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The EMP Threat is Being Recognized…Finally
June 25, 2014Jun 25, 2014
Good News! The Secure the Grid Coalition finally appears to be making headway with some members of Congress. While most people are unaware of the very serious threat to our electric grid, we have covered this issue on multiple occasions in this Blog. Here are just a few examples:
How Could North Korea be an Economic Threat?
American Blackout Provides Just a Taste of The EMP Threat
The EMP Threat is Growing and We Must Prepare
An EMP Attack Would Be Economic Warfare
Only recently has the leadership in the Congress even begun to recognize just how serious this really is (despite multiple government studies that have documented the threat). In that regard, the following story becomes very important:
CONGRESS WANTS MORE ANSWERS ON EMP THREAT
By: Josh Peterson 6/25/2014 08:42 AM This article originally appeared on watchdog.org.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Members of Congress want to know more about the capabilities America's adversaries possess to shut down the nation's power grid.
The intelligence authorization bill passed by the House of Representatives on May 30 includes a provision mandating the head of the U.S. intelligence community, the director of national intelligence, submit to Congress within six months of the bill's passage "a report on the threat posed by man-made electromagnetic pulse weapons to United States interests through 2025, including threats from foreign countries and foreign non-State actors."
The current North Korean regime's goal of being recognized as a nuclear power and the apocalyptic vision of Iran's religious leadership reportedly motivate both nations to pursue weapons able to emit a catastrophic electromagnetic pulse of energy that could knock out the power grid and kill millions of Americans within the first few minutes of the blast. The provision was attached to the bill without objection as an amendment introduced by Arizona Republican U.S. Rep. Trent Franks, leader of the Congressional EMP Caucus, prior to its passage onto the Senate.
Upon introducing the amendment to the bill, Franks emphasized he wasn't looking to task another federal agency with assessing the U.S. electric grid's vulnerabilities to EMPs and solar storms, also known as geomagnetic disturbances.
"In fact, Mr. Chairman, there have now been nearly a dozen federal government reports and studies on the dangers, threats and vulnerabilities the U.S. electric grid faces from EMP and GMD, including reports from the EMP Commission, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Defense, Department of Energy, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the National Academy of Sciences, and the U.S. national laboratories," Franks said.
"All of them come to similar conclusions," he said, "the U.S. electric grid is dangerously vulnerable to EMP and GMD."
The Senate's version of the bill, however, scheduled for a potential vote this week in the House, makes no mention of assessing threats from electromagnetic pulse weapons. The bill is sponsored by California Democratic U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, chairwoman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
Concern over the vulnerability of modern civilization's electrical backbone isn't new. Nearly 52 years ago, the electromagnetic shockwave of a 1.4 megaton nuclear weapon detonated by the U.S. government 250 miles above the Pacific Ocean, Starfish Prime, disrupted electricity and phone service over 800 miles east of the blast in Hawaii…Soviet scientists observed similar effects during their own high-altitude nuclear weapons tests during the Cold War, according to the testimony of a Defense Department official during a congressional hearing in 1997…
As previously reported by Watchdog.org, experts have warned that while the military has been hardening its systems for years against the possibility of an attack from the Soviet Union during the Cold War, the civilian world is woefully unprepared.
A 2013 report by London-based insurance market Lloyd's of London considered a Carrington-level geomagnetic storm to be "almost inevitable in the future," and damages could cost the economy from $600 billion to $2.6 trillion. The report also estimates that between 20-40 million people in the United States were at risk of an extended power outage lasting between 16 days to 1-2 years due to the damage caused by a Carrington-level geomagnetic storm.
Peter Vincent Pry, executive director for the Task Force on National and Homeland Security, told lawmakers on Capitol Hill during a hearing in May he believed the damages wrought by an EMP could kill as many as nine out of 10 Americans. Pry also served in the Central Intelligence Agency, as professional staff on the House Armed Services Committee, and on the Congressional EMP Commission, which was established by Congress in 2001 to research the U.S. electric grid's vulnerabilities to an EMP attack.
The costs of upgrading the grid, by comparison, are a drop in the bucket. The Congressional EMP Commission, for example, estimated a $2 billion investment would be enough to protect the grid, approximately the same cost of the 2012 presidential election. While testifying before the North Carolina Joint Legislative Commission on Energy Policy in December 2013, Pry told state lawmakers he estimated $10 million would be enough to protect North Carolina's grid. Upgrade costs appear to become even more manageable when considered on an individual ratepayer basis. Over three-and-a-half years ago, a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission study found upgrades to protect the power grid from such a blast could mean as little as 20 cents extra per month for ratepayers' electric bills over three years.
Not willing to wait for the federal government to act on the problem, states have taken it upon themselves to protect their residents. Frank Gaffney, founder and president of the Center for Security Policy, a Washington, D.C.-based national security think tank, told Watchdog.org, however, better answers are still needed to address the problem. Gaffney, like Pry, is one of a few experts working to spread awareness about the EMP threat to the nation's infrastructure.
"What we do know is that when estimates by Lloyd's of London, or by the National Academy of Sciences, state that the costs to the country will run in the trillions, and take years to put Humpty Dumpty back together again, it gives you a sense of the magnitude of the danger that we're facing, and therefore why the investment needs to be made, whatever it is," Gaffney said.
To CONTINUE Reading at Human Events…
Couple this story with the reality that terrorists took down the power grid in Yemen recently (as shared at http://securethegrid.com):
Op-Ed: Terrorists Blackout Yemen – A Warning?
JUNE 25, 2014 b y Dr. Peter Vincent Pry originally published at israelnationalnews.com
For the first time in history, a terrorist attack on the electric power grid has blacked-out an entire nation. Media attention has been so focused on the terror group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), on their brutal conquest of northern Iraq and advance toward Baghdad, that the perhaps even more significant terrorist threat in Yemen has been ignored.
On June 9, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), used rocket propelled grenade launchers and mortars to destroy transmission towers, plunging the whole of Yemen into blackout. The AQAP blackout of Yemen's electric grid has gone largely unreported.
Yemen, a nation of 24 million, is an important U.S. ally in the war on terrorism and has been the scene of some of the most significant episodes of that war. AQAP, based in Yemen, is notorious for its aggressive and ingenious terror operations against the United States.
For example, on October 12, 2000, AQAP used plastic explosives to convert a motorized dinghy into a torpedo that blasted the USS Cole, killing and injuring 56 sailors, and nearly sinking the sophisticated guided missile destroyer, worth almost one billion dollars. The 9/11 Commission attributed U.S. failure to retaliate for Cole as the proximate cause for Al Qaeda's launch of the September 11, 2001 holocaust that killed 3,000 Americans.
AQAP has disguised bombs to look like soft drinks, underclothing, and printing cartridges in its persistent efforts to smuggle explosives aboard airliners bound for the United States.
Last year, the Obama Administration evacuated U.S. embassies across the Middle East in response to a plot led by AQAP, involving coordinated activity by terror groups throughout the region.
On August 2, 2013, Administration and intelligence community officials disclosed that just days earlier, the U.S. intercepted communications among senior leaders of Al Qaeda indicating a major and imminent threat to U.S. interests somewhere in the region of the Middle East and North Africa.
Consequently, the State Department announced it was executing an "orderly downsizing", in effect an evacuation, of some two dozen embassies and diplomatic missions. The unprecedented evacuation included facilities in Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Yemen.
According to the Obama Administration, last year's terrorist teleconference was attended by more than 20 leaders of Al Qaeda and affiliates participating from the Middle East and North Africa. Al Qaeda members in the conference included Nigeria's Boko Haram, Pakistani Taliban, Al Qaeda in Iraq, Al Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb, Al Qaeda in Uzbekistan and others. One intelligence officer reportedly described the gathering as "a legion of doom".
During the terror conference, Al Qaeda leader al-Zawahiri promoted AQAP's leader Nasir al-Wuhayshi to "Ma'sul al-Amm"–roughly equivalent to "General Manager" of Al Qaeda.
The full objectives of last year's terror plot are unknown, but one goal included the takeover of Yemen. Teams of terrorists allegedly were already in position, many of them disguised as Yemeni military personnel, ready to attack and seize military bases throughout Yemen.
Why Yemen? Possibly because North Korea has provided to Yemen at least 15 Scud-B mobile missiles, capable of delivering nuclear, chemical, biological or high-explosive warheads weighing one ton to a range of 300 kilometers. Iran has demonstrated that Scud missiles can be ship-launched from a freighter.
The Obama Administration credited itself with thwarting last year's big terror plot by evacuating embassies and publicly warning allies, because nothing much happened. Some analysts, including myself, criticized the Administration for disclosing sources and methods, making it more likely that the U.S. and allies would be surprised the next time.
Is it possible that the big terror offensive now rolling across the Middle East is the unfolding of the plot planned last year? Media reporting acts as if the ISIS conquest of northern Iraq, Taliban attacks on nuclear-armed Pakistan, and the terror blackout in Yemen are unrelated. But all of these actors were plotting something together last year.
Worry most about the Yemen nationwide blackout–which tomorrow could be the United States.
A study by the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission found that attacks on just nine key transformer substations could blackout the entire nation for weeks or months. The Congressional Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Commission warned that a nuclear Scud missile launched from a freighter could blackout the U.S. for a year or more, killing up to 9 of 10 Americans by starvation and societal collapse.
Yemen is yet another warning to protect the U.S. electric grid.
Dr. Peter Vincent Pry is Executive Director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security, a Congressional Advisory Board, served in the Congressional EMP Commission, the Congressional Strategic Posture Commission, the House Armed Services Committee, the CIA and is author of the books Apocalypse Unknown and Electric Armageddon both available from CreateSpace.com and Amazon.com
Terrorists have proven a willingness and capability to exploit vulnerabilities in attacking power grids. Do not doubt. This is a serious threat that must be addressed. Hopefully Congress and the various states are getting the message.
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Equatorial Guinea's government is reshuffled
The appointment of the former finance minister to take charge of Equatorial Guinea's oil and gas sector is the most significant change in a cabinet reshuffle undertaken by the president, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, following his dismissal of the previous government at the start of this month. The new mines, industry and energy minister, Marcelino Owono Edu, had been finance and budget minister since 2003. He is expected to apply a more rigorous approach to supervising the oil and gas sector, which accounts for 90% of the GDP of Equatorial Guinea. The West African country produces about 360,000 barrels/day of oil, and last year started to export liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the Bioko Island complex, which is operated by Marathon Oil Company of the US and has a capacity of 3.7m tonnes/year.
Mr Obiang had been unsparing in his criticism of the outgoing prime minister, Ricardo Mangue Obama Nfubea, describing his team as one of the worst performing cabinets that he had ever appointed. He accused several of its members of incompetence and of diverting public funds and suggested that some of its members were either negligent or complicit in a coup plot in 2004. The criticism of outgoing governments has been a strategy commonly used by Mr Obiang to distance himself from the wrongdoings of his governments, despite the fact that he has absolute executive power and the cabinet responds mostly to his demands and not to those of the prime minister. However, the attacks on Mr Mangue's team were particularly virulent and some analysts claim that they were intended at humiliating the outgoing prime minister. Although Mr Mangue was a trusted ally of the president—he had been his lawyer for several years—his appointment as prime minister was resented by several members of the "old guard" who disliked his technocratic methods and may have influenced Mr Obiang's decision to sack him.
Mr Obiang appointed the ambassador to Spain, Ignacio Milam Tang, as the new prime minister on July 9th. Mr Milam is a member of the Fang ethnic group, which suggests that Mr Obiang has definitely given up the rule that the prime minister had to be a member of the minority Bubi ethnic group. (Mr Mangue was the first Fang to be appointed as head of the government since Mr Obiang came to power in 1979.) The new prime minister is considered a close ally of the president—he held several cabinet positions in the past—and his consensual approach is expected to be more acceptable to the members of the "old guard". Mr Obiang appointed the new cabinet the following week. Most of the heavyweights in the outgoing cabinet were reinstated in their old positions. These included the minister of defence, General Antonio Mba Nguema; the minister in charge of security, Colonel Manuel Nguema Mba; and the minister of foreign affairs, Pastor Micha Ondo Bilé. Mr Obiang's eldest son, Teodoro Nguema Obiang, remains minister of agriculture.
Petrol monitoring
Mr Owono's predecessor as energy minister, Atanasio Ela Ntugu Nsa, has left the cabinet for the time being. However, he had delegated much of the authority over the ministry's affairs to his deputy, Gabriel Ngema Lima, who also happens to be the second son of Mr Obiang. Mr Lima has been confirmed in his position of deputy minister, but there have been some rumours that he may leave soon to take a position in the private sector or to head Sonagas, the country's nascent natural gas company, which holds a 25% stake in Equatorial Guinea LNG. Mr Owono, who is said to enjoy the full confidence of the president, is expected to apply himself to improving the monitoring of the accounts of the national oil company, GEPetrol. Mr Owono was replaced at the Ministry of Finance by Estanislao Don Malavo, who was previously a deputy finance minister and is expected to pursue similar policies to that of his predecessor.
Despite the extensive cabinet reshuffle, Mr Obiang will continue to exercise power principally through a network of relatives and members of his Esangui clan of the Fang ethnic group, which originates from near Mongomo in the east of the country. The president will maintain absolute executive powers, while Mr Milam will just oversee the daily running of the administration. Policies will focus on rehabilitating the country's dilapidated infrastructure ahead of the presidential election scheduled to take place in 2009. Mr Obiang is expected to secure a landslide victory at the polls next year as the political system is characterised by clientelism, which ensures him the support of a significant proportion of the majority Fang ethnic group, and because the repressive methods of the regime's security apparatus will ensure that those opposing his rule will not vote for fear of reprisal.
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I am a London-trained Consultant Neurologist practicing privately in the London and Kent region. For a number of years, I have been also working for the NHS at Maidstone Hospital in Kent and King’s College Hospital in London.
As part of my work, I see a large number of people with wide ranging neurological conditions and I have developed expertise in the management of Neurological conditions including Headache, Migraine, Epilepsy, Multiple Sclerosis, Neuropathy, and Parkinson's Disease.
In addition to my general Neurological expertise, I also have a sub-speciality interest in Cognitive Disorders and I routinely see and treat patients who suffer from Dementia or from other causes of Cognitive Impairment. In 2015, I established the Cognitive Neurology Service in Kent which provides a state-of-the-art diagnostic service for people with Young Onset Dementia and atypical forms of Dementia. In recognition of the work that I have done to create and develop this service, I was awarded a Clinical Excellence Award in 2018. I collaborate closely with the Alzheimer’s Society who provide personalised help to patients under my care. I also belong to the Kent Young-Onset Dementia Network and the Young Dementia UK Network.
I graduated from Barts and The London Medical school in 2004 with prizes for outstanding academic achievement and I was awarded honours for a sub-internship in Internal Medicine that I had undertaken at the Mayo Clinic in America. I then completed my General Medical Training in London and subsequently went on to obtain distinction for an MSc. in Cognitive Neuropsychology at UCL, during which time I had conducted scientific research exploring neural mechanisms underlying memory and emotion.
Following this, I underwent Specialist Training in Neurology at several prestigious institutions in Central London including St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington, The Royal London Hospital, King's College Hospital, University College London Hospital and the internationally renowned National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery at Queen Square.
M.B.B.S. (London)
MSc. (London)
MRCP (UK) - Royal College of Physicians
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Tobias Walter is appointed Managing Director of Cunningham Lindsey Zorn GmbH
Cunningham Lindsey today announced the appointment of Tobias Walter as Managing Director of its German operations effective July 1st 2016. He replaces Dr Ulrich Mann, who is leaving the company after 21 years.
Mr Walter, joined Cunningham Lindsey in January 2016 as Commercial Director for Continental Europe, and he will retain his responsibilities for business development across Europe as part of his new role.
Jeroen Fröhlich, CEO Continental Europe for Cunningham Lindsey said: “I would like to congratulate Tobias on his new role. He brings a fresh perspective to our business, and the combination of his drive and market knowledge makes the future of Cunningham Lindsey in Germany very exciting. Supported by a deep understanding of our industry, he will be responsible for overseeing the implementation of new services supported by cutting-edge technologies, designed to improve our internal processes and our customers’ experience and service.”
“I would also like to express my deep gratitude to Ulrich for the outstanding contribution he has made to the business over the past 21 years. He has played a pivotal role in transforming our German operations into the successful and well-respected loss adjusting firm it is today. We are sorry to see him go, but will continue to work closely with him.”
Tobias Walter said “I am delighted to be given this opportunity. We have a first rate team and a great reputation in the market. We have a very firm foundation to both extend our existing business as well as to add new products and services, leveraging our global footprint. This will enable us to respond to changing market conditions and needs of our clients.”
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How One Woman Discovered the Powerful Link Between Sex and Self-Esteem
An ode to the lover who taught me to love my body.
I am in London, on book business, when I have the good fortune to meet a twenty-five-year-old Welshwoman named Hannah, with whom I became immediate friends. She is smart and honest, warm, and more than just a little wild. Her eyes are full of a wisdom she hasn't discovered, and laughter tumbles from her mouth and fills the air around her, charges it with an energy I can almost see. She is beautiful: She has ivory skin and big dark circles and lots of long curly hair wrapped around her shoulders. Hannah brims with life, seethes with sensuality; she moves her body with an impeccable combination of grace and power. No one can walk past her on the street without seeing it, without trying to get near it, to appropriate it somehow.
In a few hours, in cafés and office buildings and the back of taxicabs, we have exchanged the stories of our lives. She tells me about her first orgasm, which is surprisingly recent. About the man who has made her universe explode sexually, intellectually, every way it can. She tells me how she's been startled by the strength of her passion, frightened by the intensity of her desire, nervous that the changes in her mind and her body have come at the hands of a man.
"I feel like I've been reborn," she says. "Being alive has a whole new meaning. But it's also like I'm riding a huge and headstrong horse across an infinite plain. There's no control here. There's not even the illusion of control."
I tell her I believe that passion is uncontrollable by definition, that she'd never have experienced its freedom if she hadn't been willing first to surrender herself. That her passion is something not outside but inside of her, that it is not something to fear or control but to recognize as an unparalleled source of strength.
I am able to say all these things with something like confidence because I too have met a man recently— let's call him X— who adores and indulges and honors my body. For the first time in my life I feel perfectly sexy, perfectly sensual, perfectly free.
If you asked me, when I was twenty-five, to discuss my sensuality, my answer would have been a jumbled assembly line of body parts, pro and con. I would have talked about my good features, which are, in descending order, my calves, my collarbone, my feet, and breasts; my neutral features— my back, my waist, my thighs, and forearms; and the parts that work against me— my hips, my stomach, and my upper arms. My face and hair, I would have to say, generally work in my favor, though my cheekbones aren't high enough, my forehead is too high, and I have lately developed just the hint of a double chin.
It suddenly seemed I'd been overly grateful to too many of my former partners and much too quick to apologize.
If you had asked me, at twenty-five, to talk about my sexual power, I think I would have said I didn't have any. I was with a different man then, a man who took me to the Alaskan wilderness for the first time. He taught me to spot white Dall sheep against snow-covered cornices by waiting until their heads moved and their horns flashed in the sun. He showed me how the glaciers make weather, how to make sourdough and wild-blueberry pancakes, how you wake up one fall morning to find the whole Arctic tundra has turned from green to gold. He taught me how to stay out of the way of the grizzly bears, how to watch for them, to listen, to smell for the trace of their musk on the air.
That man hardly noticed my body, but the Alaskan wilderness gave me my first real lesson in the equations of desire. I wanted to know that wild country like nothing I had ever known before. And so I gave myself to it, scouring its mountainsides, crossing its glacial rivers, getting snowed on, sunburned, deluged, blown by its wind.
It is not, I can see, unlike the places X takes me, only now the landscape is my body, with all its seasons and storms and floods. And X worships it, as I worshipped the wilderness, wanting every inch of it, its every nuance, its every shade. Under his hands my body becomes magnificent, precious, every move I make full of the grace of a glacial river, every word I speak full of the blind confidence of a wild animal in heat. Even more important, X has made me understand that my sexuality has very little to do with the shape of my body, that at the center of my sexual being are so many things I've never imagined: the sound of my voice, the way I use language, my love for animals and wild places, in fact; the way I look the world, and him, in the eye.
X treasures me absolutely, and I give myself entirely. And though I've never jumped from an airplane, it must be a similar feeling: the initial terror giving way to pleasure as your parachute opens and all the air around you goes soft. I am learning, with X, the language of desire, a language that is written across my breasts and spoken from the insides of my thighs. It is a language I was deaf to all those years I tried to ignore my body, all those years I spent looking selectively into the mirror, seeing only pieces and never a passionate whole.
Now in the mirror I see a glow not unlike Hannah's. It has become easy for me to recognize it in other women. It is possible that we even give off some kind of scent.
"Look," I tell X, as we walk on the beach or through the open markets, "that woman's got a man at home who thinks she's the bitter end."
One day X and I were driving down the highway from Oakland to Fresno, and he said, "You know, if you wanted to, you could get laid by a different guy every night of the week."
I stared at the hot bugs accumulating on the windshield. This was not a possibility I had ever pondered before. I used to believe all I needed to do any time I wanted a date was lose fifteen pounds. X was showing me there were other possible formulas. Find one man who loves your body deeply and thoroughly, and every third man you pass on the street will want you. You, of course, have neither the time nor the stamina to think twice about them.
"I can't believe I'm saying this," I said, "but I think you might be right."
"Of course I'm right," he said. "Don't sound so excited."
But I was excited. Not at the prospect of getting laid each week by seven strangers, but by the realization that I had just entered a universe where people wanted to have sex with me not in spite of... but because of... It suddenly seemed I'd been overly grateful to too many of my former partners and much too quick to apologize.
And, sure, there's a part of me that wishes I had figured all this out on my own, the same way I learned, at thirty, that it is really okay to buy myself flowers. But there's another, more honest part of me that knows that we are put on the earth to dance together, and the fact that this gift has come from another person makes it more valuable, rather than less.
It didn't take long— maybe because he felt so sure I could get laid every night of the week— for X to try to convince me that he was wrong, that I was in fact perfectly undesirable. His passion gave in to fear and the parachute didn't open. He needed to take back what he'd given, and he nearly succeeded.
But his withholding turned out to be one more part of the gift. Because it was only when I felt X try to deny me my desirability that I understood how much of it was and always had been mine. As when I was twenty-five and the man who took me to Alaska fell in love with someone else and I thought for one desperate moment that I'd never see those mountains again. But of course I did, and I can; they are there whenever I need them.
Sometimes after X and I made love, and I was silly, satiated, and amazed at my newly discovered abandon, I'd try to thank him for the freedom, for the power he'd made me feel, but he always stopped me. "It's nothing I did," he said. "There is nothing I gave you. I was just lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time."
He can say that again.
And whatever combination of me and him and fate and timing led to my fluency in this rich new language, led to the exhilaration with which I now face the world, I am deeply grateful for it, and irrevocably strong.
"So," Hannah wants to know, "do you do it with the lights on?"
"Yeah," I say, "and I don't even think about it. Get this: I don't even hold my stomach in."
"Okay," she says, "but here's the real acid test: Do you get up and walk around? In the morning, I mean, naked. In the very light of day?"
I look at Hannah's perfect body. I think about my own, so much less so, and yet...
"I do," I say. "I walk around naked in the morning."
"I could never do that," she says. "Not with this body, not in a million years."
"You could do it," I tell her. "You will."
This article originally appeared in the January 1995 issue of ELLE.
37 Powerful Women on How to Be Confident
Selfies and Self Esteem: A Photo Project
Breakups, Sexual Dry Spells, and Empty Bed Syndrome—One Woman Tells All
How Much Sex Makes You a Sex Addict?
Between Love and Madness
How To Have Hassle-Free Car Sex
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HomeAnalysisJustice Department Releases Investigative Findings on University of New Mexico’s Response to Sexual Assault Allegations
Justice Department Releases Investigative Findings on University of New Mexico’s Response to Sexual Assault Allegations
April 22, 2016 Press Analysis, Federal and International
Washington, DC–(ENEWSPF)–April 22, 2016. The Justice Department today announced that according to its comprehensive investigation, the University of New Mexico’s (UNM) handling of reports by students of sexual harassment – including sexual assault – fail to comply with federal law. The Justice Department delivered a letter setting forth these findings to President Robert G. Frank of UNM this morning.
The investigation was launched on Dec. 5, 2014, in response to complaints from multiple students alleging that UNM did not adequately respond to their reports of sexual assault. It was conducted under Title IV of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, both of which prohibit sex discrimination in education programs. The investigation examined UNM’s policies and practices for preventing sexual assault and sexual harassment, as well as for investigating and responding to student complaints of sexual assault, sexual harassment and retaliation.
The investigation found that although UNM had strengthened its response to sexual harassment and sexual assault over the past year, it remains out of compliance with Title IX and Title IV in key respects. The department specifically found that students, faculty and staff lacked basic understanding about reporting options, duties and obligations, as well as where to turn for help. The investigation also found significant gaps in UNM’s procedures, training and practices for investigating and resolving allegations of sexual assault and harassment, resulting in a grievance process that complainants and respondents alike described as confusing, distressing and rife with delays. More generally, in focus groups and interviews, many UNM students expressed reluctance to report sexual assault to UNM because they lacked confidence in the school’s response.
The department also found that students who have experienced harassment and assault have difficulty accessing services and supports. Without appropriate supports in place, some of these students experienced severe and lasting educational impacts, including suspending their academic coursework, dropping out of extracurricular activities, losing scholarships and even withdrawing from UNM.
The department found that UNM must take the following measures to fully comply with these laws:
Provide comprehensive and effective training to all students, faculty and staff that gives notice of UNM’s prohibition on sexual harassment, including sexual assault; information about reporting options, duties and obligations; details on where to go for assistance; and information on grievance procedures and potential outcomes;
Revise UNM’s policies, procedures and investigative practices to provide a grievance procedure that ensures prompt and equitable resolution of sexual harassment and sexual assault allegations;
Adequately investigate or respond to all allegations by students who have alleged sexual assault or sexual harassment, including allegations of retaliation for reporting sexual assault or sexual harassment;
Take prompt and effective steps to eliminate a hostile environment, prevent its reoccurrence and address its effects; and
Ensure that the individuals designated to coordinate Title IX efforts receive adequate training and coordinate these efforts effectively.
“Our findings reveal how a flawed system for responding to sexual assault fails all those involved – from victims seeking adequate protection, to accused students demanding fair hearings, to faculty looking for clear instruction,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta, head of the department’s Civil Rights Division. “These failures diminish educational opportunities and threaten community confidence in the integrity and fairness of the university’s policies and practices. The Justice Department commends UNM officials for starting to implement key changes in a number of areas, and we look forward to working closely with them to expand and enhance these early steps of progress.”
“Campus sexual assault and sexual harassment are civil rights issues,” said U.S. Attorney Damon P. Martinez of the District of New Mexico. “They are primarily perpetrated against women and undermine their basic rights. When perpetuated against students, sexual assault and sexual harassment deny them the right to live and learn in a safe educational environment. Colleges and universities are obligated to stop and prevent sexual violence against their students and to respond effectively when they receive reports of sexual assault. We appreciate the university’s continuing efforts to address the serious deficiencies identified by our investigation so that we can improve the safety of women and other students and reduce barriers in education.”
UNM cooperated fully with the department’s investigation, and has committed to continue to cooperate with the department to timely resolve these findings under mutually agreeable terms that will provide accountability to the public and accomplish the remedial measures within a fixed period of time.
The investigation was conducted jointly by the Civil Rights Division’s Educational Opportunities Section and the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the District of New Mexico. Additional information about the Civil Rights Division is available on its website at www.justice.gov/crt. Additional information about the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the District of New Mexico is available on its website at www.justice.gov/usao/nm.
The enforcement of Title IV and Title IX are top priorities of the Civil Rights Division. For more information about the administration’s efforts on prevention and response to sexual assault and sexual harassment on college and university campuses, please visit www.notalone.gov.
Download UNM Findings Letter
Source: http://www.justice.gov
White House Fact Sheet: My Brother’s Keeper – Two Years of Expanding Opportunity & Creating Pathways for Success
Congressman Blumenauer on UN Special Session on Drug Policy: We Need a More Just and Compassionate Approach
Obama Administration Sued to Protect Climate, Public Lands from Drilling and Fracking
August 25, 2016 Press Environmental
10 Million Acres Leased for Oil and Gas by Obama, Yet Climate Change Consistently Ignored READ MORE
Statement from Hillary for America Senior Policy Adviser Jake Sullivan on Trump’s Ukraine Comments
July 31, 2016 Press Commentary, Latest National News
NEW YORK—(ENEWSPF)—July 31, 2016. Hillary For America Senior Policy Adviser Jake Sullivan released the following READ MORE
HHS Engages in Historic Health Collaboration with Cuba
Washington, DC–(ENEWSPF)–June 13, 2016. Today, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia M. READ MORE
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Get to Know Maya Hawke, Your New Stranger Things Obsession
Steve and Dustin have a new friend, and she's got two very famous parents
By Lauren Piester Jul 05, 2019 7:00 PMTags
TVStranger ThingsEntertainment
Watch: Maya Hawke's Famous Parents Are "Stranger Things" Fans
(Spoilers ahead!)
The Stranger Things crew got a little bit bigger this season.
As Steve (Joe Keery) took a new job at Scoops Ahoy, an ice cream shop inside Starcourt Mall, he gained a reluctant friend in Robin (Maya Hawke), his seemingly only coworker who was also a former high school classmate of his.
At first, she made a whole lot of fun of Steve, keeping track of every time he struck out with a girl and teasing him for how many child friends he has. Then, she found out that Steve and Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) were trying to translate and decode a secret Russian message, and she unwittingly signed on for an adventure that took the group underground into a secret Russian base, where the military was trying to reopen the gate to the Upside Down, a thing which she had never heard of.
Dacre Montgomery Promises "Dark" Turn for "Stranger Things"
At the end of the season, as Robin and Steve were recovering from truth serum, they finally had some real (if high) conversations, and Robin revealed that she had been obsessed with Steve, but not in the same way other girls were. She was actually jealous of him, because he had the attention of the girl she had a crush on. Steve took two seconds to process this, then started teasing her for having a crush on an aspiring singer with such a terrible singing voice.
The season ended with Robin convincing the guy at the video store to give both her and Steve a new job, because Steve will attract all the ladies (and Scoops Ahoy is no more), and now we're very much looking forward to a potential season four featuring Steve and Robin as wingmen renting movies.
Watch: Winona Ryder Gushes Over Ethan Hawke's Daughter
Robin fit into the show perfectly, and Maya Hawke makes a fitting addition to the cast for multiple reasons.
First of all, her parents are Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman, both of whom started appearing in Hollywood in the mid-'80s. Ethan Hawke went on to star alongside his daughter's eventual costar Winona Ryder in 1994's Reality Bites. Coincidentally, Maya's first role was Little Women's Jo March in a TV miniseries, the same role Ryder played in the 1994 movie.
Maya told us that her parents were big fans of Stranger Things, and that they even beat her to it.
"They were fans of the show even before I was actually," she said. "they were like watching, they're like Maya, you have to watch the show. I was like, OK, I'm really busy, but then I watched it."
By the time she scored an audition, she was a big fan.
Per her Instagram, the almost-21 year-old Maya is also a singer and songwriter and performs the occasional show. She started her career in modeling, partly as a way to not have to ask her parents for money, Ethan told us in 2016. She attended Juilliard to study acting, but dropped out in order to take the role of Jo in the Masterpiece miniseries of Little Women, which aired in December 2017.
You can hear more from Maya and her Stranger Things costars in the videos above!
Stranger Things is now streaming on Netflix.
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Travailler à l'EPFL
Faculty Position in Experimental Physics of Biological Systems
The School of Basic Sciences (Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics) at EPFL seeks to appoint a tenure track Assistant Professor in the area of Experimental Physics of Biological Systems. The appointment is solicited at the Tenure Track level, but in exceptional cases, appointments at other ranks will be considered as well.
We seek applicants that will strengthen the EPFL endeavor in the Physics of Biology. Of particular interest are areas such as emergent properties from molecular to organismal scales, and novel quantitative approaches. Priority will be given to the overall originality and promise of the candidate’s research over any particular specialization.
Candidates should hold a PhD and have an excellent record of scientific accomplishments. In addition, commitment to teaching general physics courses at the undergraduate level, and specialized courses at the Master’s and doctoral levels are expected. Proficiency in French is not required, but a willingness to learn the language is expected.
EPFL, with its main campus located in Lausanne, Switzerland, on the shores of lake Geneva, is a dynamically growing and well-funded institution fostering excellence and diversity. It has a highly international campus with world-class infrastructure, including high performance computing, bio-imaging, electron microscopy, and cleanroom facilities.
As a technical university covering the entire spectrum of science and engineering, EPFL offers a fertile environment for research cooperation between different disciplines. The EPFL environment is multi-lingual and multi-cultural, with English serving as a common interface.
Applications should include a cover letter, a CV with a list of publications, a concise statement of research (3 pages) and teaching interests (1 page), and the contact information of at least three references.
Applications should be uploaded in PDF form by October 9th, 2020 to
https://facultyrecruiting.epfl.ch/position/23691264
Enquiries may be addressed to:
Prof. Harald Brune
Chairman of the Search Committee
For additional information, please consult sb.epfl.ch, iphys.epfl.ch, sv.epfl.ch, cmi.epfl.ch
EPFL is an equal opportunity employer and family friendly university. It is committed to increasing the diversity of its faculty. It strongly encourages women to apply.
Article suivant: ENAC - PhD positions in geomechanics and environmental geotechnics at the Laboratory of Soil Mechanics (LMS)
Article précédent: SB - PhD position in Surface Reaction Dynamics
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Senator Carper Welcomes Former DNREC Secretary Collin O’Mara to Testify at Committee Hearing on Clean Water Rule
Collin O’Mara, President and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation, shares expertise and lessons learned in the First State with Senate panel
WASHINGTON, DC – Yesterday, U.S. Senator Tom Carper (D-Del.), top Democrat on the Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee, welcomed former Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC) Secretary, and current President and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation, Collin O’Mara to the committee’s hearing focusing on the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Clean Water Rule.
“Collin has always been an incredible advocate for Delaware, our natural resources and the health of our communities,” said Senator Carper. “We’re lucky that Collin could join us to shed light on the complex issue of fairly protecting our nation’s millions of miles of waterways. He perfectly summed up this complex issue when he quoted Wendell Berry and suggested we should adopt a ‘Water Golden Rule’ where you ‘do unto those downstream as you would want those upstream to do onto you.’ The EPA’s clean water rule, while not perfect, is as close to a Water Golden Rule as we’ve ever seen, protecting the drinking water of 117 million Americans while also taking into account more than 1 million public comments from Americans across the country.”
“Over the past few years, Senator Carper has emerged as the leading voice in the United States Senate calling for restoring America’s waterways,” said Collin O’Mara. “From the Brandywine to the Bayshore and the Nanticoke to the Inland Bays, Delaware’s waterways are the economic lifeblood of the First State, supporting tens of thousands of water-jobs in tourism, agriculture, brewing, and related industries—and attracting millions of visitors every year. If we are guided by sound science and work collaboratively, we can fulfill the Clean Water Act’s promise of swimmable, drinkable, fishable waterways in our lifetime—and I am proud to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Senator Carper to make this vision a reality.”
Collin’s full testimony from yesterday can be found here, and his full bio can be found below:
Collin O’Mara
Collin O’Mara is the President and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation, America’s largest wildlife conservation organization with more than six million members and 50 state and territorial affiliates. Under O’Mara’s leadership, the National Wildlife Federation is focused on uniting all Americans to ensure wildlife thrive in our rapidly changing world. The Federation works with both Republicans and Democrats to protect wildlife, restore habitat, ensure healthy waters, defend public lands, provide environmental education, and connect people with the great outdoors—and they publish the award-winning Ranger Rick magazine.
Prior to the National Wildlife Federation, O’Mara led the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control as Cabinet Secretary from 2009 through 2014. In that position, Secretary O’Mara served as the state’s top natural resource official, led the state’s efforts to conserve and restore wildlife and fishery habitat, improve air quality and public health, ensure access to clean water, expand outdoor recreation and environmental education opportunities, and enhance the state’s resilience to extreme weather and other climate impacts.
Permalink: https://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2017/4/senator-carper-welcomes-former-dnrec-secretary-collin-o-mara-to-testify-at-committee-hearing-on-clean-water-rule
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The power of the roar of the crowd
May. 3, 2007 | feedback
It's easy to discount the spiritual impact of basketball crowds if you haven't attended a playoff game with special fans before. There's no way to understand it unless it definitely has happened to you. Then you know. As strange as this sounds, it's like a woman being unable to tell whether she's ever had an orgasm. If she thinks it might have happened, or it felt like it kind of happened one time ... it didn't happen. When it happens, they know. Then they feel stupid for all the other times when they thought it had happened.
After I wrote last week that two special NBA crowds remain -- Madison Square Garden and Oakland's Oracle Arena -- the predictable slew of e-mails arrived from Sacramento, Chicago, Toronto and many other cities, all of them asking, "What about us?" I don't blame them for being deluded because they don't know any better. (See example above.) When the Celtics climbed to the Eastern finals five years ago, I convinced myself that we'd turned the FleetCenter into the old Garden all over again ... but looking back, that wasn't really the case. Maybe it was loud, maybe it was raucous, maybe we willed the boys to come back in Game 3, but since New Jersey captured Games 4 and 6 in Boston, were we really that great?
to help them out; hell, they don't want the giant video screen to help them out. These are the fans who recognize a beautiful pass as it's happening, not after it happens, simply because they love basketball and see the same angles players see. These are the fans who instinctively understand stuff like, "Mickael Pietrus just threw down a ridiculous putback; I'm going to stand and keep cheering for an extra 30 seconds because he's a young kid and we need to keep pumping him up so he'll do it again."
Why are New York and Oakland the only two throwback cities remaining in the league? It's simple. The Knicks haven't priced out their real fans because so many people have money in New York that it's impossible to price everyone out. They also have an old-school arena with luxury boxes situated 50-60 rows away, so fans are crowded around the court and it's a much more communal experience. And since New York has always been the capital of basketball -- for further details, read the Pete Axthelm classic "The City Game" -- the fans have an inherent appreciation and understanding of the sport that distinguishes them from fans in nearly every other city. (Yes, including Boston, which will always be a baseball town.) The real tragedy of Isiah's catastrophic tenure is that we were robbed of some monster basketball crowds. The Knicks should always be good, if only to show every other fan base how it's done. Or, used to be done.
As for Warriors fans, it's a little more simple: They play in Oakland and have the most eclectic mix of fans in the league, so their home games have a different feel, almost like an upscale version of Rucker Park. Earlier this year, my wife and I were trying to determine whether we wanted to leave L.A. and live somewhere else for a few years (just to mix things up), and during the course of the discussions, she brought up the Bay Area. Well, you know why I couldn't live there? Because of the Warriors. If we moved there, I'd end up purchasing Warriors season tickets; inevitably I would be compromised by those unique crowds, placing me in a precarious sports bigamy predicament since I'm utterly and completely disgusted by the Celtics' front office and ownership right now. It would be like a guy who hates his wife hiring the hottest 20-year-old Danish au pair on the planet. Just a bad idea all the way around.
What does this have to do with Game 6 of the Warriors-Mavs series tonight? In the words of Russell Hammond, everything. I don't believe the 2007 Dallas Mavericks have the collective heart to prevail in Oakland, not with the Warriors' fans smelling blood and providing one of the all-time electric/rabid/emotional/crazed atmospheres in recent sports history. As good as they were in Game 3 and Game 4, the fans will be better tonight. They will rise to the occasion. They will. I am convinced. They have been waiting for a night like this for 30 long years. Literally.
Maybe a veteran team such as the Spurs wouldn't be fazed, but the Cuban-era Mavs have proved time and time again -- in Miami last June, against Phoenix two years ago, even last weekend in Oakland -- that they have no qualms about folding at the worst possible times. The right crowd can get to them. The right mix of shaky calls can get to them. They fall apart when you least expect it. In fact, they squandered a 21-point lead in Game 5 and would have ended up on one of TNT's "Gone Fishin'" cards if (A) the Warriors hadn't stupidly slowed things down with a six-point lead, and (B) the Mavs hadn't gotten four major calls in the final 50 seconds: Barnes getting whistled for a clean strip of Nowitzki, Nowitzki not getting whistled for clobbering Richardson on a go-ahead 3, Davis getting a sixth foul for not touching anyone and Nowitzki going over-the-back on the biggest rebound of the game. Whatever. The league wanted this series to go back to Oakland, and it did.
