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Home Ethics Doping
Six Weightlifters Among Athletes Disqualified After Re-Tests from Beijing, London Games
Six weightlifters, including three Chinese Olympic gold medallists, are among the athletes to have been disqualified by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as part of the re-testing of samples stored since Beijing 2008 and London 2012. Photo: EPA/RUNGROJ YONGRIT
Six weightlifters, including three Chinese Olympic gold medalists, are among the athletes to have been disqualified by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as part of the re-testing of samples stored since Beijing 2008 and London 2012.
Cao Lei, Chen Xiexia and Liu Chunhong, gold medalists in the respective women’s 75 kilograms, 48kg and 69kg categories at Beijing 2008, have all been disqualified with all three failing for the prohibited substance GHRP-2 and metabolite (GHRP-2 M2), and Liu also failing for sibutramine.
It means China is facing a ban from international weightlifting competition after the sport’s world governing body vowed last year to hand a 12-month suspension to all countries who produced three or more anti-doping rule violations in the combined re-analysis of samples from Beijing 2008 and London 2012.
It had been expected that these would come into force in time for Rio 2016, but that was not possible because the IOC had yet to formerly sanction those implicated – even though their names had already been announced by the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF).
The three other weightlifters to be disqualified are Turkey’s Sibel Simsek, Azerbaijan’s Intigam Zairov and Armenia’s Norayr Vardanyan.
Simsek, fourth in the women’s 63kg at London 2012, tested positive for prohibited substances dehydrochlormethyltestosterone (turinabol) and stanozolol.
Zairov and Vardanyan, who finished sixth and 11th respectively in the men’s 94kg at London 2012, both failed for dehydrochlormethyltestosterone (turinabol).
The other two athletes disqualified are both from Belarus; women’s shot put thrower Nadzeya Ostapchuk and women’s hammer thrower Darya Pchelnik.
Ostapchuk, bronze medalist at Beijing 2008, failed for dehydrochlormethyltestosterone (turinabol) and tamoxifen, while Pchelnik, fourth at Beijing 2008, failed for dehydrochlormethyltestosterone (turinabol).
In a previous doping case, Ostapchuk lost her gold medal from London 2012.
The IOC is retesting hundreds of samples from Beijing 2008 and London 2012, using new techniques to uncover cheating that went undetected at the time.
Kazakhstan’s Alla Vazhenina stands to be upgraded to the gold medal won by Cao, while Chinese Taipei’s Chen Wei-ling and Russia’s Oksana Slivenko are first in line behind Chen and Liu respectively.
Cuba’s Misleydis González, who finished fourth in the women’s shot put at Beijing 2008, could now take silver given that Ostapchuk’s compatriot Natallia Mikhnevich, the runner-up, was sanctioned in November after her samples tested positive for methandienone and stanozolol.
China’s Lijiao Gong, the fifth-place finisher, could be upgraded to bronze.
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Wednesday, July 24th, 2013 | Posted by Matt Dunn
Chris Clements hits 600
CHRIS Clements notched up 600 games with the whistle on Saturday when he took the field for the Korumburra-Bena home game against Kilcunda-Bass.
Originally a player, the Korumburra umpire retired from the sport when he was about 30 years old.
“I realised I was not a very good spectator, so I took up golf for around five years and in that time I probably didn’t attend a footy match,” he said.
“But then I put on a bit of weight and happened to be playing basketball with a member of the Bass Valley umpiring panel.
“My first game was the Wonthaggi Rovers versus the Inverloch Thirds in 1986 and that was where it all started.”
Milestone makers: Vin Hally, Chris Clements and Steve McNamara have over 1600 games between them as umpires.
After five years away from the game, Mr Clements realised he missed the footy environment and has umpired every season since.
“For an umpire, 600 games is a huge milestone. It is effectively 27 years of participation. For a player, two or 300 games is a big deal,” he said.
“Although they only play one game a week and I was sometimes umpiring two a week.”
There is a lot of training involved in becoming an umpire; they do have to know the rules of the game inside and out.
“Some spectators may not realise it and so to minimise the anger I get from the sidelines I decided the better I got, the less I would cop. It hasn’t worked,” he said.
Mr Clements said one of his most memorable moments was the first year the local umpiring panel was allowed to umpire senior games.
“They used to bring in umpires from Melbourne, we were never allowed on the field,” he said.
“My second senior match was the Wonthaggi Rovers against the Wonthaggi Blues, who didn’t really like each other very much.
“It was a great game and I only had one report.”
Eventually, local umpires were also allowed on to the field to umpire in senior grand finals, which brought a few more memorable moments for Mr Clements.
“I umpired the first Alberton Football League senior grand final and at the end of the game, the president of the losing club came and told us it was the best umpiring he had seen in a long time,” he said.
“The 1994 Bass Valley League grand final when Wonthaggi Rovers came back from behind to defeat Phillip Island by two points was another memorable game.
“The intensity and the closeness of it was great.”
So far, Mr Clements has been in control of 11 senior grand finals.
In his 600 games, there have been only two or three incidences Mr Clements can recall that have been negative.
“All the rest of my experiences with local football have been extremely positive,” he said.
“The involvement of the community and the camaraderie of the people involved especially at a country level is incredible.
“They are aware of things that have happened and that are happening and make you feel a part of it.”
And as far as spectators go, Mr Clements said it helps to have a thick hide.
“It doesn’t worry me at all, but I have seen half a dozen umpires walk off the field and never return because of crowd abuse,” he said.
Mr Clements said he wasn’t ever planning to make it to 600 games, in fact when he reached 500 he was sure he wouldn’t.
“I said I wouldn’t bet on me making 600, but I have no immediate plans to retire because I still enjoy it,” he said.
“I am a fairly harsh critic on my own abilities, I know what I can and can’t do well but I think my decision making is as good as it has ever been.
“I don’t think I am yet being seen as the old hack who still shows up.”
For Saturday’s game, the three field umpires had a whopping 1641 games experience between them.
“I got to select the umpires I had on the field with me. I chose Vin Hally who was umpiring when I started and the next longest standing umpire, Steve McNamara.
“Vin has umpired around 560 games and Steve around 490.”
In the South Gippsland Umpiring Association, Mr Clements has the most games under his belt at 600.
“Milestones mean a little, but it is really just the experience and the privilege of being involved in the game for that amount of time that means the most,” he said.
Posted by Matt Dunn on Jul 24 2013. Filed under Community, Sport. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry
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No Challenge: Cop In Unlawful Killing Cases Fails To Appeal
As of Thursday, November 1, 2018
By RASHAD ROLLE
rrolle@tribunemedia.net
A POLICE officer found by the Coroner’s Court this year to have unlawfully killed two people in separate incidents has not appealed those rulings, drawing focus as to whether the Department of Public Prosecutions will pursue criminal action against him.
The rulings sprang from two separate incidents in which Corporal Adrian Miller killed 31-year-old Girred Clarke on August 17, 2013, and 22-year-old Terrique Fowler on June 7, 2013.
The 21-day deadline for him to appeal those rulings passed weeks ago and it is not clear why he did not launch an appeal.
Yesterday, Director of Public Prosecutions Garvin Gaskins said his department will not press charges against him in connection with one of the matters, the death of Clarke, who was shot at a party.
“With respect to one of the matters, certainly from our vantage point it doesn’t speak to a cogent case of homicide,” Mr Gaskins said. “The other one, I haven’t gotten anything (from the Coroner’s Court), so I don’t want to speak to that.”
Clarke, 31, got into an argument at a party hosted by family and friends when he fired two shots into the air with a .45 Glock pistol and one shot at a fleeing car. Cpl Miller responded to the scene.
A witness testified during the coroner’s inquest that Cpl Miller identified himself as a police officer and told Clarke to stop while other witnesses testified that he did no such thing before shooting Clarke.
“In that particular case, when we looked at all of the circumstances, apparently the deceased was firing a gun, the police officer was called on the scene and told him to stop,” Mr Gaskins said. “In respect of that one, even though the finding was the finding, when you look at the evidence it certainly didn’t smack of an (unlawful killing).”
Cpl Miller has been removed from frontline duty, though it is not known exactly when this occurred.
The timeline of his two incidents show that he was not taken off frontline duty after the Clarke killing, however, even though a coroner’s inquest into that matter had not yet taken place.
Mr Gaskins said it is not for his department to decide whether an officer in such circumstances should be allowed on frontline duty before an inquest has exculpated him.
“We cannot take any administrative actions,” he said. “That would be for the commissioner or the police commission, whomever, to say what their workings are but it would not be for any outside body to take administrative action like that.”
Former State Minister for Legal Affairs Damian Gomez, nonetheless, questioned why an officer would not be taken off active duty immediately after a fatal shooting.
“One would hope there would be both a coroner’s inquest and an internal inquiry by the police having regard to the seriousness of a loss of life before the person is allowed back in the same role,” he said. “Most people would do that. This speaks to negligence on the part of his supervisors.”
Among other things, Mr Gomez said fatal shootings by police raises questions about an officer’s state of mind, hence the need for thorough investigations before they are allowed back on frontline duty.
The Coroner’s Court does not determine criminal, civil or disciplinary liability; it ascertains facts surrounding a person’s death. A finding of unlawful killing does not automatically lead to criminal charges. The Department of Public Prosecutions can decide not to press charges, though families can launch judicial review proceedings into such decisions, according to Mr Gomez.
There have been nine police-involved killings in 2018.
'Unlawful killing’ cop will fight verdict
AG: Coroner's Court ruling that police officer unlawfully killed man 'up in the air'
Unlawful killing No. 2 - by the same officer
Officer guilty of unlawful killing
AG awaits report on fatal cop shooting
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Con Court Presidential Election Petition Court Order
WHEREUPON, after reading documents filed of record and hearing counsel in this application/petition made in terms of section 93(1) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe,
And thereafter, that is to say, TUESDAY the 20th day of AUGUST 2013
The Constitutional Court unanimously concluded that an application/petition lodged with it in terms of section 93(1) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe challenging the validity of an election of a President or Vice-President is unique, in that it cannot be terminated by a withdrawal. In terms of section 93 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe, once such an application or petition is launched it can only be finalised by a determination of the Constitutional Court by either declaring the election valid, in which case the President is inaugurated within forty-eight hours of such determination, or alternatively by declaring the election invalid, in which case a fresh election must be held within sixty days. Without the said determination there can be neither an inauguration of the President nor the holding of a fresh election.
Consequently the purported withdrawal of the application/petition by the applicant before a determination of the matter is of no legal force or effect, save to indicate to this Court that the applicant has abandoned or does not persist with his allegations against the respondents.
In the result, the application is hereby dismissed with costs.
Con Court Presidential Election Petition Court Order.pdf
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A chronological day-by-day history of Land Rover.
Engineer Gustaf Larson and SKF sales manager Assar Gabrielsson met by chance over a plate of crayfish, and after enjoying their meal agreed to start up production of 'The Swedish Car', ie Volvo. Their vision was to build cars that could withstand the rigors of the country's rough roads and cold temperatures. The first Volvo car rolled off the production line at the factory in Gothenburg in 1927. Only 280 cars were built that year. The first truck, the "Series 1", debuted in January 1928, as an immediate success and attracted attention outside the country. In 1930, Volvo sold 639 cars, and the export of trucks to Europe started soon after; the cars did not become well-known outside Sweden until after World War II. Pentaverken, who had manufactured engines for Volvo, was acquired in 1935, providing a secure supply of engines and entry into the marine engine market. The first bus, named B1, was launched in 1934, and aircraft engines were added to the growing range of products at the beginning of the 1940s. In 1963, Volvo opened the Volvo Halifax Assembly plant, the first assembly plant in the company's history outside of Sweden in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. In 1999, the European Union blocked a merger with Scania AB. That same year, Volvo Group sold its car division Volvo Car Corporation to Ford Motor Company for $6.45 billion. The division was placed within Ford's Premier Automotive Group alongside Jaguar, Land Rover and Aston Martin. Volvo engineering resources and components would be used in various Ford, Land Rover and Aston Martin products, with the second generation Land Rover Freelander designed on the same platform as the second generation Volvo S80. The Volvo T5 petrol engine was used in the Ford Focus ST and RS performance models, and Volvo's satellite navigation system was used on certain Aston Martin Vanquish, DB9 and V8 Vantage models. Ford sold the Volvo Car Corporation in 2010 to Geely Automobile of China for $1.8 billion. The move followed Ford's 2007 sale of Aston Martin, and 2008 sale of Jaguar Land Rover. Renault Véhicules Industriels (which included Mack Trucks, but not Renault's stake in Irisbus) was sold to Volvo during January 2001, and Volvo renamed it Renault Trucks in 2002. Renault became AB Volvo's biggest shareholder with a 19.9% stake (in shares and voting rights) as part of the deal. Renault increased its shareholding to 21.7% by 2010.
Sir Stafford Cripps officially opened Rover’s Solihull car plant. As in the tradition of Rover previous main factories dating back to the original Starley and Sutton Rover Bicycle plant from Victorian times, the Solihull plant was named The Meteor Works. Car production started again in 1946, with the first new car to be produced at the factory the Rover P4, from 1949. As well as producing many Rover cars there until the late 1970s, the plant was also the development site of the Land Rover four-wheel drive vehicle in late 1947 and 1948. It is also the development site for Rover's other iconic four wheel drive in the late 1960s, the Range Rover. The Land Rover instantly began out selling Rover cars from its beginning in 1948 and the Solihull plant has remained the home and birthplace of Land Rover ever since. North Works was added to the Solihull site beginning in late 1956 as two storage warehouses. North Works became a complete factory of its own for the introduction of the Rover P6 car in October 1963. The Rover P6 was awarded the International Car of the Year for 1964. The Rover Company merged with Leyland Motors in 1967, which merged shortly afterwards with British Motor Holdings to create the British Leyland Motor Corporation a year later. Solihull continued to manufacture Rover cars, but the most significant new Rover product would be the Range Rover in 1970 - a model whose success would ultimately secure the plant's future in later decades. The factory was extended with Eastworks in 1975 for the new Rover SD1, a bold and futuristic design which would replace the older P6 models. However the plant was ravaged by the industrial strife that had crippled (and eventually bankrupted) the rest of BL, and the resulting quality problems meant the car never fulfilled its promise. The rationalisation of car production in the late 1970s by British Leyland had almost wiped out their all their major British car brands. At Solihull all car production, except for Land Rover vehicles, ceased at Lode Lane. Land Rover and Range Rover as specialist lines of the old Rover Company had remained relatively unscathed from the British Leyland bankruptcy and were split as separate operating company based there. The Rover SD1 assembly hall and paint shop were mothballed, and production of that car was moved to the former Morris plant in Cowley, Oxfordshire. All future Rover car production would take place both here, and at the Austin assembly plant in Longbridge. Following the de-merger of Jaguar from BL in 1984, the Range Rover became BL's flagship product and a stable situation existed from thereon, with new models such as the Discovery debuting in 1989, and the Freelander in 1998 - which finally made use of the old SD1 assembly hall. In 2000, the situation changed once again when BMW (by now the owners of the Rover Group - the successor to BL) decided to sell Land Rover (and the Solihull plant) to Ford. In 2005, production of the Range Rover and the Range Rover Sport at the Solihull plant was temporarily interrupted by protesters from the environmental organization Greenpeace. The protesters infiltrated an assembly facility and temporarily delayed production of the vehicle. Greenpeace cited issues with greenhouse gas emissions, and by extension, global warming. The United States Environmental Protection Agency estimates for the non-supercharged car are 14 mpg‑US (17 L/100 km; 17 mpg‑imp) (combined). Although for this test the EPA used their newly calibrated system for 2008 and on. Greenpeace stated they did not take issue with the production of vehicles such as the Land Rover Defender as they are typically used for off-road applications on a much more frequent basis than vehicles such as the Range Rover Sport which they claim "has been tuned primarily for on road performance". In March 2008, Ford finalised a deal to sell Jaguar and Land Rover to Tata Motors – part of the Indian-based Tata Group, one of the world's largest manufacturers of commercial vehicles. Solihull has since benefited from massive investment in the run up to the launch of the fourth generation Range Rover in 2012 and second generation Range Rover Sport in 2013, following the installation of a new aluminium bodyshell production facility.[8] The plant has now been designated as a "centre for excellence" for aluminium body technology. Production of the Jaguar XE, the first non-4x4 vehicle to be produced at the plant since 1981, began on 13 April 2015, and will be followed by production of the Jaguar F-Pace during 2016. Sir Stirling Moss, Jaguar test driver Norman Dewis and motoring expert Quentin Wilson led a procession of classic Jaguar and Land Rover models to celebrate the beginning of Jaguar production at Solihull, with Stirling Moss formally opening the new production facility. Production of the Jaguar XE has since moved to Castle Bromwich in 2016 costing £100m.
Rover Car Factory, Lode Lane, Solihull, West Midlands, UK
The Rover Board sanctioned the production of an ‘all-purpose vehicle on the lines of the Wills-Overland Jeep’ - the Land Rover. It was agreed to build 25 vehicles for evaluation, although this was later extended to 50. The Land Rover’s body was made of more expensive aluminium because steel was still in short supply after the end of WWII. Announced abroad, at the Amsterdam Motor Show of 1948 and initially priced at £450, the vehicle’s functional design, sound engineering and go-anywhere specifications, coupled with optional four-wheel drive, meant that it was in immediate demand the world over and since then over 70% of output has been exported. Originally a 1.6-litre overhead-inlet, side exhaust 4 cylinder engine was employed, as used in the Rover 60 car, but from 1951 this was enlarged to a 2-litre and from 1957 there was a diesel option, the first of many options. Output soared. The 100,000th Land Rover was built in 1954 and the millionth in 1976.
The name "Landrover" was officially approved by Rovers Board of Directors. The first Land Rover made its debut in 1948. It was designed with brilliant simplicity for extraordinary ability and unrivalled strength and durability. In fact, six decades on it is estimated that two-thirds of all these incredible vehicles are still at work – many of them in some of the most extreme conditions and inhospitable places on earth. The original 1948 Land Rover was ingeniously designed and engineered for extreme capability and strength. With extremely robust construction and characteristics such as short front and rear overhangs, it drove off the production line ready to take on some of the world’s toughest terrain. Today these qualities are as significant a part of what makes a Land Rover vehicle unique as they were 60 years ago. The Land Rover was the product of continuous evolution and refinement throughout the 1950s and 1960s with improved stability and a tighter turning circle. It was a period in which Land Rover took the lead in the emerging market for four-wheel drive vehicles. As a tough, reliable mobility platform, countless organisations came to depend on Land Rover vehicles to get personnel and equipment into the most challenging situations…and then safely out again. From organisations such as Born Free Foundation to The Royal Geographical Society and Biosphere Expeditions - we enter the second decade of the 21st century with them still relying on Land Rover In keeping with the forward-thinking philosophy that founded Land Rover, a radical, entirely new product was introduced in 1970 and created its very own vehicle category. This overnight sensation was the original Range Rover. It had all the capability of a Land Rover with the comfort and performance of an on-road car. This culture of innovation has developed ever since with both Land Rover and Range Rover vehicles: new models, more refinement, more innovative technology, more efficiency and fewer emissions. And it continues with initiatives such as e_Terrain Technologies (which improves the environmental performance of vehicles by reducing CO2 emissions), Sustainable Manufacturing and CO2 Offsetting. Land Rover will remain at the forefront of advanced design – the new small Range Rover is a testament to the vision that takes the company forward and keeps it at the cutting edge of technology and engineering.
The Land Rover was officially launched at the Amsterdam Motor Show. Brothers Maurice and Spencer Wilks, developed the vehicle as a result of a conversation about Maurice's American 4x4. Realising the gap in the British market for such a vehicle, they quickly produced a prototype out of aluminium and steel, metals that were still rationed in England at the time. They used interior components from their Rover saloon cars. Featuring four-wheel drive and a 1.6 litre engine from the Rover P3 60 saloon, it was shown with a canvas top and optional doors. Doors eventually became standard, as did a system where two and four-wheel drive could be selected in the high range with permanent four-wheel drive in the low range. The original 1948 Land Rover was ingeniously designed and engineered for extreme capability and strength. With extremely robust construction and characteristics such as short front and rear overhangs, it drove off the production line ready to take on some of the world’s toughest terrain. Today these qualities are as significant a part of what makes a Land Rover vehicle unique as they were 60 years ago. The Land Rover was the product of continuous evolution and refinement throughout the 1950s and 1960s with improved stability and a tighter turning circle. It was a period in which Land Rover took the lead in the emerging market for four-wheel drive vehicles. As a tough, reliable mobility platform, countless organisations came to depend on Land Rover vehicles to get personnel and equipment into the most challenging situations…and then safely out again. From organisations such as Born Free Foundation to The Royal Geographical Society and Biosphere Expeditions - we enter the second decade of the 21st century with them still relying on Land Rover In keeping with the forward-thinking philosophy that founded Land Rover, a radical, entirely new product was introduced in 1970 and created its very own vehicle category. This overnight sensation was the original Range Rover. It had all the capability of a Land Rover with the comfort and performance of an on-road car. This culture of innovation has developed ever since with both Land Rover and Range Rover vehicles: new models, more refinement, more innovative technology, more efficiency and fewer emissions. And it continues with initiatives such as e_Terrain Technologies (which improves the environmental performance of vehicles by reducing CO2 emissions), Sustainable Manufacturing and CO2 Offsetting. Land Rover will remain at the forefront of advanced design – the new small Range Rover is a testament to the vision that takes the company forward and keeps it at the cutting edge of technology and engineering.
1948 Amsterdam Motor Show
The first ‘For Sale’ Series II Land Rover vehicles rolled off the production line. The regular model had a 2-litre petrol engine and cost £640.
The Land Rover Series II was officially released to coincide with the tenth anniversary of the Land Rover launch date. It came in 88 in (2,200 mm) and 109 in (2,800 mm) wheelbases (normally referred to as the 'SWB' and 'LWB'). This was the first Land Rover to receive the attention of Rover's styling department- Chief Stylist David Bache produced the familiar 'barrel side' waistline to cover the vehicle's wider track and the improved design of the truck cab variant, introducing the curved side windows and rounded roof still used on current Land Rovers. The Series II was the first vehicle to use the well-known 2.25-litre petrol engine, although the first 1,500 or so short wheelbase (SWB) models retained the 52 hp (39 kW) 2.0-litre petrol engine from the Series I. This larger petrol engine produced 72 hp (54 kW) and was closely related to the 2.0-litre diesel unit still in use. This engine became the standard Land Rover unit until the mid-1980s when diesel engines became more popular. The regular model with a 2-litre petrol engine cost £640.
The Jeep Wagoneer was introduced. it pioneered the sport utility vehicle concept. Based on a pickup truck chassis with a station wagon body style, the Wagoneer was more carlike than any other 4x4 on the market.[6] Compared with offerings from General Motors, International Harvester, and Land Rover — which were producing utilitarian work-oriented vehicles with spartan truck-like interiors — the Wagoneer's luxury set it apart. Based on the Jeep SJ platform, the revolutionary Wagoneer sported an advanced overhead cam straight-six engine, and offered features unheard of at the time in any other mainstream 4WD vehicle, such as an independent front suspension, power steering, and automatic transmission. The Wagoneer made its debut seven years before Land Rover launched its Range Rover in Great Britain, and 24 years before that upscale marque appeared in the US. It was replaced by the smaller Jeep Grand Cherokee.
The 15 thieves involved in the Great Train Robbery, one of the most famous heists of all time, escaped in an ex-British Army truck and two stolen Land Rover four-wheel drive all-terrain vehicles, making off with some $7 million in stolen loot. The mastermind of the Great Train Robbery was Bruce Reynolds, a known burglar and armed robber. Inspired by the railroad heists of the Wild West in America, Reynolds and 14 other men wearing ski masks and helmets held up the Royal Mail train heading between Glasgow, Scotland, and London, England. They used a false red signal to get the train to stop, then hit the driver with an iron bar, seriously injuring him, in order to gain control of the train. The thieves loaded 120 mailbags filled with the equivalent of $7 million in used bank notes into their Land Rovers and sped off. The vehicles had been stolen in central London and marked with identical license plates in order to confuse the police.
Great Train Robbery - 1963
Maurice Wilks (59), the automotive engineer responsible for the inspiration and concept work that led to the development of the Land Rover off-road utility vehicle, died. At the time of his death he was the chairman of the Rover Company. Born in 1904 Maurice Carey Wilks was educated at Malvern and gained his initial experience of the motor industry with General Motors, for whom he worked for two years from 1926. From America he moved to the Hillman Motor Car Co. at Coventry, where he worked as a planning engineer for a further two years. In 1930 he joined the Rover Company as chief engineer, which position he held until he was made technical director in 1946. In 1960 he was appointed managing director of the Rover company, and in 1962 he became chairman. This position suited him as he could devote more of his time to engineering policy rather than day-to-day management. In 1930 with his brother, Spencer, who was then managing-director, he was largely responsible for taking the decision to produce only high quality cars.The boldness of his decision can be appreciated when it is remembered that the economy of the country and the industry in particular was at this time at a low ebb. During the war he headed the Rover team responsible for the development of the first production version of the gas-turbine aircraft engine. He was convinced that gas turbines would eventually play an important role as power units for wheeled vehicles.His foresight led the Rover Company to continue this development after the war and resulted in the first gas-turbine car being produced by the Rover Company in 1949. At this time he was a moving spirit in the development of the Motor Industries Research Establishment proving ground which ultimately became of such value to the industry as a whole. The decision to produce the Land Rover was also that of Maurice Wilks, in conjunction with his brother. Essentially a quiet, shy, studious man he shunned publicity and preferred to remain in the background. He had a brilliant knowledge of engineering detail and was regarded as one of the industry’s outstanding engineers, In addition, he had great boldness and the ability to foresee the requirements of his company for years ahead.
British Motor Corporation and Leyland announced that they would merge to form the British Leyland Corporation. It was partly nationalised in 1975, when the UK government created a holding company called British Leyland, later BL, in 1978. It incorporated much of the British-owned motor vehicle industry, which constituted 40 percent of the UK car market, with roots going back to 1895. Despite containing profitable marques such as Jaguar, Rover and Land Rover, as well as the best-selling Mini, British Leyland had a troubled history. In 1986 it was renamed as the Rover Group, later to become MG Rover Group, which went into administration in 2005, bringing mass car production by British-owned manufacturers to an end. MG and the Austin, Morris and Wolseley marques became part of China's SAIC, with whom MG Rover attempted to merge prior to administration. Today, Mini, Jaguar Land Rover and Leyland Trucks (now owned by BMW Group, TATA and Paccar, respectively) are the three most prominent former parts of British Leyland which are still active in the automotive industry, with SAIC-owned MG Motor continuing a small presence at the Longbridge site. Certain other related ex-BL businesses, such as Unipart, continue to operate independently.
British Leyland Motor Corporation was formed through the merger of British Motor Holdings Ltd. and Leyland Motor Corp. Ltd. It was partly nationalised in 1975, when the UK government created a holding company called British Leyland, later BL, in 1978. With headquarters in London, the company had interests in about 95 percent of the British automotive industry, and it manufactured vehicles ranging from commercial trucks and buses to private automobiles, construction equipment, and engines.Leyland, initially the dominant partner in the merger, was the first British manufacturer to concentrate on commercial vehicles. James Sumner of Leyland, Lancashire, built his first steam-driven wagon in 1884; and in 1896 he allied with the wealthy Spurrier family to set up the Lancashire Steam Motor Company, renamed Leyland Motors Ltd. in 1907, after its first experiments with gasoline engines. Except briefly in 1920–23, the company did not produce automobiles until 1961, when it acquired Triumph Motor Co. Ltd. (Triumph had begun in 1903 as a motorcycle manufacturer and began making cars in 1923.) In 1966 Leyland merged with another car manufacturer, The Rover Co. Ltd. (founded 1904), and the combined companies became Leyland Motor Corp. Ltd. The first chairman of the new British Leyland in 1968, Donald Gresham Stokes, Baron Stokes, had also been the old Leyland’s last chairman. British Motor Holdings Ltd. had a much more complex history, but basically it grew out of three auto manufacturers: Morris, Austin, and Jaguar. Early in the 20th century William Richard Morris (later 1st Viscount Nuffield) founded a garage in Oxford, which after 1910 became known as Morris Garages Limited. In the 1920s, with Cecil Kimber as general manager, it began producing the popular M.G. cars, which were manufactured until 1980, when they were discontinued because of rising production costs. The M.G. Car Company was created in 1927 and was absorbed by another Morris car company, Morris Motors Ltd., in 1935. In that same year, another organization, Wolseley Motors Ltd. (founded in 1901 and taken over by Morris in 1927), was similarly absorbed. In 1952 another venerable car manufacturer, Austin Motor Co. Ltd. (founded in 1905 by Herbert Austin), merged with Morris Motors to form British Motor Corporation Ltd. It continued to turn out Austin, Morris, M.G., and Wolseley cars and the highly successful “Mini” series. Although production of the Mini Cooper ended in 1971, the model was relaunched in 1990 and by 2001 was selling internationally through parent company Bayerische Motoren Werke AG (BMW). The first Jaguar car was produced in 1936 by S.S. Cars Ltd. (founded 1932 in Coventry), which was renamed Jaguar Cars Ltd. in 1945 both to avoid the accidental reminder of the German SS and to highlight the name of the make that had proved to be most successful. Jaguar in 1960 bought Daimler Co. Ltd. (founded 1893), makers of limousines and other prestige cars; and in 1961 it bought Guy Motors Ltd. (founded 1919), a commercial-vehicle manufacturer. In 1966 Jaguar amalgamated with the Austin-Morris interests (i.e., the British Motor Corporation) to form British Motor Holdings Ltd., which two years later merged with Leyland to become British Leyland; in 1984 Jaguar was sold. With two successive name changes, British Leyland became BL Limited in 1979. The company assumed its current name in 1982. In 1981 BL entered into a joint venture with Honda Motor Company, Ltd., of Japan to produce Japanese-designed Triumph Acclaims in the United Kingdom. BL began selling its interests in the 1980s, and by 1990 the Ford Motor Company had acquired full ownership of Jaguar. BMW purchased Rover in 1994 but later sold the sport utility vehicle (SUV) brand to Ford, which continued to develop the Land Rover line of SUVs as part of its Premier Automotive Group. That group also comprised Aston Martin, Jaguar, and Volvo.
British Motor Holdings (BMH) merged with LMVC (Leyland Motor Vehicle Corporation) to become British Leyland Motor Corporation. It was partly nationalised in 1975, when the UK government created a holding company called British Leyland, later BL, in 1978. It incorporated much of the British-owned motor vehicle industry, which constituted 40 percent of the UK car market, with roots going back to 1895. Despite containing profitable marques such as Jaguar, Rover and Land Rover, as well as the best-selling Mini, British Leyland had a troubled history. In 1986 it was renamed as the Rover Group, later to become MG Rover Group, which went into administration in 2005, bringing mass car production by British-owned manufacturers to an end. MG and the Austin, Morris and Wolseley marques became part of China's SAIC, with whom MG Rover attempted to merge prior to administration. Today, MINI, Jaguar Land Rover and Leyland Trucks (now owned by BMW Group, TATA and Paccar, respectively) are the three most prominent former parts of British Leyland which are still active in the automotive industry, with SAIC-owned MG Motor continuing a small presence at the Longbridge site. Certain other related ex-BL businesses, such as Unipart), continue to operate independently.
The Range Rover was launched to the press at the Meudon Hotel, Falmouth, Cornwall (UK). The on-the-road launch price including taxes was £1,998. The first-generation Range Rover was produced between 1970 and 1996. It was available only in a 2-door body until 1981, though prior to this 4 door models were produced by specialist firms. Unlike other 4x4s such as the Jeep Wagoneer, the original Range Rover was not designed as a luxury-type vehicle. While certainly up-market compared to preceding Land Rover models, the early Range Rovers had fairly basic, utilitarian interiors with vinyl seats and plastic dashboards that were designed to be washed down with a hose. Convenience features such as power steering, carpeted floors, air conditioning, cloth/leather seats, and wooden interior trim were fitted later. The Range Rover was a body-on-frame design with a box section ladder type chassis, like the contemporary Series Land Rovers. The Range Rover utilised coil springs as opposed to leaf springs, permanent four-wheel drive, and four-wheel disc brakes. The Range Rover was originally powered by various Rover V8 engines and diesel engines. Originally, the Range Rover was fitted with a detuned 130 hp (97 kW) version of the Buick-derived Rover V8 engine. In 1984, the engine was fitted with Lucas fuel injection, boosting power to 155 hp (116 kW). The 3.5-litre (3,528 cc) engine was bored out to a displacement of 3.9 litres (3,947 cc) for the 1990 model year, and 4.2-litre (4,215 cc) in 1992 (1993 model year) for the 108-inch Long Wheelbase Vogue LSE (County LWB [long wheelbase] in North America). One of the first significant changes came in 1981, with the introduction of a four-door body. Shortly after they introduced twin thermo fan technology to reduce significant overheating problems 1970s models experienced in Australia. In 1988, LR introduced a 2.4-litre turbodiesel (badged Vogue Turbo D) arrived with 112 bhp (84 kW), manufactured by Italian VM Motori. The same engine was also available in the Rover SD1 passenger car. The diesel project was codenamed project Beaver. During the project, 12 world records were broken, including the fastest diesel SUV to reach 100 mph (160 km/h), and the furthest a diesel SUV has travelled in 24 hours. In 1990 project Otter was unveiled. This was a mildly tuned 2.5-litre, 119 bhp (89 kW) version of the 'Beaver' 2.4. In 1992, Land Rover finally introduced their own diesel engines in the Range Rover, beginning with the 111 bhp (83 kW) 200TDi, first released in the Land Rover Discovery and following in 1994, the 300 TDi, again with 111 bhp. The Range Rover with chassis no. 1 was a green model with the registration "YVB 151H", and is now on exhibition at Huddersfield Land Rover Centre, Huddersfield, West Yorkshire. The first generation model was known as the Range Rover until almost the end of its run, when Land Rover introduced the name Range Rover Classic to distinguish it from its successors.
Range Rover brochure c. 1970
British Leyland was nationalised. It incorporated much of the British-owned motor vehicle industry, which constituted 40 percent of the UK car market, with roots going back to 1895. Despite containing profitable marques such as Jaguar, Rover and Land Rover, as well as the best-selling Mini, British Leyland had a troubled history. In 1986 it was renamed as the Rover Group, later to become MG Rover Group, which went into administration in 2005, bringing mass car production by British-owned manufacturers to an end. MG and the Austin, Morris and Wolseley marques became part of China's SAIC, with whom MG Rover attempted to merge prior to administration. Today, MINI, Jaguar Land Rover and Leyland Trucks (now owned by BMW Group, TATA and Paccar, respectively) are the three most prominent former parts of British Leyland which are still active in the automotive industry, with SAIC-owned MG Motor continuing a small presence at the Longbridge site. Certain other related ex-BL businesses, such as Unipart), continue to operate independently.
The Land Rover One Ten, which later became known as the Land Rover Defender was announced.
Protesters tried to stop Land Rover motor company being sold to US.
The state-owned car company BL plc formerly British Leyland, said that it was pursuing two offers for its Land Rover division after negotiations with the General Motors Corporation collapsed. Range Rover of North America, Inc. soon established its headquarters in Lanham, Maryland with Charles R. Hughes as President and CEO. Just before Christmas 1985 Range Rover of North America (later changed to Land Rover North America), was established to pave the way for a US launch in 1987.
Austin-Rover was renamed the Rover Group. It initially included the Austin Rover Group car business (comprising the Austin, Rover, Mini and MG marques), Land Rover Group, Freight Rover vans and Leyland Trucks. The Rover Group was owned by British Aerospace (BAe) from 1988 to 1994, when BAe sold the remaining car business to the German company BMW. The group was further broken up in 2000, when Ford acquired the Land Rover division, with the Rover and MG marques continuing with the much smaller MG Rover Group until 2005. Ownership of the original Rover Group marques is currently split between BMW (Germany), SAIC (China), and Tata Motors (India).
Rover Group logo 1986
British Aerospace (BAe) purchased 'The Rover Group' for £150 million. The Rover Group plc was the name given in 1986 to the British vehicle manufacturer BL (formerly British Leyland), which had been state-owned company since 1975. It initially included the Austin Rover Group car business (comprising the Austin, Rover, Mini and MG marques), Land Rover Group, Freight Rover vans and Leyland Trucks. The Rover Group also owned the dormant trademarks from the many companies that had merged into BL and its predecessors such as Triumph, Morris, Wolseley, Riley and Alvis. BAe sold the remaining car business to the German company BMW in 1994. The group was further broken up in 2000, when Ford acquired the Land Rover division, with the Rover and MG marques continuing with the much smaller MG Rover Group until 2005. Ownership of the original Rover Group marques is currently split between BMW (Germany), SAIC (China), and Tata Motors (India), the latter owning the Rover marque itself with its subsidiary Jaguar Land Rover owning much of the assets of the historic Rover company.
The Land Rover Discovery was unveiled at the Frankfurt Motor Show. Code-named "Project Jay", the new model was based on the chassis and drivetrain of the more upmarket Range Rover, but with a lower price aimed at a larger market segment intended to compete with Japanese offerings. This was the only Discovery generation with a four-cylinder petrol engine.
Ford acquired Jaguar Cars for $2.5 billion. Under Ford's ownership Jaguar expanded its range of products with the launch of the S-Type in 1999 and X-type in 2001. After Land Rover's May 2000 purchase by Ford, it became closely associated with Jaguar. In many countries they shared a common sales and distribution network (including shared dealerships), and some models shared components, although the only shared production facility was Halewood Body & Assembly, for the X-Type and the Freelander 2. However operationally the two companies were effectively integrated under a common management structure within Ford's PAG. On 11 June 2007, Ford announced that it planned to sell Jaguar, along with Land Rover and retained the services of Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and HSBC to advise it on the deal. The sale was initially expected to be announced by September 2007, but was delayed until March 2008. Private equity firms such as Alchemy Partners of the UK, TPG Capital, Ripplewood Holdings (which hired former Ford Europe executive Sir Nick Scheele to head its bid), Cerberus Capital Management and One Equity Partners (owned by JP Morgan Chase and managed by former Ford executive Jacques Nasser) of the US, Tata Motors of India and a consortium comprising Mahindra and Mahindra (an automobile manufacturer from India) and Apollo Management all initially expressed interest in purchasing the marques from the Ford Motor Company. Before the sale was announced, Anthony Bamford, chairman of British excavator manufacturer JCB had expressed interest in purchasing the company in August 2006, but backed out upon learning that the sale would also involve Land Rover, which he did not wish to buy. On Christmas Eve of 2007, Mahindra and Mahindra backed out of the race for both brands, citing complexities in the deal. On 1 January 2008, Ford formally declared that Tata was the preferred bidder. Tata Motors also received endorsements from the Transport And General Worker's Union (TGWU)-Amicus combine as well as from Ford. According to the rules of the auction process, this announcement would not automatically disqualify any other potential suitor. However, Ford (as well as representatives of Unite) would now be able to enter into detailed discussions with Tata concerning issues ranging from labour concerns (job security and pensions), technology (IT systems and engine production) and intellectual property, as well as the final sale price. Ford would also open its books for a more comprehensive due diligence by Tata. On 18 March 2008, Reuters reported that American bankers Citigroup and JP Morgan would finance the deal with a USD 3 billion loan. On 26 March 2008, Ford announced that it had agreed to sell its Jaguar and Land Rover operations to Tata Motors of India, and that they expected to complete the sale by the end of the second quarter of 2008. Included in the deal were the rights to three other British brands, Jaguar's own Daimler, as well as two dormant brands Lanchester and Rover. On 2 June 2008, the sale to Tata was completed at a cost of £1.7 billion. On 18 January 2008, Tata Motors, a part of the Tata Group, established Jaguar Land Rover Limited as a British-registered and wholly owned subsidiary. The company was to be used as a holding company for the acquisition of the two businesses from Ford - Jaguar Cars Limited and Land Rover. That acquisition was completed on 2 June 2008. On 1 January 2013, the group, which had been operating as two separate companies (Jaguar Cars Limited and Land Rover), although on an integrated basis, underwent a fundamental restructuring. The parent company was renamed to Jaguar Land Rover Automotive PLC, Jaguar Cars Limited was renamed to Jaguar Land Rover Limited and the assets (excluding certain Chinese interests) of Land Rover were transferred to it. The consequence was that Jaguar Land Rover Limited became responsible in the UK for the design, manufacture and marketing of both Jaguar and Land Rover products.
Major job cuts were reported to be on the way at the Rover Group as the recession affected demand for the company's Rover and Land Rover products.
The state-owned Chery Automobile Co., Ltd. was founded by the government of China. Chery's principal products are passenger cars, minivans, and SUVs; it sells passenger cars under the Chery marque and commercial vehicles under the Karry brand. Chery is the 10th-largest China-based automaker. Chery began the production of automobiles in 1999 and their export from China in 2001. It has been China's largest passenger car exporter since 2003, and exports around 25% of its total production. It operates a 50:50 joint venture with Kenon Holdings, Qoros, which was formed in 2007 and sells a range of premium vehicles in emerging markets. In 2012, Jaguar Land Rover formed 50:50 joint venture dubbed Chery Jaguar Land Rover for the production of Jaguar and Land Rover cars in China with Chery.
World premiere of the Smart city-coupé and the European launch of the Land Rover Freelander at the IAA in Frankfurt, Germany.
Ford Motor Company announced that it has reached a memorandum of understanding to buy Land Rover from the BMW Group.
BMW sold the bulk of the Rover Group (the Rover and MG marques) to the Phoenix Consortium, while it retained the rights to the Mini marque, and sold Land Rover to Ford. MG Rover went into administration in 2005 and its key assets were purchased by Nanjing Automobile Group, with Nanjing restarting MG sports car and sports saloon production in 2007. During that year Nanjing merged with SAIC Motor (the largest vehicle manufacturer in China). During 2009 the UK Subsidiary was renamed MG Motor UK. The MG TF was manufactured at the former MG Rover Longbridge plant and sold within the UK from 2008 - 2010. In 2011 the first all new MG for 16 years (the MG 6) was launched in the UK (assembled at the Longbridge factory). During 2013 a super-mini was added to the line up (the MG 3), this went on to help MG Motor become the fastest growing car manufacturer within the UK in 2014. The Rover brand, which had been retained by BMW and licensed to MG Rover, was sold to Ford, which had bought Land Rover from BMW in 2000. The rights to the dormant Rover brand were sold by Ford, along with the Jaguar Cars and Land Rover businesses, to Tata Motors in 2008.
BMW Group and Ford Motor Company announced that they had signed a definitive agreement for Ford to buy the Land Rover business from BMW.
Ford officially took ownership of Land Rover from the BMW Group.
Ford bought the rights to the Rover name from BMW for approximately £6 million. Ironically no Rover branded cars were produced whilst Ford owned the brand. As part of Ford's agreement to sell their Jaguar & Land Rover operations early this year to Tata Motors, the Rover brand name was included in the deal.
India's Tata Motors offered £1.03bn for Ford's Jaguar and Land Rover brands, according to a Press Trust of India report carried in local newspapers.
Ford Motor Co. named Tata Motors Ltd. the top bidder for its Jaguar and Land Rover brands and entered into "focused negotiations at a more detailed level."
The Ford Motor Company announced the sale of its Jaguar and Land Rover divisions to the Tata Group, one of India's oldest and largest business conglomerates, for some $2.3 billion--less than half of what Ford originally paid for the brands. The sale came at a time when Ford, along with much of the rest of the auto industry, was experiencing a sales slump as a result of the global economic crisis. For Tata, which earlier that year had unveiled the Nano, the world's cheapest car, the purchase of the venerable British-based luxury brands was referred to by some observers as a "mass to class" acquisition.
India’s Tata Motors launched its ultra-cheap ($2,000) two-cylinder 624 cc Nano car in Mumbai. The vehicle was hoped to herald a revolution by making it possible for the world's poor to purchase their first car. Creative cost-saving was evident throughout the Nano. Flat side glass, a single wiper and no tailgate, three wheelnuts instead of four and a single door lock all help to keep the price low. But although the entry-level model was spartan, the CX and LX models had air-con. Incredibly for such a cheap car, a huge range of accessories and customisation options are offered, from decal sets to bodykits and dashboard trims. The 625cc, twin-cylinder engine develops 35bhp, but with only 600 kg to carry, a 50-55 mph cruise was achievable. The low weight meant that all-round drum brakes could be utilised. Despite the cheaper technology, the Nano had independent suspension front and rear, but was designed without anti-roll bars. With such a small engine, fuel consumption was variable with load and speed, but 55mpg was an easy average. The steering, not power-assisted, was light at parking speeds, and reasonably sharp. It rode well over India's terrible roads, thanks in part to tall 65 and 70 section tires. The second-generation Nano was expected to be sold in the United States by 2015. The original Nano is not street legal in the US, and cannot legally be sold as a grey market import until 2034, when the original 2009 models receive a 25-year exemption from the US Customs and Border Protection. Despite a readily-available dealership network in the US through the Jaguar Land Rover division of Tata, Tata Motors will not use Jaguar Land Rover to sell the Nano.
Van maker LDV was placed in administration after the collapse of a rescue deal by Malaysian firm Weststar. The assets were sold and up to 850 jobs and thousands more in the supply chain were lost. LDV was formed in 1993 as Leyland DAF Vans Limited following a management buy-out of DAF NV's Leyland DAF van manufacturing division, following the bankruptcy of the Dutch company. Later the name was officially changed to LDV Limited. Prior to its merger with Leyland Trucks and DAF Trucks in 1987 it was part of the British Leyland / Austin Rover Group empire and was latterly the Freight Rover arm of the Land Rover Group division. In December 2005, after going into administration, LDV was bought by group Sun Capital Partners/Sun European Partners and was subject to a financial restructuring. What Van reported LDV's commitment to its existing customers, including an assurance from their marketing director that their production target of 1000 vans per month would put them well above break-even point. The Russian GAZ Group acquired LDV on 31 July 2006, and also established a new company, GAZ International, based in the United Kingdom, to focus on the automotive industry.The BBC reported a GAZ spokesperson as saying that the company had appointed former Ford of Europe executive Martin Leach and former A.T. Kearney executive Steve Young to run the business, and that it planned to expand production at LDV's Birmingham plant by adding new product lines and entering new markets in Europe and elsewhere. GAZ had plans to export LDV technology to Russia, and start producing the Maxus at the GAZ Nizhny Novgorod plant in Russia with 50,000 as an initial volume. There were also proposals to export the GAZ Maxus to Australia, a traditional market for British Leyland. However, GAZ's plans never really showed any increased output, and due to the severe worldwide recession and a lack of long-term investment and commitment, production was halted at LDV's Birmingham factory in December 2008. After United Kingdom's Government tried once again to save the company by agreeing to pour in £5 million of grants to enable Malaysia's WestStar Corporation to purchase LDV, WestStar failed to secure financing.
Britons Robert Belcher and Stephen Cooper driving a Land Rover Discovery arrived at the Mount Nelson Hotel in Cape Town to set a new world record for driving from London to Cape Town, making the 10,000-mile journey in 10 days, 3 hours and 16 minutes. The pair left London at 0500 GMT on Friday 4 October 2013 from the RAC Club on Pall Mall. En route, they encountered heavy rain and thunderstorms in Tunisia, a tense border crossing into Libya following US military activity, a fuel shortage in Egypt and giant potholes in Ethiopia. They visited 13 countries in all: England, France, Italy, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Botswana and South Africa. Passing through Europe in the first 27 hours, the pair managed to cover more than 1,700 miles – 17% of the total mileage in just 11% of the target time.
At 09:22 the last ever Land Rover Defender produced was rolled out of Jaguar Land Rover's Solihull plant in the UK.
The final Land Rover Defender - Solihull, UK
Jaguar E-Pace, a compact SUV, was officially revealed. Designed under the direction of Jaguar chief designer Ian Callum, the car was based on a modified version of the JLR D8 platform as used by the Range Rover Evoque and the Land Rover Discovery Sport. The car has a transverse front engine and is available in both front-wheel drive and all-wheel drive versions. Stunt driver Terry Grant performed a world record barrel roll jump in the car for the reveal which took place at the London ExCel centre. The car did a 270 degree barrel roll and travelled 50 feet (15.3 metres) through the air.
Waymo, formerly known as Google's self-driving car project, announced a partnership with Jaguar Land Rover to build self-driving Jaguar luxury SUVs for the company's autonomous Silicon Valley taxi fleet.
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Facts about Blake Lively
Birthplace: Tarzana, California
First Name: Blake
Middle Name: Christina
Last Name: Lively
Claim to Fame: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
Read more about Blake Lively
Biography for Blake Lively
Blake Christina Lively (born Aug. 25, 1987 (34 years ago)) is an American actress. She stars in the book-based TV series Gossip Girl as Serena van der Woodsen. She has also appeared in several movies including Accepted and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants as well as its sequel, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2.
Lively was born in Los Angeles to actors Ernie and Elaine Lively. She was raised as a Southern Baptist. The youngest of five siblings, Lively has a brother, Eric, two half-sisters, Lori and Robin, and a half-brother, Jason. Both of her parents and all of her siblings are, or have been, in the entertainment industry. “My mom and dad always taught acting, so instead of getting me babysitters, they would just bring me to class,� Lively recalls.
As a child, Lively was homeschooled. Lively attended Burbank High School in Burbank where she participated in Burbank High School's show choir, In Sync, and was a cheerleader. Lively stated in an interview for the Aug. 2008 (13 years ago) Seventeen that she attended 13 schools. She wanted to attend Stanford University. Lively was not at all interested in acting but during the summer between her junior and senior year, her brother, Eric, made his agent send her out on a few auditions. Of the two auditions, she got the role of Bridget for The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.
Lively started out in movie with a bit role in Sandman in 1998 (23 years ago). In 2005 (16 years ago), Lively played Bridget in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, for which she received a Teen Choice Award nomination for "Choice Movie Breakout - Female." She reprised the role in 2008 (13 years ago) in the sequel, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2. She starred in Accepted, Simon Says, and Elvis and Anabelle in 2006 (15 years ago). She received the Breakthrough Award from Hollywood Life for her role in Accepted in dec. 2006 (15 years ago).
Lively was cast in the CW's series Gossip Girl which premiered in sep. 2007 (14 years ago). She plays Serena van der Woodsen in the teen drama. While rumors of infighting among the Gossip Girl co-stars have circulated in the tabloids, Lively denies that there is any unfriendly competition on-set. “The media is always trying to pit us against each other," she said in an interview, "I guess because it’s just not interesting to say, ‘Everyone gets along; everybody just works 18-hour days and goes home to sleep.’ That’s not fun to read, I guess.� Her first magazine cover was the Nov. 2007 (14 years ago) issue of Cosmo Girl, where she discussed her time in high school and her career prior to Gossip Girl. She has since appeared on the Jan. 2008 (13 years ago) cover of shopping magazine Lucky. She has more recently appeared on the Mar. 2008 (13 years ago) cover of Teen Vogue, as well as the May 2008 (13 years ago) cover of NYLON with her Gossip Girl co-star Leighton Meester. She appeared on the cover of the Aug. 2008 (13 years ago) issue of Seventeen. The star also was on the cover of "Girls' Life"'s Aug. 2008 (13 years ago) issue, along with The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants co-stars Amber Tamblyn (5 walls), Alexis Bledel (9 walls), and America Ferrera. More recently Lively also appeared on the cover of the sep. 2008 (13 years ago) issue of Cosmopolitan and the cover of the Feb. 2009 (12 years ago) issue of Vogue. In Jan. 2009 (12 years ago) Lively was voted one of the top "35 Most Stylish Women To Look Out For" by Glamour UK. Lively also appears on the cover of Glamour magazine (Aug. 2009 (12 years ago)) with an eight-page spread inside. "
Lively reportedly had a nose job after filming 2006’s Accepted. In Jan. 2008 (13 years ago), OK! caught up with Lively at Wednesday night’s Chanel Fine Jewelry’s Night of Diamonds held at The Plaza in NYC, and asked her about the rumor. "I don’t know," Lively told OK! "It’s the way you address any rumor. People want to talk. They want to create negative things about you and your life, make up things. You can’t look at it. You can’t let them affect you."
Blake Lively dated actor Kelly Blatz from 2004 (17 years ago) to 2007 (14 years ago), the two had been friends since childhood. In late 2007 (14 years ago), rumors circulated that Lively was dating her Gossip Girl co-star and former childhood classmate Penn Badgley. In May 2008 (13 years ago), People magazine published photos of the two kissing while on vacation in Mexico. Lively and Badgley have since become more open about their relationship, which has made it a favorite topic of the tabloids. Lively was placed #33 on the Maxim Hot 100 List in 2009 (12 years ago).
2005 (16 years ago): The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
2006 (15 years ago): Accepted
2006 (15 years ago): Simon Says
2007 (14 years ago): Elvis and Anabelle
2008 (13 years ago): The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2
2009 (12 years ago): New York, I Love You
2009 (12 years ago): The Private Lives of Pippa Lee
2007 (14 years ago): Gossip Girl
2005 (16 years ago): Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie Breakout Female
2008 (13 years ago): Teen Choice Award for Choice TV Actress Drama
2008 (13 years ago): Teen Choice Award for Choice TV Breakout Star-Female
2008 (13 years ago): Newport Beach movie Festival for Achievement Award-Breakout Performance
2009 (12 years ago): Prism Awards for Performances in a Drama Episode
External links to Blake Lively
Blake Lively Pictures at Music-juice.com
Blake Lively Pictures
HotFlick.net: Blake Lively
Blake Lively at PerfectPeople.net
Blake Lively at Top-Models.com
Linked to Blake Lively
Male Celebrities / Keanu Reeves
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Colonel Ike Hawk Jr.
Colonel Ike Hawk Jr. died at 10:45 p.m. on Dec. 2, 2020, at Southeast Hospital in Cape Girardeau, surrounded by his family. He was preceded in death by both of his parents, Colonel Hawk Sr. of Cobden and Ruth Hawk of Cobden; a brother-in-law, Harley Utzinger of Peoria; and one son, Todd Alan Hawk...
Donald “Ducky” Rangel
Donald “Ducky” Rangel, 64, of Anna, died at Southeast Missouri Hospital in Cape Girardeau on Jan. 1, 2021. He was preceded in death by his mother, Consuela Rangel, and his grandparents, Joaquin and Agrippina Rangel. Ducky leaves behind his Mulberry Manor family and many other friends who adored...
Gary L. Townzen Sr.
Gary L. Townzen Sr., 74,of Anna, died Wednesday, Dec. 30, 2020, at his home. He was born on Aug. 31, 1946, in Granite City, the son of Carl and Irene White Townzen. He married Bridget Ashmore in 2007. Mr. Townzen is survived by his wife, Bridget Townzen; children Kristina (Jonas) Townzen-Tindall...
Joyce Wandalein Cates
Joyce Wandalein Cates, 89, of Anna, Illinois, went to her Heavenly home on Jan. 3, 2021, at the home of her daughter, Donna Cates. Memaw is survived by her children, Donna Cates, of Baton Rouge, La., Jerry Cates (Shirley) of Cape Girardeau, Connie Boyd (Steve) of Anna, Illinois, Larry Cates and...
James B. Pickett
James B. Pickett, 94, of Tamms, died Sunday, Dec. 27, 2020, at 2:41 a.m. at the Missouri Veteran’s Home in Cape Girardeau. He was born on Aug. 12, 1926, in Berry, Ala., the son of Lester Sr. and Anna Mae King Pickett. He was married on July 8, 1944, to Lula G. Raby. She preceded him in death...
Millie McGrath
Millie McGrath, 67, of Cobden, Ill., went to heaven at 1 a.m. on Christmas Day, 2020. She passed on comfortably at home with family by her side. The 12th of 13 children, she was born on March 31, 1953, in Pomona, Ill., the daughter of Leslie and Evelyn (Latchaw-Wright) Gearhart. Millie graduated...
Joseph ‘Pastor Joe’ Aaron Aldridge
Joseph “Pastor Joe” Aaron Aldridge, 76, of Jonesboro, entered into the gates of Heaven, serenaded by Angels on Dec. 22, 2020. He is finally home and resting in the Lord’s arms, free from cancer and effects from a stroke. We can only imagine how he felt when his eyes met the eyes of the Lord! He...
Leona Belle Brown
Leona Belle Brown, 92, of Dongola, died at 1:30 a.m. Thursday, Dec. 24, 2020, at Hillview Healthcare Center in Vienna. She was born on June 1, 1928, in Wrightsville, Ga., the daughter of George Henry Peter and Alice Irene Cooper Aden. She married David E. Brown on Dec. 24, 1950. He preceded her...
Kendra Dobbs
Kendra Dobbs, 61, of Maryville, and formerly of Anna, died Saturday, Dec. 26, at Elmwood Nursing Home in Maryville. Funeral arrangements were pending at Rendleman & Hileman Funeral Home in Anna. To view the obituary and to leave online condolences for the family, visit www.rendlemanhilemanfh....
Edgar R. ‘Ed’ Johnson
Edgar R. “Ed” Johnson, 85, of Paducah, and formerly of Anna, died Monday, Dec. 28, at Life Care Center in LaCenter, Ky. Funeral arrangements were pending at Rendleman & Hileman Funeral Home in Anna. To view the obituary and to leave online condolences for the family, visit www....
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Home / Unlabelled / Thought Crime: German Police Raid Homes Of People Who Made ‘Hateful Postings’ On The Internet
Thought Crime: German Police Raid Homes Of People Who Made ‘Hateful Postings’ On The Internet
On Tuesday, German police raided the homes of 36 people accused of posting “hateful” content on social media. The content in question includes allegedly racist posts and threats.
The raids largely targeted individuals associated with far-right movements hostile to immigration.
“But the raids also targeted two people accused of left-wing extremist content, as well as one person accused of making threats or harassment based on someone’s sexual orientation,” reportsThe New York Times.
While direct threats proclaiming an explicit intention to carry out a violent act may be considered punishable in countries with strong free speech protections like the United States, Germany is notoriously censorious in the Western world insofar as it criminalizes so-called “hate speech” against racial and/or ethnic minorities.
“The still high incidence of punishable hate posting shows a need for police action,” explained Holger Münch, president of the Federal Criminal Police Office in a statement meant to justify the country’s aggressive crackdown against thought crimes. “Our free society must not allow a climate of fear, threat, criminal violence and violence either on the street or on the internet.”
Equating words with violence and using intentionally vague phrases like “climate of fear,” Münch championed the power of the state as a way to police what people think.
Given Germany’s sordid past as a country that just 70 years ago was gripped by a medieval-age bloodlust against a defenseless Jewish minority libelously blamed for every social ill imaginable, it’s understandable that the Federal Republic of Germany, built upon a collective sense of guilt, would be hyper-sensitive to any rhetoric that might conceivably gin up hostile feelings against groups that have been historically oppressed.
Unfortunately, Germany’s Ministry of Justice, or the Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection (BMJV) is refusing to back down on its thought policing. It’s the opposite in fact; it’s doubling down on censorship.
At a parliamentary hearing on Monday, Germans debate “a draft of a new social media law aimed at cracking down on hate speech, a measure that an array of experts said was unconstitutional …” according to The Times.
“The measure, championed by Justice Minister Heiko Maas for passage this month, would fine Facebook, Twitter and other outlets up to $53 million (50 million euros) if they failed to remove hate speech and other forms of illegal content,” notes The Times, adding:
Under German law, social media users are subject to a range of punishments for posting illegal material, including a prison sentence of up to five years for inciting racial hatred.
Under the draft statute, networks must offer a readily available complaint process for posts that may amount to threats, hate speech, defamation, or incitement to commit a crime, among other offenses.
Social media outlets would have 24 hours to delete “obviously criminal content” and a week to decide on more ambiguous cases. The law, approved by Germany’s cabinet in April, would be enforced with fines of up to $53 million.
From twisting the arms of social media companies to censor and erase “hate speech” to raiding the homes of social media posters accused of posting “hate speech,” the German government is ironically sabotaging its own democratic ideals as a way to safeguard against fascist impulses.
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The Bloomsbury Colleges | PhD Studentships | Studentships 2021 | Race, solidarity and campus life: A study of three Bloomsbury colleges 1956-1982
Principal Supervisor: Dr. Eleanor Newbigin
Co-Supervisor: Dr. Georgina Brewis
Recent calls to ‘decolonise the university’ have opened new avenues to consider the historical relationship between universities and British colonialism. These calls have highlighted the ways in which historical legacies of colonialism inform buildings, institutional spaces and disciplinary practices but also day-to-day experiences of students and staff. Historians have explored the legacies of colonialism for institutional structures, personnel and the origins of particular disciplines (Pietsch, 2013, Chakrabarti, 2015, Stockwell, 2018). Other research has considered left-wing student protest, anti-colonial and solidarity activities on UK campuses (Hoefferle, 2013; Burkett, 2014). However, this timely and important study contributes to this debate from a different angle, seeking to set these histories of anti-imperialist and anti-racist solidarity movements and struggle against a background of every-day campus life. It will contribute to a growing project seeking to re-evaluate the role of students within British society and to place greater emphasis on everyday student life rather that activism per se. It builds on studies of earlier colonial students (Mukerjee, 2010; Matera, 2015) to further explore the largely hidden experiences of Black and Asian students on post-war UK campuses.
Through a focus on three Bloomsbury colleges of the University of London (SOAS, IOE and UCL), this project seeks to uncover histories of anti-imperialist and anti-racist struggle as part of wider post-war student associational culture. A key aim of the project is to reveal and analyse the tension and disconnect between intellectual debates and political campaigns against racism organised on campus on the one hand, and racialised students’ day to day experiences of discrimination on the other. Unlike much research on students that focus solely on the sixties, this project covers a longer period from 1956, the year of the Hungarian Uprising and Suez Crisis, through the 1960s which saw the introduction of the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962 and gradual differentiation of international student fees until full cost international fees were brought in 1981/2. This was a period of significant growth and diversification in UK higher education set against a backdrop of broader social change, Cold War tension and decolonisation which impacted on university campuses in varied ways.
The project traces the development of student networks and politics of international solidarity in the three colleges over this period. The research will read this history of organisational struggle against a history of everyday racism and resistance on London campuses themselves, looking at the daily experiences of students of colour in lecture halls as well as the halls of residence, common rooms and other leisure spaces they inhabited. Indicative research questions are:
· What was the lived experience of students of colour at our three case study colleges in the period? What were their experiences of campus life, residential accommodation and involvement in student associational culture (student unions, clubs, societies and sports teams)?
· How was political solidarity with racialised/colonial groups imagined and articulated by student organisations in this period, and how was this informed by ideas of race and colonialism?
· How was this politics of solidarity experienced by students of colour on campus?
· How and in what spaces were these politics of solidarity practised? What student spaces were included or excluded?
The project will adopt a mixed methods approach. First, it will identify and analyse documentary material preserved in the institutional archives of the three case study colleges as well as the University of London/University of London Union archive at Senate House. Sources include institutional and student records but also, more significantly, student-produced newspapers or handbooks and the papers of student unions and related social, religious, political and sporting associations. Additional sources may be found in the NUS archives at the Modern Records Centre, Warwick. Second, the project will gather data through a series of witness seminars (oral history group interviews) with alumni of all three colleges. For each seminar, a sample of students of colour, student union leaders and activists will be identified, working with alumni offices where necessary to recruit participation. These seminars will be recorded in front of an audience and fully transcribed, providing a resource for future research that will also be deposited in the colleges’ archives. The student will receive full training and support in this innovative methodology.
Outcomes, networks and engagement
We would expect the eventual PhD thesis to be a publishable research monograph and/or series of articles. The project also provides key opportunities for public engagement activities and training, including in relation to forthcoming bicentenary celebrations at UCL and Birkbeck. The successful candidate will be embedded into networks of research and teaching at SOAS, IOE and UCL that explore the colonial legacies of these institutions. The candidate will be encouraged and supported to develop the project in conversation with contemporary discussions about decolonising and antiracism in the University of London campuses.
We hope the student will contribute regular blog posts for IOE, SOAS, and other outlets and be supported to present their research at relevant academic conferences and seminars – with at least one article in development by the end of the period of study. In addition to the witness seminars which serve both as sites of data collection and knowledge exchange, the project will organise a one-day conference on twentieth-century student activism and associational cultures. This will disseminate key project findings as well as help build a researcher community. The student will also be supported to develop a programme of engagement activities with student unions and student communities, as part of a wider programme of activities in which both supervisors are involved.
Subject Areas/Keywords:
histories of education, decolonise, race, post-imperialism, student politics, anti-racism and internationalism
Burkett, J. 2014, 'The National Union of Students and transnational solidarity, 1958–1968', European Review of History, pp. 539-555.
Chakrabarty, D. 2015, The Calling of History: Sir Jadunath Sarkar and His Empire of Truth, Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press.
Hoefferle, C. 2013 British Student Activism in the Long Sixties, New York & Abingdon: Routledge.
Matera, M. 2015, Black London: The Imperial Metropolis and Decolonization in the Twentieth Century, Oakland, CA: University of California Press.
Mukerjee, S. 2009, Nationalism, Education and Migrant Identities: The England-Returned, New York & Abingdon: Routledge.
Pietsch, T. 2013, Empire of scholars: Universities, networks and the British academic world, 1850–1939, Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Stockwell, S. 2018, The British End of the British Empire Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Principal Supervisor: Eleanor Newbigin (en2@soas.ac.uk)
Co-Supervisor: Georgina Brewis (g.brewis@ucl.ac.uk)
Further information about PhDs at SOAS is available from: https://www.soas.ac.uk/admissions/pg/research/
email: dsadmissions@soas.ac.uk
https://www.soas.ac.uk/admissions/pg/research/howtoapply/
Closing date for applications is: Monday 1st February 2021.
Shortlisted candidates will be notified in advance of interviews that will take place in the week commencing 8th March 2021.
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Gorebridge restaurant crowned as Restaurant of the Year at Food Awards Scotland
The Musselburgh-born business man, who owns three establishments in East Lothian, scooped two awards in the prestigious Food Awards Scotland ceremony including Restaurant of the Year award for The Coronation Restaurant in Gorebridge. They also won Restaurant of the Year South East.
The restaurant scooped two awards in the prestigious Food Awards Scotland ceremony including Restaurant of the Year award for The Coronation Restaurant in Gorebridge.
Alan who also owns the Longniddry Inn and bed and breakfast Adniston Manor in Macmerry, said: “I am absolutely delighted. These are the first awards since I’ve been in the business. It’s quite an achievement when there are so many nominations.”
Alan, 62, started working in the industry at the tender age of 18 when he took up a position at the Pittencreiff Hotel in his home town. When he was 25 he bought his first enterprise, the Woodside Hotel in Musselburgh. He said: “I was very naive at 25 but you learn very quickly.”
He owned the hotel for 25 years and still meets people whose weddings he hosted there. After the Woodside he and wife Audrey bought the Old Smiddy Inn in Pencaitland before adding the current businesses to their portfolio.
The couple have three children and five grandchildren but Alan shares that none of his brood had any interest in working in the industry. He said: “They grew up with it and decided not to take it up. I’ve always really enjoyed it but there’s times when I wish I did something else. But when you have good staff behind you everything is easier.”
In 2015 the Coronation Restaurant underwent a top-to-toe £135,000 refurbishment that has increased sales by 40 per cent. The revamp took a record 19 days and went without a hitch but contractors were still laying carpets ten minutes before the grand opening.
The family-friendly restaurant offers locally-sourced food and Alan prides himself on his enduring relationships with his suppliers and customers.
Monday night’s glittering awards bash in Glasgow saw the owners and staff of some of Scotland’s best restaurants gather to toast each other’s achievements. Alan was joined at the do by Coronation manager Michelle Grahame who has worked in the restaurant for 19 years. She is one of many long-serving staff who work there including chef Mark Anderson who has been cooking up a storm there since 2004.
The pair didn’t expect to take home any gongs but were thrilled when they ended up walking away with two. Alan said: “We never thought we’d win and were thinking we’d get the last train home. The final award wasn’t announced until just after eleven but we made it.
“The awards are very much down to our staff who work really hard. We couldn’t have done it without them.”
He credits his friendly staff for the success of the restaurant, and all of his businesses and is planning a party to thank them. He said: “I want to say a big thank you to my staff and customers. This is such a massive award for us. We’re already very busy but I hope that more people will come and see us.”
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How an Innovation Project Evolved into a Marketing Machine for Chick-fil-A
It was 2013, and most brands were throwing money and product at Mommy Bloggers in hopes that a blog post would drive sales. This cycle occurred with every product launch, and it continues today with many brands. However, an email from the Chick-fil-A innovation center transformed the way this brand worked with moms, and it led to priceless success generating conversation about the brand in homes across America. Today, I reveal the story about how Chick-fil-A’s Mom Panel turned from an innovation project into a marketing machine.
As the CEO of BSM Media and the author of 6 books on Marketing to Moms including “Trillion Dollar Moms” and “Power Moms”, I’m used to calls from CMOs and marketing agencies seeking to connect with influential mom bloggers. What I wasn’t accustomed to was receiving emails from innovation teams. The email from Chick-fil-A five years ago sparked a journey that connected the brand with moms more than ever before. What started as a simple focus group has turned into a marketing machine for the chicken giant.
The Birth of the Chick-fil-A Mom Panel
In the beginning, we worked with Chick-fil-A through what we called Kitchen Counter Conversations that engaged mom focus groups to provide insight and feedback to improve menus, play areas, and other elements of the Chick-fil-A experience that affected moms and their families. Eight months into the project, Chick-fil-A recognized that the value of these moms could be increased. Thus, the Chick-fil-A Mom Panel was born. This started as a group of 100 moms from across the U.S. who were eager to share their thoughts and opinions with Chick-fil-A. These moms were different because they weren’t all bloggers: they were good old-fashioned genuine moms who were homeroom mothers, business owners, troop leaders, and meal decision-makers who were socially active both on and offline. More than all, they were passionate about the brand. Chick-fil-A realized that word-of-mouth marketing among moms existed long before social media, and the brand made the bold choice to capture this important phenomenon in homes all across America. Chick-fil-A recognized the power of a mom’s influence.
For nearly two years, the Chick-fil-A moms quietly existed within the innovation center while the number of moms and the enthusiasm for Chick-fil-A moms grew exponentially. Our group proudly told friends and followers about their participation in the panel, volunteered to help local store operators with marketing initiatives, and posted their Chick-fil-A moments on social media. Each year was highlighted with a live webinar that allowed them to provide input on future kid’s meal prizes. All the while, Chick-fil-A gathered their insights and opinions about products and distributed these mom trends throughout the company, from corporate teams to the local operator. The relationship with the Mom Panel was on its way to creating massive influence.
An Army of Mom Marketers
Today, the Chick-fil-A Mom Panel is 1,053 moms strong and is doing more than co-creating kid’s meals or play areas. In 2017, 10,000 moms submitted applications, which now limits its membership to 1,000. Moms were selected based on their alignment with the brand, their established network of influence with other moms, and their demonstrated love for Chick-fil-A. The typical Chick-fil-A Mom panelist averages 17,000 Twitter followers, 13,000 Instagram followers, and 16,000 Facebook friends- numbers that most brands pay top dollar to purchase for Influencer campaigns. Although more than 350 of the moms are online content publishers, their offline influence extends into their communities. More than 250 of the moms are involved in their local PTOs, over 330 are teachers, and over 230 are church leaders, which means they are interacting with and influencing a lot of meal planning moms.
In 2017, the Chick-fil-A Mom Panel generated over 70 million impressions online through over 9,000 Instagram photos and 60,000 Facebook comments. Their social media engagement exceeds industry standards by more than 20%. This impressive response can be seen through the Chick-fil-A Mom Panel hashtag, #ChickfilAMoms, now used by local Chick-fil-A Operators, Chick-fil-A fans across the country, and the national office Support Center, who have all caught onto the power of the #ChickfilAMoms.
This month, a small group of the panelists were invited to the Chick-fil-A Support Center for a day of learning, sharing, and touring. The moms received a first-hand view of new initiatives, a backstage tour, and interacted with members of the Cathy family as they tweeted, posted, and shared their experience.
The influence created through the Chick-Fil-A Mom Panel serves Chick-fil-A’s local stores and overall brand with unmatched impact down to the root of Chick-fil-A’s customer base, the American mom.
The ROI
What did all of this cost? The short answer is less than a 30 second YouTube video by a macro-influencer, a 60-second television spot, or a single ad in People Magazine. The Chick-fil-A Mom Panel is a prime example of the benefits a brand receives when engaging with its best customers in an authentic way. Not only did the brand see a reduction in research expenses and avoided mishaps in products or services, but they also earned the trust and loyalty of thousands of raving mom fans. In our book, that’s priceless.
BSM Media has created similar consumer communities for HP, Coppertone Water Babies, Children’s Claritin, Disney, Leap Frog, Medtronic and Papa Murphy’s. For more questions or more information, please email Laura@bsmmedia.com.
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[Statement] Japan fails to do its part to fight climate crisis – CAN-Japan Statement on NDC Submission by Government of Japan (Mar. 30th, 2020 ; CAN-Japan)
Home > English > [Statement] Japan fails to do its part to fight climate crisis – CAN-Japan Statement on NDC Submission by Government of Japan (Mar. 30th, 2020 ; CAN-Japan)
CAN-Japan Statement on NDC Submission by Government of Japan
Japan fails to do its part to fight climate crisis
Parties to the Paris Agreement are required to submit updated Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) this year, but on March 30, the Japanese Cabinet’s Global Warming Prevention Headquarters decided the NDC with target that is unchanged from the current level.
Anticipating an updated NDC, on January 23, CAN-Japan* released a statement calling upon the government of Japan to do the following:
Raise Japan’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction target for 2030 to at least a 45-50% reduction from 1990, a greater reduction than the current NDC (26% reduction from 2013, equivalent to an 18% reduction from 1990).
Give a higher priority to climate change measures, immediately launch an inter-ministry review process, and start a public consultation process.
Revise the country’s Climate Action Plan and Strategic Energy Plan in conjunction with a review of Japan’s emission reduction targets. End the government’s long-standing policies promoting nuclear and coal power; transition toward energy conservation and sustainable 100% renewable energy; end preferential subsidies and tax incentives for fossil fuels; and promote energy efficiency further by strengthening carbon pricing.
However, today the government of Japan made no attempt to strengthen its climate policy measures, and re-submitted the same NDC with no substantial changes. As for the review of reduction target in the NDC, it states that Japan will pursue mid and long term efforts to reduce GHG emissions beyond this level, and that the review will be carried out consistently with the revision of the energy mix so as not to wait for the five year NDC submission cycle, and Japan aims for aspiring figures to reflect further ambitious efforts. But the government has not clearly indicated any schedule for revision of the energy mix and review of emission reduction target. This stance fails to respond to the need for drastic emission cuts by 2030. Furthermore, by stating that Japan’s submission of an updated NDC will use the latest energy mix, the government is in effect letting the energy mix revision process drive Japan’s climate policies, rather than the other way around.
An even more significant issue is the complete absence of any public review process or discussion leading up to this re-submission of Japan’s NDC. Its entire content was decided internally by the government, behind closed doors. CAN-Japan has consistently called for transparent processes and public participation. Not only has this NDC submission failed in that regard, it has also failed to recognize the importance of information disclosure and public participation as stipulated under the Paris Agreement, and the importance of ensuring that national government responses to climate change involve diverse actors, including local governments and citizens. This NDC was adopted by an undemocratic process, and is unacceptable as a response to a significant issue that will affect all the people of Japan.
CAN-Japan has stated three reasons Japan needs to strengthen its NDC and climate action: urgency based on scientific facts, international calls for action, and its responsibilities as one of the world’s largest emitters. Japan’s resubmitted NDC is not consistent with the need to increase ambition. The government is squandering the remaining decade that the IPCC has indicated is the window to avoid irreversible damage from climate change; ignoring calls for action from civil society, the UN Secretary General and the international community; and shirking its responsibilities as a developed country. The resulting message to the world is that the government of Japan is a laggard and dragging down international efforts.
CAN-Japan calls upon the government of Japan to recognize that stronger action must be taken by 2030 in order to avoid irreversible damage to the climate, and instead of adhering to Japan’s current NDC targets for 2030, revise Japan’s energy mix during the current year from the perspective of avoiding the climate crisis and keeping in mind the timing of COP26, quickly decide on a concrete schedule and process to raise Japan’s emission reduction targets for the NDC, and begin a review of Japan’s domestic policies and measures.
Quotes from CAN-Japan members;
Kimiko Hirata (International Director, Kiko Network and Representative, CAN-Japan) said, “In the face of the climate crisis, we have no time to delay actions. The Japanese government must choose between showing the ambition to lead and succeed, or settling for collective failure and the false comfort of empty words. Sadly, the NDC that Japan submitted is very much the latter. This failure will cost us all dearly. Japan should restart the process to review the NDC quickly to be able to update the 2030 target in the coming year.”
Takayoshi Yokoyama (Team Leader, 350.org Japan) said, “It is extremely disappointing that the Japanese government submitted the NDC without any upward revisions… As the world’s fifth largest emitter, Japan should take responsibility and lead towards a decarbonized society, not show a bad example to countries that have been seriously considering reductions.”
Naoyuki Yamagishi (Leader, Climate and Energy Group, WWF Japan) said, “Japan missed yet another opportunity to show leadership for decarbonization. The government should have listened to the strong statement by the Japan Climate Initiative (JCI) calling upon the government for a stronger NDC and signed by 248 organizations, including major companies, local governments and other non-state actors.”
(Press Release) CAN-Japan Statement on NDC Submission by Government of Japan (Mar. 30th, 2020)
Climate Action Network Japan（CAN-Japan）Secretariat
Address: #305 Takakura Bldg. Takakura-dori, Shijo-agaru, Nakagyo-ku, Kyoto 604-8124, JAPAN
Phone: +81-(0)75-254-1011 E-mail: secretariat@can-japan.org Website: https://www.can-japan.org
Twitter: @CANJapan_org Facebook: climate.action.network.japan
*CAN-Japan is the Japanese node of the Climate Action Network (CAN), a network of more than 1,300 NGOs in more than 120 countries.
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NASCAR Preseason Thunder Fan Fest
DENISE MALOOF: Good afternoon. Here we go again. Leading off is Kevin Harvick, who is a former Daytona 500 winner, big off-season? I hear you killed some birds.
KEVIN HARVICK: Yeah, we went to Hermosillo, Mexico, went on a little dove hunt a couple days ago, and we went on a vacation for a week, which was rare. But we tried to enjoy our time, take some time off and really just be normal people for a little while. It was pretty enjoyable. It's kind of the first time that we've ever taken the time to do that and feel pretty relaxed, and next week it all begins for us.
We'll be testing three days in Orlando, and it all starts from there.
DENISE MALOOF: Big season coming up. Got to get RCR back in the Chase. Got to defend a truck title again, so you have plenty going on.
KEVIN HARVICK: Yeah, for us this place has been good to us. I finished second in the 500 last year, won the Shootout, and obviously like I say, the truck stuff has gone very well, but just -- that's the way it's supposed to be. We missed the Chase for the first time last year in three years, and hopefully we can -- based upon the end of the season, hopefully we were headed in the right direction and led a bunch of laps and felt like we were capable Top 5 cars and felt good to be up in the right end of the pack again.
Went through a lot of struggles, a lot of team changes, economy, and the fourth team going away. So I felt like they've done a good job of getting everything settled, and time will tell.
Q. Last night Ron Hornaday talked about you giving Kyle Busch some advice about team ownership and everything. Can you just talk about what you talked about with him and what questions he asked of you?
KEVIN HARVICK: Well, I just told him some of the struggles that we went through in the beginning. They're approaching it a little bit different than what we did. They're jumping with both feet in with two teams and doing all their own fab work. So that's a big task. The bottom line is Kyle is going to get in whether he's racing for Billy Blue or whether he's racing for himself. He's going to be capable of winning races, and he'll win race.
It's like I told somebody earlier, the biggest judge of how your team does is when you put somebody in there to race for a championship, and if they can be competitive week in and week out, that's when you know that you've got things headed in the right direction.
He's been to the shop a couple times just looking around and seeing how we function. We talk about budgets and things, which is kind of strange, because Kyle is so young. But he's going to be a great addition to the Truck Series from the ownership side of it, and I think for him he's a lot like I was. You can kind of get yourself in trouble with some things that you say or do, and I think it teaches you a lot about the politics of the sport. It teaches you a lot about -- it makes you respect what you have on the Cup side and the effort that your Cup team has put into things, just understanding how much it costs to do certain things. I don't think he's got to that part yet because I'm sure all the bills aren't coming in yet.
So like I say, the two biggest different approaches, the two approaches are he's going all in, and we started with one race. We built a shop and then we started phasing it in with me driving it seven or eight times and then we went with a full-time driver, and then Tony wanted to run some Nationwide races so we phased that in. So we went through probably a seven- or eight-year span where we kind of phased things in. I was too scared to do it all at once. So that's the biggest difference.
Q. Two questions: First of all, what's it going to take for Ron to get that fifth championship this year in the trucks, and secondly, with RCR last year one of the main issues was that you guys were just slow all year long. What have you done, or what's the team doing to fix that?
KEVIN HARVICK: Well, I'll answer the second question first. I think the end of the year just proved that they've definitely headed down the right direction. As a team we had several opportunities to win several of the last few races, Talladega; and Jeff had a great shot at Phoenix; and Homestead, we both had a great shot. So I mean, just to run in the Top 10, Top 5, I feel like they had things headed back in the right direction. They had speed back in the cars. I think everybody is going to kind of get -- it's going to kind of be open to see where everybody goes once we get the whole transition of wing to spoiler stuff going on.
I think, like I say, we're headed in the right direction, and we'll just have to see where it goes when we make that transition.
As far as Ron, I feel like we've gone through -- Truck Series is different. It seems like you go through cycles of people. Obviously with Ren moving on to take a management role at Kyle's, we obviously restructured the whole team, same system. We've done some development work over the off-season with the trucks that we haven't done in the past. Our particular team is responsible for about ten teams in the Truck Series as far as fabrication and things like that that we handle within our shop. From that part, we've just got to keep doing what we're doing for him. We've got to keep him from racing Kyle every week when he's driving a truck and just race his own race like he did last year. I think that's the most important thing, because we don't need to -- he doesn't need to beat Kyle. I feel like that's mine and Elliott's responsibility to take those one-off races with Kyle in the truck and try to do what we did at the end of the year by taking some of those wins away from him.
Dave Fuge is his crew chief, and he's won as many championships as we have as a team, so I feel like we've put a lot of experience around him. I feel like the depth of his team is twice as good as it was last year as far as depth and experience from the mechanics and things that are working on it. We've added some different pieces within the organizations to try to make the pit stops better with a pit stop coach. But we've got Ron, he's actually been in the gym, which is kind of scary to say. (Laughter)
I'd love to see he and Todd Bodine working out together. I haven't seen it yet, but it's got to be entertaining. But I'm really proud of him because he's taken the initiative to not only just -- it's not only for the race team, just to take care of himself a little bit better. Other than that, I think everything is running good. Hopefully we feel like we've made our speedway stuff better, which I felt was our weak point last year, and we'll go from there.
Q. As an owner how would you assess the overall health of the Truck Series and the Nationwide Series, say, compared to this time last year?
KEVIN HARVICK: Well, I think the hot topic last year was whether the Truck Series would even show up to Daytona. I think the Truck Series is kind of what started a lot of the team rosters and the no scores and the team owners getting together. It's really where we saw the benefit as a sport as to how that could work. We had a lot of teams pop up new. There's a lot of new teams. We've built a total of three new teams of vehicles, of new owners, that are coming into the sport over the off-season.
Basically what has happened is it's gone back to where a guy that races in a region or a guy that races at a particular -- in a particular area can afford to build or go buy trucks and show up for one or two races and not be way out in right field. So it's kind of really gone back to how it started.
Budgets have dropped pretty dramatically in the Truck Series to race with the way that we have the engine program structured through NASCAR and how they keep track of all that. And you can only have a certain amount of people.
So it's become more affordable to race, and I think the series is going to be as healthy as it's ever been with Kyle's two or three teams coming in, we've got Turner Motorsports, got two fully competitive teams coming in. I know we had a couple teams that fell out, but I think there's more quality teams this year than there has been in a long time.
Q. How about Nationwide?
KEVIN HARVICK: The Nationwide stuff is obviously going to go through a transition here with the car. You know, our car is funded, and it'll race the whole season, and then we'll have Stewart's second car at Daytona. For the most part for us we're in a fortunate position to have all that stuff going. I think you're going to see Roush has -- I don't know, what's he have, 15 teams or something in the Nationwide Series? (Laughter.) I don't know how many, but it's a lot. So I think that series is going to be strong, as well.
Q. How do you go about going at RCR with one year left on your contract, and any chance you'll be back there in 2011?
KEVIN HARVICK: I'm not getting in the middle of it. There's enough people that can handle all that stuff. When it all boils down to it, it's all about winning races, and that's all I care about. We're going to come into the season, and we're going to race a lot this year, and we're going to have fun. That's my main goal for the year is to have fun. How it all plays out, I couldn't tell you. It's just up to all the -- I'm not going to get into all of that right now. We haven't even got on the track. And we're going to come to Daytona and race, and we're going to have a good time this year.
Q. Do you feel for Casey and the other people involved in that '07 team, and have you talked to Casey at all?
KEVIN HARVICK: Yeah, I've talked to Casey quite a bit. Casey is probably one of the best things that we had at RCR as far as a person. You know, he's really, really good with -- obviously he can drive the race car, too, but he's really, really good with meshing with people and communicating with people, and to see how he does that is pretty remarkable as to all the different teams that he adapted with. Everybody that comes away from knowing Casey and getting to work with him is like, man, that's the best guy in the world. So it's just kind of like the nicest guy in the world is the guy that gets cancer or the guy that dies before the guy that's a complete creep. So it's one of those things where you feel like -- I feel bad for Casey, and it might be something hopefully -- if it all works out, maybe he can keep going, and I hope he gets something, because he's a really good person, and it's just unfortunate with how it all worked out.
Q. If you could, just talk about the importance of having an event like this in the off-season. There's a lot of excited fans here the last two days, and it's good to be able to do this and kind of just remember them in the off-season.
KEVIN HARVICK: Yeah, it's fun to kind of get everybody back in the swing of things. I know the fans are excited to get cars back on the racetrack. These events are good for them and good to come to.
Q. Did having four cars stretch resources thin at all? Was there any of that last year?
KEVIN HARVICK: You know, I don't think so. I think -- I don't know the whole ins and outs of how all that worked with how many people we had and different things like that. But we functioned -- I mean, we have functioned with four cars and run well before. You know, I don't think that going from four to three will really be that much different for us, just for the fact that we really haven't changed our engineering staff.
I think at the beginning of the year last year we went the wrong direction with our stuff and our cars, and we tried to cover it up with crew chief swaps and different things like that, and in the end it was just about making our cars right and doing the things that it took. If we didn't have the fourth team, could we have probably turned things -- once we went to Indy and we started coming out with our new cars, we probably could have adapted and made that new process a little bit faster, but that definitely wasn't the problem as we went into last year and didn't run well.
Q. With Scott Miller kind of taking over the competition stuff for the team, have you been able to notice anything in the off-season just about the way things are in the shop, or is that something you'll see more once you get on the track?
KEVIN HARVICK: Most of my communication is with Gil. I've tried to kind of just stand back and be the driver and really just -- you give your advice on how it all works and what you think is better or worse from a driver's perspective on how things are working. But you know, how the team runs and stuff like that and how it all functions, I try to stay out of that. I definitely think that Scott Miller is a great person for that additional position to help the performance go in the right direction, and I think a lot of that is just structure that he's going to help the most with.
Q. You're a Daytona 500 winner, and with some of the changes coming down the pike perhaps to the car and the racing surface, what's your sense of some of the new things we'll see this year?
