2015 and in other continuous disclosure filings made by the Company with Canadian securities regulatory authorities and available at www.sedar.com. Any number of important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements as well as future results.
Forward-looking information is based on a number of factors and assumptions which have been used to develop such information but which may prove to be incorrect, including, but not limited to, assumptions in connection with the continuance of Aldridge and its subsidiaries as a going concern, general economic and market conditions, mineral prices, the accuracy of mineral resource estimates. Although Aldridge believes that the assumptions and factors used in making the forward-looking statements are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on these statements, which only apply as of the date of this news release, and no assurance can be given that such events will occur in the disclosed time frames or at all. Aldridge disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise unless required by law.
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The Magic of Wrigley from the Limited View Seats by Ultimate Sports Fan, Andrew
In the 8th inning of last night’s Cubs game, Ken Griffey, Jr. injured himself "again" on a Derrek Lee single. In the next at-bat, Matt Murton hit a short blooper into left field which Adam Dunn said he caught, but the umpire ruled the ball hit the ground. The actual catch did not matter since Ryan Theriot was tagging up on the play anyway. But Dunn complained that the outfield at Wrigley is treacherous.
"I'm surprised more people don't get injured out there. It's as bad as there is," Dunn said. "It's worse than playing in a parking lot. It looks like they had a monster truck rally. It's terrible. There's potholes. It's bad. It's unsafe."
We get it Dunn, you're done. There may not be crying in baseball but there is sure a lot of whining.
On that note, all of this drama and baseball was taken in from one of Wrigley's famous obstructed view seats. You have never felt so stupid until you have sat in Wrigley Field with a 6 inch wide pole, 6 inches in front of your face, shifting your head back and forth with each pitch.
Pre Game Comments
Tonight we are going to the Cubs game as well. Weather is supposed to be the same as last night. I sold my tickets to Stacy Grobe for face value at the start of the season because I was not supposed to be in Chicago tonight. So we bought tickets from the box office for $16 each since the cheapest seats on Stubhub were $36 each. This way we avoid dealing with scalpers. Also, the odds of finding a ticket under face value are lower when the market is above face value the day of the game.
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Fall 2012 Archer Fellows
Miriam Aguayo | UT Brownsville
Miriam Aguayo is a senior at the University of Texas at Brownsville where she is studying History. Her passion is Immigration law; the area in which she hopes to attain an internship in Washington D.C. Throughout her college career, Miriam has sought after professional opportunities to work in immigration issues and the legal profession. She has interned at the Southern District of Texas Federal Court and at the Law Office of Annabell Alegria. Her goal is to help improve our nation’s current immigration policies and help lessen the struggles illegal immigrants endure. In addition to her experience with the judicial system, Miriam has worked as an on-campus tutor, served as a student mentor for the AmeriCorps program, and acted as a consultant to the National Park Service.
Abigail Allen | UT Arlington
Abigail Allen is a senior pursuing her Bachelor of Arts in English at the University of Texas at Arlington. As an undergraduate, Abigail received recognitions for her achievements including the UT Arlington President's Charter Scholarship and the Dora Nichols/Arlington Shakespeare Club Scholarship for achievement in English. She has completed and presented her Honors Thesis for English which discusses the relationship between identity and place. She is interested in internships that will introduce her to the issues surrounding environmental policy and environmental justice. Her experiences abroad, especially her volunteer work in China, have cultivated her interest in international environmental policy and human rights. She anticipates a career with an environmental interest group working to reform environmental policy. She plans to attend law school in the Fall of 2012, specializing in environmental law.
Ben Barrett | UT Austin
Ben Barrett is pursuing a dual major in Plan II and Government at the University of Texas at Austin. In the fall, he will be interning with the US Department of Education in the Office of Legislation and Congressional Affairs. Last year, Ben worked with Kipp Austin College Prep as an administrative intern. Before working with KACP, Ben also mentored a struggling fifth grade student with the Plan II- KIPP partnership. In the summer of 2011, Ben taught sixth grade social studies and a class on architecture with Breakthrough Collaborative, a non-profit that hopes to close the achievement gap by empowering students who aspire to be the first in their families to go to college. Ben was a varsity member of Texas Crew, UT’s club rowing team, and also served as the club’s fundraising coordinator. He is a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity and has held several leadership positions within the Interfraternity Council.
Rebecca Beardsley | UT Dallas
Rebecca Beardsley is a senior at the University of Texas at Dallas majoring in Global Business with a minor in Political Science. While at UT Dallas, Rebecca has been involved with the Spanish Club as one of its founding members, and served as the Speaker on the Collegium V Honors Program Executive Council. Rebecca is also a part of the Management Honors program and will serve as the President of the Spanish Club in the Spring following her Archer Fellowship. During her Junior year, Rebecca traveled to Istanbul, Turkey to study Turkish for a year and attended Ozyegin University in Anadolu. During her summers Rebecca has had a variety of Internships including teaching a business program to at-risk high school students through the ExxonMobil Community Summer Jobs Program and working at the Department of State in Washington, DC. This summer Rebecca is participating in her second State Dept. internship. In the fall, Rebecca hopes to work for a think tank in a Turkish program, researching and writing on Turkish political issues.
Joshua Downes | UT Austin
Joshua Downes is a senior at the University of Texas at Austin majoring in History. He is also contracted to commission as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Army through the Reserve Officer Training Corps following graduation in May 2013. During the summer of 2012, Joshua travelled to Fort Lewis, Washington for evaluation at the Army’s Leadership Development Assessment Course. Following this month of field training and evaluation, Joshua was on temporary duty with the 4th Squadron of the 9th Cavalry Regiment at Fort Hood, Texas, shadowing a scout platoon leader. Joshua participated in the Normandy Scholars Program in the spring of 2011, where he studied World War II during the semester and travelled to the sites in Europe that summer. He also spent part of the summer of 2011 at the Army’s Basic Airborne Course in order to earn his parachute jump wings. This fall, Joshua will be interning at the United States Department of State, in the Bureau of Political – Military Affairs.
Madison Estes | UT Austin
Madison Estes is a senior at the University of Texas at Austin majoring in Plan I Honors International Relations and Global Studies with a focus in international security and a minor in European Studies. While at UT Austin, Madison has been an active member of her sorority, Zeta Tau Alpha, where she has served as a member of the Program Council for two years. She also studied abroad in Rome, Italy where she participated in a full submersion, UT faculty led program that helped her become proficient in the Italian language and solidified her interest in international affairs. Madison spent her summer prior to her Archer semester interning in Washington D.C. with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum where she expanded her knowledge in human rights advocacy and genocide studies. After graduation, she hopes to pursue a career in the foreign service and/or international non-profits.
Dancey Glover | UT Austin
Dancey Glover is a senior at The University of Texas at Austin where she is pursuing a major in Government, and a minor in Arabic through the Liberal Arts Honors Program. During her time at UT Austin, Dancey has been especially active in the organization University Democrats, serving as a Mobilization Committee Chair, Events Chair, and Vice President. She has also served as the Assistant Advocacy Policy Director in Student Government, and was active in the Invest in Texas Campaign, a campaign which advocated for higher education during the 2011 Texas Legislative Session through lobbying initiatives. In addition to campus organizations, Dancey has served as Programs Director for the statewide organization Texas College Democrats, and has interned for State Representative Mark Strama. Dancey has also worked as a Peer Academic Coach for the past year, mentoring UT Austin students on a weekly basis to teach them academic skills such as time management, maximizing memory, and preparing for tests. During her semester in D.C., Dancey will be interning in the White House Office of Presidential Correspondence.
Nicole Haley | UT Austin
Nicole Haley is a senior at the University of Texas at Austin, where she will earn a dual degree in Communication Studies with a concentration in Political Communication and Government in the spring of 2013. During her time at the university, she was a Key Votes intern for Project Vote Smart, a non-partisan legislative research organization, as well as a legislative intern for State Representative Ryan Guillen. In addition to her internship experience, she has been an active member of the UT Austin chapter of Alpha Phi Omega, a co-educational community service fraternity, since 2009. In her spare time, Nicole enjoys reading, swimming, and trying out new restaurants with her friends. She looks forward to interning at the Office of Presidential Correspondence in the White House.
Nadia Hammoud | UT Pan American
Nadia Hammoud is currently a senior at the University of Texas - Pan American where she is majoring in Biology with a minor in Biochemistry. She is part of the joint BS/MD Pre-Medical Honors College, which has offered her conditional acceptance to Baylor College of Medicine. Nadia is also a member of the Guerra Honors Program, Eta Omicron Nu, and Health Occupations Students of America, for which she served as Vice President. During her time as an Archer Fellow, she hopes to gain a better understanding of health care reform and public health through her internship. Upon returning from her internship, Nadia will be defending her thesis on a study of socioeconomic influences on childhood obesity. She will graduate in the spring of 2013 and will continue on to medical school to pursue an M.D/M.P.H.
Nikki Hernandez | UT San Antonio
Adriana Nicole Hernandez is a senior at the University of Texas at San Antonio pursuing a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communication with a minor in Legal Studies. She is a member of the Honors College and plans to graduate with Leadership Honors. She is also participating in UTSA’s prestigious Summer Law School Preparation Academy where she will earn a certificate of Legal Reasoning. Nikki works as a legal assistant at a business law firm where she conducts research, contacts clients and performs administrative tasks. She stays active on campus and is a member of the National Society of Leadership and Success. While in Washington, D.C., Nikki hopes to enhance her knowledge of the legal system with the desire to become a lawyer.
Jessica Huff | UT Austin
Jessica Huff is a fourth year multimedia journalism student at the University of Texas at Austin. While attempting to find new ways of disseminating information through both writing and multimedia projects, she is also working towards an interdisciplinary certificate in human rights and social justice. She hopes to use these skills to become a multi-platform journalist with a focus on state and/or national politics. Until then, she is the news editor for the online publication The Horn and founder and President of Texas New Media – a start-up organization focusing on the rapidly changing journalism industry. While in D.C., Jessica will intern with NBC News.
Jordan Humphreys | UT Austin
Jordan Humphreys is a graduating senior at The University of Texas at Austin. He has finished his on-campus studies towards a Bachelor of Arts degree with Special Honors in Government, a Bachelor of Journalism degree in Multimedia Journalism and a Bachelor of Science degree in Political Communication. In his time at UT Austin, Jordan has written for Reporting Texas, Taylor Daily Press and The Daily Texan; conducted several research projects on media effects on public opinion; publicized organizations, candidates and companies; worked to secure funding for higher education; and worked to implement policies on campus of a reliable emergency alert system, a recognized student voice in budget and tuition decisions and an improved degree audit system. Jordan will be spending his final semester in D.C. interning with JDA Frontline and the U.S. Department of State.
Kayla Klein | UT Dallas
Kayla Klein is a junior at the University of Texas at Dallas, where she is double majoring in Neuroscience and Biology. At UT Dallas she researches in the Think Lab, a development psychology lab that focuses on children’s cognitive development. She has been very active in UT Dallas Student Government, serving as Academic Affairs Chair in 2011-2012. She also serves as the Student Representative to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board Financial Aid Committee, which works with the state of Texas education centers to develop strategies to improve financial aid for students in higher education. Kayla is particularly interested in health and education, and hopes to learn more about the policies that affect these areas during her time in Washington, D.C. In her spare time, she enjoys running half marathons, visiting her home in Austin, TX, and tie dying.
Lindsay Kubatzky | UT Austin
Lindsay Kubatzky is a senior at the University of Texas at Austin where he is pursuing a Bachelor of Arts degree in Government with a minor in History. While attending school, Lindsay has interned for State Senator Wendy Davis and he volunteers at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum as a volunteer docent. During his time in Washington D.C., he hopes to work in political communications to further his aspiration of a career in public service after graduation. When he is not working or studying, he likes to spend his spare time watching movies, attending University of Texas football games, traveling, going to concerts, and playing intramural sports.
Eleni Kyriakides | UT Austin
Eleni Kyriakides is a senior at The University of Texas at Austin majoring in Humanities Plan I Honors. The Humanities Major is an interdisciplinary program for the highly motivated student to build his or her own degree plan, which for Eleni has meant a focus on political science, the judicial system, and sociology. During her time at UT Austin, she enthusiastically dove into the Texas political scene, ranging from writing pieces on health and wellbeing for an Austin women's magazine, interning at the Texas Freedom Network and organizing lobbying events, working for the Annette Strauss Institute for Civic Participation, and successfully campaigning for the non-profit Environment Texas. In her down time, she volunteers at local women's organizations, loves exploring her hometown of Austin, and enjoys long runs on Town Lake. Upon graduation, Eleni plans on pursuing a law degree.
Autumn Lansford | UT San Antonio
Autumn Lansford is a senior French and Political science major with a minor in International Studies at the University of Texas at San Antonio. As a sophomore at UTSA, she helped to found the French Club to provide an organization in which the campus community could practice their language skills outside of the classroom. She also served a term as Vice President of Young Americans for Liberty and was invited to speak as a student panelist at the 2010 Students for Liberty Texas Regional Conference. She has also taken an active interest in improving UTSA through her involvement in the Student Government Association. Due to her academic achievements, she has been ranked among the top sixteen students in the Department of Political Sciene and Geography. Autumn plans to pursue a Masters in International Law and Diplomacy upon graduation. This fall Autumn will intern at Press and Communication Office of the Embassy of France in Washington.
Michael Mederos | UT Pan American
Michael Mederos is a senior at the University of Texas- Pan American, pursuing a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology. His minors include Chemistry, Honors studies, and English. As a member of the Premedical Honors College, he has solidified his acceptance to Baylor College of Medicine where he will earn his medical degree. In addition to coursework, Michael has researched in the Medical Research Division at the Edinburg Regional Academic Health Center- University of Texas Health Science Center since 2010, and he will defend his honors thesis based on his research with the glucocorticoid receptor. As a member of the Guerra Honors Program, Michael gained international experience and developed a passion for international policy while studying abroad in France. He also has a keen interest in health care policy and will apply his health and science background in Washington, D.C. this Fall.
Irene Morse | UT Dallas
Irene Morse is a junior at the University of Texas at Dallas majoring in International Political Economy with an emphasis in the Middle East. She is a recipient of the Eugene McDermott Scholarship and a member of the Collegium V honors program. Irene is a writer and editor for UTD’s campus opinion paper A Modest Proposal. She has also competed with the moot court team, placing among the top ten percent of mooters in the nation at the 2011 Championship Tournament. She volunteers regularly at the Richardson Public Library and has received the Bronze President’s Volunteer Service Award for her over 100 hours of service. Irene also speaks Spanish and Arabic and was selected as an alternate for the Boren Scholarship in Arabic. She plans to intern in Washington, D.C., this fall with a think tank specializing in Middle Eastern politics.
Jacqueline Muniz | UT Austin
Jacqueline Muniz is a Gates Millennium Scholar majoring in Government with a minor in Spanish at the University of Texas at Austin. Jacqueline has developed a particular interest in education as a result of what she has been learning and experiencing in the past few years. Her interest started when she volunteered over 800 hours with AmeriCorps Youth Harvest, where she had the opportunity to tutor bilingual students at a local elementary school and in the public library. Her awareness in the field of education has continued to grow in the past three summers while working as an Office Assistant, Resident Advisor, and Mentor for the Upward Bound Math and Science TRIO program at UT Pan-American, where she works with first-generation and low-income high school students. Jacqueline has also completed her internship doing legislative research with Project Vote Smart, and has been inducted as a member of Pi Sigma Alpha Honor Society.
Basel Musharbash | UT Dallas
Basel Musharbash is a Junior at the University of Texas at Dallas, majoring in Political Science, with a minor in Drama. He is interested in political communications, public policy, and law - which led him to past work and internship experience at the Center for American and International Law and the District Office of Congresswoman Johnson (TX-30). Basel has been a student participant in the Innocence Project of Texas workshop at the University of Texas at Dallas. He also volunteers as the Executive Co-Director of the North Texas Student Campaign (NTSC), a nonpartisan student advocacy organization with research, media, awareness, lobbying, GOTV and grassroots operations. Through those operations, NTSC seeks to inject a student voice into the public debate surrounding the issues of financial aid and university funding which are vital to the future of Texan students. Lastly, Basel is mainly interested in education and welfare policy, as well as issues pertaining to the image of liberalism in the United States.
Carisa Nietsche | UT Austin
Raised in La Grange, Texas, Carisa Nietsche is a Plan II Honors and Government student at the University of Texas at Austin. During her time on campus, Carisa served as the President of the Senate of College Councils where she represented students on over fifteen campus committees. Carisa has been an active volunteer in the Austin community through Orange Jackets (the oldest honorary women’s organization on campus), Kappa Delta Sorority, and as the vice-chair of the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life. At the end of her senior year, Carisa was one of twelve seniors recognized as a recipient of the Dean’s Dozen Award for her contributions to campus. Carisa is passionate about European Union politics, immigration policy, and education policy, and she is writing a thesis on the European Court of Justice’s role in immigration policy. Upon the completion of her degree in December, she hopes to get a Ph.D in Political Science.
Amie Njie | UT Tyler
Amie Njie will earn a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science with a minor in international relations from The University of Texas at Tyler. As a Political Science student, she spent two years in Milan, Italy interning at the Milan institute and Milan Municipal where she did research on policy making and on current issues, and where she conducted surveys and polls regarding public opinion. In the summer of 2008 Amie studied in Switzerland where she compared social policy structures. This inspired her to pursue a career in public policy. Amie has been an active member of the UT Tyler international students’ organization, the United Nations Club, and the head of the Voice of the Young, a program that encourages early career researchers to play an active role in determining public opinion. During her semester as an Archer Fellow Amie hopes to continue her work in international relations.
Selina Marie O'Neil | UT El Paso
Selina Marie O’Neil is a junior at the University of Texas at El Paso. Majoring in Political Science and minoring in Legal Reasoning, Selina hopes to attend law school and become an attorney. Unsure about what kind of law she wants to practice, she is currently interested in learning more about criminal, corporate, and tax law. Selina is passionate about helping others who endure adversities similar to those she has overcome. To do so she has become a Court Appointed Special Advocate to help abused and neglected children have a voice in the courtroom and to have their opinions considered when deciding the next step of their lives. In her spare time, she likes to play volleyball, partake in family road trips, and camping.
Elizabeth Petruy | UT Dallas
Elizabeth Petruy is a junior at the University of Texas at Dallas, working towards a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science. She is an active member of the student body as the Treasurer of the College Panhellenic Council, an association of sorority women who raise thousands of dollars for philanthropic groups including St. Jude Children’s Cancer Research Hospital, the Muscular Dystrophy Association, and the Circle of Sisterhood, among others. She has worked on many political campaigns, including an internship with Jack Ternan, a candidate for Texas State Senate, as well as block walking for Jim Pitts, and Myra Crownover. Elizabeth is also a member of the Collegium V Honors program at UTD, as well as Delta Delta Delta women’s fraternity. In her free time she sings with a local a cappella group and volunteers as a Sunday School teacher at her church. Elizabeth hopes to intern with a group focused on the law and civil rights while in Washington, D.C.
Cameron Phillips | UT Tyler
Cameron is a senior at the University of Texas at Tyler majoring in Political Science and minoring in International Relations. He hopes to intern for an organization that deals with either Sino-American relations or legal advocacy during his semester in Washington D.C. Cameron enjoys keeping up with politics, playing soccer, film, and yoga. As the co-president of the Pre-Law Society at UT Tyler and co-founding member of UT Tyler's UNICEF chapter, Cameron has been an active participant in planning, leading, and listening in organizational settings. He has also participated as a camper and counselor in Boys State for several years. Along with his commitment to these previous organizations, he has spent several summers working in a law office, which has assisted in his computer and professional skills. He is anxious to start work and life in D.C.
Sunaina Rajani | UT Austin
Sunaina Rajani is a senior at the University of Texas at Austin, pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Psychology and Biology, along with pre-medical coursework. Her interests in science first sparked as an intern at the Alan G. MacDiarmid NanoTech Institute in the George A. Jeffrey NanoExplorers Program. She served as a research assistant through the UT Neurobiology Department, in which results were published with her co-authorship. Through Sunaina’s initial research exposure and Bridging Discipline Children & Society Program she created a study exploring the correlation between level of drug trafficking activity and concurrent mental illness & substance abuse disorders for adults and children in the United States of America. Through her experiences in research, as well as her internship with The Autism Project (TAP), Sunaina developed a strong desire to be involved with policy-work relating to bio-technology, neurology, and substance abuse. While volunteering extensively with various medical centers, her service sorority, and UT’s Alcohol and Drug Education Program (ADEP) as a Peer Educator, Sunaina received the UT Tower Award for Outstanding Student Volunteer. She intends to attend medical school and immerse herself in the fields where medicine, biotechnology, and policy come together.
Mike Saidi | UT Dallas
Sepanta “Mike” Saidi is a senior at the University of Texas at Dallas, pursuing a Bachelor of Science in International Political Economy. Mike is multi-lingual with fluency in Persian (Farsi), working proficiency in Spanish, and a beginner’s grasp of Arabic. He intends to use his arsenal of languages to promote positive U.S relations with the Middle East and to conduct cross-cultural research in Persian-speaking countries. For the last two summers, Mike has worked as one of his University’s Orientation Leaders to help incoming freshmen become acclimated to their new academic and social atmosphere. With his most recent position as an Officer, Mike was in charge of an 8-member committee while also having a greater level of responsibility in managing the flow of the Freshmen Orientations and the Extended Freshmen Orientation camps. Last fall, he has awarded an Undergraduate Research Grant from the Office of the Vice President of Research and was also inducted into the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi. Under the supervision of Dr. Karl Ho, he will continue to undertake investigations examining the variability of U.S. public sentiments regarding Islam.
Audrey Savins | UT Austin
Audrey Savins is a senior at The University of Texas at Austin and is pursuing a Bachelor of Science degree in Communications Studies on the Political Communication tract as well as a concentration in advertising and government. Since her freshman year, she has worked as an account coordinator with a political digital media consulting firm based in Austin, which manages local, state and national political campaigns’ online media presence. During this time, Audrey was assigned to manage several digital campaigns including a state treasurer election, the College Republican National Committee and the Republican State Leadership Committee. Throughout her undergraduate experience, Audrey has been involved in the Zeta Tau Alpha sorority and is particularly passionate about their philanthropy, Breast Cancer Education and Awareness. As an Archer Fellow this fall, Audrey looks forward to the D.C. experience during this presidential election and interning with the National Republican Senatorial Committee in the New Media Department.
Megan Simons | UT Dallas
Megan Simons is currently pursing double degrees in Criminology and Psychology at the University of Texas at Dallas. She is pursuing Collegium V honors and has been inducted into both the Alpha Phi Sigma and Delta Epsilon Iota honors societies. Her primary areas of interest include constitutional interpretation and analysis and civil rights education. After graduation Megan plans on pursuing her Master of Arts in Criminology before heading to law school. Over the past year, Megan has had the wonderful opportunity to aid the Innocence Project of Texas in their work securing the exoneration of innocent inmates, which has taught her much about the legal system and sentencing process. In her spare time, Megan performs and studies improvisation with her university theater department. During her time in D.C. Megan hopes to take on an internship related to legal issues and justice.
Eve Sirianni | UT Tyler
Eve Sirianni is a senior at the University of Texas at Tyler. She will graduate in Spring 2013 with a B.A. in Art History and a minor in Anthropology. After graduation, Eve will continue her education in Art History and plans to eventually receive her Ph.D. In the Spring of 2012, Eve was asked to assist Dr. Thomas Guderjan with an exhibition to be displayed at Tyler Junior College. This exhibition focuses on the theories of the Mayan predictions of the end of the world. Eve hopes to take her love of art to Washington D.C. and intern at one of the many museums D.C. has to offer. Eve dreams of one day being able to travel the world and see all the beautiful art she has studied.
Ann Stehling | UT Austin
Ann Elise Stehling is currently a junior at the University of Texas at Austin pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in Government. During her time at UT, she has worked to be an advocate of civic engagement and voter awareness. In addition to a legislative research internship with Project Vote Smart, she has served as VP of Membership and Outreach for UT Votes, UT’s only nonpartisan political organization. This past spring, she worked as a legislative intern in the office of State Representative John Zerwas, M.D. Ann has been heavily involved with the Texas Exes Alumni Association as a Camp Texas counselor and a Texas Exes Student Association Member. Ann is a proud member of the UT Women’s Chorus and has served as a mentor for Freshman Leadership Organization. During the summer of 2012, she had the opportunity to study abroad in Antigua, Guatemala, where she improved her Spanish fluency and explored the sociolinguistic factors that influence how people of diverse backgrounds learn through volunteer work with students from low-income families.
Elisa Tamayo | UT El Paso
Elisa Tamayo is currently majoring in Economics and Finance at the University of Texas at El Paso. This past semester Elisa was busy serving as the President of the El Paso student chapter of the Association of Latino Professionals in Finance and Accounting (ALPFA), and as a Supreme Court Justice in the UTEP Student Government Association, which she has been participating in since her freshmen year. Before studying abroad for the summer, Elisa spent her spare time volunteering to tutor students for their U.S. citizenship exam and also volunteering on Congressman Silvestre Reyes’ campaign. Elisa is interested in a career in public service, and would like to intern this fall with an organization working to promote positive environmental policies and practices. She is also interested on international law, and is planning to attend law school following the completion of her business degree.
Philip Tryon | UT Austin
Philip Tryon attends the University of Texas at Austin, double majoring in Philosophy and International Relations and Global Studies, with a focus in International Security, while double minoring in European Studies and German. Due to his academic interests, he studied abroad in Germany during summer 2012, seeking to enhance his German speaking capacity. Philip is also a proud member of the Texas Blazers, one of the premier student organizations on campus, and has been instrumental in initiating the first Youth Empowerment Program in Austin through the Blazers. Also, from 2011-2012, he co-led the Human Rights Student Advisory Council, while fulfilling the role of a Resident Assistant at Jester Lower East. Philip has been engaged in many volunteer and service opportunities, such as participating in the International Justice Mission’s Lobby Day in D.C. and lobbying for anti-trafficking legislation, and this past summer, he contributed to the relief efforts in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
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Manchester School of Art / News
Art and Design ranked 7th in Complete University Guide 2020 subject tables
Art & Design attain best ever ranking
Art and Design has entered the top 10 for the first time in the Complete University Guide 2020 subject league tables.
The courses are ranked 7th in the country – a record high position - rising five places from last year’s standings.
The independent Complete University Guide subject tables are compiled with a combination of weighed factors, namely entry standards, student satisfaction, research quality and graduate prospects.
Each subject is then given a score out of 100, with Art and Design gaining a score of 95.2 in the 2020 rankings.
Penny Macbeth, Dean of Manchester School of Art at Manchester Metropolitan University, said: “I am completely delighted for the staff and students who have worked so hard to achieve this incredible result. Manchester School of Art is a very special, creative community and we are very fortunate to have such a high level of support from the wider University and our partners in Manchester.“
John Ruskin Prize 2019 winners announced at Holden Gallery
Exhibition of shortlisted entries open until August 24
University staff and students at heart of Manchester International Festival 2019
Manchester Metropolitan's influence is seen in design, writing and performance
Manchester School of Art Degree Show 2019: Everything Starts From Something
Exhibition takes place until Wednesday, June 19
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2015 Speaker Archive
The Art of Collaboration – Oklahoma City, OK
Shane Coen, ASLA, Partner – Coen + Associates, Minneapolis MN
For over twenty years, Shane has led Coen + Partners’ innovative practice, promoting the design vision and aspiration of the studio. As a result of his leadership, creativity, and disciplined design approach, Coen + Partners’ has built a distinguished body of award-winning work that is widely-recognized as progressive and timeless. Shane’s studio has won numerous awards for landscape architecture, planning and urban design and is acknowledged by the AIA, the ASLA, the Committee on Urban Environment and the editorial staff of influential publications such as The New York Times, Metropolis, Dwell, and Architectural Record. The New York Times architectural critic, Anne Raver, describes Coen + Partners’ work as ‘pushing Midwestern boundaries’.
Shane’s work is recognized with multiple national ASLA awards, the Special Award for Collaborative Work from the American Institute of Architects Minnesota Chapter, as well as the prestigious Progressive Architecture (P/A) citation for the redesign of Mayo Plan #1, radical reinterpretation of a new residential community in Rochester, Minnesota. This award represented only the second time a landscape architect had received this honor in the competition’s fifty-year history.
In addition to his practice, Shane lectures extensively, including participation in a lecture series at the New School in New York and a sustainable waterfronts symposium co-hosted by AIA Chicago and the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Shane has taught multiple studio courses at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design (GSD) and has lectured at University of California Berkeley, University of Southern California, Princeton University, James Rose Center in New Jersey, and Portland Museum of Art. Upon receiving an Emerging Voices Award for 2009, he was also a featured speaker for the Emerging Voices Lecture Series, sponsored by the Architectural League of New York.
Shane continues to focus on building collaborative relationships with influential contemporary architects, designers, and artists throughout the world.
Mr. Coen is the Keynote Speaker: “Design dynamics of the Collaborative Method” and will conduct a Master Class with Students of the Finding Center. Both presentation and class are on Thursday afternoon.
“Design dynamics of the Collaborative Method” uses the work of Minneapolis-based landscape architecture firm Coen + Partners as a case study to evaluate collaborative design methodology and the role of the landscape architect. CEO and founder, Shane Coen explains the design dynamics between landscape and architecture and how form geometry, materiality, and context establish a shared vision. A transect of past and recent project examples illuminate the evolution of the role of the landscape architect as lead designer and the bridge between allied professions including architecture, civil engineering and planning. Coen also shares insights on the transformation of his firm into an empowered office that emphasizes an internal collaborative design methodology and how transparency is a key factor to the successful Modern-day design practice. The course dialogue is centered around internal and external collaboration and effects on the built environment in regards to health and wellness, safety, functionality, sustainability and inspired design.