To beat this particular Warriors team -- an undersized group that thrives on dunks, killer 3s, alley-oops, energy plays and everything else that ignites a great crowd -- when they're playing at home, you need five guys who won't be afraid (as far as I can tell, Dallas has Nowitzki, Stackhouse and Howard and that's it), and one special player who can pull a Clint Eastwood and jam a stake in the crowd's collective heart. On paper, Nowitzki should be that player -- we even caught a glimpse in Game 5, when he did a superb impression of the 2007 MVP during the final three minutes -- but as I wrote in Tuesday's piece, he has looked like a mess for most of this series. Even in Game 5, Nowitzki disappeared for nearly the entire second half. This was an elimination game! How could a team's best player attempt only two shots in the first 21 minutes of the second half against a surging Warriors team that clearly smelled an upset?
When Dirk finally stepped up with a couple of 3s and a monster block, TNT headed to a commercial as Dick Stockton excitedly yelped, "Dirk Nowitzki, playing like an MVP in the last minute!" Really, a whole minute? That's what it takes to be an MVP these days? Sure, you can't discount Nowitzki because he has shown flashes -- like the end of Game 5, or his incredible three-point play to save the Spurs series last spring -- but at the same time, not since Kevin Garnett's Game 7 against the 2004 Kings have we seen an NBA superstar face a bigger career gut check than the one Nowitzki faces tonight. KG was playing at home and came up huge (32 points, 21 rebounds). Nowitzki will be playing in one of the toughest environments in sports. If he ever wanted to be challenged as a basketball player, tonight's the night. If he shows any sign of weakness at all, the crowd will smell it. If he falters at all, so will the Mavs.
It's the second best subplot of tonight's game, right behind the crowd itself. For the past week or so, I've been swamped by e-mails from readers who were unequivocally delighted by this series -- not just Golden State's fan-friendly style of play but those two home games in Oakland and how much they meant to anyone who cares about basketball. It's been a throwback to the days when crowds actually mattered, when players liked playing with one another, when every playoff game didn't end with the same predictable "everyone clear out for the alpha dogs so they can go one-on-three" sequence. I haven't been this excited for a non-Celtics game in years.
Maybe the winner tonight doesn't matter, just that the game is happening at all does. But I'll be rooting for the Warriors for selfish reasons: If they advance to Round 2, I'm flying to Oakland and attending the next slew of home games. Maybe it won't be as good as hopping into a time machine and heading back to the old Boston Garden, but it's better than nothing.
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Australia Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples
Tribal warriors in Redfern: the Aboriginal community that rebuilt itself
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Kylie Beach | January 24th, 2020 02:12 PM | Add a Comment
Aboriginal Christian leader Shane Phillips is the king of understatement.
“We make a lot of mistakes and we’re not sinless … But we’re stumbling along as a community and we’re grateful,” he says about Tribal Warrior Association, a sailing and sports-based education and mentoring organisation he runs in Sydney’s Redfern.
His humility is a winsome quality, particularly in Australia, where we don’t like our proverbial poppies growing too tall. But the 54-year-old CEO only has to speak for a couple of minutes before his impressive leadership capacity reveals itself.
“They said we epitomised what goes wrong in Aboriginal communities. You know what happened? We found hope.”
“Hope is amazing. Hope changes things. We were Redfern. We were ‘the block’,” Phillips explains, referencing the streets of terrace houses in which he grew up, known for its dense Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander population and once notorious for high crime rates.
“We were the most dysfunctional … There was a sense of hopelessness you could cut with a knife. They said we epitomised what goes wrong in Aboriginal communities. You know what happened? We found hope.”
And, Phillips says, “if he wasn’t a believer and the Lord wasn’t involved in it”, Tribal Warrior would never have become the success it is today.
The Tribal Warrior story
Tribal Warrior began in 1998 when a couple of the block’s “old Christian fellas” began a maritime training company.
“We were imploding as a community,” Phillips says. “These old men came there and said, ‘We got a boat and want to train some captains. But we don’t want to just train people who are already ready, we want people who are mucking up. People whose lives are falling apart… we want them to find purpose’.”
The two men inspired Phillips with their humility, which he saw as a “real strength”.
Phillips was in the second batch of Aboriginal young men the company trained in maritime skills in 1999, along with his older brother, a long-term heroin addict, whom Phillips says was his “hero”.
“I started to see things differently then. Our parents were pastors and we were struggling in life ourselves. We had to find where to find ourselves … These two old fellows turned up and fed us really cool stuff that made us start to think about it differently.”
The fledgling maritime training company continued to grow and Phillips became involved in running it. To date they have trained more than 3000 people for a range of roles both out at sea and on the shorelines.
These days, though, it’s just one part of Tribal Warrior. There’s also an award-winning mentoring program called Clean Slate Without Prejudice, which uses boxing training to help Aboriginal youths at risk of offending develop the discipline needed for employment. Crime rates relating to robbery offences have dropped in Redfern since the inception of the program in 2009.
Phillips says the program “helped us move our lens from ‘deficit’ to ‘strength’. We launch ourselves from strength, now.”
Clean Slate Without Prejudice, which extends to an after-school mentoring program, has its unlikely origins in past hostility between Redfern’s Aboriginal community and the local police.
“There was hatred towards each other. I get embarrassed when I tell people that,” Phillips says.
“But I was one of those young blokes who had a festering anger and resentment and hatred. And it shackled us… we weren’t going anywhere… we were just polarised the whole time. We were just against each other … It was just us and them.”
When a new police commander called Luke Freudenstein first approached the Tribal Warrior team in 2009 and asked for help with young men in the community who were committing robberies in the area, Phillips admits they “palmed him off”, directing him to other community groups.
Undeterred, Freudenstein returned again with the same request: “I’ve got 15 young men in your area who are committing robberies, I can arrest my way out, or we can do something to work together. What can we do?”
“We actually dropped our guard and saw each other for the first time.”
Together, Freudenstein and Phillips decided to put their shared history in the sport of boxing to good use. Freudenstein organised gear, a trainer and the use of the local PCYC. Phillips and the Tribal Warrior team agreed to get the 15 young men to an early morning training session. Freudenstein arranged for police officers known for their animosity towards the Aboriginal community to be there, too.
“We were outside the police boys club and it was pouring rain, it was dark. And then they [the young men] saw this copper walking in – and I knew his reputation was really bad, he was pretty brutal to people – and they [the boys] said ‘There’s so-and-so. I hate him’,” Phillips remembers.
“We said, ‘Boys, we’re going in there to train with him so we gotta behave in there. Let’s just train with them and see what happens. We need you to park everything – that’s your hatred, anything. We need you to park it here and just come in and let’s just see how we go’.”
Phillips says that by the end of the session, they were all “completely smashed”, but “everyone was the same… we were just a bunch of people training together”. They were even “high-fiving at the end of it”.
“But we actually dropped our guard and saw each other for the first time… I don’t know how to completely explain it,” says Phillips.
The training continued and the program grew – though not without opposition.
“Our people [were] calling us ‘dogs’ and ‘informers’ and all sorts of things. They were saying, ‘What are you working with the police for?’” Phillips says.
“We said, ‘Wait and see what happens because they might ease off on these boys and we might be able to get them to stop commit offences and they might treat us better’.”
“Who’d have ever thought we’d have a relationship with the police?”
The police faced their own critics who called them “nigger lovers” and “do-gooders”. But within three to four weeks, the results spoke for themselves.
“As we became friends, the interaction between these young men and those police minimised and those young guys stopped committing offences.”
“The police and us are like friends now… Who’d have ever thought we’d have a relationship with the police?” Phillips laughs. “We’re involved in what they do and they’re involved in what we do. The relationship changed. We stopped being just the recipient. We were valued in the relationship and that changed the game.”
The ten most influential of the boys in the first training group were rewarded with the opportunity to become mentors for a new group of Clean Slate boys.
“We got their families to engage. They had the routine, the discipline, the seeing the big picture and had a new relationship with people. That gave them a sense of worth and a sense of belonging and they started to believe they could do anything,” Phillips says.
Tribal Warrior Success
Clean Slate Without Prejudice was an obvious success for Tribal Warrior.
“I don’t know how, but obviously the Lord blessed it … it just happened,” Phillips says. “Robberies went down 82 per cent in this area. Those boys never committed an offence again. They’re all doing really well. They’re really doing all sorts of careers now. They’re the young leaders. They changed the dynamic and everyone wanted to be part of it then.”
These days about 80 people on average train in the mornings as part of the Clean Slate Without Prejudice program, with up to 200 some days.
“Robberies went down 82 per cent in this area. Those boys never committed an offence again.”
“That Clean Slate movement has had an impact on all of us. It’s made our place safer, our community safer. It’s given people value for themselves and for other people. It’s created relationship,” Phillips says.
“What I love about this place here, is that people are just people together and they all look after each other.”
More recently, Tribal Warrior has added a social enterprise initiative to the company which provides cultural tourism products and much-needed employment opportunities for the community.
“We don’t owe the bank anything – we own all of our own assets,” Phillips says proudly. “Government didn’t fund this thing… We don’t want to have government to control it … and I think that’s the reason it’s grown. There were three people at the beginning of the organisation that were actually volunteering most of time – just getting paid when they were on charters. To think we now have about 27 staff, it’s just blows my mind.”
Which raises the question of funding – how does Tribal Warrior pay the bills?
“We make enough for ourselves – everyone except the mentors,” Phillips explains.
Originally denied any government funding, Tribal Warrior spent years struggling to pay for Clean Slate Without Prejudice’s mentors themselves, with the help of corporate sponsors. They then commissioned the University of Sydney, the Bureau of Statistics and high-profile accounting firm KPMG to do a pro bono project case study quantifying their work financially. It mapped the trajectory of ten young men leading up to, during and after participating in the mentoring program and found it would save the government $7.9 million in incarceration rates in the following three to four years.
“So we asked them [the state government] for $300k per year to pay for six mentors… and we didn’t get it,” Phillips reports. “The state government gave us nothing and still doesn’t. But the federal government can came along and backed it and we now actually measure everything to show them how the empowerment of people can have big impacts.”
‘The Lord has made the difference’
Phillips says it’s “the Lord that’s made the difference” in Tribal Warrior’s success and “everything we practise is what we’ve learned from the word”. Some of his young mentors are also Christians.
“As a young man, I would have never imagined we were in this position… I didn’t think things were going to turn out good at all. I thought they were going to turn out really bad.
“For me personally, if I wasn’t a believer, if the Lord wasn’t involved in it,” he shakes his head, “This would not have been anything like this.”
Though Phillips wants the kids he serves to know he believes in the Lord and to be a good example, he’s careful to ensure they choose their own path.
“We’re in an Aboriginal community where lots of churches and lots of people who did use the Lord’s name did some horrific things to our people. It’s always going to be a battle, you know… to keep people knowing that it [the Christian faith] is actually bigger than those people. One of the things we’re mindful to do here is to try and live it…”
“I think it’s really important these kids know we see them,” he explains.
“I remember my parents were struggling in the early days before they found the Lord. And I remember being a kid in the house growing up so dysfunctional. I was waiting for some grown-up to see me … and I do remember those adults who saw us.
“We want to be those adults – that’s what I say to our mentors. We have to be those people who see these children. They need to know you know their value and you’re going to push them to that value.”
Similarly, when asked how non-Aboriginal Christians can build better relationships with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, Phillips advises building genuine relationships that really see the person.
“It helps us when people see there are good things happening, so please proactively go out and try and find what’s right. People can do that every day of the week.”
New challenges of success
In its highest crime period, Redfern Street’s properties were heavily shuttered every night and became “a no-go zone”. As it got safer, Tribal Warrior became part of a movement to see the shutters removed.
“When they came down, those shutters, it almost gentrified overnight,” Phillips explains. “And as it did, we [the local Aboriginal community] became victims of it because the value of the properties have gone up so much it priced us out.
“So we have to find innovation to stay here now. We have to find a way that our footprint is here because it’s the land that we connected to.”
He jokes that he wishes they’d bought some properties before campaigning to see shutters removed but quickly clarifies, “But that’s the thing. This isn’t all about money.”
Tribal Warrior now has ten mentors (Phillips stresses they aren’t social workers) with a caseload of more than 70 kids.
“A mentor helps them see their value, helps them push themselves and helps them succeed themselves. Independence is what the kids need. So we do that and we do it differently. We do it community way – that’s what helped us.
“We’re seeing less kids in the criminal justice system from the old days. The old days were bad. It was normal … like a badge of honour to go to jail. Not anymore. Now it’s badge of honour if you’re strong and healthy and you’re doing something for someone else.”
Are there other Shane Phillip’s out there? Let us know.
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Four universities of Eucor participate in the new network EPICUR
In the “European Partnership for an Innovative Campus Unifying Regions” (EPICUR) the Universities of Strasbourg, Freiburg and Haute-Alsace as well as the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology are collaborating with the University of Amsterdam, Netherlands, the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland, the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences in Vienna, Austria and the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. Under the lead of the University of Strasbourg, the partners have submitted their joint application in the European Universities Initiative to the European Commission.
EPICUR focuses on the field of university teaching and places liberal arts and sciences education, the digital transformation of teaching forms as well as the expansion of mobility for students at the heart of its collaboration. In addition, the European languages and the various networks in which the universities are embedded form the focal points of the collaboration.
The European Universities Initiative is a funding instrument of the European Commission that focuses on teaching. It is part of the new Erasmus+ program from the Directorate-General for Education and Culture. Four of EPICUR’s participating partners are member universities of Eucor – The European Campus. Its fifth member, the University of Basel, is not eligible to apply in the European Universities Initiative, as Switzerland is not an Erasmus+ program country.
The regional model of the trinational university network Eucor – The European Campus will remain unchanged and will be further developed on a continuous basis. With its jointly agreed strategic plan for the next five years, its own European legal personality in the form of a European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation (EGTC) and binding governance, the European Campus is a pioneer in regional cross-border university cooperation. The cooperation of the network, which includes the Universities of Basel, Freiburg, Haute-Alsace, Strasbourg and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, covers the entire knowledge triangle of teaching, research and innovation at the universities. The European Campus places particular emphasis on the areas of “Quantum Sciences and Technologies,” “Precision Medicine / Personalised Health,” “Sustainability” and “European Identities.”
Further information on the website of the University of Strasbourg.
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Regal FC Barcelona scored a 54-82 road win at Sluc Nancy
Regal FC Barcelona used its array of talents to overcome a potential case of jetlag and blow out hosts Nancy 54-82 in Group B on Thursday, spoiling the latter's first-ever Euroleague game. Having travelled to the Pacific Ocean and back in the previous week, Barcelona looked none the worse for its journeys while storming after halftime on a 5-16 run that left Nancy out of threat range for the rest of the game. Barcelona's big men proved the difference, as Ersan Ilyasova expoded for 18 points and 12 rebounds, while Fran Vazquez added 12 for the winners. Everybody else on Barcelona's bench except one player scored the rest of the points, but it was the visitors' defense that confounded Nancy into 34% two-point shooting despite 19 points from Lamayne Wilson and 11 from Victor Samnick. Five different Barcelona players - Gianluca Basile, Jaka Lakovic, Juan Carlos Navarro, Fran Vazquez and Andre Barrett - had 3 or more assists. Nancy only had 12 total.
Barcelona shook off the cobwebs from its long weekend trip to Los Angeles in time to take consistent early leads as all of its starters got in the scoring column early, Lakovic pumped in the game's first three-pointer. By the time of his second strike from deep, the guests were ahead 7-12, but Nancy's home crowd, enjoying its Euroleague debut, too, couldn't be quieted. Wilson soon came to the rescue with 6 consecutive points that let the hosts close within 13-16, but Ilyasova answered from downtown and Vazquez dunked to put the visitors in charge 15-21 after 10 minutes in which ball movement for easier shots was the main difference between the two teams.
Rod Benson came on and dunked to open the second quarter for Nancy, but Basile buried an open triple in response. When Vazquez fed David Andersen inside and Roger Grimau drove for another basket, the guests had a double-digit lead at 17-28. Those three kept attacking until the lead had climbed to 22-36, while Barcelona's interior defense had Nancy thoroughly corraled. Steed Tchicamboud and Samnick revived Nancy's offense now, firing up the home crowd. Nancy's defense tightened toward halftime as Cyril Julian joined the scoring and the Barcelona lead dipped to single digits at 30-39. Navarro added free throws, but Julian couldn't be stopped on either end, while Wilson drilled a triple from the corner pulling Nancy within 35-41 at halftime.
Barça spent no time at all after the break in reestablishing double-digit dominance as Ilyasova and Basile sandwiched clutch triples around a basket by Vazquez, all of it good for a 37-49 scoreboard. Ilyasova kept it going with the next 4 points for the visitors, to which Vazquez added a pair of dunks to break the game open at 40-57. Even though Barcelona missed some open shots and suffered turnovers now, its defense kept things under wraps until Grimau, Daniel Santiago and Lakovic, the latter dropping his third three-point shot, could down the last 8 points of the quarter and put the score out of Nancy's reach at 45-66.
The fourth quarter started with Barça staking its biggest lead yet, 23 points at 45-68, while only Wilson seemed capable of scoring for Nancy. The only questions remaining concerned whether all 12 of Barcelona's players would get in the scoring column, and when Andre Barrett and Lubos Barton hit baskets, that made 10 of them. Jordi Trias added his name to the list, too, making for a new high lead of 53-80. The fans in Nancy certainly were treated to some stellar basketball in their city's first Euroleague game, even though it was the visiting team who put on the show.
Referees: PITSILKAS, NIKOLAOS; SAHIN, TOLGA; LOTTERMOSER, ROBERT
SLUC Nancy 15 20 10 9
Regal FC Barcelona 21 20 25 16
SLUC Nancy 15 35 45 54
4 COX, JOHN 22:00 0/5 0/3 1 1 2 3 2 3 2 -2
5 MORANDAIS, MICHEL 16:05 3 1/2 1 1 1 1 5
6 WILSON, LAMAYNE 26:35 19 5/8 3/4 1 2 3 1 3 1 15
7 JULIAN, CYRIL 15:59 6 3/5 1 4 5 1 2 6
8 GREER, JEFF 23:55 6 0/1 1/4 3/4 1 1 2 2 1 2 6
10 TCHICAMBOUD, STEED 18:00 3 0/3 3/5 1 1 2 2 2 1
11 ABOUBAKAR ZAKI, AMADOU 12:45 2 1/5 1 2 3 1 1 1 2
12 BENSON, ROD 14:24 2 1/4 3 2 5 2 1 1 2 1 5
13 SAMNICK, VICTOR 23:47 11 5/10 0/1 1/1 1 3 4 1 1 2 4 11
14 GREER, RICARDO 26:30 2 1/6 0/2 1 5 6 1 2 6 1 3
15 NJOYA, SAIDOU DNP - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
16 JACQUES, YOHANN DNP - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Regal FC Barcelona
5 BASILE, GIANLUCA 27:04 6 2/3 1 3 4 4 1 3 11
6 BARRETT, ANDRE 8:56 2 1/1 0/1 1 1 3 1 4
8 TRIAS, JORDI 3:08 2 1/1 0/1 1 1 2 1 1 3
9 BARTON, LUBOS 12:34 4 2/2 0/3 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 3
10 LAKOVIC, JAKA 23:52 9 0/1 3/4 3 3 4 3 1 12
11 NAVARRO, JUAN CARLOS 21:27 4 1/4 0/4 2/2 3 3 4 1 2 5
13 ANDERSEN, DAVID 18:22 8 4/7 0/1 2 2 1 1 2 1 7
17 VAZQUEZ, FRAN 19:20 12 6/8 2 2 3 3 2 16
21 ILYASOVA, ERSAN 23:16 18 5/9 2/3 2/2 5 7 12 1 1 1 1 1 26
24 SADA, VICTOR 10:20 0/1 1 1 1 2 -1
25 SANTIAGO, DANIEL 15:54 8 2/8 4/5 1 2 3 1 2 1 1 4 5
44 GRIMAU, ROGER 15:47 9 4/5 1/1 1 6 7 1 1 2 2 1 14
Totals 200:00 82 26/46 7/20 9/11 10 33 43 23 4 9 5 2 16 11 106
"Our first Euroleague game was a very difficult game. Barcelona was superior in all the game's fields. We were not able to raise our defensive level and in front of a big team like Barcelona with a lot of talented players, it's fatal. Barcelona simply brought our shortcomings out. I am a little displeased with the ending. We let go about 10 points."
"I'm happy. We played a complete game with a lot of intensity. We prevented them from playing their game and when they reduced the score in the second quarter thanks to their enthusiasm and a lack of intensity from us, we didn't panic. We played smarter in the second half, finding again our defensive intensity and scoring big shots. Nancy only scored 19 points in the second half. That's promising for the next game."
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Home » Across The Channel » UK Approves AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 Vaccine
30/12/2020 - By Thomas O. Falk Across The Channel
The UK has become the first country globally to approve the COVID-19 vaccine from Oxford University and pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca. The product is said to offer several advantages over the BioNTech and Pfizer vaccine. However, it comes with a tradeoff.
The British regulatory authority for pharmaceuticals has approved the domestic vaccine, the Ministry of Health announced on Wednesday. In studies, it showed to be less effective than the already approved vaccine from BioNTech and Pfizer. However, unlike the latter, it can be stored at refrigerator temperatures and is significantly cheaper.
The manufacturers have hence expressed the hope that it could become a “vaccine for the world.”
In Great Britain, the first vaccinations with the new vaccine are supposed to start on January 4, as Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced. It was “brilliant to end 2020 with such a moment of hope,” Hancock commented.
AstraZeneca chair Pascal Soriot described the day as important for “millions of people in the UK who will have access to this new vaccine”. It was effective, tolerable, and easy to administer. Besides, AstraZeneca would supply it without profit.
According to the first study data, the vaccine should offer an average of 70 percent protection against the virus. According to the manufacturer, the effectiveness could conceivably be significantly higher with a particular dosage.
At times there were doubts about the study design and the high effectiveness of the vaccine. The Swedish-British group had, therefore, carried out additional investigations. Unlike the vaccines from the Mainz company BioNTech and the pharmaceutical company Pfizer as well as the US company Moderna, the British-Swedish preparation does not belong to the mRNA vaccines.
The active ingredient AZD1222 used by AstraZeneca is based on the weakened version of a cold virus from chimpanzees. It contains genetic material from a surface protein with which the Sars-CoV-2 pathogen docks onto human cells.
The vaccine works in two ways: It is supposed to promote the formation of specific antibodies as well as T cells – both are important for the immune system.
The UK has been a pioneer in coronavirus vaccination. As the first country in Western Europe, the government granted emergency approval for the BioNTech vaccine in early December.
So far, the British government relies primarily on the AstraZeneca vaccine and has already ordered 100 million doses of it in advance. It is desperately needed, as the UK remains the European country with the highest death toll and a mortality rate four times as high as in Germany.
coronavirus vaccine COVID
A Covid Healthpass is key for a Return to Normality
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EU and UK Remain Apart on Key Issue
The UK and the EU continue to argue about future fishing quotas in UK waters. Brussels has made an offer - but the talks have stalled. Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney
EU Offers UK 18% of Fish Value Caught on British Waters
The European Union (EU) has offered the United Kingdom (UK) an 18% return of the value of fish caught in British waters as part of the proposed free trade agreement
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President Donald Trump tours a section of the U.S.-Mexico border wall, Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2021, in Alamo, Texas. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Republicans offered only modest reproach when President Donald Trump said there were “very fine people” on both sides of a white supremacist rally. They stayed in line when Trump was caught pressuring a foreign leader and later defended his handling of a deadly pandemic.
But with a sudden force, the wall of Republican support that has enabled Trump to weather a seemingly endless series of crises is beginning to erode.
Trump’s weakened standing among his own party will come into sharper focus on Wednesday when the House is expected to impeach the president for inciting a riot at the U.S. Capitol last week. A handful of Republicans have already said they’ll join the effort, a number that could grow as the vote nears.
The choice facing Republicans isn’t just about the immediate fate of Trump, who has just seven days left in his presidency. It’s about whether the party’s elected leaders are ready to move on from Trump, who remains popular with the GOP but is now toxic in much of Washington.
How they proceed could determine whether the party remains viable in upcoming elections or splinters in a way that could limit their relevance.
“We’re at the moment now where we’re seeing a fracturing, a breaking, because of the unprecedented situation — the sedition, the violence, the death,” said Steve Schmidt, a longtime Republican strategist who left the party because of Trump.
The stunning nature of the deadly insurrection — and Trump’s role in fueling it — has shaken many lawmakers. Rep. Liz Cheney, the No. 3 Republican in the House, gave rank-and-file conservatives the green light to abandon Trump in a scathing statement Tuesday evening.
“There has never been a greater betrayal by a president of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution,” she charged.
While stunning, the fast-moving developments do not ensure Trump will be forced from office before Democrat Joe Biden’s Jan. 20 inauguration. The timing of a Senate trial is unclear and could spill into Biden’s presidency.
But for the first time, there are real signs that a significant faction of Republicans want to purge Trump from their party.
Already, three Trump Cabinet members have resigned in protest. Former Attorney General Bill Barr, who left the White House less than a month ago, accused his former boss of a “betrayal of his office.”
It took almost a week for Vice President Mike Pence, whose relationship with Trump has soured considerably since he and his family were forced into hiding during the Capitol siege, to publicly declare he would not to invoke the 25th Amendment of the Constitution to remove Trump from office.
The president still enjoys some level of Republican support. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, a top Trump ally just honored this week at the White House, refused on Tuesday to concede that President-elect Joe Biden won the election outright, the same demonstrable falsehood that sparked the riot.
Trump emerged from his White House fortress for the first time since the riots for a trip to the wall his administration built along the Texas border. As he left Washington, he was careful to insist “we want no violence,” but denied any responsibility for the insurrection.
Once he reached the border, his remarks to a small crowd were fairly muted. In the end, he spoke for just 21 minutes and spent less than 45 minutes on the ground in what was expected to be the final trip of his presidency.
Before leaving, he offered an ominous warning to Democrats leading the charge to remove him from office: “Be careful what you wish for.”
That veiled threat came as the nation — and members of Congress — braced for the potential of more violence ahead of Biden’s inauguration. The FBI warned this week of plans for armed protests at all 50 state capitals and in Washington.
Capitol security officials made the extraordinary decision to require members of Congress to pass through metal detectors to enter the House chamber beginning on Tuesday, although some Republicans resisted the new rule.
Top military leaders remind troops of limits of free speech
It’s unclear whether the chaos in Washington represents an existential threat to the party, but it almost certainly threatens to undermine the GOP’s short-term political goals.
Several major corporations, many of them reliably Republican donors, have promised to stop sending political donations to any of the 147 Republicans who perpetuated Trump’s false claims of election fraud by voting to reject Biden’s victory last week.
The fundraising challenge comes at a bad time for the GOP. History suggests that the Republican Party, as the minority party in Washington, should regain control of the House or Senate in 2022.
At the same time, a collection of ambitious Republicans are trying to position themselves to run for the White House in 2024. They are also contending with Trump’s legacy.
One of them, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, reminded reporters on Tuesday that he’s condemned the Trump presidency from the very beginning.
“I’ve been in the same place I’ve been for the whole four years. A lot of people have just changed their position,” Hogan said, while vowing not to leave the GOP. “I don’t want to leave the party and let these people who did a hostile takeover four years ago take over.”
Despite Hogan’s confidence, a significant portion of the Republican Party’s political base remains deeply loyal to the president, and has already shown a willingness to attack anyone — especially Republicans — who is not. That helps explain why two other 2024 prospects, Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Josh Hawley of Missouri, voted to reject Biden’s victory last week, even after the uprising.
“Republican leaders do not know how to move forward,” Republican pollster Frank Luntz said. “Everybody’s afraid that Donald Trump will tell people to come after them, but they also realize they’re losing the center of America. They’re trapped.”
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False assumptions prevent resolution of the Israel-Palestinian conflictJacques Gautreaux2020-10-05T10:56:30-07:00
Palestinians demonstrate near Nablus in Judea (aka West Bank), opposing Jewish settlement in the Holy Land. While Palestinian leaders claim they want land for peace, in more than 72 years they’ve refused many offers. It appears their true goal is to remove Jews entirely from the region.
False assumptions prevent resolution of the Israel-Palestinian conflict
A 2016 clip of then-Secretary of State John Kerry claiming that, “There will be no separate peace between Israel and the Arab world” before an agreement with the Palestinians, has not aged well—especially in the wake of recent normalization agreements signed between Israel and the UAE and Bahrain.
The absolute certainty of Kerry’s view—which has been shared for decades by many U.S. politicians and most Middle East diplomats and pundits—stands in stark contrast to the reality that has been bubbling beneath the surface for some time. With Kerry’s theory now disproven, it is clear we have been fed many other false paradigms and slogans about the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
If the U.S., Israel, the Palestinians, the Europeans and the Arabs wish to resolve this conflict peacefully, it will pay to revisit and recalibrate many assumptions. Let’s start with some of the most egregiously inaccurate claims and the real facts behind them.
False Assumption #1: The primary Palestinian goal is self-determination and a state of their own.
This is the focal point of so much deceptive thinking about the conflict. Ironically, it does not pass even the simplest historical scrutiny. The Palestinians, or the Arabs of Mandatory of Palestine, were offered a state on several occasions over the past century, beginning in 1937 when the Peel Commission offered to create an Arab State on over four fifths of the territory of Mandatory Palestine, leaving the Jewish state with a tiny sliver of the coast around Haifa.
The Arabs were later offered a state in 1947, 1967, 2000, 2001 and most recently, in 2008, when then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered 100% of Judea and Samaria and Gaza, with some minor land swaps. Each time the Palestinian leadership said no, because it would have necessitated recognizing Jewish national rights.
In fact, all evidence indicates that the Palestinian leadership nurtures an obsession with destroying Israel more than they seek a state of their own, and for this reason they are unable to accept a peace treaty that requires they give up this goal.
False Assumption #2: The Palestinian issue is the crux of instability in the Middle East
This myth is easy for many in the West to digest because of the massively disproportionate attention the Israel-Palestinian conflict receives in mainstream media. However, the facts simply do not tally with the theory. The Shiite-Sunni rivalry has been raging for centuries, with millions of casualties, and still remains a foundational point of so many regional conflicts, as in Yemen, Lebanon and Iraq. In fact, since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, more than 13 million Muslims have been killed in regional conflicts—90% by other Muslims—and fewer than one per cent in the context of the wider Israel-Arab conflict.
The circumstances that created the Arab Spring—namely that the people of this region are oppressed by their autocratic governments and suffer crushing poverty—has no relationship to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In fact, tension in the Holy Land has long been used to distract the region’s people from their daily political and economic plight.
In fact, historical evidence over the last century, even up until this last month, indicates that the Israel-Palestinian conflict is low on the list of causes of discontent in the Middle East, and serves to swerve attention from the region’s many ills.
False Assumption #3: The conflict is territorial and not ideological.
In 2008, when PM Olmert offered Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas 100% of the territory, half of Jerusalem, the holy basin and a solution for refugees, the Palestinian leader balked at the offer—because he would have to sign an end to all claims and conflict clauses. Abbas has further stated on numerous occasions that he will never recognize the Jewish people’s right to self-determination, and has refused to enter negotiations because of this one simple demand.
Moreover, despite repeated UN and Palestinian protestations, as well as volumes of media criticism, Jewish settlements have never been an impediment to an agreement, because they sit on less than 2% of all Judea and Samaria. Even when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu placed a complete moratorium on building in settlements in 2009—specifically to demonstrate that this is indeed a “red herring” issue—Abbas still refused to enter negotiations, thus proving the point.
In fact, borders and territorial issues have never been a sticking point during any negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority—rather it’s the Palestinian obsession with expelling Jews from “Muslim land” that sustains the conflict.
False Assumption #4: The Palestinian leadership is ready for negotiations and compromise.
Despite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s frequent declarations that he is ready for negotiations at any time in any place, and that all issues remain on the table, Palestinian leaders have not even responded to this offer. Regardless of whether there is a more or less friendly incumbent in the White House—or in the Israeli parliament—the Palestinians have retained their all-or-nothing position.
In fact, since 1993, when the peace process officially began, the State of Israel’s position has evolved and progressed massively towards the Palestinian position. Compromises and concessions have been provided, such as Israel’s disengagement from Gaza in 2005, recognition of Palestinian national rights and full autonomy for the Palestinian people. Nevertheless, the Palestinian position has not moved one inch in over 27 years, and has arguably regressed to a more militant one.
In fact, there is absolutely no evidence that the current Palestinian leadership has any interest in or willingness to end the conflict—they have refused all local and international attempts to bring them to the negotiating table.
False Assumption #5: Israel’s presence in Judea and Samaria—the so-called “occupation”—is the cause of the conflict.
For this reasoning to be accurate, it must follow that before 1967, when Israel first liberated Judea and Samaria and started to rebuild communities in the Jewish people’s historic homeland, there was no conflict. We know from history that this is blatantly false. The conflict began at the beginning of the 20th century with the rise of practical Zionism—the movement to reestablish Jewish sovereignty in its ancestral, indigenous homeland.
The war by Arabs against this justified, moral and legal cause predated not only Israel’s presence over the Green Line, but also Israel’s establishment in 1948. Jews were brutally attacked and murdered en masse beginning in the 1920s, half a century before a single settlement was built.
In fact, groups like the Palestinian Liberation Organization and Hamas state openly in Arabic that the conflict has nothing to do with Israel’s presence in Judea and Samaria. They oppose Jewish sovereignty itself, or in the case of Hamas, they are waging a war against Jews everywhere.
I hope in conversations with friends, family, colleagues and your elected representatives—and in letters to the editor—you’ll emphasize that any solutions to the Israel-Palestinian conflict will have to be based on new realities.
The myths that Israel is blocking peace, that “occupation” or “settlements” are core to the problem or that Middle East peace depends on resolution between Jews and Palestinians have all thankfully been laid to rest in the wake of recent peace breakthroughs.
In fact, the Palestinians’ leverage has been dramatically reduced. At a minimum they will have to recognize the Jewish state. They should also consider stepping up to the negotiating table soon in the hopes of harnessing the region’s new appetite for peace with Israel. It may be their only chance for an independent state.
I hope you’ll also take a minute, while you have this material front and center, to visit FLAME’s lively Facebook page and review the P.S. immediately below. It describes FLAME’s new hasbarah campaign—which explains the sad, but true reasons Palestinians continue to fail at forming their own nation state.
P.S. Some American and European politicians argue that Israel’s intention to apply sovereignty to the militarily critical Jordan Valley would inhibit formation of a Palestinian state. Nothing is further from the truth. The Palestinians don’t have a state—despite numerous offers of land for peace by Israel—because the Arab group simply hasn’t mustered an adequate strategy, political unity or leadership. They’re simply unable to say yes. To clarify this point, FLAME has created a new hasbarah message called “What’s Stopping a Palestinian State?” I hope you’ll review this convincing, fact-based paid editorial, which will run in USA Today, the Washington Post, and other media nationwide. It spells out specific reasons the Palestinians have failed to create a sovereign state and why it’s time for the world—and Israel—to move on. This piece will also be sent to all members of Congress, Vice President Pence and President Trump. If you agree that this kind of public relations effort on Israel’s behalf is critical, I urge you to support us. Remember: FLAME’s powerful ability to influence public opinion—and U.S. support of Israel—comes from individuals like you, one by one. I hope you’ll consider giving a donation now, as you’re able—with $500, $250, $100, or even $18. (Remember, your donation to FLAME is tax deductible.) To donate online, just go to donate now. Now, more than ever, we need your support to ensure that the American people, the U.S. Congress and President Trump stay committed to realistic policies in relation to Israel, Iran and the entire Middle East.
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Pauley Perrette Opens Up About Saying Goodbye To ‘NCIS’
Mary Evans Picture Library
7 Things You Didn't Know About NCIS Star Brian Dietzen
After 15 incredible seasons, Pauley Perrette is saying goodbye to NCIS, and she admits it has been anything but easy.
In a new interview, the actress who has played forensic scientist Abby Sciuto for 15 seasons of the iconic series, opened up about how she tried to tell her castmates she was leaving. “I just made a very feeble attempt to try and tell them without crying and I made it for about 10 seconds,” Perrette told ET. “‘I just want you guys to know,’ and that was it. I’m like, [crying], ‘I love you, guys,’ then I have to get right back to work and do a three-page monologue about science.”
As for fans having to say goodbye, she knows it isn’t easy, and has the same response that they do. “I say, ‘I love her as much as you do,’ which is true,” the 49-year-old actress said of her response to all the fan love. “And I say, ‘thank you,’ and I say, ‘I love you, guys,’ because I do. I love the Abby fans, there is nobody like them.”
Now, she jokes, “I have been in either pajamas or a bathing suit for almost a month,” and doesn’t have an exact career move in place just yet. “As far as what’s next, it is totally God’s plan for me, and that’s what I believe and that’s how I feel,” she explained. “So I’m just waiting. It’ll be revealed to me. I’ll know when it happens.”
As for why Perrette chose to leave the show after a decade and a half, she said in a separate interview, “I believe in God and the universe so firmly, and it just suddenly became blindingly apparent that now was the time. After a lot of thought, I decided to announce it myself on Twitter because I didn’t want it to be turned into anything “shocking.” Abby leaving is more than a cheap TV ploy.”
She also added that fans should be ready for quite the exit as well.
“I actually can’t say,” she said of what exactly happens in the emotional goodbye. “Not because I’m not allowed to, but because there are so many different feelings. It’s a cornucopia of emotions. And there is a character from her past who comes back and becomes pivotal to the plotline,” she said. “There are tears, there are laughs, there are more tears and there’s a lot of love. It’s packed. As an actor and as Abby, I felt a lot. Even right now, I’m running the gamut of emotions.”
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World Population Prospect 2019
The updated data of the UN Agency that elaborates demographic forecasts are on-line
10.9 billions of people will populate the earth in 2100, according to the estimates of the Agency of the UN that deals with demography. This means that the world population will continue to grow, but with a decidedly minimized rate as compared to the last years, going from an average of 2.5 to 1.9 children per woman. The Pew Research Center has outlined, based on the data published by the UN, 11 demographic trends that will affect us in the following years.
The world population will grow with a much slower pace, therefore it will inevitably grow old. Europe and Latin America will be the first continents to register a decrease in the population, Old Europe from 2021, Latin America from 2050, while in Asia the population will continue to grow until 2055 and then it will start to descend. Africa will lead the trend of demographic growth, thus becoming the second most populous continent after Asia, ready to surpass it in the century to come: From 2060, the number of births in Africa will surpass the number of births in Asia and, more or less during the same years, in 2057, Nigeria will surpass the United States thus becoming the third most populous country.
UN Population data.
Pew Research Center report.
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Inside Intel’s Mentoring Movement
Forget everything that you’ve ever learned about mentoring, especially the idea of hitching your wagon to a rising star. Here’s how Intel is reinventing the old approach to mentoring to teach, inspire, and reconnect its employees.
Ann Otero seems like an unlikely mentor — at least by the rules most companies apply. The 12-year Intel veteran is neither a star engineer nor a fast-track sales executive. She’s a senior administrative assistant.
But Otero has rare gifts that Intel prizes. Among the 5,500 employees at the company’s sprawling New Mexico plant, Otero is a master at tapping into the informal people networks that make the company tick. Need to know who to call in human resources about a difficult employee? Wondering how to decode the company’s internal teams? Otero knows who to call and how to read the Intel culture. Her ability to navigate Intel is so refined that she’s currently teaching her skills to an Intel manager who happens to outrank her. That’s the Intel way of mentoring — and it has almost nothing in common with traditional, corporate mentoring programs. Intel’s way is more democratic, more systematic, and faster paced. Most important, it has nothing to do with individual career advancement.
Started in 1997 at one of Intel’s largest chip-making facilities in New Mexico, the company’s mentoring movement shows that an old-fashioned idea can be updated to work perfectly — even in an industry that changes with stunning speed. Traditional mentoring tethered an up-and-comer to an old hand for years of personal-development and career advice. It was an approach that seemed best suited for slow-moving industries operating in more stable times. But Intel took the idea of mentoring and reinvented it to fit a competitive environment where what matters most is an employee’s ability to do the right things right away.
Intel’s version matches people not by job title or by years of service but by specific skills that are in demand. “This is definitely not a special program for special people,” says Lory Lanese, Intel’s mentor champion in New Mexico. Nor is the company’s mentoring-with-a-difference approach all about face time and one-on-one counseling. Instead, Intel’s program uses an intranet and email to perform the matchmaking, creating relationships that stretch across state lines and national boundaries. That enables Intel to spread best practices quickly throughout the far-flung organization. Finally, Intel uses written contracts and tight deadlines to make sure that its mentoring program gets results — fast.