KEVIN HARVICK: Well, I think as we transition into the spoiler, I think that's just going to be a good thing. I don't think there's going to be any bad come out of that. I feel like NASCAR is working with the teams to make sure that the balance of the car is right before we even put it on the racetrack from the wind tunnel, that's going to be okay right off the bat. Just something about taking that wing off for me -- I've been a fan of spoilers from the beginning, and really after you see the Nationwide car and how it looked and how it drove on the racetrack at Talladega, that was -- it's going to be tough to see those things side by side. So I think there's a good plan. I think everybody is working together. I think loosening up some of these rules on the Superspeedway stuff is going to be good, because in the end there is risk involved in our sport, and that's what it's always been built about. So having it too tight and too many rules makes it take some of that excitement out of it, and I think everybody is working in the same direction to give everybody what we need, what we need to do different.
DENISE MALOOF: Kevin, thank you. We'll meet you back here in a couple weeks.
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Lucky Boniface Bingo Details
Northern Lights Bingo Details
Tudor Bingo Center Details
Alabama governor issues statewide health order that temporarily closes gaming facilities
Anchorage mayor announces closure of gaming facilities and other businesses
(PRESS RELEASE) -- Today, Mayor Ethan Berkowitz announced additional public health measures to protect Anchorage residents against COVID-19.
Restrictions and Closures: Bars, Breweries, Restaurants and Entertainment Facilities (including
Lucky Boniface Bingo, Northern Lights Bingo, Tudor Bingo Center)
Mayor Berkowitz signed Emergency Order EO-01, which regulates bars, breweries and restaurants in order to preserve public safety and welfare. Starting at 5:00 p.m. on Monday, March 16, dine-in service for food or drink at bars, breweries and restaurants will be prohibited until 11:59 p.m. on March 31. All buffets and salad bars will be closed to self-service. Drive-thru, take-out, and delivery services are allowed. This restriction does not apply to grocery stores.
In addition to these restrictions, all entertainment facilities including theaters, gyms, and bingo halls will be closed starting at 5:00 p.m., Monday, March 16 until 11:59 p.m. on Tuesday, March 31. All buffets and salad-bars will be closed to self-service.
“By making sacrifices now, we reduce the likelihood that we will pay a larger cost later," said Mayor Ethan Berkowitz. “These closures are consistent with CDC recommendations and with our strategy of doing what we can to reduce the possibility of transmitting COVID-19. As a friend told me, 'It will be impossible to know if we overreacted or did too much, but it will be quite apparent if we underreacted or did too little'."
Banning all gatherings with more than 50 people
The Mayor's Emergency Order includes a ban on all events and mass gatherings with 50 people or more starting at 5:00 p.m., Monday, March 16 until 11:59 p.m. on Tuesday, March 31.
Municipal Employees to Implement Social Distancing Practices
Beginning Tuesday, March 17, the Municipality will institute additional social distancing measures to minimize the risk of COVID-19 to Municipal employees. This includes increased use of tele-work practices, staggering shift times for certain departments and increased use of videoconference technology.
These measures do not impact police or fire services.
Visit www.muni.org/covid-19 for updated information about the Municipality's actions regarding COVID-19.
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The weird tale behind ice cream jingles
How your childhood memories fuel summer's sweetest industry
By S.J. Velasquez
Each year, a new batch of hot summer songs hits airwaves and earbuds, dominating top-40 charts and iTunes sales. But there are a handful of popular tunes that never fade away, ever present throughout the world’s streets on sunny summer days: The familiar jingle of ice cream trucks.
You can probably hear it in your head: A jingling, old-timey ditty echoing down the streets of your neighbourhood. It was your cue as a kid to start sprinting down the sidewalks, coins clutched in your fist, ready to buy that frozen treat.
But where did this summer hallmark come from? Why are ice cream trucks some of the only vehicles that play music as one of their main functions?
It’s a strange, surprising story, and the answers have effects far beyond popsicle sales.
How ice cream became a mobile, sellable food
The ancestors of the modern ice cream truck are some of the earliest vehicles, period. They’ve existed for centuries — even before the advent of automobiles.
Roman emperor Nero Claudius Caesar (37-68 A.D.) is rumoured to have sent runners to the mountains to fetch snow to be flavoured with fruit juices. The rest is sweet history: Since then, vendors have undergone a mobility upgrade, hawking frozen treats from push-carts, horse- or goat-drawn carriages and, finally, automobiles.
No one can say for certain who invented the ice cream truck (known in the UK as an ice cream van), or even ice cream, for that matter. But evidence suggests ice cream trucks precede the advent of the soft-serve variety that ice cream trucks specialise in.
According to ice cream lore, New York-based Thomas Carvellos began slinging cones from his truck in 1929. On one particular outing, his truck hit a bump that caused a flat tyre, leaving him stranded with a supply of rapidly melting ice cream. Rather than calling it a day, he continued selling the melty confections, which customers seemed to enjoy more than the fully frozen dessert. And thus, it is said, the Carvel soft-serve business was born.
But a problem remained: How would one lure customers to these moving dessert dispensaries? Music: That was the trick to bridge the gap between mobility and marketing.
View image of Ice cream truck
The first ice cream jingle?
For Ohio-based candymaker Harry Burt — whose chocolate-covered ice cream on a stick was a stroke of genius in itself — covering his truck in bells not long after soft-serve’s invention was a game-changer.
When he began selling his sweets from a truck, he fitted it with sleigh bells that jingled along his sales route, announcing his presence in neighbourhoods along the way. The bells worked so well, Burt added them to 12 more trucks. Thus, the very first fleet of Good Humor ice cream trucks appeared.
It was so successful as a marketing gimmick, that it wasn’t long before the tinkling of bells morphed into full songs.
A savvy California businessman named Paul Hawkins replaced the simple bells on his Good Humor trucks cylindrical device equipped with nails that cranked out a tune, said Daniel Neely, author of Ding, Ding!: The Commodity Aesthetic of Ice Cream Truck Music, a 2014 paper published in the journal The Oxford Handbook of Mobile Music Studies. Using this custom music box, Hawkins’ trucks played the Eastern European folk tune “Stodola Pumpa”.
By the 1950s, electrical engineer Bob Nichols had taken the mechanical music box even further. He manufactured music devices specifically for ice cream trucks, featuring a library of jingles from which vendors could choose a song.
Nichols’ son Mark, who now runs Nichols Electronics, said that the most widely used ice cream truck jingle in the US today is The Entertainer. It’s a classic ragtime tune that dates back to the early 1900s, but reappeared in the pop culture spotlight when it was used as the theme to the 1970s film The Sting. In France, you might hear ice cream trucks blaring an old-timey rendition of Frère Jacques.
The weird appeal of folk songs
At this point, the ice cream truck industry had ushered in some of the earliest marketing jingles ever. And for some strange reason, they were often traditional folk songs native to the region. In the UK and Australia, for instance, the traditional English folk song Greensleeves is the most-used ice cream van jingle, to this day.
Greensleeves is a bit of a jingle anomaly, because of its minor key, which doesn’t typically evoke the childlike glee brought about by other songs. Minor keys often sound lower, duller, sadder, darker. That’s why we don’t often hear them in advertising jingles.
As the story goes, in 1958, Dominic Facchino founded the Mr Whippy ice cream van company in Birmingham, England, after visiting the US and witnessing the success of Mister Softee trucks. Robby Staff, who owns and operates a collection of vintage Mr Whippy vans in Queensland, Australia, said that Facchino was a big fan of Henry VIII, who throughout history has been credited with personally writing Greensleeves. Even the Mr Whippy logo, a cherub-faced ice cream cone, dons a beret that Staff said is a subtle nod to Henry’s preferred headwear.
View image of Robby Staff
Mr Whippy vans flourished in the UK, and the company soon expanded to Australia and then New Zealand, dominating all three mobile ice cream markets by the mid-1960s, pre-dating fast food’s popularity in those markets.
“In Australia, there was no McDonald’s or Kentucky Fried Chicken at the time. There was Mr Whippy, and this made such an imprint,” said Staff, who also contributed to the book The Mr Whippy Story. Over time, Mr Whippy became a generic term, he said, referring to the fact that people called all mobile ice cream vendors “Mr Whippies.” The company’s signature Greensleeves jingle, too, was adopted by other vendors. Voila: The jingle and truck became permanently linked, building brand recognition and revealed a relationship between advertising and mobility.
Although certain tunes are more popular than others in different countries, there’s one commonality that links ice cream vehicle jingles worldwide: The songs simply don’t change much as musical trends evolve. They are — pun intended — frozen in time. But why? And what’s with all the folk songs?
The jingle’s evolution — or lack thereof
In a way, the idea that ice cream jingles have only minimally evolved is completely at odds with the idea of jingles in general: The catchy earworms that were once the advert industries’ Trojan horse into the brains of consumers on radio waves and in TV commercials are now largely looked at as cheesy and outdated trinkets from yesteryear.
Matthew Nicholl, chairman of Contemporary Writing and Production at Berklee College of Music, has developed and taught classes focusing on jingle-writing, has personally written scores for use in film, TV and radio advertisements, even political campaigns: PBS, Nasa, Maybelline cosmetics, Subway sandwiches, and even campaigns for US presidential candidates Bob Dole and Ronald Reagan. He’s noticed that, since the mid-1990s, musical tracks produced for TV advertisements aren’t really jingles anymore.
“It’s what you’d call a spot, which is more like a soundtrack to a film,” Nicholl said. “In many cases, companies license existing songs rather than commission jingles. Lots of time when you’re contracted to write a jingle, they want it to sound like a popular song.”
Even though traditional jingles are fading from advertising, Nicholl says they still have a market in places like local and regional radio advertisements… and ice cream trucks.
“People really want to recreate that nostalgia for that hot summer day when ice cream was the perfect summer day for you as a kid,” Nicholl said.
Jingles, trucks, and nostalgia
Since nostalgia is what keeps those old-fashioned ice cream jingles alive, it’s why you won’t hear them blare the latest Rihanna single. Current pop hits don’t play off that need for nostalgia, and plus, people won’t immediately associate the song with a moving truck that sells ice cream the way a jingle does.
“People have tried to use popular music and people don’t recognise what it is. People hear jingles, and the kids know that is the ice cream man,” Nichols of Nichols Electronics said. If a truck were to play a modern-day song instead of a classic jingle, he said, people would wonder, “Was that an ice cream vendor or somebody just playing music real loud?”
There’s also the fact that quaint classics are simply recognisable everywhere, across generations and cultures. And because these songs are so old, they’re part of public domain and available to use free of charge.
Neely agreed, adding that the power of nostalgia is hugely important in the marketing something as innocent and sweet as ice cream. He illustrated this very concept in his academic paper, citing a 2003 project as an example. In this project, New York artist Erin McGonigle composed a collection of re-imagined ice cream truck tunes. She embarked on several ride-alongs documenting the effectiveness of each tune. Of them all, the song that garnered the best immediate response (ice cream customers) was a marching band’s rendition of Turkey in the Straw, which happens to be among the most widely used tunes by ice cream truck vendors.
However, there are some newer tunes that have proven adequate sales tools. The Mister Softee jingle is, perhaps, today’s “best-known ice cream truck tune,” Neely wrote — and it’s a fairly new tune compared to other popular ice cream truck jingles.
US-based Mister Softee, which operates in 15 states and China, hired jingle writer Les Waas to produce a jingle for a radio advertisement in 1960. The song was such a commercial success that it was converted to an instrumental chime version to be blasted from trucks, solidifying its status as the most widely recognized modern ice cream jingle. The tinkling tune is remarkably unchanged even today, “known to millions of people and a cultural icon throughout the United States,” Neely wrote in his article.
Producer Michael Hearst’s album Songs for Ice Cream Trucks has been adopted throughout the US, mainly because vendors are looking for alternative tunes “that actually sounds like traditional ice cream truck music,” Neely wrote.
The future of the ice cream truck
With the advent of supermarkets in the late 20th century, the number of ice cream trucks has taken a big hit: In the 1960s, the UK saw over 30,000 ice cream vans on the streets; today, there may be less than 5,000.
Even international ice cream truck mainstays like Mister Softee and Mr Whippy are moving toward more brick-and-mortar shops. The survival of the iconic ice cream truck is also dependent on the technological forces at play in transportation: Will we someday see self-driving, autonomous cars dishing out ice cream, using big data to pinpoint neighbourhoods with high demand or with high populations?
Whatever the future for this summertime vehicle holds, it’s clear that, as long as they’re on the move, they will still use jingles. The retro appeal of these increasingly uncommon flashbacks-on-wheels is what keeps the public’s love of them alive — and the traditional jingles alive, too.
“I think they’ll continue,” Nicholl said, “until our civilization falls.”
In-line Flickr image credits: Davis Staedtler, Beverley Goodwin, Mandy Turner
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photo by pedro ornelas
"END OF THE NIGHT" was conceived by Chris and Steve Lowenthal of VDSQ one evening while listening to records. Steve writes: "We agreed to listen to one more record, but what would it be? What music could answer that existential quandary of the perfect last record of the night at home? I instantly asked him to make me the very record we needed to hear at the moment."
It was released May 24, 2019 on VDSQ and tak:til/Glitterbeat. Collaborators on the album include Greg Kelley, Samara Lubelski, Lori Goldston, David Michael Curry, Luther Gray, Jonah Sacks, and Timo Shanko. It's for sale at VDSQ (U.S., LP) and tak:til/Glitterbeat (Europe, CD and digital).
Listen to select tracks at Bandcamp. Read an interview (in the original English) Chris did with Carsten Wohlfeld for Gaesteliste magazine about how the record came together.
Q&A with The Stranger:
“Chris Brokaw Talks Codeine, Come, Leonard Cohen, and Music for the End of the Night”
online here
In an expansive interview, Chris talks about the “little village” of Cambridge, Massachusetts, why certain kinds of melancholy music make people feel so good, and what 'End of the Night' shares with his previous work: “I think End of the Night shares a couple of elements with Codeine — delicacy, patience — but overall it feels like a different thing, and something new for me. Codeine's music was so specific, and while this album is going for a specific mood or vibe or time, the way there was a lot more open. I allowed other players to help shape the music on some songs, and even on the ones where it was mostly me, I allowed for a more unknown thing to take shape. I didn't recognize the album when it was done, which felt strange but I welcomed it.” [by Dave Segal, October 2019, full interview online here]
Video from 'End of the Night' U.S. West Coast Tour
Oct 10 2019, Seattle, Washington; video by Tim Cook
The “Chris Brokaw 'End of the Night' Band” is Chris on guitar, Lori Goldston on cello; Greg Kelley on trumpet; Luther Gray on drums; and Dave Abramson on drums.
Chris' interview with the album's cover artist:
“On Primal Loneliness :: Chris Brokaw In Conversation With Sandy Dvore”
Chris says: “It was an overwhelming privilege to have the great Sandy Dvore do the cover of my new album 'End of the Night'. I interviewed the 83 year old iconoclast recently — he has an amazing life story, a fairly mind blowing career, and without expecting it at all we had a deeply moving conversation.”
Here’s Dvore, from the interview: “When you’re out here [in Los Angeles] and someone asks you to draw Judy Garland and someone sticks it on the back page of the Hollywood Variety and all of the sudden at the place you go to by yourself to get a hamburger, people come up to you and say they saw my name under the Judy Garland ad and they had no idea I could do that. That’s like you hitting the nail on the head and having the front rows jump to their feet and start clapping. That’s what it was, that’s what happened. Then I was in a place where I could do whatever I wanted to do, they let me do whatever I wanted to do and I didn’t have to follow any rules and regulations, I could do all my own ideas. This was a way I could perform.” [For aquariumdrunkard.com, October 2019, full interview online here]
**** [four stars] The storied Boston guitarist makes every note felt on this instrumental set, as shifting ensembles evoke wee hours reverie. Deep blue jazz timbres predominate — two tracks with Greg Kelley's finest Chet Baker-style trumpet really hit the spot — and Brokaw's pensive mood-mastery is constant. [August, 2019]
[8 out of 10] American guitarist Chris Brokaw has landed in a number of great groups over the past few decades -- Come, Codeine, The New Year, Pullman, Dirtmusic — but he's also spent 20-or-so years quietly etching out an understated solo career, centring around the weightless, weeping blues of his guitar, sometimes accompanied by his deadpan, driftwood voice. This time around, Brokaw's recorded an instrumental collection, heavy on the reflective melancholy, sometimes shaded in with trumpet from Greg Kelley, or strings from Samara Lubelski and Lori Goldston, amongst other players; these small group settings offer the perfect vehicles for Brokaw's flinty, deep-breathing guitar. [by Jon Dale, August 2019]
[Inbox Jukebox Track of the Day: The Beautifully Melancholic "End of the Night" by Ex-Codeine Drummer Chris Brokaw]
Best known for his stints in Sub Pop-affiliated slowcore luminaries Codeine and angst-ridden indie-rockers Come, Chris Brokaw lived in Seattle for a brief while in the mid 2010s before heading to Boston in 2017. During his time here, he frequently played around town and created new scores for several Peter Hutton movies for Northwest Film Forum's Puget Soundtrack series. I hope you saw him while you had the chance.
Over the last 30 years, Brokaw has distinguished himself as a musician of acutely nuanced sensibilities and robust power both on guitar and drums, which has made him a valued collaborator and contributor to artists such as Obnox, the New Year, Ryley Walker, Thurston Moore, Stephen O’Malley, Wrekmeister Harmonies, and—surprisingly—with the latest incarnation of the Lemonheads.
But Brokaw's really come into his own with his new solo LP, End of the Night. Featuring a strong cast of musicians, including Seattle trumpeter Greg Kelley and cellist/Stranger Genius Lori Goldston, End of the Night captures the nocturnal contemplativeness that its title promises. One's sense of existential gravity peaks at night's end, and the 10 instrumentals on this record assist in those thought processes, while offering consoling melodies whose beauty unspools in methodical intervals.
"End of the Night" closes out the album on an aptly valedictory note. Kelley's trumpet channels Chet Baker's delicate, melancholic waft while Brokaw picks out a spindly guitar figure that spangles and descends with dignified resignation. The song conjures the aftermath of a scene of 4 am momentousness; you've made a decision that will alter your life, and now you're trudging to bed, exhausted yet relieved. "End of the Night" betokens the beginning of a beautiful new dream. --Dave Segal, Jun 10, 2019
[ESSENTIAL NEW MUSIC: CHRIS BROKAW’S “END OF THE NIGHT”] If you need some music made to order, guitarist Chris Brokaw is your man. He can play all the tricky parts for Evan Dando, match blue note for blue note with Thalia Zadek in Come, score your movie and then turn around and make a set of solo classical-guitar interpretations of David Bowie and Prince songs. Once he knows the plan, he gets to work.
End Of The Night was born from a challenge: Make the last record you’d want to play at the end of the night. Ah, but what kind of night are we talking about? Each of this LP’s 10 tracks could work as a solitary nightcap for a particular situation. If you’re full of regret, listen to “Our Fathers” as you mumble your prayers. If you gotta go, let the stolid cadence and wide-screen-worthy, echoing lead of “Step Outside” ring out while you put on your 10-gallon hat and step into the inky night. Want to have some company? Bat your best bedroom eyes to “The Dip.” But if you’re turning the corner from latest night to early morning, put the whole thing on and let Brokaw’s reverberant guitar and the melancholy trumpet of Greg Kelley (Heathen Shame, Damon & Naomi) prop you up on either side as you fade away. End Of The Night delivers just what it promises. —Bill Meyer, July 18 2019
Presto Jazz
Chris Brokaw soundtracked my student days with his post-rock/grunge bands Codeine and Come, so it's pleasant to stumble over him almost 25 years later in this slightly more jazzy (albeit still post-rock) guise. Codeine were masters of slow-motion moody rock and some of that vibe is present on End of the Night, as in the title track which could easily have been included on the Barely Real EP. Fans of Bill Frisell and Marc Johnson-style Americana should have a listen.
Dusted Magazine
Chris Brokaw has spent a lifetime in music making other people sound better, from his early days in Codeine and Come to gigs recreating Psychic Hearts with Thurston Moore or sitting in on guitar with Consonant and or playing drums for The New Year. Most recently, he’s left a mark with the insanely stacked Charnel Ground, whose other members are Kid Millions and James McNew. His solo work ranges widely, too, from finger picked blues to abrasively tuneful guitar pop. But even given all that, this new one, End of the Night, is special.
The disc begins and ends with Brokaw in duet with Greg Kelley, laying down languid lines of electric guitar against the trumpeter’s airy, melancholic “Chet Baker” tone. Brokaw wrote this album with the idea of creating the ideal end-of-the-night listening experience, and indeed, there is a midnight blue tone to both these songs—the opener “Swimming, Tuesday” and the closing title track — a serenity tinged with smoke and memory. These two tracks, along with several others, edge Brokaw’s work into jazz, though it is cut with the shimmery guitar translucence of post-rock and drone.
Brokaw brings together a handful of talented collaborators to End of the Night, working mostly with them in ones and twos. Boston jazz drummer Luther Gray makes an appearance on four tracks, including the moody “Tradewinds,” where his dry, steady patterns of cymbal and snare pockmark swarms and clouds of guitar notes that move slowly across a melody, their particulate nature blurred and smudged in halos of sound. Lori Goldston lays down a dusky throb of cello in “Bragging Rights,” her smudgy resonances contrasting intriguingly with Brokaw’s bright, bucolic country blues. And in “Her Breathing,” both Brokaw’s guitar and Samara Lubielski’s violin take on a luminous abstracted tone, turning sustained string tone into edge-less, glowing bars of Rothko color; the cut has the inward looking tranquility of church organ music, though none of the pomp and bombast. Longtime associate David Michael Curry plays viola, Jonah Sacks cello and Timo Shanko acoustic bass on the brief, dreamlike “A Dip,” slithering in and out of the slipstream of Brokaw’s Spanish-toned guitar melody.
Yet though all these guests fill out the corners of this lovely album, it is ultimately Brokaw’s show. He plays by himself on “Blue Out,” coaxing eerie, lingering, shape-shifting notes, I believe with e-bow. The track is three minutes of pure sonic sensation, the notes denatured to essence, no string squeak or finger tap to indicate where they came from. The song, and indeed, much of the album, has a masterful restraint, yet is in no way minimalist. It takes only a few notes, pondered on, left to linger, to entirely fill up the space, in the way that a few sounds take on resonance in the quiet at the end of the night. -- Jennifer Kelly June 3 2019
About Cover Artist Sandy Dvore
The cover for END OF THE NIGHT was drawn by renowned artist Sandy Dvore, who did album covers in the 1960s for Buffalo Springfield and Leonard Nimoy and title sequences in the 19702 for the TV show The Partridge Family and the movie Blacula. He composed this drawing after listening to Chris' album. See a large version of the cover.
Video for "Swimming, Tuesday"
video online here
Milo Jones directed the video of "Swimming, Tuesday", the first song from the album.
Australian radio show featuring the album
radio show online here
'Sideways Through Sound,' produced in Sydney, Australia, highlighted END OF THE NIGHT on its June 12 2019 edition. The show is archived and can be streamed globally.
Greek radio show featuring the album
Akis garlic highlighted END OF THE NIGHT in a July 29 2019 show, which can be streamed globally.
Gaesteliste magazine
Long Q&A online here (English)
. . . my first thought was that this assignment - to make the last album of the night - was maybe the greatest assignment ever, and that I really wanted to get it right. I didn't want to fuck it up. So I was a bit daunted by it. I had to think about it for a long time and I think my original vision of it was different than how it came out. I thought of it as having a kind of noir-rock vibe to it, sort of spy movie music, which is not how it came out at all, which I'm glad about. -- I also am not sure now if it's a record FOR the end of the night or ABOUT the end of the night. I think more the latter, which is fine with me. It took on its own life and purpose divorced from the original one, which I'm always happy for, I like when that happens. . .
Lemonheads Spring 2019 U.S. tour: Chris toured with THE LEMONHEADS in May and June 2019, playing 34 shows across the U.S. The band was Lee Falco on drums, Farley Glavin on bass, Chris on guitar and vocals, and Evan Dando on guitar and vocals. TOMMY STINSON (The Replacements) opened all shows.
Chris played guitar on the new Lemonheads record, "Varshons 2," which was released February 2019.
Norway collaboration:: Chris and Findlay//Sandsmark, a Norway-based performance company mixing dance, theater, video art, and live music, worked together from 2018 to 2019 on a new multimedia piece called "Florida (lowlands)."
The work was debuted in four shows in Norway in March, 2019: at Rimi/Imir SceneKunst in Stavanger, Norway, and at the Oslo Internasjonale Teaterfestival 2019. Details here about the project.
Chris is proud to announce the release of a new LEMONHEADS album, in February 2019. The album is a set of covers of songs by 13 artists. Chris played guitar on some of it, including the lead off track, "Can't Forget" by Yo La Tengo. Track list here.
The band toured Europe January and February 2019, with Lee Falco, Evan Dando, Farley Glavin, and Chris.
The feature film "Buck Run" had its world premiere at the Palm Springs International Film Festival in January, 2019. Watch the trailer here.
Chris scored the film, which is directed by Nick Frangione and stars James Le Gros. Variety says: "The drifting electric guitar of Chris Brokaw’s score further amplifies a timelessly melancholy air."
Read more about Chris' film scoring work here.
Chris's music for Peter Hutton, composed to be performed with the filmmaker's short films, was released in a limited edition on Tape Drift Records in 2018. Chris presented the work in 2017 and 2018 in screenings of Hutton's films, including a show in June, 2018, in Norway.
Lost in a Sea of Sound writes in a review: "There is difficulty in describing the tranquility of music. . . .In the case of this composition, Music for Peter Hutton, the energy behind it gave additional texture to the silent films of Peter Hutton. In the most beautiful fashion, Chris Brokaw has accomplished what these words try to do, taking creativity not initially meant for an ancillary descriptive medium, beyond it's own existence.... Recently released on compact disc by Tape Drift, Chris Brokaw recorded this music to accompany screenings of Peter Hutton's silent films. This particular set was recorded live at Northwest Film Forum in Seattle by Brenan Chambers. Two tracks, one thirty five minute guitar slow burner and an additional six minute field recording heavy track, titled Boston Fire."
Also in 2018, Chris reworked/remixed a recent film score piece for compilation VIII on ALREADY DEAD TAPES of Kalamazoo, Michigan. It was released August 31. Details here.
The debut LP of Charnel Ground was released April 6, 2018 on 12xu. The release features Kid Millions (Oneida/Boredoms) on drums, Chris on electric guitar, and James McNew (Yo La Tengo) on bass + organ. It was recorded in Brooklyn, NY.
The band played its debut shows in April 2019, featuring Doug McCombs (Tortoise) on bass.
The same lineup plays its first Europe shows in November 2019.
The record is for sale here at this website. The LP includes a digital download code.
Listen to Charnel Ground at Bandcamp.
“A Killer New Album From a Noise Rock Supergroup”
Charnel Ground is comprised of three veteran New York City musicians: James McNew of bass, Kid Millions on drums, and Chris Brokaw on guitar. Each is or has been a member of at least one well-established band (Yo La Tengo, Oneida, and Codeine/Come, respectively), and there are enough smaller projects and collaborations between the three of them to fill a short novel. Their self-titled debut as a trio arrived a week ago, and is well worth your time if you’re a fan of any of them, or of noisy, expansive instrumental music in general.
The album begins with two tracks that will feel familiar to anyone who’s caught Oneida in recent years, when McNew has been a semi-regular presence in the lineup: drum hits that tumble like barrels over Niagra falls, amps on the verge of a meltdown, churning together in grooves that draw cosmic power from gutbucket rock’n’roll. This is not exactly surprising music for these three to make together: they could probably spend the rest of their lives with the gain maxed out on their overdrive pedals, but if you’re the type of person who enjoys what they do, you could probably spend the rest of your life listening. Charnel Ground’s real treasure is its 18-minute album-closing title track, the kind of elegantly sprawling feedback jam that often crops up near the end of a Yo La Tengo album. Brokaw plays with real tenderness as McNew and Millions patiently keep time behind him—a reminder that improvised noise rock, when played well, is fully capable of touching your heart as well as melting your face. [by Andy Cush, April 13, 2018]
Charnel Ground is a super-group, of sorts, combining the considerable talents of Kid Millions (Oneida, Man Forever) on drums, Chris Brokaw (Come, Codeine, Consonant, etc.) on guitar and James McNew (Yo La Tengo) on bass. Just that amount of background is probably enough to tell you whether you want to hear this album — and you do — and that’s fortunate because it’s pretty much all the background anyone’s getting. We know that the music was recorded in Brooklyn by these three musicians in late 2016, and that is pretty much all we know.
That blankness of backstory allows, even forces us to focus on the music, always the best course of action. The music, all instrumental, abstract, driving, blistering and, at times, lyrical, can absolutely support scrutiny all by itself. It brings together the best of all three principals – the furious percussive energies of Kid Millions, Brokaw’s slow arcs and haunting echoes of guitar tone, McNew’s nodding, pulsing, hypnotic hum of bass.
The album’s two longest tracks work the strongest alchemy. “The High Price” rampages furiously on for more than 10 minutes, bending guitar effects into screaming rainbows, pummelling rackety beats into bloody, rapturous submission, plummeting into wild, celebratory excess but pulling up well short of chaos. “Charnel Ground” is a whole other experience, an aura of soft guitar notes and cymbal vibrations set into gentle motion by McNew’s steady, head-nodding bass. It’s like the dreamiest sort of Yo La Tengo instrumental pushed a little bit further from melody/verse/chorus.
Of the shorter tracks, “Jimmy” is the most obliterating, scatter-shooting rounds of percussion into giant amp-altered girders of guitar sound, “Skeleton Coast” has the off-hand, unhurried grace of a Bedhead instrumental, and “Playa de Ticia” is just odd, a mariachi beach band tune kidnapped and shoehorned into the sequence. And yet, with these three guys, the inclination is to let them do whatever they want. Why not, after all? They’ve earned it and the results are mostly stunning. [by Jennifer Kelly, April 19, 2018]
Raven Sings the Blues
This one almost doesn’t need a review based on the lineup alone. A meeting of the minds of Chris Brokaw (Come, Codeine), James McNew (Yo La Tengo, Dump) and Kid Millions (Oneida, Man Forever) exploring the boundaries of experimental instrumental shred just seems like a good idea. Hell, if those were names drawn out of a hat and the musicians were tossed in a room even without intent and direction, you know they’d come up with something good. As such, they did enter Charnel Ground with a purpose and to that end they’ve succeeded. Their eponymous LP snares some real moments of powder keg psych, but the record is far from a one-note slash and burn. As much as they go for raw shred, they also wrangle nuance into the equation. Their ability to balance the impulses speaks to the players’ collective pedigrees.
“The High Price” tears a few new holes in the ozone, battling Brokaw’s scorched riffs, tainted and tortured by feedback, with Millions’ rambunctious punishment of drum heads. It’s a premium petrol burn lit on sacred ground and building to a nimbus sized plume of ash, but the band is quick to suck the oxygen out of that rager. They stop for what seems like a nice Tex-Mex lunch on “Plaa De Tica” before flexing Brokaw and McNew’s strengths of restraint and riff sculpture on “Skeleton Coast” and the title track closer, which stretches out for 16+ minutes of slow build and subtle detail. If you’ve been missing out on the instrumental guitar boom of the aughts, where emotions were exorcised among the strings and post-rock flipped through the stacks of psych, jazz and drone, then Charnel Ground will rush in like a breath of sweet air. [by Andy, April 4, 2018]
Doom and Gloom from the Tomb
This week’s Bandcamp Monday brings us the inspired/incendiary power trio team-up of Kid Millions (Oneida), James McNew (Yo La Tengo) and Chris Brokaw (Come, Codeine, many more). Things kick off in full blowout mode — the second track, “The High Price” is a total rager, with Kid and McNew laying down a demonic beat and Brokaw coughing up shards of glorious riffage and white-hot feedback. Ride the lightning! But the album isn’t all thrash-and-burn. “Playa del Ticia” and “Skeleton Coast” are both sunshine-infused pop numbers. Best of all is the closing self-titled epic, with the band finding an elevated plane of sonic conversation over the course of nearly 18 wonderfully transporting minutes. Magical. [April 16, 2018]
“Kid Millions: 5 Unstoppable Jams Featuring Oneida’s Superhuman Drummer”
On the eve of the release of Oneida’s masterful Romance last month, word came through that the long-running experimental rock group’s drummer John Colpitts (who plays under the name Kid Millions) had been in a serious car accident. Fortunately, John is expected to make a full recovery, but medical bills are mounting, and Thrill Jockey has set up a GoFundMe page to help out. Give what you can. For more than two decades Kid Millions has proved himself one of the underground’s most exploratory/explosive musicians, both technically adept and open to all kinds of approaches. No matter what the context, he’s always finding new and exciting rhythmic possibilities. The dude is very prolific, as well. For just a small taste of what the Kid been up to recently, check out a few highlights released in the past year or so.
Charnel Ground – The High Price: An inspired team-up of Kid, Yo La Tengo’s James McNew and guitarist Chris Brokaw (Come, Codeine), Charnel Ground’s debut finds this power trio locking in and blasting off. “The High Price” is a total rager, with Brokaw wreaking glorious havoc above Kid and McNew’s propulsive rhythms for 10 unstoppable minutes. Crank it. [April 23, 2018, full article here]
Chris is proud to release THE HAND THAT WROTE THIS LETTER, a cd of instrumental classical guitar versions of David Bowie and Prince songs. This is Capitan Records 014, the first Capitan release in a few years. The album was recorded by Claudia Groom in Seattle, WA, in October and November 2016, and mastered by Matt Barnhart.
This cd is available through this website and at Chris's shows. It's for sale here for $12 postagepaid (US), $14 (CAN), $16 (World). It is also for sale as download at Bandcamp.
Track list: ASHES TO ASHES, THE MAN WHO SOLD THE WORLD, I WOULD DIE 4 U, LADY GRINNING SOUL, CONTROVERSY, MODERN LOVE, ANDY WARHOL, UNDER THE CHERRY MOON, WHEN YOU WERE MINE, LETTER TO HERMIONE.
Below is an interview Chris gave with Carsten Wohlfeld for Westzeit Magazine about the new cd.
1. Can you say a few words about how this album came about, something with a wedding, I recall?
---I was asked to play a friend's wedding in San Francisco in July 2016. I asked the bride what she'd like me to play, and she said "I'd really like if you played some David Bowie and Prince songs". I said "I wont sing them - I dont think your guests want that - but I'll try them as instrumentals". I did 4 or 5 at the wedding and when I got home just kept playing them obsessively. I decided to make it ten songs, and then an album.
2. I wouldn't have taken you for a huge Bowie or Prince fan, so how familiar were you with these songs? Most of them came out when you were a teenager, I seems?
---Ive been a big Bowie fan for many years, Prince somewhat less so. Some of these songs came out when I was a child, but I dont think that's especially important.
3. How did you select the songs out of the wealth of material that both artists have to offer?
---it was kind of intuitive. honestly, all these songs have different significances for me, many of them highly personal. three of the songs i never heard until after they each died, and i felt it important to include those, as so much great work is only learned after an artist's death. they're not necessarily my favorite songs of theirs, but important ones for me. the album is deliberately incomplete, as i feel the album is mostly about memory, which is inherently both highly personal and highly flawed.
4. I guess there's a few that kind of lend themselves more easily to an acoustic adaptation, like "Letter to Hermione" or "The Man Who Sold The World", but I'm wondering how you could possibly listen to "When You Were Mine" or "I Would Die 4 U" and think, "Yeah, just one acoustic guitar and no voice will do"?
----that was not always easy. some songs, like "heroes", were impossible to do solo acoustic and i discarded them. these ones seemed to work for me. again, much of this is personal in a way that is specific to the ways i play guitar.
5. Is there some kind of pattern you followed, when it came to pairing down the songs (if so, what was it)?
---no, and i didn't want to overthink it. as ive said, it's really not a complete take on these guys, and that was important to me. it's not a definitive statement on them, or on my feelings about their catalogs. i wanted it be half of each, but it ended up 6 Bowie 4 Prince. overall i have a stronger attachment to Bowie's songs. And even lumping these 2 guys together is a bit random, but they really felt connected in 2016.
6. You're obviously no stranger to solo instrumental music, but with your own stuff, the songs were intended to have no vocals. Did you ever find it difficult to just let go of that layer, that dimension of the originals?
----not at all, and mostly because those singers are so distinctive. like, i really dont want to hear anyone else singing them (including me). this album is like hearing someone humming along with the songs.
7. I love how much these songs sound like CB numbers, testament to how distinctive your guitar playing is, I guess. Was that an intention or did it just naturally turn out that way?
----just how it came out, but thank you! i felt like the versions were deliberately pretty faithful but allowing to taking in my own turns.
8. Silly one at the end: If you were to do a part two of this project: Which two other artists would you consider to be worthy of your time and effort?
---i dont know, probably plenty. hopefully no one else has to die to make the next record happen!
(See the article in Gaesteliste.de, a German online music magazine, that this interview was for.)
In December 2017, OMENTUM RECORDS of Pittsburgh released Chris' 2008 CD "CANARIS" on vinyl.
Black vinyl and limited edition goldenrod, plus new liner notes by Steve Lowenthal (VDSQ) and Wlad Drakkstein (Vlad Tepes). For sale here!
"BARRACUDA," a feature film by Julia Halperin and Jason Cortlund with a film score by Chris, had its US release on October 6, 2017.
The movie was nominated for the SXSW Gamechanger Award and the SXSW Grand Jury Award at the SXSW Film Festival 2017, and won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Narrative Feature at the Oak Cliff Film Festival.
See the Hollywood Reporter review and what the filmmakers say about the movie.
The feature film 'Barracuda,' with a film score by Chris, was released in October 2017 in the US (see this poster full size)
BARRACUDA is available in the US on video on demand from cable/satellite providers as well as from digital streaming services including Amazon, iTunes (US & Canada), Kanopy, Google Play, Vudu, Fandango Now, and Hoopla.
In a duo with Jimena Bermejo, Chris performed new work for slide guitars and dance in August 2017 during an evening of NEW WORKS / NEW CONFIGURATIONS. The program was part of the MOBIUS SUMMER SERIES. (Watch their performance here.)
In September 2017, Chris presented 5 films of experimental filmmaker Peter Hutton (1944-2016) at the Brattle Theatre in Cambridge -- 3 with live scores, 2 in their original silent state -- with audience discussion after.
Also in 2017, Chris wrote the soundtrack for the forthcoming feature film "BUCK RUN," scheduled for release in 2018. The movie stars James Le Gros and is directed by Nick Frangione.
THE NEW YEAR's first album in nine years, "SNOW," was released April 28, 2017. The band features Matt and Bubba Kadane on guitars, Mike Donofrio on bass, and Chris on drums.
The Pitchfork review calls it "a spare, deliberate record, judiciously paced and artfully arranged. With its wide-open vistas and vast expanses of negative space, the album lays claim to the territory the band staked out 25 years back while managing to turn over a couple new leaves."
The New Year's "Snow" was released in April, 2017
See THE NEW YEAR website for other reviews and purchasing info.
Please note: This page was not updated from 2013 through early 2017.
See the discography page, film scoring page, and shows pages for details about Chris' production work and touring schedules in those years.
"GAMBLER'S ECSTASY" is Chris' long-awaited rock album. Many years in the making, it was released October 2 2012 on 12XU (US), Damnably (Europe/UK) and After Hours. It's available in cd and lp, and the vinyl edition includes copies on clear vinyl. It's for sale here.
"'Gambler's Ecstasy' is my first full-length album of vocal music since 2005's 'Incredible Love,'" writes Chris in an essay about the record. "In a sense, it is the followup to 'Incredible Love,' except with electric guitar as the center rather than acoustic guitar. With 'Incredible Love,' I wanted to demonstrate that the acoustic guitar can be used to push forward something besides folk-related sounds and ideas. Upon completion, I realized that, somewhat unwittingly, I had created probably as close to a 'pop record' as I am likely to make. With 'Gambler's Ecstasy,' I have more deliberately and specifically endeavored to make a rock album. I still believe that, in the right hands, rock music can be a powerful, complex and informative medium."
Read Chris' full essay about the record, including track-by-track notes.
**** [four stars] Former Come guitarist's first vocal LP since 2005 asserts his mastery of mood shift. From garage rocker Danny Borracho to ruminative abstractions like Anacordia, Brokaw's weathered voice and reverberant playing make another rewarding set.
Don Yates, music director KEXP in Seattle
Now living in Seattle, the former Come guitarist and Codeine drummer has released a handful of fine solo vocal and instrumental albums since his 2002 debut Red Cities, while also guesting on numerous other records and composing music for soundtracks. His latest solo album is his first solo album with vocals since 2005's Incredible Love, and it's a rock-solid outing of brooding indie-rock with fuzzy, intricate guitar solos and dark lyrics.
Will Fitzpatrick, TheLineOfBestFit.com
Whether best described as having a restless muse or an open mind, there's no denying Brokaw is a phenomenal musician. . . You can feel it from the very beginning; the crisp, murky bracken of dense, disorienting fuzz; a sense of purpose and deliberation that lasts until the very last note of the final track, pushing things forward and tying the album's eclectic strands together.
. . . Right when I dropped the needle on the first song I knew this was going to be a keeper. First cut "Criminals" is three or so minutes of direct fuzz which leads right into the folkier "Crooked" then to the rip-roaring "Danny Borracho" to the New Year-ish "Into the Woods" to the subtly melodic "The Appetites." That is all of side 1 which is nearly flawless. The songs on side two are just as strong (including his cover of Wussy's "Crooked", which adds viola from David Michael Curry) and with Brokaw's penchant for experimenting and taking chances, most of the songs on GAMBLER'S ECSTASY are some of his most accessible yet. Brokaw is a lifer and GAMBLER'S ECSTASY might by favorite thing he's done yet.
STILL SINGLE
. . . this one is a keeper all the way, with one of the finest post-Silkworm moments in rock music not made by any members of Silkworm in "Danny Borracho," an excellent, long exercise in tension called "The Appetites" that runs up through the major scales and back down in the minors enough times to recall a glorious bender, and stunning, ruminant blues-folk forms in "Anacordia" that stare into one's soul. . .
Sophie Roberts, thefourohfive.com
. . . 'California' is a definite highlight of the album, being everything that you wouldn't expect from a song titled 'California'. No palm trees, sunny beaches or Hollywood glamour here, just an intense combination of shaky guitar strumming and folky vocals. The record comes to a dramatic conclusion in the form of 'Richard and Vanessa in the Box', [which] quickly becomes a gargantuan swarm of musical darkness, partially hidden behind a veil of fuzzy lo-fi quality that does little to dilute the deep nature of this song. . .
Chris Q&A with QRD magazine
In April 2013, QRD did an extensive interview with Chris about his guitars and gear. Chris notes that "the same issue of the print magazine includes similar fare with my buddy Jeff Barsky as well, the amazing Chris Summerlin (the sheriff of Nottingham), and the amazing Gregory Duby, aka JESUS IS MY SON, who made my favorite record last year."
"THE ANGEL'S MESSAGE TO ME" features a collection of pre-WWII country blues songs performed by chris and GEOFF FARINA (KARATE, GLORYTELLERS). chris and geoff overlapped in boston for many years and played in different bands on many of the same bills. chris played on the 2004 karate record "pockets", but this is chris and geoff's first studio collaboration.
available in cd, "the angel's message to me" was released march 18 2010 in the uk and europe on damnably records and may 18, 2010 on chris' label CAPITAN. for sale here.
track listing: the angel's message to me; ginseng blues; guitar chimes; in the evening; make me a pallet on your floor; oh death; sitting on top of the world; st. james infirmary blues; stagger lee; poor wayfaring stranger; never happen no more; trouble in mind.
video: chris and geoff, live, spain, performing 'make me a pallet on your floor' at tanned tin festival, nov 2009.
Chris Brokaw and Geoff Farina may well be the two best guitarists indie rock has had to offer in the past two-plus decades. Brokaw's moody layering with slowcore pioneers Codeine and the brilliantly heavy Come made for the kind of expansive atmosphere new guitarists are still trying to figure out. Meanwhile, Farina's jazzy post-rock for Karate was all about the tangled solos, the crazy time signatures, and the raw edge of emotion.
They're two styles that wouldn't necessarily mesh well, but these are also two players with a breadth of talent: Brokaw's solo acoustic work and Farina's folkier approach in his current band, Glorytellers, have shown they're capable of making any noise they want. So, when they joined forces to make The Angel's Message to Me, the two bombastic guitar players opted for something a bit more understated. . . .
. . . what is refreshing about Brokaw and Farina's work here is that they don't bring some sort of savvy modern twist to these songs. They play them straight. They play them with a hushed intimacy. And they play them awfully well.
As vocalists, the two were really built for this kind of singing. Brokaw, in particular, shines when his barely rasped voice takes on the road-weary narrator of the excellent 'Make Me a Pallet on Your Floor', or acts as the narrator to the deathly tale of 'Stagger Lee'. . . .
. . .As for the concept of the album -- recasting pre-WWII songs for today's troubled times -- the duo smartly shy away from being too ham-handed with themes of economic depression. People sleep on their floor, they drink too much to fend off the worry, they got nothing but their baby left. But these are songs about love, about mortality, about more cosmic losses, and the economic worries just fill out the landscape around them. So while some might hope to find comfort in the knowledge that people have survived hardship before and come out stronger, the real comfort on The Angel's Message to Me is in the players themselves. Brokaw and Farina, so capable of blowing us away in the past, instead invite us in, and play a beautiful and timeless set of songs. And in the hands of such innovative musicians, it's easy to see why even the humblest of these songs has stuck around for so long.
adequacy.net
. . . a collection that just seems to be about two friends passing through twelve old-timey songs and instrumentals with the glee of new discovery, as if they'd just learnt them off an old toothless but happy troubadour on a sun-kissed back porch.
Recorded entirely as a two-piece in apartment and home studios, with not much more than acoustic guitars and the twosome's cohesively complementing tones, this is a record that unfurls with freshness and fluidity throughout. With Brokaw's nifty finger-picking rubbing amicably against Farina's more languid six-string phrasing, the duo's intuitive interplay is the bedrock of the album's appeal.
. . . Although Brokaw possesses more gravelly vocal cords, he doesn't veer proceedings into unwanted darkness. In fact, he even turns the world-weary "Make Me A Pallet On Your Floor" and oft-made-over murder ballad "Stagger Lee" into positively joyful -- but crucially not cheesy -- campfire strummers. When the two compadres share the mic for the delightfully swinging "That'll Never Happen No More" -- another Blind Arthur Blake number -- the collection reaches its peak of harmonious unification.
. . . consummate artistry, good taste and obvious musical chemistry. The Angel's Message to Me feels like the duo just struck up in the corner at the tail end of the perfect party.
chris' 2009 solo album "VDSQ SOLO ACOUSTIC VOLUME THREE" is a gorgeous, guitar-only LP. it features chris on 12-string acoustic guitar, track over track over track, and introduces 12 new songs.
the record is part of an all-acoustic record series by the new nyc label VDSQ, founded by steve lowenthal. each record has a gorgeous letter press jacket with a photo on the cover of the guitar used in recording. the album also includes track-by-track liner notes. more VDSQ info is here.
the album was recorded in spring 2009 and released november 10, 2009. it is available on Vin Du Select Qualitite Records and on iTunes. it's also for sale here.
video of track 1, 'god's forgotten rooster'.
video of chris performing 'we'll see you all at oki dogs', from the record, at issue project room, brooklyn, sept 29 2009.
Whilst Chris Brokaw's collaborative roles, as both a full band member (in Codeine, Come, Pullman et al.) and an on-hire guest-player (for Evan Dando, Steve Wynn, Karate, ad infinitum), have been quite easily definable, his solo career -- which began around the turn of the decade -- has been far harder to pin-down and pigeon-hole. Zigzagging through wordless eclectic guitar/drum exhilaration (2002's Red Cities), warm unplugged singer-songwriter terrain (2003's Wandering As Water), murky soundtrack mood-setting (2004's I Was Born But. . .), curveball-throwing folk-rock (2005's Incredible Love), and most recently, inside-out electro-acoustic experimentation with a penchant for atonal dronescapes (2008's Canaris and 2009's Gracias, Ghost Of The Future), Brokaw hasn't make it easy to keep up with his seemingly still embryonic one-man journey. Although this latest LP, for an all-acoustic-guitar and vinyl/download-only series on a fledgling New York label (Vin Du Select Qualitite) may not be the definitive Brokaw collection it does at least come closer to boiling down his talents into a rich and well-rounded essence.
By rooting himself to one spot (his home studio) and one instrument (a 12-string acoustic guitar, albeit multi-tracked and sometimes heavily-treated), for this functionally-titled vocal-free album, Brokaw finds a renewed melodic focus as well as rediscovering his gifts for diversity. It's easy to make lazy connections with the post-folk wares of Pullman throughout the set, but Brokaw cuts deeper and wider than the long-dormant group's often more restrained and narrower reach. Side A's flickering meditative opener, "God's Forgotten Rooster," may pay a near-obligatory direct homage to the godhead of solo-acoustic exploration, John Fahey, but from thereon in it's a less straightforward ride. The joyous jangle-strum of "Out My Window" slides in some lovely Latin vibes that also reappear across a balmy cover of Spanish-Danish songstress Christina Rosenvinge's "Dream Room." Elsewhere, the desert-rock edginess of Red Cities reappears on the gripping rustics of "Spy Pond," the viciously-ragged "We'll See You All At Oki Dogs" flashes fleetingly back to Come's dense Don't Ask Don't Tell and the cyclical ruminations of "Midnight" cross-reference Jim O'Rourke's Bad Timing.
The flipside is equally unpredictably, yet still sturdily-underpinned, stretching the restrictive instrumentation remit to even more imaginative breaking-points. Hence, "The Rule Of Ten" merges urban '80s 4AD aesthetics with rural dread; the percussive "Undrum" imagines an irregular heartbeat heard through rotten floorboards; and "Russian White Bear" wades itself into desolate Dead Can Dance waters. To offset the encroaching darkness of the second side, lighter and more traditional tones come through a fresh take on oft-covered blues-folk standard "Death Don't Have No Mercy" and a heavily-deconstructed revision of Brokaw's own "Blues For The Moon" (previously heard with vocals attached on Incredible Love).
Overall, VDSQ: Solo Acoustic Volume Three benefits from an infectious intimacy that few others could sustain without slipping into self-indulgence. Moreover, by concluding his first full decade as a soloist with such a delicious and hearty stew of wordless yet lyrical nuggets, Chris Brokaw proves that his long-haul trajectory is well-worth following into the 2010s.
adequacy.net -- essay by chris
"In 1977 I went to London with my mother and sister for a holiday. I turned 13 that summer. 'Pretty Vacant' by the Sex Pistols had just been released. I saw the huge posters for it on lorries. I went to the Virgin store and listened to it on headphones and the whole thing scared the hell out of me. . . "
That's from Chris' essay about Public Image Ltd.'s Metal Box/Second Edition (Virgin Records/Warner Brothers, 1979) for adequacy.net. The essay is part of a series called Artists-On-Artists. Here's more:
"'Never Mind The Bollocks' came out and I completely fell in love with everything about it. I listened to it every day, and collected every article and photo I could find about them. My father had been a jazz drummer, and his drums were in the basement, and I began to teach myself to play drums, modeling my drumming almost exclusively upon Paul Cook's drumming on Bollocks (my other drumming models at the time were The Buzzcocks, The Damned, and The Dead Boys).
"The Sex Pistols came to America, and every night I watched the news to see what they had done the night before in the Deep South. I tried to convince my parents to let their 13 year old son fly to Texas to see the Sex Pistols, and they weren't having it.
"Like everyone else, I heard the first PIL single 'Public Image' everywhere I went, and it was wonderful. . . "
Read the complete essay by chris about Public Image Ltd.'s Metal Box/Second Edition here.
"GRACIAS, GHOST OF THE FUTURE" is a vinyl-only offering featuring all-new instrumental recordings by chris from december 2008 and january 2009. side A has chris on tenor banjo, and side B features electric guitar + melodica.
it was issued in 3 pressings of 100 copies each with original cover photographs by chris. it is the second release of chris' own label, CAPITAN RECORDS. it's for sale at this web site, via paypal.
CAPITAN has also released a limited edition live LP by WREKMEISTER HARMONIES (jr robinson, mark shippy, and chris), and chris' duo cd of pre-WWII country blues songs with GEOFF FARINA, (KARATE) entitled "THE ANGEL'S MESSAGE TO ME".
simply stunning -- heartfelt, deeply melancholic, but impossible to categorize.
still-single.tumblr.com
. . . Side A features the tenor banjo exclusively, weaving in and out of a repeated theme with effects-laden, even withering compositions, where this thing is tricked out by teen goth flange ("Hiding Place") wall-of-fire distortocombustion tactics ("The Ghost") and field recordings of a heavy rainstorm ("Unknowable"). Flip it over for the sidelong piece "The Blue Ambulance," where Brokaw extends an electric guitar and melodic to sound like he's pulling on some harmonium the size of a train station, to beautiful, workmanlike effect.
"CANARIS" is a 6 song record by chris of solo acoustic guitar. it runs 42 minutes and is contemplative and apocalyptic, featuring a 13 minute vlad tepes cover and the 18 minute drone/feedback title track.
recorded in june 2008, it was released sept 23, 2008. it is the first release on chris' own label CAPITAN RECORDS.
it is distributed by THRILL JOCKEY in the US and Canada, which offers a digital download. it's also for sale at this web site, via paypal: $15 postage paid (US/CAN), $18 ppd (WORLD). paypal address is chrisbrokaw@yahoo.com.
If art is the communication of feeling, then on CANARIS, Chris Brokaw proves himself to be an artist in full...On the opening track, 'Exemptive,' he leans into a repeated chord with slight insistence, spinning an air of languor into something no lyric could describe or improve.
...the centerpiece of Canaris is the nearly 13-minute "Drink the Poetry of Celtic Disciple" -- remarkably, a cover of a song by arcane French black-metal band Vlad Tepes. This is Brokaw at his best: A pastoral figure draws you in, then breaks into a breathless run, evoking a dash with a new paramour through field and wood, all of it so vivid you can practically smell flowers. The occultish naturalism almost surely present in the original is reduced to hinted-at darkness, balanced with sunlight: a masterful transformation.
...Chris Brokaw has long been a sort of anti-guitar hero. (That is, when he's not drumming in bands like Codeine or the New Year.) Though he's a superb player, he never grandstands -- he favors a restrained, holistic approach that puts the song first. Half of his forthcoming solo guitar record, "Canaris: (Capitan), is acoustic, even the cover of "Drink the Poetry of Celtic Disciple" by French black metallers Vlad Tepes; throughout its gorgeous 13 minutes, he slaloms from simple fingerpicking to monolithic strumming, creating a near-cinematic narrative more nuanced and expressive than anything I've ever heard a metal band do...
...a fully-formed album with peaks and valleys, and a diversity of styles held together by a cohesive aesthetic...
...deep in the heart of Canaris is the title track, a heroic slab of treated drone rock that sounds like Brokaw has been inhaled by a colossal black hole and is performing as all the atoms in his body slowly separate. At other times it sounds like he's cleaving through a colossal piece of metal with an industrial power saw. It's the type of song that needs to be played at punishing volume, and it undoubtedly takes Brokaw down some divergent paths when he plays it live...
haight ashbury beat
...The album's cover -- depicting an animal eating its own tail -- suggests that Canaris is a cyclical and circular movement. This is further realized through the track sequence, which opens and closes with the songs "Exemptive" and "Exempted." These two tracks are dynamically distinctive from each other, but share a similar sentiment of released obligation... Most notable is the outstanding cover of obscure French metal ghouls Vlad Tepes's "Drink The Poetry of Celtic Disciple." Clocking in at just under 13 minutes, this rattling acoustic tour de force carries the listener through the mud and the mist...
delusions of adequacy (UK)
This new -- wordless -- release should certainly add another interesting segment to Brokaw's far from myopic career mosaic. Connecting into the most challenging links in his sonic chains, the naked solo guitar workouts of Canaris revisit both the sparest edges of Pullman's avant-folk and the dissonant minimalism of the solitary "I Was Born, But..." soundtrack. Two lengthy epics dominate the six-track suite; "Drink The Poetry Of Celtic Discipline" (a meandering yet stirring acoustic cover of mid-'90s French black metal outfit Vlad Tepes) and the punishing title-track (a 17 or so-minute plugged-in dronefest). However, it's perhaps the four surrounding shorter-pieces that invite easier and greater affection; namely the John Fahey-meets-Rainer Ptacek meditations of "Exemptive" and "Watching The Clouds," the delicately-mournful "Sanguinary," and the all-too-short Eastern-scented "Exempted."
lazy comet blog
...Like most great artists, Brokaw's skill lies in communicating bracingly real emotions, even when (sometimes especially if) going without his fine/sand vocals. And what he's transmitting is quintessentially American...
misc news 2006 - 2009
chris performed as one of 200 electric guitarists with RHYS CHATHAM on august 8 2009. the show, called A CRIMSON GRAIL, took place in new york, ny, at lincoln center (read the preview story in the nytimes and the review in the nytimes).
THE NEW YEAR played 4 shows in spain in may 2009, including the primavera festival in barcelona.
chris performed in vienna, austria on april 25, 2009, in a concert called "The Satellites of Love" -- an evening of the music of lou reed and the velvet underground. he played guitar in a band led by CHRIS ECKMAN (walkabouts, dirtmusic) and featuring members of TOSCA and SOFA SURFERS.
"i remember" from chris' solo record "INCREDIBLE LOVE" is on the soundtrack to the NBC tv show "friday night lights."
"i remember" was also used on the hbo tv show "east bound and down" on march 22 2009.
on the heels of their ebullient appearance at 2008's FESTIVAL AU DESERT, DIRTMUSIC (chris, HUGO RACE [ex-bad seeds] and CHRIS ECKMAN [ex-walkabouts]) returned to bamako, mali in january 2009 for 2 weeks to record their new album for glitterhouse records. they were joined in the studio by members of the malian band TAMIKREST. the album is slated for release in 2010. the band's "IN THE DESERT" is a live cd of DIRTMUSIC performing and rehersing in essakane and bamako, mali, january 2008. limited edition of 500 copies; some are still for sale at www.glitterhouse.com. the band also has a 2007 recording for sale.
COME REUNION -- on november 15, 2008, chris' old band COME reunited for one show at the tanned tin festival in castellon, spain. this was the line-up that appeared on COME's final album "gently down the stream": thalia zedek, winston braman, daniel coughlin, and chris brokaw. a video of "bitten" is online. COME played a surprise 2 song set in 2007 at a friend's birthday (nov 2007 video: "hurricane"); prior to that the band had not performed since april 2001. there are no plans at this point for COME to perform additional shows. more at the pitchfork blog. listen to COME on myspace. feb 2010 profile of COME at chunklet.com includes photos and mp3s.
2008 interviews of note: "Fortunate One" in the boston phoenix and "Chris Brokaw's Stormy Documentary" in the madison avenue journal. both interviews detail chris' recent projects, including his work on a documentary about STORM THORGERSON, a london-based graphic designer most well known for his PINK FLOYD album covers.
bob dylan night at lincoln center: chris did a one-night, one song performance with musician bob mould at the november 9 2006 lincoln center benefit show of music of bob dylan. they performed "if not for you." michael dorf's web site has posted reviews from the new york times, rolling stone, billboard, and new york magazine, as well as the full line-up of musicians and which song each artist performed.
"ROAD" is a feature film written and directed by leslie mccleave and scored by chris. "ROAD" premiered at the los angeles film festival in june 2005, where it won the jury prize for outstanding performance for actors catherine kellner and ebon moss-bachrach.
chris won the award for best original film score at the brooklyn intl film festival.
watch the ROAD trailer, or read more at www.roadthemovie.com and at myspace.com/roadthemovie.
the "ROAD" dvd is for sale here, $15 postage paid (US/CAN), $20 (World), paypal address: chrisbrokaw@yahoo.com. it includes leslie's 3 shorts: 'AVENUE X', 'BLIXA BARGELD STOLE MY COWBOY BOOTS', and 'MEETING MARTY'. "ROAD" is also available at iTunes in widescreen format for $9.99 to buy and $2.99 to rent.
winner! on june 11 2006, CHRIS won the award for best original film score (called the Certificate for Outstanding Achievement) at the brooklyn intl film festival for leslie mccleave's feature film "ROAD." the award was presented at a ceremony at the brooklyn museum.
in a preview of the festival, time out ny wrote that "One of our favorite musicians, Chris Brokaw, scored the film 'Road' ... We've seen only a trailer, but even there Brokaw's profoundly evocative guitar playing is moving."
synopsis: "in ROAD, margaret (catherine kellner), a freelance photographer on her first big job, uses the latest government-supplied technology to survey environmental disaster areas. jay (ebon moss-bachrach), her unemployed ex-boyfriend, is along for the ride. the trip does not go exactly as planned and through their own moral lapses, the act of a fickle God or maybe just a paranoid delusion, the couple are forced to confront their relationships to the environment, the world at large, and each other."
read about the movie's use of MySpace, in filmmaker magazine.
"INCREDIBLE LOVE" is a full-length rock cd, released october 25 2005 on 12XU;(it's distributed in europe on acuarela and the UK on rock action). the album contains 11 songs -- 10 vocal and 1 instrumental -- and was recorded and mixed by paul kolderie at camp street in cambridge. a 28-page booklet accompanies the cd, featuring lyrics and 15 photographs by chris. special guests on the album include noah chasin, kevin coultas, dave curry, jeff goddard, matt kadane and jonah sacks. chris has been touring in support of the record both solo and with the CHRIS BROKAW ROCK BAND, which features jeff goddard (ex-karate) on bass and kevin coultas (ex-rodan) on drums.
time out new york music editor mike wolf named "incredible love" the best album of 2005, saying "a talent that first appeared on the radar 15 years ago, this singer-songwriter and guitarist delivers his masterwork."
vinyl edition: on june 30, 2008 i and ear records released the deluxe 180 gram white vinyl edition of "INCREDIBLE LOVE", with heavy gatefold sleeve and one bonus track. this is a limited edition of 700 copies, and is available through i and ear records, and this website via paypal. paypal address is chrisbrokaw@yahoo.com. $23 postage paid (US/CAN), $30 (WORLD).
"i remember" from "INCREDIBLE LOVE" is on the soundtrack to the NBC tv show "friday night lights."
"i remember" also was used on the hbo tv show "east bound and down" on march 22 2009.
the improper bostonian's "boston's best" issue (july 12 - aug 1 2006) named "incredible love" the city's best album of 2006, writing that it is "an atmospheric, cinematic tour through some emotionally loaded terrain. affecting without being affected - a rarity in the indie-rock/folk realm in which he's staked his claim - the tunes are simple at their roots, augmented whimsically yet deftly with strings, synths and fuzzed-out guitar."
"their core - brokaw's voice - is solid, as he evinces sincerity and depth without resorting to vocal or musical cliches. codeine, brokaw's first band, used length to express depth, stretching songs out almost interminably. with 'incredible love,' it seems that brokaw's figured out how to do it the short way."
a 6-minute live video of the CHRIS BROKAW ROCK BAND playing in karlsruhe, germany in april 2006 is online at youtube. also at youtube is a 7-minute video interview with chris, complete with solo concert footage, from earlier this spring.
there are long interviews with chris at pennyblackmusic.com and neumu.com (excerpt: "Incredible Love was finished in the fall of 2004 and reflects Brokaw's growing frustration with the war in Iraq. 'The Information Age,' one of the album's most overt protest songs, emerged out of Brokaw's work with Highway Ulysses, an opera put on by the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts.")
"INCREDIBLE LOVE" was named a top ten cd of 2005 by time out NY ("a talent that first appeared on the radar 15 years ago, this singer-songwriter and guitarist delivers his masterwork"), dustedmagazine.com ("At once countrified, intelligent, confident, complex and windswept, Brokaw is finding himself an active and bracing position between the best works of Lindsay Buckingham and one-time collaborator Steve Wynn, as well as harnessing the post-punk blues menace he's acutely known for to more subtle and effective means. The sleeper of 2005, easily"), and bob mould, in billboard.
bbc.co
by david sheppard, jan 16 2006, online here
svelte Bostonian guitarist Brokaw's fleeting solo career has thus far been restricted to austere instrumental reveries. Dividing the songs between atmospheric rockers and mid-tempo, acoustic-led detours, Incredible Love finally unveils his sandpapery voice, marrying it convincingly with the crisp combo arrangements. It's still his spidery lead lines that impress most, but when a winning vocal melody is demanded - as on the title track (a brisk cover of the Suicide classic) -- he handles it with the swagger of a veteran frontman.
by nadine mcbay, jan 16 2006, online here
[four stars] It would take a complex array of flow charts to do justice to the influence of American guitarist and composer Chris Brokaw. Hero to some, unknown to most, he kickstarted slowcore in the early 1990s with Codeine, helped launch the career of Liz Phair and more recently contributed to Evan Dando's solo debut. Now with Incredible Love, Brokaw has made his most realised and satisfying record to date. Where his previous output has been largely instrumental, here Brokaw proves himself as an intriguing, highly singular lyricist and vocalist as well as the most mesmerising indie guitarist since The Durutti Column's Vini Reilly.
by bosler, jan 28 2006
Brokaw tours constantly as a solo act,singing over impeccable, finger-style acoustic guitar. You should remember him for the badass Ennio-Morricone-on-steroids ax work he broadast with his late-great band Come. Expect acoustic versions from most recent rock record, Incredible Love. Tonight he opens for Dando, who he often tours with as Dando's backup six-string slinger--no offense, Evan, but Chris' songs are the better zingers!
by jm, nov 2005
Chris Brokaw has a long and storied musical past, having (among many other credits) founded and drummed in both Codeine and the New Year, founded and played guitar with seminal Matador rockers Come, Chicago instrumental post-folk ensemble Pullman, and more recently has been seen playing lead behind Evan Dando. But anyone who has seen his live solo shows in the past couple of years, or heard the excellent EP that he released last year, knows that Brokaw is perched on the precipice of a new phase of his career as a frontman and singer-songwriter. Released on Matador Records head-honcho Gerard Cosloy's other label, 12XU, the new Incredible Love album is one of the least affected and most affecting new albums I've heard in awhile.
Brokaw is first and foremost a fluid and emotional guitar player on both the acoustic and electric, and the guitars on this album, simple acoustic finger-picking or layered electric squall, are always beautiful and often thrilling. Brokaw the multi-instrumentalist fills in much of the rest of the tracks here himself, sometimes joined by a rotating cast of friends, and the band can rock or relax with equal conviction. But beyond all the great playing and subtle orchestration lie a batch of great, straightforward rock songs, sung in a world-weary yet tirelessly optimistic voice by an artist who seems to be just hitting his stride. Just listen.
by chris pearson, nov 2005, online here
Combining elements of his unique solo acoustic guitar work and more traditional rock elements, Incredible Love is a masterful blend of many styles, from rootsy Americana fare like "Whose Blood" to the minor-key excursions of the brilliant "The Information Age." The road-trip ramble of "Blues for the Moon" showcases not only Brokaw's rich, original voice, but his gift for words as well. "Move" is a rolling rocker with acoustic flourishes, and the reworking of the solo track "Cranberries" is presented here as an aggressive, full-band workout. The real standouts are the pensive, haunting pieces such as "X's for Eyes," the instrumental "Gringa," and the moody "100 Faces." A cool Suicide cover, "I Remember" is a nice counterpoint and further emphasizes the variety of sounds on this CD, which easily has the potential to appeal to a broad spectrum of tastes beyond the indie-rock pond in which he has such a rich history.
. . . After the quiet beauty of his previous LP, the all-acoustic Wandering as Water, (not counting the all-instrumental Red Cities and a film soundtrack), Incredible Love is a powerful, fully-textured outing that sweeps easy categorization under the rug and further solidifies Brokaw' eclectic reputation on his continuing musical journey.
by jill labrack, jan 12 2006, online here
. . .every rock record would be better if only Chris Brokaw would play guitar on it. His fluidity, his heart, his precision and mastery of the instrument have made him a jewel in the overrun world of guitar-based music. . . Brokaw's playing references everything from Flatt & Scruggs to John Fahey to Kid Congo Powers (Gun Club). He has myriad skills but uses them tastefully, always letting the song come through first. . . There's a slight talking quality to the vocals, not going as far as someone like Lou Reed, but just enough to heighten the stories that are the songs. "I was wise, and smart as hell / Regaining all my senses / But I'd follow a certain smell / Instead of following suggestions" Brokaw says on "100 Faces". He stretches out some syllables, crushing others together, to get the right words into the song. The result sounds off at first, but quickly becomes natural. And that can sum up the whole of this record, too. There's a lo-fi quality that can be distracting until the listener hears what the subtlety is hiding. It's the way the notes hit sharply against one another ("Whose Blood") or space themselves away ("Gringa") that provide the texture that gives Incredible Love its range and depth. Chris Brokaw may be known as the guitar guy in some great bands, but now he should be heralded for what he has accomplished primarily by himself.
drownedinsound
by mike driver, jan 2006, online here
[7 of 10 stars] . . .a great country-rock album of an unusually sunny disposition. . .Its underside is as soft and malleable as its back is hunched and hardened, but the heart within beats pure and true.
artsjournal.com
by tim riley, online here
oddly tuneful, confidently sung, with understated yet intricate guitar. The ghost of Nick Drake hovers in the background -- if Drake had come up through Come, Consonant, etc.
carrieneumayer.blogspot.com
by carrie neumayer, nov 2005, online here
In the song "Blues for the Moon" Brokaw sings, "I hummed a Mexican tune / and swung you all around the room / til you turned red and the light outside turned to blue /and you'll be out of here tomorrow." Despite an upbeat tempo and lighthearted finger-picked melodies, something definitely seems awry in this image. This tension between hopefulness and hopelessness is the album's most compelling and recurring theme. . .
intro.de (german magazine)
dec 10 2003, online here
[this is a review, in german, of a show chris played in koln, germany, at the normal records store, way back on dec 8 2003. here's a translation:] Brokaw can play not only much, very well guitar, it is above all someone, which cultivated chord sequences, which go to the unbeteiligtsten listener to the heart in almost uncanny way; a permanent state of suspension, in which the melancholy feels wohlig like a warm bath.
by mike wolf, music editor, dec 29 2005 -- jan 4 2006, online here and nov 10-16 2005, online here
in the "Best of 2005" issue, time out new york music editor mike wolf named chris' "incredible love" the best album of 2005, saying "a talent that first appeared on the radar 15 years ago, this singer-songwriter and guitarist delivers his masterwork."
in nov, wolf profiled chris [image at right, click here to see the full text] "If his spacious lyrics entice listeners to import their own experiences, what fuels Brokaw's songs is his deceptively austere guitar playing. Many of his songs surge from nimble acoustic picking or strumming into electric riffs-like on the album's opener, 'Blues for the Moon' -- and the effect is one of simple yet ineffable power. 'Playing with Chris was freeing,' says [Thalia] Zedek of her friend and former bandmate, 'because he's so strong with rhythm. I would really have to push him to play leads, and even then he'd play them as rhythm leads-chords and melodies at the same time. That complexity has really come to the fore in his solo career. He has the talent to play very full arrangements with just one guitar and a tambourine strapped to his foot.'"
by robin young, nov 22 2005, online here
[this is an 8-minute radio interview/profile that was broadcast nationally. it weaves together conversation and excerpts from "incredible love," and can be streamed for free here:
http://www.here-now.org/shows/2005/11/20051122_17.asp]
by michael brodeur, nov 2005, online here
Around these parts, Chris Brokaw requires no introduction "but Incredible Love sure feels like one. Does that sound bad? It's not supposed to. The quantity and variety of Brokaw's output over the years (from his early work with Codeine and Come, to the grindier textures of the New Year, and the sparse, folk-tinged beauty of his recent film scores and solo material) make it hard to say what Brokaw does best. Incredible Love offers 11 potential answers "with a selection of straight-up folk-rock tracks that draw from every point in his career without resulting in a mish-mash. "Whose Blood" shoots wry Western winks, while "Cranberries" tucks nice, discordant snarls into chugging guitars before opening up into beautifully determined abstractions. "My Idea" is a fresh take on the blame game, with its plaintively repeated "Have you told anyone? / Have you told anyone?" His cover of Suicide's "I Remember" (from which he plucks his "incredible love" for the title) is a welcome diversion, with its streaks of heavy phaser and guitar grit. Incredible Love sounds great, too. It's performed by an all-star ex-list of Brokaw's tightest collaborators "Jeff Goddard (ex-Karate), Kevin Coultas (ex-Rodan) and Matt Kadane (ex-Bedhead) among them. If you're new to Brokaw's work, consider this a high point from which you can survey the rest of the terrain.
by linda laban, nov 4 2005, online here
"I loosened up a bit and invited some other people to the party," said Brokaw. "Actually, when I went to do demos, there was this drum part I wanted for 'Cranberries,' and I thought, 'I just can't do it.' I wanted the last minute of that song to be like Steely Dan's 'Aja.' I knew my old friend Kevin Coultas knew that song, because he's one of the few people who enjoy Steely Dan as much as I do."
Would it have been a different record without the helping hands?
"No, but trying to get that drum part down would have driven me crazy."
by jennifer kelly, nov 2005, online here
. . . as Brokaw steps out in front, the result is low-key and excellent. These songs are unassuming and understated -- "Move" is the loudest, most rock-oriented acoustic you've ever heard . . . the subtler "X's for Eyes" may well be the disc's best, its lovely melody twining around picked guitar patterns. The song twists and turns around its subject, using body metaphors -- bones on a blanket, blood -- to evoke the end of a relationship. Brokaw nails the ending, terminating the song with its most effective image in the lines "While we got awoken / like bugs in the winter / Too dumb to rise / With no sense of proportion / Or thought of dimension / And both started walking / With X's for eyes."
by tom kielty, oct 21-27 2005, online here
It was a long way from Ohio, but an Oberlin College reunion of sorts took place when Liz Phair (Class of '89) reconnected with Chris Brokaw ('86) backstage at Avalon last Friday. Brokaw - the local indie-rock giant best known for his work in Codeine, Come, and Consonant, not to mention his current solo rock-band incarnation - hadn't seen his old friend in more than five years. But the wide-eyed look of recognition on Phair's face spoke volumes. Asked what she remembered about her former schoolmate, she said, "Basically, that I owe him my career."
Brokaw shrugged modestly; Phair gushed on. "At school his band, Pay the Man, was just the bomb. I'd just stand in the back and love them. They were the band of bands." After graduation, the two recalled, Brokaw visited Phair in San Francisco, where "she had the biggest dog on earth and kept going on about the latest Tad single." They remembered how Phair had shared the songs she'd been working on; Brokaw was so impressed that he dared Phair to record them and send him a tape. Soon after, a cassette of 14 originals arrived, followed two weeks later by another 14-track collection.
"A lot were songs that I had started in high school while house-sitting in these empty homes in Winnetka, Illinois," Phair said of the original drafts of such eventual Exile in Guyville tracks as "Stratford-on-Guy," "Glory," and "Flower." "People were always away, so I could make these tapes in quiet privacy." Brokaw, however, dismissed the indie-rock legend that he'd been the one to hip Matador's Gerard Cosloy to Phair's demos, which have come to be known among devotees as the "Girlysound Tapes": "I had no idea about anything with Matador until I read it in Tower Pulse or something."
by will spitz, august 12-18, 2005, online here
By Kelly Davidson
Fans and friends of Chris Brokaw packed into the Lizard Lounge on Saturday for the first local appearance of what's being billed as the Chris Brokaw Rock Band. That would be an unexceptional name if it weren't that "Chris Brokaw" and "rock band" haven't been uttered in the same breath all that often since Come, the band he fronted with Thalia Zedek, broke up in 2001. Although Brokaw, whose personal discography is miles long, hadn't given up rock music altogether -- in addition to his mostly instrumental acoustic solo work, he played guitar with Clint Conley's band Consonant and continues to play drums in the slowcore band the New Year -- this was the first time since Come that he'd played his own songs with a rock band. The trio -- former Karate bassist Jeff Goddard, former Rodan drummer Kevin Coultas, and Brokaw finger-picking a distorted electric guitar -- played a short but sweet set, mostly songs from Brokaw's new Incredible Love, which he says is his best album. After its October release, he plans to tour in the US and in Europe, alternating between solo gigs and shows with Goddard and Coultas.
"I wanted to make a record that was kind of a rock record that had acoustic guitar as the center of it," he explains over a tuna-salad sandwich at the High Rise Bakery in Cambridge, a few blocks from his house. "I like how that works for the album. And then I thought, to promote the record, I really should do some touring with a band, since that's how it is on the record."
So why the return to rock? "As I was playing solo gigs, I started singing more. I started envisioning the stuff with bass and drums." Also, after a few years of listening mostly to jazz, he rekindled his love for rock through bands like Joshua Fit for Battle, Converge, and Pig Destroyer. "It was just time to start playing rock music again."
this cd is the soundtrack for the film "i was born, but. . ." by roddy bogawa. in his liner notes, chris explains how he and roddy hooked up:
"my friend john engle called me up about ten years ago and said, 'i have a friend named roddy bogawa who's been working on a film for several years. it's very "avante-garde", and no one will ever make a dime from it, but he's going to call you in a couple of days and ask to license a Come song for the film, and you should say yes.' he did, and i did. the film was called 'Junk', and was a real delight.
"in november 2003 roddy came to a show i was doing in brooklyn and asked if i'd like to score a new film of his. i'd never scored a film before and was really eager to work on it. i didn't really know how it was done, but i felt very at ease with roddy and figured we could do this together.
"roddy and i really hit it off, i think in some part by having grown up around the same time, on opposite coasts, with punk rock becoming a really important part of our lives. i think we've each spent a lot of time deciding what exactly that means to us.
"i love the film. i love the fact that roddy will take the time to find a great shot, and just linger on it for a while. it's really refreshing to me. it feels brave. i love the fact that i still don't know exactly what the movie is 'about'. collaborating with roddy on this was a pleasure and a great privilege."
the film debuted at the chicago underground festival and the cd was released in nov 2004 by atavistic and 12XU.
by tom hughes, april 18 2005
Pick of the Week: Chris Brokaw: The ace former guitarist for ultra-melancholic 90s rockers Codeine and Come breaks out his (slightly) sunnier, folkier solo moves, touring his new "I Was Born, But . . ." album. Spirited pastoral pickings and a bit of backwoods spook, good stuff.
by david smith, february 22, 2005, online here
. . . In a time where movie soundtracks have become cross-promotional vehicles, where the songs chosen are meant to appeal to this or that hot demographic and move product, it's refreshing to hear 'I Was Born, But . . .', which feels like it was actually scored for the film. There's no 'I Was Born, But . . .' video game or breakfast cereal, in other words. The songs here are -- for the most part -- deliberately spare and simple. They are meant to complement the film, not intrude upon it needlessly . . .
by nolan gawron, february 16, 2005, online here
[this is from an interview with thalia zedek, chris' partner in crime in the band come]
Q: What's up with Brokaw? Why does he insist on being in 30 bands?
TZ: Yeah, even when I first met him, he was in 30 bands. He likes to be busy, and he likes to play. He plays two instruments, too, so he can fit in everywhere.
Q: Do you miss the old days at all?
TZ: Sometimes I do. I miss playing with Chris. He played a lot on my first solo record, and we did a bunch of gigs together; but, like you said, he's in like 30 bands, so we hardly ever get to do that anymore. Hopefully, one day all of us will be in town, and we can play together again.
by ted drozdowski, january 14-20 2005, online here
[three stars] Local guitarist Brokaw, who is currently on a national solo tour, remains one of the hardest-working musicians in anti-show-business. Besides playing in Pullman, Consonant, and other outfits, and cutting excellent albums including 2001's epic Red Cities (Atavistic) under his own name, the former Come co-leader has just turned in this soundtrack for filmmaker Roddy Bogawa's exploration of his own formative years as an Asian-American punk-rocker.
Rather than submit to punk's loud and fast rules, Brokaw has composed music that's the quiet, slowly evolving equivalent of Bogawa's visual style. Sometimes it's reminiscent of Hawaiian slack-key guitar, albeit played on electric. At others it splits the difference between the lapping sonic waves of Brian Eno's ambient textures and the buzz-and-hum of early Throbbing Gristle, plying industrial melodies that would seem equally right on an assembly line or in a concert hall. The disc opens with "Reeperbah," an acoustic-guitar number with ringing arpeggios and a stately cadence, and finishes with "Friendly Eyes," a stuttering electric improvisation. But the journey between is pure Zen.
by tom kielty, december 31 2004, online here
Chris Brokaw is truly one of the Boston music scene's underappreciated treasures. His innovative musicianship with both Come and Codeine ensure that his mark in the city's alternative rock legacy is indelible, but he has grown out of those projects to contribute and tour internationally with the likes of the New Year and Evan Dando. "I Was Born, But . . ." finds Brokaw successfully tackling another medium, the film score. His guitar work for this indie movie is never less than evocative. At times, such as on the sweeping and symphonic "Dust" and the outright scary "Chinatown," his playing suggests Radiohead recording its moody textures from an outpost in the American Southwest.
The album begins with the soothing meditation "Reeperbahn," and when juxtaposed with the cold relentlessness of "Golfing" or the brawny Neil Young-like snippet "Gristle," the tracks demonstrate Brokaw's dexterity remarkably. Although the composer's inspirations on this instrumental release may be eclectic, they do not hide the fact that he also can deliver an exquisite melody. If that was ever in doubt, the reflective "Huntington Beach Sunrise," with electric guitars resembling soft, sonic church bells, and the throbbing "GPS" would be dead giveaways.
by carsten wohlfeld, december 26, 2004, online here
[this is an interview / Q & A with chris about having a music career, touring, and song titles. It includes this exchange:]
Luna Kafe: Most of the songs seem to have titles linked to the scenes they were used for, but what about "Reeperbahn" (and more generally, how do you usually find names for your instrumental pieces)?
CB: Actually, that's a funny one . . . I was trying to write lyrics for that song while sitting on a train leaving hamburg at eight o'clock on a sunday morning. . . . The sun was rising on the Reeperbahn . . . but it started to turn into a "road song", you know, a song about being on the road, which I really did not want to do. I decided when I was about 13 years old that I never, ever wanted to write a song about how hard it is to be on the road. I think it was from listening to Jackson Browne's "Running On Empty", and my little punk rock brain saying: Fuck this rock star, what the fuck is he complaining about? -- nonetheless I kept thinking about it as that 'Reeperbahn' song. Usually the songs will actually have names that I attach very specifically to that music for specific reasons, but occasionally it's as random as this and just sticks with it.
by elaine beebe lapriore, november 28 2004, online here
When Roddy Bogawa needed music to score his autobiographical Asian American coming-of-age film "I Was Born, but . . ." he first looked to the bands that helped mold his youth in Los Angeles: local bands X and the Minutemen, plus punk and early hardcore bands such as the Dead Kennedys, the Clash, Buzzcocks and Minor Threat.
Licensing proved a hassle, so Bogawa approached a musician from two of his favorite bands to write and perform the score. Chris Brokaw played in Codeine and the intense Boston band Come, a group Bogawa would go see every chance he got and a song of whose he licensed for an earlier film.
In Brokaw, Bogawa chose a peer; though they grew up on separate coasts, it was to the same punk soundtrack. The score Brokaw wrote and performed, his first venture into writing music for film, hints of nonconformity burnished by the introspection of maturity -- a punk sensibility that's grown up and turned inward.
All instrumental and nearly all solo guitar, the songs share a woodshedding tone. You can easily imagine Brokaw watching a film, clutching a guitar and bursting forth with the Asian-inflected "Gristle" or "GPS," which nods to X's "Johny Hit and Run Paulene." The best of the batch, "Damon's Hawaiian Blues," blends slack-key sounds with a dash of Mississippi Delta.
Brokaw's fiddling with feedback works best when done briefly. The 11-minute "Chinatown" may enhance a visual backdrop but fails to truly compel on its own. On the swirling "Dust," however, Brokaw crafts a four-minute sonic dust devil, one of those capricious sand tornadoes so common in the desert Southwest: no film necessary.
by ronnie scheib, august 8 2004, online here
Roddy Bogawa's third feature reps the filmmaker's entry into the personal diary genre, though few helmers would delve so far into minimalism as to film themselves leafing through an old L.A. Weekly for lengthy minutes on end. Unlikely to venture beyond fringe and/or Asian venues, "I Was Born, But ... " is a welcome addition to the underground canon.
by roo simpson, august 18 2004, online here
[this is an interview with chris at the evan dando website about playing with evan, his current favorite music, and musical plans.]
Brokaw is the Boston indie guitar slinger who's been in and recorded with a laundry list of bands during the past 15 years, but mainly with anti-blues group Come. He's on a never-ending world solo tour. . .
by chris rediske, march 2004, online here
[this is a profile of the band karate. chris played guitar on two tracks of the karate record "pockets," which was released in the fall of 2004. in this pitchfork story, karate's geoff farina says this about working with chris: "His guitar style is really unique and idiosyncratic. Come was one of my all-time favorite bands, so I just kind of laid back and enjoyed the ride when Chris played. His guitar is a bit more up-front than mine, which was great because I could concentrate on the singing. Neither of the songs that we did with Chris have guitar solos. Gavin and Jeff and I really respect Chris' approach and tried to let it guide the songs, rather than asking him to play rhythm guitar under my solos."]
"so here's what happened: about a year ago i met this guy named greg weeks at a festival we played together in spain. nice guy. about six months later he emailed me and asked if i'd be interested in participating in a compilation cd of men covering songs written by women. i started thinking about all the songs i'd like to cover . . . and then more specifically about songs written by women i'm friends with that i'd like to cover. . . and then even more specifically about songs of theirs that have never been released <ETH> in some cases, songs i'd heard tapes of that have been stuck in my head for years. i decided i wanted to do something outside the scope of the compilation. i ended up piecing together one song by me, and these three covers. my great thanks, then, to the ladies, and to mr. weeks." -- from the liner notes
"my confidante + 3" features a rock version of "my confidante" by chris, "1000 mph" by thalia zedek, "in love with yourself" by liz phair, and "across the blue" by holly anderson and lisa burns. it was recorded in october and december of 2003 by andy hong in cambridge, and was released in april 2004 by 12xu. e-mail chris at redcities2002@yahoo.com with any questions. below is recent press.
by douglas wolk, july 28 2004
Brokaw's played at one time or another with Codeine, Come, Consonant, and Cobra Verde (sense a pattern?); his own songs are haunted and blasted, sustained by the precise violence of his guitar playing.
by rob devlin, july 2004, online here
. . . easily the most electrifying work Brokaw has ever produced. His interpretation of these songs is full of strong choices and a clear vision, with his own twists and turns thrown in just for fun. The update of the title track is the way the song was meant to be heard: multi-tracked guitars, powerhouse drums, and a confident yet slightly flawed vocal. It blows the previous version away easily. Brokaw has chosen artists he greatly respects as well as songs that he loves, and his partnership with Zedek in Come produced some great songs and records, so it's a fitting choice as well as a straightforward interpretation. On Zedek's "1000 MPH," a punked-up energy level suffers only slightly without the vocal presence of its author. "In Love With Yourself" predates Phair's seminal Exile in Guyville and it shows, as it's a cheeky and almost corny song that's just clever enough to be amusing, which she'd never dare approach today. It benefits from this re-envisioning of just guitar and voice, and it even shows a little sense of humor on Brokaw's side. It is the last song that is the cornerstone, though, as "Across the Blue" is grandiose and labored, with a relaxed performance with great guitar lines and atmospherics.
[you can also find, toward the top of the page where this review resides, a link to The New Year video "disease" and another link a 22-minute Quicktime streaming video interview with The New Year.]
by matt ashare, july 9 2004, online here
[this is an interview with matt kadane about the new year, and an item about "my confidante + 3":]
Along with playing drums in The New Year, guitar in Consonant, and regularly touring with the likes of Evan Dando and Steve Wynn, Chris Brokaw has continued to keep himself in the running as one of Boston's hardest-working indie-rockers with the release of a new four-song EP, My Confidante + 3 (12XU). Brokaw first started making solo recordings when he was still a member of Come and was in the process of becoming fast friends with Chicago post-rock guru Doug McCombs. He also recorded with the more experimental, largely Chicago-based group Brokeback. But My Confidante + 3 is a totally different beast that finds him safely back in the guitar rock fold . . .