Mike Albert, ASLA, Partner – Design Workshop, Aspen, CO
Mike Albert graduated from Oklahoma State University and earned a Master in Landscape Architecture with distinction from the Harvard Graduate School of Design. With a broad and award-winning portfolio, including multiple successful international design competitions, Mike contributes an experienced voice focused on both design and planning. Mike is a member of the American Society of Landscape Architects and a board member on The Cultural Landscape Foundation. As a registered landscape architect, a national certified planner and a LEED Accredited Professional, Mike is currently managing projects and pursuing business development opportunities from Aspen, Colorado.
Mr. Albert will present “Collaboration through Stakeholder Engagement: Envisioning, Designing and Implementing Change in a Community…with a Community” on Friday morning.
Few landscape architects receive adequate training in stakeholder engagement. However, across both public or private sectors, most project efforts include some level of engagement. From public meetings and charrettes to committee approvals and facilitated sessions to traditional and social media strategies, these engagements are complex efforts that require extensive preparation, coordination, content production and communication in order to gain useful data and beneficial outcomes. Without proper planning, teams may face challenges containing such efforts within scopes and fees, resulting in high cost overruns and efforts compromised by inadequate time to effectively convene and conduct such engagements. Decisions from such efforts must also be defensible, able to withstand the critical eye of an outside observer and provide assurance that support has been garnered. The presentation will provide an understanding of how conducting effective and feasible stakeholder engagement processes will create efficiencies; ensure quality; provide clarity on how to set up and contain these efforts; demonstrate ideal work flows; anticipate outcomes to collect necessary results; provide examples of costs for different scales of efforts, and demonstrate how to stay within the parameters of a project’s scope and fee.
Dr. Ian Carlton, Director – University of Oklahoma Institute for Quality Communities, Norman OK
Ian Carlton is the Director of the University of Oklahoma Institute for Quality Communities where he and his colleagues work with towns and cities ranging from 100 citizens to more than one million in population to help them achieve their physical visions for parts of their communities. Dr. Carlton is a transportation and land use expert focusing on the relationships between transportation investments and urban development. Ian’s research considers transit and land use interactions, particularly transit-oriented development (TOD). As Dr. Carlton helps governments, landowners, and community stakeholders draft and implement strategies that influence urban development, he leverages his professional experiences in real estate investment, transport planning, economic development, and business strategy.
Ian’s real estate experience spans the rehabilitation of historic homes in Atlanta, Georgia to 40-square kilometer TOD plan implementation in China. Ian’s consulting work with U.S. city governments is equally diverse, with projects ranging from optimizing local transit services in a town of 100,000 residents, to writing an integrated transport and economic development plan for a city of 500,000 citizens, to developing a Transit Orientation Strategy for a city of nearly 4,000,000 people.
Ian previously worked on real estate development finance research for the Center for TOD and managed real estate development initiatives at Central Atlanta Progress. He also worked at Bain & Company, where he consulted with Fortune 500 executives to develop data-driven business strategies. Ian also co-owned a residential property investment firm that carried out more than 200 transactions in the Atlanta area.
Ian is a member of the Urban Land Institute‘s TOD Product Council and sits on the Transportation Research Board‘s Transportation and Land Development Committee.
Ian has a PhD from the University of California Berkeley where his research focused on TOD-related transit planning practices. He holds two masters degrees from UC Berkeley – City Planning and Transportation Engineering – and a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Dr. Carlton will present “TOD Urban Design Collaborators” on Friday morning.
Discuss of the critical parties landscape architects, particularly urban designers, should have at the table as they develop long-range urban designs, particularly TOD planning around proposed transit investments. Ian will discuss the overall planning process within which TOD visions are typically designed, define implementation success, share case studies of urban design successes and failures, and discuss the critical elements to successfully implement the long-range visions of landscape architects.
Michael Clark, Senior Project Manager – City of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Mr. Clark is a graduate of the University of Central Oklahoma with a Masters in Business Administration. His primary responsibilities include administrative oversight of Project180 and he is the staff liaison to the Oklahoma Department of Transportation’s Boulevard Project. Previous to working for the City of OKC, Mr. Clark worked for the City of Edmond in a similar capacity.
With others, Mr. Clark will present “Project 180: A Conversational Analysis” on Thursday morning.
The initiative, named Project 180, is a $176 million redesign of downtown streets, sidewalks, parks and plazas to improve appearance and make the central core of Oklahoma City more pedestrian friendly. Plans call for the addition of landscaping, public art, marked bike lanes, decorative street lighting and additional on-street parking spaces. This session assembles landscape architects, project managers and materials suppliers to discuss the planning, implementation and construction of Project 180. Through a structured conversation, the panel will focus on analyzing the successes and challenges of managing complex civic improvements.
Mick Cornett, Mayor – Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
The son of postal worker and school teacher, Mick Cornett was born and raised in Oklahoma City. From an early age, his parents taught him the value of public service and encouraged him to keep the faith, work hard and dream big.
Today, Mayor Mick Cornett, the first four-term mayor in Oklahoma City history, is leading a thriving community that reflects the same principles.
He has been honored by various organizations and publications as the top Mayor in the state and nation – and an international panel selected Mayor Cornett as the second-best mayor in the world. Newsweek magazine called him one of the “five most innovative Mayors in the United States.”
Recently elected to a leadership position in the US Conference of Mayors, he is in line to be President of that organization in 2016.
He famously put the entire city on a diet to raise awareness on the national issue of obesity. His leadership helped bring the NBA to OKC. During his time in office, Oklahoma City has invested nearly $2 billion in schools and quality-of-life infrastructure through the innovative MAPS program. That investment generated nearly $6 billion in private sector investment. Today, Oklahoma City’s economy is one of the nation’s most robust.
Mayor Cornett is a popular national speaker on the topics of health and wellness, urban design, placemaking and walkable cities. His TED TALK on those topics has been viewed by more than 1 million people worldwide.
He earned a degree in journalism at the University of Oklahoma and an MBA from New York University.
He is married to Terri (Walker) Cornett and has three sons.
Mayor Cornett will address the group during the Awards luncheon on Friday.
James C. Crosby, ASLA, Principal – Planning Design Group, Oklahoma City, OK
Jim Crosby co-founded Planning Design Group in 1985 with RandyHeckenkemper and has over 30 years of professional experience as a licensed Landscape Architect. Through his career, Jim has utilized a “hands-on” management approach from seeing projects from conceptual design through final construction.
Jim has worked in all facets of Landscape Architecture in both the private and public sectors through his career, but his passion has been large scale master planned communities and park and recreation facilities. He is also an avid outdoorsman and passionate about working with native plant material and natural eco-systems.
Jim has a Bachelor of Science in Landscape Architecture from Oklahoma State University and has been a member of the American Society of Landscape Architects for his entire 32 years professional career.
With others, Mr. Crosby will present “Project 180: A Conversational Analysis” on Thursday morning.
Brian Dougherty, FASLA, Parks & Public Spaces Initiative – Oklahoma City Community Foundation, Oklahoma City, OK
Brian Dougherty is a Licensed Landscape Architect in Oklahoma. He received his Bachelor’s Degree in Horticulture and Landscape Design in 1978 from Oklahoma State University, and returned in 1981 to earn a Master’s Degree in Trade and Industrial Education with an emphasis in Grounds Management. Brian served 15 years with OSU in Oklahoma City as a faculty member and later as the Department Head and Division Head at the John E. Kirkpatrick Horticulture Center.
Since May of 1998 Brian has served as the program director of the Parks and Public Spaces Initiative and the Margaret Annis Boys Trust at the Oklahoma City Community Foundation. Under Brian’s guidance the Foundation has assisted in the implementation of numerous community beautification and environmental projects every year. The OCCF Clean & Beautiful Schools project has also assisted more than 100 elementary schools in Oklahoma County with campus improvement and enhancement plans and continues to host the Landscape Maintenance Network Seminars twice a year.
Over the years Brian has accumulated a large collection of historic books, pictures and other publications documenting the value of planning, planting and maintenance of public grounds. He often makes presentations highlighting and documenting the importance of parks and public grounds in our communities. Brian also co-hosted radio Garden Programs on both WKY and on KTOK every Saturday for 8 years answering gardening questions and discussing horticulture and beautification topics. Brian hung up his headphones to spend more time restoring 80 acres of pastures and native habitats at his family’s farm at Hinton with his wife and family.
Brian was appointed by Governors Belmon and Keeting to the Oklahoma State Board of Architects and Landscape Architects serving three terms. Following those appointments he served two terms as the Oklahoma Chapter Trustee for the American Society of Landscape Architects and completed his tenure as the National Vice President of Membership. He also serves as a Trustee for the Oklahoma City Riverfront Redevelopment Authority, the Riverfront Design Committee, the Board of Directors for Automobile Alley and the Citizens Oversight Committee for the MAPS 3 Riverfront projects, OSU OKC Horticulture Advisory board and the Association of Central Oklahoma Governments Encompass 2040 Citizens Advisory Committee. In July of last year Brian was selected and appointed back on the Oklahoma State Board of Licensed Architects, Landscape Architects and Registered Interior Designers by Governor Fallen.
In 1998, Brian was named as the first Landscape Architect, ‘Artist in Residence’ by the Oklahoma State Arts Council. He co-authored a publication by the Community Foundation titled “Parks and Related Public Facilities in Oklahoma County: a Baseline Report” which received a state award through the Oklahoma Chapter of ASLA. In 2007, Brian was nominated by the Oklahoma Chapter and inducted as a Fellow in the American Society of Landscape Architects at the annual National Meeting in San Francisco for his service to the profession. On November 12, 2009, Brian was recognized and received the Neighborhood Alliance ‘Board of Directors Honor Award’ at their annual banquet for his ‘continuing commitment to beautifying neighborhoods, parks and green spaces throughout all of Oklahoma City’.
Mr. Dougherty will welcome us to the conference on Thursday morning.
Nathan Elliott, ASLA, LEED AP, Vice President & Principal – Office of James Burnette, Solano Beach, CA
Nathan Elliott is a Vice President with the Office of James Burnett in Solana Beach, California and has led the design and management of urban parks, corporate headquarters, academic landscapes and mixed use projects across the United States. Originally drawn to landscape architecture by his love for plants, Nathan’s role in the firm has evolved to reflect his passion and aptitude for public speaking, marketing and business development. A pragmatic optimist, Nathan enjoys the challenges faced by difficult sites, complex programs and challenging regulatory environments. Some of his notable projects include Klyde Warren Park in Dallas TX, Myriad Botanical Gardens in Oklahoma City OK, Hall Wines in St. Helena CA and Northwestern Mutual World Headquarters in Milwaukee, WI. Nathan received his Bachelor of Landscape Architecture from Louisiana State University.
Mr. Elliott will present “Leading the Way: Landscape Architects as Prime Consultants” and with others will present a “Project 180: A Conversational Analysis” both on Thursday morning.
“Project 180: A Conversational Analysis”
John Greenlee, Principal – Greenlee Nursery, Pomona CA
An expert in grass ecology and champion of sustainable design. John Greenlee has made meadows all around the world. His designs are featured at such notable public spaces as the San Diego Zoo, Disney’s Animal Kingdom in Florida, and the Getty Center in Los Angeles. John Greenlee has also created beautiful meadows gardens in private residences all over California, the U.S., including Hawaii, Morocco, the United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia. Many of his most recent meadow creations can be found adding to the beauty of Napa and Sonoma counties.
Mr. Greenlee will present “The Art and Science of Creating Meadows and Grass Ecologies” on Friday morning.
The art and science of creating meadows and grass ecologies. Learn the basics of designing meadows including: 1) The latest grasses and grass like plants in the nursery trade. 2) A review of how grasses grow and how they are maintained. 3) Tips for designing with grasses; common mistakes and mis-steps. 4) How to create meadow ‘fabric’. 5) How meadows and grass ecologies change throughout the seasons. 6) How to create ‘cornflower meadows’ and ‘edible meadows’. Its the rage in Europe. 7) “Meadow Sweeteners” How to combine flowers and bulbs to accessorize your meadow. Learn about some of the best plants for accenting your meadow. 8) How to specify containers. Contract growing. The benefits and how to avoid potential problems when contract growing. 9) Grasses on rooftops. See examples of successful grass plantings on roofs.
Scott Howard, PLA, ASLA, CLARB, LEED AP, Principal – Howard-Fairbairn Site Design, Oklahoma City, OK
As a Principal, Scott has created a firm known for its design creativity and ability to get projects built on time and on budget. He has extensive design experience, having worked on many of the successful and notable projects in the Oklahoma City metro area. His focus is to develop landscapes that are- sustainable, durable, useable and realistic in regard to maintainability. His expertise is in the design of outdoor spaces that enhance human interaction with nature and the environment, enhancing quality of life experiences.
Scott is a 1985 graduate of Oklahoma State University with a Bachelor in Landscape Architecture. After working for several years in the nursery industry, became licensed to practice Landscape Architecture in the State of Oklahoma. He is also licensed in Texas and Arkansas. Scott has been CLARB certified since 2001 and earned his LEED AP accreditation in 2009.
Scott founded the firm of Howard Site Design, Inc. in 1988, and later added a partner in 1995 (changing the name to Howard-Fairbairn Site Design, Inc). Scott has been a member of the American Society of Landscape Architects since 1988 and was President of the Oklahoma Chapter in 1999. He is still active with the chapter and is currently serving his second term as a National Trustee, representing Oklahoma.
Scott is active in the Oklahoma City community, having served as a Board Member for Oklahoma City Beautiful from 1999-2008 and is currently serving as Vice-Chairman on the Oklahoma City Arts Commission in 2008 (to present).
With others, Mr. Howard will present “Project 180: A Conversational Analysis” on Thursday morning.
Blair Humphreys, Developer – The Humphreys Company, Oklahoma City, OK
Blair Humphreys works for Humphreys Company, overseeing the design and development of Wheeler – a 150 acre mixed-use urban infill project on the Oklahoma River near downtown Oklahoma City – and serves as a Director of The Humphreys Fund. He has a Master in City Planning and Urban Design degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a BBA in Entrepreneurship from the University of Oklahoma. He is a founding member of the Urban Land Institute Oklahoma District Council, currently serving as Chair of the statewide organization.
Blair and wife Maggie and family live in Oklahoma City’s Historic Gatewood Neighborhood.
Mr. Humphreys will guide the “Wheeler District Charette” on Friday afternoon at the OU Design Center.
Robbie Kienzle, Liaison – Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs, Oklahoma City, OK
As Arts & Cultural Affairs Liaison for the City of Oklahoma City, Robbie Kienzle coordinates arts and cultural initiatives to further the City’s economic, tourism and community development priorities. Prior to assuming this position, Ms. Kienzle served for four years as Head of the Urban Redevelopment Division within the Planning Department. She has worked for the City for more than 16 years and has more than 20 years experience connecting arts, architecture and urban redevelopment to support the City’s growth and development. Ms. Kienzle has also served as the Director of the Festival of the Arts, Executive Director of the American Institute of Architects, Oklahoma Main Street Manager for the City of Shawnee, and Visual Arts Consultant for the MAPS Library, Ballpark and Canal projects. In addition to providing oversight to Oklahoma City’s Arts Commission, Kienzle’s Liaison post manages an existing public art collection of over 100 works of public art valued at over $10million. She also coordinates support for Central Oklahoma’s arts and cultural initiatives and works with various departments, trusts and authorities of the City of Oklahoma City to carry out the One Percent for Arts Ordinance established by the City Council in 2009. Kienzle has been a guest presenter and lecturer at local universities, and various public meetings and conferences. She is also a Planning Commissioner for the City of Shawnee in Oklahoma.
With Debby Williams, Ms. Kuienzle will present “Safer, Better, Smarter Public Art” on Friday morning.
Public art is an important economic and social asset for your City, and its safety, durability and maintenance is a critical part of the life cycle for public art. At this session you’ll learn about methods of incorporating safeguards into a public art selection process so that your public art projects will last longer, be safer, and work better for your community. You’ll also learn how to approach donated work using many of these same principles. The session will wrap up with important care and maintenance recommendations from two public art professionals with a combined 50 years’ experience in the public art profession.
Victor Mendez, Commercial Sales Representative – Pavestone Company, Grapevine, TX
Victor Mendez joined Pavestone in early 2003 and has been involved in the concrete paver/segmental retaining wall industry for the past 12 years. His primary focus is Oklahoma, N. Texas and E. Louisiana. Throughout his career with Pavestone Victor has achieved several certifications within the industry. He is a member and trainer for the Interlocking Concrete Pavement Institute and the National Concrete Masonry Association.
Victor received a Master of Science in Engineering Management from the University Of Texas at Arlington.
With others, Mr. Mendez will present a “Project 180: A Conversational Analysis” on Thursday morning.
Jack McMahon, Co-Founder, Executive Director – Wilderness Matters, Oklahoma City, OK
Jack McMahan has over 25 years of executive leadership experience in the insurance, marketing and sales management businesses.
Jack, an avid outdoorsman suffered a serious spinal cord injury following a bicycle accident in 2004 which left him a quadriplegic. Following his accident Jack began a successful consulting business for insurance agency owners and leaders.
In April 2012, Jack decided to blend his passion for business with a yearning to return to the outdoors by deciding to build a nonprofit business to tackle many of the obstacles faced by people with physical and developmental challenges. Today Jack is the Executive Director of Wilderness Matters, Inc.
Jack is a powerful communicator, a strategic thinker, a passionate trainer and well versed in all aspects of leadership, business development and relationship management.
Mr. McMahon will present “The Essence of the Experience” on Friday afternoon at The Skirvin.
Unlike the well-defined ADAAG rules for facility access, achieving program access compliance is far more subjective but no less essential. This creates challenges AND opportunities for landscape architects looking to expand services aimed at embracing a broader segment of an important population.
Nearly one in five US citizens is disabled. With a rapidly aging population more people may be joining this group looking for an opportunity to enjoy indoor and outdoor recreation and leisure activities.
This workshop will provide a dynamic and energetic juxtaposition of “Facility Access” with “Program Access”. The presenters will illustrate why both elements are critical, why it’s important, and why professionals often overlook, or worse, ignore it.
The program will provide tangible examples of universally designed, integrated solutions by taking participants on a pictorial “walk in the park” where effective examples of how program access (including effective communication situations) is being designed for an iconic municipal nature park. Many of the tools and techniques presented may be independently or collectively applied at other recreation or leisure venues.
Michael Skowlund, PLA, ASLA, LEED AP, Senior Associate – Hoerr Schaudt Landscape Architects, Chicago, IL
Michael Skowlund managed the five-year development of SandRidge Energy’s landscape from design through construction. His interest in the intersection of landscape and architecture is expressed in a portfolio of large-scale urban projects that frequently involve landscape on structure, including the 9-acre luxury development Buckhead Atlanta and the redesigned Harlan Plaza for the Green Bay Packer’s Lambeau Field. Michael serves as a guest critic and lecturer at the Illinois Institute of Technology.
With Aaron Young, Mr. Skowlund will present “Landscape is the Common Ground: Connecting city, site, people‐ and design disciplines at SandRidge Commons” on Thursday morning.
Landscapes shape environments and function as the connective fabric that weaves together matters within a greater whole. In multidisciplinary teams, landscape architects must exercise a high degree of teamwork to make a space truly integrated within its context. A six‐year long and continuing collaboration at SandRidge Commons applies practices that evokes the region’s rich history, tests microclimate strategies, fuses natural systems with iconic architecture, and recognizes the power of connecting people of private and public realms for the betterment of the community.
Debby L. Williams, Public Art Consultant – Norman Oklahoma
Debby Williams is a public art and design consultant working with clients such as the Oklahoma Department of Transportation on enhancements to bridges and sound walls and the Metropolitan Library System commissioning art work for their libraries. In 2014 Williams worked with the Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs to create the Public Art Collection Care Plan for the City of Oklahoma City. She was previously Director of the Oklahoma Art in Public Places for the State of Oklahoma where she was responsible for creating the policies and guidelines for the state public art program in accordance with the enabling legislation. During her tenure as Director, over 200 works of public art were placed across the state. Her work also included creating and implementing a maintenance program for state owned public art. Williams has received two Oklahoma Governors’ Arts Awards and currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors for the Cultural Development Corporation of Central Oklahoma.
With Robbie Kuienzle, Ms. Williams will present “Safer, Better, Smarter Public Art” on Friday morning.
Brent Wall, PLA, ASLA, Landscape Architect – Oklahoma City Parks & Recreation, Oklahoma City, OK
A landscape architect, horticulturist and urban designer, Brent Wall focuses on creating landscapes reflective of and responsive to the environments from which they are born. Over the last 15 years, he has combined living systems and constructed places in the creation of parks, campuses, streetscapes, private estates and urban infill projects.
Brent has served as an adjunct faculty member for both the University of Oklahoma Landscape Architecture program as well as the Oklahoma State University Oklahoma City Horticulture program, teaching courses in plant materials and computer technology. A seasoned lecturer, his recent presentations have focused on low impact development and horticulture topics.
Brent holds degrees in horticulture from Oklahoma State University and Landscape Architecture from the University of Oklahoma. He lives with his family in Oklahoma City.
With others, Mr. Wall will present a “Project 180: A Conversational Analysis” on Thursday morning.
Aaron Young AIA, Associate Parnter – Rogers Partners Architects + Urban Designers, New York City, NY
Aaron Young is a registered architect with twenty years of experience in architecture and urban design at offices in Memphis, Philadelphia, and New York. An associate partner at Rogers Partners Architects + Urban Designers in New York, Aaron led the design team for SandRidge Commons from early urban design studies through the project’s construction. Over the last two decades, Aaron’s work has ranged from single buildings to the consequential integration of buildings and urban public space, from projects such as a ranch compounds in Wyoming to the public spaces surrounding the New York Stock Exchange. Across this wide range of projects, his work focuses on a deep integration of the elements of architecture, landscape, and critical related disciplines that create atmosphere in urban space.
With Michael Skowlund, Mr. Young will present “Landscape is the Common Ground: Connecting city, site, people‐ and design disciplines at SandRidge Commons” on Thursday morning.
SPEAKER ARCHIVES
2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006
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Caudry British Cemetery
651 Burials
Adresse : Rue du Souvenir Français
Location Information: Caudry is a town some 13 kilometres east of Cambrai on the south side of the main road (N43) to Le Cateau. Caudry British Cemetery is on the eastern outskirts of the town among the 'Nouveaux Cimetieres', which include the German Military Cemetery and the New Communal Cemetery. Visitors should not enter the town, but take the eastern by-pass road (a dual carriageway). At the first set of traffic lights on this road turn left: the British Cemetery is located down the second turning on the right. Visiting Information: Wheelchair access to this cemetery is possible via the main entrance. For further information regarding wheelchair access, contact the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, Enquiries Section, on 01628 507200. Historical Information: Caudry town was the scene of part of the Battle of Le Cateau on the 26th August 1914, and from that date it remained in German hands until the 10th October 1918, when it was captured by the 37th Division. It had been a German centre for medical units, and during October 1918 and the following five months the 21st, 3rd, 19th and 49th Casualty Clearing Stations passed through it. The British Cemetery (originally called the German Cemetery Extension) was begun in October 1918 by the New Zealand Division and carried on by the Casualty Clearing Stations. It was completed after the Armistice by the concentration of graves from the German Cemetery and from the following cemetery: Audencourt British Cemetery, which lay between the villages of Audencourt and Beaumont, in the middle of fields. It was made by the Germans after the Battle of Le Cateau, and Plot 1 contained the graves of 66 soldiers from the United Kingdom (mainly of the 2nd Royal Scots and the 1st Gordons) who fell in that battle. Plot II was made in the middle of October 1918 when the place was captured and contained the graves of 18 soldiers from the United Kingdom and four Germans. The bodies of two French soldiers and one Italian were removed to other burial grounds after the war. There are now over 700, 1914-18 war casualties commemorated in this site. Of these, over 50 are unidentified and special memorials are erected to four soldiers and one airman from the United Kingdom known to be buried among them. Another special memorial records the name of a soldier from the United Kingdom, buried in FONTAINE-AU-PIRE Communal Cemetery, whose grave could not be found. The cemetery covers an area of 2,770 square metres and is enclosed partly by a rubble wall.
Caudry British cemetery © OT Cambrai Caudry British cemetery © OT Cambrai Caudry British cemetery © OT Cambrai
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Pottery sow with piglets
China, Han dynasty, 206 BC – 220 AD
Length of sow: 5 1/4 inches, 13.5 cm
A grey earthenware model of a recumbent sow with four crouching piglets. The sow lies on one side with her legs outstretched and her tail curled up towards her back. The crouching piglets are suckling whilst lying on their stomachs, their front trotters tucked underneath their torso, and their hind legs stretched out behind them. Finely incised lines denote their heads and the sow’s protruding snout. The animals are unglazed.
The creation of pottery funerary sculpture is thought to have originated during the Shang (c. 1500 – 1028 BC) and Zhou periods (1028 – 256 BC), a practice that was adopted as a substitute for human sacrifices.[1] This custom was developed during the Han dynasty, which is well known for the variety of tomb ceramics that were produced.[2] This amusing and finely potted group of a sow with her young is rare in Han period pottery. A group of stone pigs of various sizes and dated to the Western Han dynasty was unearthed from Changsha, Hunan province in 1956.[3] A grey pottery model of a pigsty with a pig standing in the pen, excavated from tomb no. 2 at Baozhuang in Luoyang, Henan province and dated to the Eastern Han period, is in the collection of the Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Science.[4] Two further comparable pottery pigsties, one simpler and dated to the Western Han dynasty and the other covered in a green glaze and dated to the Eastern Han dynasty, are both in the Meiyintang collection.[5]
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Quest for Eternity: Chinese Ceramic Sculpture from the People’s Republic of China, Thames & Hudson, 1987, p. ix
Bower, V. and Mowry, R. D. ed. From Court to Caravan: Chinese Tomb Sculptures from the Collection of Anthony M. Salmon, Harvard University Art Museum, New Haven and London, 2002, p. 29
China, Guo jia bo wu guan ed. Wen Wu hongguo shi- Qin Han shi dai, Shang xi jiao yu chu ban she, 2003, p. 55
Osaka Shiritsu Bijutsukan, Yomiuri Shinbun Osaka Honsha ed. Han Dynasty: special exhibition, Yomiuri Shinbun Osaka Honsha, Osaka, 1999, no. 55, p. 72
Krahl, R. Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, Volume One, Azimuth Editions, London, 1994, nos. 83 and 84
012 Turquoise inlaid garment hook →← 014 Set of three arc-shaped huang pendants
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WillyPop | Radio-Ready Production
Willy Perez-Feria
WillyPop Spanish Demos
WillyPop English Demos
Rudy Perez
The Greatest Producer/Songwriter Of All Time, My Friend Mr. Rudy Perez.
The most incredible, impressive and accomplished resume in the music industry and he’s just getting started! More than a dear friend and a mentor to me personally, Rudy Perez stands as a shining example of what happens when brilliant, God-given ability is bestowed upon someone who has also been blessed with an insatiable, unconquerable, never-say-die work ethic. Most of the great musicians in this world are blessed with either one or the other, Rudy Perez is the only human being I’ve ever met and worked with who is more talented than anyone else in the room and simultaneously out-works every single person in the room. Just THINK ABOUT THAT for one minute…
And then, as if all that weren’t enough, he is also the humblest, most considerate and loving person in the room! His talent is exceeded only by his generosity and humanity.
Genius is a word that gets thrown around a lot when musicians experience a modicum of success, but for me genius is either defined by the creation of something that has never existed before or by establishing sustained success in a field of endeavor. And Rudy has done BOTH. Every time Rudy took pen to paper and wrote or produced a song, he stood exactly the same chances as every other composer and producer who was writing songs that year and had the means to release them nationally and internationally. With every new song, Rudy started from zero, from nothing. And yet, starting from zero every time Rudy forged success hundreds and hundreds of times writing hundreds of hits and especially, writing over 200 number one songs in his career so far! Think about that number! More than 200 number one songs! Wouldn’t you have quit after 50 and called it a career? But like I said earlier, this is what happens when you put nonstop work ethic together with blinding talent and wrap them up all in one anointed and blessed human being! Rudy Perez doesn’t make the best sounding music you’ve ever heard in order to acquire material gain or accolades from his peers, Rudy continues to make amazing music at a frantic pace because he is incapable of not doing it. Writing hits is what he does, period!! Like Beethoven, like Mozart, like Gershwin, like Cole Porter and Lennon and McCartney, Rudy Perez is music and music is Rudy Perez. He is the thing that defines him.
More then a fantastic family man, a great friend to thousands and an inspirational hero to the rest of the world, he is a living musical and cultural treasure.
By measure of his incredible, mind-numbing accomplishments alone, in 100 years when we are all dust the world will still whisper his name in awe. So why should we wait 100 years to appreciate and celebrate the man standing before us right now? We shouldn’t!!!!
Of all of the wonderful things I’ve been privileged to do in my career as a producer and songwriter in the music industry, working with Rudy has been the highlight of that career! Every time I get to collaborate with him in anyway, no matter how minute, that moment almost always becomes one of my favorite experiences in my career! Because I sincerely appreciate the interest Rudy has taken in my career and all of the wonderful advice he imparts on me every time we get together! You have no idea how much it means to me to have him as a mentor, it is humbling and wonderful all at once! I’ve learned more about music in one afternoon with Rudy at Bullseye Studios with his amazing team of music creators then I have in semesters of instruction at the University of Miami School of Music! When I go to Bullseye studios to work with Rudy, besides doing my job to the extremely high standards that Rudy sets for every single musician that works on his projects, the number one goal I set for myself is to be a sponge and absorb as much as I can from him on the art of creating iconic pop music.