In the sagebrush-strewn desert about 15 miles north of Albuquerque, New Mexico, Intel’s hulking semiconductor facility dominates the landscape. Three chip plants operate here, including one of its newest: Fab 11X. Smokestacks poke into the sky, and in the parking lot, Chevy trucks outnumber BMW sedans. A small version of Intel’s famous logo is the only thing that associates the site with the company’s better-known Silicon Valley headquarters. It seems an unlikely place for bold thinking about human-resource issues.
But this is where Intel’s mentoring movement got its start as a way to train new managers quickly. And this is where its inspiration and innovation still originate. Because of New Mexico’s success in spawning a human-resources mentoring program that has connected thousands of people within the company, Intel has committed money and resources, even in these tough economic times, to fund its mentoring programs for this year.
When the New Mexico factory began pairing up old-timers with new managers five years ago, it was out of absolute necessity. During the go-go 1990s, Intel raided established plants, like the one in New Mexico, in search of managers and technical experts to run the new factories that were opening around the world. The New Mexico factory was left with few experienced people and a fresh batch of trainees who had to learn quickly. “We’d been tapped out,” says Lee Ballew, a human-resources development manager who was part of the four-person team that spearheaded New Mexico’s mentoring projects. “We’d sent off our experts, and we needed to grow new ones.”
Previous mentoring programs at Intel had ground to premature halts. Before launching its new effort, the New Mexico team first sought early assurances of high-level support. “Good things aren’t free,” Lanese says. “I told management about the cost and commitment and asked them to be mentors as well.”
Then the team analyzed the reasons behind past failures. It discovered that Intel’s previous mentoring programs had largely been informal. Ambitious young employees who wanted rapid promotions would find a more senior person who could offer them pointers. The only people who took that risk were the ones with a lot of nerve or political savvy — which made for a hit-or-miss track record.
The New Mexico team didn’t want its version of mentoring to be about pushing a few people up the corporate ladder. Instead, the program’s success would hinge on how well knowledge was passed along to a new generation. That meant rethinking how mentors and “partners,” or those looking to be mentored, were paired up, and then outlining in detail what they should do once they were in a mentoring relationship.
Keep It Controlled … Sort Of
The first step in Intel’s mentoring program was to create a matching system that eliminated guesswork. For this, the New Mexico team turned to the employee database in order to create an intranet-based questionnaire that could match partners with the right mentor. The system works by having potential mentors list their top skills at Circuit, Intel’s internal employee site. Partners click on topics that they want to master, such as leadership, Intel culture, or networking. Then an algorithm computes all of the variables, and the database spits out a list of possible matches.
In New Mexico, a team decides which mentor best suits the partner. At other Intel locations, the partner chooses one mentor from the list. “I knew that people would want instant gratification,” says Kevin Gazzara, Intel’s mentoring-program manager within the human-resources division. “If the mentoring database didn’t match you immediately with a few potential mentors, people wouldn’t be as likely to take part.”
Once a match is made, an automatic email goes to the mentor asking her to set up a time to talk. At a required class, the mentor and the partner learn some simple but vital guidelines.
1. The partner controls the relationship. Partners, not mentors, set up meetings and decide what they want to work on. According to Intel, mentoring relationships that last from six to nine months work the best.
2. Put the details of the relationship in a mentoring contract. While not binding, that contract creates accountability that goes far beyond traditional mentoring relationships. “I would never have carved time out of my day to focus on something that I wanted to learn,” says Stephanie Wilson, a training manager who was mentored in New Mexico. “But I knew that someone was depending on me to think and learn, so I focused.”
3. Both the partner and the mentor decide what to talk about. Once formality is out of the way, candor and privacy take over. The limits of what can and can’t be discussed are set by the partner and the mentor together, not by the people who run the program. “We don’t have mentoring police,” Ballew says. For Wilson, that “no-holds-barred” approach was as welcome as the structure. “I wanted someone outside my department to bounce ideas off of,” she says. “Not to criticize my group, but we often think alike. I needed outside perspective.”
Keep the Politics Out
Outside perspective — not inside politics — was what the New Mexico team had hoped for when it created its new approach to mentoring. By weeding out the politics, Intel is able to make use of an important asset that many companies never tap into: their employees’ vast knowledge. “It’s a great medium for the exchange of ideas,” says Steve Backers, a corporate college-recruiting manager in Folsom, California who mentors an Intel program manager in Phoenix. “It’s about what you want to know, not who you know.”
Indeed, unlike many corporations that use mentoring for career advancement, Intel’s style is all about learning from someone you have probably never met. That’s why this voluntary program is open to everyone — from workers on the factory floor to senior-level engineers.
Go back to Ann Otero, for example. Most companies wouldn’t consider her as a mentor, and it’s unlikely that she’d even have the opportunity to be mentored by a senior-level executive. But when she needed help with leadership and time management, she signed up for a mentor who could teach her such new skills. She was teamed up with a senior manager. After working with her mentor, Otero says that she now has enough leadership know-how to feel comfortable speaking up in the high-level meetings that she sits in on.
Keep Trying New Ways
While Intel has a few hard and fast rules about mentoring, the company tries to stay open to experimentation. “The great thing about mentoring is that it shifts easily to meet training needs, whether you’re expanding your business or you’re not hiring,” Lanese says. “When you’re growing, it’s great to help integrate your people. When you’re not, it can help people make the next leap in their careers.”
During Intel’s growth spurt, the New Mexico team shifted some of its focus to group mentoring, where one manager helps a small group of new recruits. The team matched small groups of new managers — usually four or five — with one experienced manager to work on a specific management problem.
Wilson also took part in the group-mentoring project. She says that group mentoring offered a new way to solve problems and learn management skills — a way that is very different from management training in a classroom. “At a certain point, what you get in a classroom is academic,” she says. “With a small group mentoring each other, you get the kind of deep feedback that won’t happen in a roomful of people.”
Wilson says that her group wanted help in learning how to manage employee performance. In a classroom, the examples would have been made up or taken from old case studies. In contrast, the group-mentoring program uses real-life examples taken from a day’s work. “I had the perspective of four other people about a problem that I was facing,” says Wilson. “It felt like the burden was taken off of me. I got to share my workload.”
Fara Warner (fwarner@fastcompany.com) is a senior writer based in San Francisco. Email Kevin Gazzara (kevin.d.gazzara@intel.com) to learn more about Intel’s mentoring program. To join the online debate about the value of mentors, click here.
A version of this article appeared in the April 2002 issue of Fast Company magazine.
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The White Crow (Review)
CAST: Oleg Ivenko, Adèle Exarchopoulos, Chulpan Khamatova, Ralph Fiennes, Alexey Morozov, Raphaël Personnaz, Olivier Rabourdin, Ravshana Kurkova, Louis Hofmann, Sergei Polunin, Maksimilian Grigoriyev, Zach Avery, Yves Heck
BASICALLY…: Russian ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev (Ivenko) becomes increasingly tempted to defect from the Soviet Union to the West…
Ralph Fiennes’ directing career started off strong with the powerful retelling of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, and then meandered a little with his intimate Charles Dickens biopic The Invisible Woman, but with his third feature The White Crow it would be tempting to say that it easily pirouettes and leaps right into our hearts, if it weren’t for the fact that it’s sadly a rather dull movie that never jumps off the ground as much as its lead character literally does on-screen.
Said main character is Rudolf Nureyev (played by real-life Ukrainian ballet dancer Oleg Ivenko in his acting debut), a prominent dancer in the Soviet Union who, in 1961, travels outside the USSR for the first time to perform with the Kirov Ballet in Paris. There, despite being under strict watch by his Soviet superiors, he begins to fraternise with local admirers, including socialite Clara Saint (Blue Is The Warmest Colour’s Adèle Exarchopoulos), and becomes fascinated with the open-minded culture that Paris has to offer, while becoming increasingly less satisfied with the USSR’s tight grasp on him and his contemporaries. It all leads to a rather dramatic decision that would change his life forever, and would come as a pretty big blow to Soviet culture at a time when the Cold War was at its highest peak.
Before that pivotal moment, however, the movie enjoys cutting back and forth to various moments in his life, including his bleak and miserable childhood – all shot with a widescreen aspect ratio, but it’s the only part of the movie that experiments with different screen sizes – and his vigorous training under the tutelage of his soft-spoken teacher Alexander Pushkin (played by Fiennes in a supporting role), during which he becomes close with Pushkin and his wife Xenia (Chulpan Khamatova). These frequent flashbacks seem to happen whenever they want, without a noticeable transition or even a sense of logic; they will just pop up randomly at several stages in the Paris-set main story, and with the exception of the childhood scenes – which are, again, the only sections of the movie to be shot and exhibited differently than the rest of it – there is little to no indication that what we are now watching takes place either before or at the same time as the scene prior. It’s a frustrating practise that takes you out of the movie because you’re trying more to piece together what order this is all meant to be taking place in rather than actually becoming engrossed in the story and its central character themselves, and as a result you end up feeling so discombobulated by its ADHD narrative that any sense of investment barely remains, despite the clearly noble intentions that director Fiennes has with this story.
It’s also painfully obvious from all of this frequent jumping from one moment in time to another that Fiennes and writer David Hare don’t seem to have come up with a reasonably compelling story to tell on its own merits, and have tried to supplement that with all of these distractingly non-chronological detours in the process. While his 1961 trip to Paris and the massive decision at its end on his part was no doubt a hugely significant event in the life of Rudolf Nureyev, it was also a somewhat minor incident when you compare it to all of his other achievements later on in life, and one where not much else happened around it that could be classed as dramatically engaging; it’s largely just a collection of scenes where Nureyev sees some of the Parisian sights, and simply likes what he sees. That’s not enough dramatic material to fill a two-hour movie, hence the film’s frequent cutting away to several other incidents earlier in his life, no matter how randomly and out of order they seem to have been placed; this leads the film to become a largely unengaging and dramatically dry slog that’s about as exciting and interesting as sitting down to watch an actual ballet (no offense to any of you who actually enjoy that sort of thing). Seriously, not since The 15:17 to Paris have I not seen a real-life story play out on the big screen with such little life to it, although don’t mistake this comparison as this movie is nowhere even close to being as inept as that Clint Eastwood embarrassment; at least The White Crow doesn’t have an opening scene denouncing a teacher’s diagnosis of ADHD and them being told by the parents that they trust God over their statistics.
While the movie suffers greatly from its largely drama-free structure and lack of a coherent story to stick itself together, the few moments that do shine in this movie are due in part to Fiennes’ occasional eye for visual intimacy, and also for the highly commendable debut performance by Oleg Ivenko in the central role. The real-life dancer gives a carefully researched physical performance whenever he’s mimicking the dance techniques of the lauded Nureyev, and in the scenes where he’s required to actually act he does a fine job at displaying the character’s rebellious, often hot-headed, nature which doesn’t make his eventual decision seem like it comes out of thin air by the end. Meanwhile, Fiennes allows for a number of his scenes to have a soft, gentle visual look to them which can make certain scenes of seduction feel all the more sensual and even arousing; it’s a trait that was previously noticed in his previous directorial effort The Invisible Woman, and for all of this movie’s faults – which, sadly, there is a great number of – neither this sensual approach by Fiennes nor its decent lead performance by Ivenko are part of them.
However, for the casual audience member this is likely to be a case where they just can’t get into it as much as higher-brow contemporaries, but even those people should be able to pick up on how narratively empty and unengaging this movie has turned out to be, which is a crying shame considering the number of talent involved with making it.
The White Crow is a noble but ultimately underwhelming effort from director Ralph Fiennes, who despite some intimate direction and a serviceable lead performance by Oleg Ivenko cannot overcome a dramatically-dry narrative that never leaps as high as the central dancer it is depicting.
By Jack Martin|March 13th, 2019|Film Reviews|0 Comments
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"Bullying" refers to verbal, physical, or mental acts committed by a student to harass, intimidate, or cause harm to another student. Bullying may include verbal threats, physical assault, intimidation, or other forms of inappropriate behavior, such as harassment, disorderly conduct, and acts which disturb the peace. Because bullying on school campuses is a growing concern, parents, school districts, and students should be aware of the serious violations and violence that may occur as a result of student bullying, and how it may be addressed.
Anti-Bullying State Laws
A number of states have passed laws to address intimidation, harassment, and bullying in schools. These "anti-bullying" laws are meant to promote school safety, improve truancy rates, and reduce school violence, among other things. The law specifically requires schools to create certain policies for prevention, training, and enforcement concerning behavior that may lead to bullying. Students who violate anti-bullying provisions face suspension and expulsion; whereas schools and districts may face large monetary fines arising out of civil liability claims.
Examples of specific behavior that constitutes bullying include:
Wearing gang paraphernalia and other clothing meant to intimidate or exclude another;
Spreading rumors or posting degrading, harmful, or explicit pictures, messages, or information using social media or other forms of electronic communication (also known as "cyberbullying");
Taunting or making sexual slurs about a person's gender orientation or sexual status;
Name-calling, joking, or making offensive remarks about a person's religion, gender, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status; and
Physical acts of bullying, such as punching, slapping, or tripping someone.
Federal Anti-Bullying Laws
While federal laws do not specifically address bullying per se, a school or district may be charged with violation of First Amendment, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, and other laws aimed at protecting an individual's right to equal protection. For example, the Supreme Court has held that parents may sue a school or district for failing to take action on a sexual harassment claim it knew about, but failed to act on (in the case of Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education).
For information on commonly asked questions concerning a student's federal rights, click here.
Students who engage in certain acts associated with bullying may be suspended or expelled from a school or district, as well as face civil fines and criminal penalties, including jail time, depending on the specific violation.
School districts may also face civil law penalties, in the form of hefty monetary fines, arising out of a failure to prevent or punish certain types of behavior by students within their district.
To see a list of specific state laws agaist bullying, click here.
Bullying and the Law
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ABA and OBM M.S.
Download the Course List for ABA and OBM M.S.
Get a Master's in Applied Behavior Analysis and Organizational Behavior Management
This intensive Master of Science in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) and Organizational Behavior Management (OBM) program is essentially a double major, providing graduates with the skills, credentials, and flexibility to lead clinical or managerial teams using a behavioral approach.
Developing as experts in both evolving fields, professionals can work directly with patients, consult in a corporate environment, and combine the fields for a unique specialty. Blending the two programs into a master’s in ABA and OBM gives students a wider range of expertise and potential careers. Florida Tech’s master’s in ABA and OBM program is among only a few in the world offering this degree option.
With a master’s in ABA and OBM, graduates are equipped for different types of behavioral consults. Applied Behavior Analysts (ABAs) help to better the lives of children and adults struggling with behaviors ranging from difficulty with everyday social interactions to complex conditions such as autism spectrum disorders or substance abuse by applying a systematic scientific approach. Organizational behavior managers (OBMs) also use a scientific behavioral approach, but address human behavior issues in the workplace, such as improving employee productivity and efficiency.
Professional Culture—Flexible Program and Schedule
Florida Tech students are made up of a diverse mix of full-time workers in the local area to students from around the globe seeking to obtain higher-level management skills. Students who choose a master’s in ABA and OBM build the foundation necessary to become a well-respected professional in the healthcare and business community.
The program offers daytime, evening, and weekend class schedules, and is in close proximity to a thriving medical community, including hospitals and clinics that provide internships and applied learning opportunities for students.
“Why Pursue a Master's in ABA and OBM at Florida Tech? ”
Florida Tech’s School of Behavior Analysis has three programs accredited by the Association for Behavior Analysis International, and all of the core course sequence are also approved by the Behavior Analyst Certification Board® (BACB®). The BACB has also approved the Intensive Practical Training in Behavior Analysis as meeting the intensive practicum requirements for the experiential component of the BCBA examination.
Florida Tech’s master’s-level ABA programs (applied behavior analysis, and the dual program with organizational behavior management) provide students with the requirements to take the BCBA examination immediately upon graduation.
Florida Tech also holds the distinction of being one of the only master’s in ABA and OBM programs, particularly in the study of organizational behavioral management.
The BACB is the only credentialing organization for professionals within the discipline.
Respected Faculty—Close-Knit Learning Environment
Florida Tech has among the most applied behavior analysis faculty of any program in the world.
Students working towards a master’s in ABA and OBM develop their expertise through class discussions of case studies, involvement in research, and internship opportunities. Florida Tech has more ABA and OBM faculty than other universities, with all core faculty board certified behavior analysts.
Many professors are published authors and experts on many facets of ABA and OBM, such as behavioral economics, self-control, sports psychology, employee efficiency, and others. Florida Tech professors are involved in ongoing research at the Scott Center for Autism Treatment, located at Florida Tech. Working alongside professors who provide one-on-one attention during research and client interaction, master’s in ABA and OBM students earn visibility as a research professional and colleague able to study and work in the field.
Many School of Psychology professors perform applied research outside of their teaching responsibilities working in settings such as clinical treatment or organizational consulting. Master’s in ABA and OBM students participate in this research, at research centers and organizations located on and off campus including the Scott Center’s Psychological Services, the Society for Performance Management, and the Behavior Analysis Student Association.
Students are also given an opportunity to develop a portfolio of published work through organizations and research centers located both on and off campus. Florida Tech students have consistently published research in respected ABA journals.
Expert Career Preparation
Because of the ABA and OBM program’s varying experience in clinical and business settings, graduates can work for many different public and private organizations, choosing a clinical career, business career, or a combination of the two for unique and equally rewarding opportunities. Florida Tech is one of the only universities in the nation that offers a master’s in ABA and OBM for a truly diverse career path.
“What ABA and OBM research or other opportunities can I expect? ”
The mission of Florida Tech’s master’s in ABA and OBM training is to develop behavior-analytic practitioners and consultants who understand the basic principles of behavior analysis, contribute to behavioral research, serve as consultants to human service agencies, attain BCBA certification and, if desired, be ready to enter a doctoral program. Florida Tech graduates score among the highest on the International Board Certification Exam in behavior analysis.
Master’s in ABA and OBM students participate in behavior-based research projects under the mentorship of a faculty member. Florida Tech professors are published authors and experts on many facets of ABA and OBM including:
Research projects can include teaching new skills, assessing and treating behavior problems, or methods of improving the delivery of services in human services organizations.
Located directly on Florida Tech’s campus, the Scott Center for Autism Treatment specializes in working with children with autism and other related disorders. Internship opportunities are available for master’s in ABA and OBM students involving analysis of internal processes for efficiency and evaluating staff for effectiveness. These experiences build on what students learn in the classroom, allowing them to help improve a dynamic work environment.
Society for Performance Management
This research center provides students with the opportunity to discuss, research, and present projects on many areas of organizational behavior management. Students earning a master’s in ABA and OBM work with faculty, fellow graduate students, and members of other universities around the country to learn ways to apply OBM principles to modern business scenarios. Students present at conferences and work with outside agencies to develop solutions for business challenges, including behavioral safety, direct-line supervision of employees, improving staff performance, reducing absenteeism, and staff training and development.
Portfolio of Published Articles
Outside of research and internships, graduate students often publish research in respected ABA journals, including the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, Behavior Analysis in Practice, and Behavioral Interventions. Organizations and research centers located both on- and off-campus help students explore topics in ABA and OBM. Florida Tech’s dedication to research and state-of-the-art facilities ensure that students graduating with a master’s in ABA and OBM have a deeper understanding of each field and a portfolio of published work, real-world insights, and experience.
“How will a master's degree benefit my ABA and OBM career? ”
What could my career look like with a degree in ABA and OBM M.S.?
A master’s degree ABA and OBM prepares individuals to become a Board-Certified Behavior Analyst® (BCBA). Graduates with a master’s in ABA and OBM are also prepared to enter a doctoral program at Florida Tech.
Alumni with a master’s in ABA and OBM from Florida Tech reside around the world, working in businesses, schools, clinics, residential treatment centers, group homes, and private practice. Graduates work with children and individuals with autism, schizophrenia, or intellectual disabilities. They also provide expert counsel to businesses, nonprofit organizations, and government entities on a host of workplace topics from employee management, productivity, and efficiency.
The Occupational Outlook Handbook, published by the United States Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), provides detailed information about hundreds of occupations, including, entry-level education, overall working environment, and employment prospects. According to the Bureau, overall employment in psychology careers such as applied behavior analysis jobs are projected to grow 12% through 2022. This includes a higher demand for school psychologists to work with students, particularly those with special needs, learning disabilities, and behavioral issues.
Jobs will also include professionals that can assess and counsel students, work in speech-language pathology, animal behavior and special education, or consult in corporate environments to identify behavioral challenges that affect workplace productivity and delivery of services.
ABA and OBM jobs for individuals with a master’s in ABA and OBM include:
Private-practice ABA providing early intervention services to children with autism
ABA consultant in a school district such as assisting teachers to manage students with problem behavior
ABA in a group home
ABA consultant or staff to companies focusing on improving employee performance
Program manager or director of a specialized school
ABA for state or federal government
Diverse Career Options
Because of the program’s varying experience in clinical and business settings, graduates with a master’s in ABA and OBM work in many different public and private organizations, or combine the two. Some of the career areas graduates pursue include:
Business, nonprofit, and government consulting
Safety improvement consulting
Teaching special education
Managing a human service organization
Consulting to families and school districts
Graduates with a master’s in ABA and OBM are well prepared to enter Florida Tech’s doctoral program in behavior analysis. Many Florida Tech students receive significant assistantships from The Scott Center for Autism Treatment that covers the majority of their academic costs.
On average, graduates with a PhD have higher salaries and employment rates than those with a master’s or bachelor’s degree, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Doctoral graduates also continue into academia as professors to teach the next generation of students. For full-time doctoral graduate research assistants, full-pay tuition scholarships are available.
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Home Insights Realizing the Potential of Telemedicine in China, Part 1: Protecting Your IP
Realizing the Potential of Telemedicine in China, Part 1: Protecting Your IP
Authors: Nathaniel M. Lacktman Tianran Yan
This post is the second in Foley’s blogs on China telemedicine and the first in the blog series, “Realizing the Potential of Telemedicine in China,” meant to address top issues facing U.S. companies looking to enter the Chinese telemedicine market. We hope to expand the series to include additional issues.
Companies expanding into China must register IP assets separately in China; registrations must be filed in English and Chinese
Contracts in China are used to manage expectations; to avoid getting lost in translation, they should be drawn up in English and Chinese
Thorough due diligence in China is critical if U.S. companies are to avoid being “home turfed.”
Telemedicine device manufacturers and software developers face different challenges related to IP protection when expanding into China, including when it comes to trade secret protection, IP asset registration, contracts, and due diligence.
To start, U.S. companies must change their approach to IP asset registration, as registration in the United States is insufficient to ensure protection abroad. Patents, trademarks, copyrights, and other assets registered in the United States must also be registered separately with Chinese agencies, and the registrations must be completed in English and Chinese, to avoid ambiguity and leave them open to interpretation by Chinese courts. For U.S. suppliers of telemedicine devices and software, it would be wise to file patent applications and/or copyright registrations in China as early as possible to deter competitors from copying their proprietary devices and software.
Meeting With a Potential Partner
For U.S. telemedicine companies that heavily rely on trade secrets to protect their proprietary technical and business information, they should consider taking various precautions before, during, and after meeting with a potential Chinese partner. For example, before meeting with the Chinese partner, the U.S. company can file a U.S. provisional patent application directed to their proprietary technical information that they have considered as trade secret. The provisional application does not publish and gives the U.S. company an option to file a regular patent application in many countries, including China, within one year. If, within that year, the U.S. company found that the Chinese partner has acted to disclose such proprietary technical information without authorization, thereby disclosing aspects of the trade secret, the U.S. company will still be able to avail itself of some level of protection of such proprietary technical information in the form of a patent application.
Of course, highly proprietary information should not be shared before proper due diligence has been undertaken on the party receiving access to such information in order to “seal the deal” with a US telemedicine services company, including a company offering devices and/or software. Even then, where sharing can be limited (i.e., summaries of proprietary technology documentation), risk of significant financial and other harms to the US company can be reduced.
During the meeting and contract negotiation with the Chinese partner, the U.S. company should consider asking the Chinese partner to sign an acknowledgement and description of all proprietary information disclosed by the U.S. company. A three-way confidentiality agreement can also be executed between the U.S. company, the Chinese partner, and the Chinese partner’s relevant employees to maximize protection of the U.S. company’s trade secrets.
In addition, U.S. and Chinese companies view the purpose of contracts differently. For example, in China, contracts are generally drawn up to manage expectations (cooperation agreements), rather than as a tool to be used in litigation, should parties not live up to the contract, as they are in the United States. That said, it is critical that if a U.S. company is to effectively manage expectations, all contracts should be drawn up separately in both English and Chinese, to ensure that nothing is lost in translation and in the event of an issue, the interpretation of an English contract is not left up to a Chinese court.
Due diligence in China is just as critical, if not more so, than due diligence in the United States. Understand the entities you are doing business with, both inside and out. By spending a bit more on front-end due diligence, U.S. companies can avoid being “home turfed,” finding themselves stuck with contracts with Chinese partners that are unenforceable.
Furthermore, after the meeting, due diligence investigation, and the execution of contracts, the U.S. companies should continue monitoring the situation to ensure that access to its trade secret is properly limited and that precautions are taken when a relevant employee resign from the Chinese partner or becomes an independent contractor. If the precautionary steps discussed herein are properly taken, a U.S. telemedicine company could place itself in a good position to safeguard its trade secrets in China.
Are you interested in learning more about telemedicine in China? Foley offers two opportunities to get up to speed with the latest developments:
English Translations of China’s NHFPC Opinions (Issued August 2014)
Members of Foley’s Telemedicine and China Practices have completed English-language translations of an Interpretation and associated Opinion on the Promotion of Medical Institution Telemedicine Services, issued in August 2014 by The National Health and Family Planning Commission of the People’s Republic of China.
The translations are available online.
Upcoming Complimentary Web Conference on Telemedicine: Doing Business in China
On Monday, October 6, Foley Partners Nate Lacktman and Tad Ferris will be presenting Telemedicine: Doing Business in China, a 60-minute, complimentary Web conference addressing:
The current landscape and business opportunities related to devices, software, and service providers for telemedicine companies and hospitals seeking to do business in China
A look at the recent China telemedicine guidance and opinions issued in August 2014, against the backdrop of historical telemedicine rules
Challenges and best practices regarding telemedicine business in China, including tackling IP and trade secret protection
Nathaniel M. Lacktman
nlacktman@foley.com
Tianran Yan
tyan@foley.com
Health Care Telemedicine & Digital Health International Health Care
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America's Information Edge
By Joseph S. Nye, Jr. and William A. Owens
THE POWER RESOURCE OF THE FUTURE
Knowledge, more than ever before, is power. The one country that can best lead the information revolution will be more powerful than any other. For the foreseeable future, that country is the United States. America has apparent strength in military power and economic production. Yet its more subtle comparative advantage is its ability to collect, process, act upon, and disseminate information, an edge that will almost certainly grow over the next decade. This advantage stems from Cold War investments and America's open society, thanks to which it dominates important communications and information processing technologies--space-based surveillance, direct broadcasting, high-speed computers--and has an unparalleled ability to integrate complex information systems.
This information advantage can help deter or defeat traditional military threats at relatively low cost. In a world in which the meaning of containment, the nuclear umbrella, and conventional deterrence have changed, the information advantage can strengthen the intellectual link between U.S. foreign policy and military power and offer new ways of maintaining leadership in alliances and ad hoc coalitions.
The information edge is equally important as a force multiplier of American diplomacy, including "soft power"--the attraction of American democracy and free markets.ffi The United States can use its information resources to engage China, Russia, and other powerful states in security dialogues to prevent them from becoming hostile. At the same time, its information edge can help prevent states like Iran and Iraq, already hostile, from becoming powerful. Moreover, it can bolster new democracies and communicate directly with those living under undemocratic regimes. This advantage is also important in efforts to prevent and resolve regional conflicts and deal with prominent post--Cold War dangers, including international crime, terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and damage to the global environment.
Yet two conceptual problems prevent the United States from realizing its potential. The first is that outmoded thinking clouds the appreciation of information as power. Traditional measures of military force, gross national product, population, energy, land, and minerals have continued to dominate discussions of the balance of power. These power resources still matter, and American leadership continues to depend on them as well as on the information edge. But these measures failed to anticipate the demise of the Soviet Union, and they are an equally poor means of forecasting for the exercise of American leadership into the next century.
In assessing power in the information age, the importance of technology, education, and institutional flexibility has risen, whereas that of geography, population, and raw materials has fallen. Japan adapted to these changes through growth in the 1980s far better than by pursuing territorial conquest in the 1930s. In neglecting information, traditional measures of the balance of power have failed to anticipate the key developments of the last decade: the Soviet Union's fall, Japan's rise, and the continuing prominence of the United States.
The second conceptual problem has been a failure to grasp the nature of information. It is easy to trace and forecast the growth of capabilities to process and exchange information. The information revolution, for example, clearly is in its formative stages, but one can foresee that the next step will involve the convergence of key technologies, such as digitization, computers, telephones, televisions, and precise global positioning. But to capture the implications of growing information capabilities, particularly the interactions among them, is far more difficult. Information power is also hard to categorize because it cuts across all other military, economic, social, and political power resources, in some cases diminishing their strength, in others multiplying it.
The United States must adjust its defense and foreign policy strategy to reflect its growing comparative advantage in information resources. Part of this adjustment will entail purging conceptual vestiges. Some of the lingering Cold War inhibitions on sharing intelligence, for example, keep the United States from seizing new opportunities. Some of the adjustment will require innovation in existing institutions. Information agencies need not remain Cold War relics, as some in Congress describe them, but should be used as instruments that can be more powerful, cost effective, and flexible than ever before. Likewise, the artificially sharp distinction between military and political assets has kept the United States from suppressing hate propaganda that has incited ethnic conflicts.
MILITARY CAPABILITY AND INFORMATION
The character of U.S. military forces is changing, perhaps much more rapidly than most appreciate, for, driven by the information revolution, a revolution in military affairs is at hand. This American-led revolution stems from advances in several technologies and, more important, from the ability to tie these developments together and build the doctrines, strategies, and tactics that take advantage of their technical potential.
ISR is the acronym for intelligence collection, surveillance, and reconnaissance. Advanced c4i refers to technologies and systems that provide command, control, communications, and computer processing. Perhaps the best-known advance is precision force, thanks to the videotapes of precision-guided munitions used in Operation Desert Storm. The latter is a broader concept than some imagine, for it refers to a general ability to use deadly violence with greater speed, range, and precision.
In part because of past investments, in part serendipitously, the United States leads other nations in each of these areas, and its rate of improvement will increase dramatically over the next decade. Sensors, for example, will give real-time continuous surveillance in all types of weather over large geographical areas. Fusing and processing information--making sense of the vast amount of data that can be gathered--will give U.S. forces what is called dominant battlespace knowledge, a wide asymmetry between what Americans and opponents know. With that, the United States will be able to prevail militarily, whether the arena is a triple-canopy jungle, an urban area, or similar to Desert Storm. Improvements in command-and-control systems and in other communications technologies--already funded and entering service--posit leaps in the ability to transfer information, imagery, and other data to operating forces in forms that are immediately usable. In short, the United States is integrating the technical advances of ISR, c4i, and precision force. The emerging result is a system of systems that represents a qualitative change in U.S. military capabilities.
These technologies provide the ability to gather, sort, process, transfer, and display information about highly complex events that occur in wide geographic areas. However, this is important for more than fighting wars. In a rapidly changing world, information about what is occurring becomes a central commodity of international relations, just as the threat and use of military force was seen as the central power resource in an international system overshadowed by the potential clash of superpowers.
There has been an explosion of information. Yet some kinds of information--the accurate, timely, and comprehensible sort--are more valuable than others. Graphic video images of Rwandan refugees fleeing the horror of tribal hatreds may generate worldwide sympathy and demands for action. But precise knowledge of how many refugees are moving where, how, and under what conditions is critical for effective action.
Military information on the disposition, activity, and capabilities of military forces still ranks high in importance because military force is still perceived as the final arbiter of disagreements. More to the point, concerns that military force may be used still figure prominently in what states do.
The growing interdependence of the world does not necessarily establish greater harmony. It does, however, make military force a matter of interest to audiences outside the local theater. The direct use of military force no longer calls up the specter of escalation to global nuclear holocaust, but it remains a costly and dangerous activity. The Gulf War raised the price of oil worldwide. Russian military operations in Chechnya have influenced the political actions of Muslims from North Africa to Indonesia. The armed conflict in Bosnia colors the character and future of NATO and the United Nations. Military force tears the fabric of new interrelationships and conditions the political and economic behavior of nearly all nations. These considerations suggest a general framework within which the emerging military capabilities of the United States can be linked to its foreign policy.
The concept of deterrence undergirding the emerging American military system of systems envisions a military strong enough to thwart any foreign military action without incurring a commensurate military risk or cost. Those who contemplate a military clash with the United States will have to face the prospect that it will be able to halt and reverse any hostile action, with low risk to U.S. forces.
The United States will not necessarily be able to deter or coerce every adversary. Deterrence and coercion depend on an imbalance of will as well as capabilities, and when a conflict involves interests absolutely vital to an adversary but peripheral to the United States, an opponent may not yield short of a complete American victory in battle. Still, the relationship between willpower and capabilities is reciprocal. Superior battlefield awareness cannot reduce the risk of casualties to zero, but it can keep that risk low enough to maintain the American public's support for the use of force. The ability to inflict high military costs in the early phases of a conflict can undermine an adversary's will, unity, and hope that it can prevail. Because the United States will be able to dominate in battle, it has to be prepared for efforts to test or undermine its resolve off the battlefield with terror and propaganda. But military force can deter the use of those instruments as well.
THE INFORMATION UMBRELLA
The information technologies driving America's emerging military capabilities may change classic deterrence theory. Threatening to use military force is not something Americans will do automatically or easily and has always had some undesirable side effects. In an era in which soft power increasingly influences international affairs, threats and the image of arrogance and belligerence that tends to go with them undercut an image of reason, democracy, and open dialogue.
America's emerging military capabilities--particularly those that provide much more real-time understanding of what is taking place in a large geographical area--can help blunt this paradox. They offer, for example, far greater pre-crisis transparency. If the United States is willing to share this transparency, it will be better able to build opposing coalitions before aggression has occurred. But the effect may be more general, for all nations now operate in an ambiguous world, a context that is not entirely benign or soothing.
In this setting, the emerging U.S. capabilities suggest leverage with friends similar to what extended nuclear deterrence once offered. The nuclear umbrella provided a cooperative structure, linking the United States in a mutually beneficial way to a wide range of friends, allies, and neutral nations. It was a logical response to the central issue of international relations--the threat of Soviet aggression. Now the central issue is ambiguity about the type and degree of threats, and the basis for cooperation is the capacity to clarify and cut through that ambiguity.
The set of fuzzy guidelines and meanings the Cold War once provided has been replaced by a deeper ambiguity regarding international events. Because nearly all nations viewed the international system through Cold War lenses, they shared much the same understanding. To nations throughout the world, the character and complexities of a civil war in the Balkans would have been far less important than the fact of disruption there because the event itself could have triggered a military confrontation between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Details on the clashes between Chinese and Soviet border guards did not really matter; what counted was that a split had appeared in one of the world's great coalitions. Now the details of events seem to count more. With the organizing framework of the Cold War gone, the implications are harder to categorize, and all nations want to know more about what is happening and why to help them decide how much it matters and what they should do about it. Coalition leadership for the foreseeable future will proceed less from the military capacity to crush any opponent and more from the ability quickly to reduce the ambiguity of violent situations, to respond flexibly, and to use force, where necessary, with precision and accuracy.
The core of these capabilities--dominant situational knowledge--is fungible and divisible. The United States can share all or part of its knowledge with whomever it chooses. Sharing would empower recipients to make better decisions in a less-than-benign world, and should they decide to fight, they could achieve the same kind of military dominance as the United States.
These capabilities point to what might be called an information umbrella. Like extended nuclear deterrence, they could form the foundation for a mutually beneficial relationship. The United States would provide situational awareness, particularly regarding military matters of interest to other nations. Other nations, because they could share this information about an event or crisis, would be more inclined to work with the United States.
The beginnings of such a relationship already exist. They were born in the Falklands conflict and are being developed today in the Balkans. At present, the United States provides the bulk of the situational awareness available to the Implementation Force, the U.N. Protection Force, NATO members, and other nations involved in or concerned with the conflict there. It is possible to envision a similar central information role for the United States in other crises or potential military confrontations, from clarifying developments in the Spratly Islands to cutting through the ambiguity and confusion surrounding humanitarian operations in Cambodia and Rwanda. Accurate, real-time, situational awareness is the key to reaching agreement within coalitions on what to do and is essential to the effective use of military forces, whatever their roles and missions. As its capacity to provide this kind of information increases, America will increasingly be viewed as the natural coalition leader, not just because it happens to be the strongest but because it can provide the most important input for good decisions and effective action for other coalition members. Just as nuclear dominance was the key to coalition leadership in the old era, information dominance will be the key in the information age.
All this implies selectively sharing U.S. dominant battlespace knowledge, advanced c4i, and precision force. Old-era thinking might recoil from such a prospect, and it would have to overcome long-established prejudices against being open and generous with what might broadly be called intelligence. In the past, two presumptions supported this reluctance: first, that providing too much of the best information risked disclosing and perhaps even losing the sources and methods used in obtaining it, and second, that sharing information would disclose what the United States did not know and reduce its status as a superpower.
These assumptions are now even more questionable than before. The United States is no longer in a zero-sum game that makes any disclosure of capabilities a potential loss for itself and a gain for an implacable opponent. The character of this growing prowess is different. For one thing, the disparity between the United States and other nations is quite marked. U.S. investment in ISR--particularly the high-leverage space-based aspects of this set of systems--exceeds that of all other nations combined, and America leads by a considerable margin in c4i and precision force as well. It has already begun, systematically, to assemble the new system of systems and is well down the revolutionary path, while most nations have not yet even realized a revolution in military affairs is under way.
Some other nations could match what the United States will achieve, albeit not as early. The revolution is driven by technologies available worldwide. Digitization, computer processing, precise global positioning, and systems integration--the technological bases on which the rest of the new capabilities depend--are available to any nation with the money and the will to use them systematically to improve military capabilities. Exploiting these technologies can be expensive. But more important, there is no particular incentive for those nations to seek the system of systems the United States is building--so long as they believe they are not threatened by it. This is the emerging symbiosis among nations, for whether another nation decides to make a race out of the information revolution depends on how the United States uses its lead. If America does not share its knowledge, it will add incentives to match it. Selectively sharing these abilities is therefore not only the route of coalition leadership but the key to maintaining U.S. military superiority.
THE SOFT SIDE OF INFORMATION POWER
The information age has revolutionized not only military affairs but the instruments of soft power and the opportunities to apply them. One of the ironies of the twentieth century is that Marxist theorists, as well as their critics, such as George Orwell, correctly noted that technological developments can profoundly shape societies and governments, but both groups misconstrued how. Technological and economic change have for the most part proved to be pluralizing forces conducive to the formation of free markets rather than repressive forces enhancing centralized power.
One of the driving factors in the remarkable change in the Soviet Union was that Mikhail Gorbachev and other Soviet leaders understood that the Soviet economy could not advance from the extensive, or industrial, to the intensive, or postindustrial, stage of development unless they loosened constraints on everything from computers to xerox machines--technologies that can also disseminate diverse political ideas. China tried to resist this tide, attempting to limit the use of fax machines after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, in which they were a key means of communication between protesters and the outside world, but the effort failed. Now not only fax machines but satellite dishes have proliferated in China, and the government itself has begun wiring Internet connections and plans to install the equivalent of an entire Baby Bell's worth of telephone lines each year.
This new political and technological landscape is ready-made for the United States to capitalize on its formidable tools of soft power, to project the appeal of its ideals, ideology, culture, economic model, and social and political institutions, and to take advantage of its international business and telecommunications networks. American popular culture, with its libertarian and egalitarian currents, dominates film, television, and electronic communications. American higher education draws some 450,000 foreign students each year. Not all aspects of American culture are attractive, of course, particularly to conservative Muslims. Nonetheless, American leadership in the information revolution has generally increased global awareness of and openness to American ideas and values.
In this information-rich environment, those responsible for four vital tasks can draw on America's comparative advantage in information and soft power resources. These tasks are aiding democratic transitions in the remaining communist and authoritarian states, preventing backsliding in new and fragile democracies, preempting and resolving regional conflicts, and addressing the threats of terrorism, international crime, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and damage to the global environment. Each requires close coordination of the military and diplomatic components of America's foreign policy.