The New Year: Mike, Josh, Peter, Bubba, Matt, Chris
Chris Brokaw has quietly taken his place as one of the best performers in the country -- so quietly, in fact, that we'll yell it as often as we need to. The onetime drummer for Codeine and guitarist for Come is now making the rounds as a folkie -- one with a satchel of songs that range from white-knuckle intensity to coy humor.
by bosler, voice choice for june 13 2004
Brokaw tours constantly as a solo act -- impeccable finger-style acoustic guitar and vocals -- and with others: lead guitar in Consonant, Even Dando, Pullman; plays drums with the New Year; and still finds time to do a movie soundtrack or two. A true troubadour and guitar genius whose shows are always inspiring. For Come fans (his old band) who miss his electric side, check out his superb new EP, "My Confidante + 3."
editors' pick for june 4 2004
"It's so good, I almost wept," said Liz Phair backstage at the KISS 108 concert a couple of weeks ago about her old pal Chris Brokaw's rendition of her early, unreleased song "In Love with Yourself." Brokaw's version appears on his new EP, "Commandante + 3" [sic] (on 12XU, the label run by Gerard Cosloy, whose Matador imprint issued seminal records by Phair and Brokaw's most noted band, Come). . . . "I wouldn't be in this business if it weren't for Chris," Phair said, recalling that 10 years ago, Brokaw dared her to write her first songs and then passed the tape (now widely bootlegged as "The Girlysound Demos") along to Cosloy. A lost gem, "In Love with Yourself" sketches the kind of ambiguous, emotionally complex encounter (loveless lovers caught in a nasty bout of make-up sex) that Phair excels at. "I'd forgotten the lyrics to that song," Phair said, "but he got the tone of voice exactly right."
by eric f., early 2004, online here
[this is a long interview in french, where chris talks about his early influences ("Kiss, Jeff Beck et des New York Dolls"), his collaboration with Thalia Zedek, and who he's listening to now (Cecil Taylor, Misha Mengelberg, Franco D'Andrea, Bud Powell, Andrew Hill, Thomas Brinkman, among others).]
april 23 2004, online here
[this is a preview story about chris in catalan.]
by jam albarracin, april 17 2004, online here
[this is an interview in spanish. The same interview also appears at the spanish web site mucia rock.]
by domenico grio, spring 2004, online here
[this is an interview in italian, at a site that dubbed chris "underground hero".]
by walter kraus, april 12 2004, online here
["my confidante" is named "beat of the week" (see KW 16)]
by javier becerra, april 2004, online here
[this is a long interview/profile of chris, in spanish]
by chris pearson, review of march 12 2004 show, online here
As a musician myself, seeing Mr. C.B. play usually makes me wanna go home and destroy my guitar or chop off my fingers because he is just that good. . . . Brokaw proceeded to ROCK THE HOUSE with an acoustic guitar, a jerry-rigged tambourine bungee corded to his foot, and a couple of effects. Period. . . .
by adrian, april 19 2004, online here
. . . Showing off both his fluent instrumental prowess (with 2002's one-man and wordless debut "Red Cities") and his power as an instinctive troubadour (on last yearÕs exceptional vocal-led "Wandering as Water"), Brokaw has revealed that his years as a solid sideman have been well spent on creative grooming. Now comes this more than substantial -- but crucially not overfilling -- interim snack to further emphasis this self-awakening. [The song "My Confidante" is] a classic tale of betrayal, defiance, and revenge straight from the darkest end of the Brokaw songbook. . . . But the undoubted key delight of this bittersweet four-part collection is saved to last with "Across the Blue," a song part-authored by Boston poet, visual artist, and Mission of Burma collaborator Holly Anderson. Over a wash of shimmering, tremulous, and twangy guitars, ocean-bed trawling bass, and a gentle percussion patter, Brokaw proves himself as a master of understated dream-like beauty, with a lyric he truly makes his own . . .
by megan milks, march 20 2004, online here
At the Red-Eyed Fly [at South by Southwest, March 20 2004] Brokaw . . . pulled out a Liz Phair cover: "In Love with Yourself" off her 1992 Girlysounds demos. I'd never heard the song before, but could hear her voice in his. Originating from a project that asked men to cover songs written by women, Brokaw's rendition brought out the triptych of anger, vulnerability and humor nestled in the chorus, "Don't be so in love with yourself/ 'Cause I'm not." I hung on every word, bought the EP and have been listening to it ever since . . .
by walter kraus, april 2004, online here
[this is a review in german of 'my confidant' -- the web site named the ep the "beat of the week"]
by moritz hoffmann, 2004, online here
[this is a review, in german, of "my confidante + 3." given an 8 out of 10. rough translation of the beginning of the review, courtesy of altavista's babel fish: "The man is world experienced. It gave to the melancholy with Codeine a new face and with Evan Dando the relaxation of the Songwritings invented. And itself with all a good reputation production. Chris Brokaw is one the large ones. . . ."]
april 8 2004, online here
[this is a preview -- in spanish -- of chris' april 16 show in murcia, spain. includes a nice publicity photo.]
by carsten wohlfeld, 2004, online here
[this is a review, in german, of "my confidante + 3."]
2004, online here
[this is a three-star review, in italian, of "my confidante + 3." beware: this is a long page and very slow-loading.]
by christian spiess, ullrich maurer, and carsten wohlfeld, dec 2003, online here
[this is a collection -- in german -- of three reviews of live solo shows chris did in germany in december, 2003. includes a fabulous photo gallery of 17 pictures from his club performance at kampnagel in hamburg, his in-store performance at normal records in koln and his house concert at carsten's in essen]
"wandering"
highway ulysses
evan and chris (photo by joerg conrad)
chris' "wandering as water" solo record was named one of the top ten records of the year by gerard cosloy of matador and 12xu, and pitchfork media calls the cd "one of the most overlooked gems of the past year."
"highway ulysses," the theater production that the EMPTY HOUSE COOPERATIVE co-wrote music to and performed live at in march 2003, was called "the best production of the year" by The Boston Globe's ed siegel in a dec 28 year-end review, and one of the ten best productions of 2003 by The Boston Phoenix's carolyn clay. the full text of the play and an interview with playwright rinde eckert were featured in the sept 2003 issue of american theatre magazine. said rinde: "Empty House is the perfect band for this process. I'm a schooled musician who reads music and writes notes on paper when I need to; Empty House is dedicated to improvisational music, pays attention to the moment and keeps away from academic protocol. . . . it was just very refreshing all around." the story of how ehc became involved in the production (along with a photo of chris and david michael curry) is online at the american repertory theatre site.
EVAN DANDO's "baby i'm bored" was named one of the top ten records of the year by the uk's mojo magazine.
CONSONANT's 2003 record "love and affliction" was in the top ten best boston rock cds list of The Boston Phoenix's brett milano: "This is a harsher, louder, and more Burma-like sequel to the homonymous debut that topped my list last year. In some ways, it's also a better album, since Consonant sound more like a fully realized band and guitarist Chris Brokaw has found his rightful place in the mix. . . . " profiles of consonant appeared august 2003 in the boston herald and boston phoenix. the band's writeup in the all music guide database links to background information on all the musicians.
chris' solo acoustic lp "wandering as water" was recorded in february 2003. it is part of the "return to sender" series of normal records of bonn, germany, and is a limited edition of 2000 copies. it may be obtained by sending $15 (cash or check made out to chris brokaw) to: chris brokaw, 69 chilton street, cambridge ma, 02138. the cd is also available through normal and forced exposure. e-mail chris at redcities2002@yahoo.com with any questions. below is press from 2003 about the cd.
by stewart lee, april 11 2004
*** (three stars = outstanding, the highest ranking)
THE GUITARIST Chris Brokaw has threaded his way through the best American music of the past 15 years, yet remains as anonymous as William Hague. In the 1980s, he kick-started the slow-core genre with the somnambulistic sound of Codeine, then crossed grunge with the blues in Thalia Zedek's Come. Recently, he has enlivened Dream Syndicate frontman Steve Wynn's acclaimed solo albums, created a jazzy acoustic folk with Pullman and co-written Evan Dando's Lazarus-like comeback record. Brokaw's first solo release, 2002's Red Cities, showcased searing, amplified instrumentals. His second finds him in acoustic troubadour mode, stripping back his twisted extrapolations and quietly sinister songs to more primitive, and oddly more affecting, states. Like Brokaw himself, Wandering as Water is a quietly special proposition -- and it's limited to 2,000 copies.
by brandon stosuy, december 9th, 2003, online here
One of the most overlooked gems of the past year, Chris Brokaw's second solo full-length showcases the songwriter's commitment to dreamy Americana and stunning acoustic explorations. . . . Brokaw inhabits an unassuming, almost anonymous space with his quiet acoustic strums, warm voice, wordy vocal lines, and single foot-tapped tambourine. Like his previous all-instrumental Red Cities 2002), this largely vocal offering creeps along an unadorned path towards anachronistic purity, opening up and gathering detail with each repeated listen. Recorded live, it's breezy and intensely focused. . .
The splintery, patient acoustic interpretations of Come's "Shoot Me First", "Recidivist" and "German Song" are gorgeous. "My Idea", a track he wrote with Lemonheads collaborator Tom Morgan that ended up on Dando's Baby I'm Bored, stands out as better enunciated and intoned than Dando's slacker version . . . the prairie instrumentals are especially strong, each evoking a well-drawn visual sequence. "La Playa" and "Calimoxcho" tackle subtle rhythmic variations, evoking at times the pace of a silent but emphatic one-step across the damp hay of a darkened barn or a jangling horse ride through the night to a dozing loved one . . .
Brokaw continuously dances nimbly through these sorts of unexpected shifts; his acuity with control and complexity creates a subtle, unspoken poetry . . .
preview of new york solo show november 21 at north 6
by mike wolf, november 20, 2003, online here
Early in Chris Brokaw's recent show at Tonic, he offered that people in the audience should actually turn their cell phones ON for the performance. But don't take Brokaw to be your typical self-deprecating guy with a guitar. For the duration of his solo acoustic set, through emotions ranging from grim regret to placid hopefulness, the one thing the Boston artist projected consistently was a simple confidence that reflected his easygoing mastery. . . . Both onstage and on Wandering, he moves gracefully from harrowing moments--especially on "My Confidente" and "Recidivist," the latter perhaps the best of Come's many great songs--to extended passages of knotted yet lovely picking and strumming . . .
By D. Shawn Bosler, november 2003
Brokaw is an underground guitar hero, though he might prefer to be categorized in the singer-songwriter vein. His excellent most recent CD, Wandering in Water, is a bow to Fahey and Spanish guitar, which also does some acoustical re-workings of his late-great band, Come.
by julia kussius, december 2003, online here
[this is a review Ð in german Ð of chris' dec 6 2003 show in hamburg for the german online music site pop frontal. includes photos!]
. . . A long-time admirer of the songwriter Townes Van Zandt, now Brokaw has an opportunity to let his own songwriting shine on Wandering As Water. If you've seen Brokaw live, you know how much staid energy can come from one man. Armed with his guitar and a lone tapping tambourine, these recordings echo those performances in both their simplicity and in their power. Instrumental pieces embued with harmony and coated in emotive grace. Brokaw's vocals come just as easily as the slide on his guitar, and soon enough, the listener is drawn into the kitchen, where he's found a place to play and a few sympathetic ears. Like Van Zandt, Brokaw already has a wide swath of experience from which to draw pointed observations and gruff realities. People shift, things change, life goes on. But that guitar sound and tapping tambourine seem to remain. Constant. Another stripped-down gem from Return To Sender.
carly carioli, july 17, 2003, online here
On the final two Come albums, Chris Brokaw stepped forward to take lead vocals on the occasional tune, and those efforts ranked alongside the band's finest. Although Brokaw's solo debut was an all-instrumental affair, his new album, "Wandering As Water" (on Germany's Normal Records), recorded live by Paul Kolderie earlier this year, parallels the live solo sets he's been performing while touring with (and opening for) Evan Dando lately -- a mix of instrumentals and vocal tunes played on acoustic guitar, including superb, stripped-down renditions of Come's "Shoot Me First," "Recidivist," and "German Song," plus "My Idea," a song he wrote with Lemonheads collaborator Tom Morgan that ended up on Dando's "Baby I'm Bored," and covers of enlightened folkies Fred Neil and Jorma Kaukonen.
by marco delsoldato, online here
This is the umpteenth gem from one of the cornerstones of the American indie scene . . . Nowadays Chris plays around with the particulars, conjuring up acoustic tracks which lie somewhere between the purest of folk and the intimate, desolate ballad ("My Ideas", "Bricks"). Among the fifteen treasures there's a version of "Embryonic Journey" by Jorma Kaukonen and some tracks from the Come days, the unforgettable "Recidivist" and "Shoot Me First" among others . . .
by carsten wohfeld, june 2003, online here
[this is a long profile in german of chris and his musical career, posted as a web exclusive for the german edition of rolling stone. if you don't know german, a mostly incomprehensible but occasionally hilarious computer-generated translation is here. sample translated quote from chris: "At the time I had begun straight to play Soloshows with the tambourine at the foot, which besides still from a microphone was removed. I had the feeling, which thought people before the stage, I am ripe for the flips!"]
by carsten wohfeld, july 2003
[the cd review on the right appeared in DNAsix, a monthly music mag in germany. the live review on the left, of chris' solo show may 26 at the mousounturm in frankfurt, appeared in westzeit, another monthly music magazine in germany. you can see them upclose online here.]
by ullrich maurer, summer 2003, online here
[this is an interview with chris by a german internet magazine. during the interview, chris is asked to identify and comment on songs by Mission Of Burma, Tom Liwa, Neil Young, The White Stripes, The Rolling Stones, M. Ward, Richard Thompson and Low. this interview is in german but somewhat intelligible even if you don't know the language.]
by joan anderman, march 14, 2003
[this is a profile of the the empty house cooperative during their stint with the american repertory theatre. photo by dominic chavez. left to right: chris, playwright rinde eckert, jonah sacks and david michael curry with his coat rack bass.]
". . . "'This is the sound,'" recalls Eckert of hearing Empty House's music. 'There was an unusual timbre, a sense of openness. Something that sounded contemporary and ancient, out of the ordinary but accessible. We got together a couple of times, and there was a brightness in the room. Once I met them, I didn't have much doubt . . .'"
-- see the full story as published in the boston globe
chris' debut album, "red cities," was released june 2002 on atavistic records (chicago) in the US and on 12XU (london) in europe and the UK. the album, all instrumental and performed entirely by chris, was recorded by pete weiss at zippah recording and mixed by pete with paul q. kolderie. "red cities" is also issued on black vinyl by boston's kimchee records. during 2002, chris was occasionally joined in performance by "the red cities orchestra" -- chris on guitar, matt kadane on guitar / percussion, david michael curry on guitar / percussion, milo jones on guitar, winston bramen on bass and arthur johnson on drums. below is press from 2002 about the record.
by ullrich maurer, 2002, online here
[this is an interview with chris by a german internet magazine. in german. includes these two cool photos by ullrich. ]
by carsten wohfeld, 2002, online here
[this is a review of "red cities" by the same german internet magazine, which terms him "a man - a legend."]
by justin sinkovich, september 6 2002, online here
Chris Brokaw's fluid, melodic, and crisp guitar playing is easily recognizable. That Jaguar/Jazzmaster-meets-Fender Twin has been cutting cleanly through one great album after another. . . . The new millennium has seen Chris Brokaw distinctly contribute to two different new bands. He returned to the drum kit for the Kadane brothers' post-Bedhead work in The New Year. Then he and Matt Kadane both joined former Mission Of Burma member Clint Conley's new band Consonant, this time with Brokaw on guitar, delivering that patented tremolo swagger again. So in 2002, at a time when Brokaw's contributions to indie music have taken on an entirely new identity, amazingly he delivered his first entirely solo album, entitled Red CitiesÉHis instrumental pieces build, braiding the instruments together wonderfully. Chris Brokaw has consistently proven that he is an extremely talented fellow, providing us with hours and hours of some of the best indie music available.
by jorge peláez, 2002, online here
[this is an interview with chris by a spanish internet magazine. in spanish.]
interview by jon langmead, oct 2002
". . . It's hard to say how [my] playing has changed over the years. At least in the context of playing in rock bands, it's become very familiar and very comfortable to me. I feel like I know what I'm doing. Some times I feel like I sort of slip into a role, which can get boring, and so I've really enjoyed the challenge of playing solo which is completely different from playing with a band. Much scarier, much more of a challenge. I don't know . . . it's still different every night, thank god. It's still really exciting to me. If anything, I try to take in the environment, that day and night, as much as I can, and try to apply it or have it inform the show that night. . . ."
-- see the full interview
preview of london solo show august 7
by sharon o'connell, august 6, 2002
Chris Brokaw's heritage is so impressive he should really have his own coat of arms. . . . His live show this week is to promote his recent solo debut Red Cities, an astonishingly potent brew of guitar and percussion, played solely by Brokaw in what must have been endless studio sessions, so densely layered are his compositions. The resultant landscapes are ravaged but beautiful beyond belief, reflecting both the dark, blues-strung grief of Come, and the lean-lined, horizon-fixed heft of Codeine . . .
-- see the full story as published in time out london
by eric snider, july 31 2002, online here
Possessing an impressive post-rock resume that includes stints with Codeine, Come, Pullman and The New Year, Boston's Chris Brokaw is a guitarist of a different stripe. He also happens to be a drummer of some repute, which he uses to help shape and color his solo disc, Red Cities, an eclectic and eminently listenable outing that's long on melody and layered texture and virtually devoid of improvisation, stunt-like or otherwise. Brokaw glides through a variety of moods: the slow, building arpeggios of The Fields; the corrosive chords on Gauntlet, which call to mind The Beatles' I Want You (She's So Heavy); the spaghetti Western feel of Calimoxcho; the controlled cacophony of Bath House. Two of the best songs showcase his postmodern take on roots styles. Topsfield State Fair, is, on the surface, a twangy two-step, but the ominous chord sequence is just a bit off, as are the crashing intrusion of occasional rock power chords. At the Crossroads repeats a simple, slurry slide figure, evoking the Delta by way of the desert, as dissonant atmospherics well up in the background. On Red Cities, Brokaw proves himself to be more a composer and sound sculptor than out-and-out ax man, but one suspects he's got some hidden guitar slinger in him too. [three and a half planets]
by mark keresman, online here
Some listeners/readers familiar with less-commercial variants on what's come to be know as "alternative rock" (a phrase about as useful these days as "progressive jazz," as that's been applied to Stan Kenton, Teddy Charles and Anthony Braxton) might know the guitarist Chris Brokaw. Brokaw has been in the indie-rock bands Come and Codeine as well as the John Fahey-inspired instrumental collective Pullman - here, he steps out on his own. Playing all electric and acoustic guitars and percussion, Brokaw weaves a dense, languid, cinematic-sounding spell that's equal parts Henry Mancini, Bill Frisell, John Barry, Ennio Morricone, The Tornadoes, Les Paul, Chet Atkins and Jimi Hendrix (the latter in his more restrained moments), mixing tremolo, surf/noir-twang, smoldering leads, spry country-ish picking, evocative, haunting melodies and shimmering-sunset-on-the-wide-open-plains textures. Brokaw is no virtuoso, but that's the point, or part of the point: while a fine guitarist, Brokaw seems more interested in drawing listeners' attention to the "whole" of the Song - the Mood, rather than The (showy) Technique. Red Cities is a good one for the Guitar/Instrumental Fan. (Plus: there's a REALLY nice treatment of Burt B's "The Look of Love" here.)
preview of the nyc red cities orchestra show at tonic july 7
by mike wolf, july 4, 2002
As indie-rock artists go, Chris Brokaw has a resume that's beyond reproach. . . . All of Brokaw's skills (besides singing) are displayed on his new full-length solo debut, Red Cities (Atavisitic), an enthralling spread of guitar-and-percussion instrumentals that have as much emotional power as - and greater range than - any of his previous outings . . .
-- see the full story
by leon mcdermott
Chris Brokaw is one of those people who has been floating around on the edges of American music for a good decade and a half, quietly making good music whilst all around him people scramble for the next big thing . . .
by carly carioli, july 4 2002
Chris Brokaw strolls into the Paradise looking more tired than usual. Even when he's at his most alert, a certain weariness clings to him. Back when he was the drummer in the slo-core indie outfit Codeine, one might have written that off as an occupational hazard. But as the lead guitarist in Come, peeling off howling weathers of chords, he also maintained a rumpled composure. Now, as Brokaw comes upon the other members of Clint Conley's band Consonant, they take him in, smiling. They haven't seen him in more than a week. After playing guitar with Consonant and drums with the New Year (his band with the Bedhead brothers, Bubba and Matt Kadane) at England's All Tomorrow's Parties festival, Brokaw stayed on to play a round of dates accompanying Evan Dando on guitar and opening the shows with his own solo set. He also got into a car accident: he and a friend emerged unharmed, but their rental van, with just 31 miles on it, didn't fare as well . . .
. . . He cites recent shows by Dutch cellist Ernst Reijseger, horn player and jazz innovator Joe McPhee, and acoustic bluesman Chris Smither as having affected his idea of what a solo performance could be: "People who went up on stage with one instrument and just create a whole fucking galaxy. That's what I'm aspiring to do . . ."
--see the full story
by patrick jennings, july 2002
. . . Brokaw played all instruments on the album, but, surprisingly, was keen not to use computer-based-recording, preferring to commit everything to two-inch tape. "I know it seems slower, but with computers you can endlessly correct everything," he claims. "I set myself a certain amount of days to finish each track and challenged myself to make it work . . ."
. . . Alongside a couple of Fender Twins and a bunch of overdrive and reverb units, Brokaw's gear collection also includes a Jaguar, treasured for its ambient feedback. However, a '56 Jazzmaster has elbowed it aside as his main squeeze in the past couple years. "It has a thicker sound, especially since I put 0.011s on it," he explains . . .
by ted drozdowski, june 2002
". . . A lot of the album came to me on tour. I've been fascinated with cities, and when you drive to a city at night from a rural area, you see this red glow coming from the city. It's exciting and sometimes a little scary because every place has a specific energy, positive or negative . . . "
-see the full story as published in boston magazine
by josh madell, june 6 2002, online here with real audio links
. . . Brokaw has made a beautiful, varied debut as a solo recording artist with his new album, "Red Cities," on Atavistic. In some ways, this instrumental record is an amalgam of all his previous work. But if I had to narrow it down I would say that this reminds me most of a mix between Pullman and the New Year -- a melodic, textured soundscape of guitars and percussion that touches on many moods. This is soundtrack music that is not afraid to rock, and rock and roll that takes a relaxed, contemplative approach to its unfolding sounds. A great debut that should be of interest to fans of Brokaw's excellent playing and more generally anyone with an ear for great instrumental pop.
june 2, 2002, online for a fee at www.chicagotribune.com
. . . where Pullman favors a back-porch ambience and Come mined a particularly black-hearted variant of the blues, "Red Cities" has a western tinge that evokes desert vistas and open highways. The best tracks' stirring melodies stand quite well on their own, but the tight, riff-oriented structures of others beg for a singer.
by david keenan, june 2002 online at www.thewire.co.uk
. . . a series of brooding instrumental sketches propelled by sparse percussion and dominated by (Brokaw's) skeletal guitar tone. . . . a moonlit trawl through some blasted desert rock that is as singleminded and lonesome as some of John Fahey's electric material.
by tim perry, may 25, 2002
by graeme rowland, writing in "the brainwashed brain" V05I20 - 05262002, a weekly digest from the staff and contributors of brainwashed.com
. . . There's a western-noir feel to most of it and the most effective tracks build in emotional intensity just like Come, every note heavy with mysterious longing and deep enough to flip your stomach over. After a short intro, the longest track "The Fields (Part II)" takes a trip deep into the city night where events are unfolding outside the upstairs window, each note delivering ever more irreversible immanence. Chris really knows how to pack a sledge full of raw emotion into every note, and this is a stunningly dense dark cinematic ride. Only lighter track is the more playful "Topsfield State Fair," which perhaps skirts closer to Pullman campfire folkiness than the deeper Come shadows the rest of the album so satisfyingly evokes. I'm not sure if the title of the album was in any way inspired by the W.S. Burroughs classic 'Cities of the Red Night' but if anyone was ever ambitious enough to try to make a film of that book, this would make a perfect soundtrack.
issue no. 4 summer 2002
by stewart lee, june 2, 2002
Brokaw is the shadowy standout figure of other people's recordings. Among the cult figures who lean on his guitar playing for support are the former Lemonhead Evan Dando and Come's Thalia Zedek, while as a member of Codeine he pioneered the dense, bulldozer riffs that today seem commonplace in the American underground. His first solo album, comprising 14 instrumentals on which he plays everything, features fuzzedup flamenco guitar figures, the kind of psychedelic spaghetti-western sounds favored by Calexico, and seismic shifts in mood, from the apocalyptic to the whimsical, the brilliant to the banal. Regrettably, the finest track, the 10 minute "Field pt. II" is scheduled rather too early. Programme your CD player accordingly to avoid disappointment.
follow Chris on facebook . . . e-mail chris at redcities2002@yahoo.com
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« Illegal Downloads and the Music Industry
RealiMation from November 1997 to September 1999 @ Datapath (part 3) »
Multi Channel and Stereo Displays
We started getting involved with companies and civic organisations wanting to present virtual worlds to their organisation or the public via very large projected displays and often in stereo. So it saw a period of relatively intense development of the stereo and multi channel display code. Looking back I now realise that all the work we did subsequent to this in this area was really just enhancements, tweaks and eventual reimplementation in what would become mantra4D. This area ended up becoming my specialty, and I must say I enjoyed this aspect of the work immensely.
There were two types of stereo display – what we called active stereo and passive stereo. In the latter the left and right images were projected on top of each other through polarised (or eventually coloured) filters and the viewer wore appropriately polarised (or coloured) glasses. The former was more complicated as special hardware was needed to go between the computer and monitor. The display would consist of alternating left and right eye images at 120Hz and the user would wear LCD shutter glasses which alternately open and close each eye and are synchronised by an emitter on top of the monitor. This is the technique being used by the latest 3D graphics cards from nVidia and AMD/ATI and hasn’t really changed in the last 10 years.
For one particular active stereo implementation I had to devise a way of controlling the vertical sync signals across three (or more) monitors fed through VGA cables for multi channel active stereo systems. Keeping the displays synchronised is quite a complicated process. The outputs from the graphics cards need to be kept in step. At the time there was only one card that could do this, which unfortunately I can’t remember now. In addition the vertical sync signal going into the monitors must also be locked together. Otherwise the displays would refresh at slightly different times and the 3D effect would be ruined.
With BNC cabling it is easy as the sync cables are separate from the RGB colour cables. In VGA cables you can’t get at the individual components without breaking into the cable. So we attacked the problem where there was a natural break – at the plugs and sockets. We devised a bar that had male and female VGA connectors on either side. All the pins on the male connectors, apart from the vertical sync signal, were connected directly to their counterparts on the female connectors. The vertical sync from one input was treated as the master and fed to all three outputs. This ensured that the three monitors refreshed together. After all that effort I think we only ever installed one – in Helsinki. The biggest drawback of active stereo systems is that each viewer has to wear a pair of the shutter glasses. These are expensive and only a few people could view the image at any one time as the image and field of view are relatively small – being restricted to the size of a monitor. The emitter that controls the glasses also has a limited range and field of operation.
Modelling cities and being able to fly through them in real-time was (and I suppose still is) a common application. Before I joined there was a model of Philadelphia created in MicroStation and exported to RealiMation. Later on there was a contract to model of the City of Rennes and DaimlerChrysler were looking at modelling all of Stuttgart, as well as their factories, as a PR exercise. They got some way to doing this, but due to the size of the models they began to hit some hardware limitations.
Passive stereo systems eventually proved to be far more popular. These could be viewed by many people through relatively cheap glasses and have a much larger image (8’ high in many cases). As projector technology improved we were able to supply systems that projected higher resolution and brighter images from increasingly (or should that be decreasingly) smaller units for a progressively less and less money. “Shrinkage” of the glasses stock was still a problem, but very much less so with the polarised lenses. It potentially became more of a problem with the more expensive red/green filtered glasses, but as these systems weren’t usually installed in public places it wasn’t really an issue.
Mike ported the libraries to the Dreamcast (a games console) for a company called Cross Products, but nothing really came of this. I think that this was another of Brett’s abortive attempts to get into the games industry. While it was interesting, in hindsight I realise it was always a dead end. The RealiMation concept of safe access to the model and real time rendering (rather than constant frame rate rendering) meant that the libraries were always going to be unsuitable for game delivery.
White Papers and RealiMation Showcase
We wrote a set of technical papers dealing with various aspects of creating simulations with RealiMation. These went from the basics of how to create an application to more advanced techniques for representing weather and explosions. I thought I had copies of the final versions of these but that turned out not to be the case, so I only had older versions culled from the Wayback Machine archive and I was missing a couple. But thanks to Greg Whitfield I now have a full set and I’ve posted them.
To go alongside these we also wrote a series of mini applets which we bundled together and presented via a user interface that was unashamedly influenced by Silicon Graphics. I actually have the code for this so I’ve decided to make it available as a zip file. We called this RealiMation Showcase – we were always coming up with grandiose names for products ;). If you do download and run it, please bear in mind that it’s over 10 years old. This was the first outing for many of the techniques we refined for later applications.
To run it extract all the files to a new folder and then double click the executable. There’ll be a dialog about selecting display drivers, make sure all the boxes in the list are ticked and then hit OK. You should then get a screen that looks like this:
Showcase Main Screen
Click on one of the buttons (not Exit!). “Atmospherics” for example, and then again on one of the buttons in the subsequent screen (not Back!) to display the demo. Hit Esc to quit the demo.
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BY CYRIL ACKERMAN / SEPTEMBER 2014
William Penn had a dream. He had a father to whom the crown was devoted and he could eventually be given a province of 25-30 million acres. In 1681 he wrote, “I have so obtained it and desire that I may not be unworthy of His love but to do that which may answer His kind providence and serve His truth and people that an example may be set up to the nation.” He gave the province a name “a holy experiment” (a place where society, commerce, education, government of people’s manners, religious assembly, and good roads would be established in townships). The reality was William Penn spent very few years in Pennsylvania and the English System of Judgment and Justice was adopted in the new land. In other words it didn’t exactly turn out as originally planned.
How did we get from Penn’s “holy experiment” to Cumberland Township? Eventually growing to five counties, York County was established Aug. 19, 1749. Cumberland Township existed before 1749 in the Manor of Maske established in 1741. In 1749 a surveyor in York made a “list of remarkable inhabitants fit to discharge public office” in the settlements of the Susquehanna. This official document (according to Dr. Glatfelter) is “abundant evidence that that Cumberland Township came into being in 1749. Cumberland was a small county in northern England, it’s a family name, in Pennsylvania there’s a county, cities, mountains and gaps that share the name. The Manor of Maske was not surveyed until 1766 and warrants (first step in getting a legal claim to land) for property not issued until around 1800. The population in 1762 from first tax list was about 1,025. The dispute between the Penn’s and Baltimores over the southern boundary goes back to 1682. In 1684, Penn went back to England to settle land dispute. Finally in 1765 Mason and Dixon establish a boundary we know today as the dividing line between Maryland and Pennsylvania (and Adams County which includes Cumberland Township). This survey needed approval of Maryland and Pennsylvania governments and finally in 1774 Pennsylvania proclaimed the line to be in effect.
Early settlers of particular note were the Thomas Jameson family arriving in 1740. All family members (except Mary) lost their lives to a raiding party of French and Indians in April 1758. In 1785, Cumberland Township was separated from Franklin. Both townships encompassed such a large area rendering official business very difficult to conduct because of the time it took to travel from one end of township to the other to hold meetings. (Government officials of the township were a Constable, two Overseers of the Poor, and two Supervisors of the highways. These positions were chosen by the county commissioners for 1-2 year terms.) In 1798, John Adams was President and the US Congress instituted a “direct tax” (where all real estate in the country was to be assessed) to fund a threatened war with France. From this 1798 tax document we know there were about 170 log structures, seven stone and three brick dwellings. In 1806, the borough of Gettysburg was divided from the township. Armstrong, Benner, Breaden, Cobean, Dobbin, Hoke, Myers, Gettys, Scott, and Stewart are a few of the familiar early dwelling owners.
Cyril Ackerman is a member of the Cumberland Township Historical Society.
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Daniel C. Nyiri Artist & Designer
Australian Series
Trinidad Views
Daniel C. Nyiri is an award winning set designer and scenic artist in addition to being an award-winning watercolorist.
Entirely self-taught, he spent many years developing his abilities as a freelance commercial artist producing more than 10,000 spot illustrations for advertising (distributed internationally) in addition to providing illustrations for several books, greeting cards and periodicals. Having worked primarily in pen and ink, he left commercial illustration to devote himself to painting. A request to help paint scenery for a local ballet company (where his daughter attended classes) evolved into a new career as a theatrical set designer, which eventually led to work in film and television.
As a watercolorist he received First Place awards in two of the four competitions he entered early in his career and has twice had work displayed at the San Bernardino County Museum of Art. After selling over thirty-five paintings to collectors in the U.S., Europe, and the Middle East he ceased showing his work or accepting commissions. To all appearances he concentrated exclusively on his design work and only a small handful of people were aware that he continued to do any painting other than scenic. In late 2010, honoring a promise to a fellow artist, he once again decided to make his watercolor paintings accessible to the public.
His credits for stage, ballet, film, and television total over 120 productions winning several awards and critic’s groups nominations. Amongst his ballet credits are The Firebird, Giselle, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Alice in Wonderland, Three Virgins and a Devil, Dracula, Cinderella, Peter and the Wolf, Coppelia (which earned him a Lester Horton Award nomination for Dance design) and twelve different productions of The Nutcracker. Recent film work has included Production Designer for Australia’s first live-action 3-D feature film, Cane Toads: The Conquest and he has designed or art directed several Emmy winning films for PBS, National Geographic, Court TV, and commercials for clients as diverse as The Wisconsin Humane Society, Colonial Williamsburg, and the State of Florida. Other theatre credits include Sweeney Todd, The Crucible, Taming of the Shrew, Death of a Salesman (ITL award for design), The Inspector General (Los Angeles Weekly Critics nominee), The Glass Menagerie (ITL award for design), Guys & Dolls, Man of La Mancha, Fiddler on the Roof, The Wizard of Oz, Dark of the Moon, Macbeth, Frankenstein (ITL award for design), A Streetcar Named Desire, and Amadeus.
Recently the artist has focused on film-making; writing, designing and directing his first full length feature film "Confession" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6407942/?ref_=ext_shr_eml_tt.
"I have always been aware that in the buildings we pass everyday, in the scenes of nature we often take for granted, however familiar, there can also be great mystery. Everything can be hiding something, and every place has a history of comings and goings – comedies, dramas and tragedies whose details we may never know but which occurred nevertheless. The hidden present, and those unknown histories, haunt me. Sometimes I place clues within the painting; it might be a half-concealed figure in a window, the shadow of someone or something just out of frame, drops of blood or symbols of violence, the manipulation of scale or the unexpected inclusion of elements or details disturbingly out of place; and sometimes it is simply by an emphasis on the atmosphere of the work, but it’s all there to subconsciously guide us back to the unquestioned mysteries. I attempt to allow each work to suggest a world of it’s own; however quiet or subtle, and whether intuitively, or intellectually, I invite the viewer to consider these mysteries, to ponder the emotions and feelings that are evoked. In essence I am attempting to reflect the sense memory of the place itself. What has it witnessed? What are the ghosts and histories that could be imagined to stain the cellular fabric of a specific location or object?
To some degree I also paint memories - altered, re-arranged, reduced and filtered by our emotions and the situation at the time they are acquired. There is the truth of person, place or thing, the reality at the moment we encounter it, but that is invariably (and often immediately) changed by the observer in their own recollection. The mystery may lie not in the place itself but in the act of it being observed.
I believe that for my paintings to be successful they have to lull you into calmly accepting them, and the more comfortable you become with them, that’s when they begin to affect you in ways you never would have anticipated upon first viewing. They settle into your subconscious and elicit emotions and suggest emotional responses. Carefully editing and controlling the reality depicted, while working the abstract compositional elements to subconsciously assert themselves, allows the paintings to whisper to you, perhaps even revealing their mysteries.
Our whole existence is no more concrete than the memories left behind. We are temporarily tangible ghosts drifting through an impermanent world deluding ourselves that we have permanence."
HOME PAINTINGS INK DRAWINGS DESIGN MURALS ABOUT THE ARTIST PURCHASE CONTACT
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The Great Sintini
MEET THE FILMMAKER: Kris Hipps.
We want to be like Kris Hipps when we grow up. Yeah, she’s just cool. She’s already familiar to many people in the Bug Theatre community, having shown many works at The Emerging Filmmakers Project and The Colorado Independent Women of FIlm. And she’s been the creative force behind several unique stage experiences at The Bug, including the on-stage adaptation of George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. She’s also the founder of Paper Cat Films. Her films have screened at national and international film festivals. Her horror feature The Monument, took First Place at the Hauntcon Film Fest in 2006, and her indie short Memphis Psychosis screened at the North by Northeast Toronto International Film Fest last spring. Before moving to Denver, she put in five years as a creative director at The Second City in Chicago. She currently runs a film arts program for at-risk teens here in Denver.
Her “mocumentary” Team S.P.I.R.I.T.: The Great Sintini plays March 18th at the Emerging Filmmakers Project (EFP) down at the Bug Theatre (3654 Navajo St.). EFP Host Patrick Sheridan recently caught up with Kris.
P.S.: You’ve enjoyed a ton of success on the stage. What drew you to becoming a filmmaker?
K.H.: I became a filmmaker because I thought it would be fun, and it is.
P.S.: The Great Sintini is part of a web series you’ve created that spoofs ghost hunting shows. Why that genre to spoof?
K.H.: I’m an armchair ghost hunter, and wanted to create a comic homage to all the ghost hunting shows out there. And, my specialty is ensemble pieces with quirky characters.
P.S.: What are you plans for it?
K.H.: I plan to enter the piece into short film fests. I’m creating a DVD of all four episodes to sell on my online magic and curio shop, Mago’s Magic Shoppe…Oddities and Curios, which I own with magician Max Mago (Max plays the magician in the film).
P.S.: What else are you working on?
K.H.: Right now I’m working on a documentary film about local poetry legend Lenny Chernila.
P.S.: Tell us one weird thing about you or your films:
K.H.: I consider myself the Ed Wood of the Denver Indie film scene.
P.S.: Where can people go to find out more anbout you and your films?
K.H.: To learn more about my films go to www.papercatfilms.com, or http://www.facebook.com/papercatfilms
P.S.: Have anything you’d like to say about the EFP?
K.H.: EFP Rocks! Where else can you get your film on a big screen in front of an audience and get feedback, all for the price of a Latte? (and free beer). And it exposes the public to the indie Denver scene.
P.S.: Thanks, Kris! See you down at The Bug!
March 2013, Meet the Filmmaker
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"I have no hang-ups"
分類：Focus: Challenged but not disabled
發佈：30 十二月 2010
I never met Robert Ronald S.J. The first time I stepped into the old eRenlai offices was several months after he had passed from this ephemeral world. Yet as I came for an internship I was also somewhat blindly stepping into his shoes.
閱讀全文："I have no hang-ups"
My first 75 years: the doors that opened and I entered
作者 Robert Ronald
Living is like traveling down a road crisscrossed with intersections and dividing into forks. Where I am today was determined by the turns I made or did not make at those intersections and by the routes I chose to follow along the way.
閱讀全文：My first 75 years: the doors that opened and I entered
Challenged but not disabled
作者 Cerise Phiv (張俐紫)
I met Fr. Bob Ronald when I started to work at eRenlai in 2007. I was then the network animator of the website and he was our English editor. Although we shared the same office and we were seeing each other everyday, I realised only after his passing that I had just begun to know him.
閱讀全文：Challenged but not disabled
My first 75 years: a map
Usually the course of a person’s life follows a common pattern. First there is a period of formation and preparation. Then there are years of productive activity, during which they marry and raise children. Finally, comes retirement and gradual decline until death.
閱讀全文：My first 75 years: a map
Do you know who you are or what you are? Does it matter?
'Everyone's favorite subject is themselves' so goes the saying. Yet, there is an incredible body of literature from religious figures, social scientists, psychoanalysts, mystics and writers on how to view ones own self and others.
閱讀全文：Do you know who you are or what you are? Does it matter?
My first 75 years: the strands of chance cross in California
[dropcap cap="S"]o far in this epic of my origin, we have a Scottish boy born in England, a poor Irish lass in Ireland, a farmer’s son in Bologna and a pampered little rich girl in Genoa. It took quite a series of chance events that maneuvered them and history itself to bring about my conception and birth in Martinez, California in 1932.[/dropcap]
For reasons I am not aware of Grandpa Bergamini left home on June 3, 1884 and immigrated to California at the age of 29. He traveled on the La Normandie which arrived in New York on June 16 from Le Havre. After some time there he went to Contra Costa County. For a few years apparently, according to my Uncle Turo, he worked at a hay press in Pacheco near Martinez. He was one of the first Italian business men to locate in downtown Martinez. On Wednesday August 6, 1890 he was granted U.S. citizenship.
The same year he opened a grocery store at the corner of Main and Ferry streets, the present site of the Bank of California. It was a gingerbread wooden frame building known as the Bergamini Grocery Store with the declaration “M. Bergamini, Dealer in groceries and provisions, ham and bacon, cheese, fruit, cigars and tobacco.” He also sold fresh, raw, and roasted peanuts, knickknacks and notions.
The store must have prospered because in 1899 he purchased a plot of land on the corner of Green and Court St. and built a two story building there. The Great Martinez Fire of August 1904 leveled a four block area of town which unfortunately included the grocery store. Grandpa let the Bank of California have his corner spot and next to it at 624 Ferry Street build a two story building. Disaster struck again when the San Francisco Earthquake of April 1906 knocked down the new stone façade. This building is now an official historical landmark of the city. A picture taken in 1910 shows the building with advertising on the side: “M. Bergamini, fine groceries, fruit, nuts, candies, cigars and tobacco.”
Why my Grandfather waited until he was 45 to get married is a mystery, but if he hadn’t, my Grandmother who was twenty years younger than he was would never have married him.
My grandmother Adalgisa was born in Sestri Levante on May 4, 1875. On March 31, 1889, her mother died suddenly when visiting a sick relative. Her father remarried almost immediately and life became very difficult at home, so the next year at the age of only 14 she accepted an invitation of her older sister Aurelia Lambruschini Molteni to live with her in San Francisco. She traveled in the company of an Italian family returning to their home in Petaluma north of San Francisco. She traveled second class, which was comfortable enough, but the ship was beset by violent storms and even reported sunk at sea, before it finally reached New York a couple days late. She said she managed to remain calm but was praying “with all my faith”. After the processing through Ellis Island, they took the train to San Francisco, finally arriving at the Ferry building ferry terminal on Christmas Day, 1889 at 9:00 A.M.
Grandma was apparently a very skilled embroiderer and was soon selling her work to the Samuel Lace House, a fancy store on Market Street. She went to school at night to learn English. In 1900 grandma went to Martinez to live with her cousin Catarina Bonzagni. There she was introduced to a Bonzagni friend, who after a whirlwind courtship of only a few months, married her on July 19, 1900 at the old Church of Sts. Peter and Paul in San Francisco. Officiating was Fr. Raffael Piperni, a Salesian missionary who arrived in San Francisco on March 11, 1897 and started courses in English and citizenship in the parish Americanization School. Witnessing the marriage were Catalina’s husband Martin Bonzagni and Aurelia Molteni. After a small party and reception after the ceremony, they went back to Martinez for another party at the Bonzagni home. Their first residence was grandpa’s apartment near his grocery store.
Grandma told me once, that she wasn’t really in love with Grandpa, but felt pity for him and consented to his proposal. At any rate they produced nine children, of whom my mother was the fourth. So thanks to grandpa’s loneliness and grandma’s kindness, I had a mother.
Here something needs to be said about the little town of Martinez, because just 80 years earlier it hadn’t even existed.
California before the Spanish explorers arrived was a land flowing with milk and honey. Wildlife was abundant. The weather was moderate in the valleys which were watered by many rivers and streams. The local Karkinez Indians of the Costanoan Group were rather primitive, since necessity is the mother of invention and they had few needs to spark ingenuity and development. They were also cut off from the other Indians of North America by the mountain ranges in the north and the east. They lived and died as simple hunters and fishers and harvesters of acorns and local plants, undisturbed by the outside world until the European explorers came. The Spanish missionaries did their best to educate the Indians they came in contact with and put them to work as artisans, laborers, and servants, but they were quickly decimated by the diseases the white men brought, and left behind no buildings, literature or language.
I was born in California on land taken from the poor Indians, who had no way of defending their territory or protecting their lives when the foreign settlers arrived. In this day and age that pays such lip service to human rights, I find it hard to understand how supposedly enlightened Christians who professed to be guided by the Ten Commandments could so easily kill and steal with the blessings of their governments and the acquiescence of their churches. Had the Indians not been so easily overcome I might not have been born in California.
Christopher Columbus started it by sailing off and discovering the New World in 1492. Like my Grandmother Bergamini he was from Genoa, born there in 1451. If he had followed the wool weaving career of his father and not become a sailor, he would probably never have paid any attention to the rumors and tales that convinced him that the Indies could be reached by sailing west. In that case the Americas would only have been discovered by Europeans in a later century and the territory that is now the United States may never have become the safe sanctuary for immigration in the 19th century that welcomed the arrival of my great grandparents and grandparents. I owe my birth in America to the adventurers and dreamers who dared to venture into the unknown and to the cupidity and ambitions of the Kings and Queens of Spain, Portugal and England who financed the explorations and colonizations.
In 1579 the Englishman Sir Francis Drake in the Golden Hind sailed along the California Coast along a vast unknown territory he called New Albion. Whether or not he and his crew even set foot on land at an inlet now called Drake’s Bay is a matter of controversy, but what is certain is that he missed the opportunity of a lifetime by sailing past the entrance to San Francisco Bay without discovering it, quite possibly because it was shrouded with fog as it often is in late afternoons and early mornings. Had he entered the bay and seen what a marvelous harbor it was, it might have eventually become a British colony. Would it have rebelled like the thirteen eastern colonies in the Revolutionary War of 1776 or remained faithful to England like the colonies in Canada? Would the Italians and the Irish immigrants have been as welcome to come as they were by the Americans? In any case, thanks to the fog on that day, I was born on American not British soil.
On August 13, 1812 Russian fur traders dedicated Ft. Ross on the site of a Kashaya Indian village 18 miles north of Bodega Bay on the coast of California just above San Francisco. In those days Spanish expansion did not extend beyond the San Francisco Bay Area. The settlement lasted only 29 years. The lucrative sea otter trade was depleted by overhunting and the trappers did not prosper when they set their hands to farming. Had they stayed and colonized as did the English and Spanish, the territory of Northern California might today be part of Russia or an independent nation, unless of course it ended up like poor Mexico overcome in a war with the aggressive Americans. So anyhow thanks to the Russians who went home.
From 1769 to 1834 the Franciscan Friar Junipero Serra and his companions evangelized California from San Diego all the way north to San Raphael and Sonoma just beyond San Francisco. Their efforts extended and supported the influence of the Spaniards from Mexico which became independent of Spain in 1821.
In 1824 The Mexican Government presented to Don Ygnatio Martinez a 17,000 acre land grant called the Rancho de Pinole. It extended along the south side of the Carquinez Straight about 25 miles east of San Francisco on the other side of the bay. It included at its east end the present location of Martinez where in 1849 his son Don Vincente Martinez built an adobe hacienda. He did not live there long, but the home remains today as a National Historic Monument.
California had Mexican Governors until 1847 when Mexico was defeated in a short-lived war with the United States and was forced to give up its California territory. At that time there were 150,000 Indians and 14,000 European and Mexican inhabitants. In one of his last acts before leaving office, General Mariano Vallejo, Commandante of the Presideo in San Francisco, permitted Dr. Robert Semple, a dentist from Kentucky, to initiate a ferry service from the waterfront near the mouth of Alhambra Creek (in present day Martinez) to Benicia a mile away across the water.
Then on January 24, 1848 John Marshall discovered gold in the South Fork of the American River at Coloma where he was inspecting a sawmill built there by his partner German-born Swiss Johann August Sutter, by far the most prosperous European settler in northern California.
Dr. Semple’s ferry became very important as the only crossing across the Straight to the gold fields for miners and goods coming the San Francisco and points south. The ferries continued in service until 1962 when the George A. Miller, Jr. Memorial Bridge was completed from Martinez to Benicia. My brother and I used to get on the ferry with our bikes for a dime each and go to explore the countryside on the other side of the water. My mother told us that when she was small, she used to go swimming in the bay, but that would certainly be impossible now. Too much pollution and the water has receded. Originally it came almost up to the railroad tracks, but tulles started to take root along the shore and slowly pushed the shoreline out. Nowadays the edge of the water is several hundred yards away from the train station. While I was growing up there was still an old sailing ship anchored on the shore about a mile away from the train station. We sometimes went along the tracks on our bikes and climbed aboard.
Warehouses and trading posts soon sprang up around the ferry dock and in 1849 an enterprising Col. William M. Smith who had married into the Martinez Family persuaded the Ygnacio Martinez heirs to capitalize on the business opportunity and accept his detailed plan for a township west of Alhambra Creek and the Welch Family expended it east of the creek.
So thanks to the Mexican Governor who gave a 48,000 acre grant of land to Johann Sutter in 1839 and to John Marshall’s sharp eye that noticed the gleaming gold, causing a population avalanche that descended on California eventually bringing my Italian grandparents and to the dentist who started a ferry and an army officer who envisioned a town, there grew up a community for me to be born in.
In 1850 when California became the 35th state, Martinez was the only town in the District of Contra Costa, so in 1951 when the county lines were drawn, Martinez was named the County Seat of Contra Costa County, a distinction it still holds today. But since it lacked the required 200 registered voters, it was not incorporated until 1876 and reincorporated as a sixth class city in 1886. In 1880 there were only 875 people in Martinez. There were around 3000 or 4000 when I was born. The present population is around 38,000 and city has grown in size to over twelve square miles.
The ferry wasn’t the only thing that attracted people. The climate, the fertile soil with a long Spring and Summer growing season attracted farmers. The first crops were wheat, but orchards were planted of pears, peaches, figs, cherries, apricots, and walnuts. When I was growing up Castro Street where we lived was lined with walnut trees. We had two in the front of our house and another in the back together with a fig tree and an apricot tree. There was an almond tree next door. I remember going with my dad to the Swett Ranch and the Bartlett Ranch to buy pears and peaches for my mother to preserve in vacuum bottles and make jam. There were warehouses and a railroad siding with refrigerated train cars waiting to be filled with produce. The orchards and tracks are now all gone replaced by residences and businesses.
In the beginning the market for produce was limited to the bay area. But in 1869 Dr. John T. Strentzel developed a special process for preserving the freshness of fruit so it could be transported great distances and soon there were ocean going vessels at the Martinez wharf loading produce for ports all over the world. In 1890 the famous environmentalist John Muir who had married Strentzel’s daughter Louie, built his home in Martinez and took over management of his father-in-law’s orchards and vineyards, though his continuing travel and environmental advocacy often kept him away. I remember as a boy riding my bicycle into the countryside and discovering his grave back under some trees surrounded by a low metal fence near the Alhambra Valley Road. His home is now a museum, but I have never been inside it.
In 1877 the Central Pacific Railroad (now the Southern Pacific) reached Martinez and in 1879 connected with the transcontinental line. At Port Costa near Martinez trains going north had to use a ferry to cross the Straight. The two ferries were then the largest in the world. It wasn’t until 1930 that the ferries were replaced by a train bridge from Martinez Since the bridge was low, the central span has to be raised every time a large ship has to go by on its way to the Avon Refinery near Martinez or to Stockton on the San Joaquin River or Sacramento on the Sacramento River. When we were kids we used to enjoy watching the bridge go up and the ships pass underneath. Sometimes trains would have to wait.
When I was little my parents would often take us to the train station at night with a big jug of milk shakes and cookies and we would watch the big steam engines and count the freight cars as they passed and watched the conductors helping passengers on and off the coaches and the porters pulling the heavy wagons loaded with baggage. It was a thrill to stand next to the big wheels of an engine that were almost as high as we were. And then there was the noise of the steam engine and the billows of smoke as it huffed and puffed pulling its heavy load. If you were lucky the engineer might even wave at you as he went by. There were almost always a few cars lined up next to the station facing the tracks filled with children like ourselves eager to watch and enjoy the spectacle.
In 1879 the Christian Brothers built a school on a hill in Martinez on seventy acres of land. Since they had 12 acres free they put in a vineyard and thus began the famous Christian Brothers’ Wine which was produced in Martinez until the brothers moved away to Napa in 1932. When we were small, my brother and I used to play around all that was left of the building foundations and a small grotto that had some bamboo trees. It wasn’t until the late 1940’s that the property was subdivided and roads were put in. My parents bought a lot at the bottom of the property where the brother’s cemetery had been. I remember once finding in the dirt something we thought had been part of a casket.
The ferry and the agriculture were not the only attractions for immigrants. The waters of the Straight were rich with fish and by the 1870’s there were Italian and Portuguese fisherman. In 1882 two of the twelve canneries on the Pacific Coast were located in Martinez. Thousands of tons of salmon and other fish left Martinez for export around the world. In 1957 the bay area was closed to all commercial fishing, but when I was in grammar school there were still the mothers of some of my classmates who were working in the cannery.
The availability in Martinez of a deep channel for ocean going ships as well as the presence of the railroad was undoubtedly an important factor that influenced the decision of the Shell Oil Company in 1915 to locate its west coast refinery and chemical plant on a big parcel of land right at the outskirts of the town. From downtown it does not visibly dominate the town since it is largely out of sight just on the other side of a small hill, but its presence is inescapable. When the wind blows right the town is filled with the strong odors of the refinery. I grew up with these fragrances and I like them. Every time I go into a gasoline station and smell the fumes, I take a deep breath and think of home. I am forever grateful to whoever it was who suggested Martinez as the site and to the board members in a conference room somewhere who eventually made the decision to construct the refinery in 1915. Without it my dad would never have met my Mother.
The first Italians arrived around 1858 to work in local mines near Mt. Diablo. From 1880 onwards peaking in 1905, many Italian fishermen, followed by farmers and merchants arrived for fishing, growing wine and as merchants. A flourishing Italian section grew up with bakeries, pasta shops and grocery stores. It was during this period that my grandparents arrived. So thanks to the friends who invited my grandfather to Martinez and to the cousin of my grandmother who asked her to visit, my mother was born in that small community.
In 1900 my paternal grandparents were married in New York and all my father’s younger sisters were born in New York, but my father was born in North Plainfield, New Jersey on Sept. 9, 1901. He must have had a high IQ and good grades because he won a scholarship to the most prestigious Jesuit Regis High School in New York City. He is probably one of few graduates who never went on and distinguished themselves in college. His family was too poor, so he went to work for a trading company as accountant. He also did a stint in the National Guard. Had my dad gone to college, he would probably never have ended up in California to meet my mother, so thanks to his humble origin.
Finally in 1926 or 1928 my father decided to leave home and go west. Together with a friend he packed his few belongings into a Model T Ford and looked for jobs along the way to support himself. Their destination was the state of Washington, but it so happened at that time that there was a huge forest fire somewhere ahead and when they finally saw the smoke on the horizon, they turned south because they did not want to be pressed into service fighting the fire. One of my dad’s relatives had given him a five or ten dollar bill for emergency use only. By the time they reached California and were nearing the bay area, they were down to that last bill when they heard that the Shell Oil Refinery in Martinez was hiring and my Dad got a temporary job as account clerk in the refinery office and ended up working there the rest of his life.
When my father started to work at the Martinez refinery, my Mother was already working as a stenographer in the same office. It also turned out that the room he rented in a boarding house was right across the street from my Mother’s home. So thanks to that forest fire in Washington, the running out of money, the opportune job opening and the empty room in that boarding house, the paths of my parents finally crossed and I was born.
My first 75 years: looking ahead
The time for looking back is also an opportunity for looking forward because there is still an uncertain number of years ahead of me yet to come.
閱讀全文：My first 75 years: looking ahead
My first 75 years: my Celtic and Italian forbears
I am descended from several branches of humanity which eventually settled in Europe, specifically the British Isles and the Italian Peninsula.
As being of both Scottish and Irish descent, the ancestors on my father’s side were mainly Celts with a few Vikings or Norsemen thrown in as well. The Celts were a powerful group of Iron Age tribes speaking Indo-European dialects first found in Southwest Germany and Southern France in the early part of the second millennium B.C. They were warriors who often made excursions into neighboring and distant lands. They lived in fortified settlements. Their chieftains wielded the power of kings and the Druids the power of the priestly caste to control the forces of nature and educate the youth to keep traditions alive. By the 4th century B.C. the Celts were being forced out of northern Europe or assimilated by the rise of the Germanic tribes, but their power continued to flourish in Ireland, Scotland and Great Britain though the Celts were eventually pushed out of England by the Anglo-Saxons.
The island of Ireland was separated from the rest of Europe after the last Ice Age. According to tradition it was successively invaded by four Celtic groups, first the Filbolgs and Fomers, then the Tautha De Danann (People of the Goddess Dana) who brought skilled artisans in all the then known arts, and finally around 1000, B.C. the Milesians, who became the ancestors of the present Irish people. It is said the Milesians came from Spain and before that from the Middle East, but neither claim has been proven.
Until the 8th century A.D. when Ireland was invaded by Norsemen, the Irish enjoyed independence from foreign incursion and a rich culture and literary tradition developed there especially after the conversion of the whole island to Christianity by St. Patrick in the 5th century. The Romans never reached Ireland and this isolation from the rest of Europe meant that the Dark Ages, which descended upon Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire, never touched Ireland.
It is said that after the victory of the Milesians two brothers, Eber and Eremon, divided most of the island, Eber taking the south and Eremon the north. When the wife of Eber coveted a beautiful hill that had been given to the wife of Eremon, war broke out, which Eber lost, so that the north became the dominant power. Irish genealogies trace two main royal lines, that of Eremon and that of Eber. My Rodgers ancestors were descended from the Eremon line (also the Scottish MacDonalds and Ronalds). My Connors ancestors from Eber.
The first settlers in Scotland arrived probably from England around 7000, B.C. in the Mesolithic Age living mainly along the coasts. In the Bronze Age the Beaker people arrived, so-called after the fact they buried their dead with metal beakers. The Gaelic speaking Celts arrived around 1000, B.C. in the Iron Age. They eventually pushed out and assimilated the Picts who were descendents of the original inhabitants, who got their name from their pictorial symbols. The Romans never succeeded in subduing the fierce tribes and built Hadrian’s wall in 122 A.D. to keep them out of Roman territory.
In remote times some ancestors of the Irish Clan Colla surnamed MacDonnell went from Ulster in Ireland to Argyle and the Hebrides in Scotland where they became the most numerous and powerful clan in the Scottish Highlands where they were generally called MacDonalds. In 1140 in the time of King Malcolm the Fourth of Scotland Samhairle MacDonnell was the eighth and greatest Thane (Baron) of Argyle, lord of Cantyre, lord of the Hebrides, Founder of the Kingdom of the Isles. He married Sabina the daughter of the Norseman Olad, King of the Isle of Man. He died in 1154.
Randal, the son of Samhairle was also the lord of Oergeal and Cantyre as well as the Founder of the Cistercian Monastery and Benefactor of the Abbey of Paisley. His sons, Domhnall, Alexander, and Rory invaded Ireland in 1211 in the territories of Derry and Donegal with seventy-six ships and settled in Antrim, where they became very powerful and intermarried with Irish princes and masters of Ulster. Alexander is the ancestor of the present MacDonnells of Ulster. Rory is the ancestor of the MacRorys, whose name was anglicized as Rogers, Rodgers, Roger, and Rogerson, which makes him a likely ancestor of my grandmother, Mary Rodgers, who in 1877 was born in Balla, a small town in County Mayo on the west coast of Ireland. Life was very hard in Ireland in the 1890’s, so she migrated to New York while still a teenager and married my grandfather in 1900.
In 1866, my great grandfather, Robert Thomas Ronald, born 1844 in a place as yet unknown, arrived in the United States. He was nationalized in 1872. According to the 1880 US census for New York City, he was born in England of a Scottish father and Irish mother and employed as a baker. In 1873 he had a son also named Robert T. Ronald, who by 1900 was employed as a clerk in a furniture factory. He married Mary Rodgers in 1900 and my father, Robert Anthony Ronald, was born in New Jersey in 1901, but raised in Brooklyn, New York.
Both my mother’s parents came from northern Italy. My grandfather from Bologna, my grandmother from Genoa.
The area around Bologna was first inhabited in the Bronze ago about 3000 years ago by a people called Villanovese, who were conquered by the Etruscans, who were in turn pushed out by the Celts, who had to finally give way to the Romans, who occupied the city for 400 years giving it the name Boronia. With the decline of the Romans came a succession of barbarians hordes, the Visigoths, Huns, Goths, and Lombards. So who knows what mixtures of blood flow in my veins? With the defeat of the pagan Lombards, the Christians began to fight over Bologna in a series of struggles between the Holy Roman Emperors and the Popes.
Crevalcore, the home town of my Grandfather Massimiliano Gaetano Bergamini, is by car about 45 minutes northwest from the city of Bologna. He was born on the family farm there on July 29, 1855. A famous Italian photographer of the late 19th century published a book in which there is a photo of my Grandfather’s parents and his brothers and sisters in their Sunday finery posing in front of their farm house. My grandfather was already gone when the picture was taken.
The name Genoa comes from the Latin “genua” for “knee’ or “jaw” for mouth of the sea. The Phoenicians originally from Tyre in Phoenicia went to Genoa from their settlement in Corsica around 2000, B.C. where they joined with the local inhabitants, the Pagu or Tribe of Ambrones, a Celtic people originally from Iberia.
Those ancient Phoenicio-Celtic settlers, also called the Ligures, from early times formed bands of pirates all over the Mediterranean much feared by the Greeks who called them Thyrrerioi. They likewise often served as mercenaries, even being mentioned in the Greek legend of Hercules (as Ligures) and often joining Carthage to fight its many wars. There were 4000 Phoenicio-Celtic soldiers in Hannibal’s army when he was defeated by Rome in 218, B.C. On the home side, the Ligures were famous for the fine olives they cultivated and the olive oil they made, which were exported all over the Mediterranean and to every part of the then known world.
According to Plutarch, it wasn’t until 102, BC. that Genoa finally fell under the control of the Romans, who made it the Province of Gallia Cisalpinis (Inside the Alps Gaul). Octavianus Augustus made Genoa his hometown in 18, B.C. It wasn’t until around 300, A.D. that the Church finally took hold. One of its earliest Bishops was St. Syrus (324-384).
After the Romans lost control of Genoa in 401, A.D. the region fell in and out of independence many times over the next 1450 years. But whether free or dependent the Genoans managed to build a mighty maritime and mercantile empire. They conquered not by military might but by economic prowess and financial clout. Their fleets were the first to use modern compasses and sextants. Around 1100 they established the first commercial bank (Banco di San Giorgio) offering merchants and traders the first known bills of exchange and other financial services. They developed the first insurance system. It was Genoa who organized and led the First Crusade in 1098 and the Third Crusade in 1190.
Present day Genoa lies atop the Gulf of Genoa at just about the center of the Italian Riviera. Near the lower half of the eastern Riviera is the little town of Sestri Levante, where my grandmother Adalgiza Angelina Carmelina Lambruschini was born in on May 4, 1875 into a prosperous noble family that traced its ancestry back to a legendary pre-Roman King and a Roman Senator and was proud of its relationship to my grandmother’s granduncle, Cardinal Luigi Lambruschini who had been Secretary of State of the Papal States and reportedly lost being elected pope by a single vote in the conclave that chose Pope Pius IX. In 1890 when only 15 years old my grandmother joined her sister who was living in San Francisco. She married my grandfather in 1900 and my mother was born in 1906.
And that is how I ended up half Italian, three-eighths Irish and one eighth Scottish. But it still doesn’t explain how my parents got together and I was finally born in the little town of Martinez in 1932. There are still many elements of chance that need to be explained.
Painting by Bendu
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Allow us to clear our throats. This is the beginning of a new era of Eux-ness. We have doubled. Eux Autres are now four. Yoshi has joined us on drums, and Nevada has rejoined us on keyboards. We couldn’t be happier about this. In celebration of this new incarnation, we are…
Pressing things.
A new 7″ is at the plant. It will be a beautiful object. Clear vinyl, silkscreened jacket by Yellow Owl Workshop. Two brand new songs with the new lineup, orderable soon. Pre-orders will get an extra special something from us.
Covering things.
We have a new song coming out on a compilation from Where You Are is Where It’s At Records. The comp is a 2-disc ode to the poet laureate of Americana, aka The Boss. Besides being an incredible performer and one of the most important songwriters of the last century, his work always intrigued me because he wrote a song, “Nebraska” about Charles Starkweather, the serial killer. Starkweather also happened to be both of my parents’ garbage man in Lincoln, Nebraska, when they were kids. Spookiness.
For the Springsteen compilation, we chose to cover “My Love Will Not Let You Down,” a song that walks the delicate line between bravado and desperation. The track was supposed to be on Born in the USA, but it got cut from the album and has only shown up on live recordings and a B-side collection.
Other bands on the comp include Glam Chops (Eddie Argos from Art Brut), Darren Hayman, and Help Stamp Out Loneliness. We’ve got our song streaming on myspace, so go check out.
Recording things.
This weekend (March 8th/9th) we’re recording again with Jason Quever (Papercuts…great new album out soon, btw) in SF. The songs are a little darker, which is what the doctor ordered–it’s been a long winter, at least on my side of the country.
May as well make some music to keep warm with.
Look for these and our last October’s session on an EP of new Eux Autres goodness this summer.
Scheduling things.
We’ve confirmed for both the San Francisco (May 21-24) and NYC (May 14-17) popfests and are currently putting together a UK/Europe tour, including a stop at Indietracks in July. Give us a shout if you want us to come to your town and we’ll do our best to make it happen.
Glad to be back with a new site, a new lineup, and new news.
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by Siobhanne Beattie / April 16th 2016 / No Comment
Director Jon Favreu and an all-star cast give Rudyard Kipling’s classic novel and Disney’s 1967 masterpiece a thrilling makeover. Orphaned “man cub”, Mowgli (Neel Sethi) is raised by wolves, Raksha (Lupita Nyong’o) and Akela (Giancarlo Esposito) deep within the Indian jungle. However, Mowgli’s life as he knows it is threatened by ferocious, man-hating tiger, Shere Khan (Idris Elba), he must embrace his destiny and face Khan once and for all, with a little help from jaguar mentor, Bagheera (Ben Kingsley) and loyal bear, Baloo (Bill Murray). Scarlett Johansson co-stars as snake, Kaa while Christopher Walken is orangutan leader, King Louie.
Helen Mirren, Aaron Paul and Alan Rickman (in his final live-action screen performance) star in this gripping, suspenseful thriller. For years, Operation Cobra has been tracking the movements of a radicalised, British woman who joined Somali-terrorist group, Al-Shabab in Kenya. Now she’s finally in their sights, her capture is set to be observed by Lieutenant General Frank Benson (Rickman) within a briefing room of a London Cabinet Office. However, everything changes when commanding officer, Colonel Katherine Powell (Mirren) learns that an imminent suicide bombing is being planned in the target’s house, changing the mission from “capture” to “kill, and to make matters worse, a US Drone Pilot (Paul) spots a little girl in the kill zone . . .
Fresh from his enormous “Deadpool” success, Ryan Reynolds stars opposite Kevin Costner, Tommy Lee Jones and Gary Oldman in this tense thriller. Jericho Stewart (Costner) is a dangerous ex-con serving a life sentence on death row. However, he may unwittingly be The CIA’s only hope of foiling a deadly terrorist plot, one that has already claimed the life of Agent Bill Pope (Reynolds). Stewart is chosen as a guinea pig for a ground-breaking procedure where Pope’s memories, secrets and skills are implanted into his body, allowing the criminal to use the dead agent’s knowledge and complete the mission. However, the lines between Stewart and Pope become increasingly blurred, and success seems improbable . . .
We got our first look at the forthcoming, “Rogue One : A Star Wars Story” film earlier this week, with the release of the exclusive trailer. The movie stars Felicity Jones, Mads Mikkelsen and Forest Whitaker, and is set shortly before the events of 1977’s “Star Wars : A New Hope”, focusing on a group of Rebel spies on a mission to steal The Galactic Empire’s new weapon, The Death Star. The movie is the first stand-alone of the “Star Wars” franchise is and is scheduled for release in December 2016.
Gutter Gig Guide : 06/07/16
Signed by: John Bohl
in Gutter UK tags: Cinema Film The Jungle Book Idris Elba Scarlett Johansson Bill Murray Eye In The Sky Helen Mirren Alan Rickman Aaron Paul Criminal Ryan Reynolds Kevin Costner Star Wars Rogue One
« Live & Local :14/04/2016
Gutter Gig Guide : 20/04/2016 »
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Imperial Pacific opening more VIP gaming in late 2017
Aug 28, 2017 Newsdesk Latest News, Top of the deck, World
Hong Kong-listed gaming investor Imperial Pacific International Holdings Ltd on Friday announced it plans to open more VIP gaming rooms by the end of 2017 at its casino project on the Pacific island of Saipan.
Imperial Pacific has the right to an exclusive casino licence on Saipan, the main island of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), a United States jurisdiction. The company began on July 6 gaming operations at its Imperial Pacific Resort (pictured). Previously it had been running an interim facility called Best Sunshine Live.
“With the gaming capacity to be further enhanced, we expect to commence collaboration with gaming promoters after they are granted junket operator licences… on the Island of Saipan,” the firm stated in its unaudited interim report for the six months to June 30.
“Due to CNMI’s low tax regime, we believe we will be able to offer very competitive commission rates to our gaming promoters,” it added.
For the first half of 2017, Imperial Pacific posted a net profit of HKD912.0 million (US$116.6 million), up 8.9 percent from the prior-year period. The company reported adjusted earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of HKD1.62 billion, up 26.2 percent from a year earlier.
Gross revenue for the period increased by 83.1 percent year-on-year to HKD7.30 billion, principally contributed by the casino gaming operations, said Imperial Pacific. The company reported gross gaming revenue (GGR) of HKD7.27 billion for the first six months of 2017, compared to HKD3.97 billion a year earlier.
The firm said its casino continued to achieve “significant monthly VIP table games rolling and growth of revenue”. During the six months to June 30, unaudited VIP table games rolling stood at approximately HKD196.3 billion, up 55.4 percent compared to a year earlier.
VIP GGR for the first half of 2017 was HKD7.09 billion, with a win percentage of 3.61 percent, said the company. “Our VIP customers primarily consist of credit players. Geographically, most of our direct VIP patrons are from China, Hong Kong, Macau, [South] Korea and Saipan,” the firm noted.
Imperial Pacific added: “A significant portion of our VIP casino customers is sourced through the group’s own marketing avenues. Such high-spending VIP players generally receive commission and allowances based on a percentage of the rolling chip turnover.”
The firm paid commissions of HKD2.54 billion during the reporting period, an increase of 87.6 percent from a year earlier.
The company additionally said its operating expenses increased by 207.7 percent year-on-year, to HKD2.92 billion.
“The increase is mainly attributable to the increase in impairment of trade receivables in accordance with the group’s normal provision of bad debt policy and management’s consideration of individually impaired trade receivables which are unlikely to be recovered,” said Imperial Pacific. The firm reported impairment of trade receivables of HKD2.08 billion.
Imperial Pacific said earlier this month that it was seeking to raise an aggregate of HKD400 million from two bond placements “for the development of phase one of the Saipan project”. The company had said it aims to complete next year the construction of the first guest accommodation at Imperial Pacific Resort. Once finished, the hotel would offer 329 suites and 15 villas.
In the latest interim report, Imperial Pacific said its board acknowledged “certain delay in construction mainly due to labour issue caused by the main contractor and several subcontractors and to a lesser extent unfavourable weather conditions”. The company added: “However, with the construction work already back on track, the board believes that the issue will soon be resolved and cease hindering the progress of the project.”
Macau govt leaves door open to casino...
Macau gaming jobs down in first half,...
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Family’s Holiday Park Is A Natural Winner
ABOVE: Moss Wood Park’s winning team members are (from left) marketing co-ordinator Neil Darby; seasonal warden Dave Dean; seasonal warden Sue Partington; groundskeeper Chris Peacock, and wardens Sandra and Ian Stokes
Moss Wood has been heralded as Lancashire’s torch-bearer for businesses with a conscience. Judges in the Lancashire Tourism Awards named the family-run park as first place in the ‘ethical, responsible and sustainable’ category of the awards, beating a strong line-up of contenders from across the North West. It means that Moss Wood will now be fast-tracked through to the national VisitEngland Awards for Excellence later this year in the same category. An awards ceremony, held at Blackpool’s Pleasure Beach Arena, was attended by tourism and business chiefs from across Lancashire.
Henry Wild accepted the award on behalf of his father Syd who first started the park over 40 years ago, and who still plays an active part in its running. Moss Wood, judges said, puts sustainability and care for the countryside at the heart of its business culture, bringing great benefits to the natural environment. The park was also praised for the way it encourages holiday guests and members of the local community, especially children, to engage with nature and to help protect its wildlife.
Henry Wild said that everyone was absolutely delighted to have taken the top sustainability prize: “We are very fortunate to be able to attract staff who share our enthusiasm for the natural world, and for doing everything possible to protect our flora and fauna. “Their knowledge and skills mean we are never short of new ideas for safeguarding wildlife, and for helping youngsters to enjoy making new outdoor discoveries,” Henry continue. “Our family feels very privileged to live and work in this beautiful part of rural Lancashire, and I hope this award will help raise awareness of its very special qualities,” he added.
Moss Wood provides holiday homes to buy as well as pitches for touring caravans and motorhomes. The park has been presented with the David Bellamy Conservation Award at its top gold level for more than 20 consecutive years, recognising its raft of conservation initiatives. These include a recently created 1.5km nature discovery trail, and a 3000 square-foot wild flower wilderness providing vital foraging for honey bees and butterflies.
There is also a spring-fed lake at Moss Wood which acts as a magnet for birdlife, dragonflies, water fowl and a host of other different aquatic species. In addition, the park plays host to thousands of bees in hives on its grounds, and supports bee-keeping charities with the sale of its own artisan beer produced by a local micro-brewery.
← Wish You Were Here? Beachcombers Idyll With Winter Walking Breaks
Bright Lights →
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Hotel Solutions has been working with Hampshire County Council since 2001 on an ongoing Hotel Futures Programme for Hampshire. Six Hotel Futures Studies have been undertaken over the past 14 years, the most recent in 2015. More detailed sites assessment and planning policy guidance work has also been undertaken for individual local authorities in the county. The County Council has also run a series of hotel investment seminars to disseminate the findings of the Hotel Futures Programme to local authority officers in the county.
More than twenty new hotels have opened in Hampshire since the Hotel Futures Programme first started. Many of these have been influenced by the data that has been produced through the Programme. The work has been particularly valuable in the north of Hampshire where a large undersupply was identified, and where hotel development has since come forward, with 5 new hotels now open in Farnborough, Fleet and Aldershot.
Following the 2013 study, a programme of forward action has been put in place which Hotel Solutions was commissioned to lead on behalf of the Council. This included a roadshow of presentations and workshops for city, district and borough councils in locations where hotel shortages and potential for intervention were identified, followed by a hotel investment event in London which attracted over 30 hotel developers, operators and investors. Further work has been undertaken in 2015 to update the hotel performance and market information for Southampton, Portsmouth, Fareham, Gosport and Havant to support ongoing hotel investment marketing activity for these destinations. Hotel Solutions has also been working with Portsmouth City Council to identify hotel sites in the city and bring them to the attention of the target brands that the City Council is keen to attract to Portsmouth. We are currently in discussions with Hampshire County Council, Rushmoor Borough Council and Farnborough International Ltd about progressing a Hotel Development Strategy for Farnborough during 2016.
‘Hampshire County Council has worked with Hotel Solutions since 2001 on the Hampshire Hotel Development Initiative. We and our district and unitary colleagues have always been impressed with the professionalism of both Lynn and Andrew and their ability to produce detailed but digestible insights into the performance of Hampshire’s hotel sector and then help deliver tangible investments from hotel developers. The 20+ new hotels and numerous hotel extensions in Hampshire since 2001 would not have happened without their help’.
Andrew Bateman, Tourism Manager, Hampshire County Council
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ICTs: Reducing the Effects of Climate Change on Mozambique's Urban Poor
In Africa, local governments in coastal cities are turning to Information and Communication Technology (ICT), like SMS texting and GIS mapping, to help lessen and, when possible, prevent the severe effects of climate change-induced disasters.
Labels: Africa, climate change, Economic Analysis, ICT, ICT4D, Innovation, Madagascar, Mozambique, Poverty Reduction, SMS, Urbanization
Digital Habitats - a book worth reading
Technology has changed what it means for communities to “be together.” Digital tools are now part of most communities’ habitats. This book develops a new literacy and language to describe the practice of stewarding technology for communities. Whether you want to ground your technology stewardship in theory and deepen your practice, whether you are a community leader or sponsor who wants to understand how communities and technology intersect, or whether you just want practical advice, this is the book for you.
Written by Etienne Wenger, Nancy White and John D. Smith, the book brings together conceptual thinking, case studies and offers a guide for understanding how technology can help a community do what it wants to do. It gives a glimpse into the future as community and technology continue to affect and influence each other.
Labels: Communities of Practice, CoP, digital, ICT, ICT4D, m-development, Web 2, web 2.0, web2.0, web2fordev
The power of information: Map Kibera uses GIS, SMS, video and the web to gather community data
The Map Kibera project works with young people from one of Africa’s biggest slums. They use GIS, SMS, video and the web to gather data and make it available to the community, where it can be applied to influence policies related to the area.
Located just five kilometres from the capital of Kenya, Nairobi, the residents of Kibera have grown accustomed to the many foreign experts visiting their community to conduct surveys and ask questions for yet another data collection initiative. As one of the largest slum areas in Africa, it draws staff from development organisations, research institutes and NGOs from all over the world.
As all these organisations and researchers generate more and more documents and project reports about Kibera, very little of the information gathered is ever made available to the 250,000 people who live there. Access to the data would give the people of Kibera the chance to present their own view of the living conditions in the community. They would be able to influence public policy to achieve improvements to the facilities that they believe are important.
In 2009, Erica Hagen, a specialist in the use of new media for development, and Mikel Maron, a digital mapping expert, started Map Kibera to help residents use mapping technology to gather information about their community. For the initial phase of the project, they recruited 13 local young people, aged between 19 to 34, including five women and eight men, from each village in Kibera.
The participants received two days training on how to use handheld GPS receivers to gather location data, and an introduction to using the specialised software in a computer lab. The team was supported by five GIS professionals from Nairobi who had volunteered their time. The participants then spent three weeks walking along the roads, pathways and rail tracks with their GPS receivers recoding the location data. They collected more specific information on water and sewage locations, education, religious and business locations, as well as anything else the participants deemed useful.
Rather than create a stand-alone map, the location data gathered by the project was added to the open source project OpenStreetMap, which is a crowdsourced map made by volunteers around the world. Map Kibera contributed to filling their part of OpenStreetMap, which would also make the information available to more people, and help to raise the profile of the project.
The team also wanted to add a multimedia aspect to the maps, by including video footage of points of interest from around Kibera, and uploading them to YouTube. Three members of Carolina for Kibera (CFK), affiliated with the University of North Carolina, assisted with the filming and helped to document the map making process using small camcorders.
The young people involved in the project developed a sense of achievement as they learned the new skills, and gained confidence in using new technologies. They also began to see the value of the information they were collecting and to understand the impact it could have on their community. However, it was not so easy to convince other residents.
There was a lot of cynicism in the local community caused by the NGOs who had previously come to Kibera but never shared their information. People were, therefore, reluctant to be filmed and photographed. Although the GPS data gathering was less intrusive, the technology presented other difficulties.
The lack of reliable power and inadequate internet access in Kibera were major challenges, especially when it came to uploading large video files to the web, which can take a long time. The slow internet connection also made it difficult to update security software on the computers, leaving them vulnerable to damaging viruses.
These were challenges that could be overcome in time, but for the project to be a real success, it would have to show that it could provide useful information to the community. The mapping project was, therefore, expanded to incorporate public participation geographic information systems (PPGIS) to gather information on specific issues affecting the residents of Kibera.
The group focused on collecting detailed data on four sectors: health, security, education, and water and sanitation. In February 2010, Map Kibera developed a partnership with UNICEF and added a fifth topic: mapping girls’ security. The aim here was to get the girls’ views on possible threats to their security, along with location information, for use in compiling data on their vulnerability to HIV/Aids.
Nine mappers collected data on the five topics using paper forms, gathering, for example, details of the costs and services offered at clinics and chemists in the area. To further encourage community involvement and get feedback on the information gathered, the team produced printed versions of maps for each area and placed transparencies on top so that residents could make changes and additions as necessary. Map Kibera also involved other interested organisations working in the health and security sectors in the area, including African Medical and Research Foundation and a women's group called Kibera Power Women.
As well as making the maps and multimedia available online, Map Kibera looked for other ways for the community to use the information gathered. For instance, the video material filmed as part of the mapping exercises could also be used to present news stories of the area. This idea expanded and the team worked with two youth from Kibera, who already had film-making experience.
They trained 18 young people to use small ‘ultra-portable’ Flip video cameras and the software to help them share their efforts on the web. This led to Kibera News Network (KNN), a citizen journalism initiative to present features and news stories affecting Kibera, showing positive aspects of the area and providing accurate coverage of negative events.
Mainstream media often focused on the misery and negativity in Kibera. The only events certain to attract mainstream media attention were clashes with the police or when the trains that run along the area’s peripheries were disrupted. Map Kibera attempts to change the perception of Kibera by allowing people to create and share their own stories.
The KNN teams edit the videos themselves and post them on YouTube – giving them a direct and immediate link to a global audience. The videos are also available on the Voice of Kibera, a community news website that also hosts the digital map. Residents can even post their own geo-located stories to the map using SMS.
Map Kibera used the open source tool, Ushahidi, to make the contributions via SMS possible. Ushahidi was initially developed after the 2008 Kenyan elections, to track reports of violence. It is a tool for crowdsourcing information using, e-mail, Twitter and the web as well as SMS. When someone in Kibera contributes an article, an SMS gateway filters the incoming texts according to keywords. Messages with the keyword ‘Kibera’ are fed into the Voice of Kibera website, where they are mapped using GPS coordinates, and approved by the editor before finally appearing on the site.
In 2010, the team founded the GroundTruth Initiative to support Map Kibera and other future projects. In the same year, UN Habitat awarded Map Kibera with a youth fund grant to expand its work to other parts of Nairobi, leading to co-operation with the community in another slum, Mukuru. A group in Mathare Valley, the second-largest slum in Nairobi, was also interested in creating a similar project, and, through funding from Plan International, a team is now collaborating on a participatory development programme there.
The Map Kibera Trust, which has a core membership of 30 young people, is working with similar communities in other parts of Kenya, and in Tanzania. A core aim of the Trust is to not only make people aware of openly available technology and information, but also to train local people to use them to benefit the community. The information now available to the residents of Kibera has caused a shift in power, providing them with reliable data to present their own case, and enabling to directly influence the policies that affect their lives.
By Erica Hagen and Mikel Maron
Article re-published with permission from ICT Update
Erica Hagen is a freelance writer, photographer, videographer and specialist on new media for development.
Mikel Maron is co-director of GroundTruth Initiative, and board member of OpenStreetMap Foundation
Kibera News Network
Labels: advocacy, Africa, geoweb, GIS, GPS, ICT, ICT4D, Kenya, kibera, map kibera, mapping, mobile, online mapping, pgis, ppgis, SMS, web2.0, web2fordev
Location: Kibera, Nairobi, Kenya
Climate Change and African Political Stability dynamic mapping tool released
The Strauss Center’s Climate Change and African Political Stability (CCAPS) program and AidData recently released a dynamic mapping tool that allows for analysis of climate change and conflict across Africa, plus development assistance in Malawi. The mapping tool uses Esri’s ArcGIS platform to enable users to select and layer combinations of CCAPS data onto one map. It also shows how conflict dynamics are changing over time and space. This tool provides an interactive medium for researchers to explore how climate change vulnerability and conflict interact, and in Malawi, to see how aid is distributed across different areas.
CCAPS climate security vulnerability data provides information on four sources of vulnerability: physical exposure to climate-related hazards, population density, household and community resilience, and governance and political violence. Chronic climate security vulnerability is located where these four sources of vulnerability conjoin.
Labels: caaps, climate change, conflict, dynamic mapping, geoweb, mapping, online mapping, ppgis, vulnerability, webmapping
Accelerating Development Using the Web: Empowering Poor and Marginalized Populations
The World Wide Web Foundation has published Accelerating Development Using the Web: Empowering Poor and Marginalized Populations. Supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, the book is a compendium of articles by recognized experts describing the real and potential effects of the World Wide Web in all major aspects of economic and social development.
The book fills a gap in the current store of knowledge by taking a broad view, offering detailed commentary from fourteen experts who are deeply engaged in the field of ICTs for development, many with extensive experience in developing countries, and each able to emphasize the key questions, challenges, and successes unique to their field.
The research unites themes of technological innovation, international development, economic growth, gender equality, linguistic and cultural diversity and community action, with special attention paid to the circumstances surrounding the poor and vulnerable members of the Global Information Society.
Readers will be able to draw parallels across each field and see where similarities in the deployment of ICTs for development exist and where there are divergences.
Labels: e-learning, gender, ICT, ICT4D, m-development, mobile, web 2.0, web2, web2.0, web2fordev
Aerial Photography and Image Interpretation - third edition published
Extensively revised to address today's technological advances, Aerial Photography and Image Interpretation, Third Edition offers a thorough survey of the technology, techniques, processes, and methods used to create and interpret aerial photographs.
The new edition also covers other forms of remote sensing with topics that include the most current information on orthophotography (including digital), soft copy photogrammetry, digital image capture and interpretation, GPS, GIS, small format aerial photography, statistical analysis and thematic mapping errors, and more.
A basic introduction is also given to nonphotographic and space-based imaging platforms and sensors, including Landsat, lidar, thermal, and multispectral.
This new Third Edition features:
Additional coverage of the specialized camera equipment used in aerial photography
A strong focus on aerial photography and image interpretation, allowing for a much more thorough presentation of the techniques, processes, and methods than is possible in the broader remote sensing texts currently available Straightforward, user-friendly writing style
Expanded coverage of digital photography
Test questions and summaries for quick review at the end of each chapter
Written in a straightforward style supplemented with hundreds of photographs and illustrations, Aerial Photography and Image Interpretation, Third Edition is the most in-depth resource for undergraduate students and professionals in such fields as forestry, geography, environmental science, archaeology, resource management, surveying, civil and environmental engineering, natural resources, and agriculture.
Also available in Kindle edition
The late David P. Paine was Professor Emeritus in the Department of Forest Engineering, Resources, and Management at Oregon State University.
James D. Kiser is an Assistant Professor and Head Undergraduate Advisor in the Department of Forest Engineering, Resources, and Management at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon.??He is also a Certified Photogrammetrist.
Labels: aerial photography, book, GIS, Google Earth Outreach, GPS, ICT, ICT4D, image interpretation, mapping, photogrammetry, ppgis, publication, remote sensing
Upcoming Google Mapping Technology Workshop
Last year, Google Earth Outreach partnered with the Institute at the Golden Gate to convene 80 environmental leaders spanning 40 organizations and train them how to use mapping technology to create powerful visual messages.
You can read more about that workshop in this blog post. The response to last year’s workshop was so overwhelming that the Institute at the Golden Gate has decided to host a second annual workshop.
This year, the Institute will bring back trained alumni and several Google mapping trainers from the Google Earth Outreach team to train a new cohort of environmental leaders.