When you are around excellence, it affects you, it instructs you and it inspires you. I know I speak for everyone who is part of Rudy’s music making team when I say that we derive a fantastic sense of pride in helping to bring the life these wonderful compositions that Rudy creates out of thin air for the top artists in the music industry today.
Lastly, if my opinion sounds biased, good! Lol!! That’s because it freaking is! Rudy Perez is the finest producer composer of our time and I am so very proud that I also get to say, he is my dear, dear friend! Not only is my opinion biased, but with more than 600 hit songs of which 200 of them are number one songs, my biased opinion is also 100% correct! The only human being to have ever won Billboard Magazine’s Producer of the Decade in two consecutive decades, 1990- 2000 and again in 2000- 2010, it’s clear to me that my biased opinion is shared by the majority of the world!! Frankly, if I was an artist hoping to record and release a hit song, Rudy would be the first, second, third and hundredth phone call I would make until he agreed to work with me! Lol!! He’s the busiest producer in the industry and sometimes impossible to nail down, but if I was an artist and believed in myself then I would demand the very best for my career! I would demand Rudy Perez!! And you cannot escape the pragmatic logic of one statement: Anyone who has done something successfully 600 times can do it 601 times! 600 hit songs… It boggles the mind!!! Folks, Rudy Perez is simply the best music producer and songwriter working in the music industry today and one of the finest human beings I’ve ever had the pleasure to know. Consider that biased opinion tattooed on my heart and permanently imprinted onto my soul. 🙂
Rudy Pérez is a Cuban-born American musician, songwriter, composer, producer, arranger, sound engineer, musical director (leading, for example, the voice of the singers on some songs) and singer, so well as entertainment entrepreneur and philanthropist, whose area of specialty is ballads (although he also worked in a variety of genres).
During the last 30 years, he has produced more than 70 albums, composed over 1,000 songs (over 300 of which have been #1 or have reached to the Top 10 Charts), and has written and produced music for popular international artists such as José Feliciano, Julio Iglesias, Luis Miguel, Raúl di Blasio, Jaci Velasquez, Cristian Castro, Christina Aguilera, Michael Bolton, Luis Fonsi, Marc Anthony, Jennifer Lopez, and Beyoncé, between others.[3] Having won many music awards throughout his career (gold and platinum records, billboard,etc.), he has been voted the most important Latin composer four time (four years) and won the title of Producer of the Decade in 2010, awarded by Billboard to the most successful producer which has held over ten years the public’s preference lists. Also, he is the first Latin producer to win Billboard’s Producer of the Year award four years in a row. [4]
As an entrepreneur, Pérez owns the record labels Rudy Pérez Enterprises (RPE),and Bullseye Productions,[6] and is a founding partner and the Chief Creative Officer of DiGa Entertainment (with who also collaborate to produce music videos with music fans). He was instrumental in the production of the premiere of the inaugural Latin Grammy Awards of 2000 and was also one of the founders of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP)’s Latin Council. In addition, Pérez (along with Desmond Child) created, in April 2013, the Pabellón de la Fama de los Compositores Latinos (in Spanish: Latin Songwriters Hall of Fame – LSHOF), in Miami Beach, to honor the most important Latino composers and to drive to continue creating Latin music.
Willy Perez-Feria is an experienced and celebrated music producer/songwriter, specializing in all forms of English and Spanish language pop music!
Signed to UMPG since 2002 after spending 15 years signed to Emilio Estefan Enterprises, Perez-Feria is widely hailed as a successful, talented & much admired producer/songwriter who has earned a place amongst English/Spanish music’s most respected, accomplished & elite talents.
For availability and project pricing, contact him at willy@willypop.com, visit www.willypop.com or call in Miami, Florida (305) 984-9798.
WillyPop Music+Production © Copyright 2019
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PSI women are empowered and determined to force change
The PSI Women's Committee met on 25-26 May 2015 in Geneva. A varied agenda included violence against women, precarious work, labour migration, peace and freedom, gender equality and gender strategy for the post-2015 development agenda.
Many interesting interventions from WOC members showed that PSI women are empowered and determined to force change.
On UN Women…
UN Women has civil society advisory groups at regional, multi-country and national levels to allow civil society representatives to take a more active role, and no longer confined to the yearly UNCSW meeting in New York. From this year onwards, the trade union movement will have a seat on all of these committees after an agreement reached with UN WOMEN in March 2015.
It is important that PSI women’s representatives join those committees, together with representatives from ITUC and EI. PSI will prepare guidelines on how to lobby governments at national level.
PSI has grown and done a lot of work for UNCSW and now we are preparing for UNCSW60.
Jillian Bartlett, Trinidad and Tobago, said, “Women work and sacrifice their time and effort to empower women, knock on doors and force them open! ”
On gender violence…
Morna Ballantyne, Canada (left), said that Canadian employers lose 78million CAN$ a year because of domestic violence and consequential work absenteeism. Women who suffer domestic violence are more likely to get pushed into precarious work and unemployment. And in many cases, domestic violence happens in or close to the workplace. More: http://canadianlabour.ca/issues-research/domestic-violence-work
On precarious work…
In South Korea, trade unions are fighting against a situation of precarious work for education support workers, said Boo Hee Choi, KPTU (left). The Korean President Park Guen Hye announced that precarious work would be removed but instead has expanded precarious work contracts. KPTU represents 20,000 education support workers, 90 per cent of them are women. They are fighting to expose government policy and to work against it. They are awaiting the government’s budget decision on the matter in June 2015 and if the government does not respect its promises, the union will hold a rally at the end of the month of June, together with a general strike before the end of the year.
PSI interviewed some Women's Committee members and asked them about their union’s activities. Please click on the names to watch the video interviews:
Irene Khumalo from Swaziland Democratic Nurses Union (SDNU) talks about gender issues including violence against women in Swaziland. She explains how the numerous factory closures, following the country’s removal from a U.S. free trade bloc, has greatly affected women. She describes how the Federation TUCOSWA (Trade Union Congress of Swaziland) initially recognised and registered by the Swazi government was then deregistered in 2013, leaving the Swazi workers without a voice. May Day was celebrated in fear of the government’s retaliation. Fortunately after this date the federation was once again registered by the government. Khumalo tells us about their successful campaign on salary cuts and their future campaign on gender based violence.
Morna Ballantyne from the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) tells PSI that the PSAC has lanched an important campaign in defence of the sick leave provisions enshrined in their collective bargaining agreement. Canada's federal conservative government has made serious budget cuts and is seeking to replace the sick leave provisions with a new sick leave plan based on a contract with a private insurance company. PSAC has formed a coalition with other unions to defend their workers' rights.
Fatou Diouf, Public Utilities Syndicat Autonome des Travailleurs de la Sénégalaise des Eaux (SATSE), talks about gender equality and young workers. In Senegal, as in the rest of Africa, young people are not joining unions for the following reasons: rising unemployment, late age of entry into working life and lack of intergenerational trust. Fatou Diouf talks about tax justice and the importance of raising awareness on this topic. She mentions the importance of advocacy for the ratification of certain fundamental Conventions for women such as ILO Convention 183 on the protection of motherhood.
Bohee Choi, Vice President of the KCTU Korean Public Service and Transport Workers’ Union (KPTU), talks about the precarious work situation of education support workers in Korea. These workers face discrimination in terms of wages and rights because the work they do is seen as non-essential. However, the union has insisted that their work is important and they should be respected as members of the education community. The union has already won some rights for the workers, but continues to fight for recognition of the status of education support workers as public school workers. They will take part in a massive protest on 27 July 2015 and call on the Ministry of Education to listen to their demands, especially as concerns an end to wage discrimination.
Also see the presentations that took place during the meeting.
PSI World Women’s Committee WOC-2015
PSI Africa & Arab countries Regional Conference - AFRECON 2019 (Lomé)
STOP Gender-based violence at work!
72nd World Health Assembly (Geneva)
Two thousand Tunisian municipal cleaners demand safe working conditions and statutory recognition for their profession
Set the active menu item for News type En (menu position rule)
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OP-ED: "No hable Español," Mr. Timothy 'Timo' Kaine, "por favor"
AL DIA News
The man picked by the Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton as his running mate is a true gentleman.
by Ana Gamboa
OP-ED: "No hable Español," Mr....
The man picked by the Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton as his running mate, U.S. Senator Timothy Kaine, is a true gentleman.
I was privileged to meet him in person only three months ago, when he attended the DC joint summit of Latino Americans and African American Publishers, hosted in the National Press Club in May of 2016.
In a lunch I was given the honor of being the Master of Ceremonies, in my role as former national president of the first group, he spoke intermittently in that nearly perfect Spanish he learned with Jesuit discipline in Honduras, back during his young years, when he moved to that Central American nation to serve the poor.
In that occasion, more powerful to us than when he was introduced recently by Mrs. Clinton to the nation over national TV, he spoke (mostly in English) about his vision for the nation.
Now we understand why we heard this week he could’ve been a presidential contender during the Democratic primary, but decided to stay behind, waiting for an opportunity that finally arrived two weeks ago.
He can be Hillary’s natural successor— if the former First Lady finally puts it together and defeats Donald Trump in November.
One thing that really charmed Latino publishers present in that lunch was the fact that he barely used Spanish to speak to the group, in a sign of due respect, mainly for the fellow African American Publishers present in the room.
The reason why we, Latino American Publishers, liked Mr. Kaine’s speech, was that he not only spoke in sparkling U.S. English, the common language of our great nation, but also because he spoke “our language,” talking about the obvious issues of the Latino community in the United States.
No need of platitudes in Spanish that don’t mean much, but plain words in straightforward English that travel farther to hearts and minds of million of Latinos and Latinas across the U.S. who can cast a vote, one way or the other, come November the 8th, 2016.
“Timo” (short in Spanish for Timoteo, as he shared with me his nickname was popular among his friends in Honduras), please allow us to tell you, sir:
Keep up the good job, por favor.
PONTEALDIA
Latinos slighted by DNC?
Eva Longoria and I [plus VIDEO with George Lopez]
OP-ED: Shakira and her influence in the U.S. Presidential Election
Can Hillary afford NOT to enlist Latino Vote?
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Musical Scores/Charts
César Cancino
Phone: (H) 510.231.9097
(Mob.) 415.309.3195
cesar@cancinomusic.com
It was exciting to work as Musical Director/Composer/Arranger on the new "Bacio Rosso" (Dinner/Circus Cabaret) show in Vancouver, Canada. It will open on November 1st and should be a great new experience for the city. It is scheduled to run for 3 months.
I am looking forward to working on "La Rondine" by Puccini for Island Opera in Alameda. Rehearsals start in February (2019) with performances in March.
A native to the San Francisco Bay Area, César Cancino enjoys a musically diverse career as pianist, musical director, and conductor. He graduated from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and then studied piano with Alain Naude, a pupil of the great Dinu Lipatti. For 5 years he toured with singer/songwriter Joan Baez as her musical director and pianist. Later he spent 5 more years as the musical director/pianist for Teatro Zinzanni (a European style circus-cabaret in San Francisco). He is also a recipient of the Bay Area Theatre Critic’s Circle award for Outstanding Musical Director. Mr. Cancino has performed throughout North America, Europe, and Australia in such venues as Montreux Jazz Festival, Newport Folk Festival, Carnegie Hall, Int’l Music Festival of Mexico City, Atlanta Summer Pops Symphony, and the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. He has appeared with such diverse artists as singers Rita Moreno, Liliane Montevecchi, Thelma Houston, Maria Muldaur, Mercedes Sosa; cellist Ron Leonard; and violinists Pierre d’Archambeau, Martha Caplin and Tracy Silverman. Local credits include Berkeley Rep, Silicon Valley Symphony, Cinnabar Theater, Broadway By The Bay, 42nd Street Moon, Theatreworks, Beach Blanket Babylon, Monterey County Symphony, and Musical Director/Conductor of Morrison Theatre Chorus. He was for 6 years the musical director for Palazzo, a German company that produces a variety of circus-cabaret shows in Europe.
MUSICAL DIRECTOR, PIANIST, ARRANGER, CONDUCTOR
Home: 510. 231.9097 Mobile: 415. 309.3195
cesar@cancinomusic.com www.cancinomusic.com
Carnegie Hall ∙ Atlanta Symphony Summer Pops ∙ Montreux Jazz Festival ∙ Int’l Music Festival of Mexico City ∙ Newport Folk Festival ∙ New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival ∙ Beach Blanket Babylon ∙ Old First Concerts ∙ 42nd Street Moon ∙ Rrazz Room
Artists performed with include:
Joan Baez ∙ Rita Moreno ∙ Thelma Houston ∙ Liliane Montevecchi ∙ Mercedes Sosa ∙ Florence Henderson ∙ Sally Kellerman ∙ Paula West ∙ Maria Muldaur ∙ cellist: Ron Leonard ∙ mezzo-soprano: Janice Felty ∙ violinists: Pierre D’Archambeau ∙ Tracy Silverman ∙ Martha Caplin
MUSICAL DIRECTOR/CONDUCTOR
Berkeley Repertory Theatre, “Idea of Order”, Ground Floor Project, Berkeley, CA (2017) Musical Director/Pianist/Conductor
Berkeley Repertory Theatre, “Life Without Makeup”, starring Rita Moreno, Berkeley, CA Musical Director/Pianist/Arranger (2011)
Palazzo - Germany, Holland, and Austria (2006 – 2012) Musical Director/Pianist/Arranger
Diablo Theatre Company, "My Way", Dean Lesher Center, Walnut Creek, CA (2012) Musical Director/Pianist
Teatro Zinzanni - San Francisco, CA (2001 – 2006) Musical Director/Pianist/Arranger/Composer
Joan Baez - Performances throughout USA, Europe, Australia, and Canada Musical Director/Pianist/Arranger (1985-1990)
Martinez Opera, “Il Barbiere Di Siviglia”, Martinez, CA (2012) Musical Director/Conductor/Keyboardist
Bay Area Theatre Critics’ Circle – “Outstanding Musical Director Award” (1994)
“Bruce Vilanch and Sharon McNight” – Rrazz Room, San Francisco, CA (2009) Musical Director/Pianist
Morrisson Theatre Chorus - Hayward, CA (1996 – Present)
Verismo Opera, "Lucia Di Lammermoor", Vallejo, CA (2012) Musical Director/Conductor
Atlanta Symphony Summer Pops - Atlanta, GA (1987) Conductor/Pianist/Arranger
Royal Viking Cruise Line
Musical Director/Pianist/Conductor (1993)
PIANIST/KEYBOARDIST
“Matilda”, Keyboard I, Nat’l Tour, Center For The Performing Arts, San Jose, CA (2017)
Symphony Silicon Valley, Center For The Performing Arts, San Jose, CA (2016)
Cinnabar Theater, "Most Happy Fella" (2 Piano Version), Petaluma, CA (2016)
Il Divo/Lea Salonga, World Tour, Paramount Theater, Oakland, CA (2014)
Hillside Club, Concert of Contemporary Music, Berkeley, CA (2008)
“Spelling Bee”, San Francisco, CA (2006)
All Saints Chamber Music Series - Houston, TX (2001)
Monterey County Symphony Orchestra - Monterey, CA (1991-2001)
20th Century Unlimited, Solo and Chamber Music - Santa Fe, NM (1998-2001)
Yachats Music Festival - Yachats, OR (2000/2001)
PRESS & COMMENTS
“Cesar Cancino has been the perfect accompanist for me.”
“It comes naturally to him… inspired to play music of quality with the best he has.”
—Robert Commanday, Music Critic, San Francisco Chronicle
“An outstanding performer we deserve to hear again… sparkled in the pieces by Arnold Schoenberg”
—Santa Fe Reporter
“An engaging and excellent pianist.”
—Il Secolo XIX Genova, Italy
“...a terrific three-piece combo led by Cesar Cancino....”
—Pat Craig, San Jose Mercury News
“A vigorous performance… played with great refinement and agility.”
—Arts Alive and Well, New Mexico
STUDIO RECORDINGS
“Sax Humana”, Arroz Records (2008)
Producer/Pianist/Arranger
“Sterling Ovations”, Sterling Performances, (2007)
Pianist/Arranger/Keyboardist
“Teatro Zinzanni: The Divas”, One Reel/Teatro Zinzanni (2006)
“Diamonds and Rust in the Bullring Live”, Joan Baez, Gold Castle Records (1988)
Arranger/Pianist
“Recently”, Joan Baez, Gold Castle Records, Capitol Recording Studios, L.A., CA (1987)
“Christmas by the Bay”, Sterling Performances (2003)
Pianist/Arranger
Coro Hispano de San Francisco/Conjunto Nuevo Mundo — Multiple CDs (1996-2000)
Harpsichordist/Pianist
“El Mundo Se Va Acabar”, Mono Blanco y Stone Lips, Urtext Digital Classics (1997)
H.A.R.D., Instructor, Chorus Class, Hayward, CA (1996 – Present)
Mercy High School, Faculty, Choir and Musical Theater, San Francisco, CA (1996-2001)
San Francisco Community Music Center, Faculty, Piano and Music Theory (1977-1987)
Undergraduate studies at San Francisco Conservatory of Music (1972 – 1977)
Piano with Alain Naudé, pupil of Dinu Lipatti and Nadia Boulanger
OTHER EXPERIENCE
Vocal Coaching (Musical Theatre, Opera, and other styles)
Notation and Arranging (Sibelius 7)
© Cancino Music
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What’s Up at Washington School Part I: The Background Info
By Mary Dolores Young and Jim Leach
At the Washington School site, the old maple trees have seen quite a few seasons since being the center of city and neighborhood attention several years ago. The children’s art has been carefully taken down and will find a new home, if not at University Hill Elementary School, at another elementary school within the city. The chain link fence still surrounds the school as does the mystery of when the former elementary school will see its next life.
“What’s going on at Washington School?” is a question we both get a lot. Until recently, the answer was “Not much.”
Things are changing and we’ll tell you how and when.
First, a little background information.
An Unlikely Pair of Authors
We began our acquaintance as adversaries on opposite sides of a contentious issue. We spent several months working across the table from each other, looking straight down the sights of that issue. When you discuss and explore a matter over a long period of time, you learn to listen, you learn to talk to each other, you gain understanding. You don’t agree on everything, but you begin to accept that. You look for those things that you can agree on and explore those.
Polarization of a community can bring civility to its knees. The issue of Washington School at its nadir had split Boulder with no apparent middle ground. You were either for the project or not. We hope that we’ve begun to recover from that. The matter of Washington School, with any luck, taught us all something. No one involved walked away without at least a little personal growth.
We’re not best friends, but we have earned each other’s respect. Washington School will become Washington Village. We need to accept that. Washington Village will not meet the dense vision of some. We need to accept that, too.
History, they say, is written by the winners. It’s hard to say in this case, who won and who lost. We’ll proceed with facts and leave determination of winners and losers to those philosophers among you.
Washington School dates back to 1903, when it first opened. Its Broadway and Elder location put it, back then, on the outskirts of town where it served the children of farmers and workers on truck farms around the county. It is the twin of Lincoln Elementary on West Arapahoe.
During the 1970’s, enrollment declined and the school was closed for a few years in the 1980’s, but leased by the city for various programs during that time. In 1992 it opened again as Escuela Washington Bilingue an English/Spanish immersion magnet school.
In 2002 the Boulder Valley School District (BVSD) closed Washington and Mapleton Elementary Schools. Washington School, shortly thereafter, was valued at $3.2 million by a city hired appraiser.
In 2003, after a one year lease with an option to buy with the city, Washington Elementary closed for good.
In 2004, without public input, the city decided internally not to purchase any part of the site.
In 2005, at the height of the housing bubble, the city solicited proposals from private developers and had them competitively evaluated by a Citizen Review Panel (CRP) and the Planning Board. Also in 2005, BVSD set a base price of $3.9 million, with price escalations, “entitlement premiums” and a condition to close on the property 90 days after selection of a developer.
In 2006 the CRP recommended four developers to be issued Requests for Proposals. The Washington Neighborhood wanted a significant portion of the site to remain public as a park. After BVSD refused any flexibility in its price or purchase conditions, three of the developers dropped out. Wonderland Hill Development Company (WHDC) was selected by default even though its proposal, which included full private development of the site, was ranked lowest of the four selected by the CRP. Also in 2006, BVSD relented on its inflexibility and granted a one year extension to the condition to close and WHDC entered into a contract to purchase the site.
In 2007 a protracted Site Review process ensued. WHDC was granted another extension on the closing date. The project was approved by the Planning Board, but called-up by the City Council and a special hearing was set. The project was approved at council call-up. A petition for referendum was launched immediately after council approval, and the petition drive paralleled a City Council election campaign for which Washington School became an issue. Enough signatures were collected to bring the matter up before a newly elected council, many of whom still serve today. The evolving and related Compatible Development conversation also became a campaign issue.
The year 2008 saw the creation of a Recommendation Group (RG) an eight member group that met for several months on which Jim Leach and Mary Young both served. Guided by a skilled facilitator, the RG developed a set of guiding principles for the property’s development including a provision for some public open space on the site. In April, BVSD and WHDC closed on the property for $4.1 million. In September, the economy crashed.
Another Site Review and another council call-up yielded the project’s final approval in early 2009. Washington Elementary School was officially given Historical Landmark status in 2010.
It is now 2011, loans have been hard to come by, the project has languished for nearly two years.
Stay tuned for Part II.
What’s Up at Washington School Part II: The New Normal
Mom, Why Can’t We Play Ball at Casey?
Casey and the Dead Zone
Cuts? What Cuts?
Author(s): Mary Dolores Young and Jim Leach
Found in section: Neighborhoods
Tags: BVSD, Washington
Previous Topic: Rally to Protect the Clean Air Act
Next Topic: What’s Up at Washington School Part II: The New Normal
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Copyright (c) 2019 Baptist Press. Reprinted from Baptist Press (www.baptistpress.com), news service of the Southern Baptist Convention.
The original story can be found at http://www.bpnews.net/19562/settlement-pentagon-says-military-cant-sponsor-boy-scouts
Settlement: Pentagon says military can't sponsor Boy Scouts
by Staff, posted Wednesday, November 17, 2004 (14 years ago)
WASHINGTON (BP)--The Department of Defense has agreed in a partial settlement with the American Civil Liberties Union to inform its military bases worldwide they should not officially sponsor Boy Scout units.
The settlement, in a lawsuit in Chicago, is limited in scope and is only a clarification of previous policy, according to the Pentagon. Critics of the action, however, said the department should not have backed down to the ACLU’s charge of religious discrimination against the Boy Scouts.
“The Pentagon ought to show some backbone,” said Gary McCaleb, senior counsel of the Alliance Defense Fund. “The ACLU is an oppressor, not a protector, of religious liberty. If you’ve got a problem with the Boy Scouts on military bases because the Scouts rely upon God, then you’ve got a problem with the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, both of which rely upon God.”
American Legion National Commander Thomas Cadmus urged Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to “[s]tand up to the ACLU.”
“Is there no one in Washington, D.C., at the highest levels of government that will stand up for scouts, for scouting and support this movement that has long been an institution of highest reputation in America?” Cadmus asked in a letter on behalf of 2.7 million American Legion members. “Where’s the president? Where’s his cabinet? Where’s the Congress? What are the courts doing? Where is the outrage?”
The Pentagon denied it officially sponsors Boy Scout units, adding that its policy does not provide sponsorship to any private organization.
“Under the very limited settlement applying existing DOD policy, DOD may not officially sponsor Boy Scout units and DOD personnel may not sponsor Boy Scout units in an official capacity,” the Pentagon said in a written statement. “The settlement does not prohibit the Department of Defense from supporting the Boy Scouts of America. Boy Scout units are permitted to meet on military bases, and military personnel are allowed to remain active in Boy Scout programs.”
The ACLU charged that DOD units have held charters for hundreds of Boy Scout troops and Cub Scout packs. DOD did not acknowledge any wrongdoing in the settlement.
In recent months, the Boy Scouts of America has sought to make sure it is in compliance with the DOD policy, BSA spokesman Bob Bork told Baptist Press. The organization also has worked to verify that sponsorships are held by such groups as the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars and churches, Bork said.
The settlement will have “no practical effect on the day-to-day” operation of the BSA, he said.
“It’s really not much more than sort of a paper shuffling for us and has no real effect on the scouting experience," Bork said.
Scouting units will still be able to meet on military property, and military personnel will be able to participate in a civilian capacity, Bork said.
The ACLU of Illinois brought suit against both the Department of Defense and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, contending they had violated the First Amendment’s clause against government establishment of religion. The ACLU has argued government sponsorship of and support for the Boy Scouts amounts to religious discrimination, since the Scout Oath includes a pledge to “do my duty to God and my country.”
“DOD is still going to support the Boy Scouts of America, absolutely,” said Lt. Col. Joe Richard, a Pentagon spokesman.
The question of whether DOD and HUD may continue to provide funds for the Boy Scouts was not settled. For instance, each year the military helps fund the National Scout Jamboree, which has been held every four years since 1981 at Fort A.P. Hill, a U.S. Army base in Caroline County, Va., Bork said. More than 35,000 scouts and leaders, plus 8,000 staff, will meet in July on 3,000 acres of the 76,000-acre base, he said. The BSA has spent $12 to $15 million on upgrades and infrastructure at the facility, Bork said. The 2005 National Scout Jamboree will not be impacted, he said.
Download Story
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School of Geographical Sciences
Courses and programmes
Faculty of Social Sciences and Law
Intranet Fieldwork Safety
University home > School of Geographical Sciences > People > Professor Robert Mayhew
Professor Robert Mayhew
My main areas of research interest to date have been twofold. First, deriving from my doctoral work in Oxford, I am interested in the ways in which landscape was represented in English literature. I have sought to show in a number of articles the extent to which landscape was a theological category in eighteenth century thought. This work has led me to write about a range of canonical authors in the “long” eighteenth century including Addison, Pope, Fielding, Gilpin and Radcliffe.My main focus, however, has been on the work of Samuel Johnson, and this has resulted in a monograph with Palgrave, Landscape, Literature and English Religious Culture, 1660-1800 (2004).
Second, my interest in the eighteenth century led me to a concern with the history of geography in early modern England. This was the main project I pursued during my time in Cambridge and has been my main area of research ever since. I have concentrated on seventeenth and eighteenth century British geographical writings for the most part, with some excursions into the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, this range being fully exemplified in a monograph on the topic, Enlightenment Geography (2000).
At present I am writing a book, provisionally entitled Untimely Prophet, about the intellectual history of Thomas Robert Malthus and the reception of Malthusianism from 1798 to the present day for Harvard University Press. Malthus is key to the emergence of recognisably "modern" debates about the nexus between resources, population and economic decision making, and to recover his thought and the debates which have surrounded it is vital if we want to make historically-informed choices in the present day. The British Academy have geneously awarded me a Senior Research Fellowship for the academic year 2011-12 to pursue the completion of this book.
Research keywords
Historical Geography History of Geography Landscape studies Environmental History
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Home / Atlantic League / Baseball / Long Island Ducks / transactions / Bailey and Strieby Return to Long Island for 2014
Bailey and Strieby Return to Long Island for 2014
Photo Credit: Corey Mansfield
The Long Island Ducks announced today they have re-signed outfielder Adam Bailey and first baseman Ryan Strieby for the 2014 season. This will be the second season for both players with the Ducks.
Last season, Bailey played in 133 for the Ducks hitting .254 with 15 home runs and 57 RBI. He was instrumental in helping the Ducks win their second consecutive Atlantic League championship.
Prior to joining the Ducks in 2013, Bailey played three seasons in the Houston Astros organization after being drafted in the 23rd round (693rd overall) of the 2010 MLB Draft. During that time he had a .271 batting average with 38 home runs and 173 RBI in 296 games.
Ryan Strieby started off hot with the Ducks in 2013, hitting .359 through the first two weeks of the season. However, an injury sidelined him for a good portion of the season. He finished the 2013 season with a .251 batting average, 4 home runs, and 27 RBI in 53 games.
Strieby was originally drafted by the Detroit Tigers in the 4th round (112th overall) of the 2006 MLB Draft out of the University of Kentucky. He played seven and half seasons in the Tigers organization, before joining the Arizona Diamondbacks organization toward the end of the 2012 season. The power hitting first baseman has 113 home runs with 443 RBI, and a .441 slugging percentage in his affiliated career.
Atlantic League Baseball Long Island Ducks transactions
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AASLD Foundation was established in 2014 with the help of incredible financial commitment and dedication of industry and private foundations, and many generous individuals who supported the creation of this charitable organization. Since then, hundreds of donors have helped make more advances in liver disease possible through their generous donations.
We are honored to bestow recognition on our annual fund donors who support our work each year. Know that when you allow us to recognize your generosity, you can also inspire others to similar acts. Here are a few of the ways we thank our donors for investing in our work.
Acknowledgement in popular member communications, on the AASLD Foundation website and during The Liver Meeting®
Special access to AASLD/AASLD Foundation activities, including VIP seating for select sessions at The Liver Meeting®
Access to exclusive VIP Lounge at The Liver Meeting® with refreshments and concierge-like services for donors who give $500+ (subject to change at AASLD Foundation’s discretion)
Founding Donors
We would like to express our gratitude to the following companies that came together in 2015 to contribute gifts and pledges of more than $2 million to fund the creation of AASLD Foundation. Their support continues to sustain our programming, nearly four years later. We applaud them for their vision and are grateful for their generosity.
Tomorrow's Cures Campaign Donors
AASLD Foundation is grateful to our donors who contributed to our mission through their generous charitable donations. View a full list of our donors.
Special Thanks to Our Corporate and Foundation Donors
Corporate and Foundation donors sustain progress in hepatology through their untiring commitment to investing in research and training. We applaud these efforts and gratefully acknowledge the following companies and foundations that have made donations and grants to support AASLD Foundation’s initiatives or its current Tomorrow’s Cures Campaign.