ENGAGING UNDEMOCRATIC STATES AND AIDING DEMOCRATIC TRANSITIONS
Numerous undemocratic regimes survived the Cold War, including not only communist states such as China and Cuba but a variety of unelected governments formed by authoritarians or dominant social, ethnic, religious, or familial groups. Ominously, some of these governments have attempted to acquire nuclear weapons, among them Libya, Iran, Iraq, and North Korea. U.S. policies toward these countries are tailored to their respective circumstances and international behavior. The United States should continue selectively to engage those states, such as China, that show promise of joining the international community, while working to contain those regimes, like Iraq's, that offer no such hope. Whether seeking to engage or isolate undemocratic regimes, in every case the United States should engage the people, keeping them informed on world events and helping them prepare to build democratic market societies when the opportunity arises.
Organizations such as the U.S. Information Agency are vital to the task of aiding democratic transitions. Again China is instructive. USIA's international broadcasting arm, the Voice of America, has in the last few years become the primary news source for 60 percent of the educated Chinese. America's increasing technical ability to communicate with the public in foreign countries, literally over the heads of their rulers via satellite, provides a great opportunity to foster democracy. It is ironic to find Congress debating whether to dismantle USIA just when its potential is greatly expanding.
PROTECTING NEW DEMOCRACIES
Democratic states have emerged from the communist Soviet bloc and authoritarian regimes in other regions, such as Latin America, where for the first time every country but Cuba has an elected government. A major task for the United States is preventing their reversion to authoritarianism. Protecting and enlarging the community of market democracies serves U.S. security, political, and economic interests. Capitalist democracies are better trading partners and rarely fight one another.
An important program here is the International Military Education and Training program. Begun in the 1950s, IMET has trained more than half a million high-level foreign officers in American military methods and democratic civil-military relations. With the end of the Cold War, the program has been expanded to deal with the needs of new democracies and emphasizes training civilians to oversee military organizations and budgets. With an annual budget less than $50 million, IMET is quite cost-effective. Two similar Defense Department efforts are the Marshall Center in Garmisch, Germany, and the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Hawaii, which train both military and civilian students and promote contacts among the parliaments, executives, and military organizations of new democracies.
PREVENTING AND RESOLVING REGIONAL CONFLICTS
Communal conflicts, or conflicts over competing ethnic, religious, or national identities, often escalate as a result of propaganda campaigns by demagogic leaders, particularly those who want to divert attention from their own failings, establish their nationalist credentials, or seize power. Yet in developing countries, telephones, television, and other forms of telecommunication are rapidly growing, creating an opening for information campaigns by USIA and other agencies to undermine the artificial resolve and unity created by ethno-nationalist propaganda. At times, U.S. military technology may be used to suppress or jam broadcasts that incite violence, while USIA can provide unbiased reportage and expose false reports. U.S. air strikes on Serb communications facilities, for example, had the added benefit of making the transmission of Serbian propaganda more difficult.
The negotiation of the Bosnian peace agreement at Dayton, Ohio, last fall illustrated a diplomatic dimension of information power. The United States succeeded in getting an agreement where for years other negotiating parties had failed in part because of its superior information assets. The ability to monitor the actions of all parties in the field helped provide confidence that the agreement could be verified, while detailed maps of Bosnia reduced potential misunderstandings. The American-designed three-dimensional virtual reality maps also undoubtedly helped the negotiating parties in drawing cease-fire lines and resolving whether vehicles traveling various roads could be targeted with direct-fire weapons, and generally demonstrated the capacity of U.S. troops to understand the terrain in Bosnia as well as or better than any of the local military groups.
Information campaigns to expose propaganda earlier in the Rwandan conflict might have mitigated the tragedy. Rwanda has only 14,000 phones but some 500,000 radios. A few simple measures, such as suppressing extremist Hutu radio broadcasts that called for attacks on civilians, or broadcasting Voice of America (VOA) reports that exposed the true actions and goals of those who sought to hijack the government and incite genocide, might have contained or averted the killing.
Such cases point to the need for closer coordination between the USIA and the Department of Defense in identifying hateful radio or television transmissions that are inciting violence and in taking steps to suppress them and provide better information. In some instances the United States might share intelligence with parties to a dispute to reassure them that the other side is not preparing an offensive or cheating on arms control or other agreements.
CRIME, TERRORISM, PROLIFERATION, AND THE ENVIRONMENT
The fourth task is to focus U.S. information technology on international terrorism, international crime, drug smuggling, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and the global environment. The director of the cia, John M. Deutch, has focused his agency's efforts on the first four of these, while the State Department's new Office of Global Affairs has taken the lead on global environmental issues. Information has always been the best means of preventing and countering terrorist attacks, and the United States can bring the same kind of information processing capabilities to bear abroad that the FBI used domestically to capture and convict the terrorists who bombed the World Trade Center. On international crime and drug smuggling, various U.S. agencies, including the cia, FBI, Defense Intelligence Agency, and Department of Defense, have begun working more closely with one another and their foreign counterparts to pool their information and resources. Such efforts can help the United States defeat adversaries on and off the battlefield.
The United States has used its information resources to uncover North Korea's nuclear weapons program and negotiate a detailed agreement for its dismantlement, to discover Russian and Chinese nuclear cooperation with Iran quickly and discourage it, to bolster U.N. inspections of Iraqi nuclear facilities, and to help safeguard enriched uranium supplies throughout the former Soviet republics. And mounting evidence on environmental dangers such as global warming and ozone depletion, much of it gathered and disseminated by American scientists and U.S. government agencies, has helped other states understand these problems and can now begin to point the way to cost-effective remedies.
THE MARKET WILL NOT SUFFICE
Many of the efforts in these four overarching tasks have been ignored or disdained by some who have clung to narrow Cold War notions of U.S. security and of the roles of various agencies in pursuing it. Some in Congress, for example, have been reluctant to support any defense spending that does not directly involve U.S. combat troops and equipment. However, defense by other means is relatively inexpensive. Programs like the Partnership for Peace, USIA, IMET, the Marshall Center, the Asia-Pacific Center, the military-to-military dialogues sponsored by the U.S. unified command, and the Defense Ministerial of the Americas constitute only a tiny fraction of the defense budget. Although it is impossible to quantify these programs' contributions, we are convinced they are highly cost-effective in serving U.S. security needs. Similarly, USIA's achievements, like those of IMET and other instruments of soft power, should be more appreciated. USIA's seminal contribution of keeping the idea of democracy alive in the Soviet bloc during the Cold War could be a mere prologue.
Some argue that the slow, diffuse, and subtle process of winning hearts and minds can be met by nongovernmental news organizations. These organizations, as well as the millions of private individuals who communicate with friends and colleagues abroad, have done much to disseminate news and information globally. Yet the U.S. government should not abdicate the agenda-setting function to the media because the market and private individuals cannot fulfill all the information needs of American foreign policy. The Voice of America, for example, broadcasts in 48 languages and has an audience tens of millions greater than CNN, which broadcasts only in English. The station's role in China illustrates the problem of market failure: one of the reasons it is the leading source of news for educated Chinese is that Rupert Murdoch ended his broadcasting of the BBC World Service Television News in China, reportedly to win a commercial concession from the Chinese communist government. In addition, VOA can broadcast in languages such as Serbo-Croatian, which are spoken in a geographic area too small to be more than a commercial niche market but crucial for foreign policy. Nonetheless, current budget cuts could force VOA to drop its broadcasting in as many as 20 languages.
The market will not find a private means to suppress radio broadcasts like those of the perpetrators of genocide in Rwanda. There is no economic incentive for breaking through foreign efforts to jam broadcasts or compiling detailed reports on communal violence in the 30 or so ongoing conflicts that rarely make the front page. Left to itself, the market is likely to continue to have a highly uneven pattern of access to the Internet. Of the 15,000 networks on the global Internet in early 1994, only 42 were in Muslim countries, and 29 of these were in Turkey and Indonesia. In response, USIA and the U.S. Agency for International Development have worked to improve global access to the Internet.
THE COMING AMERICAN CENTURY
The premature end of what Time magazine founder Henry Luce termed the American century has been declared more than once by disciples of decline. In truth, the 21st century, not the twentieth, will turn out to be the period of America's greatest preeminence. Information is the new coin of the international realm, and, better than any other country, the United States is positioned to multiply the potency of its hard and soft power resources through information. This does not mean that the United States can act unilaterally, much less coercively, to achieve its international goals. The beauty of information as a power resource is that, while it can enhance the effectiveness of raw military power, it ineluctably democratizes societies. The communist and authoritarian regimes that hoped to maintain their centralized authority while still reaping the economic and military benefits of information technologies discovered they had signed a Faustian bargain.
The United States can increase the effectiveness of its military forces and make the world safe for soft power, America's inherent comparative advantage. Yet a strategy based on America's information advantage and soft power has some prerequisites. The necessary defense technologies and programs, ISR, c4i, and precision force, must be adequately funded. This does not require a bigger defense budget, but it does mean the Defense Department, which is inclined to accelerate and expand these capabilities, should be granted flexibility in setting funding priorities within its budgetary top line. Congressional imposition of programs opposed by the military and civilian leaders in the Defense Department--such as the requirement to buy more b-2 aircraft at a cost of billions of dollars--detract from that flexibility and retard the military leverage that can be gained by completing the revolution in military affairs. Channels to parlay these new military capabilities into alliances and coalitions must be supported: military-to-military contacts, IMET, and the Marshall and Asia-Pacific Centers. Information is often a public good, but it is not a free one. Constraints on the sharing of system-of-systems capabilities and the selective transfer of intelligence, imagery, and the entire range of America's growing ISR capabilities should be loosened.
Diplomatic and public broadcasting channels through which information resources and advantages can be applied must be maintained. The USIA, VOA and other information agencies need adequate funding. The Cold War legislation authorizing the USIA, which has changed little since the early 1950s, draws too sharp a line in barring USIA from disseminating information domestically. For example, while USIA should continue to be prohibited from targeting its programs at domestic audiences, Congress has discouraged USIA even from advertising its Internet sites in journals that reach domestic as well as foreign audiences. Congress should instead actively support USIA's efforts to exploit new technologies, including the agency's new Electronic Media Team, which is working to set up World Wide Web home pages on democratization and the creation and functioning of free markets.
The final and most fundamental requirement is the preservation of the kind of nation that is at the heart of America's soft power appeal. In recent years this most valuable foreign policy asset has been endangered by the growing international perception of America as a society riven by crime, violence, drug abuse, racial tension, family breakdown, fiscal irresponsibility, political gridlock, and increasingly acrimonious political discourse in which extreme points of view make the biggest headlines. America's foreign and domestic policies are inextricably intertwined. A healthy democracy at home, made accessible around the world through modern communications, can foster the enlargement of the peaceful community of democracies, which is ultimately the best guarantee of a secure, free, and prosperous world.
ffi "Soft power" is the ability to achieve desired outcomes in international affairs through attraction rather than coercion. It works by convincing others to follow, or getting them to agree to, norms and institutions that produce the desired behavior. Soft power can rest on the appeal of one's ideas or the ability to set the agenda in ways that shape the preferences of others. If a state can make its power legitimate in the perception of others and establish international institutions that encourage them to channel or limit their activities, it may not need to expend as many of its costly traditional economic or military resources. See Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power, BasicBooks, 1990.
Joseph S. Nye, Jr., former Chairman of the National Intelligence Council and Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Affairs in the Clinton administration, is Dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Admiral William A. Owens is former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Clinton administration.
More By Joseph S. Nye Jr.
More By William A. Owens
United States Defense Policy Political Development Science & Technology Theory U.S. Foreign Policy
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The Case for Offshore Balancing
A Superior U.S. Grand Strategy
By John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt
The amphibious assault ship USS Iwo Jima on the Hudson River in New York, May 2011.
Shannon Stapleton / REUTERS
For the first time in recent memory, large numbers of Americans are openly questioning their country’s grand strategy. An April 2016 Pew poll found that 57 percent of Americans agree that the United States should “deal with its own problems and let others deal with theirs the best they can.” On the campaign trail, both the Democrat Bernie Sanders and the Republican Donald Trump found receptive audiences whenever they questioned the United States’ penchant for promoting democracy, subsidizing allies’ defense, and intervening militarily—leaving only the likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton to defend the status quo.
Americans’ distaste for the prevailing grand strategy should come as no surprise, given its abysmal record over the past quarter century. In Asia, India, Pakistan, and North Korea are expanding their nuclear arsenals, and China is challenging the status quo in regional waters. In Europe, Russia has annexed Crimea, and U.S. relations with Moscow have sunk to new lows since the Cold War. U.S. forces are still fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, with no victory in sight. Despite losing most of its original leaders, al Qaeda has metastasized across the region. The Arab world has fallen into turmoil—in good part due to the United States’ decisions to effect regime change in Iraq and Libya and its modest efforts to do the same in Syria—and the Islamic State, or ISIS, has emerged out of the chaos. Repeated U.S. attempts to broker Israeli-Palestinian peace have failed, leaving a two-state solution further away than ever. Meanwhile, democracy has been in retreat worldwide, and the United States’ use of torture, targeted killings, and other morally dubious practices has tarnished its image as a defender of human rights and international law.
The United States does not bear sole responsibility for all these costly debacles, but it has had a hand in most of them. The setbacks are the natural consequence of the misguided grand strategy of liberal hegemony that Democrats and Republicans have pursued for years. This approach holds that the United States must use its power not only to solve global problems but also to promote a world order based on international institutions, representative governments, open markets, and respect for human rights. As “the indispensable nation,” the logic goes, the United States has the right, responsibility, and wisdom to manage local politics almost everywhere. At its core, liberal hegemony is a revisionist grand strategy: instead of calling on the United States to merely uphold the balance of power in key regions, it commits American might to promoting democracy everywhere and defending human rights whenever they are threatened.
By husbanding U.S. strength, an offshore-balancing strategy would preserve U.S. primacy far into the future.
There is a better way. By pursuing a strategy of “offshore balancing,” Washington would forgo ambitious efforts to remake other societies and concentrate on what really matters: preserving U.S. dominance in the Western Hemisphere and countering potential hegemons in Europe, Northeast Asia, and the Persian Gulf. Instead of policing the world, the United States would encourage other countries to take the lead in checking rising powers, intervening itself only when necessary. This does not mean abandoning the United States’ position as the world’s sole superpower or retreating to “Fortress America.” Rather, by husbanding U.S. strength, offshore balancing would preserve U.S. primacy far into the future and safeguard liberty at home.
SETTING THE RIGHT GOALS
The United States is the luckiest great power in modern history. Other leading states have had to live with threatening adversaries in their own backyards—even the United Kingdom faced the prospect of an invasion from across the English Channel on several occasions—but for more than two centuries, the United States has not. Nor do distant powers pose much of a threat, because two giant oceans are in the way. As Jean-Jules Jusserand, the French ambassador to the United States from 1902 to 1924, once put it, “On the north, she has a weak neighbor; on the south, another weak neighbor; on the east, fish, and the west, fish.” Furthermore, the United States boasts an abundance of land and natural resources and a large and energetic population, which have enabled it to develop the world’s biggest economy and most capable military. It also has thousands of nuclear weapons, which makes an attack on the American homeland even less likely.
These geopolitical blessings give the United States enormous latitude for error; indeed, only a country as secure as it would have the temerity to try to remake the world in its own image. But they also allow it to remain powerful and secure without pursuing a costly and expansive grand strategy. Offshore balancing would do just that. Its principal concern would be to keep the United States as powerful as possible—ideally, the dominant state on the planet. Above all, that means maintaining hegemony in the Western Hemisphere.
Unlike isolationists, however, offshore balancers believe that there are regions outside the Western Hemisphere that are worth expending American blood and treasure to defend. Today, three other areas matter to the United States: Europe, Northeast Asia, and the Persian Gulf. The first two are key centers of industrial power and home to the world’s other great powers, and the third produces roughly 30 percent of the world’s oil.
In Europe and Northeast Asia, the chief concern is the rise of a regional hegemon that would dominate its region, much as the United States dominates the Western Hemisphere. Such a state would have abundant economic clout, the ability to develop sophisticated weaponry, the potential to project power around the globe, and perhaps even the wherewithal to outspend the United States in an arms race. Such a state might even ally with countries in the Western Hemisphere and interfere close to U.S. soil. Thus, the United States’ principal aim in Europe and Northeast Asia should be to maintain the regional balance of power so that the most powerful state in each region—for now, Russia and China, respectively—remains too worried about its neighbors to roam into the Western Hemisphere. In the Gulf, meanwhile, the United States has an interest in blocking the rise of a hegemon that could interfere with the flow of oil from that region, thereby damaging the world economy and threatening U.S. prosperity.
Offshore balancing is a realist grand strategy, and its aims are limited. Promoting peace, although desirable, is not among them. This is not to say that Washington should welcome conflict anywhere in the world, or that it cannot use diplomatic or economic means to discourage war. But it should not commit U.S. military forces for that purpose alone. Nor is it a goal of offshore balancing to halt genocides, such as the one that befell Rwanda in 1994. Adopting this strategy would not preclude such operations, however, provided the need is clear, the mission is feasible, and U.S. leaders are confident that intervention will not make matters worse.
Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy members fire a salute during a commemoration ceremony for Chinese soldiers killed during the First Sino-Japanese War, near Liugong Island, China, August 2014.
STRINGER / REUTERS
Under offshore balancing, the United States would calibrate its military posture according to the distribution of power in the three key regions. If there is no potential hegemon in sight in Europe, Northeast Asia, or the Gulf, then there is no reason to deploy ground or air forces there and little need for a large military establishment at home. And because it takes many years for any country to acquire the capacity to dominate its region, Washington would see it coming and have time to respond.
In that event, the United States should turn to regional forces as the first line of defense, letting them uphold the balance of power in their own neighborhood. Although Washington could provide assistance to allies and pledge to support them if they were in danger of being conquered, it should refrain from deploying large numbers of U.S. forces abroad. It may occasionally make sense to keep certain assets overseas, such as small military contingents, intelligence-gathering facilities, or prepositioned equipment, but in general, Washington should pass the buck to regional powers, as they have a far greater interest in preventing any state from dominating them.
If those powers cannot contain a potential hegemon on their own, however, the United States must help get the job done, deploying enough firepower to the region to shift the balance in its favor. Sometimes, that may mean sending in forces before war breaks out. During the Cold War, for example, the United States kept large numbers of ground and air forces in Europe out of the belief that Western European countries could not contain the Soviet Union on their own. At other times, the United States might wait to intervene after a war starts, if one side seems likely to emerge as a regional hegemon. Such was the case during both world wars: the United States came in only after Germany seemed likely to dominate Europe.
In essence, the aim is to remain offshore as long as possible, while recognizing that it is sometimes necessary to come onshore. If that happens, however, the United States should make its allies do as much of the heavy lifting as possible and remove its own forces as soon as it can.
Offshore balancing has many virtues. By limiting the areas the U.S. military was committed to defending and forcing other states to pull their own weight, it would reduce the resources Washington must devote to defense, allow for greater investment and consumption at home, and put fewer American lives in harm’s way. Today, allies routinely free-ride on American protection, a problem that has only grown since the Cold War ended. Within NATO, for example, the United States accounts for 46 percent of the alliance’s aggregate GDP yet contributes about 75 percent of its military spending. As the political scientist Barry Posen has quipped, “This is welfare for the rich.”
The aim is to remain offshore as long as possible, while recognizing that it is sometimes necessary to come onshore.
Offshore balancing would also reduce the risk of terrorism. Liberal hegemony commits the United States to spreading democracy in unfamiliar places, which sometimes requires military occupation and always involves interfering with local political arrangements. Such efforts invariably foster nationalist resentment, and because the opponents are too weak to confront the United States directly, they sometimes turn to terrorism. (It is worth remembering that Osama bin Laden was motivated in good part by the presence of U.S. troops in his homeland of Saudi Arabia.) In addition to inspiring terrorists, liberal hegemony facilitates their operations: using regime change to spread American values undermines local institutions and creates ungoverned spaces where violent extremists can flourish.
Offshore balancing would alleviate this problem by eschewing social engineering and minimizing the United States’ military footprint. U.S. troops would be stationed on foreign soil only when a country was in a vital region and threatened by a would-be hegemon. In that case, the potential victim would view the United States as a savior rather than an occupier. And once the threat had been dealt with, U.S. military forces could go back over the horizon and not stay behind to meddle in local politics. By respecting the sovereignty of other states, offshore balancing would be less likely to foster anti-American terrorism.
A REASSURING HISTORY
Offshore balancing may seem like a radical strategy today, but it provided the guiding logic of U.S. foreign policy for many decades and served the country well. During the nineteenth century, the United States was preoccupied with expanding across North America, building a powerful state, and establishing hegemony in the Western Hemisphere. After it completed these tasks at the end of the century, it soon became interested in preserving the balance of power in Europe and Northeast Asia. Nonetheless, it let the great powers in those regions check one another, intervening militarily only when the balance of power broke down, as during both world wars.
During the Cold War, the United States had no choice but to go onshore in Europe and Northeast Asia, as its allies in those regions could not contain the Soviet Union by themselves. So Washington forged alliances and stationed military forces in both regions, and it fought the Korean War to contain Soviet influence in Northeast Asia.
In the Persian Gulf, however, the United States stayed offshore, letting the United Kingdom take the lead in preventing any state from dominating that oil-rich region. After the British announced their withdrawal from the Gulf in 1968, the United States turned to the shah of Iran and the Saudi monarchy to do the job. When the shah fell in 1979, the Carter administration began building the Rapid Deployment Force, an offshore military capability designed to prevent Iran or the Soviet Union from dominating the region. The Reagan administration aided Iraq during that country’s 1980–88 war with Iran for similar reasons. The U.S. military stayed offshore until 1990, when Saddam Hussein’s seizure of Kuwait threatened to enhance Iraq’s power and place Saudi Arabia and other Gulf oil producers at risk. To restore the regional balance of power, the George H. W. Bush administration sent an expeditionary force to liberate Kuwait and smash Saddam’s military machine.
For nearly a century, in short, offshore balancing prevented the emergence of dangerous regional hegemons and preserved a global balance of power that enhanced American security. Tellingly, when U.S. policymakers deviated from that strategy—as they did in Vietnam, where the United States had no vital interests—the result was a costly failure.
Events since the end of the Cold War teach the same lesson. In Europe, once the Soviet Union collapsed, the region no longer had a dominant power. The United States should have steadily reduced its military presence, cultivated amicable relations with Russia, and turned European security over to the Europeans. Instead, it expanded NATO and ignored Russian interests, helping spark the conflict over Ukraine and driving Moscow closer to China.
In the Middle East, likewise, the United States should have moved back offshore after the Gulf War and let Iran and Iraq balance each other. Instead, the Clinton administration adopted the policy of “dual containment,” which required keeping ground and air forces in Saudi Arabia to check Iran and Iraq simultaneously. The George W. Bush administration then adopted an even more ambitious strategy, dubbed “regional transformation,” which produced costly failures in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Obama administration repeated the error when it helped topple Muammar al-Qaddafi in Libya and when it exacerbated the chaos in Syria by insisting that Bashar al-Assad “must go” and backing some of his opponents. Abandoning offshore balancing after the Cold War has been a recipe for failure.
HEGEMONY’S HOLLOW HOPES
Defenders of liberal hegemony marshal a number of unpersuasive arguments to make their case. One familiar claim is that only vigorous U.S. leadership can keep order around the globe. But global leadership is not an end in itself; it is desirable only insofar as it benefits the United States directly.
One might further argue that U.S. leadership is necessary to overcome the collective-action problem of local actors failing to balance against a potential hegemon. Offshore balancing recognizes this danger, however, and calls for Washington to step in if needed. Nor does it prohibit Washington from giving friendly states in the key regions advice or material aid.
Other defenders of liberal hegemony argue that U.S. leadership is necessary to deal with new, transnational threats that arise from failed states, terrorism, criminal networks, refugee flows, and the like. Not only do the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans offer inadequate protection against these dangers, they claim, but modern military technology also makes it easier for the United States to project power around the world and address them. Today’s “global village,” in short, is more dangerous yet easier to manage.
A U.S. soldier walks past a resident during a patrol in Samarra, Iraq, June 2009.
Mohammed Ameen / REUTERS
This view exaggerates these threats and overstates Washington’s ability to eliminate them. Crime, terrorism, and similar problems can be a nuisance, but they are hardly existential threats and rarely lend themselves to military solutions. Indeed, constant interference in the affairs of other states—and especially repeated military interventions—generates local resentment and fosters corruption, thereby making these transnational dangers worse. The long-term solution to the problems can only be competent local governance, not heavy-handed U.S. efforts to police the world.
Nor is policing the world as cheap as defenders of liberal hegemony contend, either in dollars spent or in lives lost. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq cost between $4 trillion and $6 trillion and killed nearly 7,000 U.S. soldiers and wounded more than 50,000. Veterans of these conflicts exhibit high rates of depression and suicide, yet the United States has little to show for their sacrifices.
Defenders of the status quo also fear that offshore balancing would allow other states to replace the United States at the pinnacle of global power. On the contrary, the strategy would prolong the country’s dominance by refocusing its efforts on core goals. Unlike liberal hegemony, offshore balancing avoids squandering resources on costly and counterproductive crusades, which would allow the government to invest more in the long-term ingredients of power and prosperity: education, infrastructure, and research and development. Remember, the United States became a great power by staying out of foreign wars and building a world-class economy, which is the same strategy China has pursued over the past three decades. Meanwhile, the United States has wasted trillions of dollars and put its long-term primacy at risk.
Another argument holds that the U.S. military must garrison the world to keep the peace and preserve an open world economy. Retrenchment, the logic goes, would renew great-power competition, invite ruinous economic rivalries, and eventually spark a major war from which the United States could not remain aloof. Better to keep playing global policeman than risk a repeat of the 1930s.
Such fears are unconvincing. For starters, this argument assumes that deeper U.S. engagement in Europe would have prevented World War II, a claim hard to square with Adolf Hitler’s unshakable desire for war. Regional conflicts will sometimes occur no matter what Washington does, but it need not get involved unless vital U.S. interests are at stake. Indeed, the United States has sometimes stayed out of regional conflicts—such as the Russo-Japanese War, the Iran-Iraq War, and the current war in Ukraine—belying the claim that it inevitably gets dragged in. And if the country is forced to fight another great power, better to arrive late and let other countries bear the brunt of the costs. As the last major power to enter both world wars, the United States emerged stronger from each for having waited.
Furthermore, recent history casts doubt on the claim that U.S. leadership preserves peace. Over the past 25 years, Washington has caused or supported several wars in the Middle East and fueled minor conflicts elsewhere. If liberal hegemony is supposed to enhance global stability, it has done a poor job.
Nor has the strategy produced much in the way of economic benefits. Given its protected position in the Western Hemisphere, the United States is free to trade and invest wherever profitable opportunities exist. Because all countries have a shared interest in such activity, Washington does not need to play global policeman in order to remain economically engaged with others. In fact, the U.S. economy would be in better shape today if the government were not spending so much money trying to run the world.
Offshore balancing may seem like a radical strategy today, but it provided the guiding logic of U.S. foreign policy for many decades.
Proponents of liberal hegemony also claim that the United States must remain committed all over the world to prevent nuclear proliferation. If it reduces its role in key regions or withdraws entirely, the argument runs, countries accustomed to U.S. protection will have no choice but to protect themselves by obtaining nuclear weapons.
No grand strategy is likely to prove wholly successful at preventing proliferation, but offshore balancing would do a better job than liberal hegemony. After all, that strategy failed to stop India and Pakistan from ramping up their nuclear capabilities, North Korea from becoming the newest member of the nuclear club, and Iran from making major progress with its nuclear program. Countries usually seek the bomb because they fear being attacked, and U.S. efforts at regime change only heighten such concerns. By eschewing regime change and reducing the United States’ military footprint, offshore balancing would give potential proliferators less reason to go nuclear.
Moreover, military action cannot prevent a determined country from eventually obtaining nuclear weapons; it can only buy time. The recent deal with Iran serves as a reminder that coordinated multilateral pressure and tough economic sanctions are a better way to discourage proliferation than preventive war or regime change.
To be sure, if the United States did scale back its security guarantees, a few vulnerable states might seek their own nuclear deterrents. That outcome is not desirable, but all-out efforts to prevent it would almost certainly be costly and probably be unsuccessful. Besides, the downsides may not be as grave as pessimists fear. Getting the bomb does not transform weak countries into great powers or enable them to blackmail rival states. Ten states have crossed the nuclear threshold since 1945, and the world has not turned upside down. Nuclear proliferation will remain a concern no matter what the United States does, but offshore balancing provides the best strategy for dealing with it.
THE DEMOCRACY DELUSION
Other critics reject offshore balancing because they believe the United States has a moral and strategic imperative to promote freedom and protect human rights. As they see it, spreading democracy will largely rid the world of war and atrocities, keeping the United States secure and alleviating suffering.
No one knows if a world composed solely of liberal democracies would in fact prove peaceful, but spreading democracy at the point of a gun rarely works, and fledgling democracies are especially prone to conflict. Instead of promoting peace, the United States just ends up fighting endless wars. Even worse, force-feeding liberal values abroad can compromise them at home. The global war on terrorism and the related effort to implant democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq have led to tortured prisoners, targeted killings, and vast electronic surveillance of U.S. citizens.
Some defenders of liberal hegemony hold that a subtler version of the strategy could avoid the sorts of disasters that occurred in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. They are deluding themselves. Democracy promotion requires large-scale social engineering in foreign societies that Americans understand poorly, which helps explain why Washington’s efforts usually fail. Dismantling and replacing existing political institutions inevitably creates winners and losers, and the latter often take up arms in opposition. When that happens, U.S. officials, believing their country’s credibility is now at stake, are tempted to use the United States’ awesome military might to fix the problem, thus drawing the country into more conflicts.
If the American people want to encourage the spread of liberal democracy, the best way to do so is to set a good example. Other countries will more likely emulate the United States if they see it as a just, prosperous, and open society. And that means doing more to improve conditions at home and less to manipulate politics abroad.
THE PROBLEMATIC PACIFIER
Then there are those who believe that Washington should reject liberal hegemony but keep sizable U.S. forces in Europe, Northeast Asia, and the Persian Gulf solely to prevent trouble from breaking out. This low-cost insurance policy, they argue, would save lives and money in the long run, because the United States wouldn’t have to ride to the rescue after a conflict broke out. This approach—sometimes called “selective engagement”—sounds appealing but would not work either.
For starters, it would likely revert back to liberal hegemony. Once committed to preserving peace in key regions, U.S. leaders would be sorely tempted to spread democracy, too, based on the widespread belief that democracies don’t fight one another. This was the main rationale for expanding NATO after the Cold War, with the stated goal of “a Europe whole and free.” In the real world, the line separating selective engagement from liberal hegemony is easily erased.
There is no good reason to keep U.S. forces in Europe, as no country there has the capability to dominate that region.
Advocates of selective engagement also assume that the mere presence of U.S. forces in various regions will guarantee peace, and so Americans need not worry about being dragged into distant conflicts. In other words, extending security commitments far and wide poses few risks, because they will never have to be honored.
But this assumption is overly optimistic: allies may act recklessly, and the United States may provoke conflicts itself. Indeed, in Europe, the American pacifier failed to prevent the Balkan wars of the 1990s, the Russo-Georgian war in 2008, and the current conflict in Ukraine. In the Middle East, Washington is largely responsible for several recent wars. And in the South China Sea, conflict is now a real possibility despite the U.S. Navy’s substantial regional role. Stationing U.S. forces around the world does not automatically ensure peace.
Nor does selective engagement address the problem of buck-passing. Consider that the United Kingdom is now withdrawing its army from continental Europe, at a time when NATO faces what it considers a growing threat from Russia. Once again, Washington is expected to deal with the problem, even though peace in Europe should matter far more to the region’s own powers.
THE STRATEGY IN ACTION
What would offshore balancing look like in today’s world? The good news is that it is hard to foresee a serious challenge to American hegemony in the Western Hemisphere, and for now, no potential hegemon lurks in Europe or the Persian Gulf. Now for the bad news: if China continues its impressive rise, it is likely to seek hegemony in Asia. The United States should undertake a major effort to prevent it from succeeding.
Ideally, Washington would rely on local powers to contain China, but that strategy might not work. Not only is China likely to be much more powerful than its neighbors, but these states are also located far from one another, making it harder to form an effective balancing coalition. The United States will have to coordinate their efforts and may have to throw its considerable weight behind them. In Asia, the United States may indeed be the indispensable nation.
In Europe, the United States should end its military presence and turn NATO over to the Europeans. There is no good reason to keep U.S. forces in Europe, as no country there has the capability to dominate that region. The top contenders, Germany and Russia, will both lose relative power as their populations shrink in size, and no other potential hegemon is in sight. Admittedly, leaving European security to the Europeans could increase the potential for trouble there. If a conflict did arise, however, it would not threaten vital U.S. interests. Thus, there is no reason for the United States to spend billions of dollars each year (and pledge its own citizens’ lives) to prevent one.
In the Gulf, the United States should return to the offshore-balancing strategy that served it so well until the advent of dual containment. No local power is now in a position to dominate the region, so the United States can move most of its forces back over the horizon.
With respect to ISIS, the United States should let the regional powers deal with that group and limit its own efforts to providing arms, intelligence, and military training. ISIS represents a serious threat to them but a minor problem for the United States, and the only long-term solution to it is better local institutions, something Washington cannot provide.
In Syria, the United States should let Russia take the lead. A Syria stabilized under Assad’s control, or divided into competing ministates, would pose little danger to U.S. interests. Both Democratic and Republican presidents have a rich history of working with the Assad regime, and a divided and weak Syria would not threaten the regional balance of power. If the civil war continues, it will be largely Moscow’s problem, although Washington should be willing to help broker a political settlement.
For now, the United States should pursue better relations with Iran. It is not in Washington’s interest for Tehran to abandon the nuclear agreement and race for the bomb, an outcome that would become more likely if it feared a U.S. attack—hence the rationale for mending fences. Moreover, as its ambitions grow, China will want allies in the Gulf, and Iran will likely top its list. (In a harbinger of things to come, this past January, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Tehran and signed 17 different agreements.) The United States has an obvious interest in discouraging Chinese-Iranian security cooperation, and that requires reaching out to Iran.
Iran has a significantly larger population and greater economic potential than its Arab neighbors, and it may eventually be in a position to dominate the Gulf. If it begins to move in this direction, the United States should help the other Gulf states balance against Tehran, calibrating its own efforts and regional military presence to the magnitude of the danger.
Taken together, these steps would allow the United States to markedly reduce its defense spending. Although U.S. forces would remain in Asia, the withdrawals from Europe and the Persian Gulf would free up billions of dollars, as would reductions in counterterrorism spending and an end to the war in Afghanistan and other overseas interventions. The United States would maintain substantial naval and air assets and modest but capable ground forces, and it would stand ready to expand its capabilities should circumstances require. But for the foreseeable future, the U.S. government could spend more money on domestic needs or leave it in taxpayers’ pockets.
Offshore balancing is a grand strategy born of confidence in the United States’ core traditions and a recognition of its enduring advantages. It exploits the country’s providential geographic position and recognizes the powerful incentives other states have to balance against overly powerful or ambitious neighbors. It respects the power of nationalism, does not try to impose American values on foreign societies, and focuses on setting an example that others will want to emulate. As in the past, offshore balancing is not only the strategy that hews closest to U.S. interests; it is also the one that aligns best with Americans’ preferences.
JOHN J. MEARSHEIMER is R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago. STEPHEN M. WALT is Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School. Follow him on Twitter @StephenWalt.
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United States Strategy & Conflict U.S. Foreign Policy Grand Strategy The Best of 2016
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NTSB: Lockhart hot air balloon hit power lines before crash
Federal investigators now say the hot air balloon in Lockhart made contact with high tension power lines at multiple points after it began its descent and ultimately killed 16 people.
Collecting information on site is winding down, with the gondola and balloon sent to Dallas for storage. But investigators say the investigation is just beginning and are reluctant to speculate about why the balloon made contact with power lines
Federal investigators eliminated possible causes of what lead to the deadly hot air balloon crash Saturday morning.
“There's evidence of multiple points of contact, evidence of arching.” said Robert Sumwalt, investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board. “And for about 30 feet along the wires, there's evidence of abrasion.”
Court records show the pilot, 49-year-old Alfred "Skip" Nichols was convicted of drunken driving at least four times in Missouri and spent time in prison twice since 1990.
In 2013, Nichols settled a personal injury lawsuit by a passenger injured in a hard landing outside St. Louis.
Investigators say Nichols got a weather briefing the night before, and his crew reported patchy fog the next morning. But so far, it’s unclear if weather or pilot error played a role in the crash.
NTSB investigators near recovered 14 personal electronic devices, including cell phones, an iPad and three cameras, which will be sent to a lab for analysis.
Friends and family have identified several of those killed, like newlyweds Sunday and Matt Rowan of San Antonio.
Sunday's mom said she got a terrible feeling when communication that morning suddenly stopped.
“Pretty much at that time, to be frank, I knew something was terribly wrong,” she said.
Joe and Teresa Owens of Katy were also among the dead. Teresa worked for 20 years caring for infants at Tigerland Child Care Center in Katy, near Houston.
Friends say 50-year-old Holly Smith Huckabee, Teresa’s good friend and the mother of a fellow teacher at the center, was also aboard the doomed balloon.
As far as the pilot's criminal history is concerned, the NTSB spokesman said to his knowledge, there was no requirement for a balloon pilot to report criminal background to the FAA. He said the NTSB had recommended that balloon pilots be required to get a medical certificate every 6 months like other pilots, but the FAA declined to implement that recommendation.
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Tara Iti is New Zealand’s Most Expensive Most Exclusive Golf Course
Golf Magazine has fittingly named a golf course north of Auckland as one of the top 29 in the world on its list of the world’s top 100 courses.
Tara Iti, designed by noted American architect Tom Doak, is located at Te Arai, near the locality of Mangawhai, just about 100 km north of Auckland.
The design of the course offers the typical stunning views of the coast line that one expects from the coast of New Zealand and Tara Iti is a links style course considered one of the best in the southern hemisphere.
Golf magazine seldom accords such a high ranking to a course the first time it makes the top 100 list. According to the magazine, “Tara Iti jumps onto our World list as one of our highest debuting courses ever. The barely two-year-old course is already acknowledged as the Southern Hemisphere’s premier links.”
The number 29 ranking places Tara Iti ahead of famous courses, such as Royal Birkdale (34th) and Royal St. George’s (42nd). We would speculate that Tara Iti does not come anywhere near those two in terms of rounds canceled due to rain.
Tara Iti even ranked ahead of Trump International Golf Links (46th) in Aberdeen, Scotland, which evoked an immediate response from the Tweeter in Chief, who declared the rankings “fake news.” Learning that Golf Magazine had listed Trump Turnberry at number 16, praise for the periodical was effusive and immediate.
One spot ahead of Tara Iti is Carnoustie in Scotland, which precedes Tara Iti by 173 years.
Augusta National in Georgia, home of The Masters, came in at number six. The number one ranked course this year and every year since 1985, is Pine Valley in New Jersey.
Golf Digest has its own top 100 courses. They list Kauri Cliffs at Matauri Bay at number 49. Tara Iti did not make the top 100 list of Golf Digest. Tara Iti came in at number one on Australian Golf Digest’s list of top 40 Kiwi golf courses and it also came in at the top of a list of Stuff.com.nz.
Those looking to shoot a round will be disappointed to learn that Tara Iti is a private club of a level of exclusivity that limits it to the Kiwi one-percenters, provided said one-percenters have the proper connections.