The organisers encourage interested parties to apply for this free, for the two-day interactive training workshop.
What: Mapping Environmental Scenarios & Solutions with Google Technology
When: March 19 and 20, 2012, 8:30 am–5 pm
Where: Cavallo Point–the Lodge at the Golden Gate, Fort Baker, Sausalito, CA
To find out more and apply, visit http://sites.google.com/site/iggworkshop2012
The deadline for applications is February 17, 2012.
Source: The Google Earth Outreach Team
http://earth.google.com/outreach
Labels: Google Earth Outreach, mapping. Google Earth, pgis, ppgis, training
Location: Sausalito, CA, USA
GIS improves rainfall data collection and information services in West Africa
Climate researchers have developed a system that uses GIS, computers, and the internet to improve rainfall data management and information delivery to farmers in West Africa.
Sub-Saharan Africa is highly dependent on rainfall. More than 90% of the land is used for farming, very little of which is irrigated. Despite this reliance on rainfall, there are relatively few monitoring stations in the region that gather the data that farmers need to plan their seasonal cultivation processes. Even in areas where rainfall data are collected, several weeks can pass before the information is processed and made available in a form that is useful to farmers.
To speed up and simplify the data collection and management procedures, a team of researchers from the University of Oklahoma has developed a geographic information system (GIS) that monitors rainfall and its seasonal patterns. Known as Rainwatch, the system can also automatically generate visual representations of the data that can be easily interpreted by interested parties, including farmers.
The team has initially tested Rainwatch in Niger, where the Direction de la Météorologie Nationale du Niger (DMNN) is responsible for monitoring weather and climate. The country suffered a severe drought in 2009, followed by its wettest year in a generation in 2010, and then a return to severe rainfall deficiencies in 2011. Although there are more than 200 stations in Niger’s rainfall monitoring network, most are ‘rain gauge only’ sites maintained by volunteer observers. They report rainfall data to DMNN’s operations office in Niamey once a day by telephone or radio. Only 14 stations transmit data on an hourly basis throughout the year, using telex and phone.
From these data, DMNN compiles rainfall reports that are broadcast on national and local radio and on national television – although TV reception is limited to the major urban areas. DMNN also publishes regular bulletins for the country’s eight provinces, and shares data with policy makers and the national committee for early warning and disaster management systems (Comité Nationale du Systeme d’Alerte Précoce et de Gestion des Catastrophes).
Although rainfall levels are broadcast on radio daily, it can take up to two weeks before DMNN releases data that have undergone any kind of analysis. Users of rainfall data outside the research community are not interested in exact rainfall statistics. Most farmers and other groups who depend on rainfall prefer qualitative information relating to previous seasonal patterns. Farmers, for example, simply want to know if the weather is dry, wet, or normal for the time of year. A long delay in delivering processed data means they cannot rely on the information, and cannot plan ahead.
Rainwatch was developed to alleviate such limitations, and improve the way rainfall data is collected, managed and disseminated throughout West Africa. The system consists of a database and a program that customises several functions of ArcGIS and MapObjects software. The database is linked to a graphics feature, which automatically updates the related charts and graphs as new data are added. The software adaptations make it easy for the user to process and view the data, and prepare it for publication and distribution.
When users log on to Rainwatch, they see a map showing the geographic locations of rainfall monitoring stations throughout the country. Users can click on the relevant icon to view the rainfall data for a particular station, then choose to compare the figures for a particular period of time against the median or with other years or even with the results from other stations. The user can then use the program to produce a variety of graphics to illustrate the data.
The number of sites and/or years that can be seen simultaneously is limited only by the amount of information on the database. Users can also request further analyses of the data to show the frequency and intensity of rainfall in certain areas, or view the occurrence of dry spells; information that is especially useful to farmers.
The results are, of course, only as good as the data. Rainwatch works best and provides the most accurate analyses when an optimum number of observers regularly contribute data to the system. By simplifying the data management processes, Rainwatch could be the catalyst needed for many countries to improve their rainfall monitoring procedures. The researchers hope the system will be adopted more widely throughout West Africa where other more complicated rainfall data dissemination systems have had limited success.
Rainwatch uses self-explanatory symbols and easy-to-understand terminology. When the system was tested, new users quickly became comfortable and could navigate their way through its processes within ten minutes. The test users also found it easy to follow the system’s logic, and fully understand and interpret the graphics they produced.
Based on feedback from users so far, the research team is developing an updated version of the program. Users suggested including a feature that would trigger an early warning system once rainfall, or lack of it, reached a certain threshold. Users also wanted to be able to export data to spreadsheets easily for further analysis. The upgraded Rainwatch will also include other climatic variables, such as temperature, streamflow, and soil moisture – which are linked to activities like irrigation scheduling.
Another important change will be to make Rainwatch compatible with free GIS software. This will make it available to users who cannot afford the product licence for the ArcGIS program, something that has been required up to now. A lower cost version of the system would make it possible to train more observers and equip observation stations throughout the region, which could act as local weather information centres. Providing more localised services could lead to farmers having a greater awareness of rainfall data, and a higher likelihood of being able to use the information. With all these improvements, the researchers hope that Rainwatch will become the African counterpart to Australia’s Rainman rainfall monitoring software.
The current version of the system is mainly suited for use by national meteorological services, and organisations such as the African Centre of Meteorological Applications for Development (ACMAD) based in Niamey, Niger. These centres could rapidly process and share their analyses with the media, researchers, educational institutions and agricultural extension services.
There are already plans to expand the use of Rainwatch beyond Niger. Starting in 2010, the long-term plan is to develop it into a web-based application that would be available to anyone with internet access. It could then be used alongside other climate information initiatives, using radio or cell phones, for example, to deliver weather details to people in rural communities.
The researchers believe that Rainwatch can especially benefit national meteorological services by improving the automation of rainfall data collection and database management. The ability to produce easily interpreted charts and graphics increases the likelihood that the information is distributed to more people. These are critical features in reducing the time lag between collecting the data and delivering it to farmers, and providing it in a format to help them adapt to a changing climate.
Aondover Tarhule
Zakari Saley-Bana
Peter J. Lamb
Reposted with permission from ICT Update
Adapting to risk: Communities use GIS and GPS to assess climate risks in the Cook Islands
A local NGO tested an innovative participatory mapping approach to help communities in the Cook Islands assess climate risks. The resulting maps highlighted vulnerable areas, allowing the communities to develop strategies to adapt to climate change.
Extreme weather events, such as tropical cyclones, long periods of drought, sea level rise and higher temperatures, lead to loss of soil fertility and land degradation, reducing food security in farming communities. The Cook Islands, like many small islands, are highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and sea level rise. They comprise small land masses surrounded by ocean, and are located in a region prone to natural disasters.
With limited long-term meteorological data available, it is difficult to make accurate predictions on how climate change will affect the Cook Islands. However, there is consensus that the region is likely to experience more frequent extreme weather events, including floods, droughts, periods of extreme heat, an increase in cyclone intensity, increased climate variability and rise in sea levels.
Observations by Pacific Island communities indicate that predicted climate change effects are being experienced, and are causing considerable social, economic and environmental pressures. The ability of the communities to adapt to a changing climate is generally low, due to lack of information and awareness of the potential effects of changing weather patterns. Traditional natural resource management practices, however, still practiced in some parts of the Cook Islands, provide important tools for resilience in the face of environmental change.
In response to growing concerns about the possible effects of changing weather patterns, a local NGO, Te Rito Enua (TRE), tested the use of participatory GIS to assess climate vulnerability and adaptation planning in the Cook Islands. Together with the country’s government and with the support of the Asian Development Bank, TRE worked with four communities on the islands of Rarotonga and Aitutaki.
Both islands face similar problems of water shortages, deforestation and soil erosion as a result of climate change. Their terrain, however, is quite different. Rarotonga, the most populous island in the country, is mountainous, steep and heavily forested. Aitutaki is mainly atoll and lagoon, and so is flatter with some steeper land on the remains of the submerged volcano around which the atoll formed.
The project began in 2010, and lasted 10 months. In that time, TER worked with the communities to develop the practical tools and skills necessary to produce their own specific climate risk analysis. The organisation gave training courses in participatory mapping, with components in vulnerability and risk assessment, climate models, GPS and GIS, and map interpretation.
Participants, mostly volunteers, came from a cross-section of the community demography, ranging from school-aged youth to elders, including community leaders, resource users and professional resource managers. As a result of the training, all participants had a basic knowledge of the methods to be employed in the project, which they used to collect data from the field, and record assets that could be included later on maps.
This data, which participants within their own frame of reference, helped them identify issues that could affect the vulnerability of individual households and their wider community. They looked at facilities such as energy provision, water supply, sanitation services, port facilities and even civil defence. Important risks associated with climate change were identified through the assessment and mapping processes that were neither considered nor evident during national-level vulnerability assessments. One example is the waste management facilities situated near the pilot communities. Runoff from these landfill sites at times of heavy rain can adversely affect the adjoining aquatic ecosystems. The communities rely heavily on these vulnerable coastal resources for their livelihoods, and so future waste management solutions need to include these considerations at the early planning stages.
Additionally, the mapping information showed that disaster response shelters are often placed in areas vulnerable to sea-level rise and storm surge inundation. Also, some households could experience a shortage of water as the climate changes, which will mean enhanced water conservation measures, such as developing programmes for better rainwater harvesting. Rarotonga in particular is dependent upon surface water supplies for domestic consumption and has suffered periodic water shortages in recent years as sources have dried up. Another significant factor revealed by the project was the extent of invasive plant species in the environment. Observers had noticed that the watersheds of both Rarotonga and Aitutaki were infested with Cardiospermum grandiflorum (balloon vine), Merremia peltata (kurima), and Mikania micrantha (mile-a-minute weed). Rising levels of carbon dioxide create conditions that promote the growth of such invasive plants, and because their spread is facilitated by cyclones, it appears likely that they will continue to thrive as the climate changes, with – as yet – unknown implications for biodiversity and for water security. Available evidence shows that the species are having a devastating impact on the native vegetation and natural watershed systems. The implications for water supply in this already water-stressed country are not clear, but are a cause for concern.
After the data collection phase, the project team integrated the information into existing government GIS files to highlight areas where a changing climate could potentially affect the environment. The resulting map layers were combined with information from a climate model commonly used for planning in the region. The new data were shared with the government to be integrated into their GIS database and made accessible to the National Environment Service, and relevant ministries. Each community received a paper map, known as a ‘vulnerability atlas’, showing the information specific to their area. The project team also facilitated meetings to discuss the implications of the mapping and the surveying process, and to gauge community perceptions of climate change. These discussions identified the main risks and developed plans for priority actions. Each community set up a Climate Change and Disaster Committee to ensure the plans would be followed. In some instances, the communities identified traditional practices, including organic farming and resource management methods, as having considerable value as adaptation measures to reduce the greatest climate change risks. One example was the traditional ra'ui system of resource allocation, which two communities identified as a way to improve the resilience of vulnerable water resources. Communities in Aitutaki also suggested promoting traditional building practices and styles, which could help mitigate the effects of the anticipated increase in extreme heat events.
Some community participants were initially sceptical about the project, because they felt that the government had already mapped everything that was important. However, once they were able to re-envision maps, and given access to mapping tools, the communities became enthusiastic. As one of the senior participants of the Aitutaki planning process observed, ‘I've lived on the island most of my life, and have today seen things I’ve never noticed before.’
Being able to participate in the production of maps that were explicitly for and about them gradually led to discussions on their social and physical environment that went well beyond the more obvious dimensions of climate change and climate adaptation. The discussions touched on deeper social issues such as cultural erosion, loss of language, unsustainable resource use, invasive species and out-migration.
Planning for climate adaptation became a way of framing the broader suite of development issues. Because of this, the communities were able to take ownership of mapping their environment and the assets within it that are important to their identity and survival.
The project showed that a community-based participatory approach is a valuable tool for bringing the reality of climate change to bear at the local and household level. A process of discussing, debating, and problem solving produces more resilient communities that are more able to organise themselves and prepare for a changing climate.
Not only does participatory mapping provide communities with tangible evidence of the risks associated with climate change, but the community mapping process also highlights behavioural and development issues that affect the vulnerability of individual households and the community at large. There was a discernable sense of empowerment by participating communities in developing vulnerability maps and having them available. Without exception, all the pilot communities requested printed copies of the vulnerability atlases for display in public places to engender support for change and implementation of their proposed action plans.
Measures to build upon this project would include using the existing capacity as an emerging centre of excellence. The centre’s prime role would be to educate trainers to improve the ability of community mapping practitioners to convey techniques and best practices to other communities.
To overcome the bottleneck in trained personnel, and the high costs of using commercial products, the training of young and motivated community members in open source GIS products, such as Q-GIS, will make the adoption of this technology for community mapping possible. A regional facility to build capacity for community mapping and access to remote sensing analysis will go far towards helping Pacific island communities to adapt to climate change.
The project found that the participatory processes generated local knowledge unavailable to high-level planners. The process also generated a strong sense of ownership of the outcomes by communities, and increased the knowledge and awareness of participants about climate change risks and the implications for their families and communities. Finally, it increased the skills needed to develop more communities that are more resilient.
This approach allows adaptation strategies to be developed from the bottom-up – from the family through to the community, island and eventually the national level – at the same time as the national strategy is developed from the top down.
It should be noted, of course, that a community-based approach is no substitute for a technically rigorous national approach to climate change. Some important technical issues lie outside the competency of communities, and the scale can be too great; a patchwork of community approaches could potentially result in the geographic division of responsibilities that require a more unified approach. For example, ecosystem-based approaches require interventions at ecosystem scales.
However, it is also clear that the communities are not fully engaged on the realities of climate change. This is clearly an issue of environmental awareness and ownership. Climate change issues have so far been the 'government's role' in the eyes of many communities, largely due to government officials being the ones engaged in the climate debate and conducting climate change vulnerability and adaptation activities.
Linking the national efforts to local communities, therefore, is best demonstrated through the community-based approach of site-specific adaptation planning. Adaptation thus becomes everyone’s business.
John Waugh
Mona Matepi
George de Romilly
Labels: GIS, GPS, mapping, Pacific, pgis, ppgis
Web 2.0 in Africa - Agriculture and New Technologies - Web2forDev
An eight minute Business Africa/CTA video production documenting actual cases on the use of Web 2.0 applications in the development sector, specifically among farmers in Africa.
Labels: Africa, extension, farmers, ICT, ICT4D, Uganda, web 2.0, web2, web2.0, web2fordev
Top Seven Reasons Why Most ICT4D Projects Fail
Dr. Clint Rogers shares interviews and insights from Teachers and Professionals around Africa for why they feel most ICT4D Projects FAIL? Included are important questions for reflection and discussion. Let's not waste time and money doing the same things that don't work -- Join the discussion, Your thoughts matter... http://www.clintrogersonline.com Much of the film was captured at the ICT4D Poverty Reduction Summit and this video was first released for the 2010 IPID Meeting, later presented at the European Union EDULINK Stakeholders Event Thank you for your help in translating!
Labels: failure, ICT, ICT4D, success
ICTs: Reducing the Effects of Climate Change on Mo...
The power of information: Map Kibera uses GIS, SMS...
Climate Change and African Political Stability dyn...
Accelerating Development Using the Web: Empowering...
Aerial Photography and Image Interpretation - thir...
GIS improves rainfall data collection and informat...
Adapting to risk: Communities use GIS and GPS to a...
Web 2.0 in Africa - Agriculture and New Technologi...
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The Statistical Institute of Catalonia (Idescat) offers information in relation to the names of babies born in Catalonia. This information is similar to that provided by other statistical institutes in Europe, which include the Belgium's National Institute of Statistics, Norway?s National Statistics Institute, and the Spanish National Statistics Institute (INE).
This database shows the frequency of the different names of boys and girls. The data can be viewed by searching for a specific name and finding out how frequently it appears in the population as a whole. This information can be obtained for the whole of Catalonia, by provinces, by areas of the Territorial Plan and by counties, and also by sex and year of birth.
It should be explained that the source used to produce the database of children's names contains the names in capital letters without accents. This means that in some cases it is not possible to differentiate between names in Catalan and Spanish, when the accent is the only differentiating feature.
This affects, for example, the ranking of names of babies. Maria also includes María, while Anna is treated differently to Ana.
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:: adgruntie :: Place this
+ Product placement brought to you by the middleman. An interesting article from the NY Times on the growing business that is product placement.
The new emphasis on product placement in television has brought new players into the business - brand wranglers who work with programmers and advertisers. They are pushing the placement, which they like to call "brand integration," into new territory, sometimes acting as co-producers and even building new programming around the brands.
"There's been a gold rush that reminds me of the Internet 10 years ago," said Scott Donaton, editor of Advertising Age and the author of "Madison & Vine," a book about the convergence of the entertainment and advertising industries. "Many went to the advertisers and said, 'You can't handle Hollywood. Let me do it for you.' Then they went to the networks and promised to handle the advertisers."
Some of the new integrators are traditional product placement firms, while others are advertising agencies that have started entertainment divisions. New companies devoted to product integration have also popped up. All see the chance to profit from the growing closeness between programmers and advertisers, who have been forced to band together to counter falling ratings, a fragmented audience and new technology like digital video recorders that allow viewers to skip traditional commercials altogether.
Personally, I don't mind some product placement. Although there are some shows which don't beat around the bush when it comes to product placement. The product ends up in front of the camera so much, it's way too obvious. There are some where it's like they are hitting you over the head with product X. I think being in the business I sometimes notice the placements more than other people. Sometimes it reminds me of that scene from Wayne's World. And apparently, the music industry is getting in on the action too.
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College Students and Disability Law
By: Stephen B. Thomas
Today, there are more students with documented disabilities in higher education than ever before -- 140,142 freshmen reported having a disability in 1996 (HEATH Resource Center, 1998). That figure represents over 9% of all freshmen (HEATH Resource Center, 1998), as compared with only 2.6% in 1978 (HEATH Resource Center, 1995). Although the process has been slow, colleges and universities (hereafter referred to as 11 colleges") have made their programs more and more accessible, sometimes in good faith, sometimes due to coercion by federal agencies and courts. Only modest progress was made between 1973 (the passage of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act) and 1990 (the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act; ADA); however, once the ADA was passed and amended and regulations were promulgated, institutions that had made little or no progress in making their buildings and programs accessible increased their efforts. Presumably, this increase in part is because of the slightly broader coverage of the ADA, publicity surrounding the passage of the ADA, an increase in the number of administrative appeals and lawsuits, and growth in the number of students requesting accommodation. The greater demand for accommodation can be attributed primarily to the fact that many current college students received either an Individualized Education Program (IEP; as is required by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 1990; IDEA) or a service plan (as is required by Section 504) while in elementary and secondary schools, and have become increasingly aware of their rights to accommodation while in higher education.
Of particular significance in recent years has been the growth in the number of students with learning disabilities. Over 35% of the freshmen in 1996 who reported having a disability were purported to have a learning disability -- an increase from 24.9% in 1991 (HEATH Resource Center, 1998). The growth in the number of students with learning disabilities has created a new challenge to professors and colleges. Over the years, there has been considerable resistance by professors to alter the way they instruct, particularly if such alteration were to accommodate a student with a mental, as compared to a physical, disability. Many professors prefer that all students meet the same set of requirements, within the same time period (see, e.g., Morse v. University of Vermont, 1992), and in the same way, and are ill-prepared either to adapt their instruction to address the individual needs of students or to identify appropriate, fair, and reasonable accommodations. This situation is ameliorated somewhat by the assistance provided by administrative units such as Student Disability Services (SDS). This and similar units are responsible for reviewing documentation provided by students and for making a determination as to eligibility status and appropriate accommodations and adjustments, if any. However, such units often are inadequately funded, given the growth in the number of students requesting accommodation, and seldom have experts on staff who are knowledgeable about the wide range of disabilities that colleges are now attempting to accommodate.
Organizationally, this article briefly reviews Section 504 and the ADA and identifies the criteria that are used to determine whether a student is "disabled." Then, specific areas of admission, accommodation, and dismissal are examined. Finally, guidelines are presented that may be used by professors and administrators in their efforts to provide qualified students with disabilities with nondiscriminatory access to higher education.
Legal protection for college students with disabilities
Prior to 1973, the only federal law that provided extensive protection for persons with disabilities was the Fourteenth Amendment. That law requires states to provide for the equal protection of persons within their respective jurisdictions and to give due process any time state action could adversely affect life, liberty, or property. In addition, federal law 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 (Civil Action for the Deprivation of Rights) permits a plaintiff to receive a jury trial and to be awarded damages where state action is responsible for a violation of federal constitutional or statutory rights (see Thomas & Russo, 1995, pp. 10-15). However, these laws failed to provide persons with disabilities with specific protection, as had already been done for persons claiming race, gender, and many other forms of discrimination. In response to this apparent void, Congress enacted two statutes (i.e., the Rehabilitation Act and the ADA) to provide additional protection and to extend coverage into the private sector.
Section 504 stipulates that no otherwise qualified person due to disability may be denied the participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance (29 U.S.C. § 794(a)). Note that this statute applies only to public and private "recipients" of federal aid (see Table 1). However, nearly all public and most private colleges are recipients. Moreover, if aid is received anywhere within a college, the entire institution is required to comply with the act's provisions. To demonstrate compliance, a college must file an assurance of compliance (i.e., a document attesting to the fact that the institution does not discriminate based on disability), provide notice to participants that the recipient's program does not discriminate based on disability, identify a specific employee to coordinate compliance, conduct a self-evaluation, engage in voluntary action to correct those circumstances that may have limited the participation of students with disabilities, adopt grievance procedures, and remediate violations of the act (McCarthy, Cambron-McCabe, & Thomas, 1998, p. 168). The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) is responsible for much of the enforcement of Section 504 in educational institutions.
In addition to Section 504, Title II of the ADA prohibits public entities (e.g., state government, public schools, public colleges) from denying qualified persons with disabilities the right to participate in or benefit from the services, programs, or activities that they provide, and from subjecting such individuals to discrimination if the exclusion or discrimination is due to the person having a disability (42 U.S.C. § 12132). The OCR also is responsible for the enforcement of Title 11 of ADA.
Title III of the act further prohibits entities that operate places of public accommodation from discriminating against persons with disabilities by denying them full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations they provide (42 U.S.C. § 12182(a)). Discrimination, harassment, constructive dismissal (i.e., forcing a student to withdraw), and retaliation (i.e., adverse treatment directed toward a student for having filed a complaint with the OCR, Department of Justice [DOJ], or the courts) claims are feasible under the ADA, as well as Section 504 (see, e.g., "Doe " v. Marshall, 1995; Kapiolani Community College, 1997; Ostrach v. Regents of University of California, 1997; Rothman v. Emory University, 1997; Wood v. President and Trustees of Spring Hill College, 1992). Private colleges (including nonrecipient institutions) operate places of public accommodation and must, therefore, comply with Title 111. The DOJ is responsible for the enforcement of Title III.
The aforementioned section provided brief discussions of Section 504 and the ADA. Due to these laws, all public and private colleges are required to demonstrate compliance with applicable federal mandates. Where violations of either Section 504 or the ADA are claimed, the plaintiff first must show that he or she is disabled, as that term is defined under federal statute, and is qualified.
Table 1. Applicability of Selected Federal Laws Related to Disability
Compliance by public recipient required
Compliance by public nonrecipient required
Compliance by private recipient required
Compliance by private nonrecipient required
Fourteenth Amendment equal protection clause yes yes No No
Fourteenth Amendment due process clause yes yes No No
Section 1983 yes yes No No
Section 504 yes No yes No
ADA Title II yes yes No No
ADA Title III No No yes yes
Note. ADA = Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990; Recipient = recipient of federal financial assistance.
Qualifying as a person with a disability
A person with a disability is anyone who has a physical (e.g., quadriplegia) or mental (e.g., anxiety disorder) impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities (e.g., learning), has a record of such an impairment (e.g., a record of having a specific learning disability), or is regarded as having such an impairment (e.g., a student who is denied admission to medical school because he is HIV positive; see also 34 C.F.R. § 104.3). With respect to postsecondary education, a qualified student with a disability is one who is able to meet a program's admission, academic, and technical standards (i.e., all essential nonacademic admissions criteria) either with or without accommodation.
For a person to qualify as disabled, the disability must substantially limit" a major life activity. Clearly, "'substantial" connotes something more than trivial or minor, but federal courts have disagreed beyond that point. At least four options exist as evidenced by recent case law: "in comparison to most people in the general population"; "in comparison to the average person having comparable training, skills, and abilities"; "in comparison to the average unimpaired student"; and "the disparity between inherent capacity and performance." The first of these options was discussed in Price v. National Board of Medical Examiners (1997), where three medical school students with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder failed to qualify as disabled because their individual abilities, notwithstanding their disabilities, still exceeded those of most people in the general population. Comparisons between actual and potential performance were insufficient alone, while comparisons of the plaintiffs' respective performance levels to those of other medical school students were unnecessary. Federal regulations for the ADA support the "general population" approach and state that a person is substantially limited when his or her life activities are "restricted as to the conditions, manner, or duration under which they can be performed in comparison to most people"' (emphasis added) (28 C.F.R. App. B to Part 36).
A second approach was used by the district court in Bartlett v. New York State Board of Law Examiners (1997), when an applicant was denied accommodation to take a state bar examination. After considering the "average person" benchmark, the court selected the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission standard for working (as compared to the life activity of learning) in which "substantially limits" was defined as occurring when a person is "significantly restricted in the ability to perform either a class of jobs or a broad range of jobs in various classes as compared to the average person having comparable training, skills and abilities" (emphasis added) (29 C.F.R. § 1630.2(j)(3)(i)). Consistent with this "comparable training" approach, the court found that although the plaintiff read at approximately the same level as an average person, her reading skills were below that of a typical law or even college student. Accordingly, the court held that she was otherwise qualified and had been discriminated against due to disability; the court then required the board to accommodate her in her effort to retake the examination and to provide reimbursement for prior test taking when accommodations were not provided.
Another federal district court employed a third option that is similar to the second when it concluded that the plaintiff in its case (i.e., a football player who had been declared academically ineligible to compete in intercollegiate athletics) should have his ability to learn compared to the average unimpaired student (Bowers v. NCAA, 1998, p. 475). To this court, the term population meant "student population" in this context as compared to "general population."
In contrast, another federal district court used a fourth option when it proposed that in some instances a disparity between inherent capacity and performance permits the inference that the individual has a learning disability, even though such an individual's performance may meet or exceed that of the ordinary person (Pazer v. New York State Board of Law Examiners, 1994). However, the court did recognize that each case had to be assessed on its merits and that every low achiever would not necessarily qualify as disabled (see, e.g., Tatum v. NCAA, 1998, where another court held that a student's poor performance was due to a lack of motivation, preparation, and effort, rather than disability).
Given these inconsistent interpretations by lower courts, it is important that Congress or appellate courts resolve the threshold standard for "substantially limits." Presumably, if testing agencies and colleges ultimately are held to the standard for "working," given that both degrees and licensure are required for employment, the demand for accommodation could increase significantly. Nonetheless, once it is determined that a plaintiff is impaired and that such impairment substantially limits a major life activity, it then is necessary to ascertain whether the plaintiff also is "otherwise qualified."
Otherwise qualified
Actually, only Section 504 employs the term "otherwise qualified" (29 U.S.C. § 794(a)); the ADA specifies only that the person with a disability be "qualified" (42 U.S.C. § 12112). However, for all practical purposes, the terms are equivalent-that is, the person must be able to meet the essential eligibility requirements of a program, with or without reasonable accommodation, in spite of the restrictions imposed by the disability. In a related case, the Supreme Court reviewed an appeal by an applicant who was denied admission to a nursing program solely due to a serious hearing disability (Southeastern Community College v. Davis, 1979). After exploring possible options, college officials determined that there existed no reasonable accommodation that would allow the plaintiff to safely participate in or receive the benefits of the nursing pro gram given her dependence on lip reading. She had requested that she not be required to take clinical courses and that a full-time supervisor be assigned to her. Accordingly, her participation would have required major program modifications and the lowering of standards. In ruling for the college, the Supreme Court held that the plaintiff was not otherwise qualified and that legitimate physical requirements at times may be necessary (see also County of Los Angeles v. Kling, 1985). Furthermore, the Court noted that Section 504 did not require affirmative action, but conceded that the distinction between accommodation and affirmative action might not always be clear.
In 1985, the Court provided additional direction when it proposed that reasonable accommodation would allow a qualified person with a disability to have meaningful access to a program or activity but would not require "substantial" changes, adjustments. or modifications to an existing program, or "fundamental" alterations in the nature of the program, with the latter representing affirmative action
(Alexander v. Choate, 1985). With this less-than- efficacious guidance, however, it is not surprising that courts and colleges continue to struggle in their efforts to identify reasonable accommodations and procedures that will allow for nondiscriminatory admissions and participation.
This section includes a discussion of preadmission activities, the process used for making admissions decisions, judicial deference that typically is given by courts, and the use of probationary admission practices. Case examples are provided for each.
Preadmission activities
Typically, preadmission activities include the completion of forms, the payment of fees, interviews, and testing. The application must be completed honestly and accurately and submitted prior to deadline. However, with few exceptions (e.g., efforts to correct past discrimination or voluntary action to overcome prior limited participation of students with disabilities; 34 C.F.R. § 104.42(c)), colleges may not make preadmission inquiries as to whether an applicant has a disability, although postadmission inquiries may be made on a confidential basis when the disability may require accommodation (34 C.F.R. § 104.42(b)). Also, colleges may not use a test, first-year grades, or other criteria that have a disproportionate adverse effect on students with disabilities, unless the criteria have been validated as predictors of success in the program and alternate measures of admission with less disparate impact are not available. Importantly, the burden of showing that an appropriate alternative is available rests with the assistant secretary of education. Nonetheless, those tests that are used must accurately reflect the applicant's aptitude or achievement level (or whatever other factor the test purports to measure), rather than the applicant's impaired sensory, manual, or speaking skills (34 C.F.R. § 104.44(c); see also University of Minnesota, 1995). And, admissions tests that are designed to accommodate persons with disabilities must be offered as often as are other admissions tests and be made available in facilities that are accessible (34 C.F.R. § 104.42(b)(3)).
Testing accommodations may include provisions such as large print, Braille, additional time, oral instruction, or readers. Two caveats, however: Students without disabilities need not be accommodated; testing services need not provide an accommodation to a student with a disability that would "advantage" the applicant rather than simply "accommodate"' his or her disability. For example, one court has ruled that to require testing boards to grant accommodations without proof of qualifying disabilities would allow persons to advance to professional positions through the "proverbial back door" (Price v. National Board of Medical Examiners, 1997, p. 422).
Where appropriate and needed accommodations are provided by testing groups (e.g., National Testing Service), it is common that college officials are alerted (e.g., with the placement of an asterisk by the score) to the fact that the test was not taken under standard conditions. When an application includes a nonstandardized score, it becomes even more important for admissions officers to thoroughly scrutinize the candidate's file. Although the accommodated score is not necessarily comparable to an unaccommodated score, it does provide an additional piece of information that can be used to determine whether a student is qualified. Thus, officials should not devalue or fail to consider the score.
In 1995, the Seventh Circuit had a case in which a law school applicant had been denied admission based in part on his low GPA and LSAT score (Mallett v. Marquette University, 1995; see also University of Michigan, 199 1). The examination was nonstandard because of accommodations that were provided by the testing service. The testing service had even suggested that the test results be interpreted with great sensitivity and that additional criteria be used. In compliance with these recommendations, the law school admissions committee considered the score, but also gave careful attention to plaintiff's entire file, including life experiences and background. Following a careful review, the committee concluded that the applicant was not qualified for admission. The plaintiff then sued, claiming a violation of Section 504. The lower court granted summary judgment (i.e., disposition of a controversy without a trial when there is no genuine dispute over factual issues) for the university; that decision was upheld on appeal.
Making the admission decision
Once all data are in and the admission file has been completed, officials then attempt to determine which candidates are qualified for admission and, in selective programs, which are comparatively better qualified. Generally, the same procedures (e.g., grade-point average, scores on standardized and locally administered tests, evaluation of writing samples, letters of reference, performance during an oral interview, extracurricular activities, work and life experiences) may be used during the processing of admissions for students with and without disabilities (Baker v. Board of Regents of Kansas, 1993; Department of Justice Opinion Letter, 1996). But, admission procedures should not be designed to arbitrarily deny (e.g., to accept evaluations performed only by MDs or PhDs when those by persons with lesser degrees would be satisfactory) or unnecessarily delay the admission of students with disabilities (e.g., a requirement for excessive or redundant documentation; Guckenberger v. Boston University, 1997). Moreover, after college officials have made agreements with students as to the requirements for admission or readmission, such agreement should be adhered to (Agron v. Trustees of Columbia University, 1993).
Although admission to many undergraduate programs is determined by a single person on the basis of paper credentials, most graduate and professional programs use multiple criteria and involve multiple people in the process. Many programs now use their own variation of a holistic model in an effort to assess the qualities and abilities that each individual candidate could bring to the program. Although time consuming, such a process provides faculty and admissions officials with comprehensive information on which to base life-changing decisions. However, even where holistic models are not employed., most admissions officials still use multiple criteria and attempt to identify those candidates who are best qualified from among the pool of applicants. Although a difficult task, faculty generally undertake the process in good faith and their decisions have typically received deference by the courts (Southeasten Community College v. Davis, 1979).
Deference by the courts
Over 40 years ago, the Supreme Court acknowledged that academic freedom includes the right to decide who may teach, what is taught, how to teach, and who may be admitted to study (Sweezy v. New Hampshire, 1957, p. 263). Accordingly, unless a related decision is arbitrary or discriminatory, lower courts have been directed to give deference to the judgment of educators. In a due process Fourteenth Amendment context, the Supreme Court declared that academic decisions require even less stringent procedural requirements than do decisions based on discipline (Board of Curators of University of Missouri v. Horowitz, 1978; see also Jansen v. Emory University, 1977; Lewin v. Medical College of Hampton Roads, 1996). The High Court in Regents of University of Michigan v. Ewing (1985) argued that
when judges are asked to review the substance of a genuinely academic decision, . . . they should show great respect for the faculty's professional judgment. Plainly, they may not override it unless it is such a substantial departure from accepted academic norms as to demonstrate that the person or committee responsible did not actually exercise professional judgment. (at 225)
Many lower courts have applied this reasoning when reviewing disability discrimination cases (see, e.g., Betts v. Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia, 1997; Doherty v. Southern College of Optometry, 1989). In Doe v. New York University (198 1), the Second Circuit proposed that
courts are particularly ill-equipped to evaluate academic performance ... For this reason, although the Act requires us rather than the institution to make the final determination of whether a handicapped individual is otherwise qualified.... considerable judicial deference must be paid to the evaluation made by the institution itself, absent proof that its standards and its application of them serve no purpose other than to deny an education to handicapped persons. (at 776; see also Wynne v. Tufts University School of Medicine, 1991, p. 25; but see University of California Santa Cruz, 1993)
In Doe, a former student with psychiatric and mental disorders (i.e., personality disorder, self-destructive acts, antisocial behavior) was denied readmission to a medical school (see also Gent v. Radford University, 1997). She had a lengthy record of self-abuse, suicide attempts, and attacks on others. In upholding the university's decision not to readmit, the court reasoned that even if the risk of recurrence of her prior behaviors was only minimal, the university may legitimately consider that fact in determining whether the plaintiff was more or less qualified than were other applicants (see also Anderson v. University of Wisconsin, 1988; Gill v. Franklin Pierce Law Center, 1995).
Professional judgment apparently was not exercised, however, in a Tenth Circuit case where a previously denied student with multiple sclerosis was found to be otherwise qualified for admission to a psychiatric residency program (Pushkin v. Regents of the University of Colorado, 198 1; see also Carlin v. Trustees of Boston University, 1995). When viewed in the aggregate, the testimony and written records supported the position that the plaintiff was denied admission based on assumptions of inability" and "assumed disabilities." One of the faculty involved in the admissions decision proposed that although the plaintiff was teachable, face-to-face interaction would stir feelings of guilt, pity, and rage in his clients and that such a working environment would be too much to ask of them or of him. Other faculty viewed him as angry, emotionally upset, of questionable health, and of less overall quality as compared to most doctors interviewed for the program. Despite the virtual consensus of university officials as to the plaintiff's comparative qualifications, the trial court concluded that the plaintiff was otherwise qualified and ordered his admission. That decision was upheld on appeal.
Probationary admission
At times, colleges elect to place students in remedial, preadmission, or special programs, rather than admit them to regular programs. This often occurs when the traditional indicators of success are low, but the student still shows the potential to succeed (possibly during an interview or review of the applicant's portfolio). Many probationary students prove that they are capable of meeting program requirements and eventually graduate; others, however, never fulfill their perceived potential and drop out or are academically dismissed (see section below).
In Maine, a transfer student with a learning disability and Tourette's syndrome was assigned to a program specifically for students with learning disabilities, rather than admitted into the regular program (Halasz v. University of New England, 1993). The plaintiff's college GPA and standardized test scores were low; moreover, he received the lowest possible scores on both timed an d untimed reading tests. While in the special program, the plaintiff received regular advising, peer tutoring, some taped texts, proctored untimed tests, and oral tests. Moreover, readers and writing and reading specialists assisted him. However, the plaintiff failed to produce at a level that would support his admission to the regular undergraduate program. The student then filed suit claiming disability discrimination. The court disagreed and held that the plaintiff was not otherwise qualified for regular admission.
Similarly, in 1996 in Virginia a federal district court refused to provide a preliminary injunction (i.e., an order issued prior to the resolution of the complaint, given foreseeable injury to the plaintiff and the likelihood of success of the claim) and later (1997) granted summary judgment in a case where a postbaccalaureate student with a learning disability failed to show that he was otherwise qualified for medical school (Betts v. Rector and Visitors of University of Virginia). The plaintiff had difficulties with short-term memory and reading speed, uneven cognitive processing skills, and a mild learning disability. The program to which he had previously been admitted was designed to assist economically disadvantaged and minority students in their efforts to prepare for medical school. Once officials learned of the plaintiff's disabilities, they provided accommodation in each of his classes by increasing the time for him to take course examinations. Although the plaintiff's performance improved with this accommodation, it was the opinion of officials that his performance in the aggregate was insufficient for admission.
As noted, students with disabilities may not be discriminated against in the admissions process. As such, colleges will find that although all students can be expected to meet legitimate admissions requirements, officials will need to provide an individualized assessment of the qualifications of students with disabilities to ensure that traditional criteria have not arbitrarily screened out otherwise qualified applicants. Also, being qualified may at times require the college to provide the applicant/ student with appropriate and reasonable accommodations.
Many courts have argued that if a college student is able to establish that he or she is disabled and qualified, colleges have a responsibility to explore alternative accommodations that would allow the student to participate in the institution's program on a nondiscriminatory basis. These courts have been of the opinion that although neither the ADA nor Section 504 includes the express "duty to investigate," the mandate to provide reasonable accommodation would be meaningless without such a duty and colleges would be incapable of determining whether a student was otherwise qualified if they failed to explore available options (Nathanson v. Medical College of Pennsylvania, 1991, p. 1383; Wynne v. Tufts University School of Medicine, 1992, p. 795). This position is further supported by the OCR, which concluded that when a college reviews the qualifications of students with disabilities, it needs to assess each student's ability to succeed given new learning strategies, effective academic adjustments, and technologies, and not make decisions that reflect stereotypical views. Moreover, at times it may be necessary to consult experts (e.g., when dealing with students purporting to have learning disabilities) to determine the nature and extent of possible accommodations (DePaul University, 1993). If the duty to investigate possible accommodations does in fact exist, that duty should be met when officials submit a factual record indicating that they researched and considered alternatives (including their feasibility, cost, and effect on the academic program; see Wynne v. Tufts University School of Medicine, 1991, pp. 25-26).
Not all courts have agreed that the duty to investigate exists. For example, the Supreme Court of Ohio reviewed a case filed by a student who was blind who claimed that reasonable accommodations would have enabled her to qualify for admission to a medical program (Ohio Civil Rights Commission v. Case Western Reserve University, 1996). The medical school denied her application and purported that she was not qualified because she would not be able to "observe" or "perform in a reasonably independent manner" as was required by the Association of American Medical Colleges (a national organization to which all medical colleges in the United States belong). Furthermore, she would not be able to exercise independent judgment when reading EKGs or Xrays, start an I.V., draw blood, participate in the surgery clerkship, react to emergency situations, or take night call. The plaintiff cited the experience of a former Temple University student who is now a practicing psychiatrist and argued that if she were provided accommodations such as books on tape and readers, had modified lectures, and was assigned an aide to describe tables and charts, she too would be able to meet program requirements. The court disagreed and concluded that no identified accommodation would enable the plaintiff to meet basic core requirements that were expected of all students and that her participation in the program could prove unsafe to clients. To the court, there was no duty to investigate under either state or federal law. Therefore, the institution's failure to contact Temple University to explore possible options did not discriminate against the plaintiff. The court upheld the denial of the plaintiff's admission.
Nonetheless, assuming that the duty to investigate is implied within federal law, colleges still would not be expected to provide accommodations until the student notifies officials of his or her disability and provides the necessary corroborating documentation. The student cannot rely on professors to "witness the symptoms suffered" and draw conclusions as to the nature and extent of the disability (Aloia v. New York Law School, 1988, p. 6; see also Goodwin v. Keuka College, 1995; Rossomando v. Board of Regents of University of Nebraska, 1998; Salehpour v. University of Tennessee, 1998; Salvador v. Bennett, 1986; Scott v. Western State University College of Law, 1997). This position is indirectly supported by the ADA in an employment context: The term "discriminate" is defined as "not making reasonable accommodations to the known . . . limitations of an otherwise qualified individual with a disability" (emphasis added) (42 U.S.C. § 12112(b) (5)(A); see also Tips v. Regents of Texas Tech University, 1996).
Once a student has sufficiently documented that he or she has a qualifying disability, a college is responsible for providing reasonable accommodations or modifications that do not result in unfair advantage, require significant alteration to the program or activity, result in the lowering of academic or technical standards, or cause the college to incur undue financial hardship. When accommodations are necessary they must be provided in a timely fashion (Smith v. State University of New York, 1997) and include, but are not limited to, adjustments in. time lines for the completion of degree requirements, substitutions for course requirements, adaptation of specific courses in the way they are delivered, the use of tape recorders in classrooms (San Francisco State University, 1997), auxiliary aids such as interpreters (Indiana Department Of Human Services v. Firth, 1992), readers in libraries for students with visual impairments, classroom equipment adapted for use by students with manual impairments, or the use of a guide dog in campus buildings (34 C.F.R. § 104.44(b)). However, colleges are not required to provide personal health care attendants, readers for personal use or study, or other personal devices or services (34 C.F.R. § 104.44(d)(2)).
One of the more extreme requests for accommodation was addressed in Maczaczyj v. New York (1997). In that case, a college applicant suffered from an anxiety disorder, social phobia., emotional trauma, and panic attacks, which occurred when he was forced to interact with others (see also WAY v. Medical College of Hampton Roads, 1993). Moreover, he was a former drug addict and alcoholic and resisted taking medications that could have made social interaction less stressful. To accommodate this disability the plaintiff requested that the master's program in liberal studies be made available to him through distance learning, as his undergraduate course of study had been. University officials noted that the delivery of the program through telecommunications was feasible, but that it required a deliberate design and pedagogy distinctly different from the current program and that it would have to be developed and approved by the state education department prior to implementation. In the alternative offered the student, a number of accommodations were proposed-he could bring a friend or advisor with him to class; have access to a vacant room where he could isolate himself whenever he felt the need; be excused from "'social" activities related to the residency portion of the program; and have his choice of location within meeting areas during residency. In denying the plaintiff a preliminary injunction, the court reasoned that although the plaintiff showed that he would suffer injury without a court order requiring that accommodation be provided, he had failed to show that his requested accommodation was reasonable.
Also, in a decision dealing with retention, the Fifth Circuit held that a law student's requests that the center allow him to be a part-time student, to continue to take exams at home, and to reduce the GPA requirement would result in fundamental alteration of the school's academic standards (McGregor v. Louisiana State University Board of Super visors, 1993). The student had been provided with virtually unlimited office hours by one professor, tutorial assistance, additional time to complete some exams, special furniture and equipment, and a student proctor to assist in personal care.
Thus, all requests for accommodation have not been found reasonable. However, educators should not conclude that accommodation is seldom necessary. Most requests by students with documented disabilities are within reason and are provided without controversy or court action. Reasonableness by the student in expectations, and by the college in its willingness to address the student's needs in good faith, can result in the efficient delivery of necessary services. Such services will allow the student to enter the college and to participate in its programs and activities. However, there will be times when students with disabilities, like other students, will be dismissed from colleges because of violations of behavior codes or the failure to meet academic requirements. These issues are discussed below.
Students who violate criminal law or a college's code of conduct (e.g., by selling drugs, carrying weapons, engaging in solicitation, or committing acts of violence, plagiarism, or cheating) may be disciplined by college officials (Childress v. Clement, 1998; South Suburban College, 1998). Assuming that allegations of wrongdoing are sufficiently documented, appropriate due process has been provided, and all students have been subjected to the same procedures, it is unlikely that a resulting disciplinary decision will be overturned by the courts. Also, unlike children with disabilities under IDEA, higher education students are not necessarily shielded from discipline simply because they are able to show that their behavior is disability related. In most instances, such students will not be otherwise qualified for retention.
In addition to disciplinary dismissal, some students with disabilities may be placed on probation or dismissed for failure to meet grade or other academic requirements (Amir v. Saint Louis University, 1999; Cheeney v. Highland Community College, 1993; Kasemeier v. Indiana University, 1996; Murphy v. Franklin Pierce Law Center, 1995; Texas Wesleyan University, 1998; Villanueva v. Columbia University, 1990). But, requirements imposed by colleges must be both reasonable and essential to the program; they may not be arbitrary or used in such a way as to deny students with disabilities equal access and opportunity (Salve Regina College v. Russell, 1991).
For a student with a disability to succeed in a suit claiming discriminatory dismissal, he or she must be otherwise qualified and be able to show that the university knew of the disability and failed to accommodate (Nathanson v. Medical College of Pennsylvania, 1991; Rossomando v. Board of Regents of University of Nebraska, 1998), provided inappropriate or inadequate accommodation (Rodgers v. Curators of University of Missouri, 1998; Wong v. Regents of the University of California, 1999), or discriminated in other ways on the basis of the student's disability. Proof of a violation is required; conclusory allegations, improbable inferences, and unsupported speculation are insufficient to substantiate a claim (Doe v. Harvard, 1994).
Most students challenging academic dismissal decisions have difficulty showing that they are otherwise qualified; some even have difficulty supporting the claim that they are disabled. For example, in Schuler v. University of Minnesota (1986), the Eighth Circuit held that the disabilities a former psychology doctoral student alleged (i.e., test-taking phobia, neurotic dependency upon her professors, and inability to communicate with her professors due to her right-brain dominance and their left-brain dominance) were insufficient to support a cause of action under Section 504 and that she was not otherwise qualified for retention in the program (see also Doe v. Washington University, 1991; Zukle v. Regents of the University of California, 1999).
Being otherwise qualified proved pivotal in Ellis v. Morehouse School of Medicine (1996), where a federal district court granted summary judgment to a medical school and upheld the dismissal of a student with dyslexia who failed to meet academic requirements even with accommodations provided by the university (e.g., decelerated first-year program, double time to complete examinations). The plaintiff complained that his attending physicians in surgery did not know that he was learning disabled and thus failed to accommodate him. In its defense, the university argued that no accommodation was possible in the clinical experience given that a surgeon would be required to process information promptly and accurately.
Academic, field, internship, and clinical requirements like those in Ellis generally are found to be essential portions of degree programs and are seldom waived for students claim ing either physical or mental disabilities (see, e.g., Everett v. Cobb County School District, 1998). For example. in Doherty v. Southern College of Optometry (1988), the Sixth Circuit held that a former optometry student with retinitis pigmentosa and an associated neurological condition affecting his motor skills was unable to meet necessary clinical proficiency requirements with certain techniques and instruments and was not otherwise qualified. The court reasoned that to waive an essential program requirement would be a substantial, rather than a reasonable, accommodation and was not therefore required.
The case law just examined relates to both disciplinary and academic dismissals. Disciplinary procedures used for students without disabilities also may be used for students with disabilities. However, when dealing with academic dismissals, colleges must consider whether the student with a disability has been appropriately accommodated. To assist in accommodation as well as other matters, the following guidelines are provided to assist higher education practitioners.
Guidelines for higher education practitioners
Although judicial interpretation of federal disability law is currently evolving, some guidance nevertheless can be gleaned that will enable higher education practitioners to better meet the needs of students with disabilities and to protect themselves from unnecessary expenditure and litigation.
Establish and publish reasonable and sufficient guidelines for students to follow in their efforts to document a disability (e.g., a former IEP; documentation from an appropriately licensed professional).
Review financial aid practices and remove where possible any provisions that result in discrimination against, or otherwise adversely affect, students with disabilities.
Review admission procedures to ensure that they do not arbitrarily deny or unnecessarily delay the admission of students with disabilities.
Make reasonable efforts to keep abreast of new technologies and instructional methodologies that may assist a student with a disability to be otherwise qualified.
Within the Student Disability Services (SDS) staff, employ one or more individuals who has knowledge of disability law and assessment of disabilities in adults.
Ensure that SDS is sufficiently staffed and adequately funded to address the increasing number of inquiries and demands for accommodation.
Engage in the in-service training of administrators, staff, and professors regarding the need for accommodation and access.
Periodically assess buildings and grounds to determine accessibility.
Examine academic and disciplinary procedures to eliminate those that would impermissibly discriminate against students with disabilities.
Handle inquiries and requests for accommodation in a timely fashion.
Investigate allegations of noncompliance and discrimination promptly and efficiently.
Following these guidelines should make integration of students with disabilities into the marketplace of ideas less frustrating for the student, less controversial for the faculty, and more efficient for the college. Importantly, federal law does not require the admission, retention, or graduation of a student because he or she is disabled. Rather it requires nondiscrimination and accommodation; it requires colleges to give qualified students with disabilities the opportunity to succeed or to fail.
Agron v. Trustees of Columbia University, 88 Civ. 6294, 1993 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 4565 S.D. N.Y. March 31, 1993).
Alexander v. Choate, 469 U.S. 287 (1985).
Aloia v. New York Law School, No. 88 Civ. 3184, 1988 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7769 (S.D. N.Y. July 25, 1988).
Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, 42 U.S.C. § 12102 et seq. (1998); title II, § 12131 et seq. (1998); 28 C.F.R. §§ 35.101-35.191 (1998); title III, § 12181 et seq. (1998); 28 C.F.R. §§ 36.101-36.608 (1998); Appendix A to Part 36 (Standards for Accessible Design; 1998); Appendix B (Preamble to Regulation on Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Disability by Public Accommodations and in Commercial Facilities; 1998).
Amir v. Saint Louis University, 184 F.3d 1017 (8th Cir. 1999).
Anderson v. University of Wisconsin, 841 F.2d 737 (7th Cir. 1988).
Baker v. Board of Regents of Kansas, 991 F.2d 628 (10th Cir. 1993).
Bartlett v. New York State Board of Law Examiners, 970 F. Supp. 1094 (S.D. N.Y. 1997).
Betts v. Rector and Visitors of University of Virginia, 939 F. Supp. 461 (W.D. Va. 1996).
Board of Curators of University of Missouri v. Horowitz, 435 U.S. 78 (1978). Bowers v. NCAA, 9 F. Supp. 2d 460 (D. N.J. 1998).
Carlin v. Trustees of Boston University, 907 F. Supp. 509 (D. Mass. 1995). Cheeney v. Highland Community College, 819 F. Supp. 749 (N.D. 111. 1993).
Childress v. Clement, 5 F. Supp. 2d 384 (E.D. Va. 1998).
County of Los Angeles v. Kling, 474 U.S. 936 (1985).
Department of Justice (DOJ) Opinion Letter, 9 National Disability Law Reporter 315 (DOJ 1996).
DePaul University, 4 National Disability Law Reporter 157 (Office for Civil Rights 1993).
Doe v. Harvard University, Nos. 93-2051, 93-2234, 94-1589, 1994 U.S. App. LEXIS 28320 (1st Cir. October 12, 1994).
"Doe" v. Marshall, 882 F. Supp. 1504 (E.D. Penn. 1995).
Doe v. New York University, 666 F.2d 761 (2d Cir. 1981).
Doe v. Washington University, 780 F. Supp. 628 (E.D. Mo. 1991).
Doherty v. Southern College of Optometry, 862 F.2d 570 (6th Cir. 1988), reh'g denied, cert. denied, 493 U.S. 810 (1989).
Ellis v. Morehouse School of Medicine, 925 F. Supp. 1529 (N.D. Ga. 1996).
Everett v. Cobb County School District, 138 F.3d 1407 (1 11th Cir. 1998). (This case includes Kennesaw State College among the defendants.)
Gent v. Radford University, 976 F. Supp. 391 (W.D. Va. 1997).
Gill v. Franklin Pierce Law Center, 899 F. Supp. 850 (D. N.H. 1995).
Goodwin v. Keuka College, 929 F. Supp. 90 (W.D. N.Y. 1995).
Guckenberger v. Boston University, 974 F. Supp. 106 (D. Mass. 1997).
Halasz v. University of New England, 816 F. Supp. 37 (D. Me. 1993).
HEATH Resource Center. (1995). College freshmen with disabilities. Washington, DC: American Council on Education.
HEATH Resource Center. (1998). Profile of 1996 college freshmen with disabilities. Washington, DC: American Council on Education.
Indiana Department of Human Services v. Firth. 590 N.E.2d 154 (Ind. Ct. App. 1992).
Jansen v. Emory University, 440 F. Supp. 1060 (N.D. Ga. 1977).
Kapiolani Community College, 12 National Disability Law Reporter 45 (Office for Civil Rights 1997).
Kasemeier v. Indiana University, 8 National Disability Law Reporter 408 (7th Cir. 1996).
Lewin v. Medical College of Hampton Roads. 910 F. Supp. 1161 (E.D. Va. 1996).
Maczaczyj v. New York, 956 F. Supp. 403 (W.D. N.Y. 1997).
Mallett v. Marquette University, 65 F.3d 170 (7th Cir. 1995).
McCarthy, M. M., Cambron-McCabe, N. H., & Thomas, S. B. (1998). Public school law: Teachers' and students' rights (4th ed.). Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
McGregor v. Louisiana State University Board of Supervisors, 3 F.3d 850 (5th Cir. 1993).
Morse v. University of Vermont, 973 F.2d 122 (.2d Cir. 1992).
Murphy v. Franklin Pierce Law Center, 882 F. Supp. 1176 (D.N.H. 1994), aff' d without published opinion, 56 F.3d 59 (1 st Cir. 1995).
Nathanson v. Medical College of Pennsylvania, 926 F.2d 1368 (3d Cir. 199 1).
Ohio Civil Rights Commission v. Case Western Reserve University, 666 N.E. 2d 1376 (Ohio 1996).
Ostrach v. Regents of the University of California, 957 F. Supp. 196 (E.D. Cal. 1997).
Pazer v. New York State Board of Law Examiners, 849 F. Supp. 284 (S.D. N.Y. 1994).
Price v. National Board of Medical Examiners. 966 F. Supp. 419 (S.D. W. Va. 1997).
Pushkin v. Regents of the University of Colorado, 658 F.2d 1372 (10th Cir. 1981).
Regents of University of Michigan v. Ewing, 474 U.S. 214 (1985).
Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended by the Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1974, 29 U.S.C. § 794 (1998); 34 C.F.R. §§ 104.1-104-47 (1998).
Rodgers v. Curators of University of Missouri, 135 F.3d 1216 (8th Cir. 1998).
Rossomando v. Board of Regents of University of Nebraska, 12 National Disability Law Reporter 268 (D.C. Neb. 1998).
Rothman v. Emory University, 123 F.3d 446 (7th Cir. 1997).
Salehpour v. University of Tennessee, No. 97-5468, 1998 U.S. App. LEXIS 21381 (6th Cir. August 27, 1998).
Salvador v. Bennett, 800 F.2d 97 (7th Cir. 1986.).
Stephen B. Thomas, Kent State University The Journal of Special Education, Vol.33/NO.4/2000, pp. 248-257<
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The Sevens, part 2
by Micah | Mar 22, 2017 | Fournette, History, Recaps | 4 comments
Today we’ll continue our new series about all the greatest players to put on the #7. In my last article, I talked about the player that really gave the #7 legendary status, Patrick Peterson. Now today I’ll talk about someone who came on during Patrick Peterson’s last year and elevated the prestige of this number further still. Officially, he is named Tyrann Mathieu. Unofficially and affectionately, he is known as the Honey Badger. And he is my hero.
Unlike Patrick Peterson, Tyrann Mathieu was a Louisiana native born and raised in New Orleans. Living in New Orleans came at a cost, though, as Tyrann Mathieu lived in places where shootings were common and drugs were passed around every day. His mom ran off as soon as he was born. Tyrann didn’t meet his father until he was ten years old, which is probably for the best because he went to jail for murder. For a while. Tyrann lived with his grandfather but soon he died. He asked his mom if he could stay with her and she flat out told him “No.” With very few options, Tyrann moved in with his only living aunt and uncle. After Hurricane Katrina, they evacuated to Texas and spent a year homeless. That was the point in his life when he started doing drugs to take away the pain of his life. There was a point that he was arrested and even considered committing suicide in a jail cell. Tyrann got addicted to drugs because he said they “evened out his highs and lows.” Most of Tyrann’s friends did drugs too. Reading about his terrible childhood makes me realize just how blessed I am.
Eventually, Tyrann and his aunt and uncle were able to get back to New Orleans, and somehow he managed to attend St. Augustine, the same school where Leonard Fournette later played. He realized his true athletic ability there and became an incredible cornerback. Undersized and under recruited, LSU saw something special in him and offered him a full scholarship. After a highly productive freshman year at LSU (2010), his sophomore campaign was phenomenal (2011). He led LSU to their first undefeated season since 1958, and was a Heisman finalist. It was during this year that he received the nickname “Honey Badger” for his aggressiveness and small size. His teammates said that the Honey Badger “takes what he wants” and indeed Mathieu was known across the nation for forcing fumbles and knocking down passes. As Les Miles quipped about the 5’9”, 165 lbs defensive back, ‘when he looks in the mirror he sees someone who is 6’4”, 300 lbs’. That sums it up for the Honey Badger.
Tyrann went from being a homeless boy in a dangerous neighborhood to the best defensive player in college football. Even though he was a star in college football, neither of his parents so much as acknowledged him, much less patted him on the back after a game. I can’t even imagine how hard that was for him.
In 2012, many people thought it would be his year and that he would win the Heisman trophy. Unfortunately for Mathieu and for LSU, he failed two drug tests and was released. He went to rehabilitation and eventually recovered. The NFL still considered his past problems with drugs to be an issue so he wasn’t picked until the third round. Patrick Peterson, by then of the Arizona Cardinals, is said to have encouraged the team leadership to take a chance on the Honey Badger, and so they did. Peterson helped him out as a friend and teammate and really took him under his wing. Mathieu also became a Christian and turned to God for help. When he suffered a potentially career ending injury in 2015, he asked for prayers and said he could do all things through Christ who strengthened him. Now after four years, Tyrann Mathieu is the highest paid safety in the NFL, still known by everyone across the nation for his tenacity and making incredible plays.
After reading this, hopefully you’ll understand that he’s not just my hero because of his swagger and supersize talent. It is because of where he came from and how he got through it even when all the odds were stacked against him. There are a lot of players who have gone through similar struggles with drugs and alcohol (e.g., Johnny Manziel and others). Hopefully, Mathieu’s new life as a Christian can be an example for them too. As Mathieu replied when asked how he cleaned up and survived even when none of his other family members did: “I’m a warrior.”
I am going to start adding an LSU trivia question to the bottom of each blog post. This should keep things fun. Try not to just Google it!
In 2010, when Tyrann Mathieu played alongside Patrick Peterson for a year at LSU what was his number?
Geaux Tigers!!
Aunt Becky on March 22, 2017 at 1:40 am
Great read. Thank you, Micah!
Brian on March 22, 2017 at 9:23 am
Great post! I think he wore the #14.
poppy on March 22, 2017 at 2:01 pm
great article about a great player. His number as a freshman was 14, and he was amazing even then. Hopefully, he won’t have any more injuries.
I think you need to update your intro bio to reflect that your are now 11 years old and a true veteran of the pundit class…
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Appointment in Aleppo: The Making of a Suicide Bomber
Translated from the Persian by Diane L. Wilcox
Jaafar Modarres-Sadeghi
Series: Bibliotheca Iranica: Persian Fiction in Translation 14
"Appointment in Aleppo" was first published in Persian in 2004, although Modarres-Sadeghi had completed the writing of the novel two years earlier, in other words, in the wake of the tragic events of the morning of September 11, 2001, that is, the suicide attacks on important trade and government centers of the United States by a group of terrorists affiliated with al-Qaeda. Like everyone else around the world, upon hearing the tragic news, Modarress-Sadeghi was undoubtedly in a state of shock and disbelief, and this should have triggered in him the urgent need to find answers to many questions regarding the historical roots and the contemporary root causes of such horrendous acts and the makeup and the making of their perpetrators.
The protagonist of "Appointment in Aleppo" is a Pakistani agent who has been working as an instructor and trainer in a camp of Muslim fundamentalists in Afghanistan for some time. Although there is no direct reference to al-Qaeda or the Taliban in the novel, the plot of the novel is based on factual reports at the time that the Muslim fundamentalists who established the Taliban regime in Afghanistan were supported by Pakistan’s security agency, and that al-Qaeda training camps were located in the regions dominated by the Taliban. Furthermore, Modarres-Sadeghi chooses Syria, which later became the scene of great conflicts, as the setting of his story. The ancient city of Damascus provides the author with a suitable backdrop to conjure up historical events and figures from some 800 years earlier, in a way intimating that the making of modern suicide bombers not only has precedence in the region, but also is perhaps rooted and nourished by those events that have been a source of inspiration for some Muslims, as represented by the protagonist and other characters. The choice of Saladin (1137-1193 AD), the famed Islamic commander and Sultan of Egypt and Syria who fought the Crusaders, as a character gives an additional dimension to the novel, especially in terms of his encounter with the protagonist, who turns out to have extremist tendencies similar to those of the aforementioned terrorist groups. Despite being the most notable adversary of the Crusaders, Saladin was historically regarded as a moderate figure, who chose negotiation and compromise as the solution and who signed a ceasefire agreement with Richard the Lionheart. Similarly, the references to the Assassins, the propagators of the Isma’ili sect who opposed Saladin and whom he was unable to defeat, add a further dimension to the story. The Assassins, who have been at times described as the first organized terrorist group in the world, advanced their cause by assassinating their political opponents. In this novel, Modarres-Sadeghi shows the mental process that transforms an ordinary person into a murderous creature, indeed, a horrifying monster.
Jaafar Modarres-Sadeghi was born in 1954 in Isfahan. He is the critically acclaimed author of several collections of short stories and novels, including On Taraf-e Khiyaban [The Other Side of the Street], Vaqaye'-e Ettefaqiyyeh [Something Happened], Davazdah Dastan [Twelve Stories], Ab-o Khak [The Homeland], Tup-e Shabaneh [The Nightly Gun], Didar dar Halab [Appointment in Allepo], Nakojaabad [Nowhereland], Balon-e Mahta [Mahta’s Balloon], His novel, Gavkhuni (translated into English as The Marsh), was published by Mazda in 1996.
Foreword by M. R. Ghanoonparvar
1. Where better than Aleppo
2. A Hot Shower
3. I’m the Boss Here
5. The Grand Name
6. The Mausoleum of Saladin
7. Good Afternoon
9. Three Hours before Departure
10. A Shop Laik Dis
11. Paradise on Earth
12. Departure Gate
Glossary and Notes
Appointment in Aleppo
Horse's Head
Mo'in, Mohammad (1)
Vali, Abbas (1)
Windfuhr, Gernot (1)
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Directed by Liv Ullmann
Theatre and film are separate arts for a number of reasons. One has to do strictly with technology, that recording a play was not possible early in history, and that only relatively recently has this new medium existed that allows for a performance to be played on the big screen and preserved forever. The stage is still popular, however, and theatregoers often expect a smaller cast with fewer set pieces than they might if they went to see a movie. There’s a certain kind of story that works perfectly on stage but doesn’t always translate to the big screen. “Miss Julie,” a landmark achievement when it was written in 1888, is one such story.
This cinematic adaptation finds valet John (Colin Farrell) and cook Kathleen (Samantha Morton) conversing in the kitchen of the baron’s estate one midsummer night. The main topic of conversation is the baron’s daughter, Miss Julie (Jessica Chastain), who is hard to control when her father is around and near impossible to deal with when he is gone. As he is away for the night, Miss Julie descends to the kitchen, intent on having herself an enjoyable and manipulative night, treating John and Kathleen like chess pieces in her favorite game. Despite the romance that the two servants already have, Miss Julie cuts in and does what she can to convince John to set his sights on her.
A considerable amount of time in this overlong drama, which runs two hours and nine minutes, is spent in the kitchen, first leading up to Miss Julie’s arrival and then as she toys with John while banishing Kathleen to her room so that she won’t get in the way. It’s not a large space, but one suitable for the behavior that Miss Julie has chosen. The setting has a layered meaning, as John has access to everything that he uses as part of his job for the baron, as well as those things which he should not touch, especially without his employer there to tell him to do so. The game they play is significant but ultimately tiresome, and it’s hard to root for anything other than an immediate resolution after long. Chastain, Farrell, and Morton are talented actors but their skills are better used elsewhere. For devotees of the play and its history, this might prove a satisfying experience, but for those with no previous knowledge of or connection to it, it’s hopelessly uninteresting.
Labels: 2014 Films, Film Reviews, Miss Julie
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The NJPTOA sadly announces the passing of our Executive Director, Chief Anthony J. Parenti, (Ret.) 1932 - 2019.
A life well-lived in public service. Chief Parenti passed away at Overlook Hospital surrounded by his family on Thursday, August 1, 2019. Tony was born May 29th, in Plainfield, New Jersey, son of Peter and Anna, and baby brother of Albert, George, John, Armando, Laura, and Josephine. He was predeceased by his mother, father, and siblings, and is only survived by his brother Albert’s wife Louise.
After graduating from Plainfield High School, Tony joined the United States Air Force and served during the Korean Conflict, 1951 - 1955. Following the completion of his enlistment, and Honorable Discharge, Tony joined his brother George on the Plainfield Police Department. Tony moved to the Fanwood Police Department where he rose through the ranks to become the youngest Chief of Police in the State. While still a patrolman, he obtained his degree from Rutgers University during his tenure with the Fanwood Police.
In 1974, Tony founded the New Jersey Police Traffic Officers Association, serving as its president for 31 years. After stepping down as president in 2005, he was appointed as the association's first Executive Director serving in that position until his passing in 2019. Tony and the association were key elements in drafting legislation and advocating for traffic safety regulations at both the state and federal levels. One of the more notable pieces of legislation he promoted was the Right Turn on Red law.
He was a Distinguished Expert Marksman competing in pistol matches throughout the Mid-Atlantic, winning many with perfect scores of 300. Tony was the President of both the Union County Chiefs of Police and the New Jersey State Police Chiefs Association.
After serving 43 years with the police, he retired and was appointed as the Director of the Union County John H. Stamler Police Academy where he was responsible for the training of hundreds of law enforcement officers. Completing 10 years as Director, he ran for Fanwood Town Council and served two terms. The Courier News published a Tony’s weekly “Drive Time” column for over a decade. During his lifetime, he received numerous accommodations for bravery and leadership in law enforcement. He also loved the horses and became President of the New Jersey Standardbred Breeders Association serving on the board of directors for 21 years, 14 years as President. He enjoyed Texas Wieners, The Honeymooners, and Columbo.
Tony is survived by his loving wife of 63 years, Sally, their three children: Nancy Fela Parenti, North Plainfield Police Chief William “Bill” Parenti (Eileen), and Somerset County Assistant Prosecutor Anthony J. Parenti, Jr. (Judy), and his nine grandchildren: Daniel (fiancé Nikki), Michael (Rachel), Danielle (fiancé Andrew), William, Bryan, Anthony, Joseph (fiancé Shahnda), Sarah, Matthew, and his three Great Grandchildren: Luke, Alexandra, and 1 week old Virginia, and his many nieces and nephews.
Tony will be remembered as a good father, a loyal friend, and an inspiration to all he met. The consummate breaker of chops, if he didn’t like you, you knew it, but he would be merciful. If he liked you, you knew it too, but there was no mercy.
Passing of NJPTOA Founding Father
New Jersey Police Traffic Officers Association
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Hypocrite "Catholic Pope" won't defend this Bishop
February 15, 2013 - Ferial Day
Bishop Williamson Faces a Fourth Trial in Germany for "Holocaust Denial"
He Refuses to Pay the Fine, but Instead Appeals Again
Traditional Catholic Bishop Richard Williamson Pauses in Meditation under a Crucifix
As the German Government Continues to Persecute Him for Exercising His Free Speech
The Hypocritical Benedict-Ratzinger, Who Defends Others' "Rights of the Human Person"
Has Not Said One Word in Defense of Williamson's Free Speech
Yet Williamson's Persistence Seems to Be Winning Out
And Embarrassing the Liberalist Government of Angela Merkel
The right of free speech that Benedict-Ratzinger proclaims as a Vatican II "right of the human person" is once again being assailed as traditional Catholic bishop Richard Williamson faces yet a fourth trial in Ratzinger's Germany on charges of "holocaust denial." And Ratzinger, the great Modernist, has raised not one word in defense of Williamson's human rights. Ratzinger wouldn't even go as far as the atheist philosopher Voltaire, who proclaimed: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
In his Bulletin of February 9, 2013, Williamson explained that he was first tried in 2010. It was a kangaroo trial, as the Regensburg judge rendered her verdict within a few minutes in a multipage document that could hardly have been written in that time. It was at the time reported in the German press that the German Chancelloress, Angela Merkel, had personally orchestrated the guilty verdict. Williamson hadn't even denied the World War II "holocaust," but simply questioned a point of detail on the controverted issue as a very small part of an interview for Swedish Public Television.
In a second trial, a higher court in Nuremberg overturned the verdict on appeal and required the state to pay all of Williamson's legal expenses. But in a third trial, the local Regensburg judge, the district where Benedict-Ratzinger has his home, again convicted Williamson on January 16, 2013. Friends of Bishop Williamson have offered to pay his fine, now reduced to 2,400 U.S. dollars, but Williamson would not capitulate to the corrupt verdict because "much more than just money is at stake." He has appealed again for a fourth trial, quoting Our Lord's powerful words: "For this was I born, and for this came I into the world; that I should give testimony to the truth" (John 18:37/DRV).
What else could a true Catholic bishop do?
Labels: bishop williamson, holocaust denial, rights of the human person
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The Most Serious Ground for Impeachment
In the last offering in these pages, your humble servant submitted for your incisive consideration that President Trump can be impeached, and convicted, for stealing from his charitable non-profit before he took office. [1] It is to be admitted, however, that people often think of impeachable offenses as misdeeds committed while in office, and actions committed in connection with the performance of that office.
We really need to consider that problem no further than to speculate about what could be done about a dead body found buried in a president’s former residence. Still, it will be useful to take a look at the pertinent constitutional provision to see if the impeachment process is so restricted. Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution reads this way:
“The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” [2]
There is no restriction on when the treason, bribery, or other crime is committed. And, really, we should be grateful for that. Otherwise, a failed attempt at treason, only discovered after the perpetrator took office, would be without an immediate remedy in the case of the President; who, according to prevailing wisdom, cannot be prosecuted until his term is completed.
But there is another impeachable offense that the president has committed in office, beyond the extortion attempt on the president of Ukraine that congressional Democrats appear to be hanging their hats on. He revealed state secrets to the Russians! [3]
“The intelligence disclosed by Mr. Trump in a meeting with Sergey V. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, and Sergey I. Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the United States, was about an Islamic State plot….” At the time that happened in 2017, the prevailing wisdom was that Mr. Trump’s disclosure wasn’t illegal, since “the president has the power to declassify almost anything.”
To the extent that is true, it isn’t a complete analysis. As the Lawfare blog pointed out at the time,
“Questions of criminality aside, we turn to the far more significant issues: If the President gave this information away through carelessness or neglect, he has arguably breached his oath of office….in taking the oath President Trump swore to ‘faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States’ and to ‘preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States’ to the best of his ability. It’s very hard to argue that carelessly giving away highly sensitive material to an adversary foreign power constitutes a faithful execution of the office of President.
“Violating the oath of office does not require violating a criminal statute. If the President decided to write the nuclear codes on a sticky note on his desk and then took a photo of it and tweeted it, he would not technically have violated any criminal law–just as he hasn’t here. He has the constitutional authority to dictate that the safeguarding of nuclear materials shall be done through sticky notes in plain sight and tweeted, even the authority to declassify the codes outright. Yet, we would all understand this degree of negligence to be a gross violation of his oath of office.” [4]
Still, we need not concede the illegality point so readily. Federal statute provides that whoever “Whoever knowingly and willfully communicates, furnishes, transmits, or otherwise makes available to an unauthorized person, or publishes, or uses in any manner prejudicial to the safety or interest of the United States or for the benefit of any foreign government to the detriment of the United States any classified information…obtained by the processes of communication intelligence from the communications of any foreign government, knowing the same to have been obtained by such processes” is subject to a fine, imprisonment up to ten years, or both. [5]
Now the information Mr. Trump disclosed had come from an ally, probably Israel, undeniably a foreign government. [6] Classified information for these purposes has the statutory definition of “information which…is, for reasons of national security, specifically designated by a United States Government Agency for limited or restricted dissemination or distribution….” That means that once the appropriate agency designates information declassified, it retains that status until the agency declassifies it. Of course, the President has the power to order the information declassified. But Mr. Trump didn’t do that in this case; he simply disclosed the information. To the Russians.
Thus, it appears that the President is capable of violating this law after all. And this he manifestly did. His disclosure to the Russians of classified information should be yet another article of impeachment to be brought before the Senate for trial.
Impeachable Upon Arrival
In a previous post in these pages, your humble servant opined that congressional Republicans would begin to abandon ship if the allegations of President Trump’s extortion attempt on the president of Ukraine were fleshed out. [1] Alas, it now appears that confirmation bias will carry the day.
Right now it isn’t clear whether the defense will be that Trump did not engage in the actions alleged, or that he did so but that his actions were legitimate. Either way, the zeitgeist appears to be that he will be impeached in the Democratic House but acquitted by the Republican controlled Senate.
But the Democrats don’t need to put all of their impeachment eggs in the extortion basket. All they need to show is that the President engaged in some sort of high crime or misdemeanor. [2]
Well, how about the fact that “Donald Trump spent more than a quarter-million dollars from his charitable foundation [the Donald J. Trump Foundation] to settle lawsuits that involved the billionaire’s for-profit businesses, according to interviews and a review of legal documents” by The Washington Post.
“Those cases, which together used $258,000 from Trump’s charity, were among four…documented expenditures in which Trump may have violated laws against ‘self-dealing’ — which prohibit nonprofit leaders from using charity money to benefit themselves or their businesses.
“In one case, from 2007, Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club faced $120,000 in unpaid fines from the town of Palm Beach, Fla., resulting from a dispute over the height of a flagpole.
“In a settlement, Palm Beach agreed to waive those fines — if Trump’s club made a $100,000 donation to a specific charity for veterans. Instead, Trump sent a check from the Donald J. Trump Foundation, a charity funded almost entirely by other people’s money, according to tax records.
“In another case, court papers say one of Trump’s golf courses in New York agreed to settle a lawsuit by making a donation to the plaintiff’s chosen charity. A $158,000 donation was made by the Trump Foundation, according to tax records.
“In another case, court papers say one of Trump’s golf courses in New York agreed to settle a lawsuit by making a donation to the plaintiff’s chosen charity. A $158,000 donation was made by the Trump Foundation, according to tax records.” [3]
This behavior was blatant. Mr. Trump basically stole from his non-profit foundation. As The Washington Post further reported,
“‘I represent 700 nonprofits a year, and I’ve never encountered anything so brazen,’ said Jeffrey Tenenbaum, who advises charities at the Venable law firm in Washington. After The Washington Post described the details of these Trump Foundation gifts, Tenenbaum described them as ‘really shocking.’
“‘If he’s using other people’s money — run through his foundation — to satisfy his personal obligations, then that’s about as blatant an example of self-dealing [as] I’ve seen in awhile,’ Tenenbaum said.”
It’s true that Trump engaged in this activity before he was President. But so what? The Constitution doesn’t require that impeachable high crimes and misdemeanors must be committed while in office. And how are Trump’s partisans going to defend this?
If House Democrats think that what they’re doing is worthwhile, they should not sacrifice thoroughness for speed. They’re going to need an airtight case if they don’t want the impeachment to die in the Republican controlled Senate. Trump’s misuse of the funds of his non-profit is going to have to be an article of impeachment. And the matter is going to have to be investigated sufficiently to be tried before the Senate.
Deporting Veterans
Is there any excuse for deporting a veteran of the U.S. military? If anything, this should be a bipartisan issue. But as testimony to the fecklessness of Congress, these deportations are still going on.
Many are under the impression that service in the U.S. military results in the automatic conferral of citizenship. That’s certainly the way it should be. It would be basic human decency, after all. But, alas, it is not so.
Even those who honorably serve in the military must still satisfy certain bureaucratic requirements. [1] [2] One still has to apply, for example, and the applicant will only be excused “from any specific period of residence or physical presence within the United States, so long as the application is filed while the applicant is still serving in the military or within six months of an honorable discharge.” [3] If you blow the deadline, tough luck.
As a result, in “a country where we celebrate and honor those who heeded the call to serve in the military, most Americans would be shocked to learn that just south of the U.S.-Mexico border in Tijuana, Mexico, exists the Deported Veterans Support House, better known as ‘The Bunker.’ Marked by a banner in red, white, and blue, and located next to a tire shop in a residential neighborhood, the bunker is a shelter for veterans of the United States Armed Forces who were deported from the same country they fought to protect, even after being honorably discharged.
“Once inside, you might be greeted by veterans who are miles away from their homes and their families and denied access to the benefits they earned, need, and are still eligible for under the law. In the face of this injustice, however, they are still proud of their service to our nation and are fighting to return home. It’s time for Congress to join this fight and bring them back to the families and nation they risked their lives to protect.” [4]
In response to this travesty, Representatives Mark Takano, Juan Vargas, and Raúl M. Grijalva have introduced H.R. 4890 [5], “the Veteran Deportation Prevention and Reform Act of 2019 to prevent noncitizen veterans from being deported, improve tracking of noncitizen veterans in immigration proceedings, and bring certain eligible deported veterans back home.” [6] The proposed legislation
“ · Requires DHS to maintain data on potentially removable noncitizen veterans. The DHS Secretary would be directed to establish an annual training program for ICE personnel on handling noncitizen veterans.
“ · Directs DHS to establish a Military Family Immigration Advisory Committee that would provide recommendations on whether an individual should be granted a stay of removal, deferred action, parole, or be removed from the country.
“ · Provides a pathway of citizenship for spouses and children of members of the Armed Services through a joint program between DOD and DHS.
“ · Requires DHS to establish a program and application procedure that allows eligible veterans to be admitted as noncitizens lawfully admitted for permanent residence. Also directs the Attorney General to reopen any removal proceedings of each noncitizen veteran issued and where appropriate, rescind any orders of removal already issued.”
This legislation seems like a common-sense reform, but your humble servant would go further.
For the U.S. military to accept the services of someone who would not be eligible for citizenship down the road is exploitation. Therefore, the screening should be front-loaded, and should take place at the time the alien applies to serve in the military. After that, citizenship should be conferred automatically, without the need for further application, after one year of service. The granting of citizenship under these terms should apply to everyone in the applicant’s immediate family. If the Department of Homeland Security should thereafter discover anything in the applicant’s history that should be disqualifying, then the Department should file a petition revoking the arrangement within the first year of service.
It really is the least we can do.
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Artist: Bert Jansch
Title: Avocet
Category: Favourite Album Reviews
Author: Keith How
Article Series (53) Pictures (8) Releases (14) Articles (3)
Get this while you can: a 40th anniversary edition of Bert Jansch’s much lauded 1979 album 'Avocet', of which there will be 200 copies, on white vinyl only.
In his book 'Dazzling Stranger: Bert Jansch and the British Folk and Blues Revival' (a recent charity shop find for me) Colin Harper recounts that Bert, when asked which of his recordings he favoured, chose 'Avocet'. Harper also writes the informative liner notes for this release.
Revisiting the album is such a pleasure and is a wonderful reminder of just how special it is to hear great musicians at the top of their game. Danny Thompson's bass playing outstrips much of his work with John Martyn, in my opinion. The track 'Kingfisher', for instance, is a revelation, finding Thompson's jazz flourishes intertwining with Jansch and Martin Jenkin's violin in what could almost be a freeform jam.
Anyone familiar with 'Avocet' will feel like they're meeting an old friend when listening to the work, while new listeners will find much to enchant them. Jansch commented that he was "playing for himself" on this record - and the freedom the players have is a joy to hear.
Jansch plays both guitar and piano - proving that folk-rock and traditional folk does not necessarily need vocal accompaniment. The title track alone is a masterful composition that ebbs and flows without ever feeling lost or tedious, conjuring up a bucolic atmosphere to gladden any heart. It is also positively symphonic, clocking in at eight minutes.
Jansch's influence continues today, inspiring new young musicians such as Toby Hay (who also has a strong ornithological flavour to his instrumental work) and Henry Parker, to name just a couple of torchbearers.
With the addition of three bonus live recordings, made in Italy in 1977, and new liner notes from Danny Thompson, this release is a true collectors' piece.
https://bertjansch.bandcamp.com
https://twitter.com/bert_jansch
https://www.bertjansch.com/
https://www.facebook.com/bertjansch
Commenting On: Avocet - Bert Jansch
Big Beat, Cooking Vinyl, Earmark, Earth Recordings, Sanctuary,
Keith How reflects on Bert Jansch's 1979 album, 'Avocet', which has been newly re-released in an expanded version on vinyl.
Bert Jansch:Crimson Moon
Keith How appraises a reissue of 'Crimson Moon', the 21st LP by legendary, late Scottish folk musician Bert Jansch which feature appearances from Johnny Marr and Bernard Butler.
Bert Jansch:Profile
Malcolm Carter finds that the first eight albums from Scottish guitar virtuoso Bert Jansch, which are being re-released on two new box sets ‘A Man I’d Rather Be', parts 1 and 2, are essential listening and not just for folk music fans.
From the Outside - CD
Immensely rewarding reissue of 1985 LP from influential folk guitarist Bert Jansch, which was originally released in Belgium in an edition of just 500 copies
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Kincaid Dennett
Director of Member Services
Kincaid has been in the orbit of POOCH since they first visited Lawrence in 2009. After living out of a van in the Bay Area and falling in with a group of radicals working on fighting gentrification and evictions in the Mission neighborhood in San Francisco, they returned to Lawrence to join the fight to organize communities against hunger and unfair housing here in their adopted hometown. In 2015, Kincaid and a group of friends reestablished the Lawrence chapter of Food Not Bombs, an activist organization founded on the belief that access to nutritious food is a human right. Kincaid became POOCH's Member Services Coordinator and Director of Operations in January of 2018 with the intention of engaging the POOCH community in establishing more equitable housing practices and outfacing organizing and advocacy centered around their mission to uphold anti-oppressive practices. They have also lived in Ad Astra Cooperative since 2017 and love every minute of it.
Gabi Sprague
Director of Operations and Finance
Gabi has lived in Lawrence since 2012 when she left her small hometown of Concordia to attend school at the University of Kansas. Through her involvement at KU, she was introduced to Food Not Bombs in 2015 when she became further plugged into the Lawrence community. During the last few years, she has worked with organizations, activist groups, and community partners including the United Way of Douglas County, Black Lives Matter - LFK, Food Not Bombs, POOCH and more with the goal of actualizing a better future for the Lawrence community. With her background in nonprofit organization and resource development, she hopes to provide POOCH with foundational structure while promoting justice-oriented solutions to community issues. In her free time, she loves reading science fiction, being social, and trying unsuccessfully to do fancy eye makeup.
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Get Andrei Shkuro essential facts below. View Videos or join the Andrei Shkuro discussion. Add Andrei Shkuro to your PopFlock.com topic list for future reference or share this resource on social media.
Andrei Grigoriyevich Shkuro
Pashkovskaya (now part of Krasnodar), Kuban Oblast, Russian Empire
Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Kuban People's Republic
Imperial Russian Army
1st Cossack Division
Order of Saint Stanislaus
Order of the Bath (Great Britain)
Andrei Grigoriyevich Shkuro (Russian: ; Ukrainian: ? ) (19 January 1887 (O.S.: 7 January) – 17 January 1947) was a Lieutenant General (1919) of the White Army.
He was born in the stanitsa of Pashkovskaya (?, now part of Krasnodar) in Kuban Oblast into a Cossack family. Shkuro graduated from Cossack Sotnya of the Nikolaevsky Cavalry School[1] in 1907 and served in the Kuban Cossack Host. In World War I Shkuro became the commander of a special guerrilla unit which executed several daring raids behind Austrian-Hungarian and German lines. During World War I, Shkuro was promoted to the rank of colonel.
In the spring of 1918, after the establishment of the Bolshevik régime, Shkuro organized an anti-Bolshevik Cossack unit in the area of Batalpashinsk in the Caucasus. In May and June 1918 he raided Stavropol, Yessentuki and Kislovodsk.[2] After officially joining Denikin's White Army, he became the commander of the Kuban Cossacks brigade which soon increased in size and became a division. In May 1919 Shkuro, as a young lieutenant-general, had a whole cavalry corps of Cossacks under his command.
Shkuro, though charismatic and audacious, showed bravery which often bordered on the reckless; he received several wounds, and also acquired a reputation for his cunning. Many in the White Army's high command, however, considered him undisciplined and somewhat of a "loose cannon".
According to Soviet historians his forces (including his chief of staff Yakov Slashchov) were particularly cruel and prone to looting. In contrast, in his memoirs (which Shkuro dictated in 1921) he describes many instances in which he spared the lives of enemies, including even Bolshevik commissars (whom the Whites usually summarily executed). Shkuro claimed that he saved from execution a Red Army battalion of Jewish volunteers taken prisoner by the Whites, and that he spoke out against and prevented pogroms against the Jewish population.[3] When Denikin's volunteer army took Kiev in August 1919,[4] however, it inflicted a large-scale pogrom on the Jews. Over 20,000 people died in two days of violence. After these events, Supresskin, the representative of the Kharkov Jewish community, spoke to Shkuro, who stated to him bluntly that "Jews will not receive any mercy because they are all Bolsheviks".[5]
Although the White Army general Pyotr Wrangel valued initiative he also demanded discipline from his subordinates. Wrangel ended up disliking Shkuro, and upon reorganizing the army Wrangel did not give him a command position; this prompted Shkuro's resignation. Shkuro claimed that to the detriment of the anti-Bolshevik cause, both Denikin and Wrangel did not sufficiently understand Cossack society, and that as a result some of their decisions alienated the Cossacks -- even though the White Cossacks remained deeply hostile to the policies of the Bolsheviks.
Photo of Shkuro taken by the MGB after his arrest in 1947.
After the defeat of the Whites, Shkuro lived as an exile, primarily in France and Serbia. For the first few years he and a few other Cossack partners, displaying their great horsemanship, performed in circuses as trick riders across Europe. In addition, he continued to conduct anti-Soviet activities. Russian émigré memoirs depict Shkuro as a very lively man who enjoyed social gatherings with plenty of dancing, singing, drinking, and vivid storytelling about times past.