As a Foundation donor or grantor, your investment in hepatology will be used to reach our $12.5 million goal for our Tomorrow’s Cures campaign. It will also reach across all of our charter initiatives, including research and career development awards, advance hepatology training efforts, and public outreach through Fundamentals of Liver Disease.
Your investment in AASLD Foundation comes with tremendous benefits and will be stewarded with the utmost care. When you become a donor, we showcase your support of our mission to the entire hepatology community through promotion of your philanthropy at our meetings and in our communications. Supporters also enjoy opportunities for strategic AASLD Foundation briefings and a closer connection to future hepatology leaders through ongoing stewardship.
Contact us to find out how we can work together to ensure tomorrow’s cures for liver disease.
AASLD Foundation gratefully acknowledges the following companies and foundations that have made donations and grants to support the Foundation’s initiatives and its new Tomorrow’s Cures campaign.
Listing includes pledges, grants and donations committed during the campaign period of August 1, 2017 through October 4, 2018.
The AASLD Foundation’s Tribute Funds provide a personal way to honor and remember loved ones affected by liver disease. Contact us at foundation@aasld.org if you would like additional information about establishing a Tribute Fund.
Kimmy's Liver Research Fund
Kimmy’s Liver Research Fund was established in 2018 by Hoss Said, MBA, in honor of his former wife, Kim Ostrom who passed away from liver disease.
Named Funds
AASLD Foundation’s Named Funds offer a way for family members, colleagues, and others to commemorate a loved one who has been impacted by liver disease, to honor a mentor dedicated to the discovery of better treatment options and more cures for liver disease, or to provide vital funds for Foundation initiatives for which a donor seeks to support in a significant way.
These Funds provide a wonderful way to ensure stable funding for the Foundation’s work and lead to better liver health through innovative research and training. Donors can choose to establish short-term Funds or endowed Funds.
The Anna S. Lok Fund for Excellence in Research and Training
The Luxon Family Fund for Emerging Hepatology Scholars
The Gupta Family Research Award for Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis (PSC)
The Autoimmune Hepatitis Research Fund
Anna S. Lok, MD, FAASLD has established an endowment to support AASLD Foundation’s Advanced/Transplant Hepatology Award, which encourages exceptional hepatology trainees to choose academic careers in hepatology.
The Anna S. Lok Fund for Excellence in Research and Training represents the largest gift from an AASLD member in the Foundation’s history, and it makes Dr. Lok the first Champion Giving Circle Member for the Foundation’s Tomorrow’s Cures Campaign.
“The hepatology community has been kind to me – embracing and nurturing me in my early years, providing me with opportunity to grow and lead, and more recently, recognizing and rewarding me for years of hard work. Because of this, I want to give back, and the Tomorrow’s Cures Campaign provides the perfect opportunity to make an immediate and long-lasting impact,” explains Dr. Lok who is Co-Chair of the Leadership Gifts Division of the campaign.
By supporting the Tomorrow’s Cures Campaign, Dr. Lok is helping AASLD Foundation fund more meritorious liver disease research, address new research needs in hepatology, build a robust workforce of physicians and health care professionals trained to care for people with liver disease, and create opportunities to increase the public’s awareness of liver diseases.
Since the inception of the Advanced/Transplant Hepatology Award, five of Dr. Lok’s fellows have received the Award under her mentorship. This demonstrates Dr. Lok’s passion for mentorship and her commitment to the future of hepatology.
“We need bright, young physicians and researchers to get into the field, to stay in the field, and to work together to find ways by which we can diagnose liver diseases earlier and discover more treatments and cures,” explains Dr. Lok of her decision to set up the endowment. “I feel strongly about helping the next generation of hepatologists because I recognize how much my mentors and my early training shaped me and helped me get to where I am today.”
Dr. Lok is the Immediate Past President of AASLD and serves as the Alice Lohrman Andrews Research Professor in Hepatology at the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan Health System in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She is also Director of Clinical Hepatology and Assistant Dean for Clinical Research in the Medical School.
Dr. Lok’s research focuses on the natural history and treatment of hepatitis B and C and the prevention of liver cancer. She has trained more than 50 fellows and junior faculty from all over the world and has been recognized by her institution — and across the medical community — not only for her research, but also for her mentorship and commitment to the field.
Support the Lok Fund.
The AASLD Foundation is pleased to introduce The Luxon Family Fund for Emerging Hepatology Scholars. This new AASLD Foundation Fund will support one annual Emerging Liver Scholars Award, thereby ensuring long-term financial resources to encourage future hepatology leaders, and to attract the best and brightest physicians to pursue hepatology as their career choice.
Created in 2012, the AASLD Foundation’s Emerging Liver Scholars Program promotes the study of hepatology among residents who have the potential for a career in academic medicine AND who haven’t yet determined their long-term career goals. This program, targeted toward medical, surgical and pediatric residents and their mentors, provides opportunities to attend The Liver Meeting® and participate in other AASLD activities throughout their training. The program is supported by AASLD Foundation as part of its mission to inspire and invest in the next generation of hepatologists. Since inception, close to 200 scholars have graduated from this valuable program. A vast majority of the graduates remain dedicated to a career in hepatology.
The Luxons, along with their friends, John and Diane Goody, have contributed significant gifts to establish this vital source of stability for the Emerging Liver Scholars initiative. The fund is already at 75% of the goal of $100,000, the amount needed to sustain the Award in perpetuity.
Dr. Luxon has been an integral force in shaping the careers of some of the finest hepatologists in the United States. He’s had a tremendous impact on his colleagues in medicine, too. And, of course his patients hold Dr. Luxon in highest regard. Whether you are a colleague, trainee, mentee, or even a patient of Dr. Luxon’s – Dr. Bruce Bacon, AASLD Foundation’s Chair, invites you to consider a gift to honor Dr. Luxon. A gift to this Fund will be a meaningful way to acknowledge his impact on developing hepatologists and academic hepatology leaders.
Support the Luxon Fund.
Thanks to the generosity of The Lalit and Anubha Gupta Family Foundation, Inc., this award will support one highly meritorious application in PSC submitted to the Pilot Research Award. The purpose of this award is to support new, highly innovative PSC research ideas that focus on questions pertaining to the pathogenesis, diagnosis, and/or management of PSC in children and/or adults.
This Fund was made possible by generous donors who share the Foundation’s vision to prevent and cure liver disease. It was established to stimulate research in autoimmune hepatitis that will ultimately lead to a better understanding of disease mechanisms, new diagnostics, better treatment approaches and cures. The fund supported a 2018 Pilot Research Award project and 2019 Pinnacle Research Award in Liver Diseases.
The AASLD Foundation Memorial Travel Award Program was created to allow individuals to be honored by naming travel awards after them.
To learn more about how you can support liver disease research and training, contact us at 703-299-9766, or email Foundation@aasld.org.
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Anti Sexual Harassment Committee
Committee Against Sexual Harassment
With regard to the Supreme Court Judgment and guidelines issued in 1997 to provide for the effective enforcement of the basic human right of gender equality and guarantee against sexual harassment and abuse, more particularly against sexual harassment at work places, the University Grants Commission (UGC) has issued circulars since 1998,, to all the universities, advising them to establish a permanent cell and a committee and to develop guidelines to combat sexual harassment, violence against women and ragging at the universities and colleges. It has further advised the universities to be proactive by developing a conducive atmosphere on the campus, where the status of woman is respected and they are treated with. Keeping the above guidelines in view TISS has constituted a Committee Against Sexual Harassment since 2003.
The objectives of the Committee are:
Prevent discrimination and sexual harassment against women, by promoting gender amity among students and employees;
Make recommendations to the Director for changes/elaborations in the Rules for students in the Prospectus and the Bye-Laws, to make them gender just and to lay down procedures for the prohibition, resolution, settlement and prosecution of acts of discrimination and sexual harassment against women, by the students and the employees;
Deal with cases of discrimination and sexual harassment against women, in a time bound manner, aiming at ensuring support services to the victimized and termination of the harassment;
Recommend appropriate punitive action against the guilty party to the Director.
The Internal Complaints Committee in order to provide safe and secure environment to Women at the work place under the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 201 3 in the office of Advocate General, Haryana is hereby re-constituted consisting following members, in the public interest.
1 Ms. Palika Monga. Deputy. AG Presiding Officer 0172-2741381
2 Ms. Mamta Singhal, Deputy. AG Member 0172-2741057
3 Ms. Anita Balyan, Advocate Punjab And Haryana High Court Chandigarh Member(N.G.O.) 0172-2740756
4 Sh. Vivek Saini, AAG Member 0172-2740765
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The First Noël - A Christmas Revival
The popular Christmas Carol, The First Noël, is believed to date from the 13th or 14th century, a time in which all medieval civilization in Europe was springing to life. The inspiration for the story of the song comes from dramatizations of favorite Bible stories for holidays, which were called the Miracle Plays, and were very popular during this time. It tells the story of the night that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, based on the Gospel accounts in Luke 2 and Matthew 2. Noël is the French word for Christmas and is from the Latin natalis, meaning "birthday." Most medieval poetry was written to be sung, so it is presumed that the words were written with an existing tune in mind. This makes the tune to the song even older, and is likely English or French.
At the beginning of the 19th century, the singing of Christmas carols was dying out in England. It is Davies Gilbert who is credited with initiating a revival of sorts. 'The First Nowell' was first published in Gilbert's Some Ancient Christmas Carols in 1823. He took it from a manuscript of Cornish carols made around 1817, and are today available in the County Record Office in Truro, England.
Ten years later, a man named William Sandys was concerned that the celebration of Christmas was 'on the wane.' His action that changed this was to compile a collection of carols in order to preserve them. Sandys' collection of Christmas Carols begins with a history of the Christmas celebration, followed by a total of 80 carols. It is here that The First Noël was first published with words by Sandys in his 1833 edition of Christmas Carols, Ancient and Modern.
All subsequent versions of The First Noël have been based on the version found in Sandys' collection. The Methodist denomination of Christianity also helped to spread the song. In the areas of England where Methodism was strongest, music and singing were prominent, especially during Christmas time. And so The First Noël spread throughout the land by way of Methodist churches. By 1918 at the first service of Nine Lessons and Carols in Cambridge, 'The First Nowell' was chosen as the final hymn, being sung by the congregation alone.
The first Noel the angel did say
on a cold winter's night that was so deep.
Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel,
born is the King of Israel.
shining in the east, beyond them far;
o'er Bethlehem it took its rest;
full reverently upon the knee,
and offered there, in his presence,
their gold and myrrh and frankincense.
Originally published December 6, 2017
Christmas Carols, Ancient and Modern by William Sandys
The Penguin Book of Carols edited by Ian Bradley
Captain James Cook - His Second Voyage
This article is a nice little gift for the upcoming Christmas season.
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Agriculture, forestry and other land use
Biochar is a charcoal-like substance produced from agriculture and forest wastes which contains 70% carbon. It is used as soil enhancer to increase fertility, prevent soil degradation and to sequester carbon in the soil. Biochar can store carbon in the soil for as many as hundreds to thousands of years. Biochar can be produced through pyrolysis, gasification and hydrothermal carbonization, which leaves bio-oil and syngas as by-products. Small scale production can be through pyrolysis using modified stoves and kilns which are low cost and relatively simple technologies. For large scale production, larger pyrolysis plants and adequate feedstocks are required which is more capital cost intensive. The main quality of biochar is its carbon-rich fine-grained,
highly porous structure and increased surface area that makes it an ideal soil amendment for carbon sequestration (Lehmann, 2007).
Biocharis a charcoal-like substance produced from agriculture and forest wastes. It has high active carbon surface area that is produced through anaerobic heating of biomass. Composition-wise, it contains 70% carbon and the remaining elements are hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen. Biochar is used as soil enhancer to increase fertility, prevent soil degradation and to sequester carbon in the soil. It improves soil fertility by retaining water and nutrients in soil, encouraging beneficial soil organisms and thereby reducing the need for additional use of fertilizers. Biochar can store carbon in the soil for as many as hundreds to thousands of years (IBI, 2008). Biochar technology is different from the conventional charcoal production because it is highly efficient in the conversion of carbon and harmful pollutants are not released upon combustion. Hence, it is a cleaner and more efficient technology. If this technology is used sustainably, the by-products in the form of oil and gas can substitute for a cleaner and renewable fuel option.
One of the simplest ways of making biochar is through the thermal decomposition of the biomass (waste from agriculture and forest). It can be done in three different ways, namely, Pyrolysis, Gasification and Hydrothermal carbonization. In all these processes, biomass is heated at a high temperature in the absence of air. This releases the volatile gases leaving behind carbon rich biochar. During pyrolysis, a high proportion of carbon remains within the biochar giving it a very high recalcitrant nature. This increases the soil water and nutrient holding capacity (Forbes et al., 2006; Chan and Zhihong, 2009).
Biochar can be produced at small and large scales. Small scale production can be through pyrolysis using modified stoves and kilns which are low cost and relatively simple technologies. For large scale production, larger pyrolysis plants and adequate feedstocks are required which is more capital cost intensive (Pratt & Moran, 2010).
The intensity of pyrolysis determines the product and by-product obtained from the process. For example, more bio-oil and syngas are obtained when fast pyrolysis is done at high temperature, while slow pyrolysis yields more biochar than by-products. Figure 1 demonstrates the biochar production through the pyrolysis process. This not only produces bio-char but also produces clean energy like syngas and bio-oil which can be used for producing heat, power or combined heat and power.
Biochar producing cook-stoves are more popular in developing countries. The pyrolysis temperature of 450-500ºC might be difficult to attain in gasification stoves to make biochar. However, most of the stoves can produce 25-30% of biochar (by weight) from the initial feedstock. This is the maximum weight of biochar that can be obtained from the slow pyrolysis process. (Samuchit, 2010 and Brownsort, 2009).
Figure 1: Figure 1: Biochar production process
Source: The International Biochar Initiative (http://www.biochar-international.org/)
The most sustainable way of gathering feedstock for biochar would be to use the agricultural and forestry wastes. Biochar can be feasible in a small scale industry like forest communities where woody biomass waste is readily available. Large scale biochar production can be done through the cultivation of crops, but adequate land is required for its cultivation. The greatest economic potential of biochar for carbon sequestration can be realized if crop residues or waste biomass are used rather than purpose grown crops (Roberts et al. 2010). Biochar applications has been introduced in Vietnam, Mongolia and India and cost effective approaches are being identified for widespread introduction of biochar in these countries (IBI, 2008).
When deploying biochar technology a potential barrier could be that poor and isolated communities have to be convinced to accept the new technology instead of their traditional practices. An imminent risk of this technology as identified by Biofuel Watch and others is that when promoted at a large scale with dual goals of achieving agricultural as well as environmental benefits, environmental goals may be overridden by the agricultural goals. This is due to the fact that the investors might give more value to its agronomic benefits than its carbon sequestration potential (Pratt & Moran, 2010). Development of this technology for carbon sequestration could also result in the destruction of virgin forest as they might be cleared for large scale plantation to fulfill biomass feedstock requirements.
Status of the technology
Biochar carbon sequestration is fundamentally different from other forms of bio-sequestration. The issues of permanence, land tenure, leakage, and additionally are less significant for biochar projects than for projects sequestering carbon in biomass or soil through management of plant productivity. Biochar carbon sequestration might avoid difficulties such as accurate monitoring of soil carbon which are the main barriers to inclusion of agricultural soil management in emissions trading. Using turnover rate and quantity of carbon has been suggested as a method to be used in assessment of the carbon sequestration potential (Gaunt and Cowie, 2009) and that could be done independently from biochar’s use as soil amendment or other non-fuel purposes.
Biochar technology adoption in terms of its use and scale varies widely depending upon the local and regional contexts like the type of feedstock, production technology, economic setting and the expected use of the biochar. Though there are larger scale units producing biochar from agricultural waste, recently, this technology has been applied at micro scale in the form of biochar cook stoves to small scale in the developing countries.
Figure 2 presents the status of biochar producing stoves globally.
Figure 2: Biochar Producing stoves
Source: UKBRC (2011)
Market potential
The optimistic scenario in Figure 3 shows that the use of biochar can sequester 2.2 gigatons of carbon annually by 2050 (IBI, 2008). In agricultural soils, biochar has been experimentally shown to double grain yields, improve soil fertility and increase water retention (Luizao. et al., 2009). Although modern biochar technology is still under research, some researchers claim that it has significant potential for mitigating climate change together with generating social, economic and environmental benefits (see also below).
The technical potential of biochar is determined by a number of factors, such as, scale of production, auxiliary benefits upon its application to the soil and its sustainability. Markets for the sale of feedstock for pyrolysis process are still underdeveloped. However, the economic feasibility is largely dependent on the value of the bio-products and the differences in the cost of production. Currently, the biochar process is being implemented at a small scale in developing countries (IBI, 2008).
Figure 3: Projection of carbon offset by biochar technology by 2050
Source: IBI (2008)
Substantial amounts of carbon can be sequestered in a very stable form.
Addition of biochar to soil has been associated with enhanced nutrient use efficiency, water holding capacity, and microbial activity.
In the process of manufacturing biochar, both heat and gases can be captured to produce energy carriers such as electricity, hydrogen, or bio-oil. Further, other valuable co-products including wood flavoring and adhesives can also be obtained as a byproduct of biochar (Czernik and Bridgwater, 2004).
Biochar applications sometimes disturb the physical and chemical balances of nutrients in the rhizosphere.
Biochar generally helps the growth of undesirable weeds.
Biochar manufacturing is relatively expensive.
Contribution of the technology to social development top:
Land and wildlife habitat conservation as biochar can be used for forestry management and hence wildlife habitat conservation.
There are health benefits as biochar stoves are more efficient and produce less air pollutants.
Promoting biochar does not jeopardize the food security by displacing the cropland with biochar feedstock.
Contribution of the technology to economic development (including energy market support) top:
Farmers can have an additional source of income through collection and sale of agri-residues.
The grain yields in agricultural soils are shown to increase by the use of biochar.
Use of locally available feedstock reduces dependence on fossil fuel.
Employment opportunities can be created in the course of development of biochar technology.
Revenue can be generated through carbon trading.
Since biochar can be used as a fertilizer, alternative fertilizers no longer need to be purchased (imported) which helps developing countries to reduce trade and fiscal deficits.
Galinato et al. (2011) have examined the potential economic returns to farmers if they utilise biochar as a substitute for agricultural lime under three price scenarios: (1) $350.74/MT, (2) $114.05/MT, and (3) $87/MT (figure 4).
Figure 4: Comparison of profits from winter wheat production (US$ per hectare), with and without biochar application (source: Galinato et al., 2011)
Contribution of the technology to protection of the environment top:
Reduced GHG emission:Reduced use of fertilizer results in reduced emissions from production and use of other fertilizer products. Retention of nutrients like nitrogen in the soil limit consequent emission of nitrous oxide into the atmosphere. As agricultural wastes are turned into biochar, emission of methane resulting from natural decomposition of biomass is reduced. By 2100, use of biochar can sequester 5.5–9.5 GtC/yr (Lehmann et al, 2006). Similarly, biochar increases the microbial life in the soil and increases carbon storage in the soil.
Enhanced soil fertility and food security:Biochar increases the number of soil microbes, retains nutrients in the soil and hence increases the soil fertility and subsequently there is increased food security. In Laos, Asai et al. (2009) reported that application of biochar improved saturated hydraulic conductivity of top soil. However, biochar may not be suitable for all situations. Derived biochar may enhance the loss of forest humus (Wardle et al., 2008). Therefore identification of specific niches for biochar application is crucial to exploiting its benefits.
Reduced water pollution:Groundwater and surface water pollution through leaching, erosion, etc., is reduced through lower use of chemical fertilizer and reduced degradation of soils. As the nutrients and agrochemicals are retained in the soil due to use of biochar, pollutants produced through agriculture in water is reduced. Mizuta (2004) notes that biochar can remove nitrate and phosphate from water. Biochar also has an affinity for organic compounds which can help retaining toxic organic compounds from water (Kookana et al., 2006).
Waste management:Biochar technology offers a simple and sustainable solution to waste management because agricultural wastes are used as feedstocks.During the pyrolysis process no waste is produced and by-products include syngas and bio-oils can be recycled and used further.
Reduced deforestation and increased cropland diversity:Since biochar technology emphasizes the use of agricultural wastes as feedstock, deforestation is prevented and biodiversity inside soil can be significantly enhanced. Hence, by converting agricultural waste into a powerful soil enhancer with sustainable biochar, cropland diversity can be preserved and deforestation discouraged.
Climate top:
The rice-wheat cropping system in the Indo-Gangetic plains of India produces substantial quantities of crop residues, and if these residues can be pyrolysed, 50% of the carbon in biomass is returned to the soil as biochar This would increase soil fertility and crop yields, while sequestering carbon. In addition, pyrolysis of plant materials with applications of biochar to soil can actually result in a net carbon reduction from the atmosphere of 20%, making it a carbon sequestering process (Lehmann, 2007). It has been projected that about 309 million tonnes of biochar could be produced annually, the application of which might offset about 50% of carbon emissions (292 teragram C yr-1) from fossil fuel (Lal, 2005).
Since biochar technology is relatively new, costs and impacts associated with it are just beginning to be explored. A potential financial barrier to the development and transfer of the technology could be: the high costs of large scale pyrolysis plants, the required investments in biomass feedstocks, infrastructure and access to the upfront capital.
According to Granatstein et al. (2009), the total cost of biochar production ranges from US $194- US$424 per ton of feedstock. The study was based on biomass from sustainable forest, non-farm and ranch-based biochar production. The cost of biochar stoves can range from $6-$40 depending on the type and application of the stoves (Ravenhill, 2012).
The carbon price is critical for the cost effectiveness of biochar projects. The cost effectiveness of biochar stove and kiln projects in developing countries (Asia) up to 2030 is -43.7 US$/tCO2e with carbon price of 6 US$/tCO2e and -157.41 US$/tCO2e for high carbon price of 30 US$/tCO2e in the developing countries. The negative cost-effectiveness value indicates that if the biochar stove and kiln project is implemented in Asia it would offer a net savings to the society (Pratt & Moran, 2010).
Clean Development Mechanism market status top:
A carbon market for sequestered carbon from biochar does not exist yet. In particular there has been no proper way of evaluation of the cost and benefit associated with the application of biochar and mitigation of GHG emissions. Furthermore, there is need to establish the carbon market for biochar. However, the existence of a current methodology for stabilization of organic matter in avoidance of methane emission represents an important precedent (Sohi et al., 2009).
Brownsort, P., A. (2009). Biomass Pyrolysis Processes: Review of scope, control and variability. Retrieved June 3, 2011, from, http://www.biochar.org.uk/download.php?id=14
Chan, K.Y. and Zhihong, X. (2009). Biochar: nutrient properties and their environment. In: J. Lehmann and S. Joseph, (Eds.) Biochar for environmental management, Earthscan, Stirling, VA, USA, 67–84.
Czernik,S and Bridgwater A.V. (2004): ‘Overview of Applications of Biomass Fast Pyrolysis Oil’, Energy Fuels: 590-8.
Forbes, M., S., Raison, R., J. and Skjemstad, J., O. (2006). Formation, transformation and transport of black carbon (charcoal) in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Science Total Environment,370 (1), 190–206.
Galinato, S., Yoder, J. and Granatstein, D., 2011. The economic value of biochar in crop production and carbon sequestration. Energy Policy, 39, pp.6344–6350.
Gaunt, J. and Cowie, A. (2009).Biochar, Greenhouse Gas Accounting and Emissions Trading. In Biochar for Environmental Management:Science and Technology, J. Lehmann and S. Joseph (eds.). London: Earthscan.
Granatstein, D., Krugner, C., Collins, H., Garcia-Perez, M., Yoder, J. (2009). FINAL REPORT: Use of Biochar from the Pyrolysis of Waste Organic Material as a Soil Amendment. Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources. Washington State University.
International Biochar Initiatives (IBI), (2008), Bio-char can be carbon negative.Proceedings from United Nation Climate Change conference,Poznan, December 1-10, Poland. Retrieved January 3, 2012, from, http://www.biochar-international.org/developingeconomies.
Kookana, R., S., Sarmah, A., S., Van Zwieten, L., Krull, E. and Singh, B. (2011). Biochar Application to Soil: Agronomic and Environmental Benefits and Unintended Consequences.Advances in Agronomy. 112, 103-143.
Lal, R. (2005): Carbon sequestration and climate change with special reference to India. Proc International Conference on Soil, Water and Environmental Quality-Issues and Strategies, Indian Soc. Soil Sci., Division of SS and Ac, IARI, New Delhi, India, 295-302.
Lehmann, J. (2007). A Handful of Carbon.Nature. 447, 143-144.
Lehmann, J., Gaunt, J. and Rondon, M. (2006). Biochar sequestration in terrestrial ecosystem-a review.Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, 11, 403-427.
Liang B., Lehmann J., Sohi S., Thies, J. E., O'Neill B., Trujillo L., Gaunt J., Solomon, D., Grossman J., Luizao, F and Neves, E. G. (2009). Black carbon affects the cycling of non-black carbon in soil.Organic Geochemistry, 41(2), 206-213.
Mathews, J.A., (2008). Carbon-negative biofuels. Energy Policy, 36 (2008), 940–945
Mizuta, K., Matsumoto, T., Hatate, Y., Nishihara, K. and Nakanishi, T. (2004). Removal of nitrate-nitrogen from drinking water using bamboo powder charcoal.Bioresource Technology, 95(3), 255-257.
Pratt, K. and Moran, D (2010). Evaluating the Cost-Effectiveness of Global Biochar Mitigation Potential. Biomass and Bioenergy,34(8), 1149-1158.
Ravenhill, A. (2012). Biochar stoves: The commercialization and advantages. Retrieved January 3, 2012, from, http://www.slideshare.net/aravenhill/biochar-stovesthe-commercialization-and-advantages
Roberts, K.G., Brent, A. G., Stephen, J., Norman, R. S., and Johannes, L. (2010). Life Cycle Assessment of Biochar Systems: Estimating the Energetic, Economic, and Climate Change Potential.Environment Science Technology, 44, 827-833.
Samuchit (2010). Biomass Fueled Household Energy Devices. Retrieved December 19, 2011 from http://www.samuchit.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1&Itemid=3#sampada%20stove
Sohi, S., Eliza, L., Evelyn, K, and Roland, B. (2009). Bio-char, Climate change and Soil: A review to guide future research.CSIRO Land and Water Science Report 05/09, 1834-6618.
Wardle, D.A., Nilsson, M.C. and Zackrisson, O., (2008). Fire-derived charcoal causes loss of forest humus.Science. 320(5876), 629.
The UK Biochar Research Centre (UKBRC). (2011). Retrieved December 19, 2011 from, http://www.hedon.info/cat357&deep=onF
Amit Garg
Bruce A. Kimball
D.C. Uprety
Dong Hongmin
Jigeesha Upadhyay
Subash Dhar
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U.S. gives up control of the Internet; Russia, China could pounce -- By Ashe Schow, The Washington Examiner
R.I.P. Internet, we hardly knew ye.
The World Wide Web turned 25 on March 12, and two days later, the Obama administration decided that eh, it had a good run.
The Commerce Department announced Friday that it will relinquish control of the international non-profit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which controls much of the Internet architecture.
The administration said U.S. control over the Internet was supposed to be temporary and eventually turned over to a “global Internet community.”
“This is all about ... separating the Internet from government control,” former Commerce Secretary Cameron Kerry said. “And the United States is in the strongest position to argue against government control of the Internet if it relinquishes that last little bit of control that it has.”
Some, including former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, brought up the possibility that giving up control could lead to “foreign dictatorships defining the Internet.”
Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., agreed, calling the move a “hostile step” against free speech.
“Giving up control of ICANN will allow countries like China and Russia that don't place the same value in freedom of speech to better define how the Internet looks and operates,” Blackburn told National Journal.
Experts chimed in as well. Daniel Castro, senior analyst at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, said, “if the Obama administration gives away its oversight of the Internet, it will be gone forever.”
China and Russia both censor Internet use in their countries — primarily free speech. China has the added tyranny of social media censorship.
Consider the implications if one of these countries jumped in and seized control of the Internet. What would Facebook, Twitter and reddit become? Would they continue to be the bastions of free-flowing ideas (and conspiracy theories) they are currently?
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Nancy Pelosi wants even split on new Benghazi committee --- unlike committee she picked when Speaker -- By Byron York, The Washington Examiner
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is complaining that the new select committee on Benghazi will have more Republican members than Democrats. "If this review is to be fair, it must be truly bipartisan," Pelosi said in a just-released statement. "The panel should be equally divided between Democrats and Republicans, as is done on the House Ethics Committee."
The House has not yet voted to create the select committee, although that is a sure thing. Beyond that, Speaker John Boehner has not said how the new committee will be divided between Republicans and Democrats. But it's a pretty good bet there will be more Republicans than Democrats. The GOP holds the majority in the House, and the majority party has a majority on almost all House committees. More specifically, that is the way things worked on the select committee appointed by Pelosi when she was speaker.
In 2007, the House created a Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. As Speaker, Pelosi set up the structure. There were nine Democrats and six Republicans.
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Home > About Us > Who We Are
The Conservation Leadership Programme (CLP) was initiated in 1985 in response to the need for additional scientific data on threatened species. The programme focused on sponsoring UK university students to collect data on biological diversity overseas during their summer break.
Over time, the programme has evolved to address changing conservation needs, and has become an international capacity building programme supporting young conservationists, the majority of whom are working in their own countries, to undertake applied biodiversity projects in less developed countries.
Based on CLP’s Theory of Change, this infographic displays the six main stages through which CLP supports professional development and conservation action.
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FTCCIS Directors
Chris Dragseth
I am a relative new comer to Cortes Island, moving to Cortes in the fall of 2009 with my wife Debbie. I retired after 33 years with the Federal Government, serving 27 years with DFO and 6 years with Service Canada. Service to the community has been an important aspect of my career, having been a member of Scouts Canada, BC Ambulance Service, Lions Club and the United Way.