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Frontiers in Robotics
and AI
Innovative Haptic Interfaces Emerging from Soft Robotics View all 4 Articles
Helge A. Wurdemann
Kyujin Cho
Seoul National University, South Korea
Huichan Zhao
Ramon Sargeant
The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, Barbados
Front. Robot. AI, 20 December 2017 | https://doi.org/10.3389/frobt.2017.00069
Soft Robotic Haptic Interface with Variable Stiffness for Rehabilitation of Neurologically Impaired Hand Function
Frederick Sebastian1,2, Qiushi Fu2,3, Marco Santello2 and Panagiotis Polygerinos1*
1Bio-Inspired Mechatronics Laboratory, The Polytechnic School, Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, Arizona State University, Mesa, AZ, United States
2Neural Control of Movement Laboratory, School of Biological Health Systems Engineering, Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, United States
3Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, United States
The human hand comprises complex sensorimotor functions that can be impaired by neurological diseases and traumatic injuries. Effective rehabilitation can bring the impaired hand back to a functional state because of the plasticity of the central nervous system to relearn and remodel the lost synapses in the brain. Current rehabilitation therapies focus on strengthening motor skills, such as grasping, employ multiple objects of varying stiffness so that affected persons can experience a wide range of strength training. These devices have limited range of stiffness due to the rigid mechanisms employed in their variable stiffness actuators. This paper presents a novel soft robotic haptic device for neuromuscular rehabilitation of the hand, which is designed to offer adjustable stiffness and can be utilized in both clinical and home settings. The device eliminates the need for multiple objects by employing a pneumatic soft structure made with highly compliant materials that act as the actuator of the haptic interface. It is made with interchangeable sleeves that can be customized to include materials of varying stiffness to increase the upper limit of the stiffness range. The device is fabricated using existing 3D printing technologies, and polymer molding and casting techniques, thus keeping the cost low and throughput high. The haptic interface is linked to either an open-loop system that allows for an increased pressure during usage or closed-loop system that provides pressure regulation in accordance to the stiffness the user specifies. Preliminary evaluation is performed to characterize the effective controllable region of variance in stiffness. It was found that the region of controllable stiffness was between points 3 and 7, where the stiffness appeared to plateau with each increase in pressure. The two control systems are tested to derive relationships between internal pressure, grasping force exertion on the surface, and displacement using multiple probing points on the haptic device. Additional quantitative evaluation is performed with study participants and juxtaposed to a qualitative analysis to ensure adequate perception in compliance variance. The qualitative evaluation showed that greater than 60% of the trials resulted in the correct perception of stiffness in the haptic device.
The human hand is a complex sensorimotor apparatus that consists of many joints, muscles, and sensory receptors. Such complexity allows for skillful and dexterous manual actions in activities of daily living (ADL). When the sensorimotor function of hand is impaired by neurological diseases or traumatic injuries, the quality of life of the affected individual could be severely impacted. For example, stroke is a condition that is broadly defined as a loss in brain function due to necrotic cell death stemming from a sudden loss in blood supply within the cranium (Hankey, 2017). This event can lead to a multitude of repercussions on sensorimotor function, one of which being impaired hand control such as weakened grip strength (Foulkes et al., 1988; Duncan et al., 1994; Nakayama et al., 1994; Jørgensen et al., 1995; Wilkinson et al., 1997; Winstein et al., 2004; Legg et al., 2007). Other potential causes of impaired hand function include cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis, and amputation. Therefore, effective rehabilitation to help patients regain functional hand control is critically important in clinical practice. It has been shown that recovery of sensory motor function relies on the plasticity of the central nervous system to relearn and remodel the brain (Warraich and Kleim, 2010). Specifically, there are several factors that are known to contribute to neuroplasticity (Kleim and Jones, 2008): specificity, number of repetition, training intensity, time, and salience. However, existing physical therapy of hand is limited by the resource and accessibility, leading to inadequate dosage and lack of patients’ motivation. Robot-assisted hand rehabilitation has recently attracted a lot of attention because robotic devices have the advantage to provide (1) enriched environment to strengthen motivation, (2) increase number of repetition through automated control, and (3) progressive intensity levels that adapts to patient’s need (for review, see Balasubramanian et al., 2010).
Specifically, haptic interfaces and variable stiffness mechanisms are usually incorporated into robotic rehabilitation devices to provide varying difficulties by adjusting force output or stiffness. For example, the LINarm++ is a rehabilitative device that appropriates variable stiffness actuators with multimodal sensors to provide changing resistance in a physical environment in which users performs arm movement (Malosio et al., 2016; Spagnuolo et al., 2017). This device also encompasses a functional electrical stimulation system which has been shown to promote motor recovery in upper limb rehabilitation (Popović and Popović, 2006). The Haptic Knob is a device that trains stroke patients’ grasping movements, and wrist pronation and supination motions by rotating a dial that is able to produce forces and torques up to 50 N and 1.5 Nm, respectively, depending on the patient’s level of impairment (Lambercy et al., 2009). The GripAble is a handheld rehabilitative device that allows the patient to squeeze, lift, and rotate to play a video game with increasing difficulty and gives feedback through vibration in response to the patient’s performance (Mace et al., 2015, 2017). The MIT-MANUS, a planar rehabilitation robot, also has a hand-module that converts rotary motions to linear motions, and in turn allows for controllable impedance in the device (Masia et al., 2006). In addition, pneumatic particle jamming systems have been designed to provide users with haptic feedback by changing the stiffness and geometry of the surface the user presses on with their fingertips (Stanley et al., 2013; Genecov et al., 2014). These devices and systems, however, are either costly and bulky due to complex mechanical design or have limited range of stiffness due to passive mechanical components.
To overcome these limitations, this paper proposes the design of a novel pneumatically actuated soft robotics-based variable stiffness haptic interface to support rehabilitation of sensorimotor function of hands (Figure 1). Soft robotics is a rapidly growing field that utilizes highly compliant materials that are fluidic actuated to effectively adapt to shapes and constraints that traditionally rigid machines are unable to Majidi (2014) and Polygerinos et al. (2017). Several soft-robotics devices have been developed to provide assistance to stroke patients, but none of these has been designed as resistive training devices. An example of an existing device includes the use of soft actuators that bend, twist, and extend through finger-like motions in a rehabilitative exoglove to be worn by stroke patients (Polygerinos et al., 2015a,b; Yap et al., 2017). A variable stiffness device that employs soft-robotics allows a greater range of stiffness to be implemented since there is minimal or no impedance to the initial stiffness of the device. In addition, soft robotics methods allow devices to be manufactured with lowered cost and have much less complexity, thus suitable to be used not only inpatient but also outpatient hand rehabilitative services (Taylor et al., 1996; Godwin et al., 2011).
Figure 1. The prototyped soft haptic variable stiffness interface with a hand grasping it.
In Section “Materials and Methods” of this paper, the materials and methods employed in designing and fabricating the soft robotic haptic interface are described, including the design criteria of the prototype. This section also describes the methodology for a stiffness perception test on healthy participant with the proposed device. In addition, the overall closed-loop control system of the device to provide pressure regulation is presented in this section. Section “Results” describes the preliminary results obtained from characterization of the device’s varying stiffness in response to changing pressure inputs, and the subjective evaluation of perceived stiffness obtained from test participants. Finally, Section “Discussion” includes an overall discussion of open question and future research directions.
Soft Robotic Haptic Interface Design
As shown in Figure 2 the device is designed as a cylindrical handle of 40 mm diameter since this diameter has been shown to be most effective in enabling high grip forces in humans (Seo et al., 2008). The average male hand width, defined as the distance from the second to the fifth metacarpophalangeal joints, is approximately 83 mm (Seo et al., 2008; Geetha et al., 2015). We designed the cylindrical device’s height to be 120 mm. The approximately 40 mm additional length was added to ensure that the entire body of the device fits in a patient’s grip, accommodate for hand widths larger than the average, and to account for higher stiffness in areas closer to the end caps of the device. The male hand width is used as the basis of the design since on average the male hand is larger than the female hand. The device is modeled using a computer-aided design software before a mold was made for its body to be cast out of silicone elastomer material and the end caps are 3D printed. The mold of the body included groves in a helical pattern along the body of the device to facilitate the fiber winding process during fabrication, as described in the fabrication section.
Figure 2. Cross-section of the computer-aided design model used in the design for the soft haptic interface with labels of the key components.
Soft Robotic Haptic Interface Fabrication
The body of the device is fabricated based on the multistep molding and casting technique that have been established for creating fiber-reinforced soft actuators (Deimel and Brock, 2013; Bishop-Moser and Kota, 2015; Polygerinos et al., 2015a,b). However, some features and components are modified according to the goal of constraining the device from expanding vertically and horizontally, as well as to prevent bending and twisting motions. Instead of a hemisphere or a rectangle, the body of the mold is made in a circular design to achieve a cylindrical handheld device, and 3D printed (Fortus 250MC printer, Stratasys Ltd., MN, USA). The first layer is casted with the printed mold using a shore hardness 10 A silicone rubber (Dragon Skin 10, Smooth-on Inc., PA, USA) with 2-mm thickness. End caps of 50-mm diameter and 5-mm thickness are 3D printed (Fortus 450MC printer, Stratasys Ltd., MN, USA).
The caps included a 6-mm-diameter hole in the center to introduce a 178-mm-long threaded rod, acting as core, which is fastened on both ends with locking nuts. In addition, a 3-mm-diameter hole is made approximately 4 mm off the edge of the first hole to introduce a tube for pneumatic actuation. The end caps are attached to the body of the actuator using silicone adhesive (Sil-Poxy Adhesive, Smooth-on Inc., PA, USA). This adhesive is also used around the connecting parts to prevent air leaks, i.e., around base of the cap and the body, and at the ends of the core. A single Kevlar fiber of 0.38-mm diameter is wound along the groves made from the mold in a clock-wise and counter clock-wise directions, and a thin layer of silicone is applied on the threading to anchor it in place and prevent it from moving during actuation and grasping. A second layer 2-mm thick is made with the same casting techniques, but with a shore hardness 20 A silicone rubber (Dragon Skin 20, Smooth-on Inc., PA, USA), and used as a sleeve over the first layer.
The first layer of the device is made with very flexible rubber to ensure the lower limit of the device’s stiffness is kept at a minimum while it is directly exposed to pressure. However, the high compliance of the first layer compromises its structural integrity. Therefore, a secondary layer of the same compliance is made as a sleeve over the first. The user may utilize a third sleeve with less compliant materials to increase the upper limit of the device’s stiffness range. The interchangeability of sleeves provides greater customization and adaptability for the user’s specific needs. In addition, the interchangeability feature allows for improved sanitary environments by allowing physicians to swap sleeves between patients quickly.
There are two modes of operation for the soft robotic haptic interface: (1) isometric and (2) constant pressure. Both of these systems utilize a bang–bang controller. The former mode is a system with no pressure regulation. Therefore, the device is given a starting pressure (greater than 0 kPa) and the internal pressure is allowed to increase with an increased force exertion on the device. This actuation system is shown on the open-loop control system block diagram in Figure 3. The latter mode of operation involves regulated pressure. Therefore, the device is given a starting pressure (greater than 0 kPa), and the internal pressure is maintained at that pressure as the hand grasping force exerted on the device is increased. This actuation system is shown on the closed-loop control system block diagram in Figure 4.
Figure 3. Open control loop scheme with a sensor to measure air pressure in the soft haptic actuator and close the solenoid valves with no further regulation.
Figure 4. Feedback control loop scheme with a microcontroller to turn solenoid valves on or off for air pressure regulation using the information measured from the pressure sensor.
The design for the closed-loop system is achieved by employing solenoid valves to both pressurize and depressurize the actuator based on the user’s input. The pressure input is fed through solenoid valves (Series 11 Miniature Solenoid Valves, Parker Hannifin Corp., OH, USA) before they split to equal pressures in the haptic interface and a fluidic pressure sensor (ASDXAVX100PGAA5, Honeywell International Inc., Morris Plains, NJ, USA). The pressure sensor provides feedback to a microcontroller (Arduino Uno R3, Arduino LLC., Italy) to turn the solenoid valves on and off to regulate the pressure to an approximate accuracy of 0.1 psi. When the pressure sensor reads the pressure input to be higher or lower than the desired preset input, it will depressurize or pressurize, respectively.
Isometric Control
In the open-loop mode, the pressure sensor is utilized to monitor the pressure variations inside the device. The microcontroller is set to keep the solenoid valves closed, thereby preventing a pressure drop in the system once the initial pressure has been set.
Device Characterization and Testing
Generally, an object’s stiffness is described by the Young’s Modulus, which is the ratio of the pressure (force per unit area) applied on the object and its relative deformation. However, for small strains, as expected in this case, the compliance of the soft haptic interface can still be characterized by the ratio of the force exerted on it and the resulting displacement (Bergmann Tiest and Kappers, 2009; Bergmann Tiest, 2010):
k=F/Δx. (1)
The equation describing this characterization is shown in Eq. 1, where k, Δx, and F represent stiffness, displacement, and force applied, respectively. A stiffness characterization experiment was performed to determine the stiffness profile of the grasping area of the soft robotic haptic interface. This was done by marking the device’s soft body with nine linear points with spacing of 15 mm in between in each point (Figure 5A). Point 1 is the point closest to the end cap on the side with a pneumatic tubing, and point 9 is at the furthest opposite end. These points were selected primarily due to the shape of the device. Due to its cylindrical geometry, it could be assumed that the characterization will be similar all around the device. The device is fixed in place by the core using a bar clamp with the marked points being exposed upwards. The clamp is attached to the lower grip of a uniaxial testing machine (Instron 5944, Instron Corp., High Wycombe, UK) while a probe of 6-mm diameter is attached on the upper grip (Figure 5B).
Figure 5. (A) Top view of the device with probing points identified along the length of the soft haptic interface. (B) Testing of the soft haptic device using a uniaxial testing machine (Instron 5944) before probing (top) and after probing (bottom).
The probe is positioned right above the point to be tested, and force and position of the probe are set to 0 N and 0 mm, respectively. In a quasi-static, cyclical (loading-unloading) experiment the probe is set to lower a maximum of 10 mm into the soft material body of the device while a preset pressure is provided at the beginning of the experiment. The resulting force and displacement of the probe are recorded. A total of three trials are performed per probing point, and the exerted force and displacement are averaged. The characterization experiment is repeated with preset pressurizations of 0.5, 1, 2, and 3 psi (which convert to 3.45, 6.89, 13.79, and 20.68 kPa, respectively).
Constant Pressure and Isometric Testing
These experiments were conducted to determine the efficacy of the device’s modes of operation since the effective region of variable stiffness has been determined. For the constant pressure mode of operation, a similar test to the characterization experiment is performed but the closed-loop system is utilized instead. In addition, the mid-point on the device (point 5) is selected as the only probing location to record the resulting force. This was the only point chosen since it had the most change in stiffness as identified from the characterization experiment, and it was imperative to choose a point where small changes in stiffness can be easily observed. A total of three trials are performed, and the exerted force is averaged. This is repeated with pressurizations of 0.5, 1, 2, and 3 psi.
For the isometric mode of operation, this quasi-static experiment is performed while using the open-loop system. This experiment also utilized the mid-point (point 5) on the device as the only probing location. This point was chosen since it was imperative to observe a point where the change in stiffness can easily be identified given the small testing parameters being utilized. However, the probe is set to probe four times with 2.5-mm intervals between each vertical probing distance (starting at 2.5 mm) for a given starting pressurization. The resulting pressure and the force exerted on the device were then recorded. The stiffness per displacement is then calculated using Eq. 1 and plotted against the pressure recorded for that displacement. Three trials per displacement was performed, and the exerted force and pressure were averaged. This experiment was repeated with pressurizations of 0.5, 1, 2, and 3 psi.
Efficacy of Device
To maximize the efficacy of this variable stiffness device, it is essential that the change in compliance is adequately perceived by the person using the device. This is because the essence of this technology is to have variance in stiffness that begins with very low resistance so as to differentiate itself from existing rigid variable stiffness devices. Therefore, the end user needs to be able to readily differentiate the stiffness of the device from the lowest stiffness setting up to the highest. More importantly, perception of stiffness often involves a variety of somatosensory modalities, such as mechanoreceptors, muscle spindles, and Golgi tendon (Jones and Hunter, 1990; Bergmann Tiest and Kappers, 2009), as well as the ability to coordinate joint positions and contact forces. Therefore, this type of tasks could have potential application in the rehabilitation of sensorimotor function of hands.
To test the stiffness perception, the soft haptic device was set at a constant pressure utilizing the open-loop control system. The stiffness per pressure setting (0.5, 1, or 3 psi) is approximated to three distinct Shore Hardness (00-10, 00-30, and 00-50, respectively). Three cylindrical objects of Shore Hardness 00-10, 00-30, and 00-50 of the same dimensions as the soft haptic device were then fabricated but with a filled center. Under an Arizona State University institutional review board approval (#1309009629), a written informed consent was obtained from healthy participants where they were asked to grasp the three filled cylindrical objects and then grasp the soft haptic device that is set at a pressure setting unknown to them. Whether the participant matched it to our set Shore Hardness correctly for the given pressurization is then recorded. This was then repeated another time with the same participant but with a different pressure setting. This qualitative experiment is repeated with the same participant but at a different pressure setting. This experiment is conducted with 17 healthy participants (totaling 34 trials) who gave their full written and oral consent before participation.
The stiffness profile versus the points on the device with varying pressures is presented in Figure 6. We expected the device to be stiffer as one moves away from the middle (point 5) of the device. This expectation was consistent with experimental results from the characterization test of the soft haptic device (Figure 6A). The device has greater stiffness at points closer to the end caps and, therefore, the regions of effective variable stiffness can be identified between points 3 and 7 where the stiffness for each pressure appear to plateau. The greater stiffness toward either ends of the device is mainly due to the influence of the bond between the end caps and the body of the actuator. For this reason, points 1 and 9 were excluded from the data. The graph of the exerted force and displacement with varying pressures using the constant pressure system is presented in Figure 6B. Using this plot, the end user has the ability to select a fixed stiffness value when using the soft haptic interface in a constant pressure mode to perform grasping exercises where the haptic feel remains the same irrespective of the grasping force exerted on the device. Conversely, the stiffness reduced for every increment in displacement in the isometric testing (Figure 7), however, the drop was consistent for every pressure input. This validates the concept of a controllable increased stiffness with varying pneumatic actuation in the soft haptic interface, which enables the device to increase its stiffness when a gradual force is exerted on it. Overall, the two modes allow for stiffness values to be adjusted on demand to higher or lower ranges through variations of the initial stiffness of the sleeves and the internal pneumatic pressure.
Figure 6. (A) The device characterization for varying pressure inputs, with the effective variance in stiffness being between points 3 and 7. (B) Force exerted on the soft haptic interface over a fixed displacement and regulated pressure for stiffness reference. The pressurizations of 0.5, 1, 2, and 3 psi convert to 3.45, 6.89, 13.79, and 20.68 kPa, respectively.
Figure 7. The variance in stiffness as the pressure in the soft-haptic interface is increased in the open-loop system. The pressurizations of 0.5, 1, 2, and 3 psi convert to 3.45, 6.89, 13.79, and 20.68 kPa, respectively.
In addition, the efficacy of the device was tested using 17 test participants to grasp the device at varying stiffness settings. Out of the 34 trials, 23 of them (or 68%) matched the stiffness of the device correctly in their first attempt as seen in Figure 8A. This number was then further broken down for the three stiffness settings and it was found that 67, 73, and 64% of the trials matched the stiffness correctly in their first attempt for the Shore 00-10, Shore 00-30, and Shore 00-50 cylinders, respectively, as shown in Figure 8B.
Figure 8. (A) Cylindrical objects of Shore Hardness of 00-10, 00-30, and 00-50 (from left to right) and the soft haptic device for participants to grasp and compare stiffness. (B) Bar plots showing the number of times participants matched the correct stiffness in their first attempt (left), and the percentage of times participants got the stiffness correct versus the percentage of times participants got the stiffness wrong (right). The pressurizations of 0.5, 1, and 3 psi convert to 3.45, 6.89, and 20.68 kPa, respectively.
In this paper, we presented the novel design of a variable stiffness haptic interface based on soft-robotics that is pneumatically actuated to assist hand rehabilitation. The fabrication process of this device is simple and cost-effective, approximately $100, since it closely adheres to existing multistep casting and molding techniques utilized for fiber-reinforced soft actuators. The cost is used solely for research and development for this prototype. The utilization of highly compliant materials (silicone elastomers) allowed for the device to present stiffness ranges that existing variable stiffness devices are not able to achieve due to the rigidity of their mechanical designs (Masia et al., 2006; Lambercy et al., 2009; Mace et al., 2015, 2017; Malosio et al., 2016; Spagnuolo et al., 2017). Experiments were conducted to characterize the effective regions of variable stiffness in the soft haptic device due to design constraints that include regions of exponential stiffness. A closed-loop and open-loop control system were presented and tested. Finally, the variance of stiffness in the device was tested with healthy participants to ensure that the induced variance in stiffness translates adequately to a qualitative measure as well. One of the most challenging aspects of creating a device of variable stiffness is to ensure the variance in compliance is appropriately perceived by the users. This is challenging due to the multitude of factors involved in human perception of stiffness (Jones and Hunter, 1990; Bergmann Tiest, 2010). The experiment results show that healthy participants could effectively distinguish the variance in stiffness of the soft haptic device, and that the qualitative measurement could be matched to a quantitative value (Shore Hardness). This allows for a more cohesive mapping of the soft haptic device and, therefore, provides the device’s user(s) the tool necessary to utilize the device effectively. Below we describe the main findings and potential applications of our soft-robotics device for rehabilitation of sensorimotor function of hands.
The central region (points 3–7, Figure 6A) is characterized by an increasing stiffness that could be manipulated on demand by the end user or physical therapist in a controlled fashion by increasing the pressure input to the device. It is important to note that only four different pressure settings were tested in this work as a proof-of-concept. If desired, additional pressure settings can be utilized for this particular design. However, the maximum pressure input presented was 20.68 kPa so as to prevent the device from buckling under greater internal pressure. To increase the upper limit of the pressure input, a greater number of sleeves can be added to the device, sleeves of higher stiffness can be incorporated into the design, and/or the number of windings on the first layer could be increased. This once again proves the versatility of this device to be used in stroke rehabilitation given the importance of tailoring task difficulty or characteristics to individual patients’ sensorimotor deficits.
The constant pressure test support using the device to calculate the stiffness a user can expect when using the device at a given regulated pressure. This could be eventually used to formulate a chart for quick reference if a particular setting is desired for a rehabilitative exercise to be performed. This setting can be utilized for strength training that requires a large number of hand grasping/squeezing repetitions since high repetitions have shown to increase neural plasticity in stroke recovery. The isometric mode provides the user with an option to increase the force needed to squeeze the device at a given pressure, thus being useful for users who need consistent increases in difficulty for each rehabilitative exercise. These two different modes can be utilized by the physician depending on the needs of the stroke patient. However, the results of this testing showed that the stiffness dropped for 2.5 mm increments in the displacement using the isometric system. Given that the stiffness increased during characterization which utilized the same control system, it appears that the pressure in the soft haptics is escaping when small displacements occur in the device.
Implication to Hand Rehabilitation
Our results demonstrated great potential to use the proposed device in a variety of hand-rehabilitation exercises. For instance, patients who need fixed stiffness with increased repetitions of grasping exercise could use the constant pressure control mode; and patients who need increasing difficulty could utilize the isometric control mode. Furthermore, with simple sensor added to the device, patients can use it as a controller at home to perform exercises in combination with video games to mimic augmented reality feedback that currently exist for rehabilitation devices (Khademi et al., 2012). Lastly, our device has the unique feature that the entire grasp area is compliant due to the implementation of soft robotics techniques. Unlike hand rehabilitation devices with rigid mechanisms, our design could promote the practice of natural coordination among all fingers which is important in ADL tasks.
In the future, we expect to fabricate this device with varying factors such as thickness and stiffness of materials, as well as investigate the effects of the number of windings and the pattern of winding on the device. This would allow for a greater effective variable stiffness region on the device. Varying the materials and fabrication methods would also allow for a more airtight device that could prevent pressure leaks, thus making the mechanical behavior of the device in the isometric mode more reliable. We also plan on incorporating force sensors into the design to accurately map the region users would interact with the device, especially the force exerted under each digit. This would also allow us to develop an equation that more accurately characterizes the stiffness of the device. In addition, the potential of the device for rehabilitation applications should be assessed by testing with patients. We can present more descriptive psychophysical data from these experiments. This would also allow for dynamic testing of the device since the current results were obtained from discrete testing methodologies.
Under an Arizona State University institutional review board (IRB) approval (#1309009629), a written informed consent was obtained from healthy participants where they were asked to grasp the three filled cylindrical objects and then grasp the soft haptic device that is set at a pressure setting unknown to them.
FS, QF, MS, and PP were involved in the early planning and design of the study; designed the experiments. FS and PP further developed the concept; performed the tests. FS characterized the devices for testing. All authors analyzed the data and wrote the manuscript.
We would like to thank Mr. Dattaraj Sansgiri for his exploratory contributions to some of the graphics for the figures.
This research was partially supported by a Collaborative Research Grant BCS-1455866 from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to MS. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of NSF.
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Polygerinos, P., Wang, Z., Galloway, K. C., Wood, R. J., and Walsh, C. J. (2015a). “Soft robotic glove for combined assistance and at-home rehabilitation,” in Robotics and Autonomous Systems, ed. B. J. Nelson (Piscataway: Elsevier B.V), Vol. 73, 135–143.
Polygerinos, P., Wang, Z., Overvelde, J. T. B., Galloway, K. C., Wood, R. J., Bertoldi, K., et al. (2015b). Modeling of soft fiber-reinforced bending actuators. IEEE Trans. Robot. 31, 778–789. doi:10.1109/TRO.2015.2428504
Popović, D. B., and Popović, M. B. (2006). “Hybrid assistive systems for rehabilitation: lessons learned from functional electrical therapy in hemiplegics,” in Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology – Proceedings, New York, NY, 2146–2149.
Seo, N. J., Armstrong, T. J., and Arbor, A. (2008). Investigation of grip force, normal force, contact area, hand size, and handle size for cylindrical handles. Hum. Factors 50, 734–744. doi:10.1518/001872008X354192
Spagnuolo, G., Malosio, M., Dinon, T., Molinari Tosatti, L., and Legnani, G. (2017). Analysis and synthesis of LinWWC-VSA, a variable stiffness actuator for linear motion. Mech. Mach. Theory 110, 85–99. doi:10.1016/j.mechmachtheory.2016.11.002
Stanley, A. A., Gwilliam, J. C., and Okamura, A. M. (2013). “Haptic jamming: a deformable geometry, variable stiffness tactile display using pneumatics and particle jamming,” in 2013 World Haptics Conference, WHC, Daejeon, 25–30.
Taylor, T. N., Davis, P. H., Torner, J. C., Holmes, J., Meyer, J. W., and Jacobson, M. F. (1996). Lifetime cost of stroke in the United States. Stroke 27, 1459–1466. doi:10.1161/01.STR.27.9.1459
Warraich, Z., and Kleim, J. A. (2010). “Neural Plasticity: The Biological Substrate for Neurorehabilitation.” PM and R 2 (12 SUPPL). Maryland Heights, MO: Elsevier Inc., S208–S219.
Wilkinson, P. R., Wolfe, C. D., Warburton, F. G., Rudd, A. G., Howard, R. S., Ross-Russell, R. W., et al. (1997). A long-term follow-up of stroke patients. Stroke 28, 507–512. doi:10.1161/01.STR.28.3.507
Winstein, C. J., Rose, D. K., Tan, S. M., Lewthwaite, R., Chui, H. C., and Azen, S. P. (2004). A randomized controlled comparison of upper-extremity rehabilitation strategies in acute stroke: a pilot study of immediate and long-term outcomes. Arch. Phys. Med. Rehabil. 85, 620–628. doi:10.1016/j.apmr.2003.06.027
Yap, H. K., Sebastian, F., Wiedeman, C., and Yeow, C.-H. (2017). “Design and characterization of low-cost fabric-based flat pneumatic actuators for soft assistive glove application,” in 2017 International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics (ICORR), London, 1465–1470.
Keywords: soft robotics, stroke, rehabilitation, variable stiffness, haptic interface
Citation: Sebastian F, Fu Q, Santello M and Polygerinos P (2017) Soft Robotic Haptic Interface with Variable Stiffness for Rehabilitation of Neurologically Impaired Hand Function. Front. Robot. AI 4:69. doi: 10.3389/frobt.2017.00069
Helge Arne Wurdemann, University College London, United Kingdom
Huichan Zhao, Harvard University, United States
Kyujin Cho, Seoul National University, South Korea
Ramon Sargeant, The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, Barbado
Copyright: © 2017 Sebastian, Fu, Santello and Polygerinos. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Panagiotis Polygerinos, polygerinos@asu.edu
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S&D Coffee & Tea Helping Raise Funds for Nonprofits
S&D Coffee & Tea, the largest coffee and tea manufacturer and a provider of coffee and tea extracts to restaurants and convenience stores in America, announced a long-term partnership with The Dunkin’ Donuts & Baskin-Robbins Community Foundation (DDBRCF), which raises funds to support nonprofit organizations making a difference in communities across the U.S.
“As a coffee, tea, and extracts supplier for National DCP, the $2 billion supply chain management company serving the franchisees of Dunkin’ Donuts, we are proud to partner with The DDBRCF in their goal of bringing joy to sick and hungry kids through partnerships with organizations like food banks and children’s hospitals,” says Steve Cole, chief operating officer with S&D Coffee & Tea.
In a ceremony held yesterday, representatives from S&D Coffee & Tea presented a commemorative check to signify their Diamond level partnership with The DDBRCF and its grant program. Among The DDBRCF grant recipients are several North Carolina nonprofits: Charlotte's Exceptional Youth Athletes, Second Harvest Foodbank of Metrolina, New Hanover Regional Medical Center, and Interfaith Food Shuttle.
“On behalf of The Dunkin’ Donuts & Baskin-Robbins Community Foundation and Dunkin’ Brands franchisees throughout the country, we appreciate S&D Coffee for their generous support,” says George Ross, Dunkin’ Donuts franchisee and volunteer co-chair of the Southeast Chapter of The Dunkin’ Donuts & Baskin-Robbins Community Foundation. “Their contribution will go a long way in helping us achieve our mission to bring joy to sick and hungry children in our communities.”
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NASA Facilities:
Challenges to Achieving Reductions and Efficiencies
T-NSIAD-96-238: Published: Sep 11, 1996. Publicly Released: Sep 11, 1996.
GAO discussed the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) efforts to reduce key areas of its infrastructure. GAO noted that: (1) since fiscal year (FY) 1993, NASA budget and staffing levels have decreased sharply, and NASA has reduced, restructured, or cancelled some of its programs and projects; (2) NASA plans to eliminate $4 billion worth of its facilities by the end of FY 2000, but planned facilities reductions will not meet NASA goals or yield substantial cost reductions; (3) NASA has had problems in evaluating some cost-reduction opportunities because it has not thoroughly evaluated potential options, limited the scope of consideration for consolidating aircraft operations, performed questionable initial cost-reduction studies, made inappropriate closure recommendations, and substantially overstated cost-reduction estimates; (4) environmental cleanup costs could affect future facility disposition efforts; (5) recent NASA efforts to share facilities with the Department of Defense have not yet been very productive; (6) NASA lacks a formal system for tracking and reporting on the status of recommendations related to infrastructure reductions; and (7) although NASA has made limited progress in reducing its infrastructure, an independent process may ultimately be needed to overcome sensitivity and cost issues.
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Charlie Hunnam Was Unrecognisable In His First Ever Acting Role [Video]
Charlie Hunnam’s come a long way since his days on the UK version of Queer as Folk 18 years ago. But surprisingly, that was NOT his first acting role. A year ahead of that, a very young Charlie had a small role on a British show called Byker Grove… And you won’t believe what he looked like.
Photos: YouTube / Deposit Photos – Jean Nelson
Also See – Charlie Hunnam: I Try To Have A Lot Of Sex To Maintain My Body
37-year-old Charlie Hunnam, who stars in the new King Arthur: Legend of the Sword movie, is all buffed up now thanks to a LOT of work at the gym. Before that, during his Sons of Anarchy years, he had that tough rugged looked of a biker, beard and everything.
But in 1998, an 18-year-old Charlie appeared on a TV show called Byker Grove, as he tells as a guest on The Graham Norton Show. Byker Grove was a long running series for young adults, which aired between 1989 and 2006.
Charlie, who was at film school at the time, was approached by the production manager of the series during his Christmas shopping. She liked his look, and invited him to be on the show.
Charlie then played the role of a male model who helps a younger boy “get into” the business of modelling.
Watch Charlie discuss his role – and see a clip from the show – right here:
Forget Mr.Right – Find Mr. RIGHT NOW
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A call for UC Berkeley to suspend controversial gene tests for incoming students
By Center for Genetics and Society | 05.19.2010
The Center for Genetics and Society, a Berkeley-based public interest organization, is calling for the suspension of a project sponsored by the University of California, Berkeley in which incoming freshmen and transfer students will be asked to provide samples of their own DNA for genetic analysis.
“Just last week, the largest drugstore chain in the country halted plans to retail a similar product after receiving a stern letter from the US Food and Drug Administration. If selling genetic tests directly to consumers is a problem in the eyes of federal regulators, how can the University justify pushing them on thousands of eighteen-year-olds?” asked Jesse Reynolds, a policy analyst at the Center.
Direct-to-consumer genetic tests have been controversial since their debut. Many doctors, bioethicists, and public interest advocates caution that genetic information should be collected and interpreted in a medical setting in order to avoid situations in which results encourage either overly alarmist or overly complacent reactions. They are also concerned that direct-to-consumer genetic tests can exaggerate the importance of genes to behaviors and traits that are importantly shaped by social and environmental factors.
The project is part of UC Berkeley College of Letters and Sciences “On the Same Page” program, which asks incoming freshmen and transfer students to read the same book or view the same movie. This year, it will instead send out cheek-swab kits so that students can collect and return a DNA sample. It will also sponsor a contest in which entrants can win further DNA testing from direct-to-consumer genetic testing company 23andMe. Professor of Genetics, Genomics and Development Jasper Rine, who is playing a lead role in the project, is a co-founder of several biotech companies including VitaPath Genetics, a genetic testing start-up company.
“This program may be good for the direct-to-consumer genetics industry, but it is an abuse of the trust that thousands of young students should be able to place in the university they’ve chosen,” Reynolds added.
The Center for Genetics and Society is a non-profit public affairs and policy advocacy organization working to encourage responsible uses and effective societal governance of human genetic and reproductive biotechnologies.
jreynolds[AT]geneticsandsociety[DOT]org
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Geos 306, Fall 2011, Lecture 11
Crystallography III, X-ray Diffraction
One of the most important consequences of the translational periodicity displayed by crystals is that they produce X-ray diffraction patterns. In fact, the International Union of Crystallography defines crystals as substances that produce X-ray diffraction patterns. The study and understanding of the unit cell of a crystal is largely done through the X-ray diffraction experiment. In this lecture we introduce the basic concepts involved with X-ray diffraction. As part of your term project, you will be given the opportunity to conduct an X-ray diffraction experiment.
There are two coordinate systems that are commonly used in crystallography, (1) direct space, and (2) reciprocal space.
Direct space uses the unit cell edges as its basis vectors. The positions of atoms are given in this coordinate system. They are referred to by the symbol [xyz].
Reciprocal space is the system that is used to describe planes of atoms. Reciprocal vectors are oriented perpendicular to the planes that they describe. The planes are denoted with the symbol (hkl), where h, k, and l are integers. A given point in space, [xyz], is on a plane defined by indices (hkl) that passes through the origin, if
xh + yk + zl = 0. Planes are known as lattice planes if a lattice point is on the plane. So the plane that passes through the origin is a lattice plane because the lattice point [000] is on the plane. The next parallel lattice plane has the same values for (hkl), but satisfies the equation:
xh + yk + zl = 1.
Both systems can be used to describe a direction. Link to a lattice.
Associated with each plane is its d-spacing. This is the distance between successive, parallel planes of atoms. In particular, it is the distance between the planes described by xh + yk + zl = 0 and xh + yk + zl = 1.
This mathematical relationship implies that the first plane from the origin (hkl) intercepts the crystallographic axes at a/h, b/k and c/l. So, for example, (100) intercepts the a-axis at [100], but never intercepts b or c because 1/0 = ∞. Another example is the plane (111). It intercepts the crystallographic axes at [100], [010], and [001]. The plane (210) intercepts the crystallographic axes at [1/2 0 0], [010] and does not intercept the c-axis.
Lattice planes are very important in that they can act as diffraction gratings to radiation that has a wavelength comparable in size to the spacing between planes.
Origin of X-rays, X-ray tube, create a high voltage and send electrons across the potential. These electrons will travel at a very high speed if in a vacuum. They collide with a target material, typically Cu or Mo. The incoming electrons slow down as they hit the target. Accelerating electrons create electromagnetic waves proportional in wavelength to the change in speed. This process produces white radiation (radiation of all wavelengths). However, another process is also at work. The incoming electrons collide with electrons that are already in the target and knock them out of their orbits. If a 1s electron is knocked out of orbit, then an electron from further out (We are most interested in the ones from 2p) will drop into its place. The change in energy is very sharp, and this energy change causes the emission of electromagnetic waves with a very narrow wavelength range. These are known as Ka radiation. The wavelength is around 1.5 Å for a Cu target and 0.7 Å for a Mo target.
If we shine a beam of these X-rays, called incident X-rays, at a crystal then the X-rays will excite the electrons in the crystal and they will oscillate with a frequency that is equal to that of the X-rays. Since all these oscillating electrons are accelerating, they then create electromagnetic waves equal in wavelength to that of the incident X-ray, and these emitted X-rays radiate from the entire crystal volume in all directions. Most of these emmitted waves interfere in a destructive way with the other emmitted waves that are being produced throughout the crystal. However, in certain directions the X-rays interfere with each other in a constructive way. This results in a beam of X-rays being emitted by the crystal in a direction that is different from that of the incident beam.
Bragg determined this arrangement in the early 1900's and described it with an equation now known as Bragg's equation.
nl = 2d sin(q), where l is the wavelength of the X-ray, d is the spacing between planes, and q is the angle of incidence that the incident X-ray beam makes with the plane of atoms (hkl).
You should be able to derive Bragg's equation from this drawing.
Indexing a diffraction pattern
When a powdered sample of crystalline material is placed in a diffractometer and bathed in X-rays then a characteristic pattern can be recorded, known as the diffraction pattern.
Illustrated below is a powder diffraction pattern of quartz recorded with Cu radiation.
The diffraction pattern is unique for each crystalline material. The positions of the peaks gives us information that can be used to determine the cell parameters, and the intensities of the peaks gives us information about the chemical elements that are present in the crystal, as well as their locations. Each peak present in the pattern has its own set of indices. More than one diffraction peak can be located at the exact same position.
The American Society for Testing Materials (ASTM) maintains a large database of diffraction patterns for most of the known crystalline substances. By comparison with their database we should be able to identify most minerals.
Furthermore, the ASTM also keep a record of the indices of the each diffraction peaks that can be matched up with their associated d-spacing. The process of determining the (hkl) associated with a individual peak is known as indexing the pattern. Aside from looking up the indices of a peak in the ASTM tables, we can also theoretically figure out the indices if we know the crystal structure. In general, it can be extremely difficult to index a pattern without any other information.
Refining the cell parameters
A knowledge of the indices and their experimentally determined d-spacings (or 2q positions) can be used to refine the cell parameters. For instance, here is diffraction data recorded for hexagonal quartz with CuKa radiation (l = 1.541838 Å).
2q INTENSITY d-spacing h k l
20.88 20 4.2554 1 0 0
36.57 7 2.4569 1 1 0
The hexagonal cell parameters, a and c, can be directly obtained from the d-spacings of (100) and (003) repectively.
From the d-spacing of (100), d = 4.2554 Å, we obtain a = 4.2554/cos(30) = 4.9137 Å.
From (003) (d = 1.8016 Å) we obtain c = 3 * 1.8016 = 5.4048 Å. Here we used the fact that (hkl) intersect the axes at a/h, b/k, and c/l, so (003) intersects c 1/3 of the way along the axis.
In such a way we are able to detemine the lengths of the cell edges.
Each measurement has some error associated with it, so, in order to obtain the best estimate of the cell parameters, we can use as many of the measured diffraction peaks as possible.
The math to do this is tedious so computer algorithms have been devised to compute the cell parameters from measured 2q values. One such program, called CrystalSleuth, is available on the course website. This software will help you determine peak positions, identify the powder pattern, index the peaks and refine your cell parameters.
The diffraction profile is read into the program as a set of x,y data that corresponds to a 2-theta position and intensity. The program is used to find peaks, and fit them with certain mathematical functions (Gaussian) in order to determine their positions. The program can search the American Mineralogist Crystal Structure Database and identify the pattern. You can download the crystal structure data from the database and index your pattern and then refine the cell parameters. You will be taught how to do this in detail by your lab TA.
After all the data has been refined, you can create a summary page (click on Output File button). Typical output is displayed below.