In 1941, Shkuro agreed to be one of the organizers of anti-Soviet Cossack units consisting of White émigrés and Soviet (mostly Cossack) prisoners of war in alliance with Nazi Germany. He, along with many other exiles, hoped that this would lead to the eventual destruction of the Soviet Union and liberation of Russia from communism. In 1944, Shkuro was placed in command of the "Cossack Reserve", which were primarily deployed in Yugoslavia against Josip Broz Tito's partisans. In 1945, Shkuro was detained by the British forces in Austria and handed over to the Soviet authorities in Operation Keelhaul. The Supreme Court of the USSR sentenced Andrei Shkuro to death. On 17 January 1947, he was executed, together with Pyotr Krasnov, by hanging.
Pyotr Krasnov
Repatriation of Cossacks after World War II
Helmuth von Pannwitz
^ in Russian Resource: ? ?
^ Shkuro, Andrei Grigor'evich in The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979)
^ Beloye Delo, Drozdovtsi i Partizani(White Cause), Moskva Golos 1996, A.G. Shkuro, Zapiski Belogo Partizana (Notes by a White Partisan) p. 224-226.
^ Subtelny, Orest (1988). Ukraine: A History (4 ed.). University of Toronto Press (published 2009). ISBN 9781442697287. Retrieved . In the late summer of 1919, it seemed that the collapse of the Bolshevik regime was imminent. [...] On 30 August [...] advance units of Denikin's army [...] moved into [Kiev] [...]
^ (in Russian) Dr Sergeichuk, V. Symon Petliura kak protyvnyk Yevreyskykh Pogromov (Symon Petlura in opposition to Jewish Pogroms, Zerkalo Nedeli, No 21 (86) 25 -- 31 May 1996
Andrei_Shkuro
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Get Computer Vision essential facts below. View Videos or join the Computer Vision discussion. Add Computer Vision to your PopFlock.com topic list for future reference or share this resource on social media.
Computerized information extraction from images
Computer vision is an interdisciplinary scientific field that deals with how computers can gain high-level understanding from digital images or videos. From the perspective of engineering, it seeks to understand and automate tasks that the human visual system can do.[1][2][3]
Computer vision tasks include methods for acquiring, processing, analyzing and understanding digital images, and extraction of high-dimensional data from the real world in order to produce numerical or symbolic information, e.g. in the forms of decisions.[4][5][6][7] Understanding in this context means the transformation of visual images (the input of the retina) into descriptions of the world that make sense to thought processes and can elicit appropriate action. This image understanding can be seen as the disentangling of symbolic information from image data using models constructed with the aid of geometry, physics, statistics, and learning theory.[8]
The scientific discipline of computer vision is concerned with the theory behind artificial systems that extract information from images. The image data can take many forms, such as video sequences, views from multiple cameras, multi-dimensional data from a 3D scanner, or medical scanning device. The technological discipline of computer vision seeks to apply its theories and models to the construction of computer vision systems.
Sub-domains of computer vision include scene reconstruction, event detection, video tracking, object recognition, 3D pose estimation, learning, indexing, motion estimation, visual servoing, 3D scene modeling, and image restoration.[6]
Computer vision is an interdisciplinary field that deals with how computers can be made to gain high-level understanding from digital images or videos. From the perspective of engineering, it seeks to automate tasks that the human visual system can do.[1][2][3] "Computer vision is concerned with the automatic extraction, analysis and understanding of useful information from a single image or a sequence of images. It involves the development of a theoretical and algorithmic basis to achieve automatic visual understanding."[9] As a scientific discipline, computer vision is concerned with the theory behind artificial systems that extract information from images. The image data can take many forms, such as video sequences, views from multiple cameras, or multi-dimensional data from a medical scanner.[10] As a technological discipline, computer vision seeks to apply its theories and models for the construction of computer vision systems.
In the late 1960s, computer vision began at universities which were pioneering artificial intelligence. It was meant to mimic the human visual system, as a stepping stone to endowing robots with intelligent behavior.[11] In 1966, it was believed that this could be achieved through a summer project, by attaching a camera to a computer and having it "describe what it saw".[12][13]
What distinguished computer vision from the prevalent field of digital image processing at that time was a desire to extract three-dimensional structure from images with the goal of achieving full scene understanding. Studies in the 1970s formed the early foundations for many of the computer vision algorithms that exist today, including extraction of edges from images, labeling of lines, non-polyhedral and polyhedral modeling, representation of objects as interconnections of smaller structures, optical flow, and motion estimation.[11]
The next decade saw studies based on more rigorous mathematical analysis and quantitative aspects of computer vision. These include the concept of scale-space, the inference of shape from various cues such as shading, texture and focus, and contour models known as snakes. Researchers also realized that many of these mathematical concepts could be treated within the same optimization framework as regularization and Markov random fields.[14] By the 1990s, some of the previous research topics became more active than the others. Research in projective 3-D reconstructions led to better understanding of camera calibration. With the advent of optimization methods for camera calibration, it was realized that a lot of the ideas were already explored in bundle adjustment theory from the field of photogrammetry. This led to methods for sparse 3-D reconstructions of scenes from multiple images. Progress was made on the dense stereo correspondence problem and further multi-view stereo techniques. At the same time, variations of graph cut were used to solve image segmentation. This decade also marked the first time statistical learning techniques were used in practice to recognize faces in images (see Eigenface). Toward the end of the 1990s, a significant change came about with the increased interaction between the fields of computer graphics and computer vision. This included image-based rendering, image morphing, view interpolation, panoramic image stitching and early light-field rendering.[11]
Recent work has seen the resurgence of feature-based methods, used in conjunction with machine learning techniques and complex optimization frameworks.[15][16] The advancement of Deep Learning techniques has brought further life to the field of computer vision. The accuracy of deep learning algorithms on several benchmark computer vision data sets for tasks ranging from classification, segmentation and optical flow has surpassed prior methods.[]
Areas of artificial intelligence deal with autonomous path planning or deliberation for robotic systems to navigate through an environment.[17] A detailed understanding of these environments is required to navigate through them. Information about the environment could be provided by a computer vision system, acting as a vision sensor and providing high-level information about the environment and the robot.
Artificial intelligence and computer vision share other topics such as pattern recognition and learning techniques. Consequently, computer vision is sometimes seen as a part of the artificial intelligence field or the computer science field in general.
Computer vision is often considered to be part of information engineering.[18][19]
Solid-state physics is another field that is closely related to computer vision. Most computer vision systems rely on image sensors, which detect electromagnetic radiation, which is typically in the form of either visible or infra-red light. The sensors are designed using quantum physics. The process by which light interacts with surfaces is explained using physics. Physics explains the behavior of optics which are a core part of most imaging systems. Sophisticated image sensors even require quantum mechanics to provide a complete understanding of the image formation process.[11] Also, various measurement problems in physics can be addressed using computer vision, for example motion in fluids.
A third field which plays an important role is neurobiology, specifically the study of the biological vision system. Over the last century, there has been an extensive study of eyes, neurons, and the brain structures devoted to processing of visual stimuli in both humans and various animals. This has led to a coarse, yet complicated, description of how "real" vision systems operate in order to solve certain vision-related tasks. These results have led to a sub-field within computer vision where artificial systems are designed to mimic the processing and behavior of biological systems, at different levels of complexity. Also, some of the learning-based methods developed within computer vision (e.g. neural net and deep learning based image and feature analysis and classification) have their background in biology.
Some strands of computer vision research are closely related to the study of biological vision - indeed, just as many strands of AI research are closely tied with research into human consciousness, and the use of stored knowledge to interpret, integrate and utilize visual information. The field of biological vision studies and models the physiological processes behind visual perception in humans and other animals. Computer vision, on the other hand, studies and describes the processes implemented in software and hardware behind artificial vision systems. Interdisciplinary exchange between biological and computer vision has proven fruitful for both fields.[20]
Yet another field related to computer vision is signal processing. Many methods for processing of one-variable signals, typically temporal signals, can be extended in a natural way to processing of two-variable signals or multi-variable signals in computer vision. However, because of the specific nature of images there are many methods developed within computer vision that have no counterpart in processing of one-variable signals. Together with the multi-dimensionality of the signal, this defines a subfield in signal processing as a part of computer vision.
Beside the above-mentioned views on computer vision, many of the related research topics can also be studied from a purely mathematical point of view. For example, many methods in computer vision are based on statistics, optimization or geometry. Finally, a significant part of the field is devoted to the implementation aspect of computer vision; how existing methods can be realized in various combinations of software and hardware, or how these methods can be modified in order to gain processing speed without losing too much performance. Computer vision is also used in fashion ecommerce, inventory management, patent search, furniture, and the beauty industry.[]
The fields most closely related to computer vision are image processing, image analysis and machine vision. There is a significant overlap in the range of techniques and applications that these cover. This implies that the basic techniques that are used and developed in these fields are similar, something which can be interpreted as there is only one field with different names. On the other hand, it appears to be necessary for research groups, scientific journals, conferences and companies to present or market themselves as belonging specifically to one of these fields and, hence, various characterizations which distinguish each of the fields from the others have been presented.
Computer graphics produces image data from 3D models, computer vision often produces 3D models from image data.[21] There is also a trend towards a combination of the two disciplines, e.g., as explored in augmented reality.
The following characterizations appear relevant but should not be taken as universally accepted::
Image processing and image analysis tend to focus on 2D images, how to transform one image to another, e.g., by pixel-wise operations such as contrast enhancement, local operations such as edge extraction or noise removal, or geometrical transformations such as rotating the image. This characterization implies that image processing/analysis neither require assumptions nor produce interpretations about the image content.
Computer vision includes 3D analysis from 2D images. This analyzes the 3D scene projected onto one or several images, e.g., how to reconstruct structure or other information about the 3D scene from one or several images. Computer vision often relies on more or less complex assumptions about the scene depicted in an image.
Machine vision is the process of applying a range of technologies & methods to provide imaging-based automatic inspection, process control and robot guidance[22] in industrial applications.[20] Machine vision tends to focus on applications, mainly in manufacturing, e.g., vision-based robots and systems for vision-based inspection, measurement, or picking (such as bin picking[23]). This implies that image sensor technologies and control theory often are integrated with the processing of image data to control a robot and that real-time processing is emphasised by means of efficient implementations in hardware and software. It also implies that the external conditions such as lighting can be and are often more controlled in machine vision than they are in general computer vision, which can enable the use of different algorithms.
There is also a field called imaging which primarily focuses on the process of producing images, but sometimes also deals with processing and analysis of images. For example, medical imaging includes substantial work on the analysis of image data in medical applications.
Finally, pattern recognition is a field which uses various methods to extract information from signals in general, mainly based on statistical approaches and artificial neural networks. A significant part of this field is devoted to applying these methods to image data.
Photogrammetry also overlaps with computer vision, e.g., stereophotogrammetry vs. computer stereo vision.
Applications range from tasks such as industrial machine vision systems which, say, inspect bottles speeding by on a production line, to research into artificial intelligence and computers or robots that can comprehend the world around them. The computer vision and machine vision fields have significant overlap. Computer vision covers the core technology of automated image analysis which is used in many fields. Machine vision usually refers to a process of combining automated image analysis with other methods and technologies to provide automated inspection and robot guidance in industrial applications. In many computer-vision applications, the computers are pre-programmed to solve a particular task, but methods based on learning are now becoming increasingly common. Examples of applications of computer vision include systems for:
Learning 3D shapes has been a challenging task in computer vision. Recent advances in deep learning has enabled researchers to build models that are able to generate and reconstruct 3D shapes from single or multi-view depth maps or silhouettes seamlessly and efficiently [21]
Automatic inspection, e.g., in manufacturing applications;
Assisting humans in identification tasks, e.g., a species identification system;[24]
Controlling processes, e.g., an industrial robot;
Detecting events, e.g., for visual surveillance or people counting, e.g., in the restaurant industry;
Interaction, e.g., as the input to a device for computer-human interaction;
Modeling objects or environments, e.g., medical image analysis or topographical modeling;
Navigation, e.g., by an autonomous vehicle or mobile robot; and
Organizing information, e.g., for indexing databases of images and image sequences.
DARPA's Visual Media Reasoning concept video
One of the most prominent application fields is medical computer vision, or medical image processing, characterized by the extraction of information from image data to diagnose a patient. An example of this is detection of tumours, arteriosclerosis or other malign changes; measurements of organ dimensions, blood flow, etc. are another example. It also supports medical research by providing new information: e.g., about the structure of the brain, or about the quality of medical treatments. Applications of computer vision in the medical area also includes enhancement of images interpreted by humans--ultrasonic images or X-ray images for example--to reduce the influence of noise.
A second application area in computer vision is in industry, sometimes called machine vision, where information is extracted for the purpose of supporting a manufacturing process. One example is quality control where details or final products are being automatically inspected in order to find defects. Another example is measurement of position and orientation of details to be picked up by a robot arm. Machine vision is also heavily used in agricultural process to remove undesirable food stuff from bulk material, a process called optical sorting.[25]
Military applications are probably one of the largest areas for computer vision. The obvious examples are detection of enemy soldiers or vehicles and missile guidance. More advanced systems for missile guidance send the missile to an area rather than a specific target, and target selection is made when the missile reaches the area based on locally acquired image data. Modern military concepts, such as "battlefield awareness", imply that various sensors, including image sensors, provide a rich set of information about a combat scene which can be used to support strategic decisions. In this case, automatic processing of the data is used to reduce complexity and to fuse information from multiple sensors to increase reliability.
Artist's concept of Curiosity, an example of an uncrewed land-based vehicle. Notice the stereo camera mounted on top of the rover.
One of the newer application areas is autonomous vehicles, which include submersibles, land-based vehicles (small robots with wheels, cars or trucks), aerial vehicles, and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). The level of autonomy ranges from fully autonomous (unmanned) vehicles to vehicles where computer-vision-based systems support a driver or a pilot in various situations. Fully autonomous vehicles typically use computer vision for navigation, e.g. for knowing where it is, or for producing a map of its environment (SLAM) and for detecting obstacles. It can also be used for detecting certain task specific events, e.g., a UAV looking for forest fires. Examples of supporting systems are obstacle warning systems in cars, and systems for autonomous landing of aircraft. Several car manufacturers have demonstrated systems for autonomous driving of cars, but this technology has still not reached a level where it can be put on the market. There are ample examples of military autonomous vehicles ranging from advanced missiles to UAVs for recon missions or missile guidance. Space exploration is already being made with autonomous vehicles using computer vision, e.g., NASA's Curiosity and CNSA's Yutu-2 rover.
Rubber artificial skin layer with flexible structure for shape estimation of micro-undulation surfaces
Above is a silicon mold with a camera inside containing many different point markers. When this sensor is pressed against the surface the silicon deforms and the position of the point markers shift. A computer can then take this data and determine how exactly the mold is pressed against the surface. This can be used to calibrate robotic hands in order to make sure they can grasp objects effectively.
Materials such as rubber and silicon are being used to create sensors that allow for applications such as detecting micro undulations and calibrating robotic hands. Rubber can be used in order to create a mold that can be placed over a finger, inside of this mold would be multiple strain gauges. The finger mold and sensors could then be placed on top of a small sheet of rubber containing an array of rubber pins. A user can then wear the finger mold and trace a surface. A computer can then read the data from the strain gauges and measure if one or more of the pins is being pushed upward. If a pin is being pushed upward then the computer can recognize this as an imperfection in the surface. This sort of technology is useful in order to receive accurate data of the imperfections on a very large surface.[26] Another variation of this finger mold sensor are sensors that contain a camera suspended in silicon. The silicon forms a dome around the outside of the camera and embedded in the silicon are point markers that are equally spaced. These cameras can then be placed on devices such as robotic hands in order to allow the computer to receive highly accurate tactile data.[27]
Other application areas include:
Support of visual effects creation for cinema and broadcast, e.g., camera tracking (matchmoving).
Driver drowsiness detection[]
Tracking and counting organisms in the biological sciences[28]
Each of the application areas described above employ a range of computer vision tasks; more or less well-defined measurement problems or processing problems, which can be solved using a variety of methods. Some examples of typical computer vision tasks are presented below.
Computer vision tasks include methods for acquiring, processing, analyzing and understanding digital images, and extraction of high-dimensional data from the real world in order to produce numerical or symbolic information, e.g., in the forms of decisions.[4][5][6][7] Understanding in this context means the transformation of visual images (the input of the retina) into descriptions of the world that can interface with other thought processes and elicit appropriate action. This image understanding can be seen as the disentangling of symbolic information from image data using models constructed with the aid of geometry, physics, statistics, and learning theory.[8]
The classical problem in computer vision, image processing, and machine vision is that of determining whether or not the image data contains some specific object, feature, or activity. Different varieties of the recognition problem are described in the literature:[]
Object recognition (also called object classification) – one or several pre-specified or learned objects or object classes can be recognized, usually together with their 2D positions in the image or 3D poses in the scene. Blippar, Google Goggles and LikeThat provide stand-alone programs that illustrate this functionality.
Identification – an individual instance of an object is recognized. Examples include identification of a specific person's face or fingerprint, identification of handwritten digits, or identification of a specific vehicle.
Detection – the image data are scanned for a specific condition. Examples include detection of possible abnormal cells or tissues in medical images or detection of a vehicle in an automatic road toll system. Detection based on relatively simple and fast computations is sometimes used for finding smaller regions of interesting image data which can be further analyzed by more computationally demanding techniques to produce a correct interpretation.
Currently, the best algorithms for such tasks are based on convolutional neural networks. An illustration of their capabilities is given by the ImageNet Large Scale Visual Recognition Challenge; this is a benchmark in object classification and detection, with millions of images and 1000 object classes used in the competition.[29] Performance of convolutional neural networks on the ImageNet tests is now close to that of humans.[29] The best algorithms still struggle with objects that are small or thin, such as a small ant on a stem of a flower or a person holding a quill in their hand. They also have trouble with images that have been distorted with filters (an increasingly common phenomenon with modern digital cameras). By contrast, those kinds of images rarely trouble humans. Humans, however, tend to have trouble with other issues. For example, they are not good at classifying objects into fine-grained classes, such as the particular breed of dog or species of bird, whereas convolutional neural networks handle this with ease[].
Several specialized tasks based on recognition exist, such as:
Content-based image retrieval – finding all images in a larger set of images which have a specific content. The content can be specified in different ways, for example in terms of similarity relative a target image (give me all images similar to image X), or in terms of high-level search criteria given as text input (give me all images which contain many houses, are taken during winter, and have no cars in them).
Computer vision for people counter purposes in public places, malls, shopping centres
Pose estimation – estimating the position or orientation of a specific object relative to the camera. An example application for this technique would be assisting a robot arm in retrieving objects from a conveyor belt in an assembly line situation or picking parts from a bin.
Optical character recognition (OCR) – identifying characters in images of printed or handwritten text, usually with a view to encoding the text in a format more amenable to editing or indexing (e.g. ASCII).
2D code reading – reading of 2D codes such as data matrix and QR codes.
Shape Recognition Technology (SRT) in people counter systems differentiating human beings (head and shoulder patterns) from objects
Several tasks relate to motion estimation where an image sequence is processed to produce an estimate of the velocity either at each points in the image or in the 3D scene, or even of the camera that produces the images. Examples of such tasks are:
Egomotion – determining the 3D rigid motion (rotation and translation) of the camera from an image sequence produced by the camera.
Tracking – following the movements of a (usually) smaller set of interest points or objects (e.g., vehicles, humans or other organisms[28]) in the image sequence.
Tracking of vehicles movement using Python (cvlib library)
Optical flow – to determine, for each point in the image, how that point is moving relative to the image plane, i.e., its apparent motion. This motion is a result both of how the corresponding 3D point is moving in the scene and how the camera is moving relative to the scene.
Scene reconstruction
Given one or (typically) more images of a scene, or a video, scene reconstruction aims at computing a 3D model of the scene. In the simplest case the model can be a set of 3D points. More sophisticated methods produce a complete 3D surface model. The advent of 3D imaging not requiring motion or scanning, and related processing algorithms is enabling rapid advances in this field. Grid-based 3D sensing can be used to acquire 3D images from multiple angles. Algorithms are now available to stitch multiple 3D images together into point clouds and 3D models.[21]
The aim of image restoration is the removal of noise (sensor noise, motion blur, etc.) from images. The simplest possible approach for noise removal is various types of filters such as low-pass filters or median filters. More sophisticated methods assume a model of how the local image structures look, to distinguish them from noise. By first analysing the image data in terms of the local image structures, such as lines or edges, and then controlling the filtering based on local information from the analysis step, a better level of noise removal is usually obtained compared to the simpler approaches.
An example in this field is inpainting.
System methods
The organization of a computer vision system is highly application-dependent. Some systems are stand-alone applications that solve a specific measurement or detection problem, while others constitute a sub-system of a larger design which, for example, also contains sub-systems for control of mechanical actuators, planning, information databases, man-machine interfaces, etc. The specific implementation of a computer vision system also depends on whether its functionality is pre-specified or if some part of it can be learned or modified during operation. Many functions are unique to the application. There are, however, typical functions that are found in many computer vision systems.
Image acquisition - A digital image is produced by one or several image sensors, which, besides various types of light-sensitive cameras, include range sensors, tomography devices, radar, ultra-sonic cameras, etc. Depending on the type of sensor, the resulting image data is an ordinary 2D image, a 3D volume, or an image sequence. The pixel values typically correspond to light intensity in one or several spectral bands (gray images or colour images), but can also be related to various physical measures, such as depth, absorption or reflectance of sonic or electromagnetic waves, or nuclear magnetic resonance.[25]
Pre-processing - Before a computer vision method can be applied to image data in order to extract some specific piece of information, it is usually necessary to process the data in order to assure that it satisfies certain assumptions implied by the method. Examples are:
Re-sampling to assure that the image coordinate system is correct.
Noise reduction to assure that sensor noise does not introduce false information.
Contrast enhancement to assure that relevant information can be detected.
Scale space representation to enhance image structures at locally appropriate scales.
Feature extraction - Image features at various levels of complexity are extracted from the image data.[25] Typical examples of such features are:
Lines, edges and ridges.
Localized interest points such as corners, blobs or points.
More complex features may be related to texture, shape or motion.
Detection/segmentation - At some point in the processing a decision is made about which image points or regions of the image are relevant for further processing.[25] Examples are:
Selection of a specific set of interest points.
Segmentation of one or multiple image regions that contain a specific object of interest.
Segmentation of image into nested scene architecture comprising foreground, object groups, single objects or salient object[30] parts (also referred to as spatial-taxon scene hierarchy),[31] while the visual salience is often implemented as spatial and temporal attention.
Segmentation or co-segmentation of one or multiple videos into a series of per-frame foreground masks, while maintaining its temporal semantic continuity.[32][33]
High-level processing - At this step the input is typically a small set of data, for example a set of points or an image region which is assumed to contain a specific object.[25] The remaining processing deals with, for example:
Verification that the data satisfy model-based and application-specific assumptions.
Estimation of application-specific parameters, such as object pose or object size.
Image recognition - classifying a detected object into different categories.
Image registration - comparing and combining two different views of the same object.
Decision making Making the final decision required for the application,[25] for example:
Pass/fail on automatic inspection applications.
Match/no-match in recognition applications.
Flag for further human review in medical, military, security and recognition applications.
Image-understanding systems
Image-understanding systems (IUS) include three levels of abstraction as follows: low level includes image primitives such as edges, texture elements, or regions; intermediate level includes boundaries, surfaces and volumes; and high level includes objects, scenes, or events. Many of these requirements are entirely topics for further research.
The representational requirements in the designing of IUS for these levels are: representation of prototypical concepts, concept organization, spatial knowledge, temporal knowledge, scaling, and description by comparison and differentiation.
While inference refers to the process of deriving new, not explicitly represented facts from currently known facts, control refers to the process that selects which of the many inference, search, and matching techniques should be applied at a particular stage of processing. Inference and control requirements for IUS are: search and hypothesis activation, matching and hypothesis testing, generation and use of expectations, change and focus of attention, certainty and strength of belief, inference and goal satisfaction.[34]
New iPad includes lidar sensor
There are many kinds of computer vision systems; however, all of them contain these basic elements: a power source, at least one image acquisition device (camera, ccd, etc.), a processor, and control and communication cables or some kind of wireless interconnection mechanism. In addition, a practical vision system contains software, as well as a display in order to monitor the system. Vision systems for inner spaces, as most industrial ones, contain an illumination system and may be placed in a controlled environment. Furthermore, a completed system includes many accessories such as camera supports, cables and connectors.
Most computer vision systems use visible-light cameras passively viewing a scene at frame rates of at most 60 frames per second (usually far slower).
A few computer vision systems use image-acquisition hardware with active illumination or something other than visible light or both, such as structured-light 3D scanners, thermographic cameras, hyperspectral imagers, radar imaging, lidar scanners, magnetic resonance images, side-scan sonar, synthetic aperture sonar, etc. Such hardware captures "images" that are then processed often using the same computer vision algorithms used to process visible-light images.
While traditional broadcast and consumer video systems operate at a rate of 30 frames per second, advances in digital signal processing and consumer graphics hardware has made high-speed image acquisition, processing, and display possible for real-time systems on the order of hundreds to thousands of frames per second. For applications in robotics, fast, real-time video systems are critically important and often can simplify the processing needed for certain algorithms. When combined with a high-speed projector, fast image acquisition allows 3D measurement and feature tracking to be realised.[35]
Egocentric vision systems are composed of a wearable camera that automatically take pictures from a first-person perspective.
As of 2016, vision processing units are emerging as a new class of processor, to complement CPUs and graphics processing units (GPUs) in this role.[36]
Computational imaging
Machine vision glossary
Space mapping
Teknomo-Fernandez algorithm
Vision science
Egocentric vision
Visual agnosia
Computer audition
List of computer vision topics
List of emerging technologies
Outline of artificial intelligence
Outline of computer vision
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R. Fisher; K Dawson-Howe; A. Fitzgibbon; C. Robertson; E. Trucco (2005). Dictionary of Computer Vision and Image Processing. John Wiley. ISBN 978-0-470-01526-1.
Nikos Paragios and Yunmei Chen and Olivier Faugeras (2005). Handbook of Mathematical Models in Computer Vision. Springer. ISBN 978-0-387-26371-7.
Wilhelm Burger; Mark J. Burge (2007). Digital Image Processing: An Algorithmic Approach Using Java. Springer. ISBN 978-1-84628-379-6.
Pedram Azad; Tilo Gockel; Rüdiger Dillmann (2008). Computer Vision - Principles and Practice. Elektor International Media BV. ISBN 978-0-905705-71-2.
Richard Szeliski (2010). Computer Vision: Algorithms and Applications. Springer-Verlag. ISBN 978-1848829343.
J. R. Parker (2011). Algorithms for Image Processing and Computer Vision (2nd ed.). Wiley. ISBN 978-0470643853.
Richard J. Radke (2013). Computer Vision for Visual Effects. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-76687-6.
Nixon, Mark; Aguado, Alberto (2019). Feature Extraction and Image Processing for Computer Vision (4th ed.). Academic Press. ISBN 978-0128149768.
USC Iris computer vision conference list
Computer vision papers on the web A complete list of papers of the most relevant computer vision conferences.
Computer Vision Online News, source code, datasets and job offers related to computer vision.
Keith Price's Annotated Computer Vision Bibliography
CVonline Bob Fisher's Compendium of Computer Vision.
British Machine Vision Association Supporting computer vision research within the UK via the BMVC and MIUA conferences, Annals of the BMVA (open-source journal), BMVA Summer School and one-day meetings
Computer Vision Container, Joe Hoeller GitHub: Widely adopted open-source container for GPU accelerated computer vision applications. Used by researchers, universities, private companies as well as the U.S. Gov't.
C# computer vision tutorial #1: What is Computer Vision?
GPU Computer Vision
Computer Vision Tutorial
Computer vision gameplay
0119110859.3g2 computer vision
What is COMPUTER VISION SYNDROME? What does COMPUTER VISION SYNDROME mean?
Computer Vision Quadrangle detection
Computer Vision camera calibration
CVS Computer Vision Syndrome
Computer Vision con Processing
[PDF] Computer Vision - ECCV 2004: 8th European Conference on Computer Vision Prague Czech
Read Computer Vision - ECCV 2000: 6th European Conference on Computer Vision Dublin Ireland
[PDF] Computer Vision -- ECCV 2006: 9th European Conference on Computer Vision Graz Austria
Read Computer Vision -- ECCV 2006: 9th European Conference on Computer Vision Graz Austria
[PDF] Computer Vision - ECCV'98: 5th European Conference on Computer Vision Freiburg Germany
Robot driving via computer vision
COMPUTER VISION CONTROLLED ROBOT ARM
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Officer Randy Simmons
Learn more about Randy's Story
Randy's Story
THE RANDAL D. SIMMONS
OUTREACH FOUNDATION
The Randal D. Simmons Outreach Foundation is a 501(c) (3) nonprofit organization established in honor of LAPD SWAT Officer Randy Simmons, who was tragically killed in the line of duty on February 7, 2008. Our purpose is to serve, empower and encourage “at risk” youth and families who live in low income and underserved areas in Los Angeles County. Our core values are centered on the love and compassion that God requires us to have for one another.
Our mission is to continue the legacy of Randal D. Simmons by spreading love, serving our community and reaching out to help others in need.
Our hearts desire is to meet the needs of families and youth who require help in one of the four categories: QUALITY OF LIFE, EDUCATION, HEALTH & WORLD OUTREACH.
Share a Story About Randal D. Simmons Foundation
We would love to hear about your experience with the Randal D. Simmons Foundation!
Please share with us below, or read any of the recent stories.
READ MORESHARE YOUR STORY
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Sentence of unauthorized March 26 rally participant reduced by 6 months
Moscow court sentences participant of unauthorized March 26 rally to 2 years
© RIA Novosti, Ilya Pitalev
Tags: Rally, Sentence, The Moscow City Court, Russia
MOSCOW, November 20 (RAPSI, Nikolay Merkulov) – The Moscow City Court on Monday reduced the sentence of Alexey Politikov, a participant of the unauthorized March 26 rally in Moscow, from 2 to 1.5 years in prison, his lawyer Sergey Badamshin told RAPSI.
Politikov was convicted and sentenced in October. He was found guilty of using force against a representative of authority. The defendant pleaded guilty.
The Tverskoy District Court of Moscow found that Politikov attacked a police officer during the rally by grabbing him and trying to throw him on the ground while kicking the officer in the process.
According to police, about 500 people were arrested on March 26 during the unauthorized rally. Overall number of people present in the area at the time was estimated at as high as 8,000 people.
Three participants of the rally have been already sentenced for the use of force against police officers to prison terms ranging from 1.5 to 4 years in prison. One more man has received 8 months in a penal colony settlement. Later, the 4-year sentence given to Andrey Kosykh was reduced by 4 months.
The Russian opposition politician Alexey Navalny arrested during the rally claimed that Moscow’s authorities refused to greenlight the rally in the city’s center and proposed alternative areas only a day before it was to take place. Navalny said that in this case Russian legislation allows organizers to hold an event at the area, which was listed first.
17:42 20/11/2017 The Moscow City Court on Monday reduced the sentence of Alexey Politikov, a participant of the unauthorized March 26 rally in Moscow, from 2 to 1.5 years in prison.
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The Man Who Swam to Hong Kong
In 1973 Chan Hak-chi and his wife swam six hours through a typhoon to leave the chaos of China’s Cultural Revolution.
HONG KONG — Under dark clouds forming above Kowloon Bay, silver-haired Chan Hak-chi readies himself for a swim, as those around him begin packing up their gear to leave. “I’ve swum every day for the past 40 years, regardless of the weather,” the 70-year-old says, before turning away from the water and executing a perfect back dive into its dark depths.
It’s perhaps unsurprising that Chan isn’t bothered by the storm. Almost 44 years ago to the day, he braved much worse when he and his wife swam from the southern coast of the mainland through shark-infested waters to reach Hong Kong without any documentation.
Born in 1947, just two years before the founding of the People’s Republic of China (P.R.C.), Chan was raised in Guangzhou, the capital of southern China’s Guangdong province. The youngest of five children, he was a studious young man who had his sights set on going to college. But things changed in 1966 with the onset of the Cultural Revolution, a period of violent upheaval that targeted society’s perceived reactionary elements.
Chan Hak-chi, who swam to Hong Kong from the mainland with his wife in the ’70s, settled on the island, which was returned to China in 1997. By Wu Yue and Tang Xiaolan/Sixth Tone
Like millions of other young people, Chan was promptly sent to the countryside — to a small county around 100 kilometers from Guangzhou — to toil among and learn from the rural working class, considered the foundation of the country’s socialist revolution. His dream of a college education lay in ruins, and he struggled to hold on to his hopes for a brighter future. His mother shared his despair; to Chan’s surprise, she implored him — albeit reluctantly — to take his then-girlfriend Li Kit-hing and leave the chaos of the Cultural Revolution behind by relocating to Hong Kong.
His mother’s wish followed several other booms in illegal migration to Hong Kong after the founding of the P.R.C., including one in 1962 following the Great Famine of 1959-1961. Another exodus was to follow in 1979 ahead of changes to Hong Kong’s settlement policy in 1980 stipulating that illegal immigrants from the mainland would be repatriated immediately.
In the ’70s, migrants like Chan had three options: slipping past border guards and their dogs to cross the land that connects Hong Kong’s Kowloon Peninsula to the city of Shenzhen in Guangdong province; navigating rocky sheer drops to the west and swimming across Shenzhen Bay; or braving the longer swimming route to the east through Mirs Bay, where people were known to have been killed by sharks in the choppy waters.
Chan and Li chose the eastern route — a hazardous and arduous swim, but one that was free of patrolling guards. “If there was a god who could have told us that the Cultural Revolution would end in a few years and that we’d get back to the city again, I wouldn’t have chosen to escape,” says Chan. “I really had no other choice.”
Left: Chan Hak-chi helps his wife, Li Kit-hing, climb ashore after going swimming in Hong Kong, May 25, 2017. Wu Yue/Sixth Tone; right: a photo from the summer of 1973 shows Chan Hak-chi and Li Kit-hing standing by a swimming pool in Guangzhou, Guangdong province. Courtesy of Chan Hak-chi
After months of swimming 10 kilometers every day in Guangdong’s Pearl River, Chan and Li felt as prepared as possible. On the night of July 16, 1973, the young couple traveled to the northern edge of Mirs Bay, connected themselves with a stretch of rope, and slipped into the sea.
After more than six hours of cutting through the waves, battered by the winds of Typhoon Dot, Chan and Li reached land. English writing on the trash that littered the shore told them they had arrived at their new home.
For the couple, who had never had an official wedding ceremony, the ordeal drew them closer together — so much so that they celebrate July 16 as their wedding date.
“Typhoon Dot was our witness,” Chan says. “The waves were our guests.”
Typhoon Dot was our witness. The waves were our guests.
- Chan Hak-chi, migrant to Hong Kong
What awaited them was nothing like a honeymoon. Chan and Li were able to register for Hong Kong identity cards under the “Touch Base Policy,” which granted residency to new arrivals from the mainland provided they made it to Hong Kong’s urban areas and were met by a relative; luckily, Chan had an aunt in Hong Kong who had migrated years before. But the couple’s relief at having settled safely was tempered by the harshness of the new life they had walked into.
With the help of Chan’s aunt, the couple found work in a factory making watch straps. They worked day shifts and night shifts, and would cover for fellow employees who went on leave whenever possible, each bringing home just 5 Hong Kong dollars (then around $1) a day. The financial pressure was compounded when, two years after they arrived, Li gave birth to a daughter, the first of three children for the couple. Chan tried his hand at all manner of trades — from watch factory worker to cotton mill laborer — taking on any work that would support the young family.
But by 1984, after a stint at an elevator installation company, Chan had saved enough money and gained enough experience to start his own elevator installation business. In 1995, all five family members moved into an apartment of their own in Hung Hom, where the elderly couple still lives with their two younger children; their eldest daughter is married and has three children of her own.
A family photo from 1987 shows Chan Hak-chi posing with his wife and children at Ocean Park in Hong Kong. Courtesy of Chan Hak-chi
Now, when he isn’t busy diving in Kowloon Bay, Chan is savoring time spent with his children and grandchildren. That could soon change: His eldest daughter is considering moving abroad with her young family, a prospect that pains Chan, who says he is lucky to have come to Hong Kong and wears his profound attachment to his new home on his sleeve. “After I first arrived in Hong Kong, when people would ask me where I come from, I would say I’m from Guangdong province,” he says. “Now, at my age, I say I’m a Hong Konger.”
But Chan is also aware of the intense pressures facing Hong Kong’s younger generation — illustrated by the fact that his second daughter and son continue to live with their parents. His eldest daughter had no problem finding a well-paying job after graduating in 1997 with a degree in accounting, but his son, who graduated 12 years later, has struggled to find work. Without a stable, reasonably paying job, it's nearly impossible to afford real estate in Hong Kong, with figures from May showing that prices in the world's most expensive property market had risen for the 13th consecutive month.
“Many young people today have the desire to migrate,” says Chan, who now finds himself in a situation similar to his mother’s over 40 years ago, albeit under vastly different circumstances. “My mother couldn’t bear to see me go. And that’s how I would feel about my children and grandchildren if they left me.”
“My heart would be torn by their departure, but I would not stop them,” Chan says. “I would respect their decision.”
Editor: Owen Churchill.
(Header image: Chan Hak-chi goes swimming in Hong Kong, May 25, 2017. Wu Yue/Sixth Tone)
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Politics - Looking Back on a Shambolic Week for McCain
I have to admit, as a Democrat I was worried for a while after the RNC. It looked like, in finding Sarah Palin, the Republican party had found this year's 'iraq war' to manipulate impressionable undecided voters. But full respect to the American people, they have shown themselves to be far more astute than many give them credit for.
As I said in last week's blog, McCain needed to find a different way to try and pull the proverbial rabbit out of the hat and shake up the election again, and this week he tried to do just that... the result? McCain is increasingly becoming a laughing stock, even among his own supporters. Ladies and gentlemen the comedy stylings of one John McCain:
Anyone reading this who has a clear memory of this past summer (which is probably very few of the republicans judging by their continued support of McCain's policies) will recall with some distaste how McCain attempted to milk the Georgian crisis for his own political gain with melodramatic, inaccurate, and wholly inappropriate speeches designed to appeal to the average oblivious American voter who were not even aware that Georgia is a country.
Well, being that this week started off with probably the worst thing that could ever have happened to the Republican campaign: the massive economic crisis which highlights McCain's complete cluelessness on the economy, as even McCain himself admits, McCain needed to find another gimmick to boost his numbers.
He had already done inappropriate melodrama with foreign policy. He had already done exploitative and cynical vice president choice. So where was he going to get a new thing to play with? Well this time he chose inappropriate melodrama with economics. Guess he must be running out of ideas huh?
McCain decided, out of the blue, to suspend his campaign in order to run out to Washington to save the day. He then also added his regular malarkey about how he had to bring bipartisan politics to a negotiation plagued by partisan politics.
Well for starters, the economic meltdown occurred Over a week ago when McCain was ahead in the polls. So why did McCain only decide a week later, when a solution was already close to being reached, that the crisis, being called the greatest since the great depression, was worthy of his attention? Surely it couldn't have anything to do with the fact that Obama had retaken the lead in the polls the day before this announcement?
On top of this one must look at McCain's absurd notion of bipartisan politics. For starters, by all accounts the negotiations in Washington surprisingly bipartisan and co-operative already, and indeed at the beginning of the week negotiators, both democrat and republicans, announced that an agreement had been reached. But sadly for everyone McCain got involved and turned the whole thing into a ridiculous public spectacle, demanding all eyes to be on him and painting himself as something of a saviour and brought the whole thing crashing down around him. What makes it even more laughable was that it was Obama who called McCain on Wednesday to propose making a joint statement on the economy. During this call McCain suggested postponing the debate and suspending campaigns (likely because he was losing) and when they disagreed, McCain said he would give Obama time to rethink it. Barely half an hour later McCain went live on tv to make a unilateral statement that he was suspending the campaign and cancelling the debate. And this is McCain's idea of bipartisan?
Sadly for McCain even this was not the end of it. Understandably considering everything that's been mentioned above ^ McCain's move was met with some serious criticism by the negotiators in Washington. Comments like "I think he's kind of grandstanding here" and criticisms of the fact that McCain can't multitask (after all a President might actually need to handle the economy and other things at the same time!). Conservative writer Matt Lewis described it as laughable, Senator Chuck Schumer, chairman of the senate banking committee, described the move as Just Weird and added that "We haven't heard hide nor hair of Sen. McCain in these negotiations. He has not been involved except for an occasional, unhelpful statement, sort of thrown from far away, and the last thing we need in these delicate negotiations is an injection of presidential politics." Needless to say, it's become something of a joke in Washington.
NB: even after this melodramatic joke, McCain's campaign was suspended for a grand total of around 12 hours, during which time his adverts were still running, his campaign offices were still open and active and he appeared in live television interviews when he was supposed to be in Washington 'saving the day'. Unbelievably after making such a big deal about suspending his campaign, he didn't actually 'do' anything. In fact considering he had no rallies or campaign meetings planned for those 12 hours there is not one single thing he did differently after 'suspending' his campaign, aside from the dramatic and expensive tv appearance where he declared what 'drastic' steps he was taking 'for the good of the country'.
This whole debacle has been a PR nightmare for McCain and has strained what little credibility he had left. I said it last week that if he keeps basing his entire campaign on risky 'shake up' moves then eventually it's going to backfire in a big way, and it seems to have done just that now.
After all this, McCain desperately needed a win in the first presidential debate on Friday (which he did attend in the end). The topic of the debate was on national security and foreign policy, an area that has long been regarded in the media and by the general populace as McCain's biggest strength, giving McCain the 'home field advantage' if you will. Considering this, anything less than a convincing win would be a disaster for McCain. This was his ace in the hole that he was expected to dominate, and he badly needed it now after the midweek shenanigans.
What we saw in the debate was something quite different though. The vast majority of polls, focus groups and media response have been declaring this debate as an Obama victory, as seen on CNN, The London Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, Time Magazine, CBS News, and I think you're beginning to see the pattern here, so I'll leave it there. Crushingly for McCain the kindest things you see around the internet on credible sources are claims that he may have held Obama to a draw, just about, but frankly that won't be nearly good enough for him. McCain must surely now be asking himself, if he can't win there, where is he going to pick up points in the next 37 days?
The next presidential debate is on the economy, which as you know is McCain's weakest point, and one of Obama's stronger areas. Before that we have Biden vs Palin in the vice presidential debates, which is being predicted to be a blood bath as Sarah Palin continues to fail miserably in interviews. I don't know why anyone would expect a small time politician from a tiny town in a tiny state to have even a vague clue of what to say in such matters, and that's pretty much what you see in these interviews where she struggles and fails to recite memorized prose, one can only imagine how she'll fare in the debates where she has 5 minutes of open discussion with Biden.
It's generally assumed that this will be a painful failure for Republicans. McCain's campaign has been trying desperately to get rid of the open discussion between candidates (i wonder how they're trying to spin that?) and it should come as no surprise now that many people are speculating that Palin should drop out of the campaign. No doubt if that did happen that McCain would try to spin it as 'for family reasons'.
In conclusion, an already surreal election is being steered closer and closer to a complete farce by the increasingly risky and bizarre shenanigans of the McCain campaign. It may be too late for him now, but McCain really would be wise to cut it out and just run a normal election. Otherwise he risks losing his strained credibility, and in recent days it certainly seems like that's what's happening.
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Bryan Power WNBA Totals Picks
07-21-16 Indiana Fever v. New York Liberty OVER 157.5 Top 82-70 Loss -105 9 h 52 m Show
10* Over Fever/Liberty (11:00 AM ET): Suffice to say, it will be difficult for Indiana to duplicate their performance from Tuesday where they beat 20-2 Los Angeles outright, 92-82 as five-point dogs. It wasn't their highest scoring output of the year (97 pts vs. PHX on 5.18 was), but they did shoot 55.9% against the top defensive team in the league (it was the most pts allowed in regulation this year by the Sparks). Now that being said, it was the third time in the last four games where the Fever shot 51% or better from the floor. So, offensively, I think Indiana will be just fine here even as they now draw the best team from the East, the Liberty, who are third in points allowed this season. Take the Over.
I say that the Fever will be just fine offensively knowing full well what has transpired in their first two meetings this season w/ the Liberty. The first saw them held to 59 pts in a disastrous performance that saw them shoot just 32.8 percent. The rematch wasn't much better as they lost by three at home, 78-75. From an Over bettors' perspective, it was really bad, as the game stayed Under despite overtime. But the third time will be the charm. Actually, going back to last season, the Under has cashed in four straight Fever-Liberty matchups. Indiana has been a lot better since last facing New York on 6.19 at home. They've won six of nine and from a total bettors perspective, the Over has cashed in six of the last nine games as well. Four times during that span they've topped 90 pts. Six times they've scored at least 85 points.
I started this writeup by mentioning how hard it would be for the Fever to match its performance from the prior game. Well, the same holds true for the Liberty in one regard. Yesterday (Weds afternoon), their bench scored 69 points, a WNBA record for reserves. They beat Washington 88-81. But while reserve scoring will go down, I certainly expect the starters to contribute more, thereby nullifying the decline from the bench. Of course, scoring has been on the rise overall this season in WNBA and both of these sides are averaging 80 points per game. I believe this total to be too low. 10* Over Fever/Liberty
07-20-16 San Antonio Stars v. Seattle Storm OVER 149 Top 69-83 Win 100 13 h 43 m Show
10* Over Stars/Storm (3:05 ET): These are the two bottom teams in the Western Conference right now, but with the top eight in the league making the playoffs this year (new format) regardless of conference affiliation, all hope is not lost. Seattle is actually just one-half game out of the eighth position, a spot they could find themselves in after today were they to win and Dallas lose. San Antonio does have the worst record in the league currently at 5-17. The Stars are - easily - the lowest scoring team in the league (72.4 PPG), but that won't stop me from going Over here as this is a pretty low O/U line by 2016 WNBA standards.
Now the Under is a perfect 5-0 in San Antonio's last five games w/ the OU line basically being in this same range every game. They've gone four straight w/o topping 70 points, which admittedly is pretty inexcusable. They have not shot the ball well - at all - in the last three. Obviously, the loss of leading scorer Kayla McBride (out for season) is a killer. That leaves just ONE double digit scorer on the roster. But I expect other players to step up and the Stars to score enough here to help send this one Over the total. Defensively, the team has allowed over 80 pts in B2B games. If they can get to their season average offensively, we should be in good shape.
Seattle might have lost its last time out, but they did score 88 points. The 91-88 loss was actually their highest scoring game all year. Offensively, the Storm have now topped 80 points in three consecutive games and I think we'll see that streak obviously continue as they shot better than 50% from the floor the last time they faced San Antonio en route to a 78-68 win. The Storm assisted on 25 of their 30 made baskets in that game, which did stay Under only slightly, with a virtually identical O/U line. But a big key there is that the two teams combined to take only 22 free throws. That's 15 fewer than they combine to average on a per game basis over the course of the season. Don't discount the # of free throws playing a big role in sending this game Over the total. 10* Over Stars/Storm
07-19-16 LA Sparks v. Indiana Fever UNDER 160.5 Top 82-92 Loss -110 11 h 44 m Show
8* Under Sparks/Fever (8:05 ET): Los Angeles, now 20-2 SU this season, is off a humbling defeat at the hands of Atlanta, 91-74 as 7.5-pt road chalk. I'm proud to say I was on the right side of that one, and while the Sparks seem similarly overvalued here, I don't dare fade them as they'll clearly be motivated to bounce back from just their second defeat of the season. As for Indiana, they beat the Dream their last time out, 78-72 in come from behind fashion. It was the fourth time they've covered in the last five games. But putting aside the ATS result here, let's look at the total. The number is starting to come down and given there's no real such thing as "public money" in WNBA betting, I'll follow the steam trigger and take the Under!
The Sparks have now given up 90+ points in B2B games. Note that they hadn't allowed 90 in any of their first 20 games this season! The game at Connecticut did go into overtime and really the team did "tighten the screws" after halftime, allowing just 37 total points. This is after all the top defensive team in the league this year at just 75.1 points per game. It wasn't as if they allowed Atlanta to shoot all that well Sunday afternoon (43.5 FG%). A big key was the Dream going 27 of 31 from the free throw line. I expect Los Angeles to bounce back defensively here, plus the Under is 6-1 this season when the Sparks are playing w/ exactly one day's rest.
Now, I'm well aware what happened the last time these two teams hooked up. Los Angeles won obviously, but it was high-scoring affair, 94-88. Note though that BOTH teams shot better than 53% from the floor in that game. That is highly unlikely to happen again tonight. Indiana shot 51.7% from the floor in their last game, so regression is already in order. For the season, they are shooting just 44 percent. For them, the Under has cashed in two-thirds of the games where they are the underdog (8 of 12). It should be pointed out that before storming back to beat Atlanta on Friday, the Fever scored only nine points in the first quarter. 8* Under Sparks/Fever
07-13-16 Atlanta Dream v. New York Liberty UNDER 157.5 Top 62-86 Win 100 3 h 1 m Show
8* Under Dream/Liberty (11:00 AM ET): These are the two top teams in the Eastern Conference right now, but New York has a rather comfortable 3.5 gm lead on Atlanta. The teams have split a pair of games so far in the 2016 season, but it's important to note that both went into overtime, one of them double overtime. That first meeting (here in NY) was an 85-79 final in favor of the Dream, though it should be noted they held the Liberty to just two points in OT. The rematch in Atlanta saw New York come out on top 90-79 and that game saw a total of 29 pts scored in the two extra periods. Assuming tonight's game doesn't go beyond on regulation, the total looks too high. Take the Under.
Three of the Liberty's last four games have stayed Under the total, including the last as they held San Antonio to just 65 points on 36.8% shooting. The top rebounding team in the league, New York also gives up the third fewest points per game. Even though they are only 6-4 SU at home, they do give up fewer PPG than on the road (where they're 9-2 SU) and as a result the Under is 7-3 here. They held the Dream to 33.3% shooting in the last meeting.
Atlanta is also coming off an Under, a game that they won 67-63 over Connecticut. That was easily their lowest scoring game of the year as not only did they match a season-low for points allowed, but it was also a season-low for points scored! While today's game likely ends up with more total pts scored, we certainly have plenty of "wiggle room." The Under is 6-3 in all Dream road games so far. 8* Under Dream/Liberty
07-09-16 Dallas Wings v. Minnesota Lynx OVER 167 Top 56-93 Loss -105 12 h 27 m Show
10* Over Wings/Lynx (8:05 ET): This is actually my first Over play this season in WNBA. There has been a dramatic increase in scoring this year, but I waited for a "tipping point" (when O/U lines reached near-record highs to strike back with some Unders. Now that we've seen those Unders start to cash, it's time to reasses. Dallas is 2nd in the league in scoring (85.7 PPG) and 2nd to last in points allowed (87.3 per game). This is a really tough spot for the Wings here as they are coming off an overtime game. Had yday's game not gone to OT, it would have been a fourth consecutive Under. But before that, they'd gone Over nine straight times. Take the Over.
Minnesota has gone Over in four straight games and just suffered a stunner, giving up 93 points in an outright loss (as 11.5-pt favorites) to Connecticut. That too was an overtime game. Maya Moore scored 40 points, all but two of those coming after halftime! But it wasn't enough as the the Lynx lost for a fourth time in six games after that 13-0 start. Offense has not been a problem though as the team is 4th in the league in scoring. They should shred a Dallas defense that has given up a ton of points this year.
Making this spot even tougher for the Wings is the fact they are likely to be w/o Glory Johnson, who injured her foot last night. This is the lowest total for a Wings game in some time, so there's value. The last time these teams met, it may have only been an 80-63 final (in favor of Minnesota), but the Wings shot only 36% from the floor. I expect that percentage to go up tonight. That was their lowest scoring game all year. 10* Over Wings/Lynx
07-01-16 New York Liberty v. Phoenix Mercury UNDER 166 Top 99-88 Loss -103 15 h 32 m Show
8* Under Liberty/Mercury (10:05 ET): I waited quite awhile to make my first WNBA O/U bet of the season. That's because scoring has absolutely been on the rise in this league in 2016. So I waited patiently for a "tipping point," when I thought the oddsmakers' numbers had gotten too high. Sure enough, my first two O/U plays this season won (both released over the last week) and have both been Unders. The last, which came in game w/ the highest O/U line for any WNBA game this season featured one of the teams in action here (Phoenix) and stayed Under by double digits. The oddsmakers aren't being quite as generous when the Mercury host the Liberty tonight, but the number is definitely too high. Take the Under.
These teams just met Saturday in New York. The final score there was Phoenix 104 New York 97, which has clearly influenced the O/U line tonight. But note that game went to overtime where an additional 23 pts were scored. As I outlined in my analysis for the Mercury's last game, they lead the league in scoring and are now back into 12th (last) in points allowed (after Dallas held Seattle to "only" 78 pts last night). Obviously, that's not the dichotomy you're looking for when betting an Under. But after shooting 50% from the floor in B2B games, I expect the Mercury's offense to regress tonight. First off, they previously hadn't shot better than 50% in a game since late May. Secondly, the Liberty are a respectable 4th in the league in points allowed (80.7 per game) and that's even factoring in they've played a lot of overtime games.
New York comes in off a very impressive win, as they were 13-pt underdogs in Minnesota where they won outright, 95-92. Again, that's another high scoring game contributing to the total here. Keep in mind though that FOUR of the Liberty's last five games have gone to overtime, one to two OT's. So those final scores are a bit misleading in terms of total pts scored. Interestingly, the Liberty haven't shot better than 50% in a game since June 3rd. This figures to be the highest total for one of their games to date. Sugar Rodgers scored a career-best 30 points in the win over Minnesota, so that's one player you should count on regressing here. The team is also w/o its best player, Tina Charles, who leads the league in scoring AND rebounds. 8* Under Liberty/Mercury
06-29-16 Connecticut Sun v. Phoenix Mercury UNDER 177.5 Top 75-86 Win 100 14 h 53 m Show
10* Under Sun/Mercury (10:05 ET): In yesterday's analysis (for a winning Under pick), I mentioned that scoring has really been on the rise this season in the WNBA. As a result, we're starting to see (justifiably) higher O/U lines for games. But as was the case yday, the one tonight for Connecticut at Phoenix is too high and in fact I'm not sure the last time I saw a WNBA total this high. Now Phoenix has gone Over in four straight, not to mention they played to a 99-90 final with Connecticut earlier this year. But I envision a lower scoring game taking place this go around. Take the Under.
Phoenix does come in leading the league with an 88.3 PPG scoring average. At the same time, they're dead last in points allowed at 88.9 per game. But... let's not that their last game (a 104-97 win over NY) went to overtime and another recent game (a 117-111 loss to Dallas on June 18th) went to triple overtime. So those results still greatly influence their overall numbers with the season still being only a month old. Sunday's win in New York also marked the first time this month that the Mercury shot 50% (or better) in a game.
Connecticut covered for me in their last game, as big 16.5 point underdogs at Los Angeles. The final score there was "only" 80-73. Obviously, this will be the highest total for any Sun game so far this season. It's also the highest total for any Mercury game this season. In fact, it's currently set to be the highest WNBA total for any game this season! 10* Under Sun/Mercury
06-28-16 Atlanta Dream v. Seattle Storm UNDER 165.5 Top 81-84 Win 100 14 h 45 m Show
10* Under Dream/Storm (10:05 ET): Host Seattle is off its highest scoring game of the season, a 98-81 win over Connecticut where I laid the points and won. While it wasn't the first time that the Storm topped 90 pts this season, it did mark their best shooting night of the season to date (61.4%), so I think it would to safe to assume there will be some sort of dropoff here. Scoring is definitely on the rise this season in WNBA, but this number simply seems "too high." Take the Under.
Atlanta has played FOUR overtime games this season, including one that went to double OT that they lost (won the other three). So some of their final scores this year have been inflated by extra time. That certainly includes the 2OT loss vs. New York last week, a game that saw them finish w/ only 79 points anyway! They followed that up w/ another lackluster effort, this time scoring only 69 pts in a regulation loss at San Antonio (I got burned there as I had the Dream). Note that there has been only one time in the L9 games where Atlanta has shot better than 46% from the floor. They're at 41.4% for the season, a percentage that isn't conducive to producing Overs on a regular basis.
I mentioned that scoring has been up this year in the WNBA. That's apparent when you consider the total for both games these teams played in 2015 was only 147.5. Here, we're dealing with a number that's almost 20 pts higher! That says "VALUE" to me. Helping to drive up said value is the fact Seattle has gone Over in each of its last three games. Remember that Atlanta has been the worst three-point shooting team in the league this season, hitting at only a pitiful 25.3% clip! That combined w/ Seattle's likely regression from the last game have me calling for a lower scoring game than expected. 10* Under Dream/Storm
10-06-15 Indiana Fever v. Minnesota Lynx OVER 146.5 Top 71-77 Win 100 33 h 31 m Show
10* Over Fever/Lynx (8:05 ET): Game 1 of the WNBA Finals went even better than I anticipated as underdog Indiana (+6) didn't even need the points, taking the game outright 75-69. I said coming in that I though the Fever were the better team here and they showed it Sunday, taking the game despite shooting only 36 percent overall from the floor. The key, and this has been the case all season, was that Indiana was still able to maintain its season average of 33% (5 for 15) from behind the three-point arc. Given that I liked the Fever in Game 1 and they're in a similar price range, it would stand to reason that I'd come back w/ them here. But Minnesota is 19-3 SU all-time at home in the playoffs and likely to come back strong. Therefore, let's turn to the total, which I feel is too low. Take the Over.
Game 1 did stay Under (by three points) and it was the third straight Under for the Fever overall. Minnesota has also gone Under in three straight and is surprisingly 25-15 Under in all games this season. But it seems reasonable to expect the Lynx to be better here at the offensive end compared to Game 1 when they missed eight of 23 free throw attempts. They also missed 8 of 10 three-pointers, a well below average performance. Remember that Indiana was just average from behind the arc themselves. So, tonight should feature better three-point shooting and likely better shooting overall. Game 1 staying Under was pretty much solidified w/ the first quarter ending in a 10-10 tie. That's very low scoring and can likely be "blamed" on the long layoff between series.
Indiana is 22-19 Over for the season and this is pretty low total for them. They average 77.6 points per game while allowing 75.4. The lowest total for any Fever game this season was 145 points. Sunday actually marked their worst overall shooting game of these playoffs. They are 10-6 Over this season when playing w/ exactly one day of rest. As for Minnesota, they may be allowing only 69 PPG this year at home, but Game 1 marked the second time in the playoffs they allowed at least 75 pts (in three chances). Offensively, the duo of Seimone Augustus & Lindsay Whalen almost certainly HAVE to improve upon their 13 combined points from Game 1 that came on just 14 attempts. 10* Over Fever/Lynx
09-22-15 LA Sparks v. Minnesota Lynx OVER 145.5 Top 80-91 Win 100 14 h 14 m Show
8* Over Sparks/Lynx (9:05 ET): I successfully played LA in Game 2 as they took care of business at home, winning 81-71 as a slight favorite. In the analysis, I made my case why I think the Sparks are a much better team than their record (were w/o Candace Parker first half of season) and could possibly be undervalued in the series. However, for tonight's deciding Game 3, I'll be forsaking the side and instead making a play on the total. Prior to Game 2, four of the five matchups (Game 1 included) between these two had stayed Under the total. But the teams combined for 152 points on Sunday, despite average shooting on both sides, so I'm pretty confident that we'll be seeing another Over Tuesday night.
The key to Minnesota's home success (14-4 SU) has been the fact they allow just 68.6 points per game. They were even below that in the Game 1 victory (67-65) and it is troubling that Los Angeles has been held to 66 pts or fewer in each of its last four road games. But, for the season, they do average 71.7 PPG away from home. Tonight's total would be on the low end of the spectrum for them as looking at all games YTD, there's been only one O/U line since July 1st that's been lower and that was a September 3rd matchup w/ Washington that flew past the number by more than 40 points! Early in the season, back in June, scoring league-wide was down. So there were actually six O/U lines lower than this one that month, but the Sparks went 4-2 Over in those games.
This total is also on the low end of the spectrum for the Lynx. In fact, depending on your closing O/U lines, there really isn't one any lower all season. They average 76.8 PPG at home and should be able to take advantage of a Sparks' defense which is allowing 75.9 PPG on the road. When looking at season averages, whether overall, or the Lynx at home and the Sparks on the road, they all add up to (slightly) going Over this total. The potential loss of Nneka Ogwumike will hurt the Sparks, but w/ Parker (20.5 PPG in the series) leading the way, they'll still score their "fair share." On the Minnesota end, Maya Moore has been fantastic (50% shooting) and should get more help from her supporting cast tonight. 8* Over Sparks/Lynx
09-06-15 New York Liberty v. Minnesota Lynx OVER 143 Top 75-71 Win 100 20 h 32 m Show
10* Over Liberty/Lynx (7:05 ET): This is a matchup of the two conference leaders (potential Finals preview?) and while the East-leading Liberty can clinch homecourt advantage throughout the playoffs w/ a win here and also lead the league in fewest points allowed, I see a ton of value on the Over in this one. Due to a recent rash of Unders from both squads, we have a really low total Sunday night in Minnesota, one that's significantly lower than both are accustomed to seeing. In fact, I have it as the lowest O/U for either team in any game this entire season! It's significantly lower than what we saw for the respective teams' last games and "total" (pardon the pun) over-adjustment by the linesmakers, IMO. Take the Over.
New York was surprisingly blown out, at home, in its last game as they surrendered 82 points to Chicago. That final score would have fallen just short of tonight's total, but you have to expect improvement on the offensive end after they shot just 34.8 percent from the floor Thursday. Also note that the Liberty's two previous games, both of which stayed Under, would have actually gone Over tonight's total. The team's scoring had been remarkably consistent prior to Thursday w/ them scoring between 77 and 81 pts nine times in 11 games. The two outliers were 73-pt and 90-pt performances. So, again, all we are asking for here is an "average" offensive performance by the Liberty. Though Minnesota tends to be much stingier on the defensive end here at home (68.5 PPG allowed), it's been their last two games that have severely affected that average.
The Lynx allowed an average of just 63 PPG in B2B double digit victories over Phoenix and Indiana. But note that Friday's win over the Fever would have also gone Over tonight's total. There, the team broke out of a shooting slump by connecting on 53.1% of their FG attempts en route to 81 points, their most in a game since mid-August. But that shouldn't have been too surprising considering that they average a solid 78.1 PPG here at home. Again, all we're asking for is an "average" offensive performances. If both sides do that, then this one will fly Over the number. 10* Over Liberty/Lynx
09-02-15 Washington Mystics v. Phoenix Mercury OVER 140 Top 53-73 Loss -110 8 h 26 m Show
8* Over Mystics/Mercury (3:35 ET): Due to recent results (from both sides), we have a very low total here. In fact, in doing research on both teams' respective seasons, it is the lowest O/U line for any Phoenix game while Washington had just one lower, all the way back on June 23rd and that game proceeded to go Over the total by more than 25 points! I think we have something similar on tap Wednesday afternoon as a little "market correction" is in order. Both teams have been scoring well under their season averages of late, including in a 71-63 Mystics win over the Mercury on August 28th. If even one of them gets "back to normal" for today's rematch, then this game is going to go Over the total.
Phoenix is clearly not the same dominant team they were last season. They've dropped two straight and five of seven coming into today. In all five losses during that stretch, they've been held under 70 points. This is a team that still averages 74.8 points per game this season though, 78.1 at home. Yet, with the decline in scoring, the team is 7-1-2 Under its last 10 games. But consider that the average total for those games is significantly higher than what the number is here. When playing at Washington last week, the Mercury missed their final six shots and turned the ball over 20 times. It was low-scoring second half for them as well (26 pts), which was also the case Sunday in Minnesota when they were even worse (22 pts). The key here is they're back at home where their scoring average rises significantly.
Washington is also off a dreadful shooting night, one that saw them make just 36.4% of their FG attempts in a 69-59 loss to non-contender Seattle. The Under is now 6-1 their seven games overall and 10-3 in all road games this season. But their average score for the season is 73.6-70.8, which would work out to an Over here. They scored only 20 pts in the second half in Sunday's loss, which would be nearly impossible to duplicate. Again, this number I feel is an overreaction to recent results. Each team's full body of work through the course of the season suggests this game could easily fly Over the total. The Over is 6-1 in Phoenix's last seven games vs. a team w/ a winning record. 8* Over Mystics/Mercury
09-01-15 Connecticut Sun v. Indiana Fever UNDER 152 Top 51-81 Win 100 12 h 14 m Show
10* Under Sun/Fever (7:05 ET): We're coming down the "home stretch" of the WNBA regular season and neither of these teams have been playing well of late. For Indiana, despite an ill-timed three-game losing streak, they should be fine as they're still in third place in the Eastern Conference, 4.5 games clear of fifth place Connecticut, whom they host tonight (top four in each conference make the playoffs). The Sun, who just snapped a seven-game losing streak, are in far more dire straits as they are one loss or one Washington win away from being eliminated from playoff contention altogether. With both teams struggling, I'm going to abstain from playing the side and instead look at the total. Take the Under.
Connecticut took advantage of a Chicago team that had just clinched a playoff spot the night before and was playing w/o Elena Delle Donna Sunday as they pulled off a 72-68 upset as nine-point dogs. Note, however, that the Sun trailed in that game by eight points through three quarters and had just 47 pts. Twice in their previous three games, they were held below their season average of 75.9 PPG, including a dreadful 57-point effort on the road at Atlanta. This team is still w/o its co-leading scorer, Alex Bentley (14.7 PPG), and while Kelsey Bone has been able to pick up the slack the L2 games w/ 47 points, I do not believe that to be sustainable. The team has scored just 70 and 73 pts the last two meetings vs. the Fever.
Indiana is looking to sweep the season series here and in terms of the Under, the key is obviously Connecticut holding up defensively. Fortunately, Indiana shot just 38.6% from the floor its last time out (lost 76-70 at Tulsa) and the offensive numbers would have been a whole lot worse had Tamika Catchings not gone for 22 pts on 7 of 10 shooting. The other four starters combined to miss 28 of 41 FG attempts. Also, their opponents made 17 of 19 free throws, something we should not have to worry about w/ the Sun, who are dead last in the league in terms of free throw percentage (73.8%). While the Over is 12-3 in Indiana home games this year (6-0 L6), I see this one staying Under. 10* Under Sun/Fever
08-21-15 LA Sparks v. Phoenix Mercury OVER 146 Top 78-68 Push 0 14 h 24 m Show
10* Over Sparks/Mercury (10:05 ET): This looks like a really good value on the Over in the wake of some uncharacteristic low-scoring from both sides of late. Phoenix is 4-0-1 Under its last five games and 16-8 Under for the year, which seems odd given what we saw from them last season. They are off back to back dismal shooting performances (43 of 120 overall) in outright losses to Indiana and Tulsa. Considering they're at 44.6% for the year at home, we should see improvement tonight. As for Los Angeles, their string of impressive efforts at the defensive end probably cannot be maintained as four of their last five opponents have shot below 40% from the field. For both teams, this is a low total. Take the Under.
This will be the third matchup of the season between these two Western Conference rivals. The last two both took place in LA and the first went Over. While there was overtime in that one, the game actually went Over the total (155.5) in regulation, quite easily, as only 15 total pts were scored in the extra period. The last meeting wasn't nearly as high scoring (70-65 Sparks' win), but as you can see there's been a significant decrease in the O/U line comparing the first game to tonight's. That screams value to me as the Mercury are due to turn things around offensively following the B2B poor shooting efforts. Remember that this is a team that led the league in scoring last season at 83.5 PPG. At home this year, they're at 78.8 PPG.
The Sparks have struggled on the road this season and a big reason for that is they're allowing more than 78 PPG in those 11 contests (2-9 straight up). On Tuesday, they gave up 79 pts in a DD home loss to Indiana. They also only managed just one basket themselves over the game's final four minutes. It was a tale of two halves as they scored 44 pts in the first half, but gave up 49 in the second. The O/U line here is well below their season average as is the case for Phoenix as well. Last time out, the Mercury scored their fewest points since Brittney Griner's first game back. The likelihood of Griner & DeWanna Bonner combining to shoot 6 of 23 from the field again (like they did last game) is minimal. 10* Over Sparks/Mercury
08-16-15 Connecticut Sun v. Atlanta Dream UNDER 159 Top 77-90 Loss -110 7 h 40 m Show
10* Under Sun/Dream (3:05 ET): These two teams have combined to go Over the total in their last seven games, but I say that streak comes to an end Sunday afternoon in Atlanta as the visitors are highly unlikely to be torched the way they were Friday when they allowed the Liberty to score 90 points on better than 50% shooting. At the same time, they shot the ball lights-out early (over 60%) and finished the game having made more than they missed. They've now scored 78 or more each of their last four home games, but on the road the team is shooting barely over 40% for the year. Today's total is significantly higher than any in the L10 games. Take the Under.
Atlanta is the one team in the Eastern Conference currently sporting a losing record. It's well deserved too as they're allowing a league-high 81.4 points per game after allowing 100+ twice in their last six games. Overall, the Over is 7-1 their last eight games. But the Dream aren't known for scoring; they average just 73.8 PPG here at home on worse than 40 percent shooting. They did manage 82 points in a near upset of Minnesota Friday, but shot only 38.5%. It was their second straight strong effort on the offensive end as they dropped 98 earlier in the week on fading Tulsa, but note that Connecticut came into its last game ranked third in the entire league in points allowed. Both teams should be cooling off at the offensive end here.
This will be the first of three times these teams will play in the next nine days. They've played two times previously and neither final score (75-70 & 82-64, both in favor of the Sun) even approached what the total is here, yet we've seen a dramatic increase in the number from the linesmakers anyway compared to those first two matchups. That's all about recent performance, but as discussed earlier, both sides are likely to cool off offensively, particularly the Dream, who very well could be deflated after blowing a 16-pt lead Friday and losing. For the record, the totals for those two prior meetings were 151.5 and 146. Some real nice value here, in my opinion. 10* Under Sun/Dream
07-07-15 Tulsa Shock v. Atlanta Dream UNDER 151.5 Top 85-75 Loss -103 12 h 22 m Show
10* Under Shock/Dream (8:05 ET): Well, after scoring a combined 124 points in B2B road losses to Seattle and Phoenix, the injury-riddled Shock managed 95, but still lost Friday at Los Angeles. While having three days off is nice, this will be the fourth straight road game for Tulsa and considering their dire roster situation, I expect them to struggle offensively tonight in Atlanta. In case you didn't know, the Shock started the year as the biggest surprise in the league at 8-1, even though they were missing both Glory Johnson (pregnant) and leading scorer Odyssey Sims. But the subsequent loss of Skylar Diggins (for the season) to an ACL injury has resulted in three losses and despite what happened vs. LA, I still wonder where the offense comes from on a consistent basis. Take the Under in this one.
With Diggins now out, Tulsa's scoring average of 80 points per game must be taken w/ a grain of salt. Yes, they did just record a season high 95 pts Friday. But I don't think the team can count on 22 pts again from Riquna Williams given that she scored only seven the previous game. Rookie Jordan Hooper also scored a career-high 14 pts (made four three-pointers) Friday. Defense has been an issue lately w/ B2B opponents shooting over 50 percent from the floor, but fortunately for the Shock, Atlanta is averaging only 72.7 PPG this year while shooting less than 40 percent overall. The game vs. the Sparks featured 19 three-pointers made and a franchise record (for the Sparks) from Kristi Toliver, who scored 43 points. Again, those kind of numbers are difficult to duplicate on a game by game basis.
As for Atlanta, they have gone Under in four of their previous five games and this will be the highest total of the year for them, save for a pair of games against Chicago. They were somewhat lucky to get the cover Sunday vs. Seattle as four made free throws in the final 24 seconds put them "in the money." It was the fourth time this season that they held an opponent under 70 pts and three of those have come here at home. The one Over in the L5 games was an overtime game. Only two of their last nine games would have gone Over tonight's O/U line. 10* Under Shock/Dream
07-03-15 Tulsa Shock v. Los Angeles Sparks UNDER 148.5 Top 95-98 Loss -106 21 h 15 m Show
8* Under Shock/Sparks (10:35 ET): For the 1st time this season, Los Angeles is able to celebrate a victory as they came from behind to defeat San Antonio here at home last night, 86-81. They trailed by as many as 12 pts in the first half, but ended up recording a season-high in points scored and their fifth straight Over in the process. I was on several of those Overs as the league-wide trend of low scoring games resulted in some very low O/U lines. But now we find the highest total for any Sparks' game all season and I think it's the right time to "switch course" as they'll be taking on a depleted Tulsa team that's also playing in the second night of back to backs. Take the Under.
I went against Tulsa last night, part of my 2-0 WNBA Sweep, as they got hammered 86-55. The Shock had been the surprise of the league w/ an 8-1 start, despite missing both leading scorer Odyssey Sims as well as Glory Johnson. But another injury, a season-ending one (ACL) to Skylar Diggins, has decimated this roster. In yday's analysis, I openly wondered "where the offense would now come from" for Tulsa and sure enough they delivered a season-low 55 points Thursday on horrific 28.2% shooting. Keep in mind that in their first game w/o Diggins, they scored a then season-low 69 pts in a loss at Seattle. I called that an "ominous sign" in yday's analysis and sure enough they were even worse last night.
This is an interesting number in the sense that it's the highest O/U line of the year for the Sparks, but the lowest for the Shock. But it should be the lowest for the Shock given all the injuries and what we've seen the last two games. By the way, Los Angeles remains the lowest scoring team in the league (68.4 PPG) and they actually average fewer points per game at home. Only twice last year, last night included, has this team scored more than 70 points in regulation. Meanwhile, Tulsa has shot worse than 36 percent in three of its last four games. Of course, LA has been just as depleted as the Shock is now, for most of the year. With two unrested teams facing off, I envision tired legs and a low-scoring affair. 8* Under Shock/Sparks
07-02-15 Washington Mystics v. Indiana Fever UNDER 155.5 Top 50-73 Win 100 9 h 22 m Show
10* Under Mystics/Fever (7:05 ET): This will actually be my first 'Under' play of the year in the WNBA! At the start of the season, scoring was way down league-wide, and as a result I was able to take advantage of some very low totals. Now, those low (sub-140 pts) totals seem to have disappeared and it's time to head in the other direction. Let's examine the case of Washington, shall we? The Mystics started the season by going Under in each of their first four games, but have since gone Over in four out of five. It's a somewhat similar story in Indiana, who is 6-2 Over its last eight games. The end result is that this is the highest O/U line for any Mystics game this season (currently) and the second highest for the Fever. Take the Under.
These teams did play two weeks ago, here in Indiana, and the final score was 87-75 (in favor of Washington), meaning the Over hit. But notice the huge difference in the O/U line there compared to tonight. It's about an eight-point difference, which just screams value to me. The only game w/ a higher total than this one for Indiana was immediately following that loss to the Mystics (164.5) when they lost again here at home (to Chicago), 83-77, making the Under a winner. A lack of defense is an admitted concern w/ this Fever team as right now they rank 12th (dead last) in points allowed at 82.7 per game. But they've been above that average for three straight games now and due to improve. I also can't see them coming close to matching Tuesday's 92-point effort (on 55.4% shooting!) in a win at Connecticut.
Washington has topped 80 pts in four of its last five. But they also were held to only 69 in their last road game, a loss at Atlanta. As a team, the Mystics have shot the ball very well from three-point range the L4 games (16 of 29), but that's a pace that likely cannot be kept up. Just to give you an idea of how inflated this total is, consider that the O/U line has not been above 148 pts in any of the past 10 matchups. 10* Under Mystics/Fever
06-28-15 Los Angeles Sparks v. New York Liberty OVER 139 Top 70-79 Win 100 8 h 31 m Show
10* Over Sparks/Liberty (3:05 ET): Perennial league powerhouse Los Angeles remains the league's lone winless team (0-6) entering Sunday, but at least they've been more competitive over their last two games, losing both by only four points. Injuries have decimated what was once an impressive roster, but the team is getting a little bit healthier now and more pertinent to this discussion is the fact they've also been scoring more on this road trip. They've averaged 78 PPG the L2 games, both of which have seen me cash the Over, so w/ another low total vs. Sunday, I'm "sticking to the script."
New York is a team that has been trending Under recently. Their last five games have all finished that way, their most recent being a 71-62 loss at red hot Tulsa. That followed an outright win at Atlanta where they scored 73 pts. It's interesting that those two opponents have shot the ball incredibly poor as the Shock won despite a 33.9 field goal percentage and the Dream were even worse at 29.7%. Only 10th in the league in scoring, the Liberty must pick up the pace offensively. The good news is that Tina Charles is likely due to a turnaround. She's averaged just 8.5 points per game the last four contests (4 for 14 from the field last game) after averaging 18.8 PPG the first four games of the year. Only one player on the team was in double figures Friday vs. Tulsa, but the good news is that LA is allowing 83.3 PPG on the road this season.
The Sparks are last in the league in scoring (65.2). But as outlined above, they've been better recently. Also, this is again a low total. In fact, it's currently the lowest O/U line of the season for the Liberty. As I've been writing about recently, scoring has been down league-wide this year in the WNBA and that has led to some very low totals being posted. That's what we have here and I'll look to continue my streak of winning Over picks here. For a point of reference, nine of the past ten matchups between these two teams have seen an O/U line of 153 pts or higher. 10* Over Sparks/Liberty
06-27-15 Seattle Storm v. San Antonio Stars OVER 142 Top 71-73 Win 100 13 h 15 m Show
10* Over Storm/Silver Stars (8:00 ET): There is the possibility of some real bad basketball here as two of the league's worst teams square off in San Antonio Saturday night. The Stars are off their first win of the season, Thursday here at home vs. Phoenix, 76-71 as 2.5-pt dogs. That's bad news for a Seattle squad whose only two wins this year came at the expense of still-winless Los Angeles. Other than those victories, the Storm have lost four times by double digits and they also fell Thursday, 76-73 at home to Minnesota (covered as 10.5 pt dogs). These are two of the lowest scoring teams in the league, but as I've noted previously the league-wide decrease in scoring has led to some deflated totals across the board. That's the case here as I'm taking the Over.
San Antonio is only averaging 69.3 points per game, but their last two games happen to represent their highest scoring efforts of the season. The 87 points they scored in a loss to Chicago last Saturday came w/ overtime, but note they actually had 83 pts at the end of regulation. Thursday night saw them shoot a season-best 42.9 percent from the field. Defensively, they probably won't be as fortunate as they were there as Phoenix missed its first 10 shots from the floor. The Under might be 6-1 in all Stars' games so far, but tonight marks the lowest total of the season - by several points.
Seattle averages even fewer points per game (66.3) than San Antonio and doesn't even have a single double-digit scorer on the roster right now. But as a team, they've scored above their season average in B2B games, their two best offensive efforts since the season opener. Consider they scored only 22 second half points in Thursday's loss vs. Minnesota. But if one were to look at things w/ a "glass half full" approach, you'd point out that means they also scored 51 points before halftime. While in line w/ most of their games this season, tonight's total is pretty low even for the Storm, who have faced only one closing number lower than where this one is at currently. 10* Over Storm/Silver Stars
06-26-15 Los Angeles Sparks v. Connecticut Sun OVER 140 Top 76-80 Win 100 11 h 39 m Show
10* Over Sparks/Sun (7:05 ET): Los Angeles, perennially one of the real powerhouse (no pun intended) teams in the WNBA, is in the midst of a down year. With San Antonio winning for the first time last night, that leaves the Sparks as the league's lone winless team. But they did at least cover (as 11-pt dogs) at Washington their last time out, a game where I was on the Over and won easily. Beset by injuries, LA has been the league's lowest scoring team to this point (63 PPG) but in that loss to the Mystics they easily scored their season-high (80) for a second straight game. Scoring has been down this year in WNBA, but that's led to some low totals that we can take advantage of, which is the case here. Take the Over.
Meanwhile, there's no problems in Connecticut where the East-leading Sun are one of two teams in the league to be unbeaten against the pointspread (7-0 ATS). Their lone SU loss this year came in the season opener, by just five points, to Washington. They are averaging 76.7 points per game so far and while they currently lead the league defensively (68.0 PPG), I expect that latter number to start going up. The Sparks won't be quite as short-handed here as they were when they last faced the Sun as Nneka Ogwumike will be back and so to could Kristi Toliver.
While Los Angeles played Washington three days ago, this will be the second game of a home and home between them and Connecticut, who won 76-68 in LA on June 21st. The Sun haven't played since. That first meeting went Over the total, so it's no surprise that the total here is higher, but it's still not high enough. There's been only one game all year for the Sun that didn't see at least 140 total pts scored. Meanwhile, three of LA's five games have crossed that same threshold. Consider that coming into this season, the previous nine matchups between these two teams all had totals of at least 150 points. 10* Over Sparks/Sun
06-25-15 Phoenix Mercury v. San Antonio Silver Stars OVER 148.5 Top 71-76 Loss -105 20 h 55 m Show
10* Over Mercury/Silver Stars (8:05 ET): About a week ago, many in WNBA betting circles began noting how far scoring had fallen league-wide this season and it was at that point I decided that I would look to start going Over in certain situations. This is one of those times. When Phoenix and San Antonio hooked up the first time this season, the total was 152. The final result was 76-71 in favor of the Mercury, an Under, but we can use that to our advantage here as the O/U line is several points lower for the rematch and both teams are off their highest scoring games of the season. Yes, I'm aware that the Silver Stars went to OT their last time out, but still there were signs that this winless team is turning things around. Take the Over here.
San Antonio is a league-worst 0-6 SU and only two teams, one of them injury-plagued Los Angeles, are averaging fewer points per game than the Stars' 68.2. But you'll recall that it was just two days ago that I played LA Over the total and that game (vs. Washington) flew past a number that was way too low. I feel that we're dealing w/ a similar situation here. While there was overtime for the Silver Stars on Saturday, note that game vs. Chicago did go Over in regulation - by a double digit margin. Defensively, this team is allowing nearly 80 PPG and has given up more than that (in regulation) in two of their past three contests. Another sign of good value here is the fact that each of the L10 matchups between these teams has seen a total north of 152 points.
Phoenix is clearly not the same team as LY as they are w/o Brittney Griner and Diana Taurasi. This will be the final game that Griner is suspended (domestic violence). She is missed mainly on the defensive end where her 3.8 blocks per game easily led the league last year. Overall, the Mercury are now allowing an average of 74 PPG w/ Griner out of the lineup. I took them their last time out, an 84-72 win over Seattle, which was probably their sharpest outing of the season so far, save for perhaps the upset of Minnesota. But San Antonio is coming off a game where six players scored in double figures and one of them wasn't leading scorer Jia Perkins (8 pts). 10* Over Mercury/Silver Stars
06-23-15 LA Sparks v. Washington Mystics OVER 138 Top 80-84 Win 100 13 h 32 m Show
10* Over Sparks/Mystics (8:05 ET): Scoring has been down this season in WNBA, way down in fact, and that's owed primarily to the struggles of Los Angeles. Perennially one of the league's stronger teams, 2015 has seen the Sparks struggle mightily due primarily to injury and they come in winless, averaging a scant 58.8 points per game (obviously, a league worst). But they did score a season-high 68 pts in Sunday's home loss to Connecticut and that game did go Over the total. Here, they'll be taking on a Washington team that has scored 80+ pts in B2B games after going Under in each of its first four. Scoring is due to increase league-wide & the total here is far too low. Take the Over.
This will, in fact, be the lowest total for any Mystics' game to date this season. It has everything to do w/ the opponent, but still seems odd considering that like LA, Washington is coming off a season-high in points scored. They went to Indiana Saturday and prevailed 87-75 thanks in large part to shooting 51.7% for the game (season best). They were 10 of 22 from three-point range. However, also concerning has been the Mystics' lack of defense these last two games as they've allowed 161 total pts. Of course, that's nothing compared to the struggles of the Sparks, who allowed 46 second half points in Sunday's loss. They've allowed better than 50 percent shooting in two of the four games. At some point though, they're also due to shoot better themselves, particularly from three point range. They're at just 24.3 percent for the year from behind the arc. The Sparks did go Over a lower total Sunday and I think this number is still too low as well. 10* Over Sparks/Mystics
09-09-14 Chicago Sky v. Phoenix Mercury OVER 155 Top 68-97 Win 100 9 h 25 m Show
10* Over Sky/Mercury (9:05 ET): Including regular season, these teams have now gone Under all three times they have played this season. The streak is actually at four games if you go basck to the final encounter of last season. But with the oddsmakers continuing to dip the number, I feel that the value is now on the Over as we still have the highest scoring team in the league (Phoenix) playing at home. The Mercury scored 83 pts in their Game 1 rout Sunday afternoon and that's actually slightly BELOW their YTD scoring average at home this season of 85.2 PPG. For Chicago, the Over has cashed four straight times following a SU defeat. That's the way I see this game going as this is the lowest total I've seen posted for a Phoenix home game in some time.
In Game 1, the Mercury shot a blistering 58.5 percent from the floor. It was their second consecutive game shooting the ball at a 58% clip, but this time they finished w/ fewer points than what they had when they eliminated Minnesota last Tuesday w/ a 96-78 win. Unfortunately, as well as Phoenix shot the ball, Chicago was just as bad at 31.9 percent. While the Mercury's 58.5% was a WNBA Finals record and thus isn't likely to be matched here, it's also reasonable to assume the Sky will shoot a lot better here in Game 2. For the season, the Mercury average 85 PPG at home and that's on 50% shooting. An "average" Phoenix performance at home should help send this one Over, provided Chicago improves.
The Sky do allow an average of 78.4 PPG this season and have given up at least 77 pts in all but one of their playoff games so far. So, again, it's not Phoenix scoring that I'm worried about. Chicago did score 80+ pts in all three games in the Atlanta series and also a playoff-high 86 pts in a win over Indiana in the Eastern Conference Finals. It's highly unlikely that they will shoot as poorly again as they did in Game 1 as they went the entire month of August w/out shooting below 41% in a game. 10* Over Sky/Mercury.
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Though St George's Day isn't actually until Tuesday, an event to mark it is taking place in Trafalgar Square today, offering stalls selling English food from hog roasts to afternoon tea to all, from noon until 6pm.
We are told there will also be 'pop up entertainment', which your author believes to be the same thing that used to be referred to as street entertainment, as well as cookery demonstrations and that sort of thing. It doesn't sound like it'll be enough to take up a full six hours, but it's probably worth popping by if you're in town.
For more, see http://www.london.gov.uk/get-involved/events/feast-of-st-george
^Picture © A.Davey used under a Creative Commons license^
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The Iron Giant (Man)
The Iron Giant - A Story in Five Nights
Ted Hughes ~ Dirk Zimmer ~ Harper & Row, 1988
originally published as The Iron Man ~ drawings by George Adamson ~ Faber & Faber, 1968
I've done some minor sniffing around since I can across this book at the library the other day. Penned by renowned poet (and one-time husband to Sylvia Plath), it's the original novel that inspired the Brad Bird animated, 1998 film classic, The Iron Giant (one of my all-time favorite animated movies).
Now, some folks on the internet seem to think the title of the book was changed from Man to Giant after the movie was released, but the version I have is from 1988 - ten years before the movie was released - and already there was a shift in the title. Not sure for what reason, but if anyone has any ideas, I'd love to know.
So the story begins...
The Iron Giant came to the top of the cliff. How far had he walked? Nobody knows. Where had he come from? Nobody knows. How was he made? Nobody knows. Taller than a house, the Iron Giant stood at the top of the cliff, on the very brink, in the darkness.
>Originally published in 1968 by Faber & Faber with drawings by George Adamson, the story is told in five chapters that make up five nights. The theme of the book is vaguely similar to that of the film, in that the giant does eat metal and is befriended by Hogarth, a young boy, and is left to live in a junk yard where he can eat scrap metal to his heart's content without causing damage to the town.
However, unlike in the film that is focused on a clear anti-war, anti-gun message, with the bad guys actually being the military itself... here, we find the Giant dismantled and freighted to Australia where he must participate in a battle of the wits with a creature from outer space known as the "space-bat-angel-dragon".
The end still carries an anti-war message when we find out the dragon is really a peace-loving cosmic spirit who ultimately uses his angelic singing voice to lull the people of earth out of their warmongering ways. Far out stuff, man...