The Forest Trust for the Children of Cortes Island is another opportunity to serve my community. Part of my career involved habitat protection with DFO, so the value of the Children’s Forest from a salmonid perspective is clear. However, equally important is the value this watershed is to the well being of our children. My grandchildren Kiera and Aidan have played a role in the public awareness of this valuable asset and have brought home to me the need for public advocacy in support of protecting this valuable resource.
Christine Robinson
I have lived on Cortes Island for 23 years, moving here from the city with my husband, daughter, and son, to a place where forest and beach could be woven through our daily lives. I am a certified BC teacher and outdoor educator, having taught for over 20 years on Cortes, with a particular interest in bringing children, nature and an outdoor curriculum together. I love to explore the natural world with children, and foster relationships between people and nature. I have also been involved in local salmon enhancement with schools for many years, and am a part-time kayak guide.
Having been involved in the vision of the Children’s Forest from the spark of its inception, I feel one of the most vitally important tasks we are facing today is the protection of natural places for future generations of children, and for the well-being of all!
Andrew Smyth
I was raised in England, studied foreign languages at university and subsequently qualified as a lawyer and worked for several years for a commercial law firm in the City of London.
In 1998 my spouse and I immigrated to Canada and settled in Vancouver. I was, and continue to be awestruck by the physical beauty of British Columbia. Proximity and easy access to wild and unspoiled places has been one of the qualities that has made living in BC so fulfilling to me.
After 10 happy years living and working in Vancouver, first in law, and subsequently for our own software integration consultancy, we finally moved to Cortes Island in 2008. We were seeking a place where we could live at a slower pace and raise our daughter in a small community with unrestricted access to nature.
The system of parks and protected wilderness in Canada is a testimony to those who had the foresight to advocate for protection, starting more than 125 years ago. And as many special places in British Columbia continue to be threatened by population growth and resource extraction projects, there are times when communities need to mobilize to protect such places for future generations. The Cortes Children’s Forest represents an opportunity to preserve a remarkable, pristine watershed for the benefit of all, and in particular, current and future generations of children, and I feel privileged to be able to help in this effort.
Hayley Newell
I moved to Cortes Island in 2017, after visiting for a number of years and falling in love with this beautiful island. I believe that Nature is our primary teacher and I know first hand that having a connection with the natural world from a young age, fosters a life-long relationship that weaves through all aspects of life.
I have a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Studies and Geography, a certification in Somatic Therapy and am currently a student of Play Therapy. I take clients outside – as the natural world is also a source of deep healing for us all.
I also have a background in teaching and have worked for various “Forest Schools” – I bring this knowledge and more to the board of the Forest Trust for the Children of Cortes Island Society.
Connie Brill
My formative years began in British Columbia’s west coast rain forest. As a young adult, life took me on the road to new adventures, leaving the forests behind for a time. When I returned and settled back on the coast, I met my husband, Colin, a North Vancouver native. In 1988, with a young family starting, we chose to raise our children in Banff, a town offering wilderness, arts and strong community with an international sensibility. The beauty of the mountain landscape caught our imaginations. Along with growing a family and work, we started Precipice Theatre and wrote, produced and toured environmental plays on issues concerning Banff and Alberta.
Twenty-seven years later, the children had grown into young adults and were off in the world. Colin and I determined it was time to reconnect with our west coast roots and found Cortes Island. The draw of Cortes is again the wilderness, arts and a strong community – only this time in the lush west coast rain forest. It was coming home.
Having spent the past 30 years involved in highlighting environmental awareness and protection through theatre, I dove in when asked to help with a theatre project for the Children’s Forest. The enthusiasm and energy the youth give while trying to preserve this forest drew me further into involvement at the board level. Children and wilderness are a natural fit.
Isabel Steigemann
I grew up on one of Cortes Island’s old farmsteads, right by the ocean. I spent much of my youth outdoors tramping around on the farm, the beach, the forests, the gardens and playing with the animals on the farm. I found my curiosity in the wild animals that roamed about: birds, deer, wolves, sea creatures, insects, raccoons, grouse and so on. I still live on the farm and spend much of my free time outside, gardening and enjoying the beauty. Coming from an artistic and musical family I developed a love for Violin at quite a young age. Eagerly curious about this infinite form of expression and sound, I play and learn more everyday for my own enjoyment.
This nature-based lifestyle, that my parents and community have instilled within me, has been invaluable to me thus far. I appreciate the importance of helping children form connections and generate heartfelt feelings toward the natural world around them, whereby enriching my own experience of it as well.
I’m excited to have an opportunity to give back to my community and the environment. Having spent so much of my own youth in Carrington, on annual family camping trips and hikes, it holds a special place in my heart. I wish to support many other children in forming similar bonds to this special place. As a FTCCIS director, I am working to see the Children’s Forest entrusted to them.
Jodi Peters
I first visited Cortes as a Linnaea Farm Garden Student in 2009, and fell in love with the forests, hiking to Carrington Bay on numerous occasions, and standing in awe of the ancient forest in the pockets where it could still be found. I moved to Cortes with my husband and young daughter in 2014. She is now nearly six, and has a little sister, and my children motivate me daily to work to preserve what is precious about our environment and to change our human-created systems for the better. While I know the world is changing faster and faster, I cannot imagine a future without forests. All my life, trees and the forest have drawn me in, taught me, comforted me. I view them as the purest of beings, offering shade, oxygen and shelter/home for so many creatures. I am especially passionate about preserving old growth forests, and I believe a sustainable forestry sector should leave old growth forests untouched as a priceless and irreplaceable treasure. Unfortunately, we still do not have adequate protection in British Columbia for all old growth forests, and we need to work to change this. And what better place to do this than on this incredible island I call home?
I am excited to work as a director for the FTCCIS. I have a lot of experience working in the non-profit world. While living in Vancouver, I worked for the Vancouver Area Cycling Coalition (now HUB), and the Environmental Youth Alliance, where I got many opportunities to observe and facilitate youth connecting to nature in the middle of the city. Since coming to Cortes, I’ve continued to facilitate youth programs through the CCHA, and also have taught permaculture design courses at Linnaea Farm. Most recently, I completed a Non-Profit Management Certificate through Simon Fraser University, and am honoured to have such a worthy cause to which to apply my experiences and education.
Ann Mortifee
I was born in South Africa on a sugar cane farm in Zululand. My Grandfather helped to create the Umflozi Game Reserve to save the white rhino. It was those early years that instilled in me my passion for Nature. Later, I became a singer/songwriter, a creator of film and ballet scores, CDs, musicals, one-woman shows, workshops and keynote addresses. I have travelled the world, worked with the dying abroad and in Calcutta with Mother Teresa. I’ve spent time with the head Sangoma of the Zulu Nation, lived in war torn Beirut and co-founded The Somerset Foundation and The Trust for Sustainable Forestry. My life has been blessed with adventure.
Moving to Cortes in 1997 with my son, who was 10 at the time, is one of the wisest and most fulfilling things I have done. I knew that the values he would receive here in Nature would be for him, as they were for me, the best education he could receive. And now, being an Honorary Director of the Forest Trust for the Children of Cortes Island Society, I feel the joy of being part of something important and life giving. Every child deserves to be nurtured by the spirit of the land and to know that he or she is a living part of a magical and mysterious world.
Donna Bracewell
I am deeply honoured to have been asked to be serve on the board of the Forest Trust for the Children of Cortes Island Society. Cortes Island was my home for 22 years, during which time I raised our 6 children and was founder-principal of Linnaea School; a nature based alternative school for island children. Many of the children and youth who are working now to preserve the Children’s Forest, attended Linnaea School. They are living proof that children raised to love and care for the natural world, who regularly spend their time with their hands in the dirt, playing in the forest, daydreaming on the shores of a lake and marveling at the morning dew on a spider web, truly understand the preciousness of the gift that is slipping from our grasp.
Although I now live and work on the other side of the world, in Hanoi Vietnam, my heart has stayed connected to Cortes Island. As my husband, David, recently wrote, “Planting a tree here in Hanoi will have an impact on people around the world. My granddaughter in Canada probably will never breathe a single molecule of the oxygen released by these trees, but nonetheless her air will be sweeter for their existence”. So will the entire world be sweeter due to the continued existence of the Children’s Forest.
When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.
To support the protection of the Children's Forest, contribute online through CanadaHelps.org.
US tax-deductible donations through the Charities Aid Foundation.
Hear about news from the Children's Forest!
March Nature Study Day; a study in detritus!
Quadra Outdoors Club Visits the Children’s Forest
BioBlitz 2018 Video Trailer
BioBlitz 2018 Photos!
A FOREST FULL OF THANKS …
Random Image Slideshow
BioBlitz 2017
Nature Study Day, January 1st 2017
Nature Study Day in the Children’s Forest, December 2016
May 1st 2016 Forest Walk
So You Want To Be A Naturalist Workshop 2016
Forest Alphabet tour
Puppet workshop
Forest Walks
Forest Trust Logo Contest Submissions
Ent Project
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Home > NEWS > CHINA > POLITICS >
China firmly opposes any intervention in China's internal affairs : spokesperson
June 13,2019 By:MFA
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Geng Shuang's Regular Press Conference on June 11, 2019
Q: For some time, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has been making remarks on Xinjiang, saying that the Chinese government has detained at least one million Muslim minorities in "re-education camps", devastated the religious freedom of local Muslim communities and tried to eliminate Uyghur culture and Islamic belief. What's your comment?
A: There is a saying in both China and the US, "seeing is believing". I wonder whether Mr. Pompeo has been to Xinjiang ever, but judging from those baseless remarks, he lacks the basic knowledge and understanding of Xinjiang.
In response to his wrong remarks, let me share with you some basic facts about Xinjiang. First, there is no so-called "re-education camps" in Xinjiang at all. The vocational education and training centers legally operated in Xinjiang aim to help a small number of people affected by terrorist and extremist ideologies and equip them with skills, so that they can be self-reliant and re-integrate into society. Since the establishment of the vocational education and training centers, Xinjiang has not witnessed any violent terrorist incidents in the past three years or so. The security situation there has been greatly improved.
Second, people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang fully enjoy freedom of religious belief in accordance with law and the fact is there for all to see. There are 24,400 mosques in Xinjiang, which means on average 530 Muslims share one mosque. According to readily available statistics, the number of mosques in the US is even less than one tenth of that in Xinjiang.
Third, Uyghur culture has been effectively protected and promoted. People of Uyghur ethnicity in Xinjiang have the right to use their own spoken and written languages in accordance with the law. In Xinjiang, multiple languages including Chinese and Uyghur are used in press, publishing, on air and on television. The art of Xinjiang Uygur Muqam has been included in the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
I just said that Mr. Pompeo lacks the basic knowledge and understanding of Xinjiang, but that's not the whole point. What really matters is whether he is willing to know about the real Xinjiang. It will be a totally different matter if he chooses to ignore the facts, becomes obsessed in telling lies and fallacies and attempt to interfere in China's internal affairs under the pretext of human rights and religion.
I would like to remind Mr. Pompeo that the more he puts such drama on stage, the more his true colors will be exposed. Any attempt to interfere in China's internal affairs is doomed to fail.
New railway opens to traffic in Xinjiang, China
Chinese Delegation attends the 40th UNHRC session
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Louis Grandison aka Dexta Daps is a Jamaican reggae singer known for his Dancehall songs as well as ballads. His songs include the 2014 ballad Morning Love, 2015’s 7Eleven and the 2017 song Shabba Madda Pot. Following up on his singles, he launched his debut album Intro in 2017 with an erotic short film that received more than 1.6 million views on YouTube.He performed at Reggae Sumfest in 2017.
DEXTA DAPS
Dexta Daps was born in Seaview Garden, Jamaica, known for reggae legends such as Shabba Ranks, Bounty Killer, Elephant Man and Garnet Silk.
Growing up in the poverty stricken streets he learnt to take out his frustration the best way he knew how, through music. ” I would hear the melodic voices of the kids crying for help, and the sadness of the people. Their voices, and hunger for retribution was very inspiring for me, and made me want to sing songs of happiness and joy.”
In this day and age of music influences, Contemporary Reggae Music, has become a commodity that has crossed over to Rhythm and Blues, Hip-Hop/Rap, all the way to the Pop world. Dexta Daps has been compared to Sean Paul and Maxi Priest with his versatility and unique voice. His style is different and refreshing and with his debut first singles, “Save Me Jah” & “May You Be”, he has proven that. Shaking the dancehall up from Rochester to New York all the way to down to Florida and throughout the United States., Dexta Daps has made a movement of young and old packing the party to hear his songs play. He also demonstrates that he has the Dance-Hall abilities with his underground hit “Seaview” . More recently working with artists such as I Octane, Movado, Bugle, Razz n Biggie, Dexta Daps is currently signed to DASECA Productions.
Working along side the management team of Daseca and the amazing production of both them and Beatmania, he has recorded an unbelievable mixtape called “S.O.S (Straight Out of Seaview
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I LOVE YOU PHILIP MORRIS - Spit or Swallow?
A (very true to the) real life story of Steven Russel (Jim Carrey) - a Christian, a family man, and a closet homosexual - who after a devastating car crash decides he's going to ditch the lies and be true to himself. And that means moving to Miami, becoming as queer as a $12 note, and starting a life of crime, deception and fraud to fund his exuberant "out" lifestyle.
When the conman is finally caught - he goes to prison in Texas where he meets and instantly falls in "love" with the effeminate, vulnerable Philip Morris (Ewan McGregor). The rest of the story documents the jail-breaks, cons and increasingly incredible antics that Russel employs to get close and stay close to Morris. The true story (1, 2) is faithfully represented on screen - and is so strange that it warrants the "This really happened... It really did" on-screen message in the titles.
So that's the basic plot - but what is this film really about? I think the whole experience can be summed up in four points:
An unflinching and uncompromising look at gay sex. You expect some boundary-pushing stuff from the directors of BAD SANTA - and I LOVE YOU PHILIP MORRIS doesn't disappoint. If you're uncomfortable with seeing men bone, you've got a real problem here. Whole sequences revolve around homosexual fellatio. Russel's sexuality is revealed by a graphic and unexpected scene of anal intercourse. Ewan McGregor gives more head than a hooker on a Saturday night. The big black guy behind me in the cinema repeatedly told his girlfriend "I'm not comfortable with this" while squirming. The depiction of sex in this film is pretty gritty and down to earth - and very funny - and challenges the Hollywood status quo of not depicting graphic homosexuality. It's an acquired taste - don't take your Granny.
A parody of the "gay" scene, and the prejudice it faces. "Golf? But you're a homosexual!" says Morris to Russel as he tries to fit in in a homophobic Texan workplace. The gay stereotype is exposed as fake - Russel's obsession with being as "gay" as he can be takes him to a caricatured extreme which reflects his real character and feelings but little. Russel's wife and colleagues on the other hand comically reflect southern homophobia (and racism). "So does the gay thing and stealing thing go together?" asks Russel's evangelical Christian wife to his boyfriend. In this way both extremes are held up to ridicule. You could argue that they were easy targets though, and the attacks aren't substantial enough to form a really coherent thread.
A raucous comedy that shows that real life is stranger than fiction. There's no doubting this film is funny. It wasn't made to shock - rather it was made primarily to amuse. Carrey and McGregor carry off the smitten gay couple perfectly - Carrey especially amuses throughout and gives a performance that thankfully relies little on rubber-faced humour, and far more on talent and comic timing. The sheer bare-faced cheek of his antics, and the exuberant gayness of whole flick, makes it utterly entertaining from beginning to end. It's worth seeing just for a laugh.
A dark and tragic portrayal of a broken man. Other reviewers have interpreted I LOVE YOU PHILIP MORRIS as a romance. Don't be fooled, there's nothing romantic about it. Russel suffers acute separation anxiety due to his adoption and later summary rejection by his birth mother. He becomes the ultimate people-pleaser - defining his sense of worth by what others think of him, unable to tell the truth or approach anything resembling intimacy. This vacuum in his sense of identity drives him to attach to models and stereotypes of what he feels he ought to be - the best Christian ever, the best husband and father ever - then the most screaming queer ever, the biggest liar ever. Progressively deadened spiritually and emotionally, he seeks some sort of connection with life and feelings through compulsive thrill seeking - addictive spending, compulsive lying. Finally, he defines himself through a love-addicted and completely dishonest attachment to Philip Morris. Morris is complicit as the co-dependent in this - flattered by Russel's attentions and turning a blind eye to his obvious dysfunctions. Ultimately, Russel becomes nothing more than his pathology - a borderline personality in the truest sense - his sense of self completely eroded.
So in summary, this is a very black comic tragedy, looking the audience straight in the eye and never flinching from giving us reality, however ugly, sweaty or gay. The real tragedy of course is that it's a true story - Russel is a genuine product of a abandonment, dysfunctional family life, prejudice and stereotype.
His various addictions and compulsions are funny, but only in the sense that a visit to the asylum is funny. He represents the spiritual corruption and emptiness of man. His wife, through her prejudice, unwittingly stumbles on a truth - asking whether the gay thing and stealing thing go together. In Russel, we cannot be sure whether any part of his personality is genuine - or whether it is merely another attempt to self-define or self-affirm through some outside object or activity.
Russel is a pathetic character in the truest sense - his tragic end the inevitable conclusion of his many character flaws.
So, overall expect a shock, expect a challenge, expect a laugh - but don't expect to walk away happy.
This is a really solid film - the acting is consistently excellent, the way the story is told is clever, and it covers some very challenging subject matter. But it's not a romance, it's not DUMB AND DUMBER, and it's not for the fainthearted. With that caveat, it comes highly recommended.
I LOVE YOU PHILIP MORRIS played Sundance and Cannes 2009 and was released earlier this year in Belgium, France, Russia, Taiwan, Finland, Sweden, Estonia, Italy, Lithuania and Kazakhstan. It is currently on release in Japan, the UK and the Philippines. It opens next month in Iceland, Brazil, the Netherlands and Germany. It opens in the US on May 7th.
Posted by Daniel Plainview at 12:40 No comments:
Labels: biopic, comedy, ewan macgregor, Jim Carrey, leslie mann, rodrigo santoro, romance, sexually explicit, Sundance
THE BLIND SIDE - insidious, manipulative schmaltz
THE BLIND SIDE is a deeply insidious movie that has been rewarded with Oscar gold, one suspects, as a gesture toward Sandra Bullock's track record in bringing home the cheques with her trademark fluffy romantic-comedies. It is based on the true story of Leigh Anne Tuohy, an All-American soccer mom who gives a home to an enormous black kid from a deprived neighbourhood, seemingly on a whim. Once she has committed to raising him, Leigh Anne does so with ferocious commitment, eventually seeing him into a successful American football career. There is no dramatic tension. Neither is there suspense. It is quite clear that from the polished veneer that we are in the kind of territory where good triumphs over evil and where racial politics are reduced to offensive bland statements. Note how Quinton Aaron, as Michael Oher, is essentially objectified - a passive object with a skill, merely there to respond to Bullock/Touhy's sympathy and actions. I find the Academy lauding this film, and Sandra Bullock's role in particular, rather fascinating. On the one hand, the racial politics of this film affirm the Liberal credentials of the Academy, and you can see them just desperate to acknowledge this film in the same way that they acknowledged CRASH. On the other hand, Leigh Anne Touhy is a character straight out of a liberal humanist's worst nightmares. And I quote, "If you so much as set foot downtown you will be sorry. I'm in a prayer group with the D.A., I'm a member of the NRA and I'm always packing." And so, ladies and gentlemen, we have the current aspirations of both left and right wing America wrapped in a one lady - racially aware but also gun-totin' and bible-quotin'. It does rather feel like Hollywood is trying to have its cake and eat it.
THE BLIND SIDE was released last year in the US and Canada. It was released earlier this year in Singapore, the Philippines, Australia, Hong Kong, Japan and Uruguay. It is currently on release in Argentina, Kuwait, Brazil and Mexico. It opens this weekend in Germany, Portugal, Austria and the UK. It opens on April 19th in Finland and on May 6th in Denmark. It is released on Region 1 DVD today.
Additional tags: Tim McGraw, Quinton Aaron, Jae Head, Lily Collines, Ray McKinnon, Kim Dickens, Alar Kivilo
Labels: biopic, carter burwell, drama, john lee hancock, kathy bates, sandra bullock
GREEN ZONE - too simplistic, too late
GREEN ZONE is Matt Damon and Peter Greengrass' risible attempt to sucker the fanbase of the BOURNE films into watching a movie with a more avowedly political subject matter. Which just goes to show that the mainstream audience isn't that dumb. Just because it's got shaky handheld camera work and Matt Damon running around looking earnest and puzzled, doesn't mean that a movie is suspenseful or fundamentally politically interesting. I think the basic problem with GREEN ZONE, other than that it's not BOURNE 4, is that it's trying to make something we now taken as read look interesting. Yes, yes, it's a crying shame that we were taken into war in Iraq on the false premise that the Iraqis had weapons of mass destruction. But, seven years later, I think the public is too jaded to really care. We were lied to - we're in a mess - now what? Kathryn Bigelow broke through the apathy with her micro-psycho take on the archetypal figure in a street-fighting war - the bomb disposal expert. Her film, THE HURT LOCKER, was tense, but also took us into a side of the war that we genuinely might not have know about before. But GREEN ZONE, for all its earnest good intentions, tells us nothing new, and shows us nothing new. Roger Ebert says that GREEN ZONE looks at war in a way no other war film has, insofar as the US is the dupe not the hero. I beg to differ. Hollywood has been making great films about the vicious lie at the heart of most wars for decades, not least about Vietnam and more recently with THREE KINGS. Ebert also damns with praise here: "By limiting the characters and using typecasting, he [Brian Helgeland] makes the deceit easy to understand". Respect to Ebert, but no. If you have to debase yourself with typecasting, then you're just not up to the job. And at any rate, this film really just isn't that complicated. The trick missed is to show the personal human price paid. As THE HURT LOCKER took inside the insane world of the lead character, we should've seen more about how a stand-up guy like Damon's CWO Roy Miller would've reacted psychologically to realising that he'd been duped. What happens when the naive man grows up? That to me is more interesting than how fast and where he runs around.
GREEN ZONE is on release in Australia, Kazakhstan, Russia, Singapore, Canada, Finland, Indonesia, Norway, the Philippines, Spain, Sweden, the UK, the USA, Egypt, Germany, Kuwait, Switzerland, and Austria. It opens this weekend in Denmark, South Korea and Estonia. It opens on April 14th in Belgium, France, Argentina, the Netherlands and Brazil. It opens in Italy on April 23rd, in Turkey on April 30th, in Japan on May 14th, in Hungary on June 3rd and in Poland on June 4th.
Labels: brendan gleeson, greg kinnear, iraq, Matt Damon, paul greengrass, thriller, war
THE GHOST WRITER - the joy of skewering Bliar
I eagerly anticipated the release of Roman Polanski's latest film, THE GHOST WRITER. Partly because I think Polanski is a fascinating director, with a technical mastery beyond many of his contemporaries and an obsession with the sinister that is as compelling as it is unwavering. Partly because I have always loved Robert Harris' intelligent, well-researched, political thrillers. And partly because his novel, "The Ghost", is a thinly veiled skewering of a particularly slippery figure - Tony Blair. I was not disappointed. THE GHOST WRITER reminded me a lot of MICHAEL CLAYTON - it's intelligent, suspenseful, provocative and beautifully made. Indeed, quite superbly photographed by DP Pawel Edelman.
The plot centres on an un-named writer (Ewan McGregor) who has been hired to ghost the memoirs of an oleaginous former Prime Minsiter, Adam Lang (a perfectly cast Pierce Brosnan). The plot is driven by his investigation of the accusation that Lang illegally handed war criminals to the CIA. The Ghost doesn't know whether to trust Lang, his wife Ruth (Olivia Williams), his mistress (Kim Cattrall) or his aides. And of course, this being Polanski, there are no idealistic pay-offs for truth-seekers.
When I left the screening I had a wistful feeling. Because as polished and convincing as THE GHOST WRITER is, somehow, because you know it was made by Polanski, and you know what he is capable of achieving, you end up feeling a little short-changed by a "mere" good thriller. I loved the Hitchcock reference, but it wasn't necessary to the plot. And that kind of slight mis-step seemed to me indicative of a true auteur turning in a "place-holder" film.....
THE GHOST WRITER played Berlin 2010 where Roman Polanski won the Silver Bear. It is on release in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Poland, the US, the Philippines, Belgium, France, Canada, Greece, Israel, Estonia and Italy. It opens this weekend in Denmark and Norway. It opens on April 8th in Portugal and on April 16th in Finland, Spain, Sweden and the UK. It opens in May in Thailand, the Netherlands and Romania. It opens in June in Hungary and the Czech Republic, and on August 19th in Argentina and Slovakia.
Labels: alexandre desplat, eli wallach, ewan macgregor, kim cattrall, olivia williams, Pawel Edelman, pierce brosnan, roman polanski, thriller, timothy hutton, Tom Wilkinson
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO - a faithful adaptation of a great thriller
Niels Arden Oplev's screen adaptation of the wildly successful Stieg Larsson thriller, THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, is a sure crowd-pleaser. Though still coming in at two and a half hours, it is an admirably condensed and faithful adaptation of a complicated thriller. As fans will be well aware - and I'm assuming most people who see the film will have already read all three books - the movie is about two people who form an unlikely bond in order to investigate an old crime in one of Sweden's most prominent families. Years ago, a young girl disappeared from the wealthy island inhabited largely by her family - the Vangers. In old age, her grand-uncle hires disgraced investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist to re-examine the case and the rogue's gallery of former Nazis and selfish old bastards that make up the Vanger family. Blomkvist is a like-able decent guy - and in his relationship with his long time mistress and best friend Erika, as well as with his new found aide, Lisbeth Salander, he proves that he is a "man who loves women". He enjoys their company, enjoys making love to them, treats them as equals and with respect. But Lisbeth Salander - the true star of the books and this film - is a prickly character - highly intelligent, gifted with computers, a victim of extreme abuse, and as uncomfortable in her skin as Blomkvist is at peace.
I found the direction to be workmanlike in all but the elegant way in which the IT hacking was depicted. What set the movie apart was, source material notwithstanding, the genuine sympathy between, and charisma of, the two lead characters. Michael Nyqvist is superb as the laconic Blomkvist, and Noomi Rapace commits physically and psychologically so fully to being Lisbeth Salander that you can feel the ferocity. And this is important, because inevitably, in order to compress the film, the side relationships - and the smaller characters at Millenium and Milton Security - have been stripped away. As a result, the film lives and dies by whether you are emotionally affected by an abused woman opening a small sliver of her life to Blomkvist. This is much more pivotal than solving the "whodunnit". After all, if there's any real message to Larson's novel, it's that the establishment in its entirety did it.
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO was released in 2009 in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Hungary, Finland, France, Switzerland, Belgium, Canada, Italy, Spain, Iceland, the Netherlands, Portugal, Germany, Greece, Austria, Poland and New Zealand. It opened earlier this year in Japan and Estonia. It is currently on release in the US and UK and opens next weekend in Australia. It opens on April 23rd in Brazil.
Additional tags: Jacob Groth, Jens Fischer, Eric Kress, Michael Nyqvist, Noomi Rapace, Lena Endre, Peter Haber, Sven-Bertil Taube, Peter Andersson, Ingvar Hirdwall, Marika Lagercrantz, Ewa Froling, Tomas Kohler, Gosta Bredefeldt, Niels Arden Oplev.
Labels: jacob groth, lena endre, michael nykvist, niels arden oplev, noomi rapace, peter andersson, politics, psychological, sexually explicit, sweden, thriller
CRAZY HEART - sanitised
CRAZY HEART is an earnest and handsomely made film from debutant director Scott Cooper. It's a simple story about an old country singer, reduced to playing small gigs while his mentee plays stadiums. He falls for a well-meaning, likeable young woman, and is finally compelled to seek help for his alcohol addiction when he imperils her son. The movie has an air of intimacy thanks to Scott Cooper's predeliction for warm tones, close-ups and lingering shots. It has an impeccable country score, masterminded by T-Bone Burnett, and played out by Jeff Bridges as the ageing Bad Blake and Colin Farrell as Tommy Sweet. But there is no "wow" factor - nothing that makes you think this is an Oscar-winning movie or an Oscar-winning performance. Sure, Jeff Bridges turns in an affecting performance, but where's the savage psychological daring of THE WRESTLER? Where's the hurt and hopelessness and sheer Sisyphian pain or endurance? Nah. CRAZY HEART is soul-bearing-lite. It's grinds through its gears, and we reach the end, still basking in the honey glow of an all-too-easy conversion to sobriety, as cheerful as the cute little kid. It's too easy. Too sanitised. Too forgettable.
Additional tags: Barry Markowitz, T-Bone Burnett, Stephen Bruton, James Keane, Thomas Cobb, Scott Cooper.
CRAZY HEART was released in 2009 in the USA. It is currently on release in the UK, New Zealand, Mexico, Norway, Belgium, France, the Philippines, Germany, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, Brazil, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Malta, Argentina and Turkey.
Labels: colin farrell, cool tunes, drama, jeff bridges, maggie gyllenhaal, music, robert duvall, romance
Normal service will resume shortly....
So, I've had a bunch of emails pitched at varying stages of directness asking where the new reviews are. The intern will have these on line by the middle of next week, apparently, after I detox and write them (it was the variety of wine that did it.) In the meantime, know that I rather liked THE GIRL IN THE PEARL EARRING; was deeply underwhelmed by both THE BLIND SIDE and CRAZY HEART; depressed by OLD DOGS; charmed by I LOVE YOU PHILIP MORRIS; and very sorry that Thomas Turgoose hadn't been given a better script in THE SCOUTING BOOK FOR BOYS.