**Program REFINE Version 3.0** Kurt Bartelmehs and Bob Downs, 1998
quartz: Kihara: E. J. Mineral. 2 (1990) 63-77
Symmetry constraint is: HEXAGONAL
Wavelength #1 = 1.541838
Refinement after correcting for machine error
MACHINE ERROR: -0.010
OBSERVED CALCULATED DIFFERENCE
2theta d h k l Wave# 2theta d 2theta d
20.850 4.26043 1 0 0 1 20.886 4.25314 0.036 0.00729
20.900 4.24683 1 0 0 2 20.869 4.25314 -0.031 -0.00631
rmse = 0.00053932607
A = 4.9110(39) B = 4.9110(39) C = 5.4013(57)
Alpha = 90.0 Beta = 90.0 Gamma = 120.0
Volume = 112.82(16)
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Prize “Quintino Sella for the History of Geosciences” in honor of Nicoletta Morello and Bruno Accordi
The Società Geologica Italiana is proud to announce that has been published the first edition of the “Biennial Prize “Quintino Sella for the History of Geosciences” in honor of Nicoletta Morello and Bruno Accordi - Competition notice 2020 for the two-year period 2019 - 2020.
The Prize, sponsored by the Banca Sella, consists of € 2.000. The winner will receive the membership to the Società Geologica Italiana for the year following the prize assignment, or the renewal if already a member.
The Prize is conferred to the author of the best scientific paper in the field of the History of Geosciences, published on national or international reviews in the two years before the call. The Prize is indivisible.
The Competition is open to all those who, on the deadline for the submission of applications, meet the following requirements:
under the age of 35;
are not tenured university professors.
The application form must be submitted by self-certification, in which the general details must be reported, as well as the candidate's personal and residence data according to the format available on the Società Geologica Italiana website, and must reach the Secretary of the Società Geologica Italiana by April 30th, 2020 accompanied by the following documentation on free paper:
the pdf file of the scientific paper presented for the competition (already awarded papers are not admitted);
the "curriculum vitae";
the list of any other publications of the candidate.
The documentation should be sent in pdf format to the following address: premi@socgeol.it
The announcement of the winner and the awarding of the prize will take place on the occasion of the General Assembly of Members to be held in Trieste at the headquarters of the 90th National Geological Congress of the Società Geologica Italiana in September 2021.
More info: https://www.socgeol.it/283n2590/biennial-prize-quintino-sella-for-the-history-of-geosciences-in-honor-of-nicoletta-morello-and-bruno-accordi-competition-notice-2020.html
Etichette: Bruno Accordi, Nicoletta Morello, premio storia delle geoscienze, Quintino Sella, Scoeità geologica italiana
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What Happened To LOTR Characters After The Movies? I Had No Idea About Sam.
This article is based on the Imgur post "LOTR: The Fates After The War of the Rings". If you're interested in reading more, check out the link at the bottom of the article.
Frodo and Gandalf's journey to the Undying Lands was such a perfect ending to the Lord of the Rings series. But what happened to the rest of the fellowship?
When in the year 120 of the Fourth Age, King Elessar realized his days were at an end, he went to the House of the Kings in the Silent Street. He said farewell to his son Eldarion and his daughters and gave Eldarion his crown and sceptre. Arwen remained at Aragorn's side until he died.
Died of a broken heart at Cerin Amroth in Lrien, and was buried there one year after the death of Aragorn, to whom she had been wedded for 122 years. She was 2901 years old.
After his wife died in the year 61 of the Fourth Age (SR 1482), Sam entrusted the Red Book to his daughter, Elanor and left the Shire. Because he was also a Ring-bearer, he was allowed to pass over the Sea to be reunited with Frodo in the Undying Lands.
Meriadoc Brandybuck
He married Estella Bolger some time after the end of the Third Age and later became the Master of Buckland. He wrote Old Words and Names in the Shire. At the age of 102, he returned to Rohan and Gondor with Pippin only to die there a few years later. He was laid to rest in Gondor, and when Elessar died, he and Pippin were entombed beside the great king.
Peregrin Took
He later became the 32nd Thain of the Shire, a position he held for 50 years before retiring, when he revisited Rohan and Gondor with Merry. Peregrin remained in Gondor for the rest of his life. Pippin died a few years later and was laid to rest with Merry in Gondor. After the great King Elessar (Aragorn) died, Merry and Pippin were entombed next to the great king.
He led a large number of Durin's Folk south to establish a new Dwarf kingdom in the Glittering Caves, which were located behind Helm's Deep where Gimli was trapped during the battle, and he became the first Lord of the Glittering Caves. Later, he traveled with Legolas into the West and became the first dwarf to visit the Undying Lands.
After the War of the Ring had ended, she decided to give up dreams of glory in battle and devote her life to peace and a happy marriage. She married Faramir and settled in Ithilien for the rest of her life where they had at least one son.
He was appointed by King Elessar as the Prince of Ithilien and Beregond to be the Captain of his guard, the White Company. Later on he settled in Emyn Arnen with his wife owyn, where they had at least one son (named Elboron), who succeeded him as Steward of Gondor, Prince of Ithilien, and Lord of Emyn Arnen, after Faramir's death.
He became known as omer adig, or "the Blessed", because during his reign Rohan recovered from the hurts of the War and became a rich and fruitful land again. omer had met Lothriel, daughter of Prince Imrahil of Dol Amroth during his stay in Gondor, and they were wed. She bore him a son Elfwine, who succeeded him after his death.
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For centuries Bohinj was the biggest Alpine herdsman and dairyman centre in Slovenia and it was in this region that Alpine herdsmanship along with dairy production developed in its most intensive form. From May until the middle of June, the herdsmen took their herds of cattle from the valleys, first to the lower hills, and from there to the higher mountains, choosing the best pastures for their cattle to graze on and later with the onset of autumn they, one-by-one, returned to the valleys.
In 1873 an organised cheese-making union was founded, that started producing cheese in the Swiss way. Janez Mesar, the then parish priest of Bohinjska Bistrica, was responsible for this change in production. Soon the Bohinj cheese trade flourished, becoming an important income generator for the local population.
In the first exhibition area we can see a typical wooden Alpine herdsman’s hut with the furnishings from the Zajamniki Mountain pasture, on the front wall of which we can just barely make out the date 1849. In the last two decades, the hut was also used when the grass was being mowed and the wood cut.
In the second area an original cheese-making workshop, with two large built-in kettles for making cheese and a press enabling the cheese to be shaped, is exhibited. Also there are pieces of the original furnishings of the dairy farms on display here, such as cheese making tools and utensils, milk dishes, butter churns, and so on, as well as a large kettle on a wooden beam that came originally from the dairy farms of the Blato Mountain pasture. In a glass display case a large “Majerska” back-basket with all the utensils the herdsmen would have carried to the mountain every year during the summer months is also displayed. The dairy farms, the cheese making in the mountains, the transport of cheese to the valley, and so forth, is very well illustrated through a photographic exhibition displayed here. At the entrance to the museum there is a cartographic display of the oldest mention of the mountains (with the first as early as the year 973), and, on the opposite side, a graphic card showing the house symbols with which the masters marked their tools and dishes. On a plaque hanging on the wall, there is a portrait of the Bohinj parish priest Janez Mesar, the man responsible for the economic and cultural rebirth of the Bohinj region.
In the third area there is another photographic exhibition, showing a typical Bohinj Alpine dairyman settlement and huts. The huts on the higher mountains, used only when taking the herds to pasture, are typical one-room wooden constructions, with an area where the cattle were kept on the ground floor and an area upstairs for the herdsmen. Experts researching these forms of Alpine herdsmen’s huts have traced elements of the architecture in remotest past.
At the entrance to the fourth area there are the oldest renditions of Mt. Triglav, Mt.Velo polje, and an engraving by Barago of a Bohinj Alpine herdsman from the year 1776 hanging on the right, with a portrayal of a typical Bohinj person by the painter Ladislav Benesch (1888) on the left. Pictures of numerous Alpine herdsmen, the herdsmen’s migrations into the mountains, a typical herdsman’s working day, what he ate and what he did in his free time, and the Bohinj “cow ball” – a tradition that has become a popular Bohinj tourist event, grown out of the Alpine herdsmen returning from the alpine pastures – are also shown.
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GQ Gears
From Akshay Kumar to Shah Rukh Khan, 7 Bollywood celebrities who own a Rolls-Royce
By Vrutika Shah 10 March 2020
Only the best for the best
Bollywood celebrities are among the richest people in India. This means that they’re privy to and can afford all the luxuries the world has to offer. And one of the most luxurious things a person can own is a bespoke Rolls-Royce. The British beauty is synonymous with being a status symbol for a lot of people. If you know anything about a Rolls-Royce, it's one of those cars whose price tag varies depending on the number of personalisations or customised features you opt for. So even if two Bollywood celebrities own the same Rolls-Royce model, their price is most likely going to differ. Very few people in the world have the capabilities of buying this elegant machine and these Bollywood celebrities are among that one per cent.
5 Bollywood celebrities who drive a Rolls-Royce
Hrithik Roshan in Bandra along with his Rolls Royce Ghost Series II. PC: Viral Bhayani
The Rolls-Royce is the perfect chariot for Bollywood’s very own Greek God. On the occasion of his 42nd birthday, Hrithik Roshan bought a fully customised version of the Ghost Series II model. It is powered by a 6.2-litre twin-turbo V12 engine that is capable of making 563 hp along and 780 Nm of torque. It has a top speed of 250 kms/hour and can go from 0 to 100 kms/hour in 4.9 seconds. Just recently, the actor descended upon Mumbai’s Bandra neighbourhood in his navy blue and silver ride.
Price: ₹7 crores
2. Ajay Devgn
Ajay Devgn's brand new Rolls Royce Cullinan
The most recent Bollywood celebrity to buy a Rolls-Royce is Ajay Devgn, who opted for the Cullinan. The base price for this model is ₹6.95 crores, but as we mentioned before, these cars are highly personalised. And so, we expect that every detail made especially for the actor would have contributed to his total bill. The Cullinan is Rolls-Royce’s first venture into the world of SUVs and is among the most expensive SUVs in the market currently. It can go from a 0 to 100kms/hour within a matter of 5 seconds.
Price: ₹6.95 crore
Priyanka Chopra's Rolls Royce Ghost
German sedans don’t cut it for our Desi Girl. She has to go for the best, which can be none other than a Rolls-Royce. Not only does the car have starlit ceilings and stardust carpets, but the Red beauty also boasts of a BMW-made 6.6-litre twin-turbo V12 which makes 563 bhp of power. In an interview on the Kelly and Michael Show, the actress expressed that she loves her ride for the recliner seats and the divinely comfortable floor rug.
4. Sanjay Dutt
Sanjay Dutt turned his Rolls Royce Ghost into a gift
Another Bollywood celebrity who owns a Rolls-Royce is none other than B-Town’s bad boy, Sanjay Dutt. In 2010, the actor walked into a Rolls-Royce showroom and walked out with a brand new Ghost. However, the Munna Bhai actor bought this car as a gesture of love for his wife, Maanayata. The Ghost is powered by a 6.6 liter twin turbo petrol engine offering 560 bhp power at 5,250 rpm and 780 Nm torque at 1,500 rpm. It can reach top speeds of 155 kms/hour and can go from 0 to 100 in less than five seconds.
Price: ₹7.55 - 8.83 crore
5. Badshah
Rapper Badshah making his dreams come true
From his clothes to his shoes, this Bollywood rapper likes all things flashy and expensive. And so, it only makes sense that Badshah is also among the Bollywood celebrities who own a Rolls-Royce. In April, the 34-year-old shared an adorable picture of his new ride flanked by his parents. His car has a staggering 590lb ft of torque available from 1,500rpm, which lets the 2.4 ton car go from 0 to 100kms/hour in 4.4 seconds.
Price: ₹6.4 crore
Rolls-Royce Phantom VII
Akshay Kumar's lavish Rolls Royce Phantom VII
Being the highest-paid actor among all the Bollywood celebrities is a herculean task in itself. And among the sweet rewards of all of Akki’s hard work is a Rolls-Royce Phantom. According to Hindustan Times, the 52-year-old actor’s ride is the seventh generation of the Phantom. It is powered by a 460 Bhp 6.75-litre twin-turbo V12 engine. Today, the eight generation of the Rolls-Royce Phantom is among the most expensive cars sold in India. It commands a price of Rs. 9.50 crores (base model). However, the exact price of Akshay’s Phantom is not known.
Price: ₹9.50-11 crores
SRK's royal-looking Phantom
King Khan is the literal royalty among all Bollywood celebrities. And so it makes sense that he would own a Rolls-Royce too. Reports by the Financial Express suggest that Shah Rukh owns the convertible version of the Phantom Drophead Coupe. If true, this car comes equipped with 6.8-litre V12 engine that generates respective power and torque outputs of 460 bhp and 750 Nm. However, the generation or the year he purchased the uber luxurious car in, is unknown. It is claimed in the report that the actor paid about Rs 7 crores for his ride.
Another famous Rolls-Royce owner among Bollywood celebrities was Amitabh Bachchan. Back in 2007, director Vidhu Vinod Chopra had gifted Big B a Rolls-Royce Phantom VII for his performance in Eklavya: The Royal Guard. However, last year, the actor was reported to have sold his ₹3.5 crore ride. Which actor do you think will buy a Rolls-Royce next? Our money is on Ranveer Singh.
10 Bollywood celebrities who are driving the most expensive cars right now
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Ranveer Singh, Hardik Pandya and John Abraham: Here are all the Indian celebrities who drive Lamborghinis
> More on GQ Gears
BOLLYWOODcelebrity carsRolls-RoyceHRITHIK ROSHANajay devgn
Mukesh Ambani to Shah Rukh Khan, 8 Indians who own the world's most expensive cars
Hardik Pandya's Lamborghini to Sanjay Dutt's Ferrari, 8 superfast sports cars owned by Indian celebs
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Glasgow, MT (GGW)
Glasgow was established in 1887 by the Great Northern Railway. Exhibits at the Valley County Pioneer Museum trace the region's rich history through the lives of its residents.
Valley County Pioneer Museum
The brick Glasgow depot contains a waiting room as well as offices used by BNSF Railway’s Signal and Communications department. A thick belt course runs around the upper edge of the depot, forming window hoods that provide a bit of decoration. The hipped roof is supported by heavy wood brackets; the resulting overhang protects waiting passengers from inclement weather. Terrazzo covers the waiting room floors while glazed, cream-colored tiles line the lower portion of the walls.
The depot was constructed by the Great Northern Railway (GN), considered to have been America’s premier northern trans-continental railroad, running from St. Paul, Minn. to Seattle. The GN was formed in 1889 by James J. Hill, who orchestrated the merger of the St. Paul and Pacific Railroad with the St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Manitoba Railway. Hill holds a special place in railroad history and lore, and is known as the “Empire Builder.” Whereas most transcontinental lines were built with federal assistance in the form of federal land grants, the GN did not utilize this method.
The explorers Lewis and Clark visited the Glasgow area in May 8, 1805. They camped at the joining of the Milk and Missouri Rivers, which is about eighteen miles southeast of town. Glasgow was established in 1887 by the GN, which brought thousands of ranchers and farmers into Montana and shipped out the crops they grew.
Exhibits at the Valley County Pioneer Museum trace the region’s rich history through the lives of its residents. Visitors can view an Assiniboine tipi, collection of wildlife mountings, dinosaur fossils, materials related to the construction of Fort Peck Dam and railroad artifacts.
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Charity bike ride reaches the end
A CYCLIST who battled driving wind and rain to complete a 300-mile journey from West End to Land’s End last Friday has raised almost £1,500 for charity.
Larry Spencer sets off for Land’s End.
Larry Spencer, 41, who grew up in West End but now lives in Yeovil, raised the money for the Mackinnon Trust — a charity aimed at raising awareness of mental health issues.
Larry started the journey on Sunday May 29 and hit England’s most westerly point five and a half days later. But as Larry told the News and Mail, it was not all plain cycling.
He said: “Dartmoor was the hardest bit. The wind was in my face. It was blowing a gale and I could only see about 30 metres in front of me.
“I thought about giving up about three times. If anyone had stopped with a pick-up truck I would have got in.”
Waiting at Land’s End was Larry’s girlfriend Sarah and baby George, aged eight months. Larry said that as he rolled over the finish line at 1.15pm his knees were aching but he felt incredibly relieved.
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A selection of letters from the Surrey Advertiser, November 9, 2007
How you can help our heroes As you may already know, a new charity called Help for Heroes was launched on October 1 to raise £5 million to help build a much needed swimming pool and gym complex at Headley Court, the tri-service rehabilitation centre at Headley, Surrey. We want these facilities to be built by this time next year.
How you can help our heroes
As you may already know, a new charity called Help for Heroes was launched on October 1 to raise £5 million to help build a much needed swimming pool and gym complex at Headley Court, the tri-service rehabilitation centre at Headley, Surrey. We want these facilities to be built by this time next year.
The initial response so far from the general public and businesses has been outstanding, bringing in roughly £450,000 from the general public and £2.5 million pledged from businesses. Celebrities, including Jeremy Clarkson, James Blunt, Ross Kemp and Gordon Ramsey, have also flocked to the cause,
What we need now is a big push in every corner of the UK to transform Help for Heroes from just another charity into a household name, and we are hoping you can help.
The cause is incredibly worthwhile and will maintain momentum once the word is passed. Help for Heroes founder, Bryn Parry, articulates it best: “We are all busy, bound up in our own lives, but then we hear something that makes us think, touches us, makes us connect to the world we live in, makes us stop and really focus.
“For me it was meeting the wounded servicemen at Selly Oak Hospital. We walked into a ward of 30 or so soldiers, sitting or lying on their beds, in T-shirts and boxers and they were wounded. They were not lying there under white sheets like in the movies, they were on top of the bedclothes and they were missing arms and legs.
“One man was missing both his legs and his neck was in a brace. He was consoling the son of another soldier who had died in the incident in which he had nearly died; it was profoundly moving. We came home determined to do something, to help make these brave, modest and humorous people’s lives better.”
Bryn’s initial work has exposed and harnessed incredible grassroots support which will culminate in The Big Battlefield Bike Ride, from May 26 to June 1, 2008. We now need communities and organisations to rally round, put their thinking caps on and start raising money and awareness.
We need local and national businesses to put us on their charity lists and offer special deals to returning servicemen – anything that captures the public’s support for servicemen and women who sacrifice so much for us.
Our service personnel need us to start backing them and this is a way the whole nation can help, regardless of political persuasion or depth of social consciousness.
For more information about Help for Heroes please visit www.helpforheroes.org.uk
Help For Heroes Appeal.
for clarity over hotel issue
I regret that once more senior Guildford councillors are seeking to discredit my claims about the hotel financial agreement and suggest that I am misleading the public. Alas it is not I, but they, who are doing so.
Cllr Hodges implies that I have criticised the £2.2 million receipts for this hotel and that independent valuers have said it was “very good value”.
I have never ever criticised, let alone mentioned, this figure. Neither is it correct that valuers said this was “very good value”.
What they said was “it does nor represent a sale at below market value. Some endorsement!
What both he, and earlier Cllr Manning, have studiously avoided is my main complaint (that they accepted in writing on March 15, 2007) that the income lost through parking we had to give up for the hotel was £1 million more than the council was told it was in November 2006.
Yes, you read correctly, £1 million. No small correction.
The reason I did not raise it in November 2006 was that I could not get this information from Colliers.
I had to ask four times and only received the basis of their calculations on February 23, 2007. I immediately realised they were wrong and recalculated them and sent the corrections to Cllr Hodges. His reply confirmed this huge discrepancy (actually my estimate is that it is far greater).
I assumed that the council would be advised of this error, and through consideration and courtesy left it to them to inform the council. Alas they never did so
It was only when I read of the extravagant claims made for it and the antics relating to voting that I appreciated that other colleagues and the public had been misled about it. As I have said several times, there may well be indirect benefits which justify this meagre net payment, but there will be large increased financial costs in operating the Civic Hall when there is no additional parking for the hotel and its banqueting hall.
GORDON BRIDGER
Castle Hill,
Guildford.
Councillor’s fudge is less
than sweet
I am trying very hard to get rid of the nasty taste left by Cllr Hodges’ fudge (Surrey Advertiser Letters, November 2).
It may well have been a factually correct response to former Councillor Bridger’s letter, but just how obsequious should we allow our elected politicians to be?
The lease for the land for hotel use may indeed be worth £2.2 million, but is it the best use and value for the site?
What would have been the value if the Guildford Borough Council Executive had put the land up for lease to the best bidder (without limiting it to a hotel use) instead of agreeing a “secret” deal (for the sake of accuracy, the fact a deal was being discussed at all was kept secret until it had been agreed and was put before the Executive for ratification)?
It may well be that Cllr Hodges got so frustrated he decided to vote at least twice in a public opinion poll recently. I might be inclined to take the same approach to vent my frustration if there were a vote of no-confidence in his leadership, irrespective of the good things many of his Conservative colleagues on the Council do day-in and day-out with far less fuss and frustration.
JULIAN LYON
Onslow Village.
GSA motives in the spotlight
I was not unsurprised to read your front page article (Surrey Advertiser, Guildford edition, October 26) about GSA and the abandonment of plans to relocate to the Woodbridge Meadows site but to subsequently relocate to a site at the University of Surrey.
It would appear to me that on a number of occasions now the GSA has played upon the council’s desire to work with it and the arts in assisting it to centralise facilities and to help keep them close to the town centre.
The cynical side in me believes that it was never the GSA’s intention to relocate to such a site and that its primary reasons for working with the council on gaining the necessary planning approvals appear to have been driven purely for financial gain.
Permissions have now been granted and Guildford is, once again, faced with little or no alternative for this site.
Is it any wonder that the age of philanthropy seems to have passed when the driving forces behind institutions such as GSA seem to be increasingly purely commercially driven.
JOHN HARRIDGE
Has the county council lost sight of its priorities?
Thank you for bringing to your readers’ attention what Surrey County Council’s environment and economy select committee is currently considering.
Yes, I would be very concerned about anyone who built on my land or used it for fly-tipping, however, I was surprised to read (Surrey Advertiser, October 26), that the council is also considering taking enforcement action against those who encroach on their land by mowing the verges outside private houses.
Now, if the council could arrange for the verges to be mown every two weeks during the growing season, I’m sure this habit by individual residents would stop, but the council won’t, nor should it, as the cost would be high.
Please, Surrey County Council, would you consider the priorities your residents have been making clear over the last few years. If you have money to spend do something about the state of the roads, too many of them are like driving over ploughed fields.
I do have another plea about grass cutting. On some verges that the council currently does cut, alongside fields, the width is too narrow. In particular, the verge on the south side of the New Pond Road needs a double width cut so that the nettles are well back and don’t fall over into the void created by the occasional trim. Cars coming out of Binscombe need to see and be seen.
There are already thick poles obscuring the view to the left and right of this junction. know Cllr Chris Slyfield has been campaigning for this.
When will Surrey County Council listen to its residents and the councillors? The council has a safety responsibility and I would like it to put this high on its priorities.
HEATHER HULLAH
Green Lane,
Farncombe.
It’s verging on the ridiculous
Who should I try to please, my neighbours or Surrey County Council?
I am the only householder in the road not to cut my front verge which belongs to the county council, only because I have a large garden, am elderly and have little help in it.
But my verge often spoils the look of the rest of the road because the council in the past, cut it at least four times a year. Now I am lucky if it cuts it twice. Any suggestions?
ROSAMOND DAVIS
One Tree Hill,
Congratulations on overcoming the hazards
I congratulate Mole Valley District Council’s officers and specialist consultants in finally being able to state that the “contaminants” of diesel fuel, bricks and industrial clinker that was buried when the site at the old brickworks was levelled for re-development in the 70s is now deemed to not be hazardous to health.
I worked extremely closely with the officers for nearly three years to encourage communication with residents and to push for answers on what was groundbreaking work in more ways than one, because of the Government’s poor guidance on this issue.
This work has led to Mole Valley having a deeper understanding, not only of exactly where and what the “contamination” was on the site, but the officers involved are now experts in interpreting and influencing government guidance on the subject.
I also thank the patience and understanding of the local residents who were caught up in this investigation and hope that the “all clear” notice will ensure they continue to enjoy living in North Holmwood.
CLLR CAROLINE SALMON
Liberal Democrat,
Mole Valley District Councillor for the Holmwoods.
Please guide me to a Latin Mass
In our parish magazine for the villages of Shere, Peaslake and Gomshall, the deacon who each month provides items of information relating to the Roman Catholic community has written about recent press coverage of the Latin Mass issue, following the easing of restrictions on the saying of the old Tridentine Mass.
I loved the old mass, which was said in Latin, both because I found its anonymity a blessing – it had an openness that I miss in modern styles of worship – and because when I was abroad (in the Netherlands, for instance, or in Greece) and unable to speak the local language, as soon as the priest in the local RC church began: “In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti” I was once more in reach of home.
I would very much like to be able to attend a Latin Mass locally, particularly if it were said according to the old Tridentine rite. The deacon tells me that he thinks there is “very little demand, at least locally” for a Latin Mass, in either rite. Perhaps I am the only person left who still misses the old Tridentine Mass, but if anyone else shares the wish to hear it again, I would be glad if he or she would write to the following address or e-mail joverton@btinternet.com
J.M.M. OVERTON
Hazelhurst,
Peaslake Lane,
Peaslake.
Tunnel vision is short-sighted
I refer to correspondence in your paper regarding polytunnels at Tuesley Farm, Godalming.
There are many people who are unaware the countryside and its land is there to be worked and not left idle.
Methods change and we must be aware of this. Let’s use the land – it’s not there just to be admired. There are too many people trying to stop some earn an honest living. Live and let live.
Name and address supplied.
Chamber music is good for TALK
Thank you to all who supported the Chamber Music for Charities concert on October 27. The amazing sum of £2,368 was raised for TALK.
SHEILA BLOW
Trodds Lane, Merrow.
Mole Valley District Council
Holmwoods
Headley Court
Gomshall
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Black 13 - Copy # 13, Signed, Lined & Dated
by Adam Hamdy
Signed, Lined & Dated
Sprayed Edges
Black 13 is the brilliant first novel in the Scott Pearce series from Adam Hamdy. In this addictive and fast-paced thriller, ex-MI6 officer Pearce is about to show us that in a world where there is no loyalty to the nation state, it’s time to burn the espionage rule book.
An exiled agent. A growing threat. A clandestine war.
The world is changing beyond recognition.
Radical extremists are rising and seek to enforce their ideology globally.
Governments, the military and intelligence agencies are being outmanoeuvred at every step. Borders are breaking down. Those in power are puppets.
The old rules are obsolete. To fight this war a new doctrine is needed.
In a world where nothing is at it seems, where trust is gone, one man will make the difference.
Meet Ex-MI6 agent and man in exile, Scott Pearce.
It’s time to burn the espionage rule book.
Watch Pearce light the fire.
Limited edition #13, signed, lined and dated by the author.
Adam Hamdy is an author, screenwriter and filmmaker who has worked with studios and producers on both sides of the Atlantic. Adam is currently writing Oracle, an original drama series, for the BBC, and is developing To Kill A Shadow, a crime thriller, with See-Saw Films. In addition to his own original work, Adam has adapted a number of comic books and novels for the screen, including the forthcoming film version of David Mitchell’s novel, Number9Dream.
Prior to becoming a writer, Adam was a strategy consultant and advised global businesses operating in a wide range of industries.
Adam’s first novel, Out Of Reach, was published by Dare in 2015. His second, Pendulum, was published by Headline in November 2016. The follow-up, Freefall, was published in November 2017.
Days after Pendulum's release, the screen rights were snapped up by Tom Hardy's production company, Hardy Son & Baker.
The first in Adam's new Scott Pearce series, Black 13, was published in 2020 by Pan Macmillan.
» See more books by Adam Hamdy
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McDowell one back of Noren at Celtic Manor
NEWPORT, Wales – Four days after qualifying for his first U.S. Open, Alexander Noren overcame windy conditions to shoot a 4-under 67 Friday and lead defending champion Graeme McDowell by one stroke after the second round of the Wales Open.
The 127th-ranked Noren made birdies on four of his last five holes to total 8-under 134 at Celtic Manor. Looking to add to his only tour victory at the 2009 European Masters since turning professional six years ago, the Swede had the worst of the weather before making his late charge.
“You can play pretty safe but you’ll have long putts and difficult putts, and if you want to make birdies, it’s pretty tough,” said Noren, who was tied for 19th at the 2008 British Open, his only major appearance. “I think probably somebody will get to 9, 10 under.”
McDowell made a run of four birdies in five holes from No. 8 in shooting a 68. The U.S. Open champion smashed a monster 385-yard drive at the last to set up another birdie. He’s bidding to become the first player to retain the Wales Open title in the tournament’s 12-year history.
“I think this golf course is a great test. You have to drive it well, there’s plenty of rough and penalties around. It’s a long golf course,” he said. “There’s a little bit of everything about this golf course, and that’s what I like. It’s a proper golf test.”
Victor Dubuisson (69) and Jamie Donaldson (68) are next at 136. They are a stroke ahead of first-round leader Keith Horne (73), Peter Hanson (72) and Barry Lane (69), who turns 51 later this month and is seeking to become the oldest winner on the European Tour.
Des Smyth currently holds that honor, the Irishman was 48 when he won the Madeira Island Open in 2001.
Lane, a member of the 1993 Ryder Cup team at The Belfry, looked at long odds to make the cut in the opening round before coming home in 30 shots. He followed that up on Friday with two birdies before and after the turn as he eyes a first victory on the circuit since the 2004 British Masters.
“For an old man like me, a 7,400-yard long course is pretty difficult, but I played wonderful and sure I think I can still win,” said Lane, whose brother is caddying for him for the first time in his 673rd tournament on tour.
Paul Broadhurst, who needed an invitation to the event after losing his tour card last year, shot 72. The Englishman is in a group at 138 after holing three straight birdies from No. 11.
Last year’s winning Ryder Cup captain, Colin Montgomerie, shot a 79 to collapse to last place at 15 over and miss the cut at the course where he led his team to victory. It was his worst halfway score in Europe since shooting 17 over at the 1991 Benson and Hedges International.
After a 78 on Thursday, he dropped six shots in the first eight holes of his second round to finish the back nine in 41 strokes.
“I just played awful and I’m very disappointed not to be playing at the weekend, never mind contending,” Montgomerie said. “It’s unfortunate but that’s the way it is, and I have to accept that sometimes.”
Playing partner Miguel Angel Jimenez lost his temper when his lay-up shot at No. 18 went into the frontside lake. The Spaniard chucked his yardage book to the ground and gave it a kick. He finished at 72.
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C. Woods shares lead at Aussie Ladies Masters
Paul McGinley of Northern Ireland speaks to the audience the European Tour Players' Awards ahead of the BMW PGA Championship at the Sofitel London Heathrow on May 19, 2015 in London, England. (Photo by Andrew Redington/Getty Images) -
Cheyenne Woods put on a show Friday at the Australian Ladies Masters to seize a share of the lead with some spectacular shot-making that would have made her famous uncle proud.
Woods shot a 6-under-par 67 that included holing out from one fairway for an eagle and holing out from a bunker for a birdie.
At 10-under 136, Woods is tied for the lead with South Africa’s Stacy Lee Bregman (67) halfway through the event. She’s seeking her first Ladies European Tour title in her second season on that tour.
As niece to Tiger Woods, Cheyenne created a buzz Down Under with her rise on the leaderboard. After Friday’s round, she was asked by Australian media about what it has been like following her uncle into the game.
“I have been playing golf since I was 5 years old, so for me, playing golf with the last name of Woods is nothing new,” she said. “It’s just now it’s on a bigger stage. I have a lot more media attention, here and there, but for me I’m still playing the same golf that I have been playing my whole life. I go out there with the same mindset.”
Woods holed a 7-iron Friday from 150 yards at the first hole, her 10th of the day.
“I knew I hit it really well,” Woods said. “I knew it was the right club, good distance. I saw it land, and then I looked away, and they said it went in. So, it was exciting.”
The Woods family resemblance is strong in Cheyenne’s face. She is the daughter of Earl Woods Jr., the oldest son to Earl Woods Sr., Tiger’s late father. Earl Woods Jr. was among three children born in Earl Sr.’s first marriage.
Cheyenne’s eyes and smile bear striking resemblance to Tiger's. After Cheyenne graduated from Wake Forest and turned pro in 2012, LPGA star Suzann Pettersen joked that she hoped the similarities did not run deeper.
“If she has the genes of the rest of the family, I think we should be a bit worried,” Pettersen said.
Cheyenne, 23, and Tiger, 38, do share a certain history to their games. Cheyenne first picked up a golf club when she was little more than a toddler in Earl Woods Sr.’s garage, the same garage where Tiger got his start. Cheyenne’s career, of course, hasn’t skyrocketed the way Tiger’s did.
Cheyenne won the Atlantic Coast Conference title by seven shots while at Wake Forest. After turning pro, she won a Sun Coast women’s mini-tour event, but she has struggled in her bid to play the LPGA. She failed to advance through LPGA Q-School qualifying the last two years. She did qualify for the LET last year, ending her rookie season 78th on the Order of Merit. She led after the first-round at the Spanish Open last year, opening with a 64 before following it up with a 78. This week marks the second time she’s held or shared the lead after any round in an LET event.
Woods said she does look at leaderboards as she plays.
“I love seeing my name on there,” she said.
Though ESPNs Rick Reilly wrote a scathing report before the Masters last year that Tiger has not had any contact with his siblings since Earl Sr. died seven years ago, Cheyenne reports a good relationship with her uncle.
“We talk here and there,” Cheyenne said. “We are both extremely busy. Last time I talked to him was, maybe, a few months ago. I don’t talk to him after every event. I have a swing coach that I collaborate with after every round, so that’s probably where I get most of my on-course instruction. But if I ever needed something, I’ve asked Tiger for advice, here and there, so he’s great to have for that. But pretty much, I’m just out here doing my own thing.”
Q-Series: Spilkova leads, C. Woods chasing
BY Randall Mell — October 28, 2018
Czech Republic’s Klara Spilkova leads LPGA's Q-Series at the halfway point, but there's plenty of big names in the chase, including Cheyenne Woods.
J. Lee leads at LPGA’s inaugural Q-Series
Canada’s Jaclyn Lee, a senior at Ohio State, is setting the pace in the marathon of golf scheduled at the LPGA’s inaugural Q-Series, the new final stage of the tour’s qualifying tournament.
Pros, celebs tweet during Tiger's second round
BY Grill Room Team — December 01, 2017
Just like on Thursday, Tiger Woods' play on Friday at the Hero World Challenge set social media on fire. Check out the reactions.
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Chopra Leads Martin Two Back
GLENVIEW, Ill. -- Daniel Chopra fired a 6-under 66 on Friday to grab a one-shot lead after two rounds of the La Salle Bank Open. Chopra stands at 10-under-par 134 through at the halfway point.
Victor Schwamkrug (69), Wes Short (65), Andre Stolz (65) and Tommy Tolles (67) shared second place at 9-under-par 135.
Chopra got going quickly at The Glen Club. He birdied the par-4 second from 18 feet out. He then notched back-to-back birdies from the par-3 fourth to get to minus-7. He later converted a 20-foot birdie putt on eight.
He dropped his second shot within seven feet of the cup to set up birdie at the 13th. Chopra then rolled off three straight birdies. He stuck a wedge inside eight feet at the 15th and knocked a wedge to three feet at the next.
Chopra capped his run of three straight birdies after hitting a 6-iron to six feet at the par-3 17th. He found big trouble at the last however. He knocked his second shot in the water and that led to a double-bogey.
'I couldn't help myself on the last hole,' said Chopra. 'It was downwind and I had 225 yards to carry the water. The wind just knocked it down. Then I got too cute on the next shot.'
The double-bogey at the last cost him a three-stroke advantage, but Chopra wasn't displeased.
'Maybe it will help having a one-shot lead,' he said. 'With a three-shot lead, you might think about protecting your lead.'
Schwamkrug, who is making just his second Nationwide Tour appearance of the season, had an up-and-down round. He started on the back nine and ran off three straight birdies from the 13th.
However, he dunked a shot in the water at 17 and that led to a double-bogey. He came right back to birdie the next to make the turn at 8-under.
He birdied the first and three-putted for bogey at the fourth, before sinking a four-foot eagle putt at the par-5 fifth. He later bogeyed the eighth for a round of 69.
Short birdied four of his first five holes before bogeying the seventh. He notched back-to-back birdies around the turn at No. 9 and 10. He closed a stellar round of 65 with birdies at the 16th and 18th.
Stolz started on the back nine with five straight pars. He birdied the 15th and 18th before catching fire on the front side. He notched back-to-back birdies from the second and again from the fifth. His final birdie of the round came at the par-4 eighth.
Tolles got going with a birdie at the fifth. He then made two in a row with birdies at Nos. 9 and 10. Tolles drained three straight birdies from the 15th, before a bogey at the last cost him a share of the lead.
Casey Martin is alone in sixth place at 8-under-par 136. David Branshaw, D.A. Points, Vaughn Taylor, Bo Van Pelt and Zach Johnson are one stroke further back at minus-7.
The cut line fell at 2-under-par 142 with 69 players surviving to play on the weekend.
Full-field scores from the LaSalle Bank Open
Full coverage of the LaSalle Bank Open
BY Sports Network — June 03, 2007
6/3/07 -- John Riegger birdied the final hole Sunday to close a round of 4-under 68 and win the LaSalle Bank Open by a single stroke.
6/2/07 -- Nineteen-year-old Jason Day, John Riegger and Tag Ridings all shot 4-under 68s on Saturday to share the third-round lead.
6/1/07 -- Omar Uresti fired a 9-under 63 on Friday to move in front after two rounds of the LaSalle Bank Open.
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Grimsby Town sign Welsh international midfielder George Williams
Attacking midfielder is the Mariners' second signing of the day
New Grimsby Town signing George Williams (Image: Sam Strandt/GTFC)
Grimsby Town have made their second signing of the day – former Forest Green Rovers midfielder George Williams.
The 24-year-old arrives on a two-year deal with the option of a further year.
Welsh international Williams was one of hundreds of players who found themselves out of contract and without a club earlier this summer at the height of the Covid-19 outbreak.
He only made a handful of appearances last season as he suffered a broken leg and missed a huge chunk of the campaign injured. Williams picked up his injury in a match against Oldham when he was fouled by former Grimsby Town defender Zak Mills.
Williams is another versatile addition to the squad – he can play as an attacking midfielder or a winger.
He joined Forest Green in 2018 after his contract came to an end at Premier League-bound Fulham, having made 15 league appearances for the Cottagers.
Grimsby Town sign young striker Montel Gibson
League Two transfer news - done deals so far in summer 2020
Williams made his full debut for Wales aged just 18 when Chris Coleman was the manager. He was also part of the Wales squad that reached the semi-finals of Euro 2016, but has found international appearances hard to come by since then.
He becomes the second new recruit to arrive at Blundell Park today, following the signing of striker Montel Gibson. Earlier this week the Mariners also secured deals for defender Bilel Mohsni and striker Ira Jackson.
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Submitted by guitar-list on Thu, 2006-11-23 18:37
Neo-Traditionalist Country
Rockabilly Revival
Born in San Antonio, TX and raised in Southern California, Rosie Flores' music blends the best of honky tonk, rockabilly, and jazz with the traditional sounds of her Tex-Mex heritage. Since the late 70s, she has been an important figure in the Los Angeles, Austin, TX and Nashville music scenes.
Rosie's reputation as a high octane rockabilly star is well established. Critical raves from prestigious publications such as the Los Angeles Times and Guitar Player magazine leave no doubt about her talent for filling dance floors and lighting up rooms with her blazing guitar solos.
Rosie's solos recordings have found homes on both the Billboard and Gavin charts and are also featured in seven motion pictures. Her revved-up performances in honky-tonks from Boston to Bakersfield have won legions of fans and earned appearances on such nationally broadcast television programs as "Austin City Limits" and "Late Night with Conan O'Brian." Early in her career while recording for Warner Bros. Records she was nominated for best "Horizon Artist" by the Academy of Country Music in California. In the year 2000 she won the presitgious LA Weekly Music Award for Best Rockabilly Swing Artist. Read more about Rosie Flores on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.
Gear used by Rosie Flores
Rosie Flores links
Rosie Flores allmusic
Rosie Flores discogs
Rosie Flores official homepage
Rosie Flores other databases
Rosie Flores VIAF
Rosie Flores wikidata
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About the GWOT Memorial Foundation
The Foundation was formed in 2015 as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation by a small group of like-minded veterans, military spouses, and patriots to honor the service and sacrifice of all who served in the Global War on Terrorism. In its first two years, the Foundation was the driving force behind the Global War on Terrorism War Memorial Act to authorize the establishment of a national war memorial on federal land in Washington, D.C.
Our Tenets
Salute all who served in this conflict: service members, civilians, and their families.
Provide a focal point for healing and reflection on a complex multigenerational war.
Engage and educate civilian and military communities to build mutual understanding.