The book has been re-illustrated a few times, and while I haven't seen the original version (out of my price range), these black and white etchings by the German-born artist, Dirk Zimmer, are pretty awesome.
Hughes even wrote a sequel called The Iron Woman, published in 1993.
From the Wiki: "The Iron Woman has come to take revenge on mankind for its thoughtless polluting of the seas, lakes and rivers" says the introduction to the novel. It references reverse sexism, in that the iron woman exacts her revenge on a seemingly ignorant/uncaring male community (in the waste disposal plant) for polluting the area in which she lives."
Girl power to the ultimate extreme.
Read along on Facebook, tumblr, Twitter and Etsy.
Looks cool! I would imagine that Marvel Comics had something to do with the title being changed.
Ahh.. the Iron Giant. I cannot count the amount of times I have heard Jennifer Aniston shout "Hogarth!". Such a good movie. Are those the illustrations in the copy that's in print now, I wonder? Anyway, great post.
Via Wikipedia: "Prior to publishing in North America, the title was changed to The Iron Giant (as were all references to the metal man) to avoid confusion and legal issues with Marvel Comics' character, Iron Man."
I LOVE this movie, too. I have always meant to check out the book, although I'm waiting for the daughters to be a bit older.
Zack Rock said...
I picked up an edition in the UK with some great illustrations by Tom Gauld:
http://www.cabanonpress.com/Gallery/gallery27-IMCover.htm
Gotta say, though, I'm a big Ted Hughes fan, but after reading the book I still think Brad Bird's vision of the story is the best. That bloody movie turns me into a tear factory every time.
Ariel S. Winter said...
I've never seen this version. I like the illustrations. I don't actually like the books very much.
leahinlondon said...
Re: the title, the UK publication by Faber & Faber was under the title The Iron Man, while the US publication by Harper & Row was under the title The Iron Giant. I suppose the title was changed for the US market, although both have publication dates of 1968 so there wasn't much delay between them.
Mystery solved... thanks guys.. let me see if I can find a cover of the US first edition....
i wonder if this is the cover, with a different illustrator? anyone have it?
http://www.paperbackswap.com/Iron-Giant-Story-Ted-Hughes/book/0060226579/
I love Dirk Zimmer's work...and I love this movie! This one is missing from our collection, and it needs to be in there
Potty training for boys said...
The artwork is exceptional. I love that style, but you don't see that anymore.
I wonder about what Dan said above. Marvel may have influenced the title to be changed.
Stories at this time for children seemed a lot darker, I think of Roald Dahl. Fantastic Mr. Fox is my personal favorite, and the movie was incredible.
Andrew Leonard said...
I love your blog. Just discovered it today. Did not know there was a book behind the movie THE IRON GIANT. You do learn something new everyday!!
RIP Dirk Zimmer
A Child's Book of Natural History
A Great Giveaway, an Anniversary and News!
Julia Farrior Drake - October 5, 1914 - July 17, 2012
Great Monday Give Winner
The Village Tree
Puppies, Pussy Cats and Other Friends
Great Monday Give: Mystery Ten-Title Grab Bag
Ivan, Divan, and Zariman
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Just Noticed I Can Login To Multiple Google Accounts Now
Thu, 11/10/2011 - 3:09pm — senh
I just noticed today that there's an option to sign in to multiple Google accounts. I have a personal Google account and a couple business accounts. Now, I don't have to sign off from one to use the other. There's an option to switch accounts next to your username at the top right corner. I mostly only use GMail and Google Docs. I wonder if they just launched that today, or I've just never noticed it. Anyway, it's awesome.
Facebook and Twitter should do the same. I think most people who work on the net and/or have their own business have multiple Google, Facebook, and Twitter accounts. It's a hassle to have to log in and out of each of those accounts.
UPDATE: Looks like it only works with Firefox 8. I can't seem to do the same on Chrome. If anything, you'd think it should work on Chrome, since they're both Google products.
Topics: facebook google google apps google docs internet technology twitter
Google Docs Now Has A Research Sidebar
While writing the Cannes article, I noticed that there was a Research bar on the right side of Google Docs. Right now, you can search the web, images, and quotes and filter the results by usage rights. The listings are neatly formatted according to the width of the sidebar. That’s actually pretty handy. More
Facebook's IPO Will Value Company at Half of Google with a Tenth of Its Revenue
The LA Times reported that the world’s largest social network Facebook filed papers for its IPO today. Here are some stats from the article: “845 million users; 483 million daily users; annual revenue of $3.7 billion; $1.8 billion in operating income and $1 billion net income.” It didn’t mention the number of users in the U.S. More
How Is It That MySpace is Only Worth $100M and Twitter is worth $5-7B When They Have Similar Revenue and Traffic
When I heard that News Corp was selling Myspace, I was curious about the price, what with Facebook being valued at $50B (or $75B on SecondMarket) and Twitter at around $5-7B. I’m surprised that News Corp’s trying to sell MySpace for a relatively cheap price of $100-200M. More
Digg Has Been Ransacked and Sprayed with Graffiti
The latest version of Digg - aka Digg v4 - is getting a lot of negative feedback from its users, especially the power users. They’ve lead a Digg Revolt by pushing articles from their rival, Reddit, to Digg’s homepage. Now, they’ve defaced the site’s comment system by littering it with anti-Digg comments. More
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Yankees Will Skip Wang’s Next Start
April 21, 2009 · Rob Abruzzese · Jump to comments
According to Matt Gagne of the Daily News, the Yankees will skip Chien-Ming Wang’s next start which was scheduled to come this weekend against the Boston Red Sox.
Chien-Ming Wang was dropped from the rotation for the Yankees’ three-game series with the Red Sox this weekend, even though the struggling righthander still clamored for the ball.
“I certainly do not want to skip a start. This is my job, I want to do my job,” Wang said through an interpreter at the Stadium before Monday night’s game was rained out.
Wang, who was slated to pitch the series opener Friday in Boston, will be replaced by Joba Chamberlain on Friday, with A.J. Burnett, and Andy Pettitte getting the ball on Saturday and Sunday. Pettitte will also start against the A’s today.
The move had been debated in meetings between Joe Girardi and Brian Cashman. Wang lasted just 1-1/3 innings against the Indians, giving up eight hits and eight runs in a 22-4 loss at the Stadium. In three starts, he is 0-3 with a 34.50 ERA.
“The biggest thing is that we have to get this guy right,” Girardi said. “He’s too good of a pitcher to pitch the way he’s pitched the past three games.”
Normally, I wouldn’t think that skipping one start for him would be the answer,but in this case, I think it is warranted.
First of all, because of Monday night’s rain out, they can skip him without calling anyone up or using a pitcher on short rest.
Secondly, it’s a start coming against the Red Sox, and their lineup is one of the best in baseball. Even when Wang does have his good stuff working, Boston gives him fits.
For these reasons, I would expect him to make his next start the next time through the rotation.
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Vernon Bogdanor--Britain and the Continent
source: GreshamCollege 2013年9月25日
Few have so eloquently expressed Britains's relationship with Europe as Winston Churchill: "We are in Europe, but not of it" Professor Bogdanor series of lectures examines the nature of Britain and Europe' relationship and more importantly explains how it came to be. By teasing apart the subtle distinctions in history, national identity and politics, Professor Bogdanor trace the sometimes tumultuous relationship from the post war era right up to the modern day. The Lectures will also examine the necessities of trade and politics that have affected this relationship over the years and inform our current states. An essential series for euro-philes and euro-sceptics alike.
The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and...
1 53:32 Britain and the Continent
The first lecture seeks to contrast Britain and the Continent in terms of history and institutions, contrasts emphasised by the Second World War. The effect of these contrasts was that Britain would be required to undergo a greater degree of adjustment than any of the countries of the Continent were she to seek to join the European enterprise.
2 57:23 From the European Coal & Steel Community to the Common Market
3 1:04:33 The Decision to Seek Entry into the Common Market
4 1:04:00 Entry into the European Community, 1971-73
5 53:48 The Referendum on Europe, 1975
6 1:03:16 The Growth of Euroscepticism
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T.O.P Calls People Evil and Says BIGBANG Won’t Make a Comeback in Korea
“I’m not going to make a comeback in Korea.” – T.O.P
BIGBANG‘s T.O.P called out people for being wicked and stressed that he won’t be making a comeback in Korea.
T.O.P recently held a live broadcast on Instagram to chat with fans.
He revealed the reason for holding the broadcast, which was to show people how he’s really been doing.
I just wanted to show people this side of me. I don’t think people know exactly how I’m doing, so I thought I’d show everyone.
– T.O.P
T.O.P then surprised many fans by calling out the public and announcing that he won’t be making a comeback in Korea.
I’m not going to make a comeback in Korea. I just don’t want to do the comeback itself. My friends are against it. People are just wicked.
Many fans are interpreting this to mean that the public hasn’t been viewing T.O.P or BIGBANG in a positive light lately.
Following BIGBANG’s debut in 2006, T.O.P was sentenced to 10 months in prison in 2017 for smoking marijuana.
Furthermore, G-Dragon was also involved in a marijuana controversy, Daesung faced suspicions of being involved in an adult entertainment business, and Seungri shed a negative light upon the entire group with his Burning Sun scandal.
It was no secret that fans began to view the group negatively, but T.O.P’s recent remarks make it that much clearer just how difficult it has been on them.
As for future activities, BIGBANG is set to perform this coming April at Coachella.
Former Big Bang Member Seungri Indicted On Additional Violence And Gang Related Charges
G-Dragon Reveals His Ideal Target Audience For The Paranoise 2 PEACEMINUSONE x Nike Sneakers And It’s Probably Not You
G-Dragon Collaborates With Nike To Create A New Exclusive Shoe
See more BIGBANG
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Home • Plate 431: American Flamingo
On the 7th of May, 1832, while sailing from Indian Key, one of the numerous islets that skirt the south-eastern coast of the Peninsula of Florida, I for the first time saw a flock of Flamingoes. It was on the afternoon of one of those sultry days which, in that portion of the country, exhibit towards evening the most glorious effulgence that can be conceived. The sun, now far advanced toward the horizon, still shone with full splendour, the ocean around glittered in its quiet beauty, and the light fleecy clouds that here and there spotted the heavens, seemed flakes of snow margined with gold. Our bark was propelled almost as if by magic, for scarcely was a ripple raised by her bows as we moved in silence. Far away to seaward we spied a flock of Flamingoes advancing in "Indian line," with well-spread wings, outstretched necks, and long legs directed backwards. Ah! reader, could you but know the emotions that then agitated my breast! I thought I had now reached the height of all my expectations, for my voyage to the Floridas was undertaken in a great measure for the purpose of studying these lovely birds in their own beautiful islands.
– from Birds of America
+ Signed + numbered certificate of authenticity included
+ Directly supports the artist
John James Audubon (1785-1851) was not the first person to attempt to paint and describe all the birds of America, but for half a century he was the young country’s dominant wildlife artist. His seminal Birds of America, a collection of 435 life-size prints, is still a standard against which 20th and 21st century bird artists are measured. Audubon was born in Saint Domingue (now Haiti), the illegitimate son of a French sea captain and plantation owner and his French mistress. Early on, he was raised by his stepmother, Mrs. Audubon, in Nantes, France, and took a lively interest in... Read More
birds, nature, drawing, and music. In 1803, at the age of 18, he was sent to America, in part to escape conscription into the Emperor Napoleon’s army. He lived on the family-owned estate at Mill Grove, near Philadelphia, where he hunted, studied, and drew birds, and met his wife, Lucy Bakewell. While there, he conducted the first known bird-banding experiment in North America, tying strings around the legs of Eastern Phoebes; he learned that the birds returned to the very same nesting sites each year. Audubon spent more than a decade as a businessman, eventually traveling down the Ohio River to western Kentucky—then the frontier—and setting up a dry-goods store in Henderson. He continued to draw birds as a hobby, amassing an impressive portfolio. While in Kentucky, Lucy gave birth to two sons, Victor Gifford and John Woodhouse, as well as a daughter who died in infancy. Audubon was quite successful in business for a while, but hard times hit, and in 1819 he was briefly jailed for bankruptcy. With no other prospects, Audubon set off on his epic quest to depict America’s avifauna, with nothing but his gun, artist’s materials, and a young assistant. Floating down the Mississippi, he lived a rugged hand-to-mouth existence in the South while Lucy earned money as a tutor to wealthy plantation families. In 1826, he sailed with his partly finished collection to England. The American Woodsman was literally an overnight success. His life-size, highly dramatic bird portraits, along with his embellished descriptions of wilderness life, hit just the right note at the height of the Continent’s Romantic era. Audubon found a printer for the Birds of America, first in Edinburgh, then London, and later collaborated with the Scottish ornithologist William MacGillivray on the Ornithological Biographies—life histories of each of the species in the work. The last print was issued in 1838, by which time Audubon had achieved fame and a modest degree of comfort, traveled the country several more times in search of birds, and settled in New York City. Audubon’s story is one of triumph over adversity; his accomplishment is destined for the ages. He encapsulates the spirit of young America, when the wilderness was limitless and beguiling. He was a person of legendary strength and endurance, as well as a keen observer of birds and nature. - National Audubon Society
Plate 102: Blue Jay
Plate 107: Canada Jay
Plate 108: Fox-coloured Sparrow
Plate 12: Baltimore Oriole
Plate 132: Three-toed Woodpecker
Plate 159: Cardinal Grosbeak
Plate 171: Barn Owl
Plate 171: Barn Owl (framed + quick-ship)
Plate 211: Great Blue Heron
Plate 250: Arctic Tern
Plate 26: Carolina Parrot
Plate 367: Band-tailed Pigeon
Plate 411: Common American Swan
Plate 47: Ruby-Throated Hummingbird
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Research related posts:
Postdoctoral Researcher, Aalto University, School of Arts, Design and Architecture. 1.9.2019-31.8.2023.
Executive in Residence, Aalto University, School of Arts, Design and Architecture. 1.9.2018-31.8.2019.
University Lecturer, Aalto University, School of Arts, Design and Architecture. 1.9.2017-31.8.2018.
Lecturer/Researcher in Game Studies, University of Tampere, School of Information Sciences, Information Studies and Interactive Media. Since 1.9.2014.
Assistant Professor, University of Tampere, Department of Information Studies and Interactive Media, Game Research Lab, 1.9.2010-31.8.2014.
Project Manager, University of Tampere, Department of Information Studies and Interactive Media, Game Research Lab, 1.1.2009-31.3.2011.
Researcher, University of Tampere, Hypermedia Laboratory, Game Research Lab, 1.9.2006-31.8.2008.
Planning officer, University of Lapland, Faculty of education, Centre for Media Pedagogy, 1.9.2003-31.8.2006.
Internship, University of Turku, Faculty of social sciences, Department of philosophy, summer 2004.
Internship, University of Oulu, Sodankylä geophysical observatory, summer 1996.
see Teaching.
see Publications.
see Games and Playful Projects.
Academic education:
Ph.D. in Information Studies and Interactive Media, University of Tampere, Faculty of Communication. 2018.
Master of Social Sciences (MSSc/VTM), University of Turku, Faculty of social sciences, Department of philosophy, theoretical philosophy, 2008
Master student, University of Lapland, Faculty of arts, Media studies, since 2004
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Late night host Andy Cohen tests positive for coronavirus
NEW YORK CITY -- Just hours after announcing "Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen" would continue to be filmed from the host's New York City apartment, Cohen revealed on Friday evening that he has tested positive for COVID-19.
Cohen broke the news to his followers in an Instagram post: "After a few days of self-quarantine, and not feeling great, I have tested positive for coronavirus. As much as I felt like I could push through whatever I was feeling to do #WWHL from home, we're putting a pin in that for now so I can focus on getting better."
"I want to thank all the medical professionals who are working tirelessly for all of us, and urge everybody to stay home and take care of themselves," Cohen continued.
"Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen: @ Home" was slated to begin on Sunday with guest stars already lined up including Ramona Singer, Nene Leakes, Jerry O'Connell and John Mayor.
Cohen is the latest star to announce his positive results of the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, joining Tom Hanks, Rita Wilson, Colton Underwood, Daniel Dae Kim and more.
arts & entertainmentnew york citycoronavirus new york citycelebritytelevisioncomediancoronavirus
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IN DEFENSE OF COUNTRY MUSIC, BY JOHN DYCK
March 6, 2018 by Aesthetics for Birds 8 Comments
I used to hate country music. I would hear it at my grandparents’ house. I remember hearing my grandma sing along to those drawling voices and crunchy fiddles. My nine-year-old self cringed inside. The music was so gauche and uncultured. My grandparents grew up poor and uneducated, and I could hear it in their music.
Their radio would play an early subgenre of country called Country & Western. Country & Western was made for people like my grandparents: People who grew up in rural areas during the Great Depression and moved to the city during or shortly after the War. Country & Western gave these folks a connection to their youth.
Country music just sounds bad. The fiddles and the guitars are crass and unsubtle. And country lyrics are barefaced. But there’s still an interesting question to ask: Why do people like country music if it sounds so bad? The unsubtle instruments and simple lyrics are surely part of why it appealed to folks like my grandparents, folks with little money and education. But why does it have such staying power?
You might say that it doesn’t actually sound bad. It just sounds bad to some people. In other words, you could chalk this up to faultless disagreement. Country music sounds foul to those with sophisticated taste, but it sounds great for those who don’t have sophisticated taste. And there’s simply no accounting for taste, and no real way to adjudicate it.
But this answer misses something really important about country music. Part of the point of country music is to sound unrefined. There’s no disagreement. Country music fans know that it’s bad, at least if ‘bad’ means ‘unsophisticated’. That’s why they like it. Country music is a rejection of the refined values of high society. The musicologist Aaron Fox compares country music to smoking a cigarette: part of the appeal of smoking a cigarette is in its badness. By smoking, you express a kind of sublime badness against high society. Fox calls this the white trash alchemy of the abject sublime.
This rejection is explicit in country music. Here’s “(We’re Not) the Jet Set”, famously sung by Tammy Wynette and George Jones:
The lyrics to the chorus are:
Is draft beer with wienees
Our Bach and Tchaikowsky
No we’re not the jet set
We’re the old Chevrolet set
But ain’t we got love?
(Important: ‘Chevrolet’ rhymes with ‘jet’.)
These are not people with delicate taste. That’s the whole point! They’re unsophisticated. They’re straightforward. To borrow a term from Christine Korsgaard, country music appeals to people through their practical identities, in the ways that they see themselves and construct their lives. This is why so much country music is tragic. It portrays the mundane sorrows and struggles of working-class people. It reassures us that it’s okay to be dirty and sweaty and ugly.
And actually, most country listeners are not particularly poor—at least, they’re no richer or poorer than listeners in many other genres. But it’s not just the poorest who have a chip on their shoulder about cultured society. Even the relatively well-off may have qualms about the pretension of social elites.
Some country songs go further by emphasizing that country music itself isn’t cool. Check out the opening lines of “This Is Country Music” by Brad Paisley.
You’re not supposed to say the word ‘cancer’
And tellin folks that Jesus is the answer
Can rub ’em wrong
It ain’t hip to sing about
Tractors, trucks, little towns, or mama
But this is country music
And we do
This song makes a shameless appeal to its listeners as people who are not upper-crust, who are not urbane.
So this is the first and central point I want to make about country music. Many people love country music for its badness. In general, I’m fascinated by the many ways that we love badness in art. (Some of my work on this has appeared before on this blog.) We love some things ironically, like inspirational posters; we have guilty pleasures, maybe a soap opera; we love art that’s so bad it’s good. Country music offers a way to love social badness, or unsophistication. Country music makes us feel better about being the wrong kinds of people, about not being Proper. It makes us feel better about being ugly and not handsome, being simple and not Ivy League-educated. More than that, it makes us feel proud that we might not be cultured.
There’s much more to say about this. For one thing, while country music glorifies, or at least reaffirms, a kind of social badness or unsophistication, it doesn’t also glorify moral badness. Just the opposite, in fact. You can clearly see a traditional moral vision squinting in through the back end of the Brad Paisley song. This moral vision includes Jesus, tractors, and respecting your mama. It’s precisely because country folks are unsophisticated that they are supposed to know what’s right from wrong. George Strait’s “Heartland” is a more explicit—and creepier—example of this.
Furthermore, country music isn’t the only genre to incorporate social exclusion. This appears in rap, rock, emo, punk, gospel, and most obviously the blues. But there might be a worry about the way it appears in country music. Given the overwhelming whiteness of country music, it starts to look like social exclusion is uniquely bad in country music. It serves as a salve to fragile whiteness, a way to resist multiculturalism. It makes white suburban folks feel that their values are the right ones, that they are the ones hard done by. This is a real worry, and I don’t want to shy away from it. But I don’t think it means that the whole genre ought to be condemned.
The second point is that country music can still have real aesthetic value. From what I’ve said, it might sound like I think country music is nothing more than an empty placeholder for practical identities—as if it had no real artistic value, as if the artistic content is just a thin veneer for practical identities. That is just false. Country music has always required extraordinary talent and originality. Country music is appealing because it sounds rough and indelicate. The lyrics and sounds of country music grow out of that. But that doesn’t mean it takes no skill or has no aesthetic value as a result. Even though country music rejects delicacy and sophistication in a high-social sense, it still has room for aesthetic delicacy of its own. In fact, Roy Cook’s remarks about the alleged amateurism of punk music make room for the sort of thing I have in mind.
The third point is that country music can play an aesthetic debunking role. Because of its roots in social badness, country music debunks the shallowness of high-class taste. It is a defiant middle finger to pretentiousness. It accepts different values of art. And it is able to debunk what’s bogus about so much appreciation.
For example, I love classical music and jazz, but in my late teens I learned that many people who profess to love these genres are faking it. I noticed that many folks at classical or jazz concerts didn’t really understand what was worth appreciating about the music. What many people actually appreciated was common to many artforms: the virtuosity, the soul, or just really belting it out. This suggested to me that folks often love the appearance of subtlety or sophistication, not actually being able to perceive subtlety. Some artforms get high cultural cache only because they are rooted in a vague idea of subtlety, not because anyone perceives the subtlety.
Country shows don’t have this misdirected appreciation as often. But besides more authentic audiences, the values of country music are real. Country music taught me that it was okay to value music for a hummable melody, or for really solid drumming. It exposed the contingency of received taste. And, of course, there is something so delicious about loving the kind of music you’re not supposed to love.
Lastly, almost nothing here is unique to country music. In fact, my clearest guide to these issues has been Paul C. Taylor’s Black Is Beautiful. In his book, Taylor spends a great deal of time and care with his analysis of the relationship between culture and aesthetics. And many of Roy Cook’s thoughts about punk resonate with my take here.
Now that I’ve come to love country music, in all its bad glory, I wish I would’ve listened more carefully to the songs that my grandma sang along to. I bet she knew some good ones.
John Dyck is a doctoral candidate in philosophy at the CUNY Graduate Center.
Image credit: “Brad Paisley” by Craig O’Neal via Flickr
Categories: Guest Posts | Tags: class, country and western, country music, Music, practical identity, social exclusion | Permalink.
8 thoughts on “IN DEFENSE OF COUNTRY MUSIC, BY JOHN DYCK”
I’m still a bit nostalgic for the country music I grew up listening to (after discovering it hiding beneath/behind the popular sorts of radio/TV country music of the era then and now): Doc Watson, Bill Monroe, Earl Scruggs, etc. Musical innovators who treated their calling with artistic integrity and authenticity. Real players. Encyclopedias of Appalachian folk music and heritage.
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This is really interesting, and thanks for making the connection to my posts on punk. A lot of what is said here could also be said about punk. But not everything. Both seem to be particularly WHITE rejections of traditional high-brow (or even middle-brow), typically sub-urban values. One difference, of course, is geographical – in some sense punk is a rejection of such values from within the suburbs, while country is a rural rejection of these (or similar) values from outside the suburbs.
I also suspect that these links have the potential to provide some interesting insights into the embrace of certain country musicians within (some parts of) the punk scene (some country music – especially older, “authentic” whiskey-and-fightin’ artists like Johnny Cash, gets a punk-rock pass). But of course there are historical links as well, some of which are at least partially mediated by rockabilly and other especially rebellious sub-genres.
Lots to think about here. Great post!
roytcook
Oops – I forgot to log in. The comment above is mine. Roy
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Film adaptations, The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side, Indian adaptations
Shubho Mahurat
Shubho Mahurat (2003) is an award-winning Indian Bengali feature film directed by Rituparno Ghosh. The film is based on Agatha Christie's Miss Marple story The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side.
The phrase "shubho mahurat" is associated with the beginning of shooting for a feature film. The first day of shooting is usually marked by a grand reception, followed by a token shooting or vice-versa. This Miss Marple-esque film began with this event. An NRI producer, Padmini Chowdhury (Sharmila Tagore), has come to India to invest in a film. Her second husband Sambit Roy (Sumanta Mukherjee), an out-of-work director is assigned the job of direction.
The out-of-work director had a shady past. The witness to his shady past was an aspiring actor, who was subsequently thrown out of the acting circuit. Thereafter, this actor started a catering service for the film unit.
The NRI producer insisted on casting a retired actress, Kakoli (Kalyani Mandal) in a prominent role. Kakoli, a drug addict, subsequently died under mysterious circumstances, on the day of 'Shubho Mahurat'. The journalist Mallika Sen (Nandita Das) was the only person present at the time of the death. The suspicion naturally fell on the husband of the actress.
The husband reportedly has an amorous relationship with another lady. The unnatural death of the actress made the police come into the scene. An IPS officer named Arindam (Tota Roy Chowdhury) took up the investigation. During the course of investigation, Arindam befriends Mallika. Meanwhile, Mallika caught the fancy of a still photographer named Jojo (Anindya Chatterjee) who, incidentally, is closely related to the NRI producer.
This NRI producer had a past no less interesting than the other protagonists. The NRI producer was an actress of repute in her heyday. She divorced her husband and left the country to settle abroad. Before that, she had given birth to an abnormal child. The course of the film revealed that she bore a grudge against Kakoli for spreading a contagious disease to her while she was pregnant, resulting in the abnormal child.
Another amorous affair runs parallel to the main theme: The camera assistant was repenting for his past affair with the hairdresser. The hairdresser had her problems and she was extracting money very often from the camera assistant. All through the movie, the aunt of the journalist, Ranga Pishima (Raakhee), gave vital leads to the investigation through deductive logic. She was able to read the mind of the niece correctly. Her valuable inputs finally leads to solving of the murder mystery.
Sharmila Tagore as Padmini Chowdhury
Raakhee as Ranga Pishima
Nandita Das as Mallika Sen
Sumanta Mukherjee as Sambit Roy
Kalyani Mandal as Kakoli
2003 - National Film Award for Best Supporting Actress for Raakhee
2003 - National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Bengali
Retrieved from "https://agathachristie.fandom.com/wiki/Shubho_Mahurat?oldid=32828"
The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side
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AIMLOCK ATTENDS DRONE VENTURE DAY
U.S. Dept of Defense
The Department of Defense (DOD) and The Texas A&M University System co-sponsored Drone Venture Day, where U.S. manufacturers of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) and Counter-UAS (C-UAS) had the unique opportunity to meet with trusted capital providers to explore mutually beneficial business partnerships focused on national security concerns.
Drone Venture Day represented the inaugural event in a series of Trusted Capital opportunities to build an ecosystem where trusted capital providers and domestic companies can limit adversarial foreign access to technology and strengthen domestic manufacturing in the defense industrial base.
The senior DoD official, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Industrial Policy, Ms. Jennifer Santos, attended and spoke about the importance of the Trusted Capital mission. "The Trusted Capital concept takes a more proactive approach toward protecting U.S. supply chains, domestic manufacturers, and American technology from foreign adversaries who want to undermine our national security."
While Drone Venture Day focused on unmanned systems, other events will focus on additional key technology areas. These fora will assist in promoting and protecting the industrial base, especially fragile sectors as identified by the Executive Order 13806 report on Assessing and Strengthening the Manufacturing and Defense Industrial Base and Supply Chain Resiliency of the United States.
Attendees heard from senior officials from DoD and other United States Government agencies, and senior members of The Texas A&M University System. "We are pleased to partner with DoD in its inaugural Trusted Capital event, where critical companies and capital providers can come together to advance investment in key areas of national defense," said Texas A&M University System Chancellor John Sharp. "We recently broke ground for the George H.W. Bush Combat Development Complex, demonstrating our firm commitment to a long-term partnership with DoD and a shared vision of ensuring the nation's security and prosperity."
For more information, please visit the Industrial Policy website: https://www.businessdefense.gov/
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You are here: Campus Life News and Press Releases Albany Technical College and University of Phoenix sign a Transfer Articulation Agreement
Albany Technical College and University of Phoenix sign a Transfer Articulation Agreement
Albany, Georgia - Albany Technical College (ATC) officially will sign a Transfer Articulation Agreement with the University of Phoenix on Wednesday, January 13, 2021. The virtual signing will be held at 2:00 p.m. on the campus of Albany Technical College in the Logistics Education Center board room and in the Office of the Provost at the University of Phoenix main campus in Phoenix, Arizona. The Transfer Articulation Agreement is an alliance between the two colleges requiring a commitment by both institutions to serve and facilitate a student's ability to transfer into a degree program without jeopardizing the intended mission and stated goals of either institution.
This Agreement is intended for Albany Technical College graduates who meet the requirements and plan to transfer to the University of Phoenix after completing an associate degree in one of 6 specified areas: Associate of Science Degree in Nursing, Associate of Applied Science Degree in Business Management, Associate of Applied Science Degree in Business Technology, Associate of Applied Science Degree in Business Healthcare Technology, Associate of Applied Science Degree in Cybersecurity
and Associate of Applied Science Degree in Criminal Justice Technology. Each student seeking to transfer from Albany Technical College to the University of Phoenix will be admitted and earn the necessary academic credits needed through an institutional program-to-program articulation agreement.
This Agreement does not apply to other institutions in the Technical College System of Georgia (TCSG). Any Albany Technical College student who completes the courses detailed at Albany Technical College is in good standing at Albany Technical College and meets the appropriate admission requirements to attend the University will be ensured that the courses listed in this Agreement earned at Albany Technical College will transfer to the University.
This Agreement is specifically for graduates completing the courses included in this document at Albany Technical College who are transferring to complete a baccalaureate degree at the University.
The following paths have been established:
Associate of Science (AS) Degree in Nursing Bachelor of Science (BS) in Nursing v16
Associate of Applied Science (AAS)Degree in Business Management Bachelor of Science (BS) in Management v004A (UOPX)
Associate of Applied Science (AAS) Degree in Business Technology Bachelor of Science (BS) in Business v26A (UOPX)
Associate of Applied Science (AAS) Degree in Business Healthcare Technology Bachelor of Science (BS) in Health Management v001A
(UOPX)
Associate of Applied Science (AAS) Degree in Cybersecurity Bachelor of Science (BS) in Information Technology v010A (UOPX)
Associate of Applied Science (AAS) Degree in Criminal Justice Technology Bachelor of Science (BS) in Criminal Justice Administration v05A (UOPX)
"Albany Technical College is proud to partner with University of Phoenix to expand the pathways for our students to earn a bachelor's degree after they have successfully earned an associate degree with us," stated Dr. Anthony O. Parker, President of Albany Technical College. "The signing of this agreement demonstrates the commitment that both institutions have made to increase educational pathway opportunities and possible career advancement for our students."
“Our partnership with Albany Technical College is extremely important” said University of Phoenix Provost, Dr. John Woods. “Albany Technical College provides a great set of programs for their students and we provide pathways for graduates to quickly and affordably advance their education to baccalaureate completion, which can be very important for career advancement. Upon completion at Albany Technical College, graduates in many programs can earn a bachelor’s degree in as little as one year at the University and do so at a reduced tuition rate.”
The University of Phoenix and Albany Technical College will enter this Agreement beginning with the Spring Semester of 2021.
To learn more about the University of Phoenix and the partnership with Albany Technical College, please contact Admissions at 229.430.6193 - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., or (844) 937-8679 (844 YES-UOPX) – https://www.phoenix.edu/admissions.html
About Albany Technical College
A public postsecondary institution of the Technical College System of Georgia (TCSG), Albany Technical College provides technical education and training support for the evolving workforce needs of Southwest Georgia through traditional and online classroom settings. Albany Tech is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS/COC). For more information about Albany Tech, go to www.albanytech.edu or become a fan on Facebook at www.facebook.com/AlbanyTech or on Twitter at www.twitter.com/AlbanyTech.
About University of Phoenix
University of Phoenix is continually innovating to help working adults enhance their careers in a rapidly changing world. Flexible schedules, relevant courses and interactive learning help students more effectively pursue career and personal aspirations while balancing their busy lives. University of Phoenix is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission (HLC). We serve a diverse student population, offering degree programs at select locations across the U.S., as well as online. For more information, visit www.phoenix.edu and www.phoenix.edu/ccstudent.
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Jan Dailey Schnell ’65 is certified by the American Veterinary Chiropractic Association, which supplied this photo.
Jan Dailey Schnell’s path from conventional veterinarian to veterinary chiropractor—one of only about 500 in the world—started with an injured sled dog.
“He had run into the side of a pickup truck,” Schnell recalls. “He was in my office, and you could see his back was out of position. I did what I was taught to do: Give him steroids, and get him up walking again. He was walking, but he was pretty miserable. His owners eventually took him to their chiropractor, and he was able to get the dog off of steroids. He wasn’t a sled dog again, but he was a pet dog, and he felt a lot better.”
Schnell describes the experience as a “game changer” for her. A 1987 graduate of the University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine, she sought out the American Veterinary Chiropractic Association—the leading organization of its kind—and became a certified veterinary chiropractor in 1997. She does continuing education to renew her certificate every three years, and practices in her home state of Wisconsin as well as in Minnesota and Ontario.
Unlike the majority of veterinary chiropractors, who focus on horses, Schnell specializes in small animals—dogs and cats, mostly, but also rabbits, ferrets, birds, turtles, and more. She uses chiropractic to treat everything from ear infections and collapsing trachea in dogs to hairballs and abscesses in cats. She even fixed a parakeet’s eye problem by realigning the little bird’s eyeball with its socket. “With chiropractic you can do things you couldn’t otherwise do,” she says.
Getting permission from pet owners to adjust their animals can mean countering assumptions that chiropractic is painful or scary, Schnell says. “Most of my clients, when you say ‘chiropractic,’ they think it’s going to be wham, bang, pop, and that the animals will have to be held down,” she says.
Not so. Schnell has developed a kinder, gentler technique—she calls it “butterfly-light manipulation”—that puts animals at ease, so much so that they commonly fall asleep. “Chiropractors need to move in the direction I have, which is to make it totally painless,” she says. “I tell my clients, ‘It shouldn’t hurt.’”
—By Christina Barber-Just
Tags: alumnae voices, career
On July 20, 1969, when Beth O’Leary ’74 was an AFS exchange student in Norway, her host family watched a news report of Apollo 11’s lunar touchdown and humans’ first steps on the moon. The broadcast was in Norwegian, except for: “The Eagle has landed.” “It was just wonderful to hear that,” O’Leary says. “I…... » Read More
Back in the day, murder-mystery writers didn’t get much bigger than Emma Lathen. Between 1961 and 1997 the pseudonymous Lathen published twenty-four novels featuring Wall Street banker-detective John Putnam Thatcher. Lathen’s books won awards named after such great mystery writers as Edgar Allan Poe and Agatha Christie; one, Murder Against the Grain, received the 1967…... » Read More
Q&A with Amy Celico ’91
This past March, Amy Celico ’91 met with Mount Holyoke students in Washington, DC, for the “MHC Lynk: On the Road” networking program. “My interest in China was spawned by a Chinese history class I took as a junior in high school,” she says, a principal at Albright Stonebridge Group (ASG). An Asian studies major at…... » Read More
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In a Decision – S.S.
In a Decision – Stewart v. Alicea,, (an "Unreported Decision") >> the Court Held:
The Appellate Division remanded the Trial Court determination for the limited purposes of determining the quantification of new support.
In a Decision – Ionfrida v. Ionfrida,, (an "Unreported Decision") >> the Court Held:
The Appellate Division reversed the Trial Court determination that a party
make periodic payments and that Judgment enter
Defendant filed a motion r but did not submit a new CIS, instead submitting a prior CIS with a new date; defendant did not submit any tax returns or income statements .
In a Decision – DeChiara v. DeChiara,, (an "Unreported Decision") >> the Court Held:
The Appellate Division affirmed the Trial Court determination that a party
who lost a job may need to continue to look for a job.
In a Decision – Cunningham v. Mitkowski, (an "Unreported Decision") >> the Court Held:
The Appellate division determined that the trial court erred in effectively preventing plaintiff from challenging the accuracy, validity and reliability of the billing and resolving material factual issues about plaintiff's ability to pay without a plenary hearing.
In a Decision – Ndiaye v. Ndiaye, (an "Unreported Decision") >> the Court Held:
The Appellate Division affirmed the Trial Court determination of Divorce.
In a Decision – K.B.
In a Decision – Imperatore v. Imperatore, (an "Unreported Decision") >> the Court Held:
The Appellate Division reversed the Trial Court because the Trial Court did not provide findings of fact and conclusions of law.
In a Decision Nahar v. Salgia, (an "Unreported Decision") >> the Court Held:
The Appellate Division reversed the Trial Court’s imposition of a condition not part of the Divorce.
In a Decision F.P.
In a Decision Moynihan v. Lynch, (an "Unreported Decision") >> the Court Held:
The Appellate Division affirmed in part, reversed and vacated in part, and
remand for further proceedings.
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Home » NBA » LeBron James condemns D.C. violence: ‘We live in two Americas’
LeBron James condemns D.C. violence: ‘We live in two Americas’
Lakers star LeBron James condemned the scenes in Washington, D.C., and shared the feeling that the response by law enforcement could have been far worse had the perpetrators been Black people.
On Wednesday, a large number of violent protesters stormed the U.S. Capitol after descending on the city for a rally held by President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly claimed, without evidence, his reelection loss to Joe Biden was fraudulent.
Five people are confirmed to have died and dozens arrested after appalling scenes at the seat of democracy in the United States on the day the Electoral College certified Biden’s victory, with some individuals able to force access into private offices and take pictures in the chair of Vice President Mike Pence while members of Congress were forced to flee under escort. Tear gas was used in the Capitol Rotunda as part of nonlethal means to disperse the crowd.
Wizards guard Russell Westbrook claimed the outcome would have been “totally different” had the vast majority of aggressors been African-American. Teammate Bradley Beal said that, compared with the police handling of Black Lives Matter protests last year, the response lacked the same “sense of urgency.”
76ers coach Doc Rivers shared that sentiment, saying: “It basically proves the point about a privileged life in a lot of ways. I’ll say it because I don’t think a lot of people want to: Could you imagine today if those were all black people storming the Capitol and what would have happened?”
And James, who had 27 points, six rebounds and 12 assists in the Lakers’ 118-109 loss to the Spurs on Thursday, said the Black community has endured a hard week following the Capitol riots and the news that the police officer who shot and paralyzed Jacob Blake in Wisconsin in August will face no charges.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CJwvrNjBv5l/
“Obviously, the last few days have been very, very tough on anybody in the Black community,” James said. “We got the news in Memphis with the Jacob Blake announcement and the cop being let off and then seeing what happened in our national capital, inside the Capitol.
“We live in two Americas. That was a prime example of that yesterday, and if you don’t understand that or don’t see that after seeing what you saw yesterday, then you really need to take a step back, not even just one step, maybe four or five or even 10 steps backwards.
“Ask yourself: How do you want your kids, or how do you want your grandkids, how do we want America to be viewed as, how do we want to live in this beautiful country? Because yesterday was not it.
“Being part of a household with three kids, two boys, a daughter, a wife, a mother-in-law, so many Black folks in my household during that time and it’s on the TV, couldn’t help but wonder if those were my kind storming the Capitol . . . what would have been the outcome? I think we all know.”
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Casey Stoney: Manchester United Women boss wins WSL Manager of the Month award
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"The Ipcress File," and Cape Cod
Memories from childhood can be striking, mysterious. Sometimes the memories are unusually distinct; sometimes vague, elusive.
This includes, indeed, images and stories from television, and films.
Last week, I watched the excellent spy film The Ipcress File (starring Michael Caine), on TCM. I think the only time I had seen it, previously, was when it originally came out, in 1965. It's possible I saw the film again a few years after that, on TV, but I don't believe so.
I asked my brother about the movie, after watching it again. He told me we originally saw it at a movie theatre on Cape Cod. He said (I have no memory of this) that our mother took us to see it, along with one of our childhood friends. (I was nine, in 1965; my brother was twelve.)
My brother's memory of seeing the film on Cape Cod is, I am sure, accurate. The website IMDB notes that the film was released in August of 1965. In August, during that part of the 1960s, our family would have been on the Cape, staying in a small cottage we rented each summer.
I recall liking the film, decades ago, but before seeing it again, last week, I remembered only one detail from it--a sole detail, and nothing else. It was the image, in the film, of a nail. The scene with the nail—an important scene, in the movie--scared me, as a child; in watching the movie again, I can see why it did, can understand why I focused on it, then, to the degree I had. Last week, the scene, and its memorable image, may not have been as frightening to me as it had been, decades before, but it was still riveting nonetheless.
If my childhood memory of the film was limited to one arresting detail from a particular scene, my memories of Cape Cod, during the summers of that era, are far less confined.
I remain drawn, for example, to any number of memories of the cottage we rented--which include watching part of the 1968 Democratic Convention, on the black and white TV set in the small living room. (Although the furniture in the house was not our own, I think the TV set might have been ours, brought from home.) The TV was near the living room's picture window, which overlooked a bluff, and the ocean, just beyond. The cottage--which we rented until perhaps 1970 (when I was fourteen)--was (along with the area surrounding it) one of the places I have loved most in my life.
A number of years later, on a visit to the Cape–at the end of the 1970s, as I recall--I tried to find the cottage (which, my father had told me, had had a second floor built onto it). I couldn't locate it, couldn’t find the dirt road which had led to the small neighborhood. In the end, after taking a different route, I was, simply, unable to tell if I was in the right place. The entire area had been developed, it was unrecognizable, and after a short time (startled by this loss of bearings), I gave up looking.
(Photo above: the cottage referred to, on Cape Cod; the photo is marred by a vertical crease toward the right side of the picture. I don't know the date of the picture; it is probably from the mid-1960s)
Anthony Sammarco, and Boston history
I've listened, recently, to two enjoyable interviews--one, this past week; the other, in November or December--with historian and author Anthony Mitchell Sammarco, on Boston's WBZ Radio (a station I've written about with some regularity, in this space). The interviews took place on Bradley Jay's overnight program.
Sammarco has written several dozen books about Boston, its neighborhoods, and environs (and points beyond, in Massachusetts). Though I have not yet read his work, I look forward to doing so; it becomes quickly evident, listening to him, that he knows his history thoroughly.
Many of his books have been brought out by Arcadia Publishing, a press whose books I have enjoyed, over time.
Arcadia has a vast catalogue of titles, about America's cities/towns, locales, communities (and about other local and regionally-themed subjects). The books are frequently picture-centric, focusing upon archival/vintage images, as opposed to contemporary views--as in the publisher's "Images of America" series (in which the books' covers, indeed, are sepia-toned). (Current-era views can be seen in such Arcadia series as "Then & Now," and its "Images of Modern America" books.) In 2014, Arcadia expanded its reach: it acquired The History Press (the American subsidiary of the UK's "The History Press, Ltd.). Together, Arcadia and The History Press release some 900 titles each year.
www.arcadiapublishing.com
Mr. Sammarco's books include:
Lost Boston, from Pavilion Books (2014)--which was the primary focus of this week's radio interview. The book looks at--as its amazon.com description notes--some of the city's "disappeared buildings and places."
A History of Howard Johnson's: How a Massachusetts Soda Fountain Became an American Icon (from American Palate, a division of The History Press, 2013).
The Great Boston Fire of 1872 (Arcadia, "Images of America" series, 1997).
Some of Mr. Sammarco's other books about Boston and its neighborhoods are:
Boston: A Historic Walking Tour (Arcadia, "Images of America" series); Boston's Back Bay (Arcadia, "Images of America"); Roxbury (from Arcadia's "Then & Now" series, with photographer Charlie Rosenberg); Charlestown ("Images of America"); Dorchester ("Then & Now"); South Boston ("Then & Now," with photographer Charlie Rosenberg); Jamaica Plain ("Images of America"); and Boston's North End ("Images of America"). He's also written "Images of America" books about New Bedford, Mass. (with Paul Buchanan), Georgetown, Mass., and Cambridge.
More about Mr. Sammarco's books can be found at this amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/Anthony-Mitchell-Sammarco/e/B001HD1ORC/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1452143724&sr=8-1
Here, too, is a 2013 interview with Mr. Sammarco in The Boston Globe, about his Howard Johnson's book:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/style/2013/08/16/interview-anthony-sammarco-author-howard-johnson-book/RauOfVbYP26Oz9CplAbZgJ/story.html
Am really shocked to hear about the death of the extremely talented David Bowie.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/12/arts/music/david-bowie-dies-at-69.html
Kitty Kallen (1921-2016)
Here is Kitty Kallen's fine vocal, on "I'm Beginning to See the Light," with Harry James and his Orchestra, from 1945:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hP7RsdiiHWA
And this is a lovely recording, a hit from 1944, featuring Ms. Kallen and Bob Eberly, singing "Besame Mucho" with Jimmy Dorsey's orchestra:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6seAPfA8ahI
Ms. Kallen died today at her home in Mexico, at age 94.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/08/arts/music/kitty-kallen-big-band-singer-of-besame-mucho-dies-at-94.html
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Ms Bri
Miss Bri has been compared to a fairy Princess Rock Star..... Country music singer at heart she is a professional singer songwriter and is a full time rocker with many Bands on the Jersey shore... She has been working with Aardvarks for two years and has won the hearts of children and parents alike... She plays guitar and yuk and also dances her way into the kids and parents hearts.. Once you take her class you won't go back.. We love her energy and free spirit and she always gives the best to all her classes.
Mr Rob
Mr rob is like no other... He has more energy then the energizer bunny and will you leave you wondering how he did that... He is the proud father of four, a set of triplets and one new little girl... yes i said it triplets.. He is a full time working musician and plays many instruments which he loves to take to class to introduce the kids to... He has been teaching for Aardvarks for more then four years and we love having him be apart of our family.. All the children love him and so do we....
Miss Melissa has been teaching children's music for over sixteen years. She is a full time performer and singer songwriter. She has proudly been a member of Holiday Express for over fourteen years. She has graced the stages with such artist as Bruce Springsteen, Rob Thomas,and Train to name a few. She has also performed the National Anthem at Madison Square Garden for the NYC Nicks and NJ Nets. but her passion lies in teaching and now as a new mommy of daughter Delilah Jane. Her goal is continue spreading the connection that comes from learning with the help of music appreciation.
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Adam Lajeunesse
adam_lajeunesse@outlook.com
St Jerome’s University, University of Waterloo
N2L 3G3 Waterloo , ON
Historian Adam Lajeunesse is a SSHRC postdoctoral fellow at St. Jerome’s University. He is currently working on a research program examining the history of Canadian military operations in the Arctic and the history of northern development, with a focus on hydrocarbon exploration from the 1960s to the mid-1980s. Dr. Lajeunesse’s doctoral research focused on the evolution of Canada’s Arctic maritime sovereignty. He has a monograph based on his dissertation being published by UBC Press and has published articles on the subject in International Journal, Canadian Military Journal, and through the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies Occasional Paper series. A significant part of this work examines Canada’s diplomatic relationship with the United States and analyzes how the two nations have managed (or failed to manage) their competing positions on the nature of the Arctic waters. His work sheds new light on how the two countries balanced their positions on the law of the sea, continental defence, and Arctic sovereignty. His postdoctoral work represents an evolution of many of these themes. In addition, Lajeunesse has produced the first detailed research on Cold War era submarine operations and joint defence cooperation (published in Cold War History). He has also published on contemporary issues, such as Arctic shipping, the economics of northern hydrocarbon development, Arctic security, and whole of government operations.
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San Diego Chargers Articles
5 Worst "Monday Night Football" Broadcast Teams of All Time
"Monday Night Football" (MNF) will return this fall with a new broadcasting team season of Steve Levy doing play-by-play and Brian Griese and Louis Riddick handling color commentary. On paper, this seems like a good move, but we won't...
NFL Scouts Talk Anonymously About AFC West Teams
In the AFC West, all eyes are on the Kansas City Chiefs, the defending Super Bowl champions who also have won the past four division titles. The Chiefs have their sights on another Lombardi Trophy while the Broncos, Chargers and Raiders look to do...
New England Patriots: 5 Players Who Found New Life With the Team
Cam Newton's signing with the New England Patriots is one of the most exciting quarterback moves in an offseason full of such transactions. One can only begin to imagine what Bill Belichick will do with one of the best dual-threat quarterbacks...
Fantasy Football Team Names for Every NFL Team
Finding a great fantasy football team name in 2020 can be a chore. That's why it's best to leave it to the experts. We rounded up a list of the best and even slightly vulgar fantasy football team names and have them linked below...
25 Greatest Tight Ends in NFL History
It could be argued that no position has changed more in the NFL's history than the tight end. Once primarily a sixth offensive lineman who would catch the occasional pass, tight ends have become key cogs on offense. Some tight ends are...
J.P. Scott
The Kansas City Chiefs were the story in the AFC West last season behind the eye-popping numbers put up by MVP Patrick Mahomes. The Chiefs have Super Bowl aspirations but don't forget about the Los Angeles Chargers, a team that made the...
Kansas City is the AFC West defending champion but all of the attention is on Oakland and Jon Gruden's return to the sideline. The Chiefs are turning their offense over to second-year quarterback Patrick Mahomes while Gruden is hoping he can...
Los Angeles Chargers 2018 Team Preview and Prediction
The Chargers’ self-proclaimed “Fight for LA” might be a lost cause, at least for the time being, because the Rams have proven to be much more popular in Los Angeles. After all, they made the playoffs last season while the Chargers...
After years of posturing and threats, the Chargers finally pulled the plug on San Diego after 56 seasons and moved to the Los Angeles area because voters said no to a large subsidy to replace aging Qualcomm Stadium. They leave behind what had...
The AFC West saw some roles reversed in 2016. Super Bowl 50 champion Denver missed the playoffs, falling a game short of a wild card berth. But Kansas City and Oakland both made the playoffs with 12-4 records, with the Chiefs taking the...
Oakland Raiders vs. San Diego Chargers Preview and Prediction
After 55 seasons in San Diego, this afternoon could be the last time the Oakland Raiders visit the San Diego Chargers at Qualcomm Stadium. Last month, the team’s new stadium ballot measure failed in San Diego County, as only 57 percent of the...
Tampa Bay Buccaneers vs. San Diego Chargers Preview and Prediction
The San Diego Chargers (5-6) may be in last place in a potent AFC West division, but it’s fair to say that that they are the best 5-6 team in the league. If just a handful of plays had gone their way, the Chargers would be at or near the...
Miami Dolphins vs. San Diego Chargers Preview and Prediction
Just a month ago, things were quite different for both the Miami Dolphins and the San Diego Chargers. Miami began the season with a 1-4 record and many thought the Dolphins were one of the worst teams in the NFL. Since then, the Dolphins have won...
Tennessee Titans vs. San Diego Chargers Preview and Prediction
Both the San Diego Chargers and the Tennessee Titans are hoping that the second half of the NFL schedule works out in their favor. The Chargers’ first half was marred by heartbreak, posting a 3-5 record, as all five losses were by a...
San Diego Chargers vs. Denver Broncos Preview and Prediction
The Denver Broncos (5-2) finally managed to put an end to a two-game losing streak with an impressive 27-9 victory over the Texans on Monday night. The much-needed victory also marked the return of head coach Gary Kubiak, who missed the previous...
San Diego Chargers vs. Atlanta Falcons Preview and Prediction
The 4-2 Atlanta Falcons return home to the friendly confines of the Georgia Dome after splitting a tough two-game stretch on the road. Atlanta managed to knock off the defending Super Bowl champion Broncos in Week 5, but came up just short last...
Denver Broncos vs. San Diego Chargers Preview and Prediction
San Diego enters tonight’s game with a 1-4 record after dropping a third straight in heartbreaking fashion. The Chargers continue to find new ways to lose, this time squandering yet another late fourth quarter lead on the road against the...
San Diego Chargers vs. Oakland Raiders Preview and Prediction
No matter where each team has been located, the San Diego Chargers and the Oakland Raiders have been bitter rivals since they both entered the NFL in 1960. On Sunday, they will continue their division rivalry, this time in Oakland. Last...
New Orleans Saints vs. San Diego Chargers Preview and Prediction
New Orleans limps into this game after dropping its third game of this young season. The Saints let a chance to force a four-way tie in the NFC South slip through their hands on Monday night. San Diego choked away a 17-point lead in the...
John La Fleur
San Diego Chargers vs. Indianapolis Colts Preview and Prediction
The Chargers and Colts are two teams struggling to find their way both on and off the field. The Chargers have let the last few years of Phillip Rivers’ prime slip away with only a single playoff appearance since 2010, and failing to...
Jacksonville Jaguars vs. San Diego Chargers Preview and Prediction
This Week 2 matchup between Jacksonville and San Diego features two 0-1 teams that feel very differently about their situations. The Jaguars quietly generated some preseason hype after loading up on defensive talent in the draft and free agency,...
Andrew Dellapina
Why You Must Start DeSean Jackson and Other WR/TE Start/Sit Fantasy Advice For Week 2
Some surprises, both the good and bad kind, in Week 1 in terms of fantasy performances by wide receivers and tight ends. Before we look ahead to Week 2, let’s see how my Week 1 advice fared. Good Calls... Start Donte...
This is not the same Denver team that won Super Bowl 50, but the Broncos’ defense should still be among the NFL’s best. Even with the questions on offense, particularly at quarterback, there’s no reason to not consider Gary Kubiak...
San Diego Chargers 2016 Team Preview and Prediction
After the ugliness of the Chargers’ attempted move to Los Angeles, 2016 will be the most pivotal year in franchise history. After agreeing to stay in San Diego at least one more year rather than join the Rams in L.A., the Chargers are...
2016 NFL Training Camp Dates and Locations
The calendar has turned to July, which means it’s almost time for the NFL to get back to business. The regular season doesn’t start until Sept. 8, but teams will open training camp later this month, officially starting the path for...
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VMU Is Expanding International Relations with Sakartvelo
On 10 May, Vytautas Magnus University (VMU) and Akaki Tsereteli State University (also known as Kutaisi State University, Sakartvelo) signed a cooperation contract. VMU also opened a lecture room named after Shota Rustaveli, one of the most significant literary figures of the Middle Ages, the author of the poem The Knight in the Panther’s Skin. For this occasion, the university was visited not only by Akaki Tsereteli State University representatives from Sakartvelo, but also by the country’s ambassador in Lithuania, Khatuna Salukvadze.
“I am very glad that the relationship is established not only between countries, but also in higher education. I am thankful to VMU for constant support and the oportunities that are provided to Sakartvelian students”, the ambassador said.
University Cooperation: Better International and Intercultural Opportunities
“Lithuania and Sakartvelo have not only similar history, values, vision of the future, and, of course, problems. We proved the affinity between the countries in 2008, when Lithuania expressed support to Sakartvelo. I believe that this cooperation will contribute to the education of future generations, which will continue to do their part in the collaboration of the countries”, Giorgi Ghavtadze, the Rector of Akaki Tsereteli State University, said.
VMU and Akaki Tsereteli State University are planning to conduct student and researcher exchange, establish mutually beneficial academic programs and courses, organize joint scientific research, and create double degree programmes.
According to VMU Rector Prof. Juozas Augutis, taking into consideration that VMU is a wide-ranging university, the cooperation areas are very diverse and numerous: from arts and education sciences to engineering and agriculture. Director of VMU Institute for Foreign Languages, Assoc. Prof. Vilma Bijeikienė highlighted the fact that while the university offers over 30 foreign language courses, Kartvelian (Georgian) has never been taught here yet. “Currently there has been a noticeable interest among students in various cultures and languages, so it would be great if there was a possibility to study Kartvelian language at VMU as well”, – įvardijo doc. dr. Vilma Bijeikienė.
Shota Rustaveli Lecture Room for Culture and Science
After the signing, the VMU Multifunctional Research and Study Centre (V. Putvinskio g. 23) hosted the opening of a lecture room named after Shota Rustaveli – one of the most significant medieval literary figures, author of the poem The Knight in the Panther’s Skin. The name was given to lecture room 313.
“Lithuania and Sakartvelo are marking the 100th anniversary of their respective states this year, and this Shota Rustaveli Lecture Room is a symbol of the cooperation between Lithuania and Sakartvelo, as well as the countries’ cooperation in higher education”, VMU Rector Prof. Juozas Augutis said during the opening ceremony.
According to Giorgi Ghavtadze, the Rector of the Akaki Tsereteli State University, universities are concerned not only with creativity and innovations, but also with the acquaintance of foreign cultures. “I believe that this lecture room and the activities done here will make it possible to get to know Sakartvelo better and encourage even more active cooperation not only of the academic community, but also the societies of Lithuania and Sakartvelo”, Giorgi Ghavtadze said.
Sakartvelo Ambassador in Lithuania, Khatuna Salukvadze, read a paper during the event, which was entitled “The First Democratic Republic of Georgia: The Centennial of the Friendship Between Georgia (Sakartvelo) and Lithuania”. According to the diplomat, even though the two countries are not geographic neighbours and their histories are rather different, the connection between the two nations is quite strong. “Today I can say without hesitation that the relationship between Lithuania and Sakartvelo is as best as possible and it is a great honour for me to be an ambassador of my own country in Lithuania”, Khatuna Salukvadze explained.
Later the event’s guests were presented the exhibition “Vladas Braziūnas’ Poetry in Georgian Calligraphy”, which showcased the author’s poetry written in Kartvelian lettering. The exhibition was introduced by the poet himself.
Currently there are 7 students from Sakartvelo pursuing bachelor or master degrees at VMU. One more student is pursuing a PhD. As of now, 10 Sakartvelo students (2 in BA and 8 in MA) have graduated at VMU. The most popular faculties, favoured by the students, include Political Science and Diplomacy, Economics and Management, Social Sciences, and Law.
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November video game reviews
Platform: Windows PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
Rating category: Everone
Content descriptors: Mild lyrics
Other: Includes online features that may expose players to unrated user-generated content (Windows PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
Rating summary: This is a racing simulation game in which players drive Formula One cars on real-world tracks. Players can upgrade their vehicles, review standings and race against former F1 champions. Some song lyrics in the game include the word “damn.”
Platform: PlayStation 3, Wii U, Xbox 360
Rating category: Everone 10+
Content descriptors: Lyrics, mild suggestive themes
Other: Features downloadable music content that may be inconsistent with the ESRB rating (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii U)
Rating summary: This is a rhythm-and-dance simulation game in which players perform choreographed routines by following the movements of on-screen characters. Players score points by accurately moving their bodies in time to the music and scrolling indicators. A handful of dances include provocative poses and exaggerated hip movements. Some songs reference alcohol use (e.g., “So one two/Hit the booze,” “I’ve had a little bit too much . . .Can’t find my drink or man,” “We need a taxi ‘cause you’re/Hung over and I’m broke”). Song lyrics also contain suggestive material (e.g., “We been keeping it PG/But I wanna get a little frisky” and “Bind your hands all over me/And the you bite your lip/Whisper and say/We’re going all the way . . .We’ll be lovers for sho”).
Worms Revolution Extreme
Content descriptors: Cartoon violence, comic mischief, mild language
Other: Includes online features that may expose players to unrated user-generated content (PS Vita)
Rating Summary: This is a turn-based strategy game in which players control teams of worms in battles to the last man (worm) standing. From pulled-back and zoomed-in perspectives, players move their worms across 2D landscapes and use a variety of “cartoony” weapons (e.g., bazookas, shotguns, dynamite, proximity mines, baseball bats, flying animals) to defeat opposing teams. Turns are accompanied by realistic gunfire, colorful explosions and humorous remarks from worm characters. Some of these one-liners include cheeky innuendo (e.g., “You call this a date, honey?” “Have a feel of my two-by-four,” and “Wanna see my hard hat?”). The words “goddamn” and “hell” can be heard in the dialogue.
The rating information, including rating summary, is provided by ESRB Entertainment Software Rating Board (www.esrb.org). These games and other rating summaries can be found at ESRB.org. For the app http://www.esrb.org/mobile .
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An intimate and strongly shaped human drama which examines the social forces behind the impulse to violence in individual lives, the Seymour Centre and White Box Theatre presents the gripping and controversial drama, Blackrock in the Reginald Theatre from 9 March 2017.
Written by award-winning Australian playwright Nick Enright (A Man With Five Children, Cloudstreet, The Boy From Oz and the Academy Award-nominated screenplay, Lorenzo’s Oil), Blackrock was adapted from his original play, A Property of the Clan, and was inspired by the 1989 murder of Leigh Leigh in Stockton, near Newcastle.
In Blackrock, it’s Toby Ackland’s birthday party near the surf club, and that should mean heaps of grog, drugs and good clean fun. But by the morning, a young girl is dead, raped by three boys and bashed with a rock.
Blackrock was a confronting piece of work when it first premiered in 1995, going on to win the AWGIE Award for best play in 1996, and to be developed into a feature film. A stunning exploration of Australian youth culture, our viewing of women in society and what it is to be a ‘man’, Blackrock is a powerful Australian classic that remains startlingly relevant in 2017.
Nick Enright (1950–2003) trained for the theatre at New York University School of Arts after early experience in Australia. He was an actor, director and teacher as well as a prolific writer. He has also written for film and television, including co-writing with George Miller the screenplay for Lorenzo’s Oil which was nominated for an Oscar, a number of musicals with composer Terence Clarke, and the book for the Australian production of The Boy From Oz. Among many awards were two Green Room Awards for Best Play, and four Gold AWGIE Awards, the 1998 Sidney Myer Performing Arts Award and the NSW Premiers’ Special Award.
Director: Kim Hardwick Featuring: Kate Cheel, Sam Delich, Lucy Heffernan, Tessa James, Alex Packard, Gautier Pavlovic-Hobba, Zoe Carides, Noel Hodda Set & Costume Design: Isabel Hudson Lighting & Vision Design: Martin Kinnane Composition & Sound Design: Nate Edmondson
Reginald Theatre – Seymour Centre, Corner City Road & Cleveland Street, Chippendale
Season: 9 – 25 March 2017
Information and Bookings: www.seymourcentre.com
2017 Stella Prize Shortlist Announced
Australia’s Outback Hollywood to celebrate Women In Film
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China's most valuable AI startup risks backlash amid tech cold war
CK TAN and JAMES HAND-CUKIERMAN, Nikkei staff writers August 9, 2019 13:30 JST | China
SHANGHAI/TOKYO -- The founder of China's most valuable artificial intelligence startup was only half-joking when he asked an MIT audience last year what company they instantly thought of when he said "AI."
"Yes, it's SenseTime," quipped Tang Xiao'ou, even though the obvious answer was Google. Someday soon, it might not seem like a joke at all.
"Tang told me his dream was to make SenseTime as great as Google," Jeff Shi, president of the company's Asia-Pacific business, told the Nikkei Asian Review.
To achieve that, the startup known for its surveillance technology is expanding beyond China and into burgeoning industries such as autonomous driving. "We want to be an international player, so we have to go international," Shi said.
The global transformation, however, comes as Chinese tech companies like Huawei Technologies and ZTE face scrutiny in the U.S. and elsewhere as alleged espionage threats. SenseTime is unlikely to escape the glare of this spotlight, experts warn, given its reported role in China's vast surveillance state and its status as a member of Beijing's AI "national team" -- elite companies tasked with making the country the world leader in the field by 2030.
The question is whether SenseTime can avoid a Huawei-style backlash to fulfill Tang's ambition. Some investors have big money riding on the answer.
The company's valuation has soared to $4.5 billion since it was hatched in 2014 out of the multimedia lab at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, where Tang remains a star professor. SenseTime's latest confirmed funding round raised $620 million in May 2018, bringing its total intake to $1.6 billion. Its list of backers includes China's Alibaba Group Holding, Singapore's Temasek, U.K.-based Fidelity International and the venture capital arm of U.S. chipmaker Qualcomm.
All of this started when Tang and his students developed an algorithm in 2014 that identified faces with 98.52% accuracy. Not only did this top every other algorithm available, it was the first to exceed the capability of human eyes. "We beat Facebook to the punch," Tang said in his speech at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he earned a doctorate in computer vision in 1996.
The breakthrough prompted U.S. venture fund IDG Capital to supply "tens of millions of dollars" in initial funding in August 2014. One of the earliest customers was state-run wireless carrier China Mobile, which needed to verify hundreds of millions of users against their national identification, as required by China's security law.
Five years on, the competition is intensifying as cash pours into AI. Chinese rival YiTu beat SenseTime's facial recognition algorithms in accuracy tests held late last year by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology. Still, Jeffrey Ding, a researcher at the Center for the Governance of AI at the University of Oxford, stressed that YiTu was the only one that topped SenseTime.
"SenseTime's facial recognition technology is world-class," Ding said.
The company is determined to spread that tech. Last month, SenseTime announced plans for an R&D hub in Abu Dhabi. This followed a spate of overseas moves over the past year. The company opened a "smart health" lab in the U.S. to build on research into AI-driven cancer diagnosis. It set up an autonomous driving test center in Japan, where it has a partnership with Honda Motor. And it agreed to help Malaysia create a $1 billion "AI park," developing supercomputing infrastructure as well as human expertise.
All told, SenseTime counts more than 700 customers. "While SenseTime's technology is mostly used in Chinese companies, [it] does have clients outside China," Ding said, pointing to Honda.
SenseTime wants to develop self-driving cars with Honda and sell them globally, according to Lao Shihong, CEO of the company's Japan unit. Lao said the vision is different from those of Google or Uber Technologies. Their goal "is to create robot taxis. We want to create something more affordable for ordinary car owners."
Shi said the target is commercialization in five to 10 years. In the meantime, the company is pushing technology to make regular cars safer.
At an auto technology trade show in the Japanese city of Nagoya in mid-July, SenseTime's booth featured a car simulator with a small camera behind the steering wheel. The camera determines the driver's age and gender and monitors his or her face and motions for signs of distraction or fatigue. A display flashes an alert if the driver looks drowsy, is talking on the phone or lights up a cigarette.
Shi said the company is in talks with around 20 global carmakers. "They are big names in Germany, Japan, the U.S. and of course China that together account for 90% of global production," he said.
SenseTime demonstrates its driver monitoring technology at a trade show in Nagoya in mid-July. A small camera attached behind the wheel watches the driver's face and movements. (Photo by Mitsuru Obe)
For now, facial recognition remains SenseTime's money spinner. Shi described systems for smartphones as one of the "most profitable product lines."
"We provide deep-learning algorithms to all the major Android smartphone makers globally," he said. The privately held startup does not disclose its earnings, but Shi said it turned profits for 2017 and 2018, with triple-digit compound annual growth over the past three years. The company declined to comment on its ownership structure or plans to go public.
The market is certainly growing: IDC projects AI spending in the Asia-Pacific region alone, excluding Japan, will nearly triple to $15 billion in 2022 from $5.5 billion this year.
SenseTime's technology appeals to Beijing as much as it does to businesses. It offers a suite of powerful "smart city" surveillance tools that can help catch criminals -- and, technically, monitor citizens. Surveillance is "one of the major business lines in China," Shi said, adding that "outside the country we don't do much."
Ding said it was "very hard to say" how much SenseTime relies on state contracts but noted that co-founder and CEO Xu Li, who was a student of Tang's, put the ratio of "government-related" clients at 30% in a report by Quartz last year.
Last September, Beijing picked SenseTime for its AI national team, alongside online giants Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent Holdings, as well as voice recognition specialist iFlytek. Ding said this does not guarantee SenseTime dominance but may give it "a long-term advantage" in terms of setting standards.
The Beijing connection has been a blessing.
"The Chinese government has signaled its confidence in SenseTime as a major player in the AI race by providing access to vast troves of data," said Timothy Heath, senior international defense researcher at Rand Corp. "For AI, more data increases the possibility of better algorithms, and the Chinese government has more access to data than anyone."
But state ties can also be a curse.
While Shi emphasized that the company draws a "red line" on privacy and security, Heath cautioned that "SenseTime is vulnerable to the same type of charges that the U.S. brought against Huawei." In May, media reports surfaced that President Donald Trump's administration was considering blacklisting five Chinese surveillance-related companies, though SenseTime was not one of them.
"I think there is some risk," said Amy Lehr, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. SenseTime's proximity to the government "will raise concerns about national security." She also suggested that revelations of the Chinese government's extensive surveillance of minorities in the Xinjiang region would "have reputational implications for them."
The company seems aware of the image problem. The Financial Times reported in April that SenseTime had sold its 51% stake in a "smart policing" joint venture in Xinjiang, where mass detentions of Uighur Muslims have sparked condemnation. The company was quoted as saying the move was for "SenseTime's own development."
Getting out of Xinjiang was a "step in the right direction," Lehr said. "But they don't have a choice about working closely with the Chinese government." Likewise, Rand's Heath said the withdrawal would not end SenseTime's role in "enabling" the government's practices.
SenseTime's diverse product lineup includes a suite of powerful "smart city" surveillance tools. © Reuters
Reached for comment on Aug. 8, a SenseTime spokesperson said the company has been "keeping close watch on relevant news and announcements" regarding the U.S.-China tensions and has "always been committed to the responsible usage of AI technology."
"We abide by all relevant laws and regulations of the jurisdictions in which we operate," the representative said.
Others argue government dealings should not devalue SenseTime's achievements.
A source with a U.S. company who is familiar with the startup said: "SenseTime is not secretive or anything. It's a normal AI company, and I'd say it's a team full of really intelligent talents. ... Maybe because I'm Chinese, I'm used to every company having government ties."
SenseTime says it holds more than 1,500 AI patents and employs over 3,000 workers and interns -- including over 150 with doctorates in artificial intelligence. The founder remains a towering figure: Aspiring AI engineers jockey to join Tang's lab at CUHK, according to a student there who described the professor as "nice" but also "strict."
Japan's Google-backed AI pioneer plots a quantum leap
China's Pony.ai races Google to bring driverless cars to masses
Tang is "more like the spiritual leader of SenseTime," said Hua Zhong, senior vice president of engineering at Chinese autonomous driving startup WeRide, which raised $20 million from SenseTime and other investors in January, according to Crunchbase. "Under him are several of his [former] students, who really run the business. We work with them."
While the source at the U.S. company questioned SenseTime's limited experience with autonomous driving, saying they would "prefer [to work with] someone who has better knowledge of the auto industry," WeRide has high hopes for its new partner.
Hua admitted the industry has a "huge technology barrier" but said SenseTime "really understands AI." As for the danger of a Western backlash, he said "a lot of people" ask about it but he hopes that "with time and more communication, these frictions will go away."
"People who work in technology," Hua said, "understand that you need participants from everywhere to bring new ideas."
Nikkei staff writers Mitsuru Obe in Nagoya, Eri Sugiura in Tokyo and Yifan Yu in Palo Alto contributed to this report.
AI powerhouse SenseTime shifts focus to cars and medicine
Top AI unicorn SenseTime charges beyond China
Tencent and SenseTime execs join Malaysia's wealth fund
AI's promise eclipses any trade war, China and Japan players say
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Dubai Flying Car Coming to a Neighbor Near You
By Asia World Media February 14, 2017 No Comments
Above: The EHang 184 AAV is large enough to fit a human passenger. John Locher / AP
Dubai skies are set to be abuzz with driverless flying cars within months, the emirate’s Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) announced on Monday, in what will mark another world’s first for the city.
The RTA, in collaboration with the Chinese firm Ehang, has carried out the first test run of an autonomous aerial vehicle (AAV) capable of carrying a human, the Ehang 184, and the authority said it is set to launch operations very soon.
The flying car was exhibited at the World Government Summit in Dubai this week and the chief of the RTA said a summer start date for flights is envisioned.
“The AAV exhibited at the summit is not just a model; it is a real version that we have already experimented the vehicle in a flight in Dubai sky. The RTA is making every effort to start the operation of the AAV in July 2017,” said Mattar Al Tayer, the director general and chairman of the RTA.
Above: EHang 184 driverless flying cars are set to start flying in Dubai later this year. John Locher / AP
Above: A touche screen selects location and rout for passengers using the EHang 184. The Dubai RTA plans to start operatiions of the flying driverless car in the summer. David McNew / AFP
The Ehang 184 is fitted with a touchscreen to the front of the passenger seat displaying a map of all destinations in the form of dots. It has preset routes and the passenger selects the intended destination. The vehicle will then start automatic operation, take off and cruise to the set destination before descending and landing in a specific spot. A ground-based centre will monitor and control the entire operation.
“The trial run of the first AAV is in implementation of the directives of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, to transform Dubai into the smartest city in the world,” said Mr Al Tayer.
“It is also part of the RTA’s endeavors to provide self-driving transport through engaging in the technological tests of self-driving vehicles in a Dubai environment.
“It replicates Dubai Self-driving Transport Strategy aimed at transforming 25 per cent of total individual trips in Dubai into self-driving trips using various modes of transport by 2030,” Mr Al Tayer added.
“The step would also enhance the integration between public transport modes and people happiness through the provision of smooth, quick and innovative mobility.
“We have addressed the highest levels of security in the designing and manufacturing of the Ehang184. The vehicle is fitted with eight main propellers,” Mr Al Tayer said.
“In case of any failure in the first propeller, there would be seven other propellers ready to complete the flight and a smooth landing, while mitigating the impact of the fault sustained by the first propeller.”
The AAV is fitted with numerous basic systems all in operation at the same time, although independently.
“In case of any malfunctioning in one of these systems, the standby system would be capable of controlling and safely steering the AAV to the programmed landing point,” Mr Al Tayer said.
The AAV is designed to fly for maximum of 30 minutes at a maximum cruising speed of 160kph, and the standard speed in Dubai is likely to be set at 100kph.
The ascending/descending speed is about 6 metres per second and the landing speed is 4m/s. The vehicle is 3.9 metres in length, 4.m wide and 1.6m high. It weighs about 250kg empty and about 360kg with an average passenger. The maximum cruising height is 3,000 feet and the battery charging time is one to two hours.
“The AAV is designed to operate under all climatic conditions unless there is a thunderstorm. The vehicle is fitted with highly accurate sensors with a very low-error threshold and can resist vibrations and extreme temperatures,” said Mr Al Tayer.
“Dubai Civil Aviation Authority was a partner in our trials defining the safety criteria required, issuing the permits for trial and inspecting the vehicle, RTA appreciates their contribution.
Etisalat had contributed as well to the success of the test run of the AAV in its capacity as a prime network provider, Mr Al Tayer added.
“The 4G data network is used in communication between the AAV and the ground control center. The company had also provided the support needed to ensure the continued communication between the AAV and the control centre through M2M and LTE technologies,” he explained.
Mr Al Tayer said the successful operation of AAV is considered a big step towards innovative and smart mobility solutions for reducing city traffic congestion.
For residents, the chance to beat the traffic jams in a flying car is probably something many have dreamed about. And now it looks set to become a reality.
chnelson@thenational.ae
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Colleges Closing “Confucius Institute U.S. Center”
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Day & Meyer, Murray & Young
Storage warehouse of the rich and famous.
Flickr (User "Hobo Matt")
Top Places in New York
Titanic Memorial
Oldest Manhole Cover
Behind the neo-Gothic facade of the Day & Meyer, Murray & Young building is a system of steel vaults once used by New York’s social elite.
Day & Meyer’s client list goes way back to the Jazz Age, with names like Vanderbilt, Guggenheim, William Randolph Hearst, and, more recently, Whoopi Goldberg keeping items in its “storied” halls.
But it’s not only the firm’s clients that are famous. Numerous celebrated impressionist works of art from public and private collections around the city have been inside the vaults of the “Day & Meyer” building on the behalf of famous art dealer Joseph Duveen and Georges Wildenstein. Other notable valuables include writer Norman Mailer’s archive, among other things.
Day & Meyer, Murray & Young’s unique storage system is a fascinating relic from the turn of the previous century, now having more in common with a Steampunk story than a high-tech security system. The structure consists of a system of rails and freight elevators that enables the employees of the storage warehouse to move one-ton steel shipping containers around the building quickly and easily.
Despite being home to important works of art, and the extraneous items of the rich and famous, the cost for a Portovault storage unit in the building is only $300 a month. Practically worth the price just to see the containers moved around on their rails.
architectural oddities
Oliver Hong
derukanjiru, Martin
Queensboro Trolley Kiosk
Nathan Hale Hanging Site
The Grolier Club
A forgotten relic from New York's bygone trolley system hides in plain sight under a bridge.
A plaque immortalizes the spot where the early American spy said his famous last words: "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country."
The oldest bibliophilia club in America, with exhibitions on historic books and graphic arts.
Come for the waffles, stay for more waffles.
Kecamatan Ubud, Indonesia
Blanco Renaissance Museum
Visitors to this museum will find architectural oddities, an art gallery, and an unlikely bird sanctuary.
Pasco County Stilt Houses
These simple structures are living monuments to the fishermen who built this community over a century ago.
Anclote Key, Florida
Anclote Key Lighthouse
Though it may look like it’s missing its outer shell, this skeletal cast-iron tower was built to withstand wind and waves.
This unique architectural wonder is also tied to one of the 20th-century's most renowned writers.
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People with Sun in Virgo
Solbjerg, Central Jutland, Denmark
Anna Karina (born Hanne Karin Blarke Bayer or Beyer, sources differ; 22 September 1940) is a Danish-French film actress, director and screenwriter who has spent most of her working life in France. She is known as a muse of the director Jean-Luc Godard, one of the pioneers of the French New Wave. Her notable collaborations with Godard include The Little Soldier (1960), A Woman Is a Woman (1961), Vivre sa vie (1962), and Alphaville (1965). With A Woman Is a Woman, Karina won the Best Actress award at the Berlin Film Festival.
Bordoni / Accuracy: poor
Director screenwriter actress
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Eitan Milgram Receives BBYO Alumnus of the Year Award
MEDIA CONTACT Debbie Shemony, 202.857.6691; mailto: [email protected]
Milgram Recognized for Embodying Fraternity, Charity, Honor and Loyaly
BBYO is proud to announce the recipient of the 2015 BBYO Alumnus of the Year Award. Eitan Milgram, a current Chestnut Hill, MA resident, native of San Jose, CA and alum of BBYO Central Region West, received the AZA Alumnus of the Year Award on Friday, February 13, 2015 while addressing more than 2,200 of BBYO’s teen leadership, communal leaders and philanthropists, professional staff, International Advisor Network and volunteers at BBYO International Convention (IC) 2015 in Atlanta, Georgia.
Each year, two renowned BBYO alumni are chosen by current BBYO members to receive these awards established in honor of Anita Perlman and Sam Beber, founders of the B’nai B’rith Girls (BBG) and the Aleph Zadik Aleph (AZA), BBYO’s renowned leadership development program and high school sorority and fraternity. Elise Eplan, Atlanta resident and Founder of The Eplan Group, received the BBG Aluma of the Year Award.
Milgram is the Executive Vice President of Weiss Asset Management, a Boston-based investment firm where he has worked since 2000. Outside of work, he continues to be active with AIPAC as a member of their National Council. Milgram has served on the board of 15 public companies. He is also involved with Chabad at Chestnut Hill, Jewish Family and Children’s Service, and a past participant in the Combined Jewish Philanthropy Acharai program and the BBYO Board of Directors.
Milgram was chosen for this award because he embodies the qualities that Sam Beber possessed and valued: fraternity, tzedakah (charity), honor and loyalty. An exemplary leader during his time in AZA, Milgram served as Aleph Moreh (vice president of membership) and Aleph Godol (president) of his BBYO chapter, Morris Adler AZA #1855, as well as Regional Aleph Moreh of BBYO Central Region West. Now, as a BBYO alum, he uses the leadership skills he learned then to contribute to and affect change in society.
"I am humbled and honored to accept this recognition by an organization that has had such an impact on my life,” said Milgram. “BBYO plays a critical role for Judaism and its future. The well-rounded programming that is offered inspires, impacts, and trains our youth to be active and passionate leaders who will shape the future of our people and our country.”
About BBYO
BBYO is the leading pluralistic Jewish teen movement aspiring to involve more Jewish teens in more meaningful Jewish experiences. For 90 years, BBYO‘s leadership programs the Aleph Zadik Aleph (AZA, high school fraternity) and the B’nai B’rith Girls (BBG, high school sorority) have been providing exceptional leadership programs and identity enrichment experiences, shaping the confidence and character of more than 400,000 alumni who are among the most prominent figures in business, politics, academia, the arts and Jewish communal life. Now, BBYO’s network of Jewish teens, alumni, parents, volunteers and philanthropists serves as the Jewish community’s most valuable platform for delivering to the post Bar/Bat Mitzvah audience fun, meaningful and affordable experiences. With year-round activities in hundreds of local communities and inspiring world-wide travel experiences, BBYO’s broad program menu enables teens to explore areas of leadership, service, civic engagement, Israel education and Jewish values.
Please note that BBYO should not be referred to as the B’nai B’rith Youth Organization, but rather as “BBYO.”
For more information on BBYO, please visit www.bbyo.org.
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SoCal VegFest 2017 review
SoCal VegFest 2017
Our family had a great time at SoCal VegFest in OC. For ten bucks admission for our family of four we got to try a lot of new products and learn some new things. There were tons of vendors ranging from education for kids all the way to vegan shoes. Something for everyone.
I’m not going to lie. The real reason I went was for the food. It was totally worth it. Between the various foods we tried I spent another 50 bucks or so, but I would do it again in a heartbeat.
Veggie Grill – Carlsbad, CA review @veggiegrill
Ok so I had been wanting to try this place so bad. I had a really good excuse to since we were at Legoland already. This was literally right down the street.
Since I had never been there I was overwhelmed with options but I remember seeing the Super Rica burger on Instagram and it looked awesome so I went for that.
So glad I did!
For our family of four to eat it cost about 12/person- but now after a few weeks of trying out some other places the prices are quite affordable in comparison. Plus you get more food and it’s reliable.
You order at the counter and then they bring your food. Everything we ordered was made to order, so the wait time is about 15 minutes if they’re not busy.
There’s a good selection from bowls and salads to burritos and burgers. Something for everyone.
I wish I could try everything on the menu!
Legoland California vegan food at pizza and pasta buffet
It’s Halloween time at Legoland California and we thought for our Brick or Treat we would try something different so we tried the pizza and pasta buffet.
There’s two small salad bars with some descent options. Oils, vinegar and Italian dressing are going to be your only options. But there are some fresh veggies, chickpeas and a few other goodies.
We asked and found that this gluten free pasta with fresh marinara were also vegan. My son ate two plates. I didn’t eat the pasta because I’m paranoid and trust no one but I tasted the sauce and it was delish!
The buffet is $17 for an adult and $10 for a child.
Located inside Imagination Zone.
UCI MIND ANNOUNCES MARIA SHRIVER AS CELEBRITY HONOREE FOR 8TH ANNUAL “A DECEMBER TO REMEMBER” GALA
All event proceeds will support Alzheimer’s disease research
Irvine, Calif., (October 5, 2017) — UCI MIND, Orange County’s only state and federally-funded Alzheimer’s disease research center, has announced that Maria Shriver, internationally renowned Alzheimer’s disease advocate, founder of The Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement, and former First Lady of California, will be honored at its 8th annual A December to Remember Gala on Saturday, December 2, 2017.
“Maria Shriver is a champion for Alzheimer’s disease research, and is a voice of strength for many families and individuals who are suffering as a result of this disease,” says Dr. Joshua Grill, Co-Director of UCI MIND. “We are proud to partner with Ms. Shriver and honor her important work that continues to shine a light on Alzheimer’s disease.”
Shriver is the founder of the Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement (WAM), a global alliance of individuals, organizations, researchers and industry leaders who are committed to studying Alzheimer’s disease and why it disproportionately affects women.
“Every 66 seconds a new brain develops Alzheimer’s. Two-thirds of them belong to women, and no one knows why that is,” explains Shriver, who began her advocacy for the cause when her father was diagnosed with the disease in 2003. “This is a devastating disease that must be stopped. Through the support of local communities and research organizations such as UCI MIND, we will continue to work towards a cure.”
Shriver’s organization seeks to bolster scientific pursuits to understand why women are at increased risk for Alzheimer’s disease, and to help all people take steps to improve brain health. WAM also raises money to support gender-based research, and shares stories and resources for patients and loved ones battling Alzheimer’s.
Dr. Frank LaFerla, Dean of UCI’s School of Biological Sciences and Co-Director of UCI MIND, notes that Orange County is particularly susceptible to the pressures of Alzheimer’s disease.
“More than 84,000 people in Orange County are living with Alzheimer’s disease, and that number is anticipated to increase 74% by the year 2030,” Dr. LaFerla explains. “The only way to avert this crisis is through research, which is precisely where the proceeds from this event will be applied.”
With support from the local community, UCI MIND funds projects that allow researchers to seek out scientific advances that will help identify ways to prevent or slow the onset of neurological disorders like Alzheimer’s.
“Thanks to the tremendous generosity of our attendees, last year’s gala raised over $375,000 to support innovative research on new studies and clinical trials,” says Dr. LaFerla. “This year, we’ve extended an invitation for guests to attend an exclusive pre-event cocktail reception with Maria Shriver prior to the Gala, along with various unique sponsorship opportunities that we hope will continue to support our research efforts surrounding Alzheimer’s disease.”
UCI MIND is one of only 30 NIH-funded Alzheimer’s Disease Research Centers in the nation.
“The research being done at UCI MIND provides hope for millions of individuals who are affected by this heartbreaking disease,” LaFerla adds. “It’s through attending events like our annual gala or participating in clinical research trials that Orange County residents can, in fact, make a difference and help researchers get closer to a cure.”
For more information about the 8th annual A December to Remember Gala, or to inquire about sponsorship opportunities, please visit gala.mind.uci.edu or contact Danny Harper, Senior Director of Development at UCI MIND, at 949-824-3793.
About UCI MIND (UC Irvine Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders)
The UC Irvine Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders (UCI MIND) is internationally recognized for its research accomplishments in disorders of the brain, particularly those that are age-related.
UCI MIND is the University’s center for aging and dementia research, with its faculty seeking to understand the causes leading to neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease, frontotemporal dementia, Lewy body dementia, and Huntington’s disease.
For those suffering from age-related memory problems, its goal is to develop improved means for effective diagnosis and treatment and to provide help to families and caregivers.
UCI MIND is home to one of 30 Alzheimer’s Disease Research Centers funded by the National Institute on Aging, and is one of ten California Alzheimer’s Disease Centers funded by the California Department of Public Health. For more information, please visit mind.uci.edu.
Tom’s of Maine wild lavender deodorant review
Good morning. I just wanted to share this awesome Tom’s of Maine wild lavender deodorant. Even before going vegan, I started getting terrible rashes in my underarm area. I would have to rotate deodorants and wash it off when I got home from work. Then I would try and fix my rash with tea tree oil. When we were on our second vegan shopping trip at @wholefoodsorangecounty I stumbled into their health and wellbeing aisles – and saw a ton of options. At first I was overwhelmed and then excited. I picked up this gem just to see if it would work and it has. It has lasted a few months and I use a lot of deodorant- I used to wear clinical strength. Plus, NO MORE RASH! I want to try other scents now. What kind of deodorant do you use?
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Iran petrol price hike Protests erupt over surprise rationing.
#news #iran #petrol #protest
Massive protests in London after the violent death of George Floyd: "There is no peace without justice"
The brutal death of George Floyd, an African-American who ended up trampled by a police officer, did not go unnoticed both in the United States and around the world. In Minneapolis, hundreds of people protested against the racist behavior of law enforcement and dozens of protesters were arrested. And the British were outraged by what happened and took to the streets to shout their revolt.