ALICE IN WONDERLAND 3D - what is Tim Burton trying to say here?
My response to ALICE IN WONDERLAND 3D was much the same as my response to Tim Burton's Roald Dahl adaptation, CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY. The production design, costumes, and sheer visual imagery were wondrous to behold. But Tim Burton had made poor choices regarding the narrative structure, tone and very heart of the subject matter.
So let's go back to the beginning. This movie originates in the children's novels Alice's Adventures In Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass and What Alice Found There. The novels were written by Charles Dodgson, an Oxford mathematician, better known as Lewis Carroll. On one level, the novels fall into the category of nonsense literature, in the same vein as Edward Lear. When the little girl Alice chases a small white rabbit, clothed in a waistcoat, down a rabbit hole, she enters a world that is surreal, sometimes sinister and that defies narrative logic. Potions and mushrooms make you larger or smaller. Animals talk, have tea parties and smoke hookah pipes. There are riddles, logic puzzles and chess moves; wonderful explorations of mirror-ing, double-ing and mathematical concepts; satirical sketches of donnish Oxford life; references to the Wars of the Roses - but ultimately, it's all just one giant non sequitor. Anything can happen because anything can follow. For a little child, this is a wonderfully liberating, but also an extraordinarily frightening concept. (The same conflicting reaction is at the heart of the most sinister of all the very sinister late Victorian and early Edwardian childrens' novels - Peter Pan. To this day, I am shocked that this is marketed as a children's novel rather than as horror.)
The genius of the original illustrations by Tenniel was to capture that strangeness - at once captivating and repulsive. Alice with her dark eyes and obnoxious self-confidence - the stern Victorian politicians anthropomorphicised into baffling characters. Wonderland is a world where one can fear drowning in a sea of one's own tears and where power is abused by a series of tyrannical and clearly insane aristos. It's hardly Disney. Unless of course you are watching the bland saccharine Disney version of the film. As adaptations go, it was faithful in the superficial - the characters were all there as were the each of the famous scenes in the right order - but completely failed to capture the sheer oddness of the world. To that end, Jonathan Miller's BBC film is my adaptation of choice - he fully explores the concept that Wonderland is really Oxford and makes the characters there so very close to real people, Wonderland isn't "other" or "under" but sits alongside reality.
Given how dark and surreal the source material is, I would've thought that Tim Burton would've been the perfect director for ALICE IN WONDERLAND 3D. And as the publicity stills were released I got more and more excited. I loved the make-up for Johnny Depp's Mad Hatter - he looked like a psychedelic version of McAdder. Helena Bonham Carter's encephelatic head as what I thought was the Queen of Hearts looked superb. Matt Lucas, who I'll always think of as the baby on Shooting Stars, looked born to play Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee. And when you looked down the cast list you could see lots of high-class British character actors in the voice roles, from Stephen Fry as the Cheshire Cat to most surprisingly and perfectly Barbara Windsor as the Doormouse. Most wonderfully of all, I was longing to Crispin Glover - a fascinating but little seen actor - as the Knave of Hearts. I suppose my suspicions might have been aroused by the casting of Australian Mia Wasikowska as Alice - not on the grounds that she can't act - she makes a perfectly decent fist of her role - but because she isn't a child. So there was obviously some serious re-writing at hand. And then, with the very appearance of the Tweedles and the White Queen (Anne Hathaway) they were clearly conflating the two novels, most notably in the character that looks like the Queen of Hearts but is called the Red Queen.
The resulting film is a strange beast indeed, but in all the wrong ways. Script-writer Linda Woolverton (BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, MULAN, ALLADIN) has made Alice a teenager being pressured into marriage. She runs away from her fate and down the rabbithole, but refuses to believe that she has been there before, as a child, despite being haunted by recurring nightmares of talking caterpillars and smiling cats. When she reaches the Underland, which she had mistakenly called Wonderland, she finds a landscape of scorched earth, stormy skies and familiar characters suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome. To echo LA Times reviewer, Kenneth Turan, the Mad Hatter's tea party seems to be set in a sort of ill-conceived Mordor and the Mad Hatter himself has lost his mind in reaction to the Red Queen's hostile take-over of Underland. When events get too much for him he trips into a pitch perfect Scottish accent, but this only serves to make him even more McAdderish! The loose plot sees Alice journey to the Red Queen's palace to capture the Vorpal Sword and free the Hatter. She then visits the White Queen and summons the courage to defeat the Jabberwocky on the frabjous day (calloo callay!) in a finale that would've mean more appropriate to LOTR.
Despite the lovely creations that are the Mad Hatter, the Red Queen and the lovely costumes for Alice, the movie feels rather dismal and flat. I suppose that can't be helped as this is a vanquished world, but somehow, that wasn't a problem for Narnia or Rohan. Alice is supposed to find herself but the transformation isn't particularly convincing. Back in the real world, the idea that she would then become a neo-feminist adventuress is ludicrous. I think the problem is that the movie shifts in tone rather abruptly. In the same scene, you'll have Johnny Depp playing it utterly straight as the traumatised hatter, but Anne Hathaway pastiching the idea of the pure, slightly unpractical, narcissistic White Queen, with her pure white dress but scarily black lips and nails. Both are fine, but do they belong in the same film? And the sheer ill-judgement of the 1980s dancing that the Hatter roles out in the penultimate scene defies description.
Overall, then, while I can see consistency of design, I didn't see a consistency of vision as to what this movie was really about and what it was trying to say. A fatal flaw, no matter how lovely the costumes. Burton refuses to let ALICE be a wonderfully nonsensical nonsequitor. He wants to give characters a back story and feeeeeelings. But at the same time, he doesn't take the time to actually explore them properly. Worst of all, with the exception of the rather lazy introduction of some real-world twins, nowhere do we see Alice's visions as subconscious reworkings of people she has seen in the real world.
Additional tags: Mia Wasikowska, Dariusz Wolski, Christopher Lee, Geraldine James, Tim Piggott-Smith, Frances de la Tour, Marton Csokas, Barbara Windsor, Leo Bill, Linda Woolverton.
ALICE IN WONDERLAND is on global release.
Labels: alan rickman, animation, Anne Hathaway, children, crispin glover, danny elfman, helena bonham carter, johnny depp, lindsay duncan, michael sheen, stephen fry, tim burton, timothy spall
Random DVD Round-Up 4 - THE PRIVATE LIVES OF PIPPA LEE
THE PRIVATE LIVES OF PIPPA LEE is a movie that is utterly, wretchedly disappointing. Despite an all-star cast, and handsome production values, the resulting film is uneven in tone, superficial where it wants to be profound, and undeserving of the big emotional punches it tries to pull.
The film was written and directed by Rebecca Miller(THE BALLAD OF JACK AND ROSE), based on her own play. It features the eponymous Pippa Lee (Robin Wright Penn) as a middle-aged woman, questioning her life choices through a series of flashbacks. Despite her picture perfect middle-aged existence, we learn that, as a young girl, Pippa was damaged by her exposure to her mother's addiction to speed and resulting psychological problems. The young Pippa (Blake Lively) thus high-tails it to New York where she almost falls into become a soft-porn model for her aunt's girlfriend (Julianne Moore) out of sheer boredom, develops a drug habit of her own, but then is rescued by an older man (Alan Arkin.) Fast forward to her present day crisis, and Pippa is living with her aged husband in a retirement community. She is insulted by his affair with a damaged even younger woman (Winona Ryder) and so trips into an affair of her own with an equally damaged young man (Keanu Reeves).
As I said, this is a well-cast film, and handsomely photographed. I have no doubt that Miller is trying to earnestly explore middle-aged feminine angst and to say something profound about self-esteem and addiction. The problem is that none of it seems real. It all seems like a very stage-y very contrived set of scenes, clumsily shuffled into a movie. At times it almost seems like a caricature of one of those Woody Allen films, except without the wry humour, where old men seem to be able to attract ever younger more attractive women and everyone spends the whole time discussing their neuroses and committing suicide.
Enough already.
THE PRIVATE LIVES OF PIPPA LEE was released last autumn and is available on DVD and on iTunes.
Labels: alan arkin, declan quinn, drama, julianne moore, keanu reeves, maria bello, michael rohatyn, monica bellucci, rebecca miller, robin wright penn, winona ryder
Random DVD Round-Up 3 - SHIFTY
SHIFTY is the impressive debut feature from British writer-director, Eran Creevey. It portrays 24 hours in the life of a second generation Pakistani boy nick-named Shifty (Riz Ahmed, THE ROAD TO GUANTANEMO), who has evolved from being a good schoolkid selling a bit of weed on the side into a hard core crack dealer. Shifty is on the edge of a knife - his elder brother Rez (Nitin Ganatra, EASTENDERS) and his best mate Chris (Daniel Mays, ATONEMENT), recently returned from Manchester, are trying to pull Shifty back from a life of crime. But Shifty is being set-up by his dealer Glen (Jason Flemyng).
The movie was shot for under £100,000 in just 18 days and captures the grim reality of suburban drug use in sludge colours and lower middle-class homes. This isn't London as Compton wannabe KIDULTHOOD style. Rather, you see drug use messing with real families. The movie is emotionally tense and builds suspense toward a dramatic conclusion. It feels authentic and while it makes some perceptive points about the cultural ironies of a being a second-gen Muslim immigrant, it wears its social critique lightly. SHIFTY is just superb guerilla film-making.
SHIFTY played London 2008 and opened in the UK in April 2009. It is available on DVD and on iTunes.
Labels: British, daniel mays, ed wild, eran creevey, francesca annis, jason flemyng, jason maza, london, narcotics, riz ahmed
Random DVD Round-Up 2 - CREATION
CREATION is a handsomely made, beautifully acted biopic of Charles Darwin, focussing on the period during which he wrote his seminal work, ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. Based on the biography by Randal Keynes, the movie stars real-life couple Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly as Charles and Emma Darwin. They are utterly convincing as a deeply loving couple grown distant because of their differing reactions to Darwin's work, more widely, and to familial grief, more closely. Emma looks to the Church for solace, as represented by the orthodox but genuinely concerned Reverend Innes. Charles turns to his science, and experiences a gradual loss of faith. He also, most touchingly, lives in his memories of his relationship with his dead little girl Annie (Martha West). One of the most brutal lines in the film is where Charles asks Emma whether his fancies are an more a prop than her idea of Annie in heaven.
What I love about this film is that, despite the costumes and the lush period settings, which can so often be distancing, there is an immediacy and credibility to the Darwin family. I completely believed in the emotional and intellectual struggle between the two parents, and I was entranced by the relationship between Charles and his daughter Annie. Martha West (daughter of the Dominic West) has genuine charisma, and it's delightful to see Charles' delight in telling his children fantastical stories of different tribes he has encountered on his travels.
The movie also cleverly sidesteps the highly politicised debate (in the US at least) between believing in evolutionary theory and in the Old Testament. Rather than reducing the movie to a bald and crude debate between the two sides, CREATION makes the struggles personal and nuanced. Reverend Innes is orthodox but no fanatic - he wants to be a genuine friend to Darwin. And Darwin is losing faith, but for a personal reason, and sees in the wondrous variety of nature something to be praised.
Given the lamentful tone of the piece, its considered pacing and focus on internal struggle, I was rather surprised to find that CREATION had been directed by Jon Amiel, the man behind action flicks, THE CORE and ENTRAPMENT. But he has completely succeeded in creating a quiet, delicate film in which deep issues are internalised.
CREATION played Toronto 2009 and was released in 2009 in the UK, Greece and New Zealand. It was released earlier this year in the Netherlands, Belgium, Canada, and the US. It goes on release in Brazil next week and in Argentina on April 15th. It is available on DVD and on iTunes.
Additional tags: Jon Amiel, John Collee, Randal Keynes, Jim Carter, Martha West, Christopher Young, Jess Hall.
Labels: benedict cumberbatch, biopic, British, costume, drama, haris zambarloukos, jennifer connelly, jeremy northam, paul bettany, religion, toby jones
Random DVD Round-Up 1 - DOGGING: A LOVE STORY
DOGGING: A LOVE STORY is the debut feature from British director Simon Ellis, with a screenplay from Brock Norman Brock - the man who wrote one of the best films of 2009 - BRONSON. Despite the deliberately provocative title, and plenty of night-vision footage of random Geordies having sex in parked cars while voyeurs look on, or are invited in, the movie itself is rather banal. Clueless wannabe journalist Dan (Luke Treadaway - BROTHERS OF THE HEAD) tries to write an expose of this seamy social activity, egged on by his lecherous flat-mate Rob (Richard Riddell). There's a bit of voyeurism and fumbling internet chat before loser Dan finally meets up with the equally dim-witted Laura (Kate Heppell). The film-makers presumably wanted to subvert the prurient subject-matter with a rather naive love story, but neither the top-shelf antics of the doggers nor the drippy nascent romance seem particularly believable or interesting. There's some low level black comedy as voyeurs praise the suspension of a knackered car in which a couple are going gangbusters on the back seat. And a passing attempt at emotional drama in the relationship between Laura and her concerned father. Other than that, I suspect this film will be best remembered for having passed over an audition from Robert Pattinson. Out of the car park and into the celibate teen vampire flick!
DOGGING: A LOVE STORY aka PUBLIC SEX was released in the US in October 2009 and in the UK on December 26th 2009. It is available on DVD and iTunes.
Additional tags: simon ellis, brock norman brock, michael groom, luke treadaway, richard riddell, sammy t dobson, kate heppell, allen mechen, tom bailey, robert hardy,
Labels: British, comedy, DV, sexually explicit
Overlooked DVD of the month - THE COVE
Now, I'm no hippie vegetarian peace-nik and in general, I am sceptical about the ability of agit-docs to change the world, given that they largely preach to the choir. On top of that, I am sceptical about how many documentaries make good use of the 35mm format and truly deserve a theatrical release as opposed to TV airtime. THE COVE is an exception. Watching it was as close as I've ever come to caring about animal welfare. And that's because the documentary is well-argued; is argued with passion; makes itself interesting by disguising itself as a special ops mission; and finishes with the kind of visceral footage that you just can't ignore.
The basic premise is this: dolphins are no ordinary mammals - unlike cattle or chickens, they are possessed of keen intelligence and self-awareness - traits that make farming them for their flesh, or to perform inane tricks in dolphinariums, particularly cruel. Of course, everyone loves Flipper, and in most countries eating dolphin is taboo. However, in Japan dolphins are indeed farmed, as they are too small to come under the protection of the International Whaling Commission. Not that the IWC would do much: it's shown to be a toothless body in which Japan pays off small countries to vote in their bloc. What's even worse is that the dolphins are not farmed in anything like a humane manner. Rather, in the notorious and eponymous cove in Taiji, they are basically tortured with the loud noise of patrol boats and herded into a netted bay, whereafter fisherman harpoon them to death. How do we know this? Because the documentarians mount a daring special ops mission involving camouflaged cameras hidden as rocks, thermal imaging, and general derring do.
The resulting movie contains beautiful images of the ocean that fully justify the use of a big screen, but also some really powerful images of a cove red with the blood of dolphins and audio tracks of dolphins in evident distress. We also get some heroes: not just veteran campaigner Richard O'Barry, whose claim that a dolphin can commit suicide might stretch credulity, but the documentarians themselves, who decided to get the footage out.
This film is something that many films are lazily called - a "must-see movie".
THE COVE was released in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, France, Finland, Germany, the UK, Belgium and the Netherlands last year. It opened earlier this year in Estonia and Sweden earlier this year and in Denmark and Portugal last week. THE COVE is also available on DVD.
THE COVE has been nominated for an Academy Award and has already won a DGA, NBR, WGA and Sundance award.
Additional tags: louie psihoyos, mark monroe, j ralph, brook aitken, geoffrey richman
Labels: documentary, overlooked, politics, Sundance
MESRINE: PART 2 - PUBLIC ENEMY #1
In MESRINE PART 2: PUBLIC ENEMY NUMBER 1 we see Mesrine in frumpy middle-age, already notorious as a bank robber and serial prison escapee, but now trying to fuel his reputation with an ill-judged foray into political terrorism. The second part of this all-star cast biopic of the real French thug is thus a tale of hubris and decline, neatly cancelling the glamour, raciness and sheer absurdity of his daring exploits in the first film. Vincent Cassel puts on weight and a series of fruity wigs to play the older Mesrine and he is convincing as a man out of time. The bank robberies of the 1960s look rather quaint in the 1970s - a world where crime is a political act and the players are the PLO and the Baader-Meinhof gang.
Dramatically, Mesrine is contrasted with his co-conspirator Francois Besse (Mathieu Amalric). Besse just wants to keep his head down and out of prison. He doesn't understand Mesrine's need to fan his notoriety and to make ill-judged political forays. He doesn't understand Mesrine's need to taunt his victims - sitting in front of them in disguise and asking if they have had any trouble with a notorious bank robber. Despite the flashes of dark humour in such exchanges, the overall tone of this second film is one of tragedy. Mesrine is a debased and delusional man, kidding himself that his crimes, and his anger at the French state, has some deeper meaning. Even his relationships are debased. Rather than the more genuine love of the mother of his children, he now ends up with Sylvia (Ludivine Sagnier) - a woman who is attracted to Mesrine the myth rather than Mesrine the man.
As in the first film, the quality of the production in Part Two is top notch. From the costumes, to the architecture of the escape scenes to the acting - everything is impressive. I was particularly impressed that despite an opening shot that shows how Mesrine will be brought down, the film-makers still manage to sustain tension throughout, especially in the final sequences leading up to that event.
MESRINE: PUBLIC ENEMY NO 1 played Tokyo 2008 and was released in Belgium, France and Russia in November 2008. It opened in 2009 in the Czech Republic, Hungary, the Netherlands, Croatia, Israel, Slovakia, Italy, Turkey, Greece, Norway, Germany, Denmark, the UK and Japan. It is available on DVD.
Additional tags: jean-francois richet, abdel raouf dafri, gerard lanvin, olivier gourmet
Labels: anne consigny, biopic, France, ludivine sagnier, mathieu amalric, thriller, vincent cassel
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO - a faithful adapt...
ALICE IN WONDERLAND 3D - what is Tim Burton tryin...
Random DVD Round-Up 4 - THE PRIVATE LIVES OF PIPPA...
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By the Numbers: A Look at BIOS’s R/V Atlantic Explorer
Ten years ago this fall, BIOS purchased a 168-foot submersible support ship from Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute in Florida, reconfigured lab and deck space, modified it for science work offshore Bermuda, and 18 months later sailed the converted oceanographic research vessel into its new homeport in St. George’s, Bermuda. Since then, that vessel—renamed reseacrh vessel Atlantic Explorer—has sailed tens of thousands of miles on behalf of BIOS scientists and hundreds of other researchers worldwide for science work and marine education initiatives.
Marine Operations Coordinator Susan Brittner, who joined the marine operations staff in 2009, reviewed some of the vessel’s recent milestones, and previewed what’s ahead as the ship enters its busiest sailing and science season of the year.
Nautical miles traveled in 2014: 18,200 (or 21,174 miles. That’s a few thousand miles shy of the distance around the globe at the equator)
Sea days planned for 2015: 157 (with only 17 days at dock from the beginning of August until the end of the year. The schedule includes a month-long U.S. Navy cruise, as well as the ship’s usual, twice-monthly visits to the Bermuda-Atlantic Time-series Study site and Hydrostation “S” site)
142 scientists and researchers used the vessel for their work last year. They came from 41 different universities and research organizations
Number of BATS and Hydrostation “S” cruises in 2014: 17
Crew size: 12
Scientific party size maximum: 22
Number of nations represented by participants in 2014: 15 (most hailed from the United States, United Kingdom, and Bermuda. Other nations included Canada, China, and Australia).
Number of different sensors or pieces of equipment on the ship collecting scientific information: 33
Longest voyage to date: 28 days, covering 6,900 nautical miles. In August 2012, R/V Atlantic Explorer sailed from Bermuda to Portland, Maine (to clear customs and obtain provisions) then up to Boothbay, Maine (to mobilize personnel) before heading to the Labrador Sea to conduct science and finally back to Bermuda.
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David Bitton
David is the Owner and Managing Director of Bitton Café & Bistro, Bitton Consultancy and the Bitton product range. A French born and trained chef, his career has spanned over 25 years in fine dining establishments around the world.
David, together with his wife Sohani, founded Bitton 15 years ago. Since then the business has grown exponentially, to now employing over 30 staff and serving more than 2000 customers a week. The product range, all developed and originally manufactured by David himself, is unique, drawing on influences from his own training, his Moroccan and Turkish heritage and Sohani’s South African Indian background.
Naturally energetic and enthusiastic, David has an innate ability to network and build strong relationships with suppliers and customers. This talent has enabled him to partner in joint ventures with the likes of Qantas, Amex and David Jones to name a few.
David is a creator and a visionary who constantly betters himself in business. In turn, he takes great pride in giving back to small businesses and mentors by drawing on his own experiences and mistakes made. He is passionate about the food industry and is always up to date with the latest movements and trends.
Sohani Bitton
As well as being a Director and closely involved in the rapid growth of Bitton, Sohani has forged a successful career of her own away from the business. Herself a hotel school Graduate from the Intercontinental, Sohani is driven by sales and an extremely creative mind in the field of marketing, Sohani has had extensive experience in both as well as in business development and business management within the Hospitality and Tourism Industries.
Her sales career has seen her positioned as Corporate Sales Manager for some of the leading hotels in Sydney with a particular focus on client relationships and account management. Her track record shows a consistency in exceeding sales expectations and a natural ability to build strong business relationships. Sohani’s most recent has seen her launch and manage the brand, PR and marketing of a new gourmet food product with outstanding results.
In 2012 Sohani was bought back in to work full time as a Director on her own business that she shares with her husband David. She oversees all areas of both Bitton and Bitton Consulting as well as driving and developing new business to ensure the business continues to enjoy growth and success.
Sohani was brought up around a large family, all of whom had a passion for cooking and entertaining. From this comes a natural love for an industry that demands only the best in service and experience.
Camilla Gill
Director Sales and Marketing
Camilla has worked in almost all facets of the food industry which has placed her in good stead for her current position as Director of Sales and Marketing for the Bitton brand.
Camilla has worked closely with David Bitton over eight years and has taken the product range from a presence in 15 stores around Sydney to over 450 stores nationally, built strong relationships with distributors in all states and manages a small but rapidly growing export business. She has also overseen the strategic relaunch of the brand in 2010, which resulted in a dramatic sales increase and brand recognition. Camilla has been responsible for partnering the Bitton brand with various like-minded businesses and other brands in the form of endorsement, co-marketing and other such alliances.
A self-confessed ‘foodie’ her passion and all round experience including restaurant and small luxury hotel management, food styling, event management and catering brings a unique aspect to the team. Camilla’s strengths and experience also lie in PR and journalism within the food media industry.
Lena Mousis
Lena has over 15 years’ experience as an accountant and has worked for wholesale and distribution companies turning over a minimum of 2 million dollars to more than 20 million per annum. Lena has played a key role in advising many business owners and investors on setting up new ventures and expanding established businesses with a goal of financial success.
36-37a Copeland Street Alexandria NSW 2015
info@bittonconsulting.com.au
© Copyright Bitton Consulting. Illustrations by Parusha and Chiara Partab.
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A. A. Long, Greek Models of Mind and Self. Revealing antiquity, 22. Cambridge, MA, London: Harvard University Press, 2015. Pp. xiv, 231. ISBN 9780674729032. $25.95.
Reviewed by Ellen Muehlberger, University of Michigan (emuehlbe@umich.edu)
The result of a long and unusual gestation, this diminutive book is a treasure. In its preface, A. A. Long reveals the story of how the book came to be: having been under contract to Harvard University Press for "decades" to write on the topic of Greek thought about the mind and self, Long often began the work, but was stymied by the prospect of producing a traditional monograph that exhausted the subject. He finally created a manuscript fitting the bill for his contract when he had the opportunity to give a series of public lectures at Renmin University in Beijing a few years ago.
Readers should be very glad for the delay. Bearing the nimble authority won from an extended and productive career, Long unfurls in these revised lectures a carefully stitched series of observations and discussions about the history of theorizing the human being in ancient Greek literature. Greek Models of Mind and Self may not be the comprehensive treatment Long once set out to create, but with this book in hand, it is hard for me to consider that a loss. Because, here, instead, is something different: a masterful tour through classical Greek psychology, conducted with insight and clarity.
The tour begins in an unusual place, because Long is willing to see theories of mind and self expressed in multiple kinds of literature. Most investigations of ancient concepts of the self spend their attention on philosophical works, the assumption being that only explicit discussion of the person, the psyche, or the nous can capture a society's ideas about human beings. The first chapter, "Psychosomatic Identity," follow insights from Michael Clarke's 1999 work, Flesh and Spirit in the Songs of Homer: A Study of Words and Myths (Oxford) and discusses the theories of persons to be found in the Iliad and the Odyssey. Though these texts are not philosophical treatises, Long explains, they nevertheless have fully-formed concepts of human beings, human emotions, and the limits of human identities. In the poems, characters speak of their bodies as their selves. Motivations for action are located in the gut, the chest, the lungs, the head. The psyche, when it does appear, is a specter or a ghost that has exited a dying body, a mere trace to indicate the former person that once lived as a vibrant, undivided material entity. So these earliest models of mind and self are laid out and considered, given attention that they do not often receive.
In Chapter Two, "Intimations of Immortality," Long outlines a second conceptualization of the psyche, also rooted in narrative sources. Hesiod's Works and Days is considered alongside Pindar, Empedocles, and Heraclitus, all of whom in their different ways situate the psyche as one moving part in a system of progression and restoration, between divinity and humanity. Long breaks down the narrative logic of Hesiod's stories to a set of propositions and results: if, as Hesiod assumes, human beings were once aligned with the gods, there is reason to think that their current state is the result of some lack; there is then also reason to think that the lack can be recovered and humanity can be divine once more (78-79). Aside from the possibility that this could happen during a human lifetime, what is left but the assumption that some bearer of a human identity—the psyche— would persist after bodily death and experience in immortality the results of its actions? The purpose here is to give some early context for Plato's eventual adoption of the psyche as the location of the stable identity of a person. By mining these narrative sources for immanent conceptualizations of the self, Long gently points out that Plato's forwarding of the psyche was not quite the innovation that traditional histories of philosophy have tended to make it.
The third chapter, "Bodies, Souls, and the Perils of Persuasion," then places Plato's view in a particular political context. As Long explains, the insistence on the division between body and psyche and the resulting priority granted to the psyche was not simply a stage in an almost scientific progression toward a more accurate concept of the human being. Instead, these notions were points of resistance to the increasing role of rhetoric in political life. The psyche, when considered the seat of reason, could be imagined as being utterly independent of the influence of impressions made by the senses of the body. That meant that the ears that heard a persuasive orator, for example, could depend on the well-trained psyche to temper their impulses.
Thus, the discussion of the Gorgias and then the Phaedo in this chapter takes one of the most salient tenets of classical philosophy, body/soul dualism, and transforms it into a local, contingent development that emerged only as a response to a specific configuration of social and political power. Chapter Four, "The Politicized Soul and the Rule of Reason," does the same to Plato's later division of the soul in the Republic. For there, Long carefully treats the tripartite model of the soul and the assumption that reason should and can rule it (and ultimately society) in their particular and contingent contexts. Indeed, these two chapters together deliver on the promise of the introduction, namely, to avoid presenting various ancient theories of the self as circling closer and closer to an inevitable truth. Instead, Long observes, all ancient (and modern) theories of the self are equally unmoored from testable knowledge, and so all should be equally available to us to contemplate. That means, for Long, that some need to be made familiar—like Homer—while others long familiar—like Plato—need to be made strange.
If there is a complaint to be made about the book, it is that Long's discussion of the divinity of the self in Chapter Five, "Rationality, Divinity, Happiness, Autonomy," does not originate from quite the same fresh-eyed perspective as the rest of the chapters. As Long speaks of the proposition that the soul might be in contact with the divine, he often engages a convenient and longstanding euphemism: collapsing references to a divine spirit or a daimon into the psyche itself, rather than considering the simpler (but perhaps to our minds stranger) option, namely that ancient authors do imagine a divine counterpart to the self and often refer to it as a pair with or a companion to what is best in the human being. (Readers looking for an in-depth consideration of this issue should be on the watch for another book from Harvard University Press, Charles M. Stang's volume Our Divine Double, due out next year).
This might be a predictable complaint coming from a reviewer who has written extensively about angels in antiquity. Naturally, when an ancient author talks about those who "consistently cultivate their daimon," I see evidence for a relationship between two beings, rather than a circumlocution for something like "tending to oneself." That is the case, I expect, because as a historian of early Christianity, I often study texts that give evidence of persons being porous, directed, swayed, and even penetrated by many non-human actors. But, to put my complaint on broader ground, it is simply that I wish Long had attempted in this chapter what he does so beautifully in other chapters, namely, to take the smooth, well-worn pebbles of the concepts of the mind and self that we pass to one another as we narrate ancient psychology and to turn them in the hand, to show us that they are in fact crazed, strange, and far more irregular than we have long been taught to expect. In meditating once more on the material from Greek antiquity, Long leads us to consider questions much larger than simply "what was the soul?" and "where does reason lie?" His work subtly but firmly poses the issue to the reader: why limit inquiry on a topic like the self only to certain kinds of texts? That is the gift of this book, which I enthusiastically recommend for university libraries, upper-level seminars, and the interested general reader alike.
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Todd W. Reeser, Setting Plato Straight: Translating Ancient Sexuality in the Renaissance. Chicago; London: University of Chicago Press, 2015. Pp. xi, 390. ISBN 9780226307008. $45.00.