Foster and sustain the sense of patriotism that brought all Americans together in the wake of 9/11.
All-Volunteer
We are at the early stages of designing what the memorial will say as well as what it potentially could look like. These are principles we believe should be represented in final construction.
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Basketball / Women’s Premier League |
Ex-Ashdod Star Quickly Rebounds From Drugs Brouhaha
Ashley Shields denies accusations after team upset in last year’s finals; having signed for Ramat Hen she says she has put the episode behind her
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Following her unpleasant departure from Maccabi Bnot Ashdod after losing the championship last season, it was only natural that Ashley Shields would take a break — even a short one — from the women's basketball scene in Israel. But last week the 28-year-old guard, who averaged 18.6 points, 5.4 rebounds, 4.8 assists and 3.2 steals per game last season, announced her return for another season, this time with Maccabi Ramat Hen.
Israel, the new hothouse of international basketball
Shields left Ashdod this past summer amid suspicions that she and other foreign teammates had smoked cannabis during the final series, which Ashdod lost to Elitzur Ramle. But the bad press did not stop Shields — who says she loves Israel and considers it a second home — from returning. The former WNBA player, who first came to Israel in 2008 and played for Elitzur Netanya for three years before leaving for Dobri Anjeli Kosice in Slovakia, says she feels deep ties Israeli families and friends, from whom she gets a lot of love and support.
“The Israeli league is competitive and challenging,” she says. “Some unpleasant things happened at the end of the 2012-13 season, but I’m a strong person. I moved on because I didn't want the situation to get in the way.”
Last season ended in frustration as 2012 Premier League champion and State Cup holder Ashdod, which had a perfect regular season record, lost the final series to Ramle.
“The team was mentally broken,” she says. “It had lost its motivation. We were tired from the whole season, both physically and mentally. A lot of things were going on off the court, and the team needed the coach more than anyone else to pick the players up.“
But she says that the team’s coach, Edni Dagan, yelled at them when they missed shots or made mistakes during the final series, when they needed him to be positive and supportive instead.
Dagan was much calmer during the 2012 championship run, says Shields. “He’s a wonderful person and I love him, but the Americans and Israelis in the squad needed him more relaxed and to let us come together as a team.”
At the same time, she says she makes no excuses. The team should have taken the championship, but after a long season in which they consistently won, they lost at the worst possible moment.
Two days after the pain of losing at home in Game 5 to Ramle, a blow no less painful struck Shields and two other foreign players on the team, power forward Charde Houston and center Danielle Adams. Ashdod management issued a press release that it was looking into suspicions that some of the team's foreign players, including Shields, had taken drugs during the final series, which apparently affected their performance on the court.
Shields recalls team officials approached them and told them that they had used drugs. “I was surprised, and told them that it wasn't true,” she says.
Speaking out for the first time on the issue, she says she can only speak for herself. “I have never touched drugs. Everyone who knows me knows that I’m a good person and a team player. Every since I started playing in high school, there has never any problem with me.”
The Memphis, Tennessee native says she has no idea where the rumors and suspicions came from. She speculates that it was hard for them to swallow the loss, so they decided to blame the foreign players.
According to Tali Krieff, the president of Maccabi Bnot Ashdod, one of the foreign players came to her house, admitted that the foreign players had smoked pot and apologized for the damage done to the team.
“I don’t know,” says Shields. “I didn’t do it. It’s simply not true. If the team suspected something, why didn't they do a drug test on us?”
Over the summer, of course, Shields did not negotiate a new contract with the team. “I didn’t want to continue there. I thought we were like a family then suddenly they hurt me,” she says.
After the season, Ashdod fired Dagan. The move surprised Shields. “Dagan was an integral part of the system,” she says. “I never though it would happen so fast.”
In general, last year's club of foreigners at Ashdod has broken up. Besides Shields going to Ramat Hen, Brittany Denson — who played two seasons with Shields in Ashdod — went to Ramat Hasharon. Houston, one of the most veteran foreigners in the league, won't be back this season. The only one remaining is Adams, who signed on for another season with Ashdod.
Shields kept in touch with the other foreign players over the summer, stressing they are good friends. However, after the bad feeling in which they ended their season, she finds it surprising that Adams decided to stay. “On the other hand, I’ll happy to see her on the court this season,” she adds.
The person Shields is even happier to see this season in Israel is her husband Tasmin Mitchell, who joined Maccabi Rishon Letzion after playing last season with Russian team Triumph Lyubertsy. She says she is happy that once again the two will be playing in the same country, adding that she really missed him last year because she needs a person who loves and supports her.
The idea that Ramat Hen is not a big club like Ashdod does not bother Shields, she says. “I’m a winner, and I came to Ramat Hen to be a leader. I get along with both management and the coach, Shiki Falah. We’ll take the season one game at a time.”
Ashley Shields, right, in action for Maccabi Bnot Ashdod last seasonCredit: Sefi Magriso
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Mr. Cheng Cheng-Mount Was Elected Yang Ming’s New Chairman
In the 351st board meeting held on 30. September, Yang Ming Marine Transport Corporation (Yang Ming) has elected Mr. Cheng Cheng-Mount to succeed Mr. Hsieh Chih-Chien as its Chairman and Chief Executive Officer with effect from October 1st, 2020.
Chairman Cheng Cheng-Mount earned his Master’s degree in Economics from University of Wisconsin-Madison. He started his career as an assistant research fellow at Taiwan Institute of Economic Research. He was the Chief Economist at Citibank Taiwan Limited, the President of Academy of Banking and Finance, the President of Agricultural Bank of Taiwan, the Vice Chairman of Financial Supervisory Commission, and the Deputy Minister of National Development Council. He also served as an adjunct associate professor in the Department of Finance at National Chengchi University. Chairman Cheng is highly recognized for his profound experiences and outstanding performance.
Appointed by National Development Fund, Yang Ming’s second-largest shareholder, Chairman Cheng has joined the Board of Directors at Yang Ming since 2018. During the past two years, he has become acquainted with Yang Ming’s operations and strategies. With his extensive experiences and financial professions, Chairman Cheng obtained the approvals from all board members to take up the position of Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Yang Ming. It is anticipated that Chairman Cheng’s leadership will take Yang Ming to the next level of growth and success.
No. 271, Ming De 1st Road,
Cidu District, Keelung 20646, Taiwan (R.O.C.)
TEL : (886-2) 2455-9988
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Top predators such as sharks often have ranges that extend far beyond the borders of coastal marine protected areas. Photo by Paul Mckenzie/Minden Pictures
Fragmented Protections Fail Top Predators
Small, disconnected marine reserves do little for wide-ranging reef predators in zones of high human impact.
by Natalie Slivinski
Marine protected areas (MPAs), regions of the sea closed to harmful human activities, are effective in safeguarding coral ecosystems, which are often heavily used by coastal communities. But as new research shows, when MPAs are next to areas of high human activity, some of the benefits are lost—even in areas where fishers and others follow all the rules.
The vast majority of MPAs are coastal, and coastal MPAs are often smaller and more fragmented than those far out at sea. The median area of coastal MPAs is less than 10 square kilometers, while large offshore MPAs, such as the Marae Moana ocean sanctuary around the Cook Islands, cover nearly two million square kilometers. These small pockets of protection do help the coastal ecosystem, yet a team of researchers led by Nicholas Graham, a marine ecologist at Lancaster University in England, found that around areas of high human activity, MPAs do virtually nothing to protect top predators.
Graham and his colleagues applied a concept called “gravity” to develop a new way to measure human impacts on coral reef ecosystems. “Gravity is a proxy for human pressure,” Graham says.
The researchers calculated gravity by using two pieces of information: the human population in each one-square-kilometer box in a 500-kilometer radius around a given coral reef and the time it takes for people from each box to travel to the reef by road. Then, by combining gravity with fish population data on that reef, they were able to show how gravity affects fish biomass, or the presence or absence of top predators—primarily sharks, but also large jack, snapper, grouper, and barracuda.
Surveying conservation data for nearly 1,800 tropical reefs in more than 40 countries, Graham and his colleagues found a trade-off in small coastal MPAs: for reserves in high-gravity areas, fish biomass was about five times higher than in equivalent unprotected areas. However, top predators were virtually absent.
This is, in part, because large predators typically travel great lengths to hunt, Graham says. Coastal no-take zones only protect a fraction of their habitat. “The likelihood that the entire home range of an individual falls exactly within the boundaries of a protected area is quite low,” he says. When predators venture outside the reserve, they become fair game for fishing and hunting.
Elizabeth Madin, a marine ecologist at the University of Hawai‘i who was not involved in the research, says expanding coastal MPAs to offer protection for far-ranging predators would cut off huge swaths of the coast from human activity. Such an approach is simply not feasible, she says. Having overly large coastal MPAs would put unrealistic expectations on fishers, who rely on those nearby resources for food and income, and enforcing compliance would be difficult. This is especially true for poor communities.
Instead, to protect top predators, Graham suggests placing restrictions on specific types of fishing gear. “Fishers are more likely to change the way they’re fishing than to stop fishing altogether,” he says. This might include enforcing the use of nets with escape slots or other methods of lowering by-catch.
The big takeaway, says Graham, is that when it comes to designing MPAs and protecting marine ecosystems, there is no one-size-fits-all approach. “There’s always a tension between designing MPAs based on core principles—optimal spacing, size, and so on—and designing them based on the social and political context of a place,” he says.
Yet Graham has high hopes for this new metric of human gravity in refining conservation efforts. “It’s nearly impossible to accurately map fishing pressure on coral reefs globally. This metric of gravity is very novel in coral reef science,” he says. “It predicted fish biomass more accurately than any other way we’ve looked at in the past.”
Natalie Slivinski is a freelance science writer from Seattle, Washington. A former disease biologist, she is interested in how the spread of disease is influenced by human behavior and the changing climate. She likes to shine the spotlight on tangible, applied research in sustainability. She loves to write about marine life, ecology, evolution, behavioral psychology, and bugs.
Cite this Article: Natalie Slivinski “Fragmented Protections Fail Top Predators,” Hakai Magazine, Sep 20, 2018, accessed January 15th, 2021, https://www.hakaimagazine.com/news/fragmented-protections-fail-top-predators/.
Designing Marine Protected Areas in a Changing Climate
How can vulnerable marine species be protected when climate change is a reality?
Are Marine Reserves Working?
A new scientific review explores if marine reserves are doing what we hoped.
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Election 2020: NCCE engages political activists ahead of December polls
The National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) has said that it is in the process of engaging political activists ahead of the 2020 general elections.
The Deputy Chairperson of the NCCE, Kathleen Addy, in an interview with Samuel Eshun on the Happy Morning Show explained that their efforts are directed at curbing electoral violence going into the elections.
“We are embarking on political activists engagements. This is where we meet with the young people who because of exuberance sometimes allow themselves to be in a position where they are undertaking violence activities and being disruptive during the election period.
We have identified several hotspots within the country. We have about sixty (60) of them. Forty (40) of them are existing hotspots that have been there from the last election. In these hotspots, we do extra programming within young people in those areas to identify plans that are being made to disrupt the elections or bring violence which will be curtailed at that stage. These are programmes we run every year so this year, that is what we are doing”, she said.
She shared that the NCCE, together with other organizations such as the security agencies, political parties, traditional leaders and religious leaders continue to engage stakeholders of the elections at the regional level.
Rejected Ballots: NCCE intensifies educational efforts
Reasons people experience continuous suffering and business misfortunes
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12.6 miles from Rockholds, KY
Stories about the Cumberland Falls State Park tell of a 1950s bride and groom on their honeymoon. The bride lost her balance and fell from the cliff now called Lover's Leap. Reports say drivers have hit a woman in a wedding dress in the area, although when they got out ...
Union College seems to have a haunted Financial Aid office: Witnesses say the doors open and close, and even lock and unlock, on their own. The spirit is believed to be a woman who lived and died under mysterious circumstances here when the building was a private residence. Also haunting ...
The old post office building is haunted by several spirits. Disembodied footsteps and loud voices are heard when no one is around. Mail is thrown around the post office, and objects go missing, only to turn up in different places to where they were left. The apparition of a tall ...
Grant Lee Hall
The historic Grant Lee Hall dormitory building at Lincoln Memorial University was once part of a hotel, which caught fire in 1904, killing a woman and her child on the fourth floor. Her ghost has been seen in a red dress, including one day in the 1950s when the building ...
Red Dog Road
Harlan, Kentucky
This road has been haunted by mysterious lights which flicker from tree to tree. If one is quiet at a certain fork in the road you can hear someone or something walking in the woods above the road. A huge shadowed specter has been seen several times standing in ...
Kingstone Lisle Inn
Robbins, Tennessee
Called the Snoring Ghost, the ghost in residence here is said to be Thomas Hughes, the town's founder. He originally built the place for his mother, but remains in spirit. He is known to pull blankets back on the bed and audibly snore. The inn can be accessed through tours.
1880 Newbury House
It is said that at the Newbury House, ghostly occurrences are not unknown. It seems that especially single female guests are known to awaken in the night with the ghost of a man standing over their bed. The ghost is thought to be Charles Oldfield, and the Charles Oldfield Room ...
Campbell Cemetery
Busy, Kentucky
Ther is a site at Campbell Cemetery called Coffin Rock, where locals say a man was shot and killed long ago. Now, when it rains, there appears to be blood running down the rock. Several ghosts are said to call this area home as well: an old man who flags ...
Alexander Inn
Although this 1943 inn is now closed and set to be turned into a senior living facility, it was rumored to be haunted. Folks said footsteps could be heard walking up the stairs and blood could be seen on the hotel walls. From the outside, an apparition has been seen ...
Free Union Separate Baptist Church
The cemetery is reportedly haunted by the ghost of a man holding an infant. People claim the ghosts are waiting for the man's wife to die so that they can be reunited as a family.
Glenmore Mansion
Before the death of local historian Thomas Roach, he remarked that if a ghost was sighted at the mansion, it might just be of him. Ever since, visitors have noted a friendly presence and a misty apparition on the lower floor of the mansion. People have also reported sighting a ...
Baker Peters Mansion
The mansion, now Baker Peters Jazz Club, is said to be haunted by Abner Baker, a former resident of the 1840 building. The mansion was inhabited by Dr. Baker's family and several wounded Confederate soldiers whom he was helping during the Civil War. When the Union learned Dr. Baker was ...
Bethesda Church and Cemetery
The apparitions of restless Confederate soldiers are seen inside and outside the church building. They are aggressive towards visitors to the cemetery. The apparition of a weeping woman has been seen on the far side of the cemetery. Her cries are often heard late at night. (Submitted by Callum Swift)
Benham School House Inn
Cumberland, Kentucky
65 miles from Rockholds, KY
The building that houses the inn was an old high school, and some say the ghostly students return to their old stomping grounds. According to reports, the inn still houses the student lockers and class photos in the hallways, and in these hallways witnesses have heard unexplained runnning footsteps, laughter ...
Tennessee Mountain Inn - Econo Lodge
Once the Tennessee Mountain Inn but now reported to be an EconoLodge, this place is the home of a ghostly little girl. She has been seen on the balcony or in the hallways by guests and employees alike, and they say she is very sweet and friendly. Who she is ...
Wheatland Plantation
Wheatland Plantation, located off of Boyd's Creek Highway in Sevierville, is an 1820 Federal Style home that was constructed around a large geode by a Freemason. The property has seen more than 70 murders and deaths within its walls, while the grounds bore witness to battles of both the ...
At Lindsey Wilson College's Horton Hall, rumors abound...especially about the dorm rooms on the second floor. Witnesses say dark ghosts float up and shake the ceiling tiles or creep down into the bedrooms. So the stories go, if you come across these mysterious beings, you should stay really still. If ...
Emmalena, Kentucky
Rumor has it that at this site, a man once committed a double murder. It's said that he found his wife together with another man in a hotel room, and shot and killed them both. Witnesses say the spirit of the man who was shot still remains behind, turning the ...
Millenium Manor House
The manor was built during the early 20th century, and the owner and his wife believed that as long as they worked on the property, they would never die. They eventually passed away, but many believe that their spirits still linger on the property. People have reported hearing disembodied footsteps ...
Perryville Battlefield
Perryville, Kentucky
The largest Civil War battle in Kentucky was fought here on October 8, 1862; at least 7,600 were killed or wounded. The corpses of the Confederate soldiers were left to rot on the battlefield, and many suppose this is why the field has so much ghostly activity. Apparitions of soldiers, ...
In the early hours of morning, guests staying the lodge have reported awakening to see a young girl standing at the foot of their beds, who disappears when she is seen. (Submitted by Callum Swift)
Harrodsburg Spring - Young Park
The ghost story here begins with a beautiful young woman who checked in to the Harrodsburg Springs Hotel, which stood on the park grounds in the late 1800s, under a false name. She danced with several partners in the hotel ballroom, as the men all lined up for a chance ...
At Campbellsville University's Fine Arts Building, which was originally a Catholic Hospital, ghostly babies have been known to cry at night. Footsteps can sometimes be heard, cold spots felt, and pottery wheels have been spotted turning all by themselves.
The Haintin' Holler
Burkesville, Kentucky
As it's called by locals "The Haintin; Holler" is located on HWY 3115, about 1/4 mile past the Gray Gap Road you will enter this area. It runs from there to about 1/4 mile from the end of Turner Branch Road. Turner Branch Road comes to a dead end ...
Hiestand House
This historic stone cottage is now a museum, but was formerly built in the early nineteenth century by a family of emigrants. After being abandoned for a period of time, a middle class family moved in, but fled after reporting apparitions, disembodied footsteps and strange fires. (Submitted by Callum Swift)
Newport Memorial Building
In 1971 there was a plane crash on a mountain in Parotsville Tennessee. Limbs were scattered everywhere and no survivors were ever found. While waiting for the bodies to be identified they were housed in the Cocke County Memorial Building. Among the bodies were many small children. Many ...
Folks say a shadowy form watches over you at this inn. The ghost is said to belong to an elderly woman who was killed here while she was working late.
Saint Ivos Cemetery
Lebanon, Kentucky
At St. Ivos Cemetery, witnesses have reported video camera malfunctions and unexplained noises and voices.
Greensburg Court House
Greensburg, Kentucky
The historic Greensburg Courthouse, built 1802-06, was used until 1931. With a history that long, of course it's bound to have some ghosts. Folks say that in the courtrooms you can hear ghostly activity such as footsteps and murmured talking.
Maple Hill Manor Bed and Breakfast
Springfield, Kentucky
Built in 1851 by slaves, this inn is said to be haunted either by the original owners or by soldiers who fought in the Battle of Perryville in 1962. Witnesses have reported knocks on doors when there was nobody there, footsteps from empty rooms, cold spots, phantom perfume scents, strange ...
Little Greenbrier Lodge Bed and Breakfast
According to the locals, the friendly ghost of Margretta Craig haunts this 1939 bed-and-breakfast. The room where she is most often seen is dedicated to her, and the owners display photographs of her in her room. The ghost is said to do nice things like close the door behind you.
Mysterious Mansion
The mystery of the Mansion involves a sobbing spirit. Locals tell the tale of a 7-year-old girl who died when she fell off the balcony into a creek below. Her ghost is said to appear around the anniversary of her death, crying and pointing up to the spot from which ...
Rocky River Motel
We have lived at this motel for three weeks. In that time, we have had two incidents where there was a clear and loud knock at the door, but when we opened it there is no one anywhere in sight. Our wall clock sometimes runs backwards. My girlfriend clearly saw ...
Cabin On Roaring Fork
This cabin is over 200 years old. The cabin seems to be occupied by the ghost of a woman. The website address is: CabinOnRoaringFork.com The number of paranormal events are too numerous to mention, but here are a couple: One family decided to go by a fast food restaurant to get ...
Rocky Top Village Inn
A multiple murder that occurred a couple decades ago is the source for this building's haunting, locals say. So the harrowing story goes, the back office was the site where two workers were brutally killed for a reason still unknown. Witnesses have heard the screams of the victims and seen ...
A Guide to Haunted New England: Tales from Mount Washington to the Newport Cliffs
Thomas D'Agostino
Garden Plaza Hotel - Holiday Inn Sunspree
This hotel building has more than its share of haunts. A man is said to have committed suicide in Room 471, and a reflection of his ghost is said to be seen in the nearby windows, walking around the pool at night. A Boy Scout troop leader is said to ...
General Morgan Inn
This historic hotel is said to be haunted by a ghost named Green Room Grace. Grace was a waitress at the hotel long ago, and she is said to be playful and fun. She loves spoons, and has been known to snatch them from The Green Room, the hotel's restaurant, ...
Samuel Cleage House - Clegg House
The Samuel Cleage House dates back to around 1826. Local residents know it colloquially as "The Clegg House." Locals gave accounts of noises and voices that have caused the inability to hold tennants in the past. Now, the building is gutted and going thru possible restoration. Summary of events: Plenty ...
Haunting Experiences: Encounters with the Otherworldly
Michelle Belanger
Picture Yourself Ghost Hunting
» Cemeteries near Rockholds, KY
» Find museums in Rockholds, KY
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Saints punch the Lights out
George Ferguson Havre Daily News sports editor [email protected]
HELENA Stephen Silva gave the Montana State University-Northern football team the momentum it was looking for Saturday afternoon. But as fast as Silva gave momentum to the Lights, Gary Wagner and the Carroll College Fighting Saints took it all away. Carroll responded to Silva's MSUN record, second-half-opening 96-yard kickoff return by scoring 37 unanswered points as the No. 2 Saints routed the No. 18 Lights 50-13 Saturday at Nelson Stadium in Helena. After Northern played a valiant first half of football, Silva electrified the large MSU-N contingent by taking the opening kick of the third quarter back for the longest kickoff return in Northern history to tie the game at 13- 13. But Wagner, who threw two firsthalf interceptions, responded by throwing back-to-back touchdown passes in the next five minutes of the third quarter the first, a 35-yard strike to Christian Prosperie to put the Saints up 20-13. And just four minutes later, the former Havre High star hit Corey Peterson for the second time on the day to put Carroll ahead 27-13. Wagner also got Carroll on the board early in the first quarter with a 65-yard bomb to Peterson. “I made some bad reads in the first half, those interceptions were all my responsibility,” Wagner, the twotime Class A All-State Blue Pony said. “And I think we were pretty sluggish in the first half. They (Lights) came out and played us tough and we didn't expect anything less from them. They are a great program. But I was really pleased with the way we played in the third quarter.” Indeed, after Wagner's third TD of the day, the nightmare was just getting started for MSU-N. Down 27-13, the Lights committed the first of three straight turnovers, and Carroll scored off two of them. After an MSU-N fumble deep in Saint's territory, Matt Ritter scored on a run out of Carroll's “wildcat” formation, the second TD on the day for Ritter. Then, on MSU-N's ensuing possession, the Lights fumbled again, and just minutes later, after finally getting a stop on defense, Carroll's punt bounced off a Northern player and the Saints recovered yet again. The miscue led to a 43-13 lead when Carroll sophomore Dane Broadhead hit Casey Lamping for a 13-yard scoring strike. The final nail in the game was a 39-yard TD run by Jeff Deal with 11:01 left in the fourth quarter. “First, you can't do what we did and expect to compete in a game like this,” MSU-N head coach Mark Samson said. “You can't turn the ball over three times like that against Carroll and expect to have a chance. They are too good of a team, and they made us pay for our mistakes. “This is also about the third game in a row where I felt like we played a very good first half of football against them (Saints),” he added. “But then, for whatever reason, we just come out flat in the second half. Even with the kickoff return we were just really flat in the third quarter, and we just didn't get anything going. And that's been happening to us a lot against them lately.” What made Saturday's outcome so tough on the Lights is the fact they did play such a solid defensive first half. Despite being thin on defense, the most recent loss, senior All-American linebacker Stetson Koffman to a seasonending knee injury, the Lights forced Carroll into three first-half turnovers two interceptions by Wagner and a fumbled kickoff return deep in Northern territory. But MSU-N's offense struggled to capitalize on the Carroll miscues as the Lights only got three points off those turnovers, the second of two field goals in the first quarter. “Our defense played great in the first half,” Samson said. “They gave us great opportunities to score and we just didn't take advantage. You have to give Carroll credit for that too, they obviously are very good defensively. But we went into the red zone six times in the first half and only got six points. You have to do better than that if you want to be successful.” Northern's offense did move the ball well in the first half at times. But when the Lights got close to the goal line, the Carroll defense stiffened. The Lights responded to Carroll's first strike by marching all the way to the Carroll 5-yard-line, getting a 22-yard Kyle Kercher field goal to pull within four points at 7-3. Then, MSU-N's Brandon Grote recovered the ensuing fumbled kickoff, but the Lights could only come away with three more points, a 41-yard Kercher field goal. Ritter would add a rushing touchdown in the second quarter to put the Saints ahead 13-6 at halftime, before Silva's kick return sparked Northern, then sparked Carroll to run away with the game. In all, after quarterback sacks and penalties, the Lights amassed just 96 yards of total offense, six on the ground. Senior quarterback Jeff Van Nest was hounded all day by Carroll's front seven and was sacked numerous times in the second half. He went just 9-of-26 passing for 85 yards. But Northern's inability to run the football, especially in the second half, along with the costly turnovers, was its undoing. The Lights got 39 yards from Ty Cochrell and 23 from Van Nest, but MSU-N netted just six yards on the day. And after not committing a turnover in the first six quarters of their 2009 campaign, the Lights gave the ball away four times in the second half of Saturday's loss. Meanwhile, the Saints were balanced, as per usual. They rolled up 500 yards of offense, including 226 in the air and 274 on the ground. Carroll's rushing attack was a who's who of ball carriers, as Gabe Le rushed for 65 yards, John Camino went for 55, Chance Demaris had 54 and Deal added 52. Wagner threw for 209 yards and three scores, and the junior, who came back from a season-ending leg injury a year ago, has already thrown eight TD passes in two games this season. “I think we did a really good job of executing in the second half,” Wagner said. “The offensive line deserves a lot of credit, they really blocked well in both the passing and the running game, and the defense did an amazing job. Northern is a very good team, but our defense played great today and gave us the ball back and gave us chances to put points on the board in the second half and our receivers were able to get open and I had some time and was able to find them. "This win gives us a lot of confi- dence for the rest of the season," he added. "Especially because of how well we played in the second half.” Carroll improved to 2-0 overall and 1-0 in Frontier Conference play, while the Lights dipped to 1-1 and 0-1 in league play. And while Samson was disappointed in his team's second-half performance on Saturday, he was well aware of the fact there is plenty of time to recover. “We didn't play well at all today, especially offensively,” Samson said. “I was proud of our effort in the first half, we did play hard. But we have a lot to work on. And you have to give them (Saints) credit. They are a very, very good football team and they showed it today. “I still think we are a good football team too,” he added. “But we have a lot of work ahead of us. It's a long season, and this game won't break our year. We just have to find a way to put it behind us and go forward and get better.” Next up for the Lights is their home opener Saturday against Rocky Mountain College. Northern and RMC will kick off at 1 p.m. Saturday at Blue Pony Stadium in Havre.
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HomeFeaturedSheriff reflects on career as he becomes longest tenured
July 9, 2020 Ryan Arena Featured, News, Newsletters, Profiles 0
Greg Champagne is sworn in for his 7th term as Sheriff by his daughter Rochelle, with his wife Alice beside them.
Surrounded by family, friends and colleagues, St. Charles Parish Sheriff Greg Champagne held up a photograph taken as he was first sworn into office in 1996. Among those in the shot was his daughter, Rochelle, then just 12 years old.
Twenty-four years later, she had the honor of swearing in her father for his seventh consecutive term, doing so at a special ceremony last week at the parish’s police headquarters. Champagne is now the longest serving sheriff in the parish’s history, surpassing former sheriffs Lewis Ory and Leon Vial Sr., each of whom served approximately 23 years in the position.
“You’ll notice I look a little different. My hair’s not quite as thick, not quite as black, and of course, I’m a little bit older … I look back at that picture and I realize how scary a time it was, going into the unknown,” Champagne said.
It was the fourth time the longtime sheriff has been unopposed in his bid for reelection, including for each of his past three terms. There’s been two constants over the years, he says – the responsibility of sheriff has always been a 24-hour job and has always been to “keep criminals out of the lives of honest citizens.”
“It’s always a challenge,” Champagne mused. “When you come in and start thinking you can kick back and enjoy, something happens. We’re in the business where anything can happen at any time, and there’s never a dull moment … the public wouldn’t return me to office if they’re not confident we are doing the right things.”
Greg Champagne displays photo of the day he was first sworn in, in 1996.
The Sheriff’s Office employed 240 people the day he took office, a number that has grown to nearly 400. Its once small jail has been expanded, a highly regarded training academy and home base have been established and technological advances have changed the game completely.
On that last point, Champagne marveled a bit.
“It’s amazing. We had little to no computer activity when I first started, mostly for the finance department,” Champagne said. “Now we’ve got microwaves shooting stuff back and forth between offices. The change in technology has been unbelievable … with social media, it’s even more intense now. That can be good and can also be bad. But at the start, they had just come out with e-mail addresses.”
It was a different time, and those texts and instant messenger apps could have come in handy. Today, the Sheriff’s Office has its divisions unified at its Luling headquarters, but in 1996 those were spread around the parish.
“Our detective bureau was practically in Kenner,” Champagne said. “You never saw anybody.”
That changed in 2011, as the family of the late Judge Edward Dufresne set aside seven acres of the land he had dedicated to the parish for the purpose of a headquarters. The main headquarters was built in 2011 and a training center was added alongside of it, again through help of the Dufresne family.
The construction of the Nelson Coleman Correctional Center was key as well.
“The big issue at the time (of Champagne’s first term) was the jail. We had one (at the courthouse) that could hold about 110 prisoners. As it was, we were having to release people … you come on duty in the evening and the question was ‘do we have enough beds to arrest people?’ We needed to do more summons,” Champagne recalled.
Champagne worked out a deal with St. Charles Parish near the end of his first term where he took ownership of the jail, which would be built upon 10 acres of undeveloped land. He said it made a notable impact off the bat.
“Crime numbers fell once we opened the jail, because it wasn’t a revolving door,” Champagne said. “
After a brief tick upward, the numbers began falling again, and in each of the past two years the lowest marks in Champagne’s tenure were recorded despite a growing population. He credits a strong partnership with the parish’s district attorney, Joel Chaisson, as a major part of that.
Other changes came in the form of different training methods and areas. There’s been additional focus on deescalation and crisis intervention. And Champagne is especially pleased with the results from a leadership training program that promotes each officer and employee taking ownership of their respective roles.
“Prior to this, that kind of training was thought to be just for captains, majors … this is for everyone,” Champagne said. “I feel it helps to avoid the kind of negativity … some officers deal with so much negativity each day and tend to get jaded. This helps steer away from that kind of thinking.”
He admits “it’s frustrating now for everyone” when it comes to the negative focus of media coverage upon law enforcement seen nationally in the wake of the George Floyd incident.
“We feel frustrated because we had nothing to do with what this criminal in a uniform did up in Minneapolis (to Floyd),” Champagne said. “We didn’t cause it and we don’t do things like that. You see the bashing of police on social media … it’s frustrating. We try to do the right thing every day.”
That can lead to heightened tensions for an officer responding to a call.
“My concern is … this is a tough business,” Champagne said. “There’s a reason why we have dogs and handcuffs and tasers, because you never know. In times like these, you tend to worry, because is there someone out there with some degree of mental illness who is so stressed out, because of coronavirus, these allegations police are bad and beating up people … we don’t believe we do that here. But it’s tough for a deputy to have to deal with those worries because people are so stirred up.”
Within St. Charles Parish, though, he notes the support has been overwhelmingly positive and he’s thankful.
“It means a whole lot. And that’s been the case here,” Champagne said. “We’ve had large support. I think most people want the same things…safe streets, to be left alone, and not have a criminal interfere with your life. I think here … large cities have challenges we don’t have, where councilmen or mayors dictate move by move what a law enforcement agency does without knowing anything about law enforcement. In St. Charles Parish, I’m elected. I answer to the people, and I handle police to keep you safe.”
And though Champagne is now the record-holder for length of a term, he hopes to keep doing this job for a long time to come.
“As long as my health is good and the public wants me to stay, I’ll stay. When they want me to go, I’ll go,” he said. “I’m still excited about it
Sheriff Greg Champagne
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Catherine Walter was numb when she heard the news.
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Ochsner receives more than 9K COVID vaccines
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Following last week’s authorization of the first COVID-19 vaccine set to be distributed in the U.S., Ochsner officials said the health system was set to receive 9,375 doses of the vaccine, this first shipment designated to inoculate thousands of its employees throughout the state. […]
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Patrick O'Byrne, professor of piano, confirmed in office as dean
New leadership team in the Department of Music
The Music Department Council of the Bremen University of the Arts has elected a new dean for the Department of Music: Professor Patrick O'Byrne succeeds Prof. Jörg Birkenkötter as dean, Prof. Markus Schieferdecker is deputy dean, and Prof. Maria Kowollik takes over as dean of studies.
Since 2002, pianist Patrick O'Byrne has been HfK professor of piano. He has performed worldwide as a soloist with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, RTÉ Symphony, Bochumer Sinfoniker, New York Virtuosi and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie under conductors such as Sir Charles Groves, Franz-Paul Decker, Kenneth Klein, and Albert Rosen. Born in Dublin and raised in New Zealand, the pianist has received international acclaim for his interpretations of contemporary, French and Spanish music, among others, and his repertoire encompasses every style.
"I am very much looking forward to an equally intensive and constructive collaboration with my colleagues," says Patrick O'Byrne. "Together with my deputy Markus Schieferdecker, Professor of Jazz Double Bass, and the Dean of Studies Maria Kowollik, Professor of Vocals, who was elected on April 01, 2021, we will set ourselves the goal of transparently representing the interests of the Department of Music both internally and externally, and in doing so further strengthen the interconnections between the study programs and the potentials of a Department of Music as part of a University of the Arts. Our different musical orientations also reflect the range of the Department of Music," adds O'Byrne.
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Love, health and the weather: 9 things medieval Londoners worried about
As today, people in medieval London worried about health, crime, money, the weather and relationships. But of far greater consequence for them was the possibility of going to hell
Here, Toni Mount, the author of Everyday Life in Medieval London: From the Anglo-Saxons to the Tudors reveals nine of the most pressing concerns of people living in the capital in the Middle Ages…
People have always had concerns about health, be it their own or that of loved ones or neighbours – after all, in the medieval period a sickness might be contagious, and even a splinter could turn septic and prove deadly.
Living in the days before antibiotics, medieval folk had far more than us to worry about. Even a visit to the apothecary – the medieval pharmacist – brought concerns of its own: were the medicines for sale really as described?
The adulteration of medicines was a serious matter in the Middle Ages, and the Lord Mayor of London charged the Grocers’ Company with the task of making certain that no goods went on sale before they were ‘garbled’ (checked for purity and quality). During an inspection in 1475, the apothecary John Davy was pilloried, imprisoned and fined for selling ‘sanders’ (sandalwood), which was nothing more than his own “fabricated powder”.
Other strange and revolting imports included a cask containing ‘putrid wolves’, which William of Lothbury claimed could cure ‘the wolf’ disease. Physicians were asked to look into the matter, but since they could find no such disease in their medical books to require such a remedy, William was fined severely and the goods destroyed.
2) Crime
Crime was as much a worry for medieval Londoners as it is for us today, but whereas we have a police force to deal with such matters, back then there were only the beadles – one for each city ward and a couple of constables to assist him.
Here is an example of this trio in action: in 1474, the beadle of the ward of Farringdon suspected that Joan Salman and Walter Haydon – neither of them wedded – were alone together in a house near the Old Bailey. With two burly constables, the beadle approached the house. The door wasn’t locked, so the beadle and one constable went in, leaving the other at the door to prevent the couple making their escape.
They crept up the stairs to the bedchamber and caught Walter in bed with Joan – “a loose, immoral woman”. The pair were arrested and taken to the Counter (the sheriff’s prison).
In the event of a crime, whoever discovered it first was obliged to “raise the hue and cry” by shouting, banging on doors or clattering pots and pans; rousing the neighbours or anyone within earshot. The idea was that they should all give chase and apprehend the culprit. Only small children, the sick or the lame were excused from taking up the pursuit if they heard the cries of alarm. Otherwise, under a statute of 1275, they were considered to be aiding and abetting the criminal, and could find themselves under arrest. However, if someone raised the hue and cry unnecessarily, they would have to pay a fine.
After curfew, burglary was common in London, despite it being a capital crime. Shops and private houses could be robbed of jewellery, cloth, shoes and blades – anything that might turn a profit. In 1502, a man was arrested in Cornhill for being a “steler of pypes and gutters of lede by means of cutting of theym by nyghtes time”.
The weather was always a hot topic of conversation in medieval London, and in 1089 there was a lot to talk about: in August, there was an earthquake “over all England”, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Then in November came a storm of hurricane force that ripped through London, demolishing 600 houses and damaging the Tower of London and several churches. Florence of Worcester described how the roof was lifted off the church of St Mary-le-Bow and six rafters were flung into the air before being driven into the ground by the force of the wind to “seven-eighths of their 27 feet lengths”, landing in the order in which they had been positioned in the roof.
Meanwhile, John of Brompton recorded that the storm swept away the timbers of London Bridge and the Thames overflowed its banks on both sides, the waters flooding the land to a considerable distance.
Tacuinum Sanitatis, a 14th-century handbook of health showing a couple in field during a day of north wind. (Photo by Prisma/UIG via Getty Images)
4) Children
Youngsters were another cause of concern, especially if they were mischievous and got into scrapes. The consequences could be tragic, as in the case of Richard le Mazon; an eight-year-old schoolboy who lived on London Bridge.
Richard and his friends often dared one other to dangle from a beam that stuck out from the bridge over the rushing river underneath. One day, on his way back to school after dinner in July 1301, Richard tried this feat, but had forgotten to take off his heavy satchel. He lost his grip on the beam and fell into the Thames. His satchel dragged him underwater and he drowned.
5) Money and status
Concern about their status in town could be another thing keeping medieval Londoners awake at night. From about 1330, with the patronage of Queen Philippa (wife of Edward III), England developed its own textile industry as the queen encouraged weavers from Flanders to come to London and set up shop. Good quality, home-produced cloth was now affordable, and even ordinary Londoners were buying and wearing fine clothes.
Citizens were often tempted to emulate courtiers, with their colourful satins, pearls and fine furs. The new clothes being worn by Londoners made it difficult to tell an ordinary citizen from a lord: if a knight passed by, he expected the ‘common folk’ to make way for him and men to doff their caps, but now he looked no grander or better dressed than any number of merchants; their relative positions in the social hierarchy were blurred. Clearly, this situation had to be put right.
In 1337 there came regulations that would later become known as Sumptuary Laws. Extended in 1363, the laws originally applied only in London, and regulated who could wear what kind of cloth, jewellery and particular styles of clothing, to prevent ordinary people dressing like lords and ladies. Those who owned land were always seen to be of a higher status than those with comparable wealth tied up in trade. Therefore a merchant who owned goods worth £500 was considered the social equal of an esquire or gentleman worth only £100. These persons and their families could wear cloth to the value of £3 per bolt or roll of fabric, but no jewels or precious stones, gold, silver, embroidery or silk, and no fur except lamb, rabbit, cat or fox.
Parliament thought these rules were such a great idea that they were re-issued to include means of travel – on foot, by donkey or on horseback and, if so, on what kind of horse – and how often you could eat meat during the week. The laws were continuously updated as fashions changed, on account of the “outrageous and excessive apparel of many people above their estate and degree”. In other words, the humble folk were getting above themselves.
6) Relationships
In medieval London there was the worry as to whether or not a couple was legally wed. In those times, a simple exchange of vows between a couple – made in the tavern, the street or even in bed – followed by ‘consummation’ was considered a valid marriage by the church. No witnesses were required, so it could be difficult for either party to prove or disprove afterward that they were married.
While still an apprentice, John Borell, a wax-chandler in London, had an affair with Maud Clerk, a maidservant in the household of a disreputable priest, Father Jeffrey. Once John qualified and set up his own shop, he wanted to marry a respectable young woman, Letitia. Everything was arranged for their wedding in St Paul’s Cathedral, but as the ceremony reached the part where it was asked if there was any impediment or objection to the marriage, Father Jeffrey stood up, claiming John was already married to his serving girl, Maud.
John denied it, but the priest and Maud demanded compensation. The dispute went to court and poor Letitia – the innocent bride – saw all her dowry wasted on lawyers and fines to be paid by her new husband. Their marriage was confirmed as valid, but the newly-weds were left almost penniless.