Hundreds of British people demonstrated in London on Sunday, May 31, after an African-American citizen found his end in a barbaric way, trampled on by a law enforcement officer. The 46-year-old man was immobilized, and the policeman continued to kneel on his head and neck until the man he found guilty of using counterfeit shopping bills took his last breath on the pavement.
After his death, people in the United States manifested their opposition to the racist attitude that law enforcement often displays. The British did not remain indifferent either, and on Sunday they met in Trafalgar Square to demand justice. "Without justice there is no peace!", The crowd chanted several times.
Demonstrators knelt, a gesture that became a symbol of the fight against discrimination in the United States, where similar rallies were held daily, after which they marched to the United States Embassy in Britain.
"Obviously, the images of what happened to George Floyd were extremely disturbing, as were the scenes of riots and violence in the United States," said British Foreign Minister Dominic Raab on Sunday. Asked on Sky News what he thinks about the issue, Raab declined to comment on a controversial tweet by Donald Trump and how he handled the crisis.
The American president, who has repeatedly denounced the "tragic" death of George Floyd, said the riots dishonored his memory by their "violence" and "vandalism". "When the robbery begins, it starts firing," he reacted in a message posted on Twitter, signaled by the social network as an "apology for violence."
Trump has threatened to send the army to the streets to stop the protests!
Shocking statements! US President Donald Trump announced on Monday (June 1st) that he will send the army to the streets to stop the protests in Washington and promised to do the same in other cities if mayors and governors fail to regain control of the streets. The protests began after the death of George Floyd, an unarmed man in police custody, killed by a police officer.
"Mayors and governors must establish an overwhelming law enforcement presence until the violence is stopped," Trump said in the White House garden as protesters were scattered with tear gas.
"If a city or a state refuses to take the necessary measures to defend the lives and property of its inhabitants, then I will deploy the US military and quickly solve the problem in their place," Trump warned, according to news.ro.
President Donald Trump on Monday called on U.S. states to fight violent protests in cities, saying officials should "dominate" and arrest people to restore order after a sixth consecutive night of vandalism and robbery. press, reports Reuters.
Residents and business owners in cities from New York to Santa Monica, California, spent Monday cleaning broken windows and taking stock of damage following new violent clashes between protesters challenging racial inequalities and police.
US protests: Pentagon sends 1,600 troops to Washington after Trump threatens protesters
Several US cities are under siege. Anti-racism protests continued on Tuesday (June 2nd), after Donald Trump threatened protesters to take the army out into the streets.
In fact, the Pentagon moved about 1,600 U.S. Army soldiers to the Washington, D.C. region after nights of protests and violence, Digi24 reports. Eight days after George Floyd's death, protests against racism and police brutality and social inequality do not seem to end too soon. People are more determined than ever to demand their rights in the streets, but President Donald Trump has told protesters he will use whatever means necessary to stop the protests. This threat provoked an even bigger wave of anger.
Thus, on Tuesday evening (June 2), thousands of people, including Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, peacefully defied the traffic ban in the federal capital Washington. The area around the White House has been blocked by barriers.
Also, at least 60,000 people paid their last respects to George Floyd at a peaceful rally in Houston, Texas, where he grew up and where he will be buried next week. The 45-year-old African American was killed by a white policeman. He was unarmed and in police custody when an officer kicked him in the neck for minutes while George Floyd begged for his life. The tragedy was filmed and angered the community of people of color, who have been facing police brutality for years.
In Manhattan, several thousand protesters gathered to protest peacefully near the New York police headquarters.
On Tuesday night, the situation was calm in Minneapolis, the epicenter of this wave of revolt that spread to more than a hundred American cities and resulted in thousands of arrests and several wounded among police and protesters.
What a surprise to those who robbed Apple stores during the US protests! The company's message
During the protests triggered by the death of the black American George Floyd, among the target shops of the protesters' robberies was the giant Apple, from where many phones and other devices were stolen. However, it appears that the perpetrators will not be able to use any object "purchased" illegally,
The iPhones stolen by those who robbed Apple stores during the protests triggered by the death of George Floyd will not only not be able to be used, but would take the police directly to the thieves, informs BBC.
The stolen phones were deactivated by the company and are being tracked, and local authorities were notified of the theft. The company sent a message displayed on their screens, explaining all these things.
Several images with these warnings appeared on the screens of the stolen phones were later published on social networks. Apple has temporarily closed some of its stores in the US, after a series of attacks during the BLM-Black Lives Matter movement.
There has long been a suspicion that phones on display in Apple stores have software installed that allows them to be tracked even if they are stolen. This was originally created if they are lost, if the buyer can no longer find his mobile.
The photos published on social networks confirm these rumors. An image on Twitter shows a phone with the message: "Please return the product to Apple Walnut Street. This device has been disabled and is being tracked. Local authorities will be alerted. " It seems that this type of message would have appeared on all stolen electronics during this period, so thieves will not be able to enjoy their use.
They tried to protect their lifetime work during the protest
A few days ago a video appeared on the Web in which a married couple from St. Louis (USA) sent weapons to a crowd of protesters who entered their territory. Users of social networks were divided into two camps: some support a man and a woman who wanted to protect their home, while others are outraged as they dared to send weapons to "peaceful" demonstrators. But we were not interested in this debate in this story, but in the motives of the spouses who so desperately rushed to defend the mansion. It turns out that the house has its own story, and the owners spent 30 years on its restoration.
In 1988, a pair of young lawyers, Mark and Patricia McCloskey, bought a mansion in St. Louis, Missouri. The house was in poor condition, but with a rich history. Spouses say they were too young and naive to understand what they signed up for, intending to restore a huge mansion. After 30 years, the house looks amazing.
The hostess of the future home was eager to build one of the most luxurious homes in the Midwest. For this purpose, in 1909, she hired architects from Haynes & Barnett. Thomas Barnett sent his employees to Rome and Florence. They spent 2 years there, studying the architecture of Italian Renaissance palazzos. Already in 1912, the hostess staged the first ball in her new home. This information is reliably known since the couple of Maklossky in 1990 met with the daughter of Anna Audrey Faust Wallace.
Today, Mark and Patricia Maklossky are already 60 years old. Restoration of the mansion has become for them the work of a lifetime. That is why they did not hesitate for such actions when it was necessary to protect their property.
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Home News Barcelona cannot afford to not get it right this window
Barcelona cannot afford to not get it right this window
Now that the domestic season has concluded for FC Barcelona, everyone can start to gather around the table in the boardroom and thrash out plans to become the best side in Spain (and Europe) next season in regards to the business they need to conduct on the recruitment side of things.
In what can be described as a widely-held opinion, the Blaugrana had a rather poor 2019/20 campaign. Quique Setien’s side failed to win the La Liga title – having been pipped to the silverware by fierce rivals Real Madrid by five points – whilst they had also failed to lift the Copa del Rey as they were unceremoniously dumped out of the tournament in the quarter-finals when Athletic Club Bilbao recorded a 1-0 victory.
Although the Champions League is still a possibility, changes will likely need to be made at the Camp Nou in regards to recruitment and the summer represents a fresh start for everyone involved.
The summer transfer window is also an exciting time for bookmakers and bettors, as well, as plenty of money can be won with bettors being provided with the opportunity to lay wagers on what they think will happen. Bookmakers make a lot of money from bettors, and bettors, in turn, also make profits from winning wagers.
Nowadays, it is still important to find yourself betting under the best and trusted bookie only. With the wide selection of bookies online, it can be confusing to choose. Thankfully, review sites like Silentbet can help you by giving you the best tips, reviews, and recommendations for the best bookie for you.
So, who can FC Barcelona expect to leave the Camp Nou this summer and who can they expect to see walk through the doors with the promise of them returning to the top of the game with new silverware being added to the trophy cabinet?
Looking at who could be on their way out is perhaps the easiest way of looking at the transfer activity that FC Barcelona could be about to undertake prior to the start of the 2020/21 La Liga campaign.
Reports have already suggested that around 12 men could be set to leave the club as they have been deemed surplus to requirements. Players said to be involved in this process include: Neto, Nelson Semedo, Junior Firpo, Samuel Umtiti, Jean-Clair Todibo, Arturo Vidal, Carles Alena, Rafinha and Ivan Rakitic while attackers Ousmane Dembele, Martin Braithwaite and Philippe Coutinho are also considered deadwood.
In truth, it is not a surprise to see a number of these names all appear, as many do not appear to have a future at the club and perhaps lack the ability to take the Blaugrana back to where they should be.
Setien is a man whose future can not be guaranteed, either, as his job is certainly up for debate after failing to lift the La Liga title. Although his place at the Camp Nou could be saved if the club do go on to win the 2019/20 edition of the Champions League, there is not much else that will save him from having to take the exit door.
Now, who could FC Barcelona look to turn to in order to return them to their heydays and get them back on winning terms? This is perhaps the most interesting aspect for those who like to wager on movements as it can bring some excitement to the experience.
As mentioned, Setien’s job is far from safe so a new manager could certainly be coming into the Catalonian giant’s set-up. Men such as Laurent Blanc, Marcelo Bielsa, Patrick Kluivert and Xavi have all been linked in recent weeks.
Arthur has already been involved in a swap deal that will see him change places with Miralem Pjanic at Juventus FC, however it would not be a surprise if the La Liga outfit looked to conclude more business in the Serie A.
Inter Milan’s Lautaro Martinez has long been considered a primary target for FC Barcelona and it would appear the Spaniards are keen to push along with their interest in the Argentina striker. It is not hard to understand why, though, when he has figures of 18 goals in 43 appearances in the 2019/20 campaign.
Neymar Jr is another name that will not stop being churned in the rumour mill, although Barcelona president Josep Bartomeu has admitted it seems unlikely as they are not in a position to splash out millions on players because of the global pandemic.
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Next articleMatch Preview: FC Barcelona vs SSC Napoli Champions League 8 Aug 2020
Coutinho’s Barca career is done and dusted; Maybe
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Newsweek: Big League Politics First Reported Restraining Order Against Julie Swetnick
Newsweek reported on the restraining order against Michael Avenatti’s client Julie Swetnick, the third accuser who made outlandish allegations against Supreme Court Justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
Swetnick had more than $100,000 in liens including a federal tax lien and a lien on her house when she came forward with her accusations. She has repeatedly sued the state of Maryland, and was herself sued for defamation by an employer. She also maintained a high-level security clearance.
It turns out that the firm of Washington super-lawyer Debra Katz, attorney for the first accuser Christine Blasey Ford, also represented Swetnick in a sexual harassment lawsuit.
The Wall Street Journal reports Wednesday night:
High-school friends of Judge Kavanaugh on Wednesday rebutted the new allegations of sexual misconduct. In a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, more than 60 people who said they knew the Supreme Court nominee in high school dismissed as “nonsense” accusations that he spiked drinks at parties so women could be assaulted. They said they didn’t know Ms. Swetnick…
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C) tweeted his skepticism about Ms. Swetnick’s claims. “I have a difficult time believing any person would continue to go to—according to the affidavit—ten parties over a two-year period where women were routinely gang raped and not report it,” Mr. Graham wrote…
Ms. Swetnick, who Mr. Avenatti said approached him about a month ago with her allegations, has little online presence. A registered voter in Washington, she isn’t affiliated with any political party. Federal Election Commission records show no donations by her to federal candidates. She has had a hunting license in Montana, according to public records, and was for years a resident of Bethesda, Md., where she listed a business in 2009 called International Building Solutions.
Public records reveal a handful of instances in which Ms. Swetnick filed complaints against others, or been the subject of them. Mr. Avenatti didn’t respond to a request for comment…
In 1993, she filed a criminal harassment complaint with state prosecutors in Maryland against a podiatrist and his wife, alleging repeated phone calls, according to court records, but the case was withdrawn two months after it was filed.
In 2001, Ms. Swetnick was the defendant in a domestic-violence case filed by Richard Venneccy in Miami-Dade County, Fla. The case was dismissed when both parties failed to appear in court in March of that year, according to court documents reviewed by the Journal.
Roughly a decade ago, Ms. Swetnick was involved in a dispute with her former employer, New York Life Insurance Co., over a sexual-harassment complaint she filed, according to people familiar with the matter. Representing her in the complaint was the firm run by Debra Katz, the lawyer currently representing Dr. Ford. The company ultimately reached a financial settlement with Ms. Swetnick, the people said.
A spokesman for New York Life confirmed that Ms. Swetnick worked there as an agent for less than two years, from 2006 to 2008. She didn’t list her work there on a résumé posted online.
A spokeswoman for Ms. Katz declined to comment.
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I don’t believe in blind idealism: An interview with Katarzyna Boni
The author of "Auroville: The City Made of Dreams" talks about the difficulties of establishing (and writing about) utopian societies.
Stasia Budzisz
ARUN SANKAR/AFP via Getty Images
Is it possible to bring a utopia to life? When searching for an ideal world, do we part with reality or maybe give it a new shape?
<p> And is creating alternative realities something only cult leaders do? Stasia Budzisz discussed these and other questions with Katarzyna Boni, whose reportage Auroville: The City Made of Dreams was published in Polish in June 2020.</p><p><strong>Stasia Budzisz: You came across one of the communities of Auroville, the</strong> <strong>city of the future, by accident in 2009. You knew nothing about it, but what you found frightened you, and you decided to run away. What happened there?</strong></p><p><strong>Katarzyna Boni:</strong> I was travelling alone around the south of India. At some point, I felt that my journey made no sense; all I did was check the landmarks off a list from a travel guide. I figured it was the right moment to try some volunteering. I found a local community that planted trees and decided to join it. And so I ended up in Auroville, although the community was located on the outskirts rather than in the city itself. When choosing a project to volunteer on, I didn't even know I was applying to an Aurovillian community – I just liked the idea of planting trees in exchange for food and shelter. I only learned about Auroville itself from my pocket guide. Two weeks in, I didn't want to stay for a moment longer. I ran away to the Himalayas, at the exact opposite end of India. Several factors had prompted my reaction. First of all, I was at a stage of my life where I was changing jobs. I wasn't yet in my thirties; I was still trying to give shape to my identity. I knew my dreams, but didn't really know what to do with myself and what path to follow in order to get there. In the community, I met people whose situation was similar to mine, except they genuinely believed this place was going to save them. And I am severely allergic to this way of thinking, as I don't believe in blind idealism. Back then, I saw Auroville as a settlement established by Americans and the French, convinced that communism was the best thing to happen to us because they forgot to ask Poles about the reality of it. I was cynical and mocking about Auroville.</p><p><strong>You wrote that you wondered whether Auroville was a cult, and yet several years later, you went back there and wrote a book about a utopia. How did you come up with that idea?</strong></p><p>The idea to write a book around this topic had been there for a long time; I even set up a whole separate project about it. But then I started working on a <a href="https://przekroj.pl/en/literature/what-lies-under-the-water-katarzyna-boni" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">reportage in Japan</a> – <em>Ganbare!</em> – and it consumed all my attention. I decided that my 'utopias' could wait and I shelved them for later. Then, just as <em>Ganbare!</em> was published, I got back on track with that topic. At first I thought I would write about various places that try to bring utopian ideas to life and are currently on different levels of realization. I was interested in the energy found at various stages of making a dream reality, how this energy changes over time, and how dreams and reality start to influence one another. At some point, I had a several-pages long list, including intentional communities and ideas for whole new nations (such as Liberland). I thought I would visit several places and then see what I might write. I wanted to visit South Korea, where a city of the future was created based on technology to facilitate every aspect of life. To me, Songdo is at the very beginning of its journey towards fulfilling this utopian dream. I wanted to visit Christiania which, as it seemed to me, was near the end of this road. I perceived Christiania as a ripe dream, if not overripe. I don't know how much of it was true, since I never ended up visiting. Auroville was supposed to be the place to illustrate a dream in the process of being realized. I started with it, and once I took a good look at it from up close, I decided it deserved its own book. I think I made the right decision.</p>
<p><strong>Why do you think that?</strong></p><p>Auroville is one grand experiment. People came to the desert with their children and started establishing a new city, this new world from which a new kind of human was supposed to emerge. Auroville turned 50 in 2018, and I was curious about its children and who they grew up to be. What worked out, and what didn't. I no longer needed other stages of utopias to describe what I found interesting.</p><p><strong>Generating a new human species does sound a bit frightening and cult-like.</strong></p><p>I had the same impression, which was why I ran away from Auroville the first time I was there. Once I returned, I knew I would have to face my reluctance. Indeed, some people there spoke in a very cult-like way. One of my interviewees said Auroville is inhabited by 12 clans that, in his opinion, provide a very natural way of distributing social roles within a community. There was a clan of priests, a clan of businesspeople, a clan of farmers. Still, Auroville is definitely not a cult. There is no initiation ceremony required for someone to stay there, even if they live there for a year, as I did. The trial period one has to undergo is a time you need to understand what the point is of working for this community. I recently spoke to an Aurovillian about how they're handling the COVID pandemic. I asked whether the city helps the businesses (which are, in fact, owned by the city, since due to a governmental solution, Auroville is a foundation with an array of non-governmental organizations underneath. Were the taxes lowered, for example? My goodness, did she take an offence! "Kasia, what are you talking about? It's Auroville that needs me now, not the other way round. Now more than ever." I realized that, once again, I had missed the fundamental truth about Auroville: it's the citizens who make the city, and they are not 'made' by it.</p><p>Auroville is not meant to provide a comfortable life; all it gives to its people is the means of basic survival, and everyone must take care of the rest. It is the citizens' responsibility to make sure that Auroville – the idea in which they believe – survives. Therefore, the question Aurovillians ask themselves is "How can I support my community?" rather than "What can I get out of my community now?" It's the complete opposite of the situation we are experiencing here, but I would not call it a cult. Those people have an idea that they believe in, and they understand it's not possible to achieve it from the position of making demands. They have to roll up their sleeves and work for it. As for a new species of human, it all depends on how literally we read into this concept. Siri Aurobindo, an Indian philosopher from the University of Cambridge, whose thought served as the blueprint for Auroville, insisted that humans are not the final stage of evolution and that something else will appear after us. However, Aurobindo considered it from the perspective of consciousness rather than biology, as he believed we can still become better versions of ourselves. That's how I see it. But in the 1970s, some people believed their children's consciousness was already more advanced than everyone else's. I'm pretty sure they were soon cured of that conviction. Today, nobody means a new species of human literally.</p><p><strong>What image of Auroville did you have in your mind when you returned to this city to write a book about it?</strong></p><p>I tried to keep my mind open, although I was going there with my own thesis. While my work on the book about Japan had taught me that such preconceived notions tend to go down quickly, I still need them for inspiration and ideas; they draw me into a new subject. The starting point was the dreams that shape reality. In Auroville, it's perceptible. Before the humans arrived, there was nothing there, just emptiness. Dreams and reality were my first lead. Then, I wanted to see what they managed to achieve within those 50 years and what they did not; whether our society could learn from it, too.</p><p><strong>In your book's title, you refer to Auroville as <em>The City Made of Dreams</em>. Why did you choose dreams as the starting concept?</strong></p><p>I wanted to write about a place in which one can see how dreams shape reality, and how reality shapes dreams, as well as see the moment in which the dream is no longer just that. It's the moment when the reality has changed your goal so much, it's no longer what it was when you were at the beginning of your journey. What to do then? Will you decide that you have changed along with your dream and want to keep going at it, despite it being different? Do you stick to it or leave it all and change your life again?</p><p><strong>How much time did you spend in Auroville?</strong></p><p>One year, not including my first time there in 2008, but it was not a year all in one go – I split it into several visits. Initially, I thought I'd make it three stays – two months long each time – but after my first visit, I already knew that was way too little time. The first visit allowed me to get into the community, but it was still just scratching the surface. I was only beginning to realize who was who and which issues I found interesting, but I didn't even manage to conduct one interview. Not because the people of Auroville are wary of strangers or don't want to talk to outsiders. They are simply very busy. Sometimes, they told me they could meet me in three months from now, which was why I needed more time. Aurovillians don't have whole days at their disposal to spend talking to reporters and journalists, of whom many visit. The city saw a surge of journalists in 2018 when it was celebrating 50 years of existence. I was in a more comfortable situation, as I had arrived in Auroville a year before. It was a good time to start working on my project. Over the course of my first two months there, I realized the subject could fill the entire book. The next two months gave me my first interactions with the main characters of the story. That was when I decided to go back there for eight more months – also because I just wanted to experience normal life in Auroville. Did you know that in total, I spent four years working on this subject?</p>
<p><strong>That's a long time. You wrote that at some point, you thought about staying in Auroville for good.</strong></p><p>If you live somewhere for a year and, due to the nature of your job, you try to get to know it in-depth, understand it, learn as much as possible about it, at some point, you get really drawn in. It's natural to ask yourself whether you would like to stay there.</p><p><strong>You had to dig deep into the memories of Aurovillians, but in your book, you point out that those who reach the community today are not focused on the city's past. Where did you find documents on the history part of your book if they don't teach the history of Auroville in their schools?</strong></p><p>I did it bit by bit, in snippets. Of course, I looked for information in books about the first years of Auroville – in the Pioneer's biographies and in my interviews with them. However, some things reached me as single sentences, dropped during my trips around Auroville, for example. This way, I learned about the conflict that divided the community in the 1970s, and I started researching it. If you keep asking, then sooner or later you will get some answers. But at first I didn't even know myself what I was looking for. I grasped at various threads, arranged meetings and interviews, not knowing whether they'd take me anywhere at all. I often felt like I was stumbling in the dark. On the one hand, I knew what interested me and what questions to ask. On the other hand, I had no idea where it was going to lead me and what story I was going to tell. As if I was wandering around a labyrinth with many exits, each of them leading towards a completely different landscape. This experience was radically different from what I discovered when working on <em>Ganbare!</em>. In that book, it was obvious that I was writing about ways of handling trauma and loss. That was the core of my conversations and the people I chose to feature in that book. And here, everyone – not only an Aurovillian but someone just passing through Auroville as well – could be a potential character. The breakthrough came when I met Auroson, the first child of Auroville. He was the first aurochild and the first new human.</p><p><strong>When exactly did you meet?</strong></p><p>I found out about him during my second visit to Auroville. We made contact, but we did not meet at that time. In November 2017, when I came over for eight months, we were already in touch on a regular basis. We talked for many hours, and we became friends.</p><p><strong>Who were your sources?</strong></p><p>I divided them into two groups: those who could tell me their personal stories and those who could explain how Auroville handles the development of society. That is – how Aurovillians work on changing the system, how they look for solutions and which solutions have already been put to the test. When talking to the former, I wanted to know what made them come to Auroville. I also looked for people from both sides of the conflict that divided the community. I was very fortunate, since many of the Pioneers came back to celebrate the city's 50th anniversary. Most of those interviews did not appear in the book since they were very similar and repetitive: arrival at the city, meeting the Mother, transformation, then life in the desert. As for the latter group, I wanted to know what Auroville does about various areas of life that it wants to improve, such as education, management, economy, architecture, culture, health and nutrition. I tried to meet with the people responsible for urban planning, with farmers, teachers, mediators, and with people who were brought up in Auroville since early childhood, at various stages of its existence. In order to draw in the children, I organized a creative writing class in one of the schools, but it was not very successful. Only one girl came back.</p><p><strong>Congratulations!</strong></p><p>Thank you. Discouraging people from writing is a very useful thing to do.</p><p><strong>In your book, you admitted that you didn't talk to everyone you wanted to interview. You didn't find the courage to chat to Jurgen, even though you had spent several months waiting for him in a café. It's a very honest admission for a reporter. Did you get cold feet?</strong></p><p>I turned out to be a reporter who's afraid of people. No, I did not speak to him. At that moment, it was more than I could have dealt with. It's not like I was waiting there just for him. The 'café', or rather a tea-serving booth, was a place I had already frequented earlier, before someone said: "Oh, you must talk to Jurgen." I started coming more often, Jurgen was never there, and when he finally showed up, I was taken by surprise, so instead of coming up to him and introducing myself, I just kept on drinking my tea. I was not in the mood for talking, and I found him a little intimidating, too. I could have always spoken with him later, after all. This happened several times. In the end, I found it embarrassing to start a conversation at that point. What would I even say? "You know what, Jurgen, I've been sitting here smiling at you, and it's lovely to drink tea in silence together, but I'm actually a reporter and I've heard of you before. Could we talk about your life now?" I realized that I don't have to come up to him. That not everything in my life has to revolve around doing research for my book. Sometimes, it's good to let it go. I felt similar about a certain woman. I waited three months to talk to her, and then it turned out I couldn't make conversation with her – she just frightened me.</p><p><strong>Did you learn any other hard lessons while writing about Auroville?</strong></p><p>It was difficult to decide whom I should describe and how to do it. I resolved not to write about my friends (whose stories were fascinating, and I would have loved to tell them, but I could not do it precisely because of our friendship). The relationship you establish with someone as a book interviewee is different than a relationship with a friend. This could also lead to a grudge; perhaps some of the things they shared were said in confidence granted by our friendship, and only some were meant for publication? It was also important for them to know whether I viewed them as friends or just book material. Auroson was the only exception to this rule, but our relationship was clear from the very beginning. Still, we became very close and sometimes I was not quite sure whether I was talking to him as a reporter or as a friend.</p><p>In Auroville, I came across one more difficulty that I didn't have to deal with in Japan: here, many people simply refused to meet with me. In Japan, it was also easier for me to conduct the interviews, as they were all focused on just one topic. I arrived at a place wrecked by a tsunami, a place recovering from a trauma. Both I and the main characters of my book were clear on what we were going to discuss. In Auroville, it was much more difficult. I had to serve as a guide to a conversation whose topic was incredibly broad. I sought out turning points in a person's life, something that made them chase their dreams, but I also looked for something that defined them, showed who they were, where they started and where they arrived. So I could have said: "Tell me all about your life, since your birth until now, and only then will I start asking you more detailed questions." Of course, this was usually impossible. Therefore, the course of the interviews usually depended on how aware my interviewees were of the turning points of their lives.</p><p>In Japan, it was obvious that our conversations were all built around the events of 11th March 2011 and everything that came after. People exposed their emotions in front of me, but they did not have to look for some meta-level inside themselves that would allow them to view their lives from an observer's perspective. My role is to facilitate entering that level with my questions. In Japan, I knew what questions to ask. In Auroville, I had no idea.</p><p>On top of that, the question about the meaning of our existence was always hanging right there in front of us, and that's the most difficult question to handle, as it provokes banalities. Especially when writing a reportage on spirituality. There was one more problem at hand – I realized I find it easier to write about strong, painful emotions. They're so overwhelming that they turn out to be enough to draw readers into the story. In Auroville, there is no drama. All we get is mundane day-to-day life. I had to problematize it and find a way of describing it so that it remained interesting and absorbing, despite its lack of emotional highs and lows.</p><p><strong>Do you think Auroville's existence makes sense today?</strong></p><p>Yes and no. I think it depends on how we approach this city. After all, we don't need Auroville to change the world or to work on becoming better versions of ourselves. It's not like the world won't survive without it. Auroville has no importance to the world. Seeing how India – and the world in general – has moved forwards, we must keep in mind that Auroville has become somewhat stagnant, especially when it comes to technology. Still, just because I lived there doesn't mean I understand everything that happens there. I keep asking questions. I think that Auroville is not pointless, because there are people still coming there today, wanting to try the thing it has to offer. This way, they can take something out of it, other than various ecological solutions – for example, they can discover that they don't need Auroville to change. But this city provides an impulse, teaching them to ask the right questions. In my opinion, Auroville shows that change, while being slow and difficult, is actually possible. It requires enormous open-mindedness, endurance and conviction. The fact that changes happen so slowly is less comforting; today, we need changes to take place much more swiftly. But perhaps it would happen faster if more people worked to make them come true?</p><p><strong>So how is the 1968 utopia different from the 2018 utopia?</strong></p><p>The premise remains the same, but it's the concept that was successful, not the city itself. The final vision is so vague that everything can work out – there is no ultimate goal, no ideal you strive to achieve. All we get is a clue: creating a place of human unity. Of course, it was said in advance that the city would reach its peak once it housed 50,000 people. Next, we would have to set up more communities until they covered the entire globe. But this recipe provided no measures. You have to try and figure it out yourself to make it happen. Auroville is not an escape from reality, because here, everyone takes responsibility for their actions. Everything is clear from the very beginning. Even the omnipresent Mother had no rigid guidelines to follow.</p><p><strong>What was your relationship with Mother?</strong></p><p>I don't want to say who Mother was. But it is thanks to her that Auroville exists at all today. She convinced UNESCO and 124 countries to support its conception. She was a charismatic woman, a woman who could change people's lives with just one look. She kept on changing their lives even after she passed away – many Aurovillians insist they can still feel Mother looking after them. I didn't manage to establish a relationship with Mother. It's not like I didn't try to. Today I think I respect her, although I did not like her at first. I had my doubts about her, precisely because I saw her as a cult guru. Even though she is no longer alive, everyone – even those who are not very religious – keep referring to her words. I found Mother unsettling. Perhaps it was because I had never met someone so charismatic, even though I know such people do exist. She could evoke genuinely extreme emotions in people. When telling me about their meetings with Mother, Aurovillians had tears in their eyes. And yet, I didn't trust her, as I didn't trust the whole narrative that grew around her. On top of it, she stared at me from the photographs almost everywhere I went. As if she actually was the Mother of the People. I felt invigilated. I saw no love in her gaze.</p><p><strong>Sometimes, people who have met John Paul II say they experienced similar emotions.</strong></p><p>Yes, I also thought of this comparison when I was thinking about other charismatic people I might know. I think that meetings with John Paul II evoked similar emotions: elation, understanding, forgiveness, acceptance, concern, tenderness, love. People who describe their experience of meeting a person they considered charismatic often report it in a very similar way. I did not feel comfortable around Mother, but I knew I could not write my book without her.</p><p><strong>The structure of your book is very purposeful. From the very beginning, we don't know what to expect and how the story will unfold. Was that your conscious writing choice when you started to put it all together?</strong></p><p>No, it emerged during the writing process. I knew I wanted to write the story of a city through the stories of its people and that each of these stories had to push the city's story forward. But I had no idea what the final form would be. It was the same with <em>Ganbare!</em> – I had two drafts ready before I understood how to make a book out of them. In this case, there were even more drafts to work on.</p><p><strong>Your book ends with a brutal statement about what life is.</strong></p><p>Perhaps I needed Auroville to understand that.</p><p><em>Parts of this interview have been edited and condensed for clarity and brevity.</em></p><p><em></em>Reprinted with permission of <a target="_blank" href="https://przekroj.pl/en/">Przekrój</a>. Read the <a href="https://przekroj.pl/en/society/i-dont-believe-in-blind-idealism-stasia-budzisz" target="_blank">original article</a>. </p>
sociology world cultures writing india society
The evolution of comfort food
An archaeologist considers the history and biology of what defines a taste of home.
Anna Goldfield
Photo by Zera Li on Unsplash
The winter holiday season will feel different this year for many: Extended families may not be able to gather, leaving holiday meals shared with smaller groups, or digitally, across different time zones.
<p> With COVID-19 fracturing our daily lives and holiday customs, the food on those lonely plates may become a source of solace.</p><p><span style="background-color: initial;">D</span>uring this pandemic, I have been receiving emails each morning from <em>The</em> <em>New York Times</em> with suggestions on what to cook. It might be the turning of the seasons, or the stress and grief of a prolonged global crisis that has stretched for months already, but lately, the recommended recipes are mostly along the lines of comfort food.</p><p>When I noticed this—it was a photo of an enameled pot brimming with a Dijon and cognac beef stew that did it—I wondered what exactly defined comfort food. I know the types of foods that conjure feelings of "home" and "safe" to <em>me</em>, but are there universally comforting dishes or ingredients across cultures and time? Where does the concept of <a href="https://daily.jstor.org/a-brief-history-of-comfort-food/" target="_blank">comfort food</a> come from? And how far back do the flavors of comfort stretch?</p>
<p>I took my curiosity first to Twitter and Facebook, asking friends what their comfort food of choice was. Answers varied, but there were trends. One was starchiness. Potatoes figured heavily on the comfort menu—mashed, roasted, fried, or in dumplings like pierogies. Pasta was a top contender as well, and mac and cheese made several appearances.</p><p>It's unlikely to surprise any starch lover that consumption of carbohydrates creates a <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8697046/" target="_blank">release of serotonin</a>, a chemical in the brain that <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-antidepressant-diet/201008/serotonin-what-it-is-and-why-its-important-weight-loss" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">regulates mood</a> and creates a feeling of calm or stability. It's no wonder that <a href="https://www.sapiens.org/archaeology/can-archaeology-explain-the-bread-baking-craze/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">bread baking</a> has <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/05/why-theres-no-flour-during-coronavirus/611527/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">skyrocketed in popularity</a> while people have been stuck indoors.</p>
<p><span style="background-color: initial;">T</span>he second trend I saw in these responses was food as a trigger for memory—a point that comes up in <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1878450X16300786" target="_blank">academic studies</a> of comfort foods too. One friend wrote that whenever she uses onions, carrots, and celery as a base, she remembers the smell of her mother's hands tucking her into bed after cooking dinner for the family. A friend chose her mother's chicken and dumplings as her top comfort food, and another chose her grandmother's German potato salad (both neatly straddling the starch and memory categories).</p><p>Another response read:</p><blockquote>"I was really close to my grandpa. There was a huge mass of berry bushes and thistles and all kinds of weeds on his property. Every summer, he would wade into that mess to pick raspberries while I got the ones on the path so I didn't get scratched up. My grandma and I made dozens of jars of jam. And every morning of his life other than Christmas day, my grandfather had a peanut butter and jam sandwich for breakfast."</blockquote>
<p><span style="background-color: initial;">F</span>or this friend, PB&J is more than just an American childhood staple.</p><p>Most of the responses I got were from American friends, leaving me curious about people in the rest of the world. A search online for international comfort foods turned up many similar trends, but with plenty of variation. Someone homesick for Hong Kong might crave <a href="https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/9c3a733c1411400e9f80310fa8b65a9e" target="_blank">hotpot</a> or the savory char of <a href="https://theculturetrip.com/asia/hong-kong/articles/an-introduction-to-siu-mei-or-hk-style-barbecued-meats/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><em>siu mei</em></a>, rotisserie-style roasted meats. A person missing Greece might long for <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/2020/05/22/comfort-foods-around-world-1503552.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">moussaka</a> or <a href="https://www.thespruceeats.com/what-is-pastitsio-1705733" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">pastitsio</a>. A Philippine <a href="https://theculturetrip.com/asia/philippines/articles/a-brief-history-of-adobo-the-philippines-national-dish/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">adobo</a> or a dish of Nigerian <a href="https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1018069-jollof-rice" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">jollof rice</a> could transport those hungry for familiar flavors.</p><p>I think about food a lot—nearly constantly, in fact. I also often wonder about the lives of ancient people, as we archaeologists tend to do. So, what were the flavors of home and family gathering in the deep past?</p><p>Early humans, like animals, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3342754/" target="_blank">evolved</a> to like the taste of things that were good for them and to find things that do harm—from poisonous plants to rotten meat—distasteful. Early food choices were driven by what was seasonally available and <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/25756731?mag=a-brief-history-of-comfort-food&seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">packed with calories</a>.</p>
<p> Our craving for <a href="https://wtamu.edu/~cbaird/sq/2015/08/17/why-do-humans-crave-sugary-foods-shouldnt-evolution-lead-us-to-crave-healthy-foods/" target="_blank">sugar</a>, which today can cause obesity and other health problems, stems from an evolutionary advantage for people who ate energy-rich foods. Over time, people also found foods that were <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378874114006916" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">medicinally helpful</a>, acted as <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5030248/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">preservatives</a> or <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5486105/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">antimicrobial agents</a>, or simply tasted good. </p><p> <span style="background-color: initial;">T</span>he use of spices for taste goes back surprisingly far. More than <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0070583" target="_blank">6,000 years ago</a>, at least some cooks in the western Baltic region included the crushed seeds of the garlic mustard plant in their dishes. This finding is generally seen as the first evidence of use of spices for culinary purposes in ancient European cuisine, though the authors say it's hard to know if this was a regular practice at the time. Garlic mustard has a peppery kick something like an extra-strong arugula. In the Baltic region today, <a href="http://balticseaculinary.com/baltic-sea-cuisine" target="_blank">grated horseradish and mustard sauces</a> are common fixtures at the dinner table.<a href="https://www.sapiens.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/02_evolution-comfort-food.jpg" target="_blank"></a> </p><p> The geographic variation in what was available and popular has carved out niches of regional, traditional tastes, forming recognizable spice combinations for countries and communities around the world today. </p><p> The archaeological record preserves the remains of the <a href="https://www.sapiens.org/archaeology/oldest-known-bread-crumbs-discovered/" target="_blank">earliest-known bread</a> from about 14,000 years ago; we humans have loved it ever since. Ten thousand years ago, the Inca people of the Andes were learning to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/16/dining/potatoes-peru-madhur-jaffrey.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">love the potato</a>. By the 3rd century, noodles were already a staple in China. Six thousand years ago, someone far from their home on the Baltic Sea might have missed the peppery taste of garlic mustard just as today we long for the foods that comfort us. </p><p> Everyone—from every place and time—deserves a taste of home now and then. </p><p>This work first appeared on <a href="https://www.sapiens.org">SAPIENS</a> under a <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND 4.0 license</a>. Read the <a href="https://www.sapiens.org/column/field-trips/why-does-comfort-food-feel-good/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">original here</a>.<img src="https://www.sapiens.org/track/15121-1608495109461/?dt=The+Evolution+of+Comfort+Food&dl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sapiens.org%2Fcolumn%2Ffield-trips%2Fwhy-does-comfort-food-feel-good%2F" alt="" width="1" height="1"></p>
sociology archeology family humanity history food
Why moral people tolerate immoral behavior
As morally sturdy as we may feel, it turns out that humans are natural hypocrites when it comes to passing moral judgment.
Liane Young
The problem with having a compass as the symbolic representation of morality is that due north is not a fixed point. Liane Young, Boston College associate professor and director of the Morality Lab, explains how context, bias, and tribal affiliation influence us enormously when we pass moral judgments.
Moral instinct is tainted by cognitive bias. Humans evolved to be more lenient to their in-groups—for example excusing a beloved politician who lines their pockets while lambasting a colleague for the exact same transgression—and to care more about harm done close to them than harm done farther away, for example, to people in another country.
The challenge for humans in a globalized and polarized world is to become aware of our moral biases and learn to apply morality more objectively. How can we be more rational and less hypocritical about our morals? "I think that clarifying the value that you are consulting for a particular problem is really critical," says Young.
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community corruption evolution evolutionary psychology identity morality philosophy psychology relationships science self society sociology
In ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ and beyond, chess holds up a mirror to life
The pieces don't represent an army, they stand in for the Western social order.
If this use of chess to represent life feels familiar, it is largely thanks to the medieval world.
<p> As I argue in my book “<a href="https://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/14222.html" target="_blank">Power Play: The Literature and Politics of Chess in the Late Middle Ages</a>," the game's early European players turned the game into an allegory for society and changed it to mirror their world. Since then, poets and writers have used it as an allegory for love, duty, conflict and accomplishment.</p><h2>The game's medieval roots</h2><p>When chess arrived in Europe through Mediterranean trade routes of the 10th century, players altered the game to reflect their society's political structure. </p><p>In its original form, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Oxford-Companion-Chess-Second/dp/0198661649" target="_blank">chess was a game of war</a> with pieces representing different military units: horsemen, elephant-riding fighters, charioteers and infantry. These armed units protected the “shah," or king, and his counselor, the “firz," in the game's imagined battle. </p><p>But Europeans quickly transformed the “shah" to a king, the “vizier" to the queen, the “elephants" to bishops, the “horses" to knights, the “chariots" to castles and the “foot soldiers" to pawns. With these changes, the two sides of the board no longer represented the units in an army; they now stood in for Western social order.</p><p>The game gave concrete expression to the medieval worldview that every person had a designated place. Moreover, it revised and improved the very common <a href="http://faculty.goucher.edu/eng330/three_estates.htm" target="_blank">“three-estate" model</a>: those who fought (knights), those who prayed (clergy) and those who worked (the rest). </p><p>Then there was the transformation of the queen. Although chess rules across medieval Europe had some variations, most initially granted the queen the power to move only one square. This changed in the 15th century, when the chess queen gained unlimited movement in any direction. </p><p>Most players would agree that this change made the game faster and more interesting to play. But also, and as the late Stanford historian Marylin Yalom argued in “<a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/birth-of-the-chess-queen-marilyn-yalom?variant=32122469023778" target="_blank">The Birth of the Chess Queen</a>," the queen's elevation to the strongest piece appeared first in Spain during the time when the powerful Queen Isabella held the throne. </p>
<h2>A 'mating' dance</h2><p>With <a href="https://chaucer.lib.utsa.edu/omeka/items/show/274705" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">a powerful female figure</a> now on the board, jokes about "mating" abounded, and poets often used chess as a metaphor for sex.</p><p>Take the 13th-century epic poem "<a href="https://carleton.ca/chum/wp-content/uploads/Huon-for-Hums-3200.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Huon de Bordeaux</a>." Wanting to expose his newly hired servant, Huon, as a nobleman, King Yvoryn urges him to play chess against his prodigiously talented daughter.</p><p>"If thou can mate her," Yvoryn says, "I promise that thou shalt have her one night in thy bed, to do with her at thy pleasure." If Huon loses, Yvoryn will kill him.</p><p>Huon does not play chess well. But this turns out not to matter because he looks like a medieval version of "Queen's Gambit" breakout star <a href="https://www.marieclaire.com/culture/a34510174/who-is-townes-the-queens-gambit-jacob-fortune-lloyd/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Jacob Fortune-Lloyd</a>. Dizzy with desire and desperate to sleep with this heartthrob, Yvoryn's daughter plays badly and loses the game.</p><p>In the 14th-century poem "<a href="https://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/hahn-sir-gawain-avowyng-of-arthur-introduction" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Avowyng of King Arthur</a>," chess also stands in for sex. At one key moment, King Arthur summons a noble lady to play chess; together they "sat themselves together on the side of the bed" and "began to play until dawn that was day." The repeated "mating" on the board not-so-subtly hints at a night of lovemaking.</p><p>It also shows up to this end in "The Queen's Gambit." In an echo of Huon's game, Beth plays with her friend and love interest, Townes, in his hotel room. Their match, however, is interrupted when it becomes clear that Townes doesn't share Beth's feelings. Later in the story, Beth plays with Harry Beltik. Their first kiss takes place over the board and prefaces their sexual consummation.</p>
<h2>Chess as 'life in miniature'</h2><p>But much deeper and more interesting are the medieval allegories that use chess to reinforce societal obligations and ties between citizens.</p><p>No author did this more comprehensively than 13th-century Dominican friar Jacobus de Cessolis. In his treatise "<a href="https://www.textmanuscripts.com/medieval/cessolis-liber-de-moribus-60910" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Book of the Morals of Men and the Duties of Nobles and Commoners on the Game of Chess</a>," Jacobus imagines chess as a way to teach personal accountability.</p><p>In four short sections, Jacobus moves through the gameplay and pieces, describing the ways each one contributes to a harmonious social order. He goes so far as to distinguish pawns by trade and to connect each to its "royal" partner. The first pawn is a farmer who is tied to the castle because he provides food to the kingdom. The second pawn is a blacksmith, who makes armor for the knight. The third is an attorney, who helps the bishop with legal matters. And so on.</p><p>Jacobus' work became one of the most popular of the Middle Ages and, according to chess historian <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/A-History-of-Chess/H-J-R-Murray/9781632202932" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">H.J.R. Murray</a>, at one point rivaled the number of Bible copies in circulation. Even though Jacobus in his prologue implies that his book is most useful for a king, the rest of his treatise makes clear that all people – and the piece they most closely resemble – can benefit by reading his work, learning the game and mastering the lessons that come with it.</p><p>Jacobus' allegory becomes one of the central messages of "The Queen's Gambit." Beth reaches her full potential only after she learns to collaborate with other players. Just like the pawn she converts in her <a href="https://vandevliet.me/the-queens-gambit-the-final-game-harmon-vs-borgov/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">final game</a>, Beth becomes a figurative queen only with the help of others.</p><p>But this is not the only modern work that deploys chess in this fashion. "<a href="https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/star-wars-holochess-game-no-headset" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Star Wars</a>," "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sm_-vJNCHk" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone</a>" and "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Za8TuwshXnA" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Blade Runner</a>," to name just a few, use versions of the game at key moments to show a character's growth or to stand in as a metaphor for conflict.</p><p>So the next time you see a headline like "<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-01/trump-nears-checkmate-stage-in-last-gasp-bid-to-undo-election" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Trump Nears Checkmate</a>" and "<a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/gang-of-10-obamas-checkmate/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Gang of 10: Obama's Checkmate</a>," or see an ad for <a href="https://spycentre.com/products/checkmate-home-infidelity-test-kit" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">a "Checkmate" infidelity test</a>, you can thank – or curse – the medieval world.</p><p>Grandmaster Garry Kasparov's observation ultimately holds true. "Chess," <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RemmwytmEXs" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">he once quipped</a>, "is life in miniature."<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/151370/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation"></p><p><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/jenny-adams-240995" target="_blank">Jenny Adams</a>, Associate Professor of English, <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-massachusetts-amherst-1563" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">University of Massachusetts Amherst</a></em></p><p>This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-the-queens-gambit-and-beyond-chess-holds-up-a-mirror-to-life-151370" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">original article</a>.</p>
storytelling history psychology sociology women television
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Chernow Keynote Speech Highlight of Fourth BIO Conference
With the non-stop buzz of midtown Manhattan as a backdrop, more than 200 biographers from eight countries attended the fourth annual Compleat Biographer Conference on May 18 at the Roosevelt Hotel. The day featured 19 panels, and attendees were treated to a keynote speech by Ron Chernow, winner of the 2013 BIO Award.
Chernow received his award after the conference luncheon from Will Swift, author of the forthcoming Pat and Dick: The Nixons, An Intimate Portrait of a Marriage and a member of the BIO Award committee. Chernow’s most recent book, Washington: A Life, won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize. His previous books include a look at J.P. Morgan and the financial empire he established and biographies of John D. Rockefeller and Alexander Hamilton.
In his speech, Chernow reviewed his immersion into the lives of several of these major figures in American history, explaining his interest in subjects who, he found, tried to keep their inner lives hidden. He called them sphinxes and “strangers to introspection,” and his role was to strip away disguises and probe beneath their secrecy. Rockefeller, Chernow said, often wrote letters in what seemed like a code, leaving out explicit details that might have shed light on his financial dealings. Hamilton avoided sharing information about his illegitimacy and years as a youth in the Caribbean—years Chernow called a “dark undertow” that pulled on the brilliant man throughout his life. (Chernow saw that brilliance in Hamilton’s writings, and five years of pouring over his subject’s prolific work sometimes left the biographer feeling like “a dithering idiot.”) Chernow’s suggestion to others: Follow the silences of a subject’s life, the people and events they won’t discuss or choose to discount, to find keys to their personality. On the other hand, a subject’s own writings can obscure who he or she really is: “Personality can disappear behind a fancy cloud of words.”
With Washington, Chernow was dealing with a subject whose life had been explored in depth many times before. What he wanted to do with his biography of the president was to find what his predecessors had missed: Washington’s suppressed emotions, his carefully cultivated image of himself as man always under control. Through the writings of Washington’s contemporaries, Chernow found the anger the leader usually tried to hide. Biographers, Chernow said, need to look behind stereotypes and “received wisdom” about their subjects to truly understand them.
The voluminous archives of Washington’s documents helped Chernow achieve that understanding. As with Hamilton and his other subjects, he spent several years doing research. Chernow said that searching long and hard enough can reveal the essence of a biographer’s subject.
For a link to an AP article covering Chernow’s speech, go here.
Published under: News
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The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market newspaper published in London in a tabloid format. Founded in 1896, in 2020 it overtook The Sun to become the United Kingdom's highest-circulation daily newspaper, with average daily sales of 980,000. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982, while Scottish and Irish editions of the daily paper were launched in 1947 and 2006 respectively. Content from the paper appears on the MailOnline website, although the website is managed separately and has its own editor. More information...
In June 2020 the website dailymail.co.uk was on the 147th place in the ranking of the most reliable and popular sources in multilingual Wikipedia from readers' point of view (PR-score). If we consider only frequency of appearance of this source in references of Wikipedia articles (F-score), this website was on the 174th place in June 2020. From Wikipedians' point of view, "dailymail.co.uk" is the 147th most reliable source in different language versions of Wikipedia (AR-score).
The website is placed before noaa.gov and after vice.com in multilingual PR ranking of the most reliable sources in Wikipedia.
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Hendrik “Dirk” Hartog is the Class of 1921 Bicentennial Professor in the History of American Law and Liberty. For a decade, he was the director of Princeton University’s Program in American Studies. Hartog has spent his scholarly life obsessed with the difficulties and opportunities that come with studying how broad political and cultural themes have been expressed in everyday legal conflicts. He has worked in a variety of areas of American legal history: on the history of city life, on the history of constitutional rights claims, on the history of marriage, on the history of slavery and emancipation, and on the historiography of legal change and of legal history. He is the author of Public Property and Private Power: the Corporation of the City of New York in American Law, 1730-1870 (1983), Man and Wife in America: a History (2000), Someday All This Will Be Yours: A History of Inheritance and Old Age (2012), and The Trouble with Minna: A Case of Slavery and Emancipation in the Antebellum North (2018). He has been awarded a variety of national fellowships and lectureships, and for a decade he coedited Studies in Legal History, the book series of the American Society for Legal History. In 2016, he was made an Honorary Fellow of the American Society for Legal History. He is affiliated with Princeton’s Program in Law and Public Affairs, with the Program in American Studies, and with the Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies. Before coming to Princeton, he taught at the University of Wisconsin Law School (1982-92) and at the Indiana University (Bloomington) School of Law (1977-82).
Professor Hartog has been working on a history of Gibbons v. Ogden, the 1824 case where Chief Justice John Marshall first invoked the Contract Clause of the U.S. Constitution. He is exploring the case as both a very local family drama and as an expression of the rise and domestication of anti-monopoly sentiments. Hartog is also beginning work on a history of property law as a teaching subject, focusing on the significance of the Cold War as an underlying presence.
A.B., Carleton College, 1970
J.D., New York University School of Law,1973 Ph.D., Brandeis University, 1981
Professor Hartog teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on American legal history, family history, legal thought, and historiography. He has also cotaught a variety of interdisciplinary courses through the Program in American Studies. As a law school professor he previously taught property law, local government law, and family law, as well as legal history.
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The Updated Pros and Cons of Wearable Tech
In January of 2014, I wrote a piece for this blog entitled The Advantages and Disadvantages of Wearable Tech.
In it, I made a few informed guesses about a burgeoning, and very intriguing, market. Google Glass had just been released in a limited capacity and companies like Microsoft and Apple had already begun work on competing products. Since then we’ve gotten items like the Pebble smartwatch, the Apple Watch, the Fitbit and the Microsoft Band, to name just a few.
Some of these products have been more successful than others. Head-mounted items like Google Glass still haven’t caught on with the public in a major way. However, smartwatches like the Pebble and activity trackers like the Fitbit have sold well. Overall it’s hard to deny that wearable tech, though it has increased in popularity, is still a niche market. Apple is working to change that with their eponymous Watch, which received more than one million pre-orders within six hours. Indeed, if there’s a company who can make wearable tech more commonplace it’s probably Apple. Regardless, when I wrote my original article, it seemed like wearable tech was about to blow up in a major way. Now it seems that we’re still in a period of transition. Let’s take a look at where wearable tech currently is, and where it will likely be in the near future, with a look at three of its most well-known products.
In 2007 James Park and Eric Friedman came up with the idea of creating a small wearable outfitted with sensors which could monitor their user during exercise. Not having the funds to create a proper prototype they went to investors with nothing more than a single circuit board in a small wooden box. With this crude prototype they managed to raise $400,000 but it wasn’t nearly enough. Not finding a company willing to indulge their vision they had to do it all themselves: finding suppliers, securing a means of production and overseeing the manufacturing of their device. By the end of 2009 they’d sold 25,000 units. Soon they sold enough to get the attention of Best Buy, who they soon partnered with. From there the business continued to grow. New models of Fitbit were developed like the One, the Zip and the Force. There have been a few bumps in the road, with some questioning the product’s accuracy, but such concerns have done little to damage the Fitbit’s success.
Before the advent of the Apple Watch almost every piece of wearable tech sold was an activity tracker, and most of those were Fitbits. Fitbit activity tracker accounted for 68% of all wearable sales. Only 3% of wearable sales within that calendar year were for non-trackers. In a survey from Rackspace 71% of users reported that their wearable tech improved their health. 54% said it boosted their confidence. Since their domination of the 2013 market, the popularity of Fitbits has decreased somewhat but they still control about a third of the market with close to 10 million active users and nearly double that registered. They are now being sold in 45,000 stores in more than 50 countries. Indeed, in the early days of wearable tech Fitbit was the great success story, the ray of hope in what was a surprisingly slow-growing industry. However, times have changed, and now there are new competitors stepping up to the plate.
In September of 2014 Apple CEO Tim Cook walked on stage at a press event wearing an Apple Watch. The device, he said, could be used as an activity tracker, with all of the functionality of devices like the FitBit. However, he also said that it could be used for much more, calling it “a new intimate way to communicate from your wrist.” Of course, Apple focused a great deal on aesthetics, offering many types of band and many overall aesthetics for their watches, which they detailed in a huge spread in Vogue. I had predicted in my original article that wearable tech would become more commonly adopted as it became more aesthetically pleasing. In retrospect I should have guessed that Apple would be the company to take that leap. Pre-orders for the Apple Watch were first made available on April 10th of 2015. They sold out within a few hours. Since then more aesthetics have been announced, including the Hermes outfitted with stainless steel and leather. Apple has kept sales a secret, with the company refusing to divulge exactly how many Apple Watches have been shipped. Estimates are positive. In late 2015 a survey from the International Data Corporation estimated sales of 3.6 million units, making the Apple Watch the second-most popular wearable after the Fitbit. Some predict that the watch sold double that amount by the end of the year.
Indeed, smartwatches have been in the public’s consciousness for a long time. In a survey from the NPD Group only 52% of responders said they were aware of wearable tech but when asked which product they were familiar with 36% identified the smartwatch ahead of smart glasses and even fitness trackers. Although demand was there, the lack of a well-regarded mass produced smartwatch meant that even if early adopters wanted one it would prove difficult to find. The release of the Apple Watch finally allowed those with an interest in smartwatches the opportunity to purchase one, and they did not pass it up. In a survey from Salesforce about the effects of wearable tech on the corporate lifestyle 62% of responders said that they were planning on using smartwatches within the next two years. But it’s not just business applications that will drive purchases of the Apple Watch. Tractica has predicted that smartwatches will become more widely adopted than fitness trackers within the next few year. According to their current statistics Apple owns a whopping 68 % of the market.
If these trends continue Apple will not only dominate the smartwatch market, but the wearables market as well. There are few companies powerful enough to combat Apple’s dominance of the market. One of them is Google.
The imminent release of Google Glass was one of the main reasons I wrote my original blog post two years ago. At the time Glass sounded incredibly exciting as a means of augmenting one’s everyday reality, a way of implementing the power of a search engine into your daily routine to streamline your day and enhance your productivity.
Glass was announced in April of 2012 and public anticipation grew leading up to its public release in 2015. However, by most accounts Glass has been a failure. Despite it being used successfully in medical and even military applications the devices just have not caught on with consumers. Recently Google shut down production on the Google Glass prototype, ending what the company called the “Glass Explorer program.” They’ve also deleted all of their social media accounts related to Glass. Many critics are calling the end of the product and a quiet admittance of Google’s failure. However, Google says they’re not done yet. An ex-Apple executive, Tony Fadell, is hard at work on the design for a new version of Glass, one which the company hopes will be more widely adopted. Whether that will come to pass is something we’ll have to wait and see.
In my original article I said that people would be slow to adopt head-mounted wearables because of the inconspicuous nature. Because it has not been widely adopted wearing Glass still brings the user a lot of attention. It also still makes people nervous. In a survey from Rackspace 51% of those surveyed said that privacy was the primary hurdle in their adoption of wearable tech. It’s easy to be paranoid when you’re in the same room as a guy with a camera on his head, and that fear isn’t going anywhere. If Google Glass is widely adopted a great many people will probably be recorded without their permission. As a part of that same survey 67% of responders said that wearables like Glass were in need of regulation and it’s hard to disagree. However, for a while it looked like Glass was simply a reality that we’d all have to start getting used to. By 2018 Glass was predicted to sell 21 million units, earning Google $10.5 billion in revenue. Now with Google going back to the drawing board and trying to create a product that will appeal to a wider range of users the future seems much less certain. Brand name recognition will both help and hinder the product when it is finally released, if and when it is, as many people seem to have already made their minds up about Glass. However, if there’s one company with the power and influence to take on Apple I’d bet on Google. I guess we’ll see when the new design is released, whenever that might be.
Looking at these three companies can tell you a great deal about the current state of wearable tech and current consumer attitudes towards it, but what about the current pros and cons of wearable tech. How are they different, and how have they stayed the same? Let’s end with a quick rundown.
Pros and Cons of Wearable Tech
Pro: Wearable Tech is Convenient
Fitbit and similar products took off because they offer the user a convenient way to monitor their progress during exercise or even just throughout the day. It allows the user to keep track of stats like their heart rate, the number of calories they’ve burned and the number of steps they’ve taken. The Apple Watch is being marked largely as a quick source of information. Businesses adopting the watch are already using it to track customer data or view analytics on the fly. The watch allows users to learn important news stories, check messages and keep themselves informed all with a quick glance down at their wrist. That is a huge part of its appeal and a big reason why its already sold so many units.
Con: Wearable Tech is Limited
Before the Apple Watch most of the wearable tech sold had a very specific purpose. Activity trackers are meant to monitor the health and vitals of the user, and while they may have limited functionality beyond that they do not possess the range of abilities that, say, a smartphone would. The Apple Watch is a much less limited item, but it’s still confined by its size and its design. Based upon the smallness of its screen and its location on the body the Apple Watch still isn’t ideal for some applications, like extended web browsing sessions or making phone calls. As cell phone screens continue to get larger the limited size of the Apple Watch seems more and more problematic, though it hasn’t seemed to bother users so far. However, that may be because said users acknowledge and rationalize its more limited functionality. This may not be a problem in the present, but in terms of the longevity of such devices in comparison to smartphones or tablets it may be an issue in the long run.
Pro: Most Wearable Tech is Discreet
Fitbit and the Apple Watch succeeded where Google Glass failed largely because they are less attention grabbing. Lots of people have watches or bracelets. Not a lot of people have cameras attached to their faces. Overall, it seems that people are much more likely to adopt wearable tech if it can be seamlessly integrated into their outfits, and Fitbit and the Apple Watch are great options for those who want the features they offer without radically changing their look. Discreet wearable tech is becoming more and more common every year, and thanks to Apple it's becoming more fashionable as well. That’s great for adopters who care not just about their experience with wearable tech but also about the way the world views them.
Con: Some Wearable Tech is Not Discreet
Of course as discreet wearable tech becomes more and more popular items like Google Glass will become more and more stigmatized. Google has an uphill battle here, one which they’re honestly not likely to win any time soon. At the time of my original article I said that early adopters of Google Glass would be seen as outsiders and might even be feared or be the subject of prejudice. Two years later that situation has not changed. Many people are still worried about the privacy implications of Glass. Many are still nervous when they see it. As such, some view those wearing Glass with suspicion. This is, of course, not fair, as Glass has infinite applications which are totally above board and even beneficial to society, but the failure of Glass as a commercial product shows that the opinions of the average person have not changed in a significant way since my original article.
Pro: Wearable Tech is Useful
A 2014 survey by Rackspace and Goldsmiths found the wearable tech increased the productivity of employees by 8.5% and their overall level of job satisfaction by 3.5%. The potential is certainly there. Wearable tech outfitted with certain applications could streamline a wide range of businesses processes. In fact, Salesforce predicted that use of wearables in business applications would triple by the end of 2016. Currently there aren’t many companies using wearable tech as a part of their business plan, but it seems that there will soon be a great many more doing so. Whether this will improve performance significantly and change the landscape of the business world in some way remains to be seen. Regardless, it’s hard to ignore the idea that wearable tech could be used to streamline and/or simplify the duties of many employees across the world.
Con: Wearable Tech is Expensive
Currently the cheapest version of the Apple Watch, the Sport, costs around $350. If you want a more fashionable version, like one with a stainless steel or leather strap, that price could be doubled. The FitBit costs anywhere from $100-250, depending on what features you want. Before it was taken off the market Google Glass cost a fairly insane $1500. Whether these prices are reasonable or steep for you likely depends upon your level of economic success and love (or lack thereof) of tech gadgetry. Regardless, we’ve already established that wearable tech has limited functionality compared to smartphones and tablets. The rate at which it becomes more widely adopted will depend upon the attitudes of users. Would I pay $350 for what is essentially a watch that can tell you the news? Absolutely not. I have a phone with a clock in it. I’m sure you do too. I was excited about Google Glass because it looked like it could impact the way I interacted with the world in a pretty major way. I am much less excited about having a smaller, more limited version of a smartphone on my wrist. The longevity of these products will depend upon them offering more and costing less. A niche product can sell well in the moment but its staying power will be compromised. Time will tell whether or not the Apple Watch is a niche product or not.
What's to Come?
None of us can tell the future. That being said, if the projections are accurate it looks like wearable tech will soon see a spike in popularity. In. By 2019 CSS Insights predicts the wearable tech industry will be worth $25 billion. Apple will certainly get a huge piece of that. Whether activity tracking products like Fitbit will continue to enjoy their same level of success or gradually decrease in popularity remains to be seen. Google continues to be a wild card. At one time it looked like Glass would be leading the charge, but with its recent failure to gain mainstream approval it's hard to make any serious predictions about its success a few years down the line. Regardless, the wearable tech market continues to evolve as public perception of its products continues to shift. Two years after my initial assessment of the market a lot has changed (and a lot more products have been sold) but a lot has remained to same as well, like the privacy concerns of consumers. How will the wearables market be different two years from now? We can speculate, but basically we’ll have to wait and see.
Post your comments below! We'd love to hear your thoughts on wearable tech. What do you think we will see unfold in the next 6 months, 12 months, 5 years?
Are We Prepared for the Future?
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The History of Conservation
Conservation Movement in the United States of America
John James Audubon (1785 – 1851) makes for a great starting point in the History of Conservation. His successful quest to paint the Birds of America meant he was in the field, observing birds in their natural habitats. His insight of declining populations of birds and foresight meant he could accurately predict future declines. More importantly, and what makes him a great candidate for the “Father of Conservation” is that he knew society and government needed to act, to conserve.
1847 – George Perkins Marsh gives a speech to the Agricultural Society of Rutland County, Vermont. In this speech, Marsh discusses the negative impact humans are having on forests and the land in general and that a conservationist approach is needed to manage the land.
1849 – United States Department of the Interior created
1852 – Elias Lyman Magoon publishes The Home Book of the Picturesque, arguing the importance of nature as moral, spiritual and patriotic inspiration. This becomes a vital theme of conservation.
1854 – Walden published by Henry David Thoreau
1864 – Man and Nature; or, Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action by George Perkins Marsh
1865 – John Burroughs publishes his first nature essay, “With the Birds,” in the Atlantic Monthly.
1869 – John Wesley Powell leads his first expedition through the canyons of the Colorado (published in 1875 as Exploration of the Colorado River of the West and Its Tributaries).
1871 – Clarence King publishes Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada
John Burroughs publishes Wake-Robin
Henry George publishes Our Land and Land Policy, National and State
1872 – Congress passes “An Act to set apart a certain Tract of Land lying near the Head-waters of the Yellowstone River as a public Park,”, establishing Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming as the first National Park in the US and the world. (See the Report of the Superintendent of the Yellowstone National Park for the Year 1872
J. Sterling Morton of the State Board of Agriculture, Nebraska observes “Tree-Planting Day” on April 10 which will become Arbor Day
1873 – Forest and Stream magazine first published – George Bird Grinnell
1875 – American Forestry Association created
1876 – John Muir publishes “God’s First Temples: How Shall We Preserve Our Forests?”
Appalachian Mountain Club established
1877 – Carl Schurz begins a four-year term as Secretary of the Interior, leading to the creation of Federal Forest service and forest reserves.
1878 – John Wesley Powell publishes Report on the Lands of the Arid Region of the United States.
1883 – American Ornithologists’ Union (AOU) created
1887 – George Bird Grinell and Theodore Roosevelt create the Boone and Crockett Club
1889 – William Temple Hornaday publishes The Extermination of the American Bison
1890 – Sequoia National Park and Yosemite and General Grant National Parks are established in California
John Muir publishes in Century magazine: “The Treasures of the Yosemite” and “Features of the Proposed Yosemite National Park.”
1891 – Congress passes the Forest Reserve Act, repealing the Timber Culture Act of 1873 and empowering the President to create “forest reserves” (later known as national forests) by withdrawing land from the public domain – this begins the foundation for the National Forest system.
President Benjamin Harrison issues a Presidential Proclamation setting aside a tract of land in Wyoming as the nation’s first forest reservation.
1891-1902 – Charles Sprague Sargent publishes his fourteen-volume The Silva of North America; A Description of the Trees Which Grow Naturally in North America Exclusive of Mexico, the seminal work of American dendrology.
1892 – John Muir creates the Sierra Club, dedicated to the preservation of wilderness
President Benjamin Harrison issues a Proclamation setting aside a tract of land in Alaska as a forest and fish culture reservation (known as the Afognak Forest and Fish-Culture Reserve), unofficially the first national wildlife refuge.
1894 – Congress passes the National Park Protective Act
John Muir publishes his first book, The Mountains of California
1896 – The Massachusetts Audubon Society is founded with the goal of protecting birds. This provides the model for other Audubon Societies across the nation. (See 1905 for National Audubon Society.)
1897 – Congress passes the Forest Management Act, or Organic Act, making explicit the purpose of Forest Reserves (later National Forests) as resources for lumbering, mining, and grazing.
1898 – Ernest Thompson Seton publishes his best-selling Wild Animals I Have Known, not always scientifically accurate but always a source for inspiration for how humans and wildlife live together.
1899 – The Harriman Alaska Expedition explores coastal Alaska – this expedition has many notable conservationists including “the Johns” Muir and Burroughs.
1900 – Lacey Act is passed, which outlaws the interstate shipment of any wild animals or birds killed in violation of state laws.
1901 – Theodore Roosevelt becomes the 26th U.S. President after the assassination of President McKinley
John Muir publishes Our National Parks
1903 – Theodore Roosevelt designates Pelican Island on Indian River, Florida, as a preserve and breeding ground for native birds. This is the first of fifty-three wildlife sanctuaries Roosevelt creates while President and forms the basis for what will become the National Wildlife Refuge System.
Mary Austin publishes The Land of Little Rain, a classic celebration of the desert country of California.
1905 – The National Association of Audubon Societies for the Protection of Wild Birds and Animals is founded in New York. This later becomes the National Audubon Society of today.
Nathaniel Southgate Shaler publishes by Man and the Earth
1906 – Congress passes the American Antiquities Act giving Presidential authorization to establish national monuments that preserve historically valuable or objects of antiquity or scientific interest. This hallmark act will be challenged numerous times because of the power it gives the President.
Theodore Roosevelt begins using the Act immediately, declaring Devils Tower (Wyoming) as the first National Monument.
Gifford Pinchot attempts to get a bill passed that would place the national parks under the Forest Service so that they may be open for resource development. However, this backfires because of preservationist campaigns led by Representative John Lacey, leading to a separate bureau to administer the parks.
1907 – “Forest Reserves” become National Forests
President Roosevelt gives speech stating that “the conservation of our natural resources and their proper use constitute the fundamental problem which underlies almost every other problem of our National life,” and that his administration has been trying “to substitute a planned and orderly development of our resources in place of a haphazard striving for immediate profit.” This is Roosevelt at his finest: trying to find the best solution between competing interests: preservation vs conservation; the desire for growth but in a sustainable, sensible way.
Ornithologist Edward Howe Forbush publishes Useful Birds and Their Protection – this is the first American work to discuss birds as important for people beyond anything aesthetic.
1908 – The Governors’ Conference on the Conservation of Natural Resources is held
The National Conservation Commission compiles an inventory of U.S. natural resources
President Roosevelt appoints a Commission on Country Life to study problems of rural life and recommend measures to remove them.
The Land Classification Board is established within the U.S. Geological Survey to classify natural resources to determine their best use.
1909 – North American Conservation Conference is held
The First National Conservation Congress is convened by the Washington (State) Conservation Association
1910 – Withdrawal Act is passed allowing the President to remove public lands and reserve them for “water-power sites, irrigation, classification of lands, or other public purposes”.
Gifford Pinchot publishes The Fight for Conservation but is also dismissed from government service by President Taft
1911 – John Muir publishes My First Summer in the Sierra
1913 – William Temple Hornaday publishes Our Vanishing Wild Life: Its Extermination and Preservation, devoted to endangered wild animals; the book was written in conjunction of Hornaday’s new organization: Permanent Wildlife Protection Fund
Congress passes the Migratory Bird Act or Weeks-McLean Act, the predecessor to the Migratory Bird Act of 1918; it states that “all migratory and insectivorous birds to be within the custody and protection of the Federal government”.
1915 – Liberty Hyde Bailey publishes The Holy Earth
Bureau of Biological Survey begins large-scale killing of predator animals, such as wolves and coyotes, regarded as injurious to sheep and cattle.
1916 – Congress passes the National Park Service Act, creating the National Park Service within the Department of the Interior with Stephen T. Mather as the first director
Frederic E. Clements publishes Plant Succession: An Analysis of the Development of Vegetation
John Charles Van Dyke publishes The Mountain: Renewed Studies in Impressions and Appearances
1918 – Congress approves the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918
1919 – The National Parks Association (renamed the National Parks and Conservation Association in 1970) is founded largely by Robert Sterling Yard and Stephen T. Mather.
1920 – The Ecological Society of America begins publication of its quarterly journal, Ecology.
1927 – U.S. Bureau of Biological Survey (current U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) assigned Olaus Murie to investigate the Jackson Hole elk herd leading to the publication “The Elk of North America.”
Poisoning and trapping of so-called predators and killing rodents, and the related insecticide and herbicide programs, are evidences of human immaturity. The use of the term ‘vermin’ as applied to so many wild creatures is a thoughtless criticism of nature’s arrangement of producing varied life on this planet.
Olaus Murie
1935 – The Wilderness Society is founded
1949 – Aldo Leopold publishes The Sand County Almanac
1951 – The Nature Conservancy is founded by Richard Pough
1962 – Rachel Carson publishes Silent Spring
1964 – Wilderness Act of 1964 passed
1967 – National Park Foundation founded by Lady Bird Johnson and Laurance Rockefeller
1968 – Edward Abbey publishes Desert Solitaire
1973 – Endangered Species Act of 1973 passed
1977 – Wendell Berry publishes The Unsettling of America
1994 – American Bird Conservancy founded by George H. Fenwick
2016 – Dan Flores publishes Coyote America, a comprehensive look in the supernatural and natural history of coyotes and the ongoing, disgusting pursuit to exterminate them.
Much of this information was gleaned from the Library of Congress’s “Documentary Chronology of Selected Events in the Development of the American Conservation Movement, 1847-1920“
It is our intention to expand on it and review the books, speeches, and other materials mentioned.
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“The prosecution is still presenting its case, and the main witnesses are still being cross-examined. Brooks’ Attorney-at-Law Peter Champagnie QC said the trial began on January 11, 2021, and is still in the prosecution stage. I can’t say for sure how long the trial will run, but I am expecting it to continue for at least two weeks. There have also been hiccups with the start of the trial, which was originally set for January 7. He and Hines, who have been in remand since 2018, are facing trial for the murder of Lorenzo Thomas, also known as ‘Israel’ or ‘Trulups,’ in Cassava Piece, St. The defense team opted for trial by judge rather than trial by judge and jury based on various factors, Champagnie said without going into those factors more. The murder occurred on June 5, 2018. Andrew, where both men are also residents. Twitter
Facebook The charges against Dante Brooks and his co-accused include conspiracy to murder, arson, shooting with intent, and illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition. Champagnie says that both men- Brooks and his co-accused Andre Hines have maintained their innocence. The verdict in the trial of Dante Brooks, the son of Dancehall Deejay Mavado, is expected to be handed down by the end of the month. Meanwhile, the trial of his son seems to weigh heavy on the Gully artiste Mavado who showed love to his son on Instagram with several motivational posts days before the trial began. Champagnie said, “all that I will say is that we have clear instructions from him that he is innocent and we are certainly going to be challenging the prosecution’s case as it goes along.”
Brooks, who is only 18 years old, is being tried as an adult. Are quite a number of witnesses to be questioned, and so it’s still early days yet for a verdict,” he told the Jamaica Star. He also released a song, ‘Not Perfect’ which speaks to the troubles both father and son have experienced with the law. Brooks has been in a juvenile facility in Kingston, having had multiple bail applications denied.
lyrics https://lyrics.az/bohemia/pesa-nasha-pyar/remind-me.html
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Skin Care Beauty And Anti
Skin is the largest organ of your body and covers every inch of it. You need to give due importance to body skin care in order to ensure your skin remains healthy and beautiful. • Try to go for mens black shoes that would match well with your belt. However, […]
Skin is the largest organ of your body and covers every inch of it. You need to give due importance to body skin care in order to ensure your skin remains healthy and beautiful. • Try to go for mens black shoes that would match well with your belt. However, if the belt you would wear is of multi-coloured, then you don’t have to worry about choosing the design or cut of your footwear very carefully. There is no need to struggle to change the minds of those who make a personal choice function as an individual and not as a member of an ethnic family; with the obligations that family membership entails. But we do need to be clear about who chooses to be in the family and who prefers to be an individual or just ‘happens to be Black.’ Understanding this distinction will clarify the kinds of expectations or challenges which might be posed by certain people. It will help us to know who will be an advocate for African liberation versus who will be an opportunistic individual. SABFA and its president Bethuel Morolo no doubt felt snubbed and undermined and consequently adopted a standpoint that Pirates should not be permitted to play against Highlands Park as planned. In addition, it was their contention that if white teams were not allowed to take on black teams in South Africa in any pretext because it was against the law to do so, it would make a mockery of that operative law if they were allowed in and the big match was decisively threatened. Summ, G. Harvey. Brazilian Mosaic: Portraits of a Diverse People and Culture, 1995. The wrist watch is not as common as it once was, but for a short period of time every man had a wrist watch and every man’s watch had a thick gold band or a leather one. The mens watch is still popular today and it comes in many forms to further prove its popularity and convenience. The South African Linguistic scene is extraordinarily rich and diverse. There are twentieth-century cases of language shift as pointed out a paragraph-or-so above with the example of the actual jargon of Kasi Slang); language death, language murder (northern Transvaal Ndebele), language creation (planning), bilingualism. diglossia, language avoidance registers, koines, developed slang registers(as presented above), language mixing alongside puristic movements, and more. Moreover, we have no reason to believe that prededing centuries were any less eventful. There are no differences in cultural, traditional and customary practices of all these diverse linguistic mosaic. Even the Afrikaans language has stolen some words from the different dialects and incorporated some Malay words, too. A casual look or listening to the type of words, language structure, phonemes, phonology and phonetical pronunciation, utterances and meaning and vocalization of their languages in their present form, presents us with a glimpse as to the commonality of a language with National implications, their cultural, traditional, customary remain the same.
iT jeans, is yet another jeans and denim lifestyle brand that has been there since 1970s, dictating fashion world. The company has made the market flooded with low-rise stretch jeans and the ‘Hippie Hottie’ Flare Leg Stretch Jeans designed with complete perfection and style. Besides regular wear jeans, you can get fine quality tops, jackets, light outer wear and goods made from leather, for men, women and kids. iT jeans is a popular brand and you can shop for them in renowned stores in US such as Nordstorm, Macy’s, Von Maur, The Buckle and many more. The physical environment in each region determined the types of crops grown or the resources extracted and this, in turn, influenced the populations that settled there and the social and economic systems that developed. Brazil’s economic history, in fact, has been marked by a succession of cycles, each one based on the exploitation of a single export commodity: timber (brazilwood) in the first years of colonization; sugarcane in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; precious metals (gold) and gems (diamonds) in the eighteenth century; and finally, coffee in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. What has happened here is that now that Apartheid lock was partially dislodged, there is a colonization of information, culture, customs and traditions of Africans in South Africa by non-South Africans from all over the globe. People read books written about Africans by people who are not South African. There is a claim out there in intellectual morass that the ownership of the History, culture, customs, tradition are for all to write about(even though they have never really lived withfor an extensive time. On 7 July 1992, at Durban’s King’s Park stadium, South Africa played its first official international contest in three decades. An integrated national team, nicknamed Bafana Bafana (Zulu for ‘The Boys’), defeated Cameroon 1-0, thanks to a Doctor Khumalo penalty kick. Nelson Mandela acknowledged the magnetic power of the game when he attended a match between South Africa and Zambia at a sold-out Ellis Park stadium in Johannesburg just hours after his presidential inauguration on 10 May 1994. On 3 February 1996, South Africa won the African Nations’ Cup by defeating Tunisia (2-0) before a delirious home crowd of 90,000 people at FNB Stadium, Soccer City. Since the year 2010 a number of bands in the realms of k-pop have become hugely popular globally. While vocal groups in the past were recognized for their intricate vocal harmonies, a number of the newer boy bands are known for their fashion trends and scintillating dance moves in songs. In present times a number of boy band groups perform live with a blend of extravagant audio-visual elements and lighting to enhance their choreographed dance routines.
Donna & Sarah give their top 5 gift ideas from Independent businesses they love. This “social question,” as Brazilians call the divide between rich and poor, has characterized the nation since colonial times. With industrialization and urbanization during the first decades of the twentieth century, however, the growth of the Brazilian middle class has made this simple division more complex. Today, depending on how it is defined, the middle class accounts for one-fifth to one-third of the population, but the resources and lifestyle of its members vary considerably. Some claim the Brazilian middle class admires elite values and aspires to elite status and it is indeed true that middle-class families in Brazil are far more likely to employ domestic servants and send their children to private school than their North American counterparts. With urbanization has come a number of intractable social problems. The large cities of southern Brazil have long attracted migrants from the impoverished north, but the economies of these cities have not expanded rapidly enough to absorb all these migrants. Unemployment, underemployment at subsistence wages, poverty, and crime have been the result. So, too, have been the growth of shantytowns, such as the famed hillside favelas of Rio de Janeiro. Favelas are extralegal settlements consisting of makeshift dwellings that lack urban services. Rings have also been very popular. Men don’t only wear rings as a sign of marriage or engagement but they now have been a fashion statement. Most men will just go with simple silver bands but that doesn’t make flashier kinds uncommon. Those who want to look Gothic will choose skull rings, etc. They also sometimes show their appreciation to diamonds by wearing diamond rings that look masculine and highlight their personality. If you want to try using a facial serum, find a brand that is made of natural products, and one that contains essential oils and amino acids that will help replenish the skin’s natural moisture. SkinSmoothy is today’s finest skin care natural based products which helps in renewing the skin’s collagen, giving it a finer, wrinkle free look. This is the personality type of anxiety we sometime experience in unrehearsed social encounters, such as when meeting new people or when on a date, as compared with the kind of anxiety a person experiences when delivering a prepared speech before a group. Being able to speak another language maybe a source of pride for teenagers or make them part of groups and activities they wouldn’t otherwise be able to join. They may also like the fact that it makes them stand out and gives them an identity outside the norm. Although some Afro-Caribbean teenagers are happy to accept this others feel that their white peers are invading what is theirs and trying to take over their identity or even ‘be’ black. This may even be regarded with suspicion as it may seem to be done with negative aims or intentions. It is understandable that anyone of Afro-Caribbean origin maybe upset, offended or suspicious of someone of another race taking on aspects of theirs especially as they may feel they do not have much of their culture for themselves as it is by living in predominantly white country. They may feel that they are being taken over more and more and that their culture is being made white and so they lose a connection to their roots and identity.
Men’s fashion operates within a much tighter framework than womenswear. There are, generally, no huge concepts or particularly avant garde silhouettes; it is much more rooted in reality. The majority of menswear design is inspired by core references: those of sportswear, military uniform and tailoring. In our case here in South Africa, we do note(mistakingly so) that our culture is non-existence in its real form. We do talk a lot of politics, but we really do not put into perspective the nature and role of our African cultures here in Mzantsi. We know, in a remote sense, what our culture “Really” is about-but not really concretely. We sometimes do not see the need to, but I am going to make an attempt at resuscitating our culture in this piece and what that means or it will mean for us as African people of South Africa. Being beautiful includes having a healthy body and, of course, healthy skin. Hoxie, F. (1996). Encyclopedia of north american indians: Native american history, culture, and life from paleo-indians to the present. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Company. Perhaps the most popular among Iris beauty products is the Irish seaweed extract, a unique combination of the rejuvenating and therapeutic effects of Irish seaweed, various marine extracts, and other excellent quality ingredients. This exfoliating scrub is designed for men and women alike. The importance of oral storytelling in Native American culture was profound centuries ago, and its influences still resonate today among Native American writers. The mythological stories that are passed from generation to generation essentially establish a tribal memory from which individuals can discover themselves and their cultural identities. Even so, with the assimilation of Native American life into the fabric of American culture, the oral traditions of storytelling were disrupted leading many young Native American children and the generations thereafter detached from their ancestral memories and alienated by the mainstreams of American society. Even so, Native American literature today has sparked a revival in the oral traditions of the past by honoring tribal memories and myths at the expense of confronting their own acculturation demons and self-identity crises such having mixed-blood. Culture reveals who we are as a nation. Our beliefs, behaviors, values, traditions, customs, ceremonies, rituals, and taboos show what matters to us. Culture binds us together as a people. A good skin care regimen cannot be complete without a tonic that matches your skin type. The tonic eliminates the rest of the toxins and dirt from your skin leaving it fresh. It is preferable to use a non-alcohol tonic. Alcohol based products can produce more problems to the skin because they can give you the false impression of controlling the oil of your skin, but at the end, can produce even more, causing more unwanted acne and oily skin. It is very important to apply the tonic over very clean skin to get the complete benefit from it. Some good homemade tonics are: Rose water, Chamomile tonic, etc.
It’s true that ‘civilization can only rise where the art of writing is known. It is also true that before there was literature there was Orality. I have written a sub-heading just a little above and called it “Language Reflects Culture, Traditions, Customs Tranditions and I may just add a little and their Meanings, and it was my aim to highlight, denote and connote what language is to a people. The great Sotho novel Chaka by Thomas Mofolo was an indication of the monumentality of this struggle. Mofolo unequivocally condemned pre-modern and pre-colonial African history as essentially barbaric and backward, and ‘Christian’ modernity is represented as the very essence of enlightenment and progress. Without renouncing their Christian beliefs, the founding of ‘independent’ New African newspapers, John Tengo Jabavu’s Imvo Zabantsundu (1884, African Opinion), Solomon T. Plaatje’s Tsala ea Batho (1912, The People’s Friend, originally known as Tsala ea Becoana The Friend of the Bechuana when launched in 1910), and John Dube’s Ilanga lase Natal (1903, The Natal Sun) was part of the process of the secularization of the New African intellectual and literary imagination. Forget diamonds, skincare is really a girl’s best friend. Especially if you’re a girl who also happens to be a major celebrity. After all, you’re constantly photographed and filmed—it’s your job to put your best face forward! We investigated the routines of the most beauty-obsessed A-listers to see the products they love and the treatments they swear by, and put together an estimate on how much their go-to skin-care routines actually cost. One thing is clear: Keeping your face and body red carpet-ready comes with a hefty price tag. 1937 Orlando Pirates football club is SAAFA’s (South African African Football Association) Bakers Cup is renamed the Moroka-Baloyi Cup. I will be showcasing African cultural dress and traditions below. But for now, I would like up to touch up on African soccer in South Africa, I will jot deal too much with the state of soccer today, but will provide a historical soccer timeline below. Aside from the official fivefold regional division of Brazil, a simpler economic distinction is made between the poor, underdeveloped North and the wealthier, more industrialized South. This distinction is sometimes referred to as the “two Brazils” or “Belindia,” with the wealthy South being compared to Belgium and the poor North to India. At times these contrasts are translated into negative stereotypes as when inhabitants of São Paulo, the huge metropolis in southeastern Brazil, blame their city’s poverty and high crime rate on migrants from the North.
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One thing is for sure in this world, we all age, for centuries men has been trying to find the fountain of youth that will reverse the effects of aging and make us look young forever. Ethnic Relations. In addition to regional and ethnic distinctions, coalitions and tensions exist on […]
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Spiaggia Surfside
9499 Collins Ave, Surfside, FL 33154
503 $530,000 A10942080 2 2/0 994 $533 Oct 13, 2020 View
504 $480,000 A10934247 2 2/0 915 $525 Sep 28, 2020 View
911 $529,000 A10785892 1 2/0 924 $573 Dec 11, 2019 View
704 $480,000 A10826414 1 2/0 915 $525 Mar 1, 2020 View
306 $450,000 A10890011 1 2/ 927 $485 Jul 9, 2020 View
510 $360,000 A10717783 1 1/0 809 $445 2.86% Aug 3, 2019 View
208 $359,000 A10911889 1 2/0 927 $387 4.27% Aug 24, 2020 View
609 $327,112 A10887135 1 2/0 927 $353 2.35% Jul 4, 2020 View
505 $330,000 A10934107 0 1/0 601 $549 Oct 5, 2020 View
205 $305,000 A10880058 0 1/0 601 $507 4.09% Jun 22, 2020 View
501 $6,000 A10822648 3 3/0 1,557 $4 1.64% Feb 23, 2020 View
205 $1,850 A10944105 0 1/0 601 $3 Oct 16, 2020 View
305 $1,700 A10860439 0 1/0 601 $3 May 21, 2020 View
PH-05 $1,950,000 A10938158 4 4/1 2,878 $678 2.50% Oct 6, 2020 View
204 $409,000 A10808271 1 2/ 915 $447 Jan 28, 2020 View
54 listings sold
PH-08 $1,695,000 $1,536,000 A10746760 3 3/ 2,173 $707 Jan 11, 2021 472 View
305 $259,900 $230,000 A10719121 0 1/0 601 $383 Mar 11, 2020 217 View
308 $373,000 $345,000 A10743340 2 2/0 927 $372 Dec 9, 2019 79 View
PH-07 $1,200,000 $1,000,000 A10507702 3 3/1 2,404 $416 Apr 3, 2019 256 View
PH-05 $1,449,000 $1,300,000 A10455228 4 4/1 2,878 $452 Jan 28, 2019 257 View
204 $409,000 $380,000 A10579203 1 2/ 915 $415 Jan 21, 2019 51 View
909 $425,000 $400,000 A10292473 1 2/0 927 $431 Mar 7, 2018 267 View
211 $375,000 $355,000 A10302022 1 2/0 924 $384 Jan 16, 2018 186 View
907 $434,000 $400,000 A10281106 1 2/ 927 $431 Nov 30, 2017 191 View
206 $375,000 $359,000 A10186871 1 2/ 927 $387 Mar 7, 2017 95 View
1003 $450,000 $485,000 A10163322 1 2/ 994 $488 Nov 21, 2016 37 View
Undisclosed $495,000 $465,000 A10092464 2 2/ 0 Nov 1, 2016 152 View
1011 $482,000 $455,000 A2131855 2 2/0 924 $492 May 9, 2016 327 View
209 $399,000 $380,000 A10017757 1 2/ 927 $410 May 2, 2016 106 View
PH-05 $1,100,000 $1,050,000 A2099157 4 4/1 2,878 $365 Feb 12, 2016 308 View
711 $365,500 $347,000 A2167395 1 2/0 924 $376 Jan 26, 2016 147 View
505 $328,888 $322,000 A1962731 0 1/0 700 $460 Dec 23, 2015 559 View
308 $399,900 $390,000 A2148324 2 2/0 927 $421 Oct 7, 2015 77 View
608 $414,500 $402,000 A2133034 1 2/0 927 $434 Sep 21, 2015 94 View
901 $959,500 $1,083,144 H926687 3 3/0 1,557 $696 Sep 4, 2015 84 View
PH-01 $1,750,000 $1,450,000 A1996378 4 4/1 2,838 $511 Oct 3, 2014 37 View
411 $380,000 $380,000 A1889240 2 2/0 927 $410 Jun 13, 2014 155 View
804 $355,000 $335,000 A1869473 1 2/0 915 $366 Feb 3, 2014 81 View
PH2 $1,650,000 $1,460,000 A1791823 4 4/1 2,833 $515 Jan 28, 2014 249 View
603 $410,000 $377,000 A1869179 1 2/0 994 $379 Jan 16, 2014 63 View
PH-07 $1,195,000 $1,050,000 A1860655 3 3/1 2,404 $437 Jan 15, 2014 82 View
Undisclosed $160,000 $160,000 A1828911 0 1/0 601 $266 Nov 1, 2013 77 View
205 $250,000 $245,000 M1143316 0 1/0 601 $408 Oct 7, 2013 2342 View
406 $357,000 $346,000 A1808250 1 2/0 927 $373 Sep 5, 2013 65 View
708 $445,000 $425,000 A1749857 2 2/0 927 $458 Aug 27, 2013 189 View
702 $799,000 $600,000 A1659222 3 3/0 1,557 $385 Aug 19, 2013 415 View
906 $455,000 $435,000 A1754364 2 2/0 1,387 $314 Jun 24, 2013 115 View
410 $380,000 $347,000 A1788555 1 1/0 809 $429 May 16, 2013 0 View
305 $195,500 $208,000 A1743967 0 1/0 601 $346 Apr 4, 2013 57 View
502 $749,000 $650,000 A1712379 3 3/0 1,557 $417 Dec 27, 2012 45 View
Undisclosed $155,000 $155,000 A1543524 0 1/0 601 $258 Oct 12, 2012 410 View
211 $285,000 $279,000 A1668776 1 2/0 924 $302 Aug 20, 2012 26 View
407 $205,000 $205,000 A1534876 1 1/1 927 $221 Aug 9, 2012 370 View
204 $175,000 $190,000 M1401806 1 2/0 917 $207 May 10, 2012 672 View
709 $279,000 $260,000 A1578864 1 2/0 927 $280 Mar 30, 2012 120 View
PH-05 $509,900 $525,100 A1582981 4 3/1 2,878 $182 Jan 17, 2012 36 View
Perfectly situated in Surfside between Miami Beach and Bal Harbour, the Atlantic Ocean and the Intracoastal Waterway, the Spiaggia condominium community is a remarkable example of the mindset of Floridian surroundings, representing the pinnacle of South Florida's lifesyle which is a masterfully adjusted combination of the best of ultramodern technology with unrivaled luxury. Surfside is a great upscale community far from the endless bustle of Miami. At the same time, there's a lot of action going on in the area. Spiaggia is within a walking distance to magnificent white sand beaches, the clear blue waters of the Atlantic Ocean, a number of public parks, playgrounds, tennis courts, first class recreational facilities such as fine restaurants, cafes, bars, all reasonably priced. The Bal Harbor Shops, famous for a variety of shopping and dining options, are just minutes away. Internationally renowned shops include Bulgari, Cartier, Chanel, Escada, Hermés, along with premier department stores such as Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue. It's a truly authentic shopping paradise where you'll find anything you desire.