Reviewed by Thomas Miller, Yale University (thomas.miller@yale.edu)
Were Plato alive to peruse the "strictly platonic" section of the Personals area of the website craigslist, Todd Reeser suggests, the (flattered? baffled?) philosopher might assume that its denizens were seeking a "not necessarily asexual" relationship between "a man and a boy of fixed age" based on the former's appreciation of the latter's physical beauty (viii). How, then, did Plato's name come to be associated with a type of relationship that is firmly non-sexual, often between men and women (not just between males), and with no implications for relative age? In Setting Plato Straight, Reeser shows that part of the answer to this question lies in the reception of Plato's erotic dialogues in continental Europe in the Renaissance, the period in which the term amor platonicus was coined by Marsilio Ficino.
The dialogues involved were mainly the Phaedrus and Symposium (to judge by Reeser's work, the Lysis played a subordinate role, the Charmides none). As these texts arrived in Western Europe and began to be copied, translated (into Latin, Italian, and French, in the period Reeser studies), and printed, Plato's humanist interpreters had to respond to growing anxiety (which they themselves often shared) that these texts could encourage homosexual activity. Reeser does not want merely to document the transformations that occurred (and indeed, a reader interested primarily in a factual survey will want a different book, e.g. Plato in the Italian Renaissance by James Hankins, to which Reeser acknowledges his debt), but rather to make a theoretical point about "the relation between hermeneutics and Platonic sexuality" (6). As far as I could tell, this point was that dealing with sex in Plato's dialogues forced Renaissance readers to think through and articulate what it meant to them to understand an ancient text. Reeser also aims to explore "what key sociocultural factors influence how Plato gets reread" (8). Cultural and religious attitudes towards male-male sexuality are of course pervasive influences, but ones that Renaissance authors seldom engage with directly. Reeser therefore pays attention to other Renaissance cultural discourses, notably those related to nationality or geography, the status of women, and medicine (education and pedagogy, he notes, are surprisingly absent).
After the introduction, there are ten chapters, which proceed chronologically. In the first, Reeser begins by nicely laying out the ambiguities surrounding the sexuality of both Socrates and Plato himself in ancient sources. He then explains the principles of Renaissance translation, which crucially involve a rejection of the medieval penchant for word-for-word accuracy (translating ad verbum) in favor of translating the sense (ad sententiam). The latter ideal already involved a tension between, on the one hand, entering into the mind of an author, like a method-actor, on the basis of long reading and study, and creating, on the other, a text that was meaningful and accessible for contemporary readers. Now make the topic of the text to be translated pederasty: "What," Reeser asks, "was a faithful yet sexually anxious translator of Plato to do?" (29). The two biggest "textual hotspots," i.e. the passages in Plato that might be taken as most strongly endorsing same-sex activity, are the speeches of Aristophanes and Alcibiades in the Symposium. Renaissance scholars tended to deal with these passages through the omission of words or entire passages (sometimes silently, sometimes not), vague translations, paratextual commentary offering either condemnation or allegorical interpretation, or by claiming that they are not seriously meant. (As far as I could tell, one obvious interpretive move for modern readers—namely, to claim that the characters Aristophanes and Alcibiades do not speak for either Socrates or Plato, but are in fact obliquely criticized—was not common.)
The second chapter deals with Leonardo Bruni (1370-1444), the first to translate any of Plato's erotic works into Latin (a partial translation of the Phaedrus, and the Alcibiades speech). One of Reeser's goals is to show the importance of Bruni for the history of Renaissance Platonism, overshadowed though he tends to be for us by his fellow Florentine Ficino (1433-1499). Bruni's fascinating treatise on translation, De interpretatione recta, which sketches the virtues required by an ideal translator, is extremely useful for showing a special connection between hermeneutics and sexuality. The third and fourth chapters turn to Ficino, in particular to his translation of and commentary on the Symposium, in which he rehabilitates Platonic love as an ideal by making it chaste, if still between men. Reeser's main contribution is to use the concept of "purgation"—important both in Ficino's medical theories and in his philosophical ideas about the ascent from corporeality to God—as a lens for understanding how he rids Plato's texts and thought of references to (corporeal) sex. Reeser's case for "textual purgation" is very interesting, although limited by the fact that Ficino never explicitly extends the medical/theological metaphor to his textual work. To jump ahead, the seventh chapter treats the only Renaissance translation of Plato's Symposium from Germany: the Latin version by Janus Cornarius, published in 1546 alongside an essay comparing contemporary German customs with those of ancient Greece. Reeser situates the work alongside Reformation-era appropriations of the Germania of Tacitus that stressed the moral purity of the Germani and their immunity to Roman vices. Cornarius, Reeser persuasively argues, wants to present Germans (in contrast to decadent Italians like Ficino) as safe from ancient Greek vices (viz. homosexuality) as well. Paradoxically, this confidence in his countrymen allows Cornarius to offer the least bowdlerized translation of Plato among those that Reeser considers.
The remaining chapters are not primarily concerned with translations or commentaries. The fifth shifts to France to discuss Symphorien Champier's reception of Ficino in his proto-feminist text The Ship of Virtuous Ladies (1503). Reeser sees Champier as an "important hinge figure" who allows Platonic love to be a chaste relationship between men and women as well as between men. The sixth concerns the reception of the figure of Socrates, in particular tropes from the speech of Alcibiades, in Erasmus and Rabelais. The eighth juxtaposes translations produced in France under François I with the Heptameron of Marguerite de Navarre; here male-male love is heterosexualized, sometimes for proto-feminist ends. The ninth chapter, to me one of the best in the book, turns to the topic of Platonic eros between women in the Renaissance, beginning with a survey of evasive Renaissance renderings of ἑταιρίστρια, Plato's mysterious hapax legomenon in the Symposium, and ending with an exploration of why the male poets of the Pléiade wrote poems in the voice of a woman in love with an absent woman. (The interesting treatment of Sappho and her alignment with Socrates in this chapter showed the difficulty of keeping a study of the reception of Platonic sexuality from becoming a study of the reception of ancient Greek sexuality more generally.) The hero of the tenth chapter (and, in some ways, of the entire book) is Montaigne. Rather than beginning from, say, the role of Plato in "De l'amitié," Reeser focuses on showing the Pyrrhonist background to a remark in the "Apologie de Raymond Sebond" where Montaigne criticizes the way in which Renaissance readers (like Ficino, whose translation he read) force arbitrary interpretations on Plato and "faict desadvoüer à son sens les mœurs licites en son siecle, d'autant qu'elles sont illicites au nostre."
This may reflect my bias as a Classicist, but these chapters concerned with literary works at a further remove from Plato did sometimes seem only loosely integrated into the book's project. The Heptameron, for instance, is clearly fascinating evidence for the process of "inventing heterosexuality," but in the absence of explicit references to Plato and Platonism I was less clear on how it belonged within this particular story. It might have been interesting and relevant instead to hear more about, say, the debate on Platonic sexuality between George of Trebizond and Cardinal Bessarion, to which Reeser merely alludes (87). Another reservation that may be due merely to a different disciplinary perspective has to do with the book's treatment of the Platonist tradition in late antiquity (arguably the site of an earlier attempt to "rewrite" Platonic sexuality). It would be sadistic to demand that a scholar already undertaking such an ambitious interdisciplinary project also be familiar with the vast wilderness of late antique Platonist texts, but the three-and-a-half pages Reeser devotes to Ficino and Plotinus seemed inadequate. Elsewhere he sometimes seemed to write without a real awareness of the earlier tradition, e.g. quoting Ficino and Louis Le Roy calling Plato a Greek-speaking Moses without noting that both are repeating a remark by Numenius (37; 340 n. 11). Absent in the treatment of Ficino on purgation were references to the Greek term κάθαρσις, to the Phaedo (φρόνησις is a καθαρμός, says Socrates at 69c), or to the purgative virtues in Plotinus. More generally, what Reeser sees as unresolved tensions in e.g. Ficino's attitude to corporeality are to my mind really inherent in the entire tradition going back to Plato himself (and are in fact much of what makes Platonism interesting in the first place as an attempt to understand the human condition).
Much of Reeser's study involves scrutinizing the fidelity of Renaissance translations. His linguistic criticisms often hit the mark —but not always. Consider a case that he treats in his opening pages and often refers back to as paradigmatic (1-4). At issue is Bruni's translation of a remark by Socrates in the Phaedrus, when he thinks Phaedrus has the speech of Lysias under his cloak: τοπάζω γάρ σε ἔχειν τὸν λόγον αὐτόν (228d). Admitting the difficulty of finding an equivalent for λόγος, Reeser sees Bruni's rendering of the last three words with librum ipsum rather than with a form of sermo as significant: the "mobile" λόγος is replaced by a "fixed, codified" text (a significant shift in light of the critique of writing later in the dialogue) and an innuendo disappears, with the removal of "the implied parallel between scroll and male member." But a fixed, written text is present under the cloak regardless, even if here it is referred to as a λόγος (Plato calls it τὸ βιβλίον at 228b), and the innuendo is not necessarily lost in translation (a Classical liber was, after all, a scroll). Even if Bruni was imagining a non-phallic codex, translating logos with sermo instead would not, unless I am missing something, produce a "penile double entendre."
All Greek is transliterated. Texts are always quoted in English; Greek, Latin, and French originals are judiciously provided in whole or in part. The general index includes important Greek and Latin terms, but there is no index locorum. Irritatingly, Reeser does not use Stephanus numbers to cite Plato—also ironically, given that they are tangible reminders of the enduring importance of his Renaissance reception. The use of endnotes and the lack of a bibliography also made it somewhat difficult to follow his engagement with other scholars.
In sum, this book exemplifies the enormous promise of studies of Classical reception as well as a few possible pitfalls. In his concluding remarks, Reeser seems to see himself as having presented a revisionist historical narrative: a "cursory understanding of the reception of Platonic eros" involving a "homoerotic-homosocial-heterosexual trajectory" would not be wrong, per se (he says), but "does cover up numerous complications" and should not be viewed as "the natural or teleological order of things" (307). But this seems like fighting a straw man. To me, the value of this book lies more in the journey than in any such destination. Given this, the journey for Classicists could sometimes have been made smoother with more patient introduction of background information about unfamiliar Renaissance texts. If any larger conclusion does emerge, it sometimes risks being the rather depressing one that Renaissance humanists were deeply steeped in the anxieties and the prejudices of their time. I found Setting Plato Straight most stimulating at the moments when Reeser moves away from writing "the history of homophobia" (10) and considers Renaissance readers more sympathetically, as trying to make the Classics speak to their contemporaries or even discovering in them new, counter-cultural possibilities. These are after all the tasks, one hopes, that the philologists of the future will see us today as engaged in.
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Review: This week’s releases find its characters in crisis Special
By Sarah Gopaul Jun 27, 2018 in Entertainment
This week’s releases include a woman determined to get what she deserves; an LGBTQ-friendly teen romance; a stunning and twisted thriller; and the inaugural season of a fan-favourite character.
Acrimony (Blu-ray, DVD & Digital copy)
Melinda (Taraji P. Henson), a faithful wife, is driven over the edge when it becomes clear she has been betrayed by her devious husband.
Tyler Perry’s thriller chronicles the mental deterioration of a woman who becomes obsessed after she feels her husband betrayed her. As Melinda describes their marriage, she gave him absolutely everything before deciding she had no more to give. There’s no way she could’ve known finally standing up for herself would be the start of a nightmare from which she cannot wake. While there are some hints of Fatal Attraction — Henson even calls this role her “Glenn Close moment” in an interview — the primary focus is on how she gets to that point, which is actually pretty relatable. While her reactions may be extreme, what drives her to insanity would make anyone a little mad. Henson is excellent as she uses her facial expressions and eyes to convey Melinda’s true feelings even when her demeanour is calm and non-menacing.
Special features include: “Unleashing Acrimony.” (Lionsgate Home Entertainment)
The Curse of the Cat People (Blu-ray)
Scream Factory
Oliver Reed (Kent Smith) is now remarried, living in idyllic Tarrytown, New York, and is the father of six-year-old Amy (Ann Carter). When Amy becomes withdrawn and speaks of consorting with a new "friend," Oliver worries that she may be under the influence of the spirit of his first wife. Is it just Amy's imagination that has manifested the enigmatic Irena (Simone Simon), who long believed herself to be descended from a race of Cat People?
This is the sequel to Val Lewton’s classic horror thriller, which brings back Simon albeit in a lesser capacity. Amy is the focus of this picture — a little girl with a wild imagination that ostracizes her from her would-be playmates. Oliver practically demands she get her head out of the clouds and make friends, but those she does make are not the ones he expected. The first is an elderly woman who lives under the watchful eye of her daughter and the other can only be seen by Amy… but that doesn’t mean she’s not really there. Unfortunately, the aesthetic is not as striking as it is in the original picture since the cat people are not a central aspect of the story even though Irena does return in some manner. Instead, it’s more of a ghost story fuelled by Oliver’s desire to conceal the truth about Amy’s mother.
Special features include: commentary with author/historian Steve Haberman; commentary with historian Greg Mank with audio interview excerpts with actress Simone Simon; “Lewton’s Muse: The Dark Eyes Of Simone Simon”; audio interview with Ann Carter, moderated by Tom Weaver; still gallery; and theatrical trailers. (Scream Factory)
Doctor Who: Tom Baker Complete Season One (Blu-ray)
The Fourth Doctor’s classic inaugural season, comprised of 20 newly restored episodes.
Baker was the Fourth Doctor, serving the role from 1974-1981, and he is remembered as one of the most fun versions of the time traveller (though he may have overstayed his welcome). His signature was a very long, striped scarf, which he frequently used to thwart enemies or aid in escape plans, and a fondness for jelly beans. Each of the story arcs in this season takes four to six episodes to complete, using the serial format to tell engaging stories without simple solutions. He battles alien bugs, tries to prevent Davros from creating Daleks, and is then accosted by Cybermen immediately afterwards. In addition to providing fans the opportunity to re-watch this fantastic season, the bonus features are also especially enjoyable. “Behind the Sofa” allows various actors and crew involved with the series to provide commentary from the comfort of a couch where the audience can see their reactions. There’s a also a feature in which Baker personally reflects on a clips taken from various episodes.
Special features include: “Behind the Sofa”; new making-of documentaries; “Tom Baker in Conversation”; immersive 5.1 surround sound mixes for “The Ark In Space and Genesis Of The Daleks”; optional brand new updated special effects for “Revenge Of The Cybermen”; “Genesis of The Daleks - Omnibus Movie Version”; and “The Tom Baker Years.” (BBC Studios)
Jack Reacher (4K UHD, Blu-ray & Digital copy)
Paramount Home Media Distribution
When an unspeakable crime is committed, all evidence points to the suspect in custody who offers up a single note in defense: “Get Jack Reacher!” The law has its limits, but ex-military investigator Jack Reacher (Tom Cruise) does not when his fight for the truth pits him against an unexpected enemy with a skill for violence and a secret to keep.
Cruise is no stranger to the action mystery, but this character is different from many of those he's played — though he does get to utilize his years of screen fighting experience. Reacher is a straight talker who doesn't hold back, particularly when he's trying to get under someone's skin. He doesn't care if he's liked, just that he gets the job done. Many of the things Reacher says or does is meant to be shocking or aggravating, reminiscent of ‘80s anti-heroes. While Cruise's good-guy history wouldn't make him the first choice for the role, he makes it work. Casting Werner Herzog, on the other hand, is unexpected but cool. The mystery is typical of quality entries into the genre, though it's a little drawn out.
Special features include: commentary by director Christopher McQuarrie and Cruise; “When the Man Comes Around”; “You Do Not Mess with Jack Reacher: Combat & Weapons”; and “The Reacher Phenomenon.” (Paramount Home Media Distribution)
Love, Simon (Blu-ray)
The film follows the life of 17-year-old Simon (Nick Robinson), a closeted gay teenager trying to navigate high school life while balancing his family, friends and a complicated love story: he hasn’t come out yet and doesn’t know the identity of the anonymous classmate he’s falling for online.
This is an adolescent romance story that happens to feature a gay teen as the narrative lead — something that shouldn’t be extraordinary but is vastly uncommon. Finding love online is a fairly regular occurrence now as people fall for someone often before they’ve even had the opportunity to meet in person. The unfortunate part of this tale is Simon is so desperate to keep his secret, he betrays his best friends to satisfy a blackmailer. As Simon speculates which of his classmates could be his mysterious pen pal, he makes a lot of bad decisions… though his desire to remain hidden is supported by several instances of his family, friends and peers poking fun at homosexuality. Nonetheless, it has the feel-good ending one expects while following the familiar formula for a teen love story.
Special features include: commentary by Greg Berlanti, Isaac Klausner and Isaac Aptaker; deleted scenes; “The Adaptation”; “The Squad”; “#FirstLoveStory Contest Winner”; “Dear Georgia”; “Dear Atlanta”; gallery; and theatrical trailers. (Fox Home Entertainment)
Sheikh Jackson (DVD)
MVD Visual
An Islamic cleric (Ahmad El-Fishawi) has a crisis of faith when he hears the news that his childhood idol, Michael Jackson, has died.
This is a movie about a man who experiences a significant change upon learning his teen idol has passed away. Through therapy sessions with a woman who doesn’t adhere to the same rules, he reflects on an adolescence marked by great loss as well as an obsession with Michael Jackson that was linked to an attractive girl. He’s become distracted and insecure in his faith, tracking his good and bad deeds throughout the day as if one’s piousness can be measured on a scorecard. There are some unexpected curves in the road in both his past and present, but overall it’s an engaging tale that tells a relatively simple story.
Special features include: behind-the-scenes featurette; and photo gallery. (MVD Visual)
Smash Palace (Blu-ray)
Arrow Academy
The film concerns itself with the marriage of former racing driver Al (Bruno Lawrence) and French-born Jacqui (Anna Jemison). The pair had met when she nursed him back to health following a career-ending injury. They married, returned to Al's native New Zealand to take over his late father's wrecking yard business — the Smash Palace of the title — and had a daughter named Georgie (Greer Robson-Kirk). But over time stagnation has set in, Jacqui's resentment of Al has grown, and things are threatening to spill over.
This is the tale of a marriage that doesn’t end on mutual terms, which leads to irrational decisions on both sides before Al reaches a boiling point and goes over the edge. The beginning of the movie shows why Jacqui has become disenchanted with Al’s antics as he places his impractical dreams over the looming reality that can no longer be avoided, which in turn causes him to brood and threaten his family’s safety. After the separation, both of them are unreasonable when it comes to sharing Georgie and the consequences of their pig-headedness are extreme. Luckily the actors are all excellent, genuinely conveying the very raw emotions that fuel their bitter actions.
Special features include: commentary by writer/director Roger Donaldson and stunt driver Steve Millen; making-of featurette; theatrical trailer; and reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Sean Phillips. (Arrow Academy)
Terminal (Blu-ray)
RLJ Entertainment & VVS Films
In the dark heart of a sprawling, anonymous city, the film follows the twisting tales of two assassins (Dexter Fletcher and Max Irons) carrying out a sinister mission, a teacher (Simon Pegg) battling a fatal illness, an enigmatic janitor (Mike Myers) and a curious waitress (Margot Robbie) leading a dangerous double life. Murderous consequences unravel in the dead of night as their lives all intertwine at the hands of a mysterious criminal mastermind hell-bent on revenge.
Robbie once again takes on the role of a mischievous woman who seems to have her fingers in the goings-on of everyone around her. The part isn’t much of a stretch from Harley Quinn, but the actress does it so well there’s little to complain about either. The rest of the notable cast are essentially puppets in her game, though no one is certain about what she’s playing. The film’s key attraction is the absolutely stunning aesthetic which mixes dark, industrial noir with neon lights and iridescent cinematography. The contrasts, which also incorporate Robbie’s costume design, are exceptional and reminiscent of another striking movie adaptation: Sin City.
Special features include: “The Cast of Terminal”; “Building the World of Terminal”; “From Concept to Creation”; and photo gallery. (RLJ Entertainment & VVS Films)
More about Love Simon, Acrimony, Terminal, The Curse of the Cat People, Doctor Who
Love Simon Acrimony Terminal The Curse of the Cat... Doctor Who Jack Reacher Sheikh Jackson Smash Palace Movie Tv series DVD BluRay 4K Ultra HD Review
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Doomstead Diner Menu => Geopolitics => Topic started by: Palloy on February 04, 2015, 04:43:27 PM
Title: Russia-North Korea thread
Post by: Palloy on February 04, 2015, 04:43:27 PM
De-dollarisation will bring about a split into 2 separate trading blocs - the US Empire and:
BRICS + EEU (Belarus, Kazakstan, Armenia, Kyrgystan) + Mongolia + Iran + Syria + Venezuela + Argentina + Bolivia + Cuba + North Korea + ?
They have to be separate because otherwise you get arbitrage situations developing between different prices for the same things in different markets.
http://rt.com/business/229319-north-korea-russia-business/ (http://rt.com/business/229319-north-korea-russia-business/)
North Korea and Russia establish joint business council
Relations between Russia and North Korea have taken a step forward following Moscow’s setting up of a Business Council for Cooperation with North Korea. This will help Russia and North Korea reach their $1 billion trade goal.
The new council will help pair Russian companies with business partners in North Korea to work on trade and investment.
"This is undoubtedly a new stage of business cooperation between Russia and North Korea, which will significantly strengthen trade and economic relations between the two countries," Russian Commerce and Industry Chamber Vice President Vladimir Strashko said, TASS reported.
The new council should make business transactions between the two neighbors smoother, according to Strashko.
Annual trade between Moscow and Pyongyang is slated to increase to $1 billion by 2020. Russia and North Korea plan to carry out future trade in rubles.
This last year has been a milestone for increased Russia-North Korea relations. In June, Russia announced it was extending its Trans-Siberia railway to North Korea.
Russia is also considering investing in North Korea’s Kaesong Industrial Park, a special economic zone in the country where more than 50,000 North Korean workers are employed by South Korean companies.In May, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law that will forgive 90 percent of North Korea’s Soviet-era debt.
Kim Jong-un said he will make a state visit to Moscow in May to join Russia’s celebrations for the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II.
Title: Re: Russia-North Korea thread
http://rt.com/business/232031-china-russia-north-korea/ (http://rt.com/business/232031-china-russia-north-korea/)
China, Russia & North Korea to create international tourist zone
The authorities in China’s northeastern Jilin Province plan to create an international visa and duty-free tourist zone in the border region with Russia and North Korea.
The territory will lie along the Tumen River and will include the Chinese city of Hunchun and a ten square kilometer area in Russia and North Korea, the Xinhua news agency reports Friday. The infrastructure will be constructed jointly by the three countries participating in the project, the news agency reports.
The initiative was put forward by the government of Hunchun in 2013. North Korea is especially interested in creating a tourist zone, as it wants to get the economic benefit.
South Korea, Japan and Mongolia are expected to join the tourism area in the long-term, with highways, railways and air routes, said Zhao Xiaojun, director of Jilin Provincial Tourism Administration, as quoted by Xinhua.
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You are here: Home » Archives for Vikings
Today is Saint Edmund’s Day. It’s personal
Eamonn Fitzgerald • Tuesday, 20 November, 2018
According to Bernard Burke’s Vicissitudes of Families, the banner of Saint Edmund, with its three crowns on a blue background, was among those borne during the Norman invasion of Ireland in 1169. The bearers included Maurice FitzGerald, Robert Fitz-Stephen, Redmund Fitz-Hugh, Meiler FitzHenry and Robert Fitz-Bernard. From then on, Saint Edmund’s banner became the standard for Ireland during the Plantagenet era. By the way, Richard de Clare and Raymond le Gros, who featured prominently in the Norman invasion, dedicated a chapel of Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin to Saint Edmund.
Who was Saint Edmund? Well, when the Great Heathen Army advanced on East Anglia in 869, the obscure King Edmund led the resistance and he met his death on 20 November at a place known as Haegelisdun, after he refused the Vikings’ demand that he renounce Christ. They beat him, tied him to a tree, shot him with arrows and then beheaded him on the orders of Ivar the Boneless and his brother Ubba. Legend has it that his head was then thrown into the forest but was found by searchers after following the cries of a wolf that was calling out, in Latin, Hic, Hic, Hic (“Here, Here, Here”.)
The name Edmund, which is also spelled Edmond, contains the elements ēad (“prosperity, riches”) and mund (“protector”). The Irish Gaelic forms are Éamon, Éaman and Éamann. The corresponding Anglicised forms are Eamon and Eamonn.
Your blogger’s grandfather on the maternal side was Edmond O’Donnell. He is buried in the graveyard of Lisvernane Church in the Glen of Aherlow, County Tipperary.
Nobody does Eurovision like Sweden does Eurovision
Eamonn Fitzgerald • Saturday, 14 May, 2016 • 0 Comments
Vikings, IKEA, Absolut Vodka, ABBA, Stieg Larsson, H&M… The Swedes are good at lots of things. Then, there’s the Melodifestivalen, the national event through which Sweden’s representative for the Eurovision Song Contest is selected. Held every February and March, it unites the country during the long winter nights and offers endless opportunities for small talk during the ritual morning fika at the office.
The Swedes are especially good at hosting the Eurovision Song Contest, so we’re in for a delight from Stockholm tonight. A hint was provided in the interval of the second semi-final on Thursday evening with a show that took the audience through the history of modern dance, but with a very Swedish touch. Three humans were joined by three assembly-line robots in a medley that paid homage to ’70s disco (Bee Gee-style), a Thriller zombie routine, 50 Cent’s In Da Club and a version of Beyonce’s Single Ladies. The hosts described the performance as exploring the “contrasts that divide and the similarities we share with our metallic friends.” The Swedes share the same planet with the rest of us, but they are in a world of their own when it comes to Eurovision.
It is true that the Vikings pillaged and enslaved. But…
Eamonn Fitzgerald • Tuesday, 25 November, 2014 • 0 Comments
There’s always a but, isn’t there? In its blurb for The Vikings by Anders Winroth, Princeton University Press points out that the Norse warriors “also settled peacefully and developed a vast trading network.” When Tom Shippey reviewed Winroth’s book on Friday in the Wall Street Journal he had a go at the modern academy, which works hard to present the Vikings as “explorers, traders, founders of urban life, contributors to civilization.” Uncomfortable fact is, says Shippey, that when the Vikings managed to “stimulate the economy of western Europe,” they did it “by selling slaves to the Islamic world and stealing church treasuries from the Christian one.”
The thing that made Viking culture different, notes Shippey, “was all that academics dislike in the word ‘Viking.’ … Vikings would not be welcome in the faculty lounge.”
The mortal dread that the Vikings could inspire was captured in this ancient Irish poem, as translated from the Gaelic by Kuno Meyer:
The Viking Terror
Bitter is the wind tonight.
It tosses the ocean’s white hair.
Tonight I fear not the fierce warriors of Norway
Coursing on the Irish Sea.
By the way, the second line of the John Montague translation of that anonymous poem is especially evocative: “Bitter the wind tonight/ combing the sea’s hair white.”
Forest Swords
Eamonn Fitzgerald • Saturday, 11 January, 2014 • 0 Comments
Matthew Barnes, known by his stage name Forest Swords, is an English music producer and performer. His debut album, Engravings, was released in August last year to unanimously positive critical response. Interestingly, the album was mixed on Thurstaston Hill in that bastion of Liverpudlian lore, the Wirral Peninsula. Barnes credits the outdoors recording for giving the album a natural and atmospheric sound.
Geography: Thurstaston Hill is the home of Thor’s Stone, a house-sized block of red sandstone, where Viking settlers were supposed to have held sacrifices to placate their thunder god. Others say that the stone was raised by the Danes to commemorate the Battle of Brunanburh in 937. More scientific theories suggest that post-glacial erosion removed the softer surrounding rocks and produced today’s landmark.
Etymology: The Danish masculine name Thorsten comes from the Old Norse name Þórsteinn, which meant “Thor’s stone” from the name of the Norse god Þórr (Thor) combined with steinn “stone”. Variants include Thorstein (Norwegian), Torsten (German) and Torsti (Finnish).
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Conference CFP: The Real and the Intermedial
tags: CFP, film, haptic, new media, postphenomenonolgy, realism, reality, slow cinema, television
by Shared by Steve Rust
THE REAL AND THE INTERMEDIAL
October 23-24, 2015. International Film and Media Studies Conference, Sapientia University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
The official language of the conference is English.
Conference website: http://film.sapientia.ro/en/conferences/the-real-and-the-intermedial
Following up on the themes introduced in our previous conferences dedicated to “film in the post-media age”, the“cinema of sensations”, “rethinking intermediality in the digital age”, and “figurations of intermediality in film”, we invite you to address one of the most puzzling phenomena of contemporary media and film: the intertwining of the illusion of reality with effects of intermediality, connecting the experience of a palpable, everyday world with artificiality, abstraction and the awareness of multiple mediations. While on an ontological level the concept of the “real” has been radically challenged by the advent of digital technology in photography and the movies, we find that new, audiovisual media have also effectively reshaped our sense of reality, and have expanded the areas of our sensual reach into the world. In our post-postmodern age, the question of the “real” is back with a vengeance regarding all aspects of media. The digital image, as a “graphic mode” has not only brought back painting reinstating “the ‘artist’ as the source and origin of the movie” (T. Elsaesser), but in cinema, television and new media, we also have diverse and astonishing examples in which hypermediacy fulfils “the desire for immediacy” (J. D. Bolter), and we see productive intersections between the emphasis on the senses, on the physical-biological, socio-political “reality” of existence and conspicuous, intermedial stylization.
The photo-graphic effect of stillness in the moving image and its fundamental relation to indexicality is exploited to the full in the so-called “slow cinema” canon, as we see in the breathtaking films of Pedro Costa, Abbas Kiarostami, Béla Tarr, Alexander Sokurov, Lav Diaz, for example. Or we may think of cases in which painterly images of ethereal beauty are created alongside violent, shockingly naturalistic scenes in the films of Carlos Reygadas, Kim-Ki Duk, etc. Jean-Luc Godard’s new movie, Goodbye to Language, a bold incursion into the use of 3D, renders scenes of nature and the texture of everyday things in vivid, artificial imagery. (Even the recent teaming up of David Attenborough and Björk for such a new media Gesamtkunstwerk experiment as Biophilia, emphasizes this duality.)