A couple being married by a clergyman. Central miniature, folio 102v, Book IV by Henricus von Assia (13th century). (Photo by: PHAS/UIG via Getty Images)
7) Punishment for breaking guild rules
This played on the minds of its members, as anyone failing to keep up standards would suffer the consequences. In 1364, the London vintner, John Penrose, was found guilty of selling bad wine; the penalty being that John had to drink a large measure of his sub-standard wine before the rest was poured over his head.
Such humiliating treatment was a common punishment: bakers of underweight loaves were put in the public stocks, where passers-by could throw mouldy bread rolls at them, while sellers of rotten fruit and vegetables would be pelted with stinking cabbages and tainted apples – or worse! Guild members were expected to behave properly, too. The London goldsmiths fined one of their members severely – not for his own bad behaviour, but because his wife used foul language.
8) What to have for dinner?
The age-old daily worry of every housewife: how to give the family a good meal on a tight budget. The most common dinner, for rich and poor alike, was pottage: a thick soup, much like today’s porridge (from which the word comes). Pottage was a popular starter for an elaborate meal or, for the poorer household, the main – and possibly only – course. Here is a recipe for a winter pottage:
Peel onions and boil them in slices, then fry them in a pot. Now halve your chicken and grill it over the fire, or if it be veal the same; and let the veal be put in in gobbets and the chicken in quarters and put them with the onions in the pot; then have white bread toasted on the grill and steeped in the sewe (juices) of the meat; and then bray (crush) ginger, cloves, grains of paradise and long pepper, moisten them with verjuice (crab-apple juice) and wine, but strain them not, and set them aside. Then bray the bread and run it through a strainer and put it in the pot and boil all together; then serve it forth.
Tacuinum Sanitatis, a 14th-century handbook of health showing women cutting pig’s trotters. (Photo by: Prisma/UIG via Getty Images)
9) Going to hell
Of far greater consequence for the medieval Londoner was the horrible and, in their minds, very real, worry of going to hell if they died unexpectedly. Without a chance to confess their sins, receive absolution and the last rites, an eternity in hell would be the outcome for them on the Day of Judgement.
For this reason, St Christopher was of great importance as people went about their daily work, because he ensured a holy death by warding off a sudden, accidental fatality. Many churches placed wall paintings, images or statues of St Christopher – usually opposite the south door so he could be easily seen – in the belief that this was sufficient to keep the viewer safe for the rest of the day. St Christopher is usually depicted as a huge man – larger than life-size – with a child on his shoulder and a staff in one hand.
Even if they didn’t attend mass every day, a quick peek through the church door at the image of St Christopher was probably an early morning ritual for many Londoners to ensure they were safe from sudden death and hell – at least until tomorrow.
Toni Mount’s book Everyday Life in Medieval London: From the Anglo-Saxons to the Tudors is now available in paperback from Amberley Publishing. To find out more, click here.
London’s history
London Week
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The Healthy Schools Award
The Healthy Schools Award is part of the DfE drive for schools to play an important part in children’s health and wellbeing.
The toolkit is designed to help schools to ‘plan, do and review’ health and wellbeing improvements for their children and young people and to identify and select activities and interventions effectively. This approach ensures that schools put in place the most appropriate services and meet the needs of children and young people.
Activemark
The Activemark is awarded for the delivery of the national PE, School Sport and Club Links strategy.
Schools are automatically assessed for the mark through the national school sport survey, which all School Sport Partnership schools take part in. Schools achieve the Activemark award if, according to the survey, 90% or more of pupils across the school are doing at least 2 hours high-quality PE and school sport a week.
The Rights Respecting Schools Award – awarded by UNICEF - recognises achievement in putting the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) at the heart of a school’s planning, policies, practice and ethos.
A rights-respecting school not only teaches about children’s rights but also models rights and respect in all its relationships: between teachers/adults and pupils, between adults and between pupils.
Eco Schools Award
The Eco-Schools Award is an international award programme that guides schools on their sustainable journey, providing a simple framework to help make sustainability an integral part of school life.
Eco-Schools can help enhance the curriculum and get the whole school united behind something important.
The School Games Mark is a Government led award scheme launched in 2012, facilitated by the Youth Sport Trust to reward schools for their commitment to the development of competition across their school and into the community.
We are excited to announce that we have achieved the School Games Bronze Mark Award for the 2018/19 academic year. and we are delighted to have been recognised for our success.
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'Glee': Chris Colfer Signs Two-Book Deal
“The Land of Stories” will target young readers and is set for summer 2012.
Glee co-star Chris Colfer has signed a two-book deal with Little, Brown Books for Young Readers.
The Land of Stories, due in summer 2012, will tell the story of twins Alex and Connor Bailey and be a fast-paced adventure series that combines the modern world with fairytales. It will target readers ages 8-12 and be followed by a second novel that is yet to be titled.
“When I was 10 years old, I promised myself that if I ever had the opportunity to write this book, I would jump at the chance,” Colfer said in a statement announcing the news Wednesday. “This book has been at the core of my imagination for a long time and I’m excited and nervous to share it.”
EXCLUSIVE: Inside the Business of 'Glee'
In addition to the book deal, Colfer is also penning a Disney Channel pilot, The Little Leftover Witch, a concept based on Florence Laughlin’s children’s book that revolves around a witch who is taken in by a new family after her broom breaks and she drops out of the sky. He is also writing Struck by Lightning, an independent feature that he would star in as well.
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“Chris is a remarkable talent whose writing combines all the qualities kids love -- memorable characters, heart-pounding adventure, in a setting filled with wonder, intrigue and enchantment,” Little, Brown senior vp and publisher said.
Colfer, an Emmy nominee for his role as Kurt Hummel on the Fox hit, is repped by IDPR, Coast to Coast and Glenn Rigberg and Inphenate. Colfer also picked up a Golden Globe for his role, using his acceptance speech to decry LGBT bullying. He has also said that the music featured on the Fox hit serves as a way to unite people.
Glee in Concert: Darren Criss Yanked Off Stage During Tour
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VIDEO: Secrets Behind the 'Glee' Finale
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March 13 (Fri), 2009
The 15th Annual Honolulu Festival（2009）
One by one, the yellow school bus arrived in front of the Hawaii Convention Center. The students were led by their teachers as the doors opened. There were a total of 971 students from 12 schools which include elementary, junior high, high school and special school. The students visited various booths held by the participating groups inside the venue where performances and lectures were taking place.
She is Ms. Ginger Kamisugi, who teaches at Our Lady of Good Consul School in Pearl City.
The students watched each performance with their shining eyes and asked many questions during the lecture. Some of the participating schools are already encouraging the students to study and learn about the foreign cultures and languages in class, which they were actively engaged in cultural exchange. Also, Mr. Richard Yasukochi who is the Chairman of the Honolulu Daijayama explained about the Japanese ogre which the elementary students asked whether there are good and bad ogres. It was such a peaceful atmosphere where there were many questions and answers. Also, the children looked anticipated to see the Honolulu Daijayama that fires the firework during the Grand Parade.
There was a discussion about the different cultures between teachers and students prior to this Educational School Tour. Ms. Ginger Kamisugi, who teaches at Our Lady of Good Consul School in Pearl City led 90 of her students. Under the school’s motto “Appreciate all things and all creations. Respect each other’s culture”, the students learned that there are numerous cultures that exist outside of Hawaii and each of them is sacred. Also, Ms. Kamisugi explained the importance of preserving one’s own culture and tradition to her students.
Ms. Jean Ota, who is a teacher at Damien Memorial High School teaches the Japanese language to over 100 students. She thought that this event is a great opportunity for the students to experience the Japanese culture, so she decided to participate. The majority of the students were interested in Ennchi Festival, Japanese mikoshi (portable shrine), Japanese manga and anime. They were actively experiencing the Japanese culture presented in each booth which they challenged to play the difficult shamisen.
He is Loren, who is the leader of the Alaskan Native Heritage Center Dancers.
The students learned Alaskan native dance called “Air Tanfa” and “Journey” by the Alaska Native Heritage Center Dancers. Everybody did their best and danced happily together. The members participated for the first time. Loren, who is the leader stated “We are very pleased to participate in this opportunity. We believe that each region has its own tradition, which we call it “Masinqa”in Alaskan language. It means that every traditional culture and arts such as dance and clothing has its own meaning. For instance, the hula dance from Hawaiian culture is no exception. We feel very grateful for the opportunity to show the Alaskan native culture to a lot of people.” In addition, the culture of northern Alaska seemed very rare for the children living in the tropical land of Hawaii, which they observed the Alaskan’s warm hat and boots in curiosity.
One of the popular booths was by Kawaii Kon, which introduced the Japanese anime and maid cafe. There was continuous number of student visitors which the yellow character named “Kon” from the Japanese anime called “Bleach” was very budy taking pictures with them. Dahlin Stanley, who is the president of Kawaii Kon stated “The Japanese anime is popular around the world including here in Hawaii. There are ample of information on this topic however, I wanted to provide a place for fans to have actual communication and exchange information with each other.” As he stated, the students were interacting and exchanging information with one another by the booth of Kawaii Kon.
Furthermore, the students experienced traditions of various cultures including the wild Australian Aboriginal dance, cheerful Taiwanese dance, Japanese bamboo-copter and origami (paper-folding). Also, they experienced the taiko drumming which both the students and teachers said “I would like to visit tomorrow’s public opening as well” as they returned back on the bus.
The students listened to the lecture about the Inaho Children Mikoshi which the lecturer was explaining enthusiastically.
The members of Taiwan introduced the Taiwanese musical instruments, which the students and teachers were observing them in curiosity.
The students enjoyed dancing the Filippino dance with the participating group. Their friendship crossed the border.
The students were intrigued by Alaskan native dance of the Alaskan Native Heritage Center Dancers.
Descendance fom Australia is popular every year. They were the most popular group among the children this year as well.
There was a hands-on activity by the booth of Kawaii Kon, where the children can experience sketching the manga illustration. The children were serious about what they will draw.
[The Participating School ]
Admiral Chester Nimitz Elementary School
Kapolei High School
McKinley High School
Nanakuli Elementary
Nanakuli Elementary <Kindergarden>
Nanakuli High School
Goodwill LASR
Waialua High & Intermediate
Maryknoll High School
New Hope Homeschool Co-Op
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Global M2M Connections Market Analysis 2018 – Forecast to 2027
5 Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market by Product
5.2 Wireless Beacon
5.3 Routers
5.4 Modules Mobile Point of Sale
5.5 Internet of Things (IOT) & Machine to Machine Modems
5.6 Automated Teller Machine
5.7 Pos Terminal
5.8 Fare Ticketing Devices
5.9 Smart Parking Meters
5.10 Other Products
6 Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market by Technology
6.2 Wide Area Fixed
6.3 Satellite
6.4 Metropolitan Area Network (MAN)
6.5 Low Power Wide Area (LPWA)
6.6 Wired Technologies
6.6.1.1 Profinet
6.6.1.2 Modbus
6.6.1.3 Industrial Ethernet
6.6.1.4 Foundation Fieldbus
6.6.2 Ethernet
6.7 Cellular Connections
6.7.1 Fourth Generation (4G)/Long-Term Evolution (LTE)
6.7.2 Second Generation (2G)
6.7.3 Third Generation (3G)
6.8 Wireless Technologies
6.8.1 Short Range
6.8.1.2 Wi-Fi
6.8.1.3 Zigbee
6.8.1.4 Power-Line
7 Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market by Component
7.3 Memory
7.4 Actuators
7.5 Radio-frequency identification (RFID)
7.7 Communication Modules
8 Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market by Application
8.2 Telecom & IT Industry
8.3 Banking and Financial Institution
8.4 Retail Sector
8.4.1 Contactless Checkout/Pos
8.4.2 Intelligent Vending Machines
8.4.3 Digital Signage
8.5.1 Fall Detector
8.5.2 Telemedicine
8.5.3 Smart Pill Dispenser
8.5.4.1 Multi-Parameter Monitor
8.5.4.2 Blood Pressure Monitor
8.5.4.3 Blood Glucose Meter
8.6.1 Fleet Tracking/Monitoring
8.6.2 Telematics
9 Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market by End User
9.2 Government & Defense
9.3 Security & Surveillance
9.3.1 Remote Surveillance
9.3.2 Commercial & Residential Security
9.4.1 Smart Meters
9.4.2 Smart Grids
9.5.1 Smart Appliances
9.5.1.1 Smart Washing Machine
9.5.1.2 Smart Refrigerator
9.5.1.3 Other Smart Appliances
9.5.1.3.1 Smart CooKTop
9.5.1.3.2 Smart Oven
9.5.2 Smart TV
12.1 Vodafone Group PLC
12.2 U-blox Holding AG
12.3 Texas Instruments Incorporated
12.4 Telit Communications NTT Data
12.5 Telenor Group
12.6 NXP Semiconductors N.V.
12.7 Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd.
12.8 Intel Corporation
12.9 Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.
12.10 Gemalto NV,Verizon Communications, Inc.
12.11 Fanstel Corporation
12.12 Deutsche Telekom AG
12.13 Commsolid GmbH
12.14 Cisco Systems, Inc.
12.15 AT&T, Inc.
12.16 Afero, Inc.
Table 1 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Region, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 2 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Product, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 3 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Wireless Beacon, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 4 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Routers, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 5 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Modules Mobile Point of Sale, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 6 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Internet of Things (IOT) & Machine to Machine Modems, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 7 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Automated Teller Machine, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 8 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Pos Terminal, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 9 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Fare Ticketing Devices, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 10 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Smart Parking Meters, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 11 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Other Products, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 12 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Technology, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 13 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Wide Area Fixed, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 14 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Satellite, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 15 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Metropolitan Area Network (MAN), (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 16 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Low Power Wide Area (LPWA), (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 17 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Wired Technologies , (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 18 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Industrial, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 19 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Ethernet, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 20 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Cellular Connections, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 21 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Fourth Generation (4G)/Long-Term Evolution (LTE), (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 22 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Second Generation (2G), (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 23 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Third Generation (3G), (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 24 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Wireless Technologies, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 25 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Short Range, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 26 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Component, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 27 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Sensors, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 28 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Memory, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 29 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Actuators, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 30 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Radio-frequency identification (RFID), (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 31 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Power, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 32 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Communication Modules, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 33 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Application, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 34 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Telecom & IT Industry, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 35 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Banking and Financial Institution, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 36 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Retail Sector, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 37 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Contactless Checkout/Pos, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 38 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Intelligent Vending Machines, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 39 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Digital Signage, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 40 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Healthcare, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 41 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Fall Detector, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 42 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Telemedicine, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 43 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Smart Pill Dispenser, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 44 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Patient Monitoring Systems, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 45 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Automotive & Transportation, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 46 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Fleet Tracking/Monitoring, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 47 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Telematics, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 48 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Other Applications, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 49 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by End User, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 50 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Government & Defense, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 51 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Security & Surveillance, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 52 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Remote Surveillance, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 53 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Commercial & Residential Security, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 54 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Utilities, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 55 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Smart Meters, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 56 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Smart Grids, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 57 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Consumer Electronics, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 58 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Smart Appliances, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 59 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Smart TV, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 60 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Manufacturing, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 61 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Other End Users, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 62 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Agriculture, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Table 63 Global Machine to Machine (M2M) Connections Market Analysis, by Oil & Gas, (2017-2027) ($MN)
Note: North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, South America and, Middle East & Africa are represented in the above manner.
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10 Best States For Business
24/7 Wall St. 24/7 Wall St.
BOSTON, MA - JANUARY 9: A general view of the Boston skyline on January 9, 2015 in Boston. Boston has been chosen by the United States Olympic Committee to be the United States entry in the global competition to be the host city for the 2024 Olympics. (Photo by Paul Marotta/Getty Images)
This story was originally published by 24/7 Wall St.
While the United States was founded on the principle of equality for all people, the 50 states are decidedly unequal in providing opportunities for business. For companies choosing to locate in the United States, deciding the state in which to base their operations can be very difficult.
To determine America’s best states for business, 24/7 Wall St. identified nearly 50 measures that contribute to the business climate and reviewed them in each of the 50 states. The measures were classified into eight larger categories that independently measured various risks and benefits of doing business in each state. (Click here for a complete methodology.)
The health of a state’s economy, the result of a confluence of factors, is perhaps the most important consideration for businesses choosing a location. The growth of economic output in 2013 in seven of the 10 best states for business was greater than the national GDP growth rate of 1.8%.
Another indication of a healthy economy, the job market, was also strong in the 10 best states for business. All of the 10 states had unemployment rates below the national unemployment rate of 7.4% in 2013. Four of the worst states for business had unemployment rates that exceeded the national rate.
Click here for the best states for business
However, while a state’s economy is tied to a host of factors, not all factors benefit businesses in the same way. The business climate in some states was more favorable to companies primarily concerned with minimizing the costs and risks of operating a business. These states, which include North Dakota, Wyoming, and Texas, tended to enjoy ample natural resources, low cost of living, and low regulation.
Some states benefit from a well-educated and highly skilled labor force. They are able to attract businesses that require these skills, such as professional and business services, health and education services, and information. In return, these businesses drive economic growth in these states through technology and innovation. These states include Massachusetts, Virginia, and Minnesota.
While it is emphasized more in some industries than in others, a low cost of doing business is a major reason to choose to operate in a particular state. The average cost of goods and services in six of the best states for business was lower than the national average. This was generally driven by beneficial tax climates, lower expenses from utilities and real estate, and lower average employee compensations.
Click here for the worst states for business
Although the type and size of operating costs vary considerably between industries, wages are a major expense for many businesses. The average wage and salary in three of the 10 best states for business was roughly inline with the national average of $50,012 in 2013, while in five other states, average wages were below the national figure.
While lower wages lower the cost of doing business, they are also frequently tied to jobs with lower educational attainment. Among the five best states for business with lower than average wages, three had lower educational attainment rates than the national figure. In these states, including North Dakota and Wyoming, the prevalence of industries that require high-skilled labor was also relatively low.
Nevertheless, the percent of STEM jobs in a majority of the best states for business — jobs related to science, technology, engineering, or mathematics — was generally high. At least one in five of all jobs in eight of the 10 best states for business were STEM jobs. On the other hand, the percent of jobs in STEM fields was relatively low in the worst states for business.
In addition to a highly-educated labor force, access to capital can also drive innovation in a state. In 2013, 13.26 venture capital deals were made per 1 million Americans. In seven of the worst states for business, there were fewer than three such deals per 1 million residents. In the best states, on the other hand, investments were far more likely. In Massachusetts, there were 57 venture capital deals made per 1 million state residents, by far the highest nationwide.
These are the best (and worst) states for business.
Business Best States
> Real GDP growth, 2012-2013: 2.8% (13th highest) > Average wages and salaries, 2013: $49,222 (14th highest) > Pct. of adults with bachelor’s degree, 2013: 33.5% (10th highest) > Patents issued to residents, 2013: 4,292 (9th highest) > Projected working-age population growth, 2010-2020: 1.7% (9th highest) Based on eight categories, including 47 measures, Minnesota is the 10th best state for business in the country. Informing the state’s high quality of life rank, just 8.2% of Minnesotans did not have health insurance in 2013, the fifth lowest rate nationwide. Also, the state was one of the safest, with a violent crime rate of 223.2 reported incidents per 100,000 people, among the lowest rates in the nation. The state also received one of the highest scores for Infrastructure. Compared with other states, Minnesota businesses can also expect relatively well functioning transportation system. For example, just 11.5% of the state’s bridges were deemed structurally deficient or functionally obsolete, the lowest rate nationwide and less than half the national percentage of 24.3%. Businesses in the state also have the benefit of a relatively well-educated workforce. More than one-third of adults had at least a bachelor’s degree versus less than 30% of Americans. And 92.4% of state adults had completed at least high school as of 2013, the fourth highest rate in the country.
KAREN BLEIER via Getty Images
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Hospital exposure in a UK population, and its association with bacteraemia.
Wyllie DH., Walker AS., Peto TEA., Crook DW.
Despite the importance of healthcare-associated infection, few studies have quantified the association between severe infection and hospital exposure in UK populations. Our aim was to estimate the proportion of the population with recent hospital admission, together with rates of infection in hospital-exposed and hospital-naïve populations. We studied bacteraemia as a marker of severe infection in a population of 550,000, served by two hospitals, between 1 April 2000 and 31 March 2005. Hospital-exposed persons accounted for 8.3% of the population, defined as having been resident in a hospital in the last year. The hospital-exposed population accounted for 55% of all admissions, and 42% of emergency admissions to medical, paediatric or surgery departments. After adjustment for age, the hospital-exposed group had much higher rates of admission bacteraemia. Age-standardised incidence rate ratios relative to hospital-naïve patients were 43 [95% confidence interval (CI): 22-85] for meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), 20 (15-27) for S. aureus other than MRSA, 7.3 (5.2-10) for Streptococcus pneumoniae, and 14 (11-18) for E. coli. MRSA was common among hospital-exposed admissions, including emergencies in hospital-exposed men, rates of admission MRSA bacteraemia (31 per 100,000 per annum) and S. pneumoniae bacteraemia (33 per 100,000 per annum) were similar. This quantitative analysis confirms that prior hospital admission is a major risk factor for bacteraemia on hospital admission; it is unclear whether acquisition of pathogens in hospital, co-morbidity or other factors explain this.
J Hosp Infect
Adolescent, Adult, Aged, Bacteremia, Child, Child, Preschool, Community-Acquired Infections, Cross Infection, Escherichia coli Infections, Female, Hospitalization, Humans, Incidence, Infant, Infant, Newborn, Male, Methicillin Resistance, Middle Aged, Pneumococcal Infections, Staphylococcal Infections, United Kingdom
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4 Companies Leveraging Innovation to Fuel the Economic Recovery
Entrepreneurs, agile and visionary by nature, are poised to lead us through the impending recovery.
By Rebekah Iliff@rebekahiliff
I started my first business, a tech-focused PR and marketing firm, during the 2008 recession. It grew quickly while the economy tumbled and brands couldn't afford the overhead of big agencies. Through observation and countless conversations with those who were "losing it all" (many of them former colleagues and close friends), I scooped up lessons about how to serve resource-constrained clients, and what I needed to do to build a company despite obstacles. This knowledge has stayed with me and proved useful through every up and down I've experienced since--professionally and personally.
Amid yet another crisis, I'm inspired to hear about those who've founded, grown, and pivoted businesses despite challenging circumstances. Entrepreneurs, agile and visionary by nature, are poised to lead us through the impending recovery. Here are a few indomitable innovators who continue to give me hope for what might be accomplished as the Covid-19 pandemic recedes.
Resilia helps nonprofits create sustainable change
When Sevetri Wilson was a sophomore at Louisiana State University, Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast and became the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history, as well as one of the deadliest. In the aftermath, Sevetri was astonished to see billions of dollars wasted -- often because of a complete lack of accurate information sharing, which led to huge openings for fraud and abuse. She knew these misdirected resources could have saved lives, and she realized that there would have to be a better system in place for future disasters.
This realization ultimately led her to create Resilia, a technology platform that increases nonprofit capacity and enables grantors (cities, private foundations, corporations) to deploy billions of dollars and scale impact. Nonprofits are often the first line of defense after a tragedy like Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and Covid-19 today, which is why they have to be capable of communicating clearly with relevant stakeholders, tracking outcomes, and ensuring that their resources don't go to waste. Resilia's innovation couldn't be more relevant for the current climate, and the company just announced another $8 milllion in funding to continue scaling its tools and resources for nonprofits and grantors alike.
Travara reminds its customers that the world is still out there
Bad luck is one thing, but starting a travel company shortly before a pandemic shut down the travel industry and confined billions of people to their homes must feel like an act of God. That's exactly what happened to Michelle Martin, the founder and CEO of Travara -- a travel platform that supports sustainable tourism and makes it easy for people to travel well.
But instead of throwing up her hands, Michelle got to work and released the Travara Membership program to support small businesses in the industry. By offering discounts to sustainable brands, hotels, and tour operators, access to curated trips, a customized itinerary creation service, and much more, the company is incentivizing consumers to book future travel. By maintaining engagement with her customers and offering a unique range of environmentally and socially conscious travel resources, Travara is doing everything possible to bridge the Covid-19 gap and get everything moving again when the restrictions lift.
Yext is combating misinformation during the pandemic
Although we're living at a time when it's easier than ever to access information from anywhere in the world, the internet has also become a massive engine of misinformation. Blogs and other publishing platforms aren't held to any journalistic standards, and as a result governments and businesses alike find themselves battling information warfare.
Yext was founded to push back against online misinformation by helping companies and other organizations deliver internet users accurate and official information about them via search engines and maps, as well as on their own websites. When Covid-19 hit, Yext realized that its mission had taken on a whole new significance. The importance of accurate and timely answers intensifies during a pandemic and an economic collapse, and in some cases, those answers can mean the difference between life and death.
So Yext took action, making Yext Answers free for 90 days, helping companies, health care providers, and other entities develop a comprehensive Covid-19 information strategy, and forging partnerships with state and local governments to fight misinformation around the country.
WayWiser keeps families connected in the midst of a crisis
WayWiser was founded to keep seniors connected with family and friends through a single, easy-to-use platform. This isn't just a way for seniors to become less isolated -- it's also a way for users to stay informed about issues like Covid-19 and the increasing number of scams out there. Every member of the WayWiser team has an older loved one who has been scammed, so they have a personal mission to provide a resource that can arm seniors against criminals.
The company's mission is to help seniors remain as independent and connected as possible -- especially during this emergency. That's why it just released the "Family Engagement Program," which uses Slack to help assisted living facilities and health care providers facilitate communication between seniors and their loved ones.
As a result of my experiences, and watching others go through similar circumstances, I am a firm believer that tragedy often reveals hidden opportunities. "Innovate or die" goes the trendy saying co-opted by Silicon Valley and first popularized by author Jack Matson. Although a bit over the top, it's mostly true. What compels us to move forward is the ability to overcome. Rarely does transformation happen in the comfort of our routine.
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Vietnam veterans honored on National Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day
Stroy by Emily Longnecker
CARMEL, Ind., } WTHR - More than 40 years ago, the men who fought in the Vietnam War came home to a country where not everyone was happy to see them.
"When I came through the airports, they spit on me and called me all kinds of names and everything else," said Vietnam veteran Richard Leirer.
Years later, the country is saying thank-you to its Vietnam veterans with National Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day.
"I think it's good and it's long overdue," said veteran Ernest McClendon, who served in Vietnam in the United States Air Force from 1968-69.
Dozens of Vietnam veterans like McClendon gathered at the American Legion in Carmel where they received thanks and appreciation, decades after their service.
"For 40 years, we didn't get welcomed and they didn't say thank you or nothing, so it's great that we can do it now, it may have taken 40 years, but we are doing it now," Leirer added.
Among the guests, Medal of Honor Recipient and Vietnam veteran Sammy Davis.
"To make a day that is dedicated to the Vietnam veterans is excellent," said Davis.
Also, among the veterans were surviving members of a National Guard Unit from Indiana, who served together in Vietnam, D Company, Airborne Rangers, 151st Infantry.
"It's about time," said William "Pappy" Hayes, who was part of the unit.
The recognition of the more than seven million Vietnam veterans across the country comes at a time when the Library of Congress Veterans History Project is collecting and archiving the stories of Vietnam veterans across the country.
Four veterans living with PTSD reveal the disorder’s many faces
By Jennie Amias, Starfish Media Group
Garrett Combs, a veteran of both Iraq and Afghanistan who lives with PTSD, produced and shot these 4 video shorts.
Staff Sergeant Sabrina was sexually harassed by her CO during an overseas deployment.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is caused by a vast array of traumatic events and can take many forms. The stories of the four individuals profiled here illustrate how PTSD’s symptoms and solutions are as varied as the people it affects.
For Roosevelt Ray, it was his experience as a young recruit at Fort Ord in 1971. Ray recounts escalating racial tensions during basic training. An accusation of attempted murder landed Ray in military prison for months. The charges were eventually dropped and Ray was discharged. Although he hadn’t deployed to combat the trauma was there.
Staff Sergeant Sabrina was sexually harassed by her CO during an overseas deployment. When she lodged a complaint she was separated from her unit while the investigation progressed. The military is built in part on the strong bonds between soldiers, and Sabrina felt shunned and betrayed by those she trusted the most, compounding the trauma she was already experiencing.
Robert Vessels always knew he wanted to join the Army, which he did the moment he graduated from high school. Vessels deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq at the height of combat operations. He came home filled with feelings of disillusionment, hopelessness and guilt. He isolated himself in his room, drinking, playing video games, emerging only for meals.
Columbian born Diego Camargo was living the American dream when 9/11 happened. He decided to do something, and after improving his English he joined the Marines in 2003. His career took him through 3 deployments to 5 countries and he came home with PTSD and a host of physical injuries. Camargo’s training was so ingrained that during his 8 years of service he didn’t feel any trauma. He was on automatic pilot, doing what needed to be done. It was only after re-entering civilian life that he noticed feelings of isolation and not belonging.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder has many faces and the cure is not one-size-fits-all. Diego Camargo found solace in photography and the adoption of a rescue dog. Robert Vessels solved the isolation problem by packing up his belongings and moving in with an Army buddy. Once that was resolved he was able to go to school and embark on a career. Sabrina is undergoing therapy. She is still struggling, but knows what she needs to do to manage her PTSD. Roosevelt Ray found comfort in his church and community in the National Association of Black Veterans.
Indiana House passes bill allowing marijuana derived medicine
INDIANAPOLIS | Associated Press - People who have epilepsy could be treated with a marijuana-derived oil under a bill approved by the Indiana House.
The bill passed the chamber Tuesday on a 98-0 vote. The state Senate previously approved a similar measure.
The American Legion, Department of Indiana recently passed a resolution at their 2017 Mid-Winter Conference encouraging Indiana elected officials to change their stance on medical marijuana, calling for more research and a rescheduling of the drug.
Indiana's legislature has long resisted efforts to allow the use of medicine derived from marijuana, but that appears to have changed this year. Supporters say the bill's approval marks a significant shift after years of medical marijuana-related bills stalling.
The bill would allow the use of cannabidiol oil, which is commonly referred to as CBD. The measure is a far cry from legalizing a comprehensive medical marijuana program.
The oil cannot get patients high, but it contains compounds that have been found to lessen the effects of some forms of epilepsy.
Hoosier Legionnaires speak out in support of medical marijuana research to treat PTSD, TBI and depression in veterans.
Boonville EMS Worker Honored by Hoosier Legion
Story by Jeff Goldberg
BOONVILLE | 44 News WEVV – He has been saving lives for 25 years, the past ten with the St. Mary’s Warrick EMS, and on Saturday he was awarded for his service. David Fitzsimmons was named the St. Mary’s Warrick EMS Person of the Year.
The award was given to a man who has trained generations of paramedics, working closely with students at Ivy Tech where he is a adjunct professor.
The EMS Person of the Year is voted on by his peers and is awarded by the Boonville American Legion.
Warrick Post 200, Boonville, Ind., American Legion officers honor Police officer Lt. Wendell Ingram, Firefighter James Thornton and EMS Dave Fitzsimmoms with "Of the Year" awards.
Wednesday marks first National Vietnam War Veterans Day
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Wednesday is officially National Vietnam War Veterans Day.
A bill commemorating the day was signed into law by President Trump Tuesday evening.
Tonight I'm proud to sign S. 305, which encourages the display of the U.S. flag on National Vietnam War Veterans Day tomorrow, March 29th.
It encourages the display of American flags and also names March 29 as National Vietnam War Veterans Day.
The bill was co-authored by Indiana Sen. Joe Donnelly.
March 29 is the day the last U.S. soldiers were choppered out of Vietnam in 1973.
'Still one of us': 92-year-old gets Purple Heart from WWII
Photo Credit: Andrew Craft
FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. | The Fayetteville Observer — A 92-year-old North Carolina man has finally received the Purple Heart he earned more than 70 years ago while fighting in Belgium during World War II.
Oscar Davis Jr. was a private assigned as a radio telephone operator when he was knocked down by a large piece of shrapnel during the Battle of the Bulge, according to a Fayetteville Observer report. The radio on Davis' back protected him, but the German artillery barrage knocked down a tree that fell on Davis, injuring his spine.
He was paralyzed from the waist down for three weeks and ultimately rejoined his unit in Germany.
Davis was told long ago that he would receive the honor, but the award paperwork was never signed.
Decades later, he smiled from ear to ear as Lt. Col. Marcus Wright leaned down to pin the Purple Heart to his jacket on Saturday.
"This has been some day," Davis said. "I couldn't believe all this was going to happen. I just want to thank the Lord."
Friends, family and more than two dozen soldiers with the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, attended the ceremony.
Wright, commander of the 1st Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, presided over the event. Davis belonged to the same regiment.
The ceremony was the culmination of nearly two years of work by the Veterans Legacy Foundation, a Harnett County-based volunteer organization that has helped more than 100 veterans receive military awards owed to them.
John Elskamp, executive director of the foundation, said volunteers scoured an archive of war reports to find proof of Davis' injuries.
The Purple Heart was the latest medal the group recovered for Davis. In late 2015, the group helped the World War II veteran to receive the Bronze Star and other medals that were awarded to him in a ceremony at the U.S. Army Airborne & Special Operations Museum in Fayetteville.
Capt. Andrew Hammack, commander of A Company, 1st Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, said Davis is "still one of us."
"He's just not currently reporting for duty," Hammack said.
Veteran loses thousands to 'government grant' scam
Story by Kara Kenney
COLUMBUS, Ind., | RTV6 – A Vietnam War veteran is out $2,650 after falling victim to a government imposter scam making the rounds in central Indiana.
Charles Jorgensen, 72, received a phone call from the “Federal Grant Division” notifying him that he’d been selected for a grant.
It seemed plausible to Jorgensen because he had served in the Air Force and spends a lot of time at the VA receiving medical treatment.
So, to cover “processing fees,” he purchased iTunes gift cards and read the numbers to the caller.
“They make it sound good, but then they keep dragging it on and say ‘we need one more payment, we need one more payment,’” said Jorgensen.
Jorgensen said his money never arrived.
Call 6 Investigates Kara Kenney called the “Federal Grant Division” at (425) 245-5109, but once Kenney started asking questions, they hung up.
Jorgensen said he should have known better.
“There’s no such thing as a free lunch,” said Jorgensen. “I should have realized at the beginning it was phony.”
Jorgensen filed complaints with the Federal Trade Commission as well as the Indiana Attorney General’s office.
According to the Indiana Attorney General and the Better Business Bureau, government imposter scams are making the rounds and continue to claim more victims as the scammers pretend to be government agents.
If you get a phone call from someone claiming to represent a government agency, just hang up.
“We encourage consumers who receive such calls to call the actual government agency the imposter claimed to represent if they have any questions, or are concerned they may really owe money,” said Corey Elliot, spokesperson for the Indiana Attorney General’s office. “No government agent nor office will ever call you over the phone demanding money.”
Consider it a red flag if someone asks you to wire money, or to go buy debit cards or gift cards.
“Hoosiers should be more cautious than ever before. Whether they are contacted by someone on the phone, confronted in person by someone trying to sell goods or services, or receiving communication via email - it is a good practice to never give any personal, sensitive or private information out to anyone,” said Elliot. “We encourage skepticism. If it's too good to be true, it probably is.”
You can file a complaint at IndianaConsumer.com or call (317) 232-6330 or (800) 382-5516.
Tips from the Better Business Bureau on how to spot this scam:
• The government communicates through the mail, not Facebook. Government agencies normally communicate through the mail, so be very cautious of any unsolicited social media posts, calls, text messages or emails you receive.
• Don't pay any money for a "free" government grant. If you have to pay money to claim a "free" government grant, it isn't really free. A real government agency won't ask you to pay a processing fee for a grant that you have already been awarded.
• Be wary of look-a-like government agencies. Just because the caller says he's from the "Federal Grants Administration" doesn't mean that he is... or that such an agency exists. When in doubt, do a quick online search.
• Pick up the phone. If you receive a suspicious call or email, call the local government agency to check its legitimacy. Look for the phone number on previous correspondence or the official government website. Don't call the number in the email.
• Don't trust your friends' tastes online. It might not actually be them "liking" or sharing these scam posts. Their account may have been hacked or impersonated.
Valparaiso Legion Auxiliary, Navy recruits pack care packages for deployed service members
Sharon Wyatt, left, American Legion Post 94 president, helped plan the care package program called March Into Spring. Maryann Maki, Auxiliary member, at right, pens a message to Marines who will receive the care packages. Photo by Deborah Laverty, Times Correspondent
Recruits from Navy Recruiting District, Chicago, wrote notes which were enclosed in care packages to be shipped to deployed military in Kuwait and other foreign countries. Photo by Deborah Laverty, Times Correspondent
Story by Deborah Laverty, NWI Times
VALPARAISO, Ind., | Northwest Indiana Times — Chief Petty Officer Arturo Revelo knows first hand the thrill of getting goody-filled care packages from back home while deployed abroad.
Revelo, who heads the Valparaiso-based Navy Recruiting District, Chicago, served in Iraq in 2007 and remembers distinctly the joy of receiving a care package while far from home.
"It means a lot because you feel isolated. It really does mean a lot for the community to show support for us," Revelo said.
Revelo, joined by about 25 U.S. Navy recruits, had the opportunity on Thursday to return that favor by filling and preparing for mailing 50 care packages that will be sent to U.S. Marines serving in Kuwait and other countries.
"The local recruiters try to embrace the community and this is the way we embrace the community," Revelo said of the assistance by him and fellow recruiters.
The filling of the care packages took place at the American Legion, Valparaiso Post 94 with the majority of the items and postage paid for by members there or through such public activities as weekly bingo, Sharon Wyatt said.
Wyatt, American Legion Auxiliary president, said this is the first year the legion has initiated a program called March Into Spring.
"We only began planning about three weeks ago. We kind of went crazy with it," Wyatt said, adding she got the idea from Maryann Maki, an auxiliary member, who approached legion members for assistance with postage to ship out care packages she was sending.
Maki, a Realtor with Century 21 Affiliated, said her company began sending care packages to deployed military a year ago. This year Century 21 Affiliated, which has several offices in the Midwest and Florida, will be sending 125 care packages."On Monday, all the boxes will be shipped out and all will hopefully arrive by Easter or right around Easter," Maki said.
Items in the care packages include toiletries, candy, gum, crackers, lip balm, peanuts and videos. Personal messages from the recruits and American Legion members were also enclosed in the care packages.
Navy Master at Arms 1 James Johnson, who wrote a message on a note tucked inside the care packages, said he remembers receiving a similar box while serving in the Middle East in 2014. His favorite items to receive included beef jerky and sunflower seeds.
"It's an extra boost to get things especially something you haven't had for awhile," Johnson said.
VA disability claims backlog is on the rise again
Company D, 1st Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division Soldiers patrol the Al-Sinaa neighborhood of Mosul, Iraq. U.S. Army photo by John Crosby
WASHINGTON | Military Times — The number of backlogged veterans benefits claims is rising again.
Veterans Affairs officials insist it’s only a temporary problem, due to an unexpected rise in the number of new cases that flooded into the system over the last few months. They’re confident the 30,000-case increase in the backlog since last fall will be brought back down again in coming weeks.
But to do that, they’re also instituting mandatory overtime for claims processors for the fourth year in a row, a practice that in the past has raised questions about whether VA officials have enough capacity to handle the ever-increasing number of benefits cases.
“It’s a tough decision, and it is just a stopgap measure,” said Willie Clark, deputy under secretary for the Veterans Benefits Administration. “We’ve tried for a more balanced approach in processing all claims, and that lead to an increase in the backlog.”
VA leaders have also asked for (and received) an exemption to the federal hiring freeze for disability claims examiners and other staff to address the issue.
The veterans claims backlog was a major focus of lawmakers and VA critics in the years before the 2014 wait times scandal, but has largely gone unnoticed in recent years as congressional focus shifted to the department’s accountability and health care challenges.
At the peak in early 2013, the number of backlogged claims — first-time benefits cases that took more than four months to process — topped 610,000 cases.
By October 2015, the backlog was down to around 70,000 cases, thanks to a combination of new hires, mandatory overtime and new digital processing of claims. At the time, VA officials said the 70,000-case plateau was likely the lowest they’d ever push the backlog without unnecessarily rushing some claims.
Indiana House passes bill to help veteran’s spouses
U.S. Army photo by John Crosby
Photo by John Crosby
Story by Deonta Larkins
INDIANAPOLIS | The Statehouse File - Legislation to make it easier to identify the spouses of deceased veterans passed out of a House committee Wednesday by a unanimous vote.
Sen. Michael Crider, R- Greenfield, said that Senate Bill 382 would allow a surviving spouse of a veteran to request veteran status on his or her driver’s license or state identification cards.
File photo of