Spiaggia promises to meet the highest requirements, fully satisfy the tastes of the most discerning individuals, answer the wildest expectations. Unparalleled amenities, elegance of architectural treatment, irreproachability of interior design, supremacy of style, breathtaking views of the azure Atlantic ocean, the sparkling waters of the Intracoastal Waterway along with a gorgeous panoramic Miami skyline promise to make a lifetime out of every single day at Spiaggia, offering heartwarming memories.
Spiaggia is a boutique style building featuring a variety of unprecedented amenities. Want to spend some time soaking up the South Florida's sun? Just go to a fantastic oceanfront pool with a beautiful sundeck perfectly designed for sunbathing. If it's intolerably hot, just hide away in a comfortable poolside cabana equipped with a modern air conditioning system providing a majestic feeling of freshness. Want to get a refreshing shake? First class poolside services are always at hand. For the fitness lovers, Spiaggia features a fully equipped fitness center. What's more, the amenities include a private beach club with a majestic Mediterranean style garden, 24-hour manned security, valet parking station, spectacular soaring lobby offering a magic atmosphere of tropical splendor. The Mediterranean vibes are in every detail. The grounds coincide with the interior design. Spiaggia features 1, 2, and 3 bedroom residences and penthouse homes from 689 sqft to 4,160 sqft. Each condominium residence includes bamboo flooring, premium carpeting, as well as Italian marble highlights that add attractiveness to the residences. Spiaggia kitchens are no longer just functional rooms. They're true havens for cooking enthusiasts. Each kitchen features European crafted cherry wood finished cabinets, ultramodern stainless steel appliances, Italian marble counter tops. In Spiaggia everyday cooking becomes a pure pleasure while every meal is a delicious masterpiece full of love. The expansive bathrooms feature marble flooring, Jacuzzi tubs, glass shower enclosures and European fixtures. After a hectic working day a hot bath is probably the best way to relieve tension, forget dreary thoughts, find appeasement. It's a little rebirth.
Spiaggia is a majestic Mediterranean jewel brightly shimmering in the South Florida's endless sunshine. You're definitely worth that beauty. It's a truly unforgettable experience.
I am interested in Spiaggia, Surfside properties
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Inspired By … The Bible Experience Audio Bible - Today's New International Version, TNIV: (09) 2 Samuel
The most ambitious, critically acclaimed presentation of the Bible ever produced
Inspired By... The Bible Experience features a star-studded cast of 400 performers, including 23 Grammy winners, 8 Emmy winners, 5 Golden Globe winners, and 3 Oscar winners. The cast features 2007 Academy Award-winning actor Forest Whitaker as the voice of Moses, along with Angela Bassett (Esther), Cuba Gooding, Jr. (Jonah), Denzel and Pauletta Washington (Song of Songs), LL Cool J (Samson), Eartha Kitt (Serpent), Bishop T. D. Jakes (Abraham), Blair Underwood (Jesus), Samuel Jackson (God, NT only), and Bishop Eddie L. Long (Joel), among others. The Bible Experience uses Zondervan’s most accessible and up-to-date translation, Today’s New International Version (TNIV), and includes dramatic performances set to an original musical underscore by the Prague Symphony Orchestra and Hollywood-style sound design created at Technicolor Studios.
The Bible Experience has received an Audies Audiobook of the Year (the highest honor of the Audio Publisher’s Association), an AudioFile Earphones Award, and a nomination for an NAACP Image Award.
Inspired By … The Bible Experience Audio Bible - Today's New International Version, TNIV: (10) 1 Kings
Inspired By … The Bible Experience Audio Bible - Today's New International Version, TNIV: (12) 1 Chronicles
Inspired By … The Bible Experience Audio Bible - Today's New International Version, TNIV: (04) Numbers
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Lethal Injection: Ken Biros Is First Executed by Single Shot
By Kamika Dunlap on December 08, 2009 8:50 AM
Today Ken Biros became the first person in the U.S. to die by lethal injection with a single shot drug rather than a three-drug method.
Prison officials delayed his the execution of the death row inmate by one hour to see if the if the U.S. Supreme court would intervene to stop the process, but a stay of execution was unlikely.
In a brief statement Tuesday, the court said it was denying Biros' request for a stay of execution.
As previously discussed, Biros was the first Ohio death row inmate executed under the state's new one-drug method.
He also was the first to undergo the new method as it has never been tried before on any U.S. death row inmate.
According to the Associated Press, Biros requested for a stay of execution. Biros had argued the state's new method would be painful.
However, Ohio's switch to one drug was meant to end a lawsuit that claims the three-drug system could cause severe pain, and experts have agreed that the single anesthetic will not cause pain.
Most experts agree that a single drug process will take longer than the old method. Under the sigle shot method it could take 15-30 minutes to die, compared to an average of 7 minutes under the old drug regime.
Other states including Florida and Ohio along with judges have applied different standards over whether an inmate can make a challenge to the method of execution.
Florida, Kentucky, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia are among those watching Ohio's new method closely but say they will keep the three-drug method.
The Associated Press reports, Biros requested and drank four cups of water late Monday night and another eight Tuesday morning, an unusual activity compared to previous executions. Walburn said she didn't know why he was drinking so much water.
Biros, 51, was convicted of the brutal 1991 murder of Tami Engstrom near Warren, Ohio. He met the woman at a bar and offered to drive her home and later admitted robbing and trying to rape her. Prosecutors said Biros then cut up her body and spread parts of it around northeast Ohio and Pennsylvania. He said he acted in a fit of drunken rage.
Since executions resumed in Ohio, the state has put 32 people to death in the past decade.
Ohio to lead way in single-injection executions (Los Angeles Times)
Ohio killer awaits fate as first 1-drug execution (Washington Examiner)
Recent Developments: The Death Penalty (FindLaw)
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Inaugural British Weight Lifting Inter Services Championship held
Wednesday the 18th of September 2019 was a momentous day for Armed Forces Weightlifting with the first ever British Weight Lifting Inter Services Championship taking place.
The competition was launched to aid the development of the sport in the Armed Forces and featured teams from the Army, Navy and the RAF.
It was held in association with the Royal Army Physical Training Corps who hosted the event at their state-of-the-art facility in Aldershot.
Throughout the day there were some fantastic performances across the board from representatives of all three services.
The Army team won both the Male and Female competitions and took the overall title.
WO2 (QMSI) Chris Williams RAPTC – Army Weightlifting Performance Manager
“This competition has been a vision of mine for many years and through the hard work of all three services it has come to fruition. We have been working tirelessly and with amazing support from British Weight Lifting, we were able to achieve to our ultimate aim. I would in particular like to thank Craig Spicer, who has transformed Armed Forces Weightlifting through his tireless work.
In addition, I would like to thank all the staff of British Weight Lifting, who not only helped us run a highly successful competition but have offered us unwavering support over the last 5 years.
This is definitely an exciting time for Armed Forces Weightlifting and with the support of British Weightlifting, the future looks bright”
POPT Daniel Kerr – Royal Navy Weightlifting Manager
“As the manager of the Royal Navy WeightlLifting Team I was extremely eager for the Royal Navy to be involved in the first ever UK Armed Forces Weightlifting Competition. The event was extremely well run with the support from BWL and was very well supported from all 3 services. Hopefully this can be the springboard needed for the sport of Weightlifting to progress in the Services. We will certainly do everything we can to grow the sport.”
James Roden Flt Lt – Royal Air Force Weightlifting Manager
“The day was a tremendous success with a great standard of lifting all round. I’m super proud of my RAF athletes knowing their own individual journeys to this championships and the relatively short lead in we have had as a team. I look forward to driving Armed Forces Weightlifting forward even further in the near future.”
Zoe Kettle-Metcalfe, BWL Head of Workforce
“We are delighted with how the event unfolded. It was great to see representatives from the Army, Royal Airforce and Royal Navy all taking part and enjoying themselves. British Weight Lifting are committed to supporting the development of the sport within the Armed Forces. The Inter Services Championship was a fantastic collaboration and we look forward to maintaining these strong ties in the future. We would like to congratulate the Army on their win this year and look forward to seeing them defend their title at next year’s championship”.
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Cambridge School Committee discusses COVID-19 financial impacts, recovery plan
During its virtual meeting Tuesday, the School Committee considered appealing a state policy extending the school year, amid discussions about the financial implications of the district�s COVID-19 response.
The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) expects schools to continue this year�s instruction until the 185th day of school, or five days past the usual end of the school year, to accommodate for learning loss caused by the transition to remote learning. That means the last day of school would be June 23, instead of June 16.
Under normal circumstances, schools would only extend the school year to accommodate for snow days. Cambridge Public Schools had one snow day this school year, so the state policy adds four days the district had not planned for.
The extra four days of instruction would cost the district an estimated $2 million, an expense that could create a deficit in the district�s 2020 budget.
In its appeal for an exemption from the state policy, the committee plans to state� the $2 million would be more effectively spent on other COVID-19 recovery measures.
�More days in June, I don't believe, will be the best way to prevent the learning loss we�re talking about,� Superintendent Kenneth Salim said.
Members of the committee noted the district transitioned immediately to remote instruction without missing any school days. However, committee member Ayesha Wilson noted it was not seamless, especially for disadvantaged students, and she would be uncomfortable voting to send an appeal that included such an argument. Other committee members added that emphasizing the use of the funds would make for a better appeal.
Without the unexpected expense of four extra school days, the district would be expected to end the 2020 school year with a surplus between $900,000 and $1.8 million. Any surplus will be applied to the 2021 district budget.
With an extended school year, the 2020 budget could face a deficit between $326,000 and $606,000. The district is not allowed to run a deficit without approval from the city manager and a vote by the City Council to appropriate the funds.
Although COVID-19 has cost the district at least $1.5 million in the 2020 budget, school closures actually saved the district at least $2.5 million. The district had to spend money on things like remote learning technology, staff training, and school lunches, but it did not have to pay as much for school supplies, transportation, or energy in school buildings.
For the 2021 budget, the district could face anywhere from $3.7 million to $6 million in COVID-19 costs. The funds would cover the cost of health supplies in schools, like masks, gloves, and thermometers. They would also cover technology, teacher training, and academic support systems for students.
The committee has not yet approved a detailed plan of where funds for these measures would come from. Salim said the committee would need to reallocate funds already in the $213.7 million 2021 budget, with the priority of enhancing academic and personal wellbeing among students.
The committee may choose to shift discretionary funds in the budget, or delay new investments and initiatives that don�t contribute to the district�s recovery plan.
The district expects around $1 million from the federal CARES Act, and the city may also provide one-time grants. If there is a surplus from the 2020 budget, that could also go towards COVID-19 recovery.
The district�s COVID-19 task force will launch soon with working groups beginning in June, according to a schedule Salim presented. By the end of July, the district plans to finish its reopening plan. By mid-August, schools are scheduled to have finalized their individual reopening plans.
Early plans for school reopenings include academic screenings to replace cancelled standardized tests, and to assess the extent of learning loss from school closures. The district also plans to screen students for emotional and mental health issues, though it will take time and money to train teachers to conduct the tests.
This summer, the district will launch an array of programs focused on addressing learning loss, preparing students for re-entry in the fall, and supporting social and emotional learning.
One challenge the committee discussed is not knowing what the demand for summer programming will be. Committee member Alfred Fantini proposed sending letters of invitation to families. Deputy Superintendent Carolyn Turk suggested looking at data on student engagement and putting �a little extra effort� into reaching out to students who need the most help.
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477 F.3d 225 (5th Cir. 2007), 04-31026, O'Reilly v. United States Army Corps of Engineers
Docket Nº: 04-31026.
Party Name: Loretto O'REILLY, Jr., et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. UNITED STATES ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS, Defendant-Appellant, Eric A. Bopp, Intervenor-Appellant.
Loretto O'REILLY, Jr., et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees,
UNITED STATES ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS, Defendant-Appellant,
Eric A. Bopp, Intervenor-Appellant.
Adam Lawrence Babich (argued), Tulane University School of Law, Karla Raettig, Tulane University Environmental Law Clinic, New Orleans, LA, for Plaintiffs-Appellees.
Jennifer Lynn Scheller (argued), Devon M. Lehman, U.S. Dept. of Justice, Environment & Natural Resouces Div., Washington, DC, for U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Walter R. Woodruff, New Orleans, LA, Stanley A. Millan (argued), Jones Walker, Baton Rouge, LA, for Bopp.
Appeals from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.
Before DAVIS and DENNIS, Circuit Judges. [*]
DENNIS, Circuit Judge:
Plaintiffs, residents of St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana, who allege that the environment surrounding their dwellings, businesses, and recreational areas will be unlawfully harmed by a residential subdivision developer's dredging and filling of wetlands, challenge the United States Army Corps of Engineers' ("the Corps") Finding Of No Significant Impact ("FONSI") on the environment under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 ("NEPA"), 42 U.S.C. §§ 4321-4370f, which resulted in the Corps's issuance of a permit to dredge and fill wetlands to the developer under § 404 of the Clean Water Act, 33 U.S.C. § 1344. Plaintiffs contend that the Corps acted arbitrarily in issuing the FONSI for the dredge and fill permit because its Environmental Assessment (EA), the basis for the FONSI, (1) does not articulate a rational basis for finding that the mitigation measures imposed by the Corps upon the dredging and filling operations reduce their harmful effects below the level of significant environmental impacts; (2) does not adequately consider the project's cumulative effects; and (3) improperly segments the project by considering only the first of three possible phases of development. Consequently, plaintiffs argue, NEPA required that the Corps prepare a full-fledged environmental impact statement ("EIS") before issuing permits affecting the wetlands.
The district court agreed with plaintiffs and held that the Corps had acted arbitrarily in violation of NEPA because it failed to: (1) articulate or demonstrate how the mitigation measures will succeed; (2) consider the cumulative effects of the project, the permits to third parties, and the growing area urbanization; (3) consider the effects of the current proposal together with the effects of additional phases of the developer's long range residential subdivision plans.
We agree with the district court that the Corps acted arbitrarily in issuing a FONSI based on an EA that fails to articulate how the mitigation measures will render the adverse effects insignificant and to consider the cumulative effects of the project, area urbanization, and permits issued to third parties. But we disagree with the district court's conclusion that the Corps engaged in improper segmentation of the project by failing to include full analysis of two possible future phases of development in its EA. Accordingly, we affirm the district court's holding that the Corps acted arbitrarily in the foregoing respects, but we amend the district court's injunction,
reverse the balance of its decision, and remand the case to the Corps for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
I. The NEPA Framework
Before we begin our analysis, we review NEPA's framework, terminology and objectives. "NEPA ... was intended to reduce or eliminate environmental damage and to promote 'the understanding of the ecological systems and natural resources important to' the United States." Dep't of Transp. v. Pub. Citizen, 541 U.S. 752, 756, 124 S.Ct. 2204, 159 L.Ed.2d 60 (2004) (quoting 42 U.S.C. § 4321). Instead of mandating particular environmental results, NEPA "imposes procedural requirements on federal agencies, requiring agencies to analyze the environmental impact of their proposals and actions." Coliseum Square Ass'n, Inc. v. Jackson, 465 F.3d 215, 224 (5th Cir.2006) (quoting Pub. Citizen, 541 U.S. at 756-57, 124 S.Ct. 2204). NEPA's central requirement is that federal agencies must, except in certain qualifying situations, complete a detailed environmental impact statement ("EIS") for any major federal action significantly affecting the quality of the human environment. 42 U.S.C. § 4332(2). To assist these agencies in determining whether an EIS must be prepared, NEPA authorized the Council on Environmental Quality ("CEQ") to promulgate guidelines in the form of regulations. See 40 C.F.R. § 1500.3; see also Coliseum Square, 465 F.3d at 224.
NEPA requires an agency to produce a full EIS only where the agency proposes to undertake a project that qualifies as a "major Federal action[]," and then only when that action "significantly affect[s] the quality of the human environment." 42 U.S.C. § 4332(2)(C); see also Coliseum Square, 465 F.3d at 228. The CEQ regulations define a "[m]ajor Federal action" as "actions with effects that may be major and which are potentially subject to Federal control and responsibility." 40 C.F.R. § 1508.18; see also Coliseum Square, 465 F.3d at 228. Effects, for the purposes of the regulations, "include: (a) [d]irect effects, which are caused by the action and occur at the same time and place," and "(b) [i]ndirect effects, which are caused by the action and are later in time or farther removed in distance, but are still reasonably foreseeable." 40 C.F.R. § 1508.8; see also Coliseum Square, 465 F.3d at 228.
"The CEQ regulations allow an agency to prepare a more limited document, an Environmental Assessment (EA), if the agency's proposed action neither is categorically excluded from the requirement to produce an EIS nor would clearly require the production of an EIS." Pub. Citizen, 541 U.S. at 757, 124 S.Ct. 2204 (citing 40 C.F.R. §§ 1501.4(a), (b)). An EA should be a "concise public document ... that serves to ... [b]riefly provide sufficient evidence and analysis for determining whether to prepare an [EIS]." 40 C.F.R. § 1508.9(a). In some cases, an agency may find that it must complete a full EIS. Where an EA results in a determination that an EIS is not required, however, the agency must issue a Finding of No Significant Impact ("FONSI"). Coliseum Square, 465 F.3d at 224 (quoting Pub. Citizen, 541 U.S. at 757, 124 S.Ct. 2204). The FONSI must briefly state "the reasons why the proposed agency action will not have a significant impact on the human environment." Coliseum Square, 465 F.3d at 224 (citing 40 C.F.R. §§ 1501.4(e), 1508.13).
II. Factual and Procedural Background
A. Agency Proceedings
The Planche family plans to develop its plot of land in St. Tammany Parish, near Covington, Louisiana, as a residential subdivision. The plot includes wooded wetlands
bordering Timber Creek, which flows through the property to Timber Branch, a tributary of the Tchefunte River. The subdivision development will require dredging and filling of wetlands and the discharge of materials into navigable waters. The Clean Water Act requires that the developer obtain a § 404 permit from the Corps before such discharge and that the Corps comply with NEPA in issuing the permit. 1
In 1999, a representative of the Planche family filed an initial permit for a three-phase project that covered 147.13 total acres including 91.94 acres of wetlands. In September of that same year, the Corps and the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality jointly posted public notice of the proposed project and its permit application. 2 As a result of that notice, the Corps received public comments, including objections from the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Eventually, the applicant withdrew the initial permit application.
In September 2000, a different representative of the Planche family, August J. Hand, submitted a revised permit application. The new application sought a § 404 permit only for Phase I of the project, covering 81.58 total acres, including 39.54 acres of wetlands. The Corps again posted public notice and accepted comments. The Corps also began NEPA review of the project and determined that, in light of the mitigation measures mandated by the permit conditions required by the Clean Water Act, as well as other state and local laws, 3 the requested permit would have no significant impact on the environment.
Accordingly, on November 18, 2003, the Corps issued a "mitigated FONSI"--a Finding of No Significant Impact concluding that the project's adverse impacts would be reduced to a less-than-significant level via mitigation conditions attached to the permit. See Spiller v. White, 352 F.3d 235, 239 (5th Cir.2003) (approving the use of "mitigated FONSIs"). On December 18, 2003, the Corps issued a § 404 permit allowing dredging and filling in 39.54 acres of the project's wetlands, conditioned on performance of specified mitigation measures.
B. District Court Proceedings
Plaintiffs, residents who "live, work, and recreate" near the proposed development, sued to enjoin the permit. They alleged that the Corps had not complied with NEPA's requirements because it 1) did not prepare an EIS; 2) prepared an inadequate EA; and 3) failed to consider the
project's direct, indirect, and cumulative effects. Both parties submitted cross-motions for summary judgment, at which point the district court granted Eric Bopp, a part owner of the property and member of the Planche family, permission to intervene on the side of the Corps.
The district court granted the plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment, concluding that the Corps had acted arbitrarily by issuing the § 404 permit without preparing a full EIS in order to comply with...
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Third party (33)
Querent (11)
Current state (6)
Diseases of the mind (98)
Not specified in question (326)
Head and neck (180)
Limbs and joints (99)
Torso (236)
Whole body (52)
Requesting prayer (3)
Witchcraft and devil (75)
Unclassified (currently) (21)
Mrs Elizabeth Marsh (PERSON14007)
Residences: ‘Unspecified’, c. 30 November 1600; ‘Greathampstead alias Falconers Hall Manor’, c. 25 November 1617 & 13 March 1619; ‘Waresley’, c. 7 July 1631 & 12 September 1631; ‘Hackney (now London E5 E8 E9 N1 N6)’, c. 27 April 1632
Mrs Susan Andrews (PERSON9163)
Residences: ‘Broughton (now part of Milton Keynes)’, c. 9 December 1598, 9 December 1598, 13 December 1598, 20 February 1599, 22 February 1599, 12 March 1599, 14 May 1599, 12 January 1600, 14 February 1600, 28 February 1600 & 18 April 1600
Goody Anne [Agnes] Southam (PERSON59288)
Residences: ‘Croughton’, c. 29 March 1623, 8 April 1623, 28 April 1623, 10 May 1623, 23 June 1623, 5 August 1623, 8 August 1623, 9 August 1623, 3 July 1625 & 26 February 1626; ‘Creaton’, c. 13 June 1623; ‘Coton’, c. 3 July 1632
Mrs Catherine Blundell [Budoxhed] [Butshed] [Mrs Blundell [the elder]] (PERSON9819)
Residences: ‘Great Linford (village)’, c. 1 December 1601, 23 January 1603, 31 May 1603, 6 September 1603, 28 October 1603, 14 February 1604, 26 June 1604, 28 June 1604, 2 August 1604, 26 October 1604, 25 June 1605, 14 August 1605, 12 April 1606, 25 July 1606, 29 July 1606, 31 July 1606, 17 April 1607, 30 April 1607, 20 June 1607, 31 August 1607, 16 July 1608, 17 July 1608, 13 October 1608, 3 November 1608, 21 March 1609, 21 July 1609, 22 January 1610 & 16 May 1610
Parnell Green [Boughton] (PERSON12366)
Residences: ‘Wood Burcote’, c. 2 April 1600, 11 June 1600, 13 April 1601, 6 November 1602, 2 April 1603, 26 November 1603, 2 May 1604 & 2 July 1608; ‘Weston Underwood’, c. 16 September 1603
Old Mrs Lucy Duncombe (PERSON19517)
Residences: ‘Brickhill’, c. 17 October 1606; ‘Great Brickhill (village)’, c. 30 September 1616, 2 May 1617, 21 November 1621, 24 November 1621, 10 April 1624, 8 November 1625, 22 June 1627, 22 September 1627, 4 October 1627 & 22 October 1627
Mrs Claire Wright [Wright] (PERSON37112)
Residences: ‘Unspecified’, c. 17 May 1609, 24 May 1609, 6 April 1620, 18 May 1620, 19 May 1620, 17 September 1624, 8 February 1633, 21 February 1633, 21 December 1634, 28 February 1635 & 28 March 1635
Goody Elizabeth Miller (PERSON14184)
Occupation: ‘Victualler’, c. 2 December 1603
Residences: ‘Newport Pagnell (town)’, c. 12 December 1598, 16 July 1601, 29 November 1603, 29 November 1603 & 2 December 1603; ‘Great Linford (village)’, c. 6 December 1602
Mrs Alice Farren (PERSON11675)
Residences: ‘Filgrave (hamlet in the parish of Tyringham with Filgrave)’, c. 28 October 1598, 1 September 1599, 18 August 1600, 21 August 1600, 12 January 1602, 20 November 1602, 6 October 1603, 13 October 1604, 16 March 1605, 4 April 1605, 6 April 1605, 4 November 1611, 7 February 1612, 26 April 1613, 26 April 1613 & 16 October 1623; ‘Tyringham in the parish of Tyringham with Filgrave’, c. 23 July 1602
Young Mrs Dorothy Fortescue [Throckmorton] (PERSON23241)
Residences: ‘Salden (Salden House still survives, NE of Mursley, nr Milton Keynes)’, c. 10 April 1608 & 7 November 1612; ‘Weston Underwood’, c. 12 April 1611, 13 February 1612, 18 February 1612, 23 December 1612, 9 January 1613, 3 March 1613, 6 July 1613, 6 July 1613, 16 August 1613, 27 May 1614 & 28 May 1614; ‘Olney (village; now part of Milton Keynes)’, c. 31 October 1612 & 5 November 1612; ‘Coughton Court’, c. 24 April 1616
Rose Denton (PERSON11283)
Residences: ‘Newport Pagnell (town)’, c. 9 September 1602, 1 January 1603, 14 January 1605, 3 June 1610, 21 November 1611, 24 December 1611, 28 December 1611, 28 November 1619, 15 April 1622 & 19 August 1633
Mrs Faith Sage (PERSON58116)
Residences: ‘High Laver’, c. 9 July 1634 & 7 October 1634; ‘Magdalen Laver’, c. 16 December 1637
Mrs Margaret Burchmore (PERSON10185)
Residences: ‘Tathall End, Hanslope (now part of Milton Keynes)’, c. 9 January 1600, 14 January 1600, 14 January 1600 & 9 July 1600; ‘Hanslope (village)’, c. 12 May 1600, 13 May 1600, 5 July 1600 & 30 March 1620
Lady Throckmorton (PERSON16431)
Residences: ‘Paulerspury (village)’, c. 30 May 1603, 15 July 1603, 17 December 1604, 15 January 1618, 16 March 1618 & 2 May 1618; ‘Potterspury (village)’, c. 5 July 1614, 14 January 1618 & 29 January 1618
Mary Travell (PERSON16548)
Occupation: ‘Chambermaid’, c. 25 August 1603
Residences: ‘Gayhurst’, c. 28 February 1599 & 16 December 1600; ‘Weston Favell (now part of Northampton)’, c. 11 April 1604
Margaret Wyn (PERSON62414)
Occupation: ‘Maid’, c. 25 May 1630
Residence: ‘Unspecified’, c. 21 April 1629
Mrs Joan [Joanna] Prescot (PERSON57057)
Residences: ‘Holborn (WC1, WC2, EC1)’, c. 28 April 1623, 9 July 1623, 24 July 1623 & 9 March 1624; ‘Unspecified’, c. 25 September 1623, 26 September 1623, 7 October 1623, 11 April 1629, 29 April 1630, 12 June 1630, 1 July 1630, 2 July 1630, 5 June 1635 & 14 June 1635; ‘Stonely Priory’, c. 25 May 1629, 18 January 1631 & 24 May 1635
Young Mrs Mary Haselrigg (PERSON12633)
Residences: ‘Alderton’, c. 15 April 1606; ‘Noseley’, c. 26 August 1610
Cite this as: Lauren Kassell, Michael Hawkins, Robert Ralley, John Young, Joanne Edge, Janet Yvonne Martin-Portugues, and Natalie Kaoukji (eds.), The casebooks of Simon Forman and Richard Napier, 1596–1634: a digital edition, https://casebooks.lib.cam.ac.uk/search?f2-person-sex=Female;f3-identified-entity-is-asking-about=Self;f5-entity-question-asked=Medical%3A%3AParts%20of%20the%20body;f6-identified-entity-is-asking-about=Self%20and%20others;f7-identified-entity-practice=Napier;f8-dob-cert=Inferred;f9-entity-question-asked=Medical;f10-residence=England, accessed 15 January 2021.
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Regulations of the Cau
Home Regulations of the Cau
ARTICLE 1: PRESERVATION OF THE VALUES OF THE CONFEDERATION
Honesty: Acting in an integral, congruent and truthful way to generate confidence and security in society with respect to actions.
Social commitment: Act for the benefit of the Confederation, beyond private interests to contribute to the common good and development of the Confederates and member countries.
Transparency: Reporting in a truthful, timely and effective way to generate confidence and certainty in the Confederates.
Objectivity: Acting in a balanced manner, taking into account the facts, the situation and the information available to contribute to decision-making based on scientific and technical criteria.
Inclusion: Consider the opinions of the different member societies to ensure that their needs are taken into account.
Effectiveness: Carry out, in a responsible manner, the objectives and goals, optimizing the resources to comply with the statutes of the Confederation.
ARTICLE 2: CAU PARTNERS: RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS
Receive the diploma of individual member of the CAU.
Participate in the scientific activities of the Confederation, enjoying the economic advantages granted
Perform managerial and representative positions of the Confederation.
Receive timely information from the CAU through its respective Societies / Associations.
Access restricted areas of the CAU website for its members. Each member will have their password to access this service
To apply for scholarships, prizes, post-graduate courses and seminars, continuing medical education, research and other benefits promoted by the CAU
To be up-to-date in the quota with your Society / Association, which, in turn, must pay the CAU the fee stipulated by the Statute within the first four months of each year
ARTICLE 3: ABANDONMENT OF THE CAU
They will no longer be individual headline members:
Members whose separation is proposed by the corresponding National Society / Association, for justified reasons.
The totality of the members and National Societies / Associations that, without justifiable reason, failed to pay the fee indicated in article 4 of the Statutes, and for three consecutive years.
Those who made a voluntary resignation in writing of their status as titular individual member of their Society / Association and officially notify the CAU
ARTICLE 4: HEADQUARTERS OF THE CONGRESS
As the CAU is a Confederation of Societies / Associations, requests for the organization of a congress of the Confederation must come directly from the President and / or Board of Directors of the Society / Association of the opting country and, exceptionally, by one of the members of the Confederation. the Society / Association. In this case, the endorsement of its Board of Directors is required. The proponent of the host city will be the President of the Congress or Organizing Committee.
The proposer must be present at the time of the election, which will take place during the Congress of the CAU. The request must be addressed to the Secretary General of the CAU, specifying the following requirements and one month in advance of the congress:
The host city must be well communicated by air, sea or land.
You must gather the hotel capacity and the necessary infrastructure to hold the event.
The applicant must be up to date with its financial obligations with the CAU
A substitute seat will be chosen, in the case of an impossibility arising in the Company originally chosen (due to political, economic or social instability). This substitute seat will automatically be the seat that comes second in the election, and its option will be without effect if the original headquarters fulfills its purpose. In case there is only one venue available, the Executive Committee of the CAU will choose a substitute site.
The Executive Committee of the CAU is empowered, when it considers it appropriate to promote the CAU, to establish alliances to hold congresses, with another extra-Confederate society (example: SIU), to establish their respective economic pacts and / or in the same course, develop another activity of the CAU that is considered exceptional and clearly beneficial for the CAU.
Any other interpretation that is not sufficiently clarified will be decided by the Executive Committee of the CAU.
ARTICLE 5: OF THE ORGANIZATION OF THE CONGRESS
a. The Organizing Committee will present periodic monthly reports to the Executive Committee of the CAU, on the progress of the Congress, and in a compulsory manner in each assembly, on the CAU website and in the electronic bulletin (Evolucau).
b. A minimum of three official announcements of the Congress will be sent:
The first announcing date, city, country and auditorium or congress palace that will host the congress.
The second pre-program, including date of registration, prices and hotels and official travel company, if any.
The third with the final program of the Congress, which must be published one month before its start, on the CAU website and in the electronic bulletin (Evolucau).
c. Any type of written dissemination of the Congress must provide the legends alluding to the organizing bodies as follows:
c.1 American Confederation of Urology (CAU)
c.2 Ibero-American Society of Pediatric Urology (SIUP)
c.3 Society / Urology Association of the host country.
d. The paper programs and the abstracts of the papers accepted for the congress will be published, on behalf of the Organizing Committee, and will be distributed to all attendees attending the Congress. In turn, the program and the summaries will be available on the CAU website.
e. The duration of the Congress will be a minimum of three days and a maximum of five.
f. The local Organizing Committee will assume the payment of the trip in economy class and the stay of a guest by the Steering Committee of the SIUP.
g. There will be a single registration fee and will be managed only and exclusively by the Organizing Committee of the local Society / Association and the CAU. Gains and losses will be assumed according to the percentage of Article 12 of the Statute.
h. The Organizing Committee of the congress is entitled to invite a maximum of six invited professors, financed by the local organizing committee (travel in economy class and corresponding stay). Any variation in this regard requires the express authorization of the Executive Committee of the CAU. Likewise, the local Organizing Committee of the Congress, will not be able to establish commitments with organizations and / or International Societies / Associations that are legal competences of the CAU or those actions that clearly affect the economic interests of the American Confederation of Urology.
i. All the competitions will be coordinated by the Organizing Committee, except for the urological research contest “Professor Doctor Antonio Puigvert” which will be coordinated by the Director of the Urology Service of the Fundació Puigvert. The participant of a contest could not be part of the qualifying jury. The Executive Committee of the CAU has the power to give priority to the publication of the awarded works.
j. The Organizing Committee may request a cash advance from the CAU to start its work. This advance will have a maximum limit of USD $ 25,000 and will be returned once the balance of the Congress has been finalized.
k. The CAU congresses will be held, preferably from June to November, both inclusive of each year. Any other date requires the express authorization of the Executive Committee of the CAU.
l. The Organizing Committee will finance the expenses of the Executive Committee of the CAU, including registration, social activities, hotel and passage in economic rate.
m. Retirement members over 65 years of age and members of the Academy of the American Confederation of Urology are exempt from registration, as well as registration, the social activities of the Congress will be included.
n. In the event of organizational discrepancies in any of the activities scheduled for the congress, the final decision will correspond to the Executive Committee of the CAU.
ARTICLE 6: GENERAL ASSEMBLY
a. It will meet in ordinary session on the occasion of the Congresses of the CAU. The Secretary General of the Executive Committee of the CAU may also call a General Assembly, on the occasion of other congresses, such as the annual congress of the AUA, to ensure the functioning of the CAU.
b. The General Assembly will be the sovereign entity of the CAU and should have knowledge of all the activities of the CAU. It will be chaired by the Secretary General and the Executive Committee of the CAU.
c. The minutes of the previous meeting will be submitted for approval.
d. The report will be presented that gathers the adivities of the Executive Committee of the CAU, with their respective reports:
Of the Secretary General.
Treasury, on the statement of accounts and balance sheet
Of the Vocal of Internet and telecommunications.
Of the Vocal of scientific activities, publications and congresses.
Of the President of the Organizing Committee, if required.
e. In the Assembly the venues of the congresses will be elected.
f. In each ordinary or extraordinary General Assembly, the posts / convocations that have become vacant or that are proposed shall be designated by direct election, in person (not delegable) and secret, by the members with the right to vote.
g. Each voter may vote only once, even if he has the right to more votes.
h. The Secretary and the Vice-Secretary of the CAU will guard the votes and guarantee their legitimacy, until the end of the voting.
i. The Executive Committee of the CAU, will decide the convenience or not of granting five minutes for the exhibition of the candidates. The titular individual members of the Societies / Associations that make up the CAU may be nominated as candidates for any office of the CAU. The request must be made personally by the candidate to the Secretary General of the CAU, thirty days before the beginning of the voting, stating:
Name and surname of the applicant
Society to which it belongs
Position to which you choose
Be up to date on your membership fee
A written endorsement from your Society / Association
Brief summary of your Curriculum Vitae
Whoever achieves the simple majority will be chosen. Candidates must be present at the Assembly, unless a justified excuse is justified by the Secretary General of the CAU.
j. If there are no candidates the Executive Committee of the CAU, will have the power to choose, to avoid gaps in the functions of the charges.
ARTICLE 7: ADMINISTRATIVE CENTRAL HEADQUARTERS
The CAU will have a unique and permanent administrative headquarters to centralize its operations and serve as a reference to its partners. This headquarters can be independent or associated and shared with some of the national societies that make up the Confederation. The administrative headquarters, as its name indicates, will have only administrative functions, and from no point of view, deliberative. The permanent headquarters, allows to have more fluid relations between all the parties involved, and considerably reduces all the general costs. The Executive Committee of the CAU, will be responsible for convening at the time the different Societies / Associations that make up the CAU for the election of the headquarters. Once the headquarters has been designated or if no consensus is reached between the different Societies / Associations, the Executive Committee of the CAU will submit the corresponding proposal to the General Assembly, which may, by simple majority, either ratify the elected one or choose a new. The duration of the contract will be ten years, renewable if its development and service have been satisfactory for the CAU.
All the Societies / Scientific Associations that are members of the CAU and choose to have a shared headquarters must meet the following requirements:
a. The Society / Association of the country that wants to share its headquarters with the CAU, must request it in writing to the Secretary General of the CAU, at least 30 days before the date of the election.
b. The shared headquarters city must have an international airport and be well connected with the rest of the countries.
c. The headquarters of the shared CAU, must have at least two offices to house the two Secretariats, the Administrative and the Economic-financial and their corresponding files. It will be positively valued that the host company / association owns the premises.
d. The Administrative Secretariat will have among its functions:
Assist the Executive Committee of the CAU, call meetings, be in contact with all of them and disclose all the information indicated.
Support the Offices and Working Groups of the CAU.
Update the addresses of the Executive Committee, Presidents of the Confederate Societies / Associations, of the Offices and Work Groups and members of the CAU.
Control, maintain and update the database of all members.
Take all the official invitations that are required.
Notify, follow and prepare the awards ceremony in the institutional act of the Congress.
Register the correspondence and give a diligent response to the associate, etc.
Improve communication among the members of the CAU.
Increase the services that the CAU provides to its members.
Coordinate and / or prepare and edit the CAU electronic bulletin (Evolucau), the paper newsletter (CAU Today) and the CAU website.
e. The Economic-Financial Secretariat will have among its functions:
Increase the results of CAU benefits.
The Monitoring and collection of the fees of the members and Societies / Associations that make up the CAU, and the issuance of invoices.
Convene and assist the Executive Committee and the General Board in the assemblies or meetings held at the Congress of the AUA, reserving, renting and assisting the Meeting Rooms, audiovisual media and hotels that are required, taking all the invitations that are specified.
Be in contact with the pharmaceutical and medical technology industry to channel sponsors for the CAU.
Prepare reports on the economic-financial activities of income and expenses of the CAU, among others:
1. Comprehensive cost of the CAU, punctual payments, etc.
2. Cost savings in the work of Secretary.
3. Knowledge and management of contracting services.
4. Design and implement the sustainability strategy of the CAU.
f. Human team:
The staff that is part of both secretariats, should have extensive knowledge and experience in each of the branches of the Secretariats.
The team should preferably be young and dynamic.
It must be fully integrated in applications and new technologies, internet, office operation with state-of-the-art equipment.
Must interact with all types of providers.
You must know the English, spoken and written language, in addition to Spanish and it will be valued as a plus in Portuguese.
Must be available for travel, when the Executive Committee needs it.
The Executive Committee of the CAU, together with the Board of Directors of the country / headquarters will agree on the appropriate economic conditions for the full development of the activities of the CAU Secretariat, depending on the cost of the market of the chosen country, equipping them with the means necessary to optimize said work.
The administrative headquarters will have the registered office of the Society / Association of Urology of the country that has been chosen.
All the staff of the host Secretariats will depend on the Executive Committee of the CAU and the Board of Directors of the Host Society / Association, corresponding, in case of organizational discrepancies, the final decision to the Executive Committee of the CAU.
Unforeseen or insufficiently foreseen in this regulation, will be resolved by the Executive Committee of the CAU.
The new regulation is approved and registered. The previous ones are repealed.
Regulations approved in Santiago, Chile on September 8, 2010
FIRST ADDITIONAL PROVISION
In the event that the Members or Coordinators of the Working Groups proposed and elected by the outgoing Main Council, could not or would not accept the position for which they were elected, they will cease in their position, for just cause, or vacancies will occur. before the end of its mandate, the Executive Board may, in order to maintain the activity of the board or working group, fill said vacancy until the final election by the General Meeting.
SECOND ADDITIONAL PROVISION
SIUP will pay USD 10, without limitation on the number of members, for members that do not belong to national scientific societies and are members of SIUP.
It will have three days in total of congress: a plenary room and a room of posters.
A pre-congress course (when it exists for this).
Simultaneous translation.
Two foreign guests, one paid by CAU according to article N ° 5 letter F of the regulation and one paid by SIUP (half of the sum of the expenses of the two for each of the companies).
SIUP will receive the monies of the congresses according to article N ° 12 of the statutes.
Balance and payments within a period of no more than one year, once the congress ends.
Representation in the CAU directory; SIUP President and Pediatric Coordinator (both entitled to vote).
The coordinator of Pediatrics when it is changed or chosen, is a proposal of SIUP.
The coordinator of Pediatrics will be integrated into the organizing committee of the congress.
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After the Car (Hardcover, New)
Kingsley Dennis, John Urry
It is difficult to imagine a world without the car, and yet that is exactly what Dennis and Urry set out to do in this provocative new book. They argue that the days of the car are numbered: powerful forces around the world are undermining the car system and will usher in a new transport system sometime in the next few decades. Specifically, the book examines how several major processes are shaping the future of how we travel, including:
- Global warming and its many global consequences
- Peaking of oil supplies
- Increased digitisation of many aspects of economic and social life
- Massive global population increases
The authors look at changes in technology, policy, economy and society, and make a convincing argument for a future where, by necessity, the present car system will be re-designed and re-engineered.
Yet the book also suggests that there are some hugely bleak dilemmas facing the twenty first century. The authors lay out what they consider to be possible 'post-car' future scenarios. These they describe as 'local sustainability', 'regional warlordism' and 'digital networks of control'.
"After The Car" will be of great interest to planners, policy makers, social scientists, futurologists, those working in industry, as well as general readers.
Some have described the 20th Century as the century of the car. Now that century has come to a close - and things are about to change.
Urban Connections in the Contemporary Pedestrian Landscape (Paperback)
Philip Pregill
Urban Connections in the Contemporary Pedestrian Landscape explores the significant physical and cultural changes in our urban areas following the implementation of design strategies and increased pedestrian activity. Beginning with a history of the urban grid, the book then discusses experiential factors of pedestrianized urban landscapes in three scales, arterials, collectors and locals, with an emphasis on inductive and deductive design alternatives. It closely examines elements derived from current urban pedestrian experiences including form, scale, surfaces and identity and provides alternative design solutions for the future. Uniquely focusing on a hierarchical discussion of the quality of contemporary landscape design applications within the urban grid, and with illustrated examples throughout the text, this will be useful recommended reading for academics, researchers and postgraduate students on urban landscape and design courses.
A Decision Support System for Intermodal Transport Policy (Paperback)
Cathy Macharis, E Pekin, A Caris, Bart Jourquin
In this informative and well-researched account, the new developments in intermodal transport are discussed, and special attention is given to evaluation models and policy measures in this field. Describing the three core models that have been either developed or enhanced to create an overall assessment framework for intermodal transport policies in Belgium--a multimodal freight model (NODUS), a discrete event-simulation model of the inland waterway network and its terminals (SIMBA), and a Location Analysis Model for Belgian Intermodal Terminals (LAMBIT)--this record analyzes the effectiveness and sustainability of policy measures in terms of modal shift, external costs, and capacity restrictions associated with the freight infrastructure network.
Roads - An Anthropology of Infrastructure and Expertise (Hardcover)
Penny Harvey, Hannah Knox
Roads matter to people. This claim is central to the work of Penny Harvey and Hannah Knox, who in this book use the example of highway building in South America to explore what large public infrastructural projects can tell us about contemporary state formation, social relations, and emerging political economies.Roads focuses on two main sites: the interoceanic highway currently under construction between Brazil and Peru, a major public/private collaboration that is being realized within new, internationally ratified regulatory standards; and a recently completed one-hundred-kilometer stretch of highway between Iquitos, the largest city in the Peruvian Amazon, and a small town called Nauta, one of the earliest colonial settlements in the Amazon. The Iquitos-Nauta highway is one of the most expensive roads per kilometer on the planet.Combining ethnographic and historical research, Harvey and Knox shed light on the work of engineers and scientists, bureaucrats and construction company officials. They describe how local populations anticipated each of the road projects, even getting deeply involved in questions of exact routing as worries arose that the road would benefit some more than others. Connectivity was a key recurring theme as people imagined the prosperity that will come by being connected to other parts of the country and with other parts of the world. Sweeping in scope and conceptually ambitious, Roads tells a story of global flows of money, goods, and people-and of attempts to stabilize inherently unstable physical and social environments.
The Green Hornet Street Car Disaster (Paperback)
Craig Allen Cleve
As rush hour came to a close on the evening of May 25, 1950, one of Chicago's new fast, colorful, streamlined streetcars-known as a Green Hornet-slammed into a gas truck at State Street and 62nd Place. The Hornet's motorman allegedly failed to heed the warnings of a flagger attempting to route it around a flooded underpass, and the trolley, packed with commuters on their way home, barreled into eight thousand gallons of gasoline. The gas erupted into flames, poured onto State Street, and quickly engulfed the Hornet, shooting flames two hundred and fifty feet into the air. More than half of the passengers escaped the inferno through the rear window, but thirty-three others perished, trapped in front of the streetcar's back door, which failed to stay open in the ensuing panic. It was Chicago's worst traffic accident ever-and the worst two-vehicle traffic accident in US history. Unearthing a forgotten chapter in Chicago lore, The Green Hornet Streetcar Disaster tells the riveting tale of this calamity. Combing through newspaper accounts as well as the Chicago Transit Authority's official archives, Craig Cleve vividly brings to life this horrific catastrophe. Going beyond the historical record, he tracks down individuals who were present on that fateful day on State and 62nd: eyewitnesses, journalists, even survivors whose lives were forever changed by the accident. Weaving these sources together, Cleve reveals the remarkable combination of natural events, human error, and mechanical failure that led to the disaster, and this moving history recounts them-as well as the conflagration's human drama-in gripping detail.
US Infrastructure - Challenges and Directions for the 21st Century (Paperback)
Aman Khan, Klaus Becker
This book presents an in-depth look at US infrastructure and its challenges in the 21st century. While infrastructure has received considerable attention in recent years, much of the discussion has concentrated on physical, economic, or noneconomic conditions. The Trump administration has heightened interest in the topic, promising infrastructure spending during his tenure, yet little demonstrable progress has been made. This book brings together a multi-disciplinary perspective-structural, technological, economic, financial, political, planning, and policy-that has been largely absent in discussions on the subject, to provide a clearer and broader understanding of the challenges facing US infrastructure. The book is divided into three parts: Part I looks at the challenges from a structural, technological, and sustainability perspective; Part II from an economic, productivity, and finance perspective; and Part III from an institutional, security, and political perspective. Written primarily for policy makers, managers, and administrators in public and private organizations, as well as individuals and academics with an interest in the future of US infrastructure, this book provides an in-depth analysis of the US infrastructure problem, its causes and consequences, and suggests timely, specific measures that may be taken at the state, local, and federal levels to improve and better secure our roads, transit, public buildings, economy, and technology.
Green Transportation and Energy Consumption in China (Paperback)
Jian Chai, Ying Yang, Quanying Lu, Limin Xing, Ting Liang, …
This book provides insights into China's energy consumption and pollution as well as its energy saving policies. It explores energy saving ways and argues for an energy consumption revolution, which includes technologies to improve transportation resource efficiency, modification of existing transportation infrastructure and structure. This book uses various analytical models to study the relationships within the transportation system. It also includes comparative analysis of China, Japan, the US and developing countries on traffic demand and transportation energy consumption. This book highlights the urgent need to review China's current transportation policies in order to secure a breakthrough in energy saving and emissions reduction.
Transportation and Sustainable Campus Communities - Issues, Examples, Solutions (Paperback)
Will Toor, Spenser Havlick
Colleges and universities across North America are facing difficult questions about automobile use and transportation. Lack of land for new parking lots and the desire to preserve air quality are but a few of the factors leading institutions toward a new vision based upon expanded transit access, better bicycle and pedestrian facilities, and incentives that encourage less driving.
"Transportation and Sustainable Campus Communities" presents a comprehensive examination of techniques available to manage transportation in campus communities. Authors Will Toor and Spenser W. Havlick give readers the understanding they need to develop alternatives to single-occupancy vehicles, and sets forth a series of case studies that show how transportation demand management programs have worked in a variety of campus communities, ranging from small towns to large cities. The case studies in "Transportation and Sustainable Campus Communities" highlight what works and what doesn't, as well as describing the programmatic and financial aspects involved.
No other book has surveyed the topic and produced viable options for reducing the parking, pollution, land use, and traffic problems that are created by an over-reliance on automobiles by students, faculty, and staff. "Transportation and Sustainable Campus Communities" is a unique source of information and ideas for anyone concerned with transportation planning and related issues.
Contemporary Logistics In China: An Introduction (Hardcover)
Binglian Liu, Shao-Ju Lee, Zhi-lun Jiao, Ling Wang
With rapid development of China's economy in the past decades, there arises a great demand for a comprehensive report concerning the state of logistics development in China. Yet to date, only brief, fragmented writings in English exist. "Contemporary Logistics in China: An Introduction" is the first systematic, objective and authoritative publication based on the work of experienced researchers from the Logistics Research Center at Nankai University.This book contains both a panoramic overview of logistics developments in China to afford a broad understanding, as well as specific, in-depth analyses of various logistics sectors, enterprises, policies, and current issues in China. Readers will find this book a valuable reference of relevant and well-founded information on logistics developments in China.
Disruptive Transport - Driverless Cars, Transport Innovation and the Sustainable City of Tomorrow (Paperback)
William Riggs
With the rise of shared and networked vehicles, autonomous vehicles, and other transportation technologies, technological change is outpacing urban planning and policy. Whether urban planners and policy makers like it or not, these transformations will in turn result in profound changes to streets, land use, and cities. But smarter transportation may not necessarily translate into greater sustainability or equity. There are clear opportunities to shape advances in transportation, and to harness them to reshape cities and improve the socio-economic health of cities and residents. There are opportunities to reduce collisions and improve access to healthcare for those who need it most-particularly high-cost, high-need individuals at the younger and older ends of the age spectrum. There is also potential to connect individuals to jobs and change the way cities organize space and optimize trips. To date, very little discussion has centered around the job and social implications of this technology. Further, policy dialogue on future transport has lagged-particularly in the arenas of sustainability and social justice. Little work has been done on decision-making in this high uncertainty environment-a deficiency that is concerning given that land use and transportation actions have long and lagging timelines. This is one of the first books to explore the impact that emerging transport technology is having on cities and their residents, and how policy is needed to shape the cities that we want to have in the future. The book contains a selection of contributions based on the most advanced empirical research, and case studies for how future transport can be harnessed to improve urban sustainability and justice.
Asphalt and Politics - A History of the American Highway System (Paperback)
Thomas L Karnes
From animal paths to superhighways, transportation has been the backbone of American expansion and growth. This examination of the interstate highway system in the United States, and the forces that shaped it, includes the introduction of the automobile, the Good Roads Movement, and the Lincoln Highway Association. It offers an analysis of state and federal road funding, modern road-building options, and the successes and failures of the current highway system.
Transport, Travel and Later Life (Hardcover)
This book, set within a social gerontology and transport behaviour studies paradigm, examines current debates and issues around transport for older people and its relationship to health and wellbeing for individuals and society as a whole. This timely title explores transport and travel needs and motivations of older people, barriers older people face using public and community transport, difficulties in accessing public spaces for walking and cycling. The safety of older drivers and recent advances in technology are also investigated. Concluding by looking to the future in addressing digital cities, driverless cars and other changes in ICT that may affect older people and their travel behaviour, a variety of global perspectives examine the social aspects of mobility and transport from a psychological, sociological, and geographical perspective. This title will be of interest to those working with older people in the health and wellbeing sector, those involved in transport and town and country planning and academics examining gerontology and associated social science subjects.
The Great Landmark Race (Paperback)
Christopher J Elliott
Building Blocks for Sustainable Transport - Obstacles, Trends, Solutions (Hardcover)
Veli Himanen, Martin Lee-Gosselin, Adriaan Perrels
R2,044 R717 Discovery Miles 7 170 Save R1,327 (65%)
This book argues that the issues surrounding sustainable transport constitute a new - post-modern - phase in transport policy and management. Achieving sustainable transport requires more than 'optimal' management of congestion and the effects on public health and the environment. Assessments of external effects, and their optimal levels, tend to be piecemeal, localized, and focused on a specific type of effect. Sustainability, on the other hand, is a comprehensive, forward-looking concept that encompasses the achievement of a state of society that is better overall; it requires a widened concept of welfare that includes environmental quality and social justice in both the short and long term. This book is organized into three sections, each discussing a major set of challenges to the transition to a sustainable transport system.
Graphs and Networks - Multilevel Modeling (Hardcover)
Philippe Mathis
This book concerns the use of graphs for the simulation and representation of transport networks.
Its aim is to cover networks in both spatial analysis and urban management, together with the simulation by graph theory, a tool that makes it possible to solve various classic problems such as high-speed roads between one or more origins and destinations, the capacity of a network, etc. It will also be possible to apply these results to other applications such as personal networks and communications networks, making this book a useful reference tool for those involved in this area.
Road Passenger Transport Management - Planning and Coordinating Passenger Transport Operations (Hardcover)
Tony Francis, David Hurdle
Road passenger transport management is an important role, involving the planning and coordinating of passenger transport operations, including routes and schedules. Managers ensure that passengers reach their destinations safely, on time and in the most cost-effective way. Road Passenger Transport Management covers all the essential tasks a transport manager is expected to master. Road Passenger Transport Management provides tips and tools for working with customers, planning routes and scheduling delivery times, as well as managing a team of supervisors, administration staff and drivers. The authors include guidelines for coordinating staff training and arranging vehicle maintenance, MOTs and tax payments, as well as organizing vehicle replacements and managing contracts and developing new business. This is a contributed book, with expertise shared from well-known academics and practitioners who have spent many years in the passenger transport field. The tools and case studies in this vital new guide will enable readers to learn new skills or build on existing expertise. Online supporting resources include sample performance reports and target assessment forms.
Transportation and Traffic Theory - Flow, Dynamics and Human Interaction - Proceedings of the 16th International Symposium on Transportation and Traffic Theory (Hardcover)
Hani S. Mahmassani
The ISTTT series is the main gathering for the world??'s transportation and traffic theorists, and the resulting volume is a field-defining milestone featuring the most promising thinking and theoretical developments. It reflects the major renewal the field is experiencing, with the entry of many new scientists from a variety of disciplines, and the mutual coexistence of a growing number of theoretical perspectives and modelling cultures.
While this volume covers a wide range of aspects of the modelling of transportation processes as complex systems, an overarching theme is the recognition that these systems are a collective expression of individual human decisions. A significant number of the contributions published here therefore deal with some aspect of human behaviour ??? whether as travellers, drivers, passengers, operators, or regulators ??? reflecting the great strides being made in developing theories and mathematical representations of these phenomena.
Essential reading for anyone interested in researching or understanding traffic and transportation phenomena and in developing effective approaches to planning, design and management of transportation systems.
Transport Survey Quality and Innovation (Hardcover, New)
P. Jones, Peter R. Stopher
This overview of developments in transport survey methods from around the world emphasises survey quality and innovation. It contains selected papers from the International Conference on Transport Survey Quality and Innovation, held in the Kruger National Park, South Africa, during August 2001. The conference covered both passenger and freight transport, but was limited to surveys that collect information directly from individuals or organisations so it excludes traffic counts or other observational data collection. Many delegates were from Sub-Saharan Africa and other less developed regions of the world, so there was also an interest in identifying user needs and exploring what can be accomplished outside the North American/Western European regions of the world. This conference was the eighth in a series of international conferences on Survey Methods held since the late 1970s, the previous one having been held in Germany in May 1997, entitled "Transport Surveys: Raising the Standard."
Social Change and Sustainable Transport (Hardcover)
William R. Black, Peter Nijkamp
Transportation research has traditionally been dominated by engineering and logistics research approaches. This book integrates social, economic, and behavioral sciences into the transportation field. As its title indicates, emphasis is on socioeconomic changes, which increasingly govern the development of the transportation sector.
The papers presented here originated at a conference on Social Change and Sustainable Transport held at the University of California at Berkeley in March 1999, under the auspices of the European Science Foundation and the National Science Foundation.
The contributors, who represent a range of disciplines, including geography and regional science, economics, political science, sociology, and psychology, come from twelve different countries. Their subjects cover the consequences of environmentally sustainable transportation vs. the "business-as-usual" status quo, the new phenomenon of "edge cities," automobile dependence as a social problem, the influence of leisure or discretionary travel and of company cars, the problems of freight transport, the future of railroads in Europe, the imposition of electronic road tolls, potential transport benefits of e-commerce, and the electric car.
Integration of Transport and Trade Facilitation - Selected Regional Case Studies (Paperback)
Due to declining transport costs and declining tariffs, trade has grown much faster than income since World War II. Furthermore, international trade flows are penetrating deeper into the workings of most economies, linking them to one another, and modifying their economic structure and productivity. It is in this context that there has been an increase in the formation of regional trade blocks. 'Integration of Transport and Trade Facilitation' analyzes the scope and the status of the interrelated processes of trade and transport integration in a subset of these trading blocs. This book provides a detailed analysis of trade integration patterns in each trade bloc. The examination begins with a review of the context of the economic and institutional evolution in the region with an economic profile of the component members, and concludes with an assessment of the nature and extent of trade integration. The report also explores the scope of the parallel transport integration. A final chapter in the book provides a case study of Rotterdam, a successful major hub that has kept its position as the world's largest port for four decades.
Studies on China's High-Speed Rail New Town Planning and Development (Paperback, 1st ed. 2019)
Lan Wang, Hao Gu
This book focuses on high-speed rail (HSR) and new town planning and development related to HSR, approaching the issue from three different perspectives: economic cooperation at a regional level; HSR-based economic growth point at a city level; and mixed land use and building environment in the periphery area of HSR stations. On the basis of simulations and case studies, it proposes practical planning principles and suggestions for area development, providing planners with a theoretical framework to incorporate the transportation system into new town planning. It also serves as a valuable reference source for the authorities, enabling them to make evidence-based and rational decisions.
Planning and Operation of Plug-In Electric Vehicles - Technical, Geographical, and Social Aspects (Paperback, 1st ed. 2019)
Mehdi Rahmani-Andebili
This book highlights the latest advancements in the planning and operation of plug-in electric vehicles (PEV). In-depth, the book presents essential planning and operation techniques to manage the PEV fleet and handle the related uncertainties associated with the drivers' behavior. Several viewpoints are presented in the book, ranging from the local distribution companies to generation companies to the aggregators. Problems such as parking lot allocation and charging management are investigated, taking into consideration the technical, geographical, and social aspects in a smart grid infrastructure. Discusses the technical specifications of electrical distribution and generation systems; Models drivers' behavior from the sociology and economic points of view; Considers the real geographical characteristics of area and driving routes in San Francisco, CA, US; Chicago, IL, US; and Tehran, Iran.
Bay Area in 2015 - A ULI Survey of Views on Housing, Transportation, and Community in the Greater San Francisco Bay Area (Paperback)
Uli Terwilliger Center for Housing, Building Healthy Places Initiative, Uli San Francisco
Transit Tolling in the United States - Background, Issues, Data (Paperback)
Kurtis Slater
Book & CD-ROM. The failure of federal highway user taxes and fees to provide sufficient revenues to support even baseline surface transportation spending levels has encouraged Congress to consider expanded toll financing. Congress has cautiously encouraged increased use of tolling in recent transportation legislation, including the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act. Congress could achieve an expansion of tolling in several ways. At one extreme, it could simply encourage additional tolling pilot projects and a further expansion of tolling-supported innovative finance, such as more loans for road and bridge construction through the U.S. Department of Transportation's (DOT's) Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) program, which would be repaid through user tolls. At the other extreme, Congress might authorize states to toll federal-aid highways as they see fit, or even require that Interstate Highway segments be converted to toll roads as they undergo reconstruction in the future, eventually turning all Interstates into toll roads. This book discusses the background of transit tolling in the United States, as well as issues and data on the issue.
Tiny Transit - Cut Carbon Emissions in Your City Before It's Too Late (Paperback)
Susan Engelking
Tiny Transit is safe, low speed, low cost, low stress, low emission, climate-conscious mobility for this generation and those to come. Within Tiny Transit, Susan Engelking, founder of Tiny Transit Strategies, describes an innovative, proven solution: protected networks for small, low speed, low cost, low emission vehicles. For cities, this concept is a game changer. For the nation, this new transportation alternative is a step toward economic resilience, reduced carbon emissions, and energy independence. In Tiny Transit, government employees learn: Why LEAN Networks (Low Emission Alternative Networks) are the future Lessons from early adopters How to build LEAN Lanes with the crumbs of major transportation projects Why the prime directive is "safety, safety, safety" How to introduce this game changer to their member cities - and the quickest way to build a groundswell of popular support
Moving Towards Low Carbon Mobility
Moshe Givoni, David Banister Paperback R868 Discovery Miles 8 680
Forecasting Urban Travel - Past, Present…
David E Boyce, Huw C. W. L. Williams Paperback R1,141 Discovery Miles 11 410
Decision-Making for Sustainable…
Cathy Macharis, Gino Baudry Hardcover R2,669 Discovery Miles 26 690
Governing Compact Cities - How to…
Philipp Rode Hardcover R2,619 Discovery Miles 26 190
Planning the Mobile Metropolis…
Luca Bertolini Hardcover R3,060 Discovery Miles 30 600
The Syntax of City Space - American…
Mark David Major Hardcover R3,075 Discovery Miles 30 750
Automated and Autonomous Spatial…
Aharon Kellerman Hardcover R2,330 Discovery Miles 23 300
Transportation and the Culture of…
Tatiana Prorokova-Konrad Paperback R822 Discovery Miles 8 220
Rail Economics, Policy and Regulation in…
Matthias Finger, Pierre Messulam Hardcover R3,362 Discovery Miles 33 620
Handbook on Transport and Urban Planning…
Michiel Bliemer, Corinne Mulley, … Hardcover R5,583 Discovery Miles 55 830
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‘Running Together Is the Best Part of Our Lives’
Jim and Jennifer Davis
This is the final installment in a weekly series profiling runners participating in this year’s Boston Marathon on behalf of BWH.
Jim Davis was a mile into last year’s Boston Athletic Association 5K when suddenly he couldn’t breathe. The last thing he remembered was hearing his wife, Jennifer, who was also running in the race, call out for help.
“I knew something was wrong,” said Jim, a professor from Utah. “I thought I had been fighting a cold a week or so before the race, but it ended up being much worse.”
Jim was rushed by ambulance to Massachusetts General Hospital, where doctors discovered that four major arteries in his heart were 75 percent blocked. Two days later, on Marathon Monday, he underwent heart surgery.
The events of that weekend were supposed to play out much differently for the pair who met on a blind date almost four years ago. They had planned to run the 5K together that Saturday, and then Jennifer was set to run her 16th consecutive Boston Marathon on Monday.
“We were so excited, but then everything changed in the blink of an eye,” said Jennifer, a commercial interior designer and long-time runner. “We went from hearing the cheers from the crowds along the route to hearing sirens.”
Jennifer ended up not running the 2016 Boston Marathon. Instead, she watched the race on TV from her husband’s hospital room – an image Jim says he’ll never be able to forget.
“I saw the pain in Jennifer’s eyes as she sat there watching the elite runners take off,” he said. “I wanted nothing more than for her to run. She should have been there. It breaks my heart she ended her string of consecutive Boston Marathons because of what happened to me.”
Before surgery, Jim, who wore Jennifer’s Boston Marathon bib as he was wheeled into the operating room, made a promise to his wife that they would run together in the 2017 Boston Marathon. And that’s exactly what they will do on Monday, April 17.
While researching different teams they could join for the 2017 race, Jennifer and Jim said they were inspired to run with BWH’s Stepping Strong Marathon Team after learning more about the mission and work of The Gillian Reny Stepping Strong Center for Trauma Innovation.
Jim said he wants to run to help raise awareness of the center and everything it does to inspire hope and transform outcomes for civilians and soldiers who have suffered traumatic injuries and events. He also felt a personal connection to BWH, as one of his care providers, Sanjay Divakaran, MD, was a BWH Cardiovascular Medicine fellow doing a rotation at MGH at the time of Jim’s surgery.
“Being in Boston for the Marathon literally saved my life,” said Jim, who will run his first Boston Marathon this year. “I received care in the greatest city for health care in the world. I want to run to save the lives of others. Running with the Stepping Strong team is an absolute honor.”
The couple has run several races together, including a marathon at Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Africa, but participating in the Boston Marathon together will be something they’ll forever cherish.
Describing the Boston Marathon as the “Super Bowl of races,” Jim is looking forward to crossing the finish line holding Jennifer’s hand.
“Running together is the best part of our lives,” Jim said. “Running Boston with Jennifer is a dream come true. I’m so much happier when I’m running alongside her. It means the world to me that in just a few short days, we’ll be back in the city that saved my life.”
To learn more about the BWH marathon program, visit crowdrise.com/steppingstrongboston2017.
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Joy from the Truth. Earn Your Degree Or Certificate Online While Deepening Your Faith!
Select Your Program Master of Arts (Theology) MA in Theology and Educational Ministry MA (Theology) Accelerated Track BA in Theology AA in Liberal Arts Catechetical Diploma Graduate Certificates Undergraduate Catechetical Coordinator Certificate Continuing Education
Joy from the Truth.
Earn Your Degree or Certificate Online While Deepening Your Faith!
Master of Arts (Theology) MA in Theology and Educational Ministry MA (Theology) Accelerated Track BA in Theology AA in Liberal Arts Catechetical Diploma Graduate Certificates Undergraduate Catechetical Coordinator Certificate Continuing Education
COVID-19 CDU Community Update
Be assured that Catholic Distance University remains fully operational, and there will be no disruption to educational services or contact with our staff or faculty. Until further notice, staff will work remotely. We encourage you to communicate with us by email to ensure a prompt response. Staff will continue to receive phone calls and voicemail, but mail will be checked only occasionally. We pray that you and your loved ones remain safe and healthy during this unprecedented time. University officials will continue to post any updates here.
Don't Put Your Education on Hold. Make This the Year to Grow in Your Faith. Apply to an Academic Program Today!
Registration for the Winter II term is open. Classes begin March 8th. View courses here.
MA Grad Reflects on Growth in Knowledge and Faith
In 2017, I was living with my husband and four children in Hawaii where the Army had sent us. While my youngest son was only two years old at the time, I started thinking about what kind of job I wanted to have when he would start Kindergarten. In what I can only describe as a “Holy Spirit moment,” I realized with great clarity that I should shift gears away from my background in business administration towards working in Religious Education. This would build on my previous experience as a corporate trainer and my volunteer experience at several military chapels where I had been active as a Catechist and as a leader in women’s ministries. I felt, and still feel, that Religious Education is the perfect sweet spot where I can use my skills and talents for something that brings me joy, helps others, and serves God. That summer, the previous Catholic Religious Education Coordinator (CREC) at the military chapel in Hawaii moved, and her position became open. The way the military works, I had to make a bid for my contract and was fortunate enough to be selected. The Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA (AMS) requires that all DREs and CRECs obtain a basic certificate in Catechesis, but I chose to go for a graduate certificate. Ever since I started learning about my faith on an adult level during my pre-cana religious education, I have loved growing in knowledge and being challenged to grow in faith. I researched different Catholic universities but chose CDU because the whole program was designed to be exclusively online, a major benefit for military families who move often and have crazy schedules, because of its existing partnership with the AMS, and because of the course descriptions. The application process was easy, and very soon I started my first course, THEO 503: The Catholic Theological Tradition, with Dr. Marcellino D’Ambrosio. I realized that I had found a “home,” and because I enjoyed studying theology so much, I applied to switch from a graduate certificate to the MA in Theology and Educational Ministry degree program. During my different classes, I found several classmates who were connected to the military including some on active duty joining from downrange. It helped me to feel understood when I shared about my work. Military chapels are unique in that most of the time, different Christian denominations and even other religions share buildings and resources. My studies helped me tremendously by letting me understand what the other denominations’ viewpoints were and how to defend the Catholic position firmly but charitably. THEO 640: Presenting the Faith in the Modern World was one of my most impactful courses in this regard. Another challenge in the military community is that the soldiers and families come from all of the different corners of our immensely diverse Catholic faith. In addition, frequent moves and the stressful life of training and deployments make it harder to build community and to form a team of well-trained Catechists. What helped me be successful was the emphasis on kerygmatic Catechesis and the conversion of the baptized that I took away from my courses SPIR 501: Applied Catholic Spirituality and RELED 560: Principles of Catholic Education. Now that my husband has retired from the military and we moved back to his hometown, I work at the civilian parish of Immaculate Heart of Mary in Indianapolis, IN. When I interviewed for the position, the Director of Religious Education of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis told me how highly he thinks of CDU. The main difference from my previous job is that I am now also working with the associated Catholic elementary school. I love that my children for the first time are able to attend a Catholic school and that I can assist in integrating faith formation with elementary education for them, as well as develop a strategy for life-long faith formation for all members of the parish. CDU has certainly prepared me by providing me the necessary theological knowledge and practical skills to be a Director of Religious Education, but what I appreciated the most is that the school and faculty went beyond that and helped me to not only grow in knowledge but in my personal faith as well. While I am still far away from sainthood, I am a better disciple now than before I attended CDU.—Ute Eble, MA in Theology and Educational Ministry (2020)
BA Program Admissions Requirements Streamlined
Over the past 20 years, more than 31 million students have enrolled in college and left without receiving a degree or certificate, according to the National Student Clearinghouse. To provide greater opportunity to those seeking to complete a Bachelor’s degree at a faithful Catholic college, Catholic Distance University has reduced the number of credits required to enter its fully online BA in Theology degree completion program from 48 to just 18. To allow students more time to earn their credits, the time limit for completing the program has been extended from 4 to 6 years. High Retention and Completion Rates CDU’s BA in Theology degree completion program is known for its high retention rate, which for the 2019–2020 terms is 86.8%. CDU’s retention rates are far above the norm for online universities, many of which struggle to retain students. According to U.S. News and World Report, the average retention rate among first-time, full-time students at online colleges is 55 percent and the average retention rate among first-time, part-time students is just 39 percent. By choosing CDU, students have a very high expectation of successfully completing the BA program. “[Coming to CDU] was a great decision,” says Adam Beerling, who earned a BA degree in Theology and then went on to complete an MA degree in Theology at CDU. “I had all of these college credits and no degree, and the BA in Theology was the answer I was searching for. And for the first time in my life, my education was now something I could be passionate about.” Program Prepares Students for Wide Range of Careers The BA in Theology degree completion curriculum helps to develop critical thinking skills that employers value highly. Humanistic skills, such as emotional intelligence, ethics, and communication, are also developed through the program. Such skills are applicable to a wide range of careers and are highly regarded in today’s workplace. According to a 2019 report by The College Board, Individuals with bachelor's degrees will earn $400,000 more in their lifetimes than those with just a high school diploma. College-educated workers are more likely to work for employers that offer health insurance, retirement plans, and other benefits as well. Greater Access to Higher Education for Working Adults CDU is committed to providing greater access to higher education through its affordable, flexible fully online programs that were designed around the needs of working adults. The university, which was founded in 1983, is featured in the Cardinal Newman Society College Guide, which was designed to help Catholic families learn about faithful Catholic colleges and navigate the college search process. With a student population that tends to be older than the traditional college student population, many CDU students have work, family, and volunteer responsibilities that make attending a campus-based program with fixed class times inconvenient or impossible. CDU’s Bachelor’s degree completion program allows them the flexibility to earn credits at a faster or slower pace according to their needs through classes that are asynchronous. CDU Is Transfer-Credit Friendly and Offers Flexibility CDU will accept up to 81 transfer credits toward the BA degree, and previous theology credits are not required. Students may have earned their credits at college or through the Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate, DANTES, or CLEP programs. Up to 30 such credits can be applied to the BA degree completion program. Students who wish to enter the degree completion program but have fewer than 18 credits can enroll in undergraduate courses at CDU prior to program acceptance to earn the required credits. The university also offers an AA degree program in Liberal Arts with a Concentration in Catholic Studies, and credits earned in that program can be applied to the BA degree program. Five academic terms are offered throughout the year, and most classes are just 8 weeks long, making it possible to earn the BA degree in four years from a faithful Catholic university that is committed to transmitting the true teachings of the Catholic Church. Online Campus Fosters Community and Student Success CDU’s robust Catholic community is fostered through a vibrant Student Life Center that is the online equivalent of a campus-based student union. In the SLC, students have access to a faculty advisor, a student life director who is a graduate of the MA in Theology degree program, and a student life coordinator who is a graduate of the AA degree program. Students engage in conversation with other students and the staff in the café and in a theological conversation area and pray together and enjoy fellowship in the chapel. In the SLC, they can also ask questions of a faculty advisor and access resources that promote student success.
Recently Ordained Deacon in Australia Earns MA Degree
Order of Malta member Deacon Adam Walk of Brisbane, Australia, recently completed his MA in Theology at CDU to meet the academic requirements for becoming a deacon in the Archdiocese of Brisbane. He is also a financial economist with a PhD from Griffith University with a busy career that involves lots of travel. Ordained in November 2019, he is nearing the end of his first year of service. “Being in the midst of a pandemic, it has been a very strange first year of ministry as a deacon,” Deacon Walk says. At this time last year, he wasn’t expecting to be assisting at online Masses without an assembly. His ministry is quite broad. He is a part-time police chaplain, he and his wife do pre-marriage and newly married ministry together, he is involved in governance roles within the Archdiocese that use his professional skills, and he serves at the parish where he is appointed assisting at Mass, as RCIA instructor, and as a member of the Pastoral Council. When asked what he enjoyed most about CDU, Deacon Walk says, “There are several aspects. The first—and this might sound like a strange answer when talking about an online institution—is community. I have never met a single one of my professors or fellow students in person, but I can say that I felt like I was part of a community that is both faithfully Catholic and eager to learn.” “This was encouraged by the professors—the second great aspect of CDU—who were passionate about their subject matter and committed to the learning experience of their students,” he continues. “As someone who has studied most of his adult life in one form or another—face-to-face and online, undergraduate to doctoral level—I can say that I have never had a better collection of teachers than I had at CDU.” Deacon Walk appreciated the flexibility as well, which allowed him to fit in his study commitments around his professional work and travel schedule. “It was great to have so many teaching periods, because it allowed me to progress quicker than I otherwise could have,” he says. “I completed PHIL 508 Philosophy for Theology in five cities: Brisbane, Melbourne, London, Oxford, and Rome, with a lot of time on planes for reading!” he adds. Deacon Walk was in his 30s when he entered the Church in the Easter season of 2006, receiving the sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, and first Holy Communion. “From then I was quite intentional about formation because I felt I had a lot to learn,” he says. As he learned more about the Church, he became aware of the diaconate and the fact that it was open to married men. In 2014, a Texan friend suggested he consider the diaconate. He prayed about it, discussed it with his wife, to whom he has now been married for 21 years, and decided to apply to the program in his hometown of Brisbane. He was accepted in 2015 and began searching for a theology degree program to fulfil the academic requirements for becoming a deacon. “I was on the lookout for a good quality theology program that was flexible enough to balance with my professional life,” Deacon Walk says. He began studying through a distance education provider in Australia but found that it was less a curriculum and more a selection of courses. In late 2015, Deacon Walk learned about CDU when a podcast of The Catholic Café—which is a ministry of the Order of Malta hosted by Deacon Jeff Drzycimski of the Diocese of Memphis—popped up on his iPhone featuring CDU President Dr. Marianne Mount. “In the podcast, Dr. Mount refers to an Ordinariate priest from Brisbane – my home town – who had completed CDU’s MA. In any event, Dr. Mount was very convincing, and it was clear from the example she gave that I could study from here,” Deacon Walk says. “Once I learned that CDU is recommended by the Newman Guide, my decision was made.” Campion College—a Catholic liberal arts college based in Sydney of which Deacon Walk is a trustee—is also listed in the Newman Guide. His discernment continued throughout the formation process. “I knew I was in the hands of the Church in terms of whether I would be ordained, so I just tried to do my bit and see where it led,” he says. “I was ordained on the Feast of St. Andrew last year, around six months prior to completing the MA at CDU.” “I couldn’t imagine trying to fulfil my responsibilities as a deacon without the academic formation I received at CDU,” Deacon Walk says. He was attracted to the CDU program partly it culminated in a comprehensive exam, which isn’t common at universities in Australia. “I thought preparing for a comprehensive exam would force me to synthesize content from a range of subjects. So, in a way, it was the fear of having to one day give a homily that drew me to CDU,” he adds. Deacon Walk’s professional work is divided between being an investment advisor to wealthy clients and small institutions, such as foundations, and fulfilling governance roles for a range of organizations. Earlier in his career, Deacon Walk taught economics and finance mostly to graduate students at several universities and published research in his field. He is an adjunct faculty member with the business school of the University of Notre Dame Australia currently, though his responsibilities in service to the Church preclude him from pursuing research with the same focus as a full-time academic. “In my professional work, I am in a position of trust where I am required to act in the best interests of others, be they clients or, say, the beneficiaries of the pension fund of which I am a trustee director,” Deacon Walk says. “In this sense, there are some similarities with being a deacon, which places me in a position of trust where I am called to serve others.”
WHAT OUR GRADUATES ARE SAYING ABOUT CDU
Achieved their
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As reported in CDU’s 2019 DEAC Annual Report, based on program exit survey data.
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304-724-5000 | Toll Free 1-888-254-4CDU | Fax 304-724-5017 info@cdu.edu 300 South George Street, Charles Town, WV 25414
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Home > News < Are Jews Afraid of Identity?
Are Jews Afraid of Identity?
A survey conducted by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) to mark the anniversary of the shooting at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue that killed 11 people last year has revealed that nearly a third of Jewish Americans avoid wearing things that may reveal their religious identity • Full Story
25th of Tishri, 5780 - October 24, 2019
vosizneias.com
A survey conducted by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) to mark the anniversary of the shooting at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue that killed 11 people last year has revealed that nearly a third of Jewish Americans avoid wearing things that may reveal their religious identity.
The AJC released the results of its survey on Wednesday. It was conducted with 1,283 respondents over almost a month. The study found that nearly a third of those polled have “avoided publicly wearing, carrying or displaying things that might help people identify them as Jews.” Another 25% said that they avoid specific places, events or situations
And a quarter of respondents said they avoid places, events or situations out of concern for their safety or comfort as Jews.
The Anti-Defamation League(ADL) recently stated that the rate of anti-Semitic incidents has doubled in the U.S. since 2015, a statistic that led ADL National Director Jonathan Greenblatt to decry the “alarmingly high number of anti-Semitic acts” in the US.
Last year had the third-highest totals for assault, harassment and vandalism against Jews since the Anti-Defamation League started tracking such incidents in 1979, according to the organization. There were a total of 1,879 attacks against Jews and Jewish institutions across the country, according to a report from the ADL.
Besides the attack in the Tree of Life synagogue last year, there was another attack in a synagogue on the final day of Pesach in Poway, California in which a gunman killed one woman and wounded three others at Congregation Chabad, including an 8-year-old girl and her uncle, who was visiting from Israel. The rabbi of the congregation lost a finger in the attack.
The AJC survey suggests that Jewish Americans are feeling the impact of these attacks. Nearly nine out of 10 say that anti-Semitism is a current problem in the US, and 72% say they do not approve of the Trump administration’s handling of the threat, according to the survey.
Tags: Antisemitism
Predictable Outcome of Mayor’s Rhetoric
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City,Transportation Department say Stats Show Allston Street Pilot a Success
By the numbers, the change in direction for Allston Street has been a total success, according to figures released last week by the Boston Transportation Department (BTD).
To a person, not everyone likes the new configuration – which took away Allston Street as the one street on the west end of Medford Street that went up the hill.
The new configuration, which was initiated in a pilot program last year by the BTD, changed the direction of Allston Street so it matches the rest of the streets in going down the hill from Bunker Hill Street. As the only street that went up, it was often known as the ‘Highway Up the Hill.’ With it being so narrow and a major cut-through, some residents advocated for a reversal due to public safety concerns.
In October, the BTD initiated a 90-day pilot to see what the effects of reversing the street would be.
Last week, they said it was a success, as it slowed down traffic and didn’t push anyone onto neighboring streets.
“The results of this study indicate that the recent change in direction of traffic flow on Allston Street has significantly reduced the daily traffic volume on Allston Street, while not significantly increasing the daily traffic volumes on adjacent streets,” read the BTD report. “Also, travel speeds did not increase on any of the streets within the study area, and actually decreased on seven out of eight streets. These results are consistent with the City’s initiatives aimed at reducing the number and severity of crashes on local residential streets by lessening the impacts of cut-through traffic and reducing travel speeds.”
That said, the change does reverse a traffic flow that many have grown accustomed to all of their lives – and a good majority of the traffic going up the hill were local residents. So, there has been some grumbling over the change and the inconvenience of having to drive all the way to Main Street to get up to Bunker Hill from Medford Street.
Those advocating for the change, such as Marney McCabe, said last year it came from new residents and old residents, and was all about the safety of children, families and the elderly.
“There are a lot of residents who have lived here a long time and there are also a lot of people like me who are newer to the street and have made our homes here with the intention of raising our kids here,” she said in October. “We all have a lot invested in our street and we all are very happy with this solution…We have been working with the City on this a number of years and are happy our voices were finally heard. We are happy that we have the support of City Hall and that we have the support of the greater neighborhood too.”
The greatest decline in volumes, quite obviously, was on Allston Street, where the numbers of vehicles per day decreased by 693 – with volumes going from 854 per day to 161 per day. The study measured volumes on June 25, 2014 versus Jan. 11, 2017.
The only streets to increase were Sackville Street, but only by eight cars a day. Polk Street increased by 56 per day and Elm Street stayed the same.
The other street volume changes are as follows:
•Mystic Street, 306 to 261 (down by 45)
•Sackville Street, 198 to 206 (up by eight)
•Belmont Street, 223 to 176, (down by 47)
•Cook Street, 354 to 272, (down by 82)
•Pearl Street, 310 to 243 (down by 67)
•Elm Street, 510 to 510 (no change)
•Polk Street, 981 to 1,037 (up by 56)
At the same time, average speeds compared from June 25, 2014 to Jan. 11, 2017 also decreased.
On Allston Street, speeds decreased by the most, at 3 mph (from 21 to 18 mph on average). Cook Street was the second slowest, going down 2 mph (from 20 to 18 mph).
All other streets, as listed above, decreased by 1 mph. Only Polk Street had no change in speed, staying at 22 mph – though that has likely changed in recent weeks with the construction of a new apartment building there.
The City will likely make a final decision on whether to keep the street downhill soon, but based upon the data, it appears that change is likely to be permanent.
Dr. Paula Milone-Nuzzo is Named President of MGH Institute of Health Professions in Boston →
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Indigo Girls at Taft Theatre
Monday, September 16, 2019, 9:36am
Indigo Girls will stop at Taft Theatre this Thursday! The power of unity, both in music and in life, has been an Indigo Girls calling card ever since they burst into the spotlight with their 1989 self-titled breakout album. Since then, the band has racked up a slew of Gold and Platinum records, taken home a coveted GRAMMY Award, and earned the respect of high-profile peers-turned-collaborators from Michael Stipe to Joan Baez. Personally, some of my happiest memories are of me and a few of my girlfriends trying to harmonize just like Emily and Amy in my car.
The Indigo Girls have spent over thirty-five years performing together, and have toured arenas, festivals, and clubs the world over. It is rare to find musicians together so long, rarer still with such profound successes. Their music lives in the hearts of generations of dedicated fans and continues to inspire young musicians. This loyalty is not accidental. Perhaps their relevance over three decades can be credited to the mighty collisions of distinct aesthetics forging new paths over time.
The Indigo Girls have been consistently writing, recording and touring since 1988. After releasing nine albums with major record labels from 1987 through 2007, they have since been self-producing albums with their own IG Recordings company.
Decades into their career, the Indigo Girls still amaze with their ability to grow and thrive no matter what the state of the music industry is at any given point. The duo’s constant touring, as well as dedication to a number of social and environmental causes, has earned them a VERY devoted following over the years.
7pm doors / 8pm show
Jon Calderas
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Sweden bank partners with TCS for digital transformation
TCS BaNCS platform was recently adopted by Euroclear for its Market Infrastructure platform and also by the Central Securities Depository in the Nordics region.
Sweden’s Länsförsäkringar Bank has partnered with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and its banking platform BaNCS to aid in its future growth and transformation. The company will also provide in addition system integration and support services to the bank.
Rikard Josefson, CEO, Länsförsäkringar Bank, said that TCS' long term commitment to Länsförsäkringar Bank and to the Nordic market was an important factor behind the decision to partner with them. "With TCS BaNCS we are confident of achieving our business transformation objectives.”
N Ganapathy Subramaniam, President, TCS Financial Solutions, said TCS BaNCS' functionality will underpin Länsförsäkringar Bank's next-generation digital banking services and offer a highly personalized customer experience. "At the same time TCS BaNCS will reduce the time to market for new products, time to compliance for regulations, and cost of operations,” he added.
On Tuesday, the company also announced the opening of its new office in Toronto. TCS Canada currently serves more than a hundred large Canadian enterprises from its existing offices in Montreal, Calgary and Vancouver in Canada.
TCS BaNCS platform
Sweden bank
Rikard Josefson
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