Cultural differences, subjectivity, a sense of history and place are often articulated through techniques of intermediality in avant-garde experiments, documentary practices or fiction films alike. As a rule, the “haptic” image can be seen as the gateway to a myriad of connections between cinema and the other arts. In certain cases, a reflexive foregrounding of mediality and constructedness has become not an instrument of ironic detachment but of a search for authenticity: all of which may also bring into focus the co-experience of “the real” with the “intermedial”.
We are especially interested in the following topics (but welcome any paper that proposes a relevant approach to either keywords of the conference):
“Reality effect”, hybridity and media reflexivity in film, television, and new media.
Intermediality and inter-sensuality in film: e.g. the represented and sensed body as a site of intermedial relations, haptic “texturality” and interartiality.
Figurations of intermediality as imprints of (and meditations upon) history and time, cultural and personal identity.
“Analogue” versus “digital” viewed in terms of the “real” versus the “intermedial”.
Painterly stylization and “reality effect” in slow cinema.
Inflections of realism and intermediality within the post-communist cinema of Central and Eastern Europe.
Magical realism in world cinema.
The merging of the “representation” and the “real” within the rhetoric of intermedial cinema (e.g. the tensions underlying “poetic realism”, techniques of figuration and disfiguration, the various forms of media collage or the tableau vivant in cinema).
Intermediality theorized or analysed from the perspective of phenomenological or postphenomenological points of view.
Confirmed keynote speaker
LÚCIA NAGIB, Professor of Film, Director of the Centre for Film Aesthetics and Cultures, University of Reading, Director of International Engagement, Department of Film, Theatre and Television, editor of Impure Cinema: Intermedial and Intercultural Approaches to Film (2013), Theorizing World Cinema (2012), Realism and the Audiovisual Media (2009), author of World Cinema and the Ethics of Realism (2011), as well as several seminal articles on Brazilian, German, French, and Japanese cinema.
further keynotes to be announced.
We invite proposals both for individual papers and pre-constituted panels. Panels may consist of 3 or 4 speakers.
Deadline for the submission of proposals: May 25, 2015.
We will get back to you with our decision by June 1, 2015.
Please fill in one of the SUBMISSION FORMS below:
INDIVIDUAL SUBMISSION
PANEL SUBMISSION
For additional information you can contact the organizers directly at this e-mail address:
2015.real.intermedial@gmail.com
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Hikaru Utada is a Japanese singer-songwriter and musician. One of the biggest-selling and most influential Japanese recording artists of the decade, she has sold more than 50 million records worldwide. Utada is one of the biggest names in the J-pop genre.
Born January 19, 1983 in New York City to an affluent family, her father was a musician and record producer while her mother was also a singer. Utada’s family kept traveling to Tokyo due to the nature of her father’s production job. She was bilingual from her earliest years, being extremely well-versed in both American and Japanese cultures.
Hikaru Utada wrote and recorded her first song in Japanese language when was only 11 years old. Her first album in English language was released when she was 13. She was offered a record deal by a Toshiba-EMI executive and released her Japanese-language debut album, First Love, with the label in 1999. The album reached number one on the Japanese charts within the first week of its release and has sold more than 9 million copies to date.
She released many platinum-selling albums since then and has given many exciting performances around the world. Her unique musical style inspired by alternative rock and dance music has been widely praised by the Japanese press. Utada developed a mystique by choosing not to give many interviews. She moved to the Island-Universal Music Japan label and recorded an English-language album, Exodus, in 2004. Her hit single “Exodus 04” became a disappointment for her loyal fan base when her lyrics indicated a goodbye to Japan.
In 2007, EMI declared that Utada was the highest-selling Japanese recording artist of all time, with combined sales of about 7.7 million across all formats.
Hikaru Utada has received many awards and accolades in her career, including Yusen Awards, Japan Gold Disc Awards, and World Music Awards to name a few.
Hikaru Utada married photographer and film director Kazuaki Kiriya in 2002. The couple divorced after four and a half years of marriage. In 2014, she married Francesco Calliano, a London bartender, in a private ceremony.
Download Hikaru Utada Songs:
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Braves take on the Mets in division play
June 14, 2019: Atlanta Braves outfielder Austin Riley runs to first base after hitting a single during the fourth inning of a MLB game against the Philadelphia Phillies at SunTrust Park in Atlanta. (Photo by Austin McAfee)
[ ] Hide Caption [ ] Show Caption
June 14, 2019: Atlanta Braves outfielder Ozzie Albies runs off the field at the end of a series during the fourth inning of a MLB game against the Philadelphia Phillies at SunTrust Park in Atlanta. (Photo by Austin McAfee)
June 14, 2019: Atlanta Braves infielder Ozzie Albies heads towards first base after hitting a single during the eighth inning of a MLB game against the Philadelphia Phillies at SunTrust Park in Atlanta. (Photo by Austin McAfee)
June 14, 2019: Atlanta Braves outfielder Ronald Acuna Jr. heads towards first base during the eighth inning of a MLB game against the Philadelphia Phillies at SunTrust Park in Atlanta. (Photo by Austin McAfee)
June 14, 2019: Atlanta Braves first baseman Freddie Freeman heads towards first base after hitting a home run during the sixth inning of a MLB game against the Philadelphia Phillies at SunTrust Park in Atlanta. (Photo by Austin McAfee)
June 14, 2019: Atlanta Braves catcher Brian McCann celebrates after being dunked by his teammates after hitting a game-winning walk off-single against the Philadelphia Phillies at SunTrust Park. (Photo by Austin McAfee)
June 14, 2019: Atlanta Braves catcher Brian McCann celebrates with his teammates after hitting a game-winning walk off-single during a MLB game against the Philadelphia Phillies at SunTrust Park in Atlanta. (Photo by Austin McAfee)
June 14, 2019: Atlanta Braves catcher Brian McCann gets dunked by his teammates after hitting a game-winning walk off-single during a MLB game against the Philadelphia Phillies at SunTrust Park in Atlanta. (Photo by Austin McAfee)
Posted Jun 17 2019 06:06PM EDT
New York Mets (34-37, third in the NL East) vs. Atlanta Braves (42-30, first in the NL East)
Atlanta; Monday, 7 p.m. EDT
PITCHING PROBABLES: Mets: Zack Wheeler (5-4, 4.87 ERA, 1.26 WHIP, 99 strikeouts) Braves: Mike Soroka (7-1, 1.92 ERA, .95 WHIP, 60 strikeouts)
LINE: Braves favored by 1 1/2 runs; over/under is 9 runs
BOTTOM LINE: NL East opponents Atlanta and New York will face off at SunTrust Park.
The Braves are 12-9 against NL East teams. Atlanta has slugged .459, good for fourth in the National League. Freddie Freeman leads the club with a .593 slugging percentage, including 39 extra-base hits and 19 home runs.
The Mets are 14-23 on the road. New York is hitting a collective .250 this season, led by Jeff McNeil with an average of .333. This is the first game between these teams in 2019.
TOP PERFORMERS: Freeman leads the Braves with 19 home runs and is slugging .593. Ronald Acuna Jr. is 18-for-48 with three doubles, four home runs and 12 RBIs over the last 10 games for Atlanta.
Pete Alonso leads the Mets with 23 home runs and has 53 RBIs. Todd Frazier is 10-for-33 with a double, two home runs and nine RBIs over the last 10 games for New York.
LAST 10 GAMES: Braves: 9-1, .312 batting average, 3.45 ERA, outscored opponents by 32 runs
Mets: 5-5, .268 batting average, 4.50 ERA, outscored opponents by one run
Braves Injuries: Darren O'Day: 60-day IL (forearm), Sean Newcomb: day-to-day (head), Kevin Gausman: 10-day IL (foot), Ender Inciarte: 10-day IL (lumbar strain).
Mets Injuries: Justin Wilson: 10-day IL (elbow), Jason Vargas: day-to-day (foot), Noah Syndergaard: 10-day IL (hamstring strain), Drew Smith: 60-day IL (elbow), Luis Avilan: 10-day IL (elbow), Brandon Nimmo: 10-day IL (neck), Yoenis Cespedes: 60-day IL (heels), Jed Lowrie: 60-day IL (knee).
The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by HERO Sports, and data from Sportradar.
Boxing great Pernell 'Sweet Pea' Whitaker killed after being hit by car
By Ryan Gaydos | Fox News
Retired boxer Pernell "Sweet Pea" Whitaker, who held world titles at four weight classes, has been killed after being hit by a car, Virginia Beach police said Monday.
An emergency call came in Sunday night about a vehicle-pedestrian accident and when officers arrived at the scene they located an adult male who was hit by a vehicle, police said in a news release.
Whitaker, 55, of Norfolk, Va., was identified as the victim. Police said he died at the scene.
Wimbledon: Djokovic beats Federer in final
A quick look at Wimbledon:
Novak Djokovic became the first man in 71 years to win Wimbledon after facing match points in the final, coming back to beat Roger Federer in an unprecedented fifth-set tiebreaker.
By barely emerging to win 7-6 (5), 1-6, 7-6 (4), 4-6, 13-12 (3), Djokovic claimed his fifth championship at the All England Club and second in a row.
We get to work early around here, so it’s not often that the Good Day feature team shows up to a location and finds people who have already been awake for hours. But this morning, we spent some time with a group of golfers who’d literally been playing all night long – and for very good reason.
Mason’s Twenty-Fore Straight is an annual 24-hour golf tournament that takes place at TPC Sugarloaf in Duluth. General manager Mike Maloney created the event in honor of his friend’s son, Mason, who was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2013, at the age of seven.
Mason passed away just a few short years later, but his courageous battle led to the tournament, which raises money for the Georgia chapter of the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation , the 1 Million 4 Anna Foundation , and SIDES . How does it raise that money? By challenging teams of two and three people to keep one ball going for 24 straight hours at TPC Sugarloaf.
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Israeli police storm temple
by Correspondents in Jerusalem
Published Saturday February 10, 2007
from The Australian
HUNDREDS of Israeli police stormed one of Islam's holiest shrines last night, firing stun grenades and tear gas to disperse hundreds of Muslim worshippers who threw stones, bottles and refuse in outrage over Israeli renovation work at a disputed Jerusalem temple.
The clash came after days of tensions over the work and raised concern that protests at the site could spread to the West Bank and Gaza, as they did at the start of the second Palestinian uprising in 2000 after a visit from then opposition leader Ariel Sharon.
About 200 police stormed the hilltop compound known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as the Temple Mount, to try to quell the protests, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.
The situation grew violent after about 150 protesters barricaded themselves inside the al-Aqsa Mosque at the complex.
But police did not enter the mosque, and about 90 minutes after the protesters entered, they began to leave, following negotiations between officers and Muslim representatives. At that point, police pronounced themselves in control of the situation.
Israeli authorities promised that the plan to replace a centuries-old bridge leading to the compound, damaged in a 2004 snowstorm, would not harm the holy site, about 60m away. But as work began this week, it drew fierce protests in the Arab world, where many leaders accused Israel of plotting to harm Muslim holy sites.
"This is an aggression against the mosque," the mufti of Jerusalem, Mohammed Hussein, said by telephone from inside the walled compound. "I don't know what impact this aggression will have on the Palestinian territories, but past experience has shown that every time there were clashes at the mosque, it engulfed the other parts of the West Bank and Gaza."
When Israel opened a tunnel alongside the compound in 1996, it touched off clashes that killed 80 people. In 2000, when Mr Sharon visited the site, the ensuing riots were followed by years of violence.
In the alleys of the Old City, Palestinians pelted police with rocks, bottles and garbage. In the West Bank, youths hurled stones at Israeli forces at a checkpoint leading into Jerusalem. Scheduled protest marches went ahead peacefully elsewhere in the West Bank, and demonstrations were planned in Gaza.
"This is a great danger. We can't remain silent," said a Hamas leader, Nizar Rayan, at a celebration of the power-sharing agreement Hamas signed with the rival Fatah faction in Saudi Arabia early yesterday.
Israeli Arabs planned a rally against the repair work in the town of Nazareth later yesterday.
Israeli riot police in helmets scuffled with Muslim worshippers, many middle-aged or elderly. Medics tended the injured on the pavement.
Clouds of tear gas rose at the holy site and stun grenades set off sharp booms. Witnesses said officers fired rubber bullets at the protesters, but the police denied this.
Seventeen protesters and 15 police were injured in the melee, and 17 rioters were arrested, police said. Officers shut all of the Old City gates leading to the complex, and disconnected loudspeakers they said were used to incite worshippers.
Jewish worshippers were evacuated from the Western Wall at the foot of the compound.
The complex, home to the Dome of the Rock shrine and al-Aqsa mosque, is sacred for Muslims, who believe it is where the Prophet Mohammed ascended to heaven. The compound is sacred to Jews as the site of their biblical temple.
The clashes erupted at the end of Friday prayers at the site. Police had braced for riots during the prayers, a frequent flashpoint for clashes.
Original piece is http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21202131-601,00.html
The Muslims have no respect for sacred sites shrines or symbols of other religions. What about the Bamayan Buddhas in Afghanistan, the synagogues of Gush Katif, Joseph's tomb, the great church in Istanbul, and the desecration of countless graves in Jerusalem, their tombstones used for paving, these are just some of the well-documented instances of Muslim desecration. Then, look at the bombing by warring Muslims in Baghdad, the indiscriminate bombing of their own mosques. What possible reason does Israel have for not reclaiming the site of our holy Temple.
Posted by Danny on 2007-02-14 07:59:17 GMT
Muslims have the third place in line in claiming Jerusalem as "their" territory. All their factual distortions of Israeli repairs to the Temple Mount area (not affecting their mosque at all) are contrived and false. Mohammed arrived on the scene 2400 years after Judaism began and his 7th century interest in Jerusalem, the Jewish capital,gave him no legal claim. The Al-Aksa mosque, built on top of sacred Jewish ground holds "squatters rights" not authentic ones.
Posted by R.E.D. on 2007-02-11 00:37:02 GMT
Has anyone noticed the timing? When the palestinians are killing each other and the homicide bomber in Eilat who killed 3 Israelis did not succeed in distracting the palestinians rival gangs from killing each other, they resorted to the old tried and true tactic of revving up fellow muslims against Israel by making this baseless charge against Israel.. It is as baseless as blaming Sharon's walk for the pre planned 2nd intifada. It is time for Israel and the west to stop pandering to muslim sensibilities and call their bluff. Our multiculturalism and political correctness serves only to reinforce undesirable behaviours.
Posted by Franita on 2007-02-10 04:36:05 GMT
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Taylor Swift & Kylie Jenner Top Forbes List of 100 Highest-Paid Celebs
Kathleen Willcox
PRPhotos.com
Forbes released its list of the top 100 highest-paid entertainers on Wednesday, and 10-time Grammy winner Taylor Swift snagged the top slot. Forbes estimated that the 29-year-old’s pretax income was a staggering $185 million, a 131% increase over Swift’s take last year.
Much of Swift’s income came from her Reputation Stadium Tour, which brought in an estimated $266.1 million, the highest-grossing tour in U.S. history.
Kylie Jenner was right behind Swift, with an estimated $170 million in pretax income. Other KarJenner’s made the cut too. Her brother in law Kanye West nabbed No 3 with an estimated $140 million in earnings; his wife and Jenner’s sister Kim Kardashian brought in $72 million, landing her at No. 26. Jenner’s partner Travis Scott, meanwhile, brought in $58 million, landing him at No. 39.
Other artists hovering near the top include Beyonce at No. 20 with $81 million, Rihanna at No. 36 with 62 million, Ariana Grande at No. 62 with $48 million and Lady Gaga at No. 90 with $39.5 million.
The Game's Royalties Seized To Pay Off $7 Million Lawsuit
Diddy Announces The Return Of Making The Band
TLC Cancels Shows After Chilli Loses Voice
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It’s play festival season
The cast of Outside the Maths Class
It’s drama festival season, which means the boys in the Jeppe Drama Club and their teacher, Ms Bronwen Kemp, are being run off their feet as three different casts are staging three different plays in three different competitions, all at the same time.
“That’s how it always goes,” Ms Kemp said, “and last year we were in rehearsal for our major production at the same time as well. We will only be putting the major production on later this year, but it’s still been pretty hectic.”
Jeppe drama has gained a reputation for being good at comedy, so a decision was made to put on serious productions in the festivals this year. “The three plays tackle serious, poignant social issues,” Ms Kemp explains.
“They are entertaining, and funny at times, but they make serious points and are relevant to real-world challenges.” All three plays are written by current Jeppe boys, or recent old boys and two of them are collaborative efforts involving the actors in the respective casts.
The Eads Festival entry features a group of junior actors in Outside the Maths Class, a play written by David Newton and Lesego Ngubane and directed by Kevin Newton. “It’s about two boys who are kicked out of Maths class and who start talking in the corridor,” Ms Kemp explains. “It looks at differences in culture and similarities in human nature and is a humorous examination of the diversity that exists in the school.
The play did not make it through to the next round of the Eads Festival, but it received a number of nominations for awards including best set best sound, best supporting actor and best actor. The results will be made known on 18th May.
Jeppe Boys and Girls have collaborated to enter Please into the Feda festival. “This is the elite competition,” Ms Kemp explained. “All the prestige schools have entered and it is performed in the Fringe Theatre at the Johannesburg Theatre, so the boys and girls get to perform on a professional stage with top lighting sound, sets etc.
It’s a physical theatre piece dealing with awareness of sexual abuse and the culture of rape. The script is an original co-created by the cast members. It addresses a serious issue but does not attack the audience in any way.”
Ms Kemp describes the Grads festival entry, Take it like a man, as “a play by the boys, for the boys.” It tackles the issue of masculinity without accepting the premise that all masculinity is necessarily toxic. “It’s about growing up as a man and not having to apologise for it,” she explains. “It was written by Kevin Colby, again with the collaboration of the cast.”
At its first performance last week the play received merit awards for actor, supporting actor, director, stage manager, backstage and best original script. It was performed again on Tuesday and they will hear soon after that whether it has made it through to the final round which is on 22nd May.
Please will be on stage at the Fringe Theatre again on 16th May (tickets R100) and they will hear after that if they have made it through to final.
We are proud of all the boys and girls involved, and are holding thumbs for them.
International honours for Claus
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Fr Fitzmaurice SJ On Witnessing An Execution
Fr John Luck SJ, a biography
A recording of Fr Fitzmaurice SJ's account of witnessing an execution during the First World War.
The most unnerving experience that I have had since the war began—perhaps the worst I have ever had--was having to attend a man sentenced to be shot, and having to be present when the sentence was carried out. It was my first case of the kind, and, please God, may it be my last. I had the redeeming consolation of knowing that the poor boy (he was nineteen) died a magnificent death.
I went to see him the day before, heard his confession, and talked to him a little, arranged a little time-table for him of reading and praying, plotting to get his mind easy so that he might sleep.
I don't know what I said to him quite, but I do know that the Comforter of the Afflicted helped me, for he was almost happy when I left with the promise of Holy Communion before his great sacrifice on the morrow. Next morning I had to be up before daybreak—he was to be shot at dawn —for I had a three mile ride. I called at a convent chapel for the Blessed Sacrament at half-past four, and I was in the boy's cell as the church clock outside struck five. I found he had had a fairly good night, getting to sleep early according to my stratagem, and not waking till 2.30.
After that, the Corporal of the Guard told me, he had spent all the time with his prayer-book and beads. He was obviously glad to see me for what I had brought. When we were alone, I placed our Lord on the straw—there was nowhere else to put Him, and after all, it wasn't the first time He had been laid on the straw, was it?
The next, and last half-hour was spent as the last half-hour should be spent. We made our thanksgiving together, and all the while, though I was fully intent -upon what we were doing, I was painfully conscious of every detail of the moving picture that was being played outside.
Again the clock chimed out, a quarter past. A knock at the door and the Corporal entered with a glass of hot coffee and rum for the prisoner. I took it and closed the door again, and made him drink it slowly while we talked about the men outside, the Corporal, who was kind and a R.C., and some of the Guard who were sympathetic too, and silent, of one who was from his own town in Lancashire, and who was his pal, and so the hot drink was finished.
Then we said the Sorrowful Mysteries which I had timed to take us just to the end. During the " Crucifixion " my heart began to race as I heard the firing party some distance away formed up and marched off to the place to await our arrival. As we said the " Hail Holy Queen," there was some stir outside, and I was aware, though they made no noise, that the Corporal and his Guard were standing ready for us, hand upon the key.
Then we said the Angelus, and as I said the Fidelium Animae, the half-hour struck, the key was turned, and the door opened on the fixed bayonets of the escort. My boy stood to attention with a spring: I fixed his cap on, and he marched out of his cell like a soldier.
Then in the passage queer things happened,—the corporal and the escort all shook the poor lad by the hand and said good¬bye. I did the same and blessed him, and them. One man said to me : " He's a good boy, Father." " He's the bravest boy here." And we marched off.
In two minutes we were there—a garden. It was now full day¬light, a lovely spring day beginning, but what strange flowers in this garden : the firing party drawn up, a second party in case of accidents, the Provost Marshal and staff officers, the doctor, the stake near the wall—and the grave already dug. Straight up to the stake he walked, was blindfolded and fastened to it.
I whispered a last word in his ear, and then with a smile, seen by all, and in a voice as steady as a rock, and for all to hear, he said : " Alright, Father, I'm ready." The rest is silence.
We buried him there, and the very staff-officers, who had been his unwilling executioners, were there bareheaded as chief mourners. Two of them were Catholics too.
Thus the boy really died in the end for his country after all—for an example and a sacrifice, that's how I put it to him, and so he offered himself up for us. His death was necessary, though he had committed no fearful moral crime, and he died a hero in God's eyes—and in ours too. R.I.P.
Fr John Luck was born 9 January 1867 in Aldershot to Richard and Ellen Luck. He had one older sister, Eliza, and four younger sisters: Lucy, Margaret, Emma and Mary, known as May. His youngest sister, Alice, died shortly before her second birthday.
Luck entered the Society at Manresa, 7 September 1888. His large build made him well qualified to take on the job of Master of Outdoor Works as a novice, and he continued in this role unofficially at St Mary’s Hall, Stonyhurst. He had a keen interest in art and archaeology and at Stonyhurst excavated two mounds in the Winkley Hall estate, believing them to be sepulchral barrows. He had two articles published in the Stonyhurst Magazine for 1894-95 and wrote a paper for the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society on his findings.
Passing from the Seminary to the College, he spent four years (1895-99) as assistant prefect of the secular philosophers. There he took an interest in the study of the numerous stone crosses in the surrounding countryside and published a summary of observations in 1910 in the Stonyhurst Magazine.
He made his most important contribution to Christian Archaeology while attached to staff of St Mary’s-on-the-Quay, Bristol, where he identified the shrines of Bristol Cathedral and many of the old churches in and around the city as being either Altars of Repose or Easter Sepulchres, and described his researches in the Tablet, 7 April 1934. At his last assignment at Farm Street he undertook the task of cleaning and polishing the pictures on the walls in the refectory.
Luck was ordained 31 July 1901 at St Beuno’s College and completed his Tertianship at Tronchiennes, Belgium. His final vows were taken 2 February 1903. During his life as a priest he was attached to the mission staff of several churches, usually as a curate and mostly in Lancashire. In 1911 Luck left Stonyhurst to open a House of Retreat for men in Lewisham, diocese of Southwark, but the project was abandoned. However in August of that year, Thornbury (later Campion) House, Isleworth was opened for the same purpose with Luck as Superior. He remained there until 1915 when he was gazetted as a Chaplain to the Forces, in which capacity he served until 1919.
During the War Luck was first barracked with the 11th Battalion Scottish Rifles at Sutton Veny, where troops were trained prior to deployment to Northern France. He was then charged to the Royal Army Medical Corps with the 79th Brigade and proceeded to France in September 1915. In November 1915 the Division moved to Salonika via Marseilles. In his letters Luck describes his work as a chaplain, which includes saying mass, censoring the troops’ letters and visiting patients. He also provides in depth descriptions of the camps and his accommodation. Towards the end of 1916 Luck is treated for dysentery in Malta, but travels back to Salonika to take up his work.
Between 1923 and 1924 Luck lived in a cottage in the recently purchased Heythrop estate in Oxford which was to house a tertiary education college, acting as a sort of caretaker while alterations and additions were made.
Between 1928 and 1930 he was parish priest at St Winefride’s, Holywell. The last 9 years of his life were spent at Farm Street, London. To within the last 3 weeks of his life he said 11 o’ clock mass on weekdays and generally had about six converts under his instruction, and as Spiritual Father he was Confessor to most of the community.
He died on Christmas Day in the Hospital of Our Lady of Consolation, Lambeth, after three weeks’ illness. His requiem took place at Farm Street.
Imaginative Contemplation: Jesus walks on water
8 min 57 sec ago.
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Hospitals struggling with infection control
Details of HIQA inspections published
Some hospitals in Ireland are struggling to effectively prevent and control the spread of healthcare-associated infections, due to issues such as a lack of isolation facilities, high occupancy rates and ageing hospital infrastructure, the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) has said.
It has just published inspection reports on infection prevention and control practices in place in five public acute hospitals - Beaumont Hospital, the Mater Hospital, Wexford General Hospital, University Hospital Waterford and Louth County Hospital.
The unannounced inspections took place between January and March of this year. They focused on the prevention and control of antimicrobial-resistant bacteria and healthcare-associated infections, including carbapenemase-producing enterobacteriales (CPE), which is the newest of the so-called ‘superbugs'.
CPE are bacteria that live in the gut. They are usually harmless. However, if they get into the wrong place, such as the bloodstream or the bladder, they can cause infection. Symptoms of CPE infections include fever, pneumonia, urinary tract infection and sepsis.
Of all the superbugs, CPE is the most difficult to kill with antibiotics, making treatment more difficult. It is particularly dangerous for older people and those with low immunity.
However, according to the reports, of the five hospitals inspected, only Louth County Hospital was in compliance with the HSE's February 2018 guidelines on screening patients for CPE.
In the case of Beaumont Hospital - one of the busiest acute hospitals in the country - not only was there non-compliance with these screening guidelines, but the hospital continued to admit patients to a CPE outbreak ward, which had been closed to admissions. This was contrary to advice from the infection prevention and control team.
The report noted that Beaumont had been managing an ongoing outbreak of CPE since August 2018.
"While the hospital had acted to implement outbreak control measures, evidence at the time of the inspection did not provide assurance that the measures implemented were sufficiently effective or in line with national guidelines," the report stated.
Meanwhile in the Mater Hospital, it was reported to the inspectors that the infection prevention and control programme there "had been severely restricted due to staffing constraints within key roles over the previous 10-month period".
"The hospital's direct and indirect infection prevention and control committees had been inactive for the previous 12 months. Infection prevention and control team meetings were also infrequently held during this period. This was a particular concern in the context of two outbreaks of CPE in critical care areas in 2018.
"Inspectors were informed that the additional workload generated by CPE outbreak management had been absorbed by the existing infection prevention team members. It was reported that this had severely restricted the implementation of the wider infection prevention and control programme throughout 2018. The hospital acknowledged that this had led to deficits in the prevention and control of other healthcare-associated infections in the hospital," the report stated.
In Wexford General, the inspectors found that the hospital was "not screening in line with national guidance".
"The hospital was not routinely screening all patients who were transferred from nursing homes. HIQA considered the hospital's non-compliance with these guidelines to be a high risk," the report said.
The same issue was identified in University Hospital Waterford.
HIQA noted that each hospital had provided assurances that this risk would be managed, and training and education for staff working in decontamination "was progressing across all hospitals inspected".
"Overall, HIQA found recurring challenges faced by hospitals to effectively prevent and control the CPE outbreak, such as design of and ageing hospital infrastructure, a lack of isolation facilities and high occupancy rates.
"To concur with HSE national recommendations, each hospital group must identify a group decontamination lead and each hospital should progress the centralisation of decontamination activity. Microbiological testing of environment and equipment also needs to be implemented," it added.
The inspection reports can be viewed here.
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Landmark move edges GCC closer to united market
New regulations in Saudi market herald the dawn of a new era
A leading capital market law expert has claimed a united GCC market is a reality following the historic decision to allow foreigners to sit on the board of listed Saudi Arabian companies. New regulations, issued by the Saudi Arabian Capital Markets Authority (CMA) and under the consent of the Saudi government, will also allow foreign residents to subscribe to capital increases of listed firms. Majed Garoub, chairman of the Saudi Law Training Centre and a lawyer specialising in capital market law, told CEO Middle East: “The main reason behind these decisions by the government and the CMA was to allow more money to enter the Saudi market, without involving government funds. “This is the start of a move towards a united GCC stock market, which will make the market larger and bring more opportunities between Middle Eastern companies (and their chief executives).” In November 2005, Saudi Arabia became the latest country to join the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the multilateral body which sets rules for global trade, opening up its economy to foreign policy and investment. Last month the Saudi Arabian CMA permitted six million foreign residents to invest directly in the local stock market in an attempt to boost liquidity. Other markets across the Middle East are also re-addressing their foreign policies after leaders at the GCC summit last December decided that nationals could invest in any market in the region. In February, the Dubai Financial Market (DFM) welcomed Salama Islamic Insurance Company as the first listed insurance company to allow non-UAE nationals to own its shares. Garoub expects the region’s stock markets to also be subjected to more change in the near future: “We will see more people go to market and more broker laws being formed. We need to change the laws quickly to support the economy,” he said. Last month the Saudi Arabian CMA also granted new brokerage licenses to Rana Investment Company and Team One Company, bringing the number of businesses providing stock market services in the Kingdom to five.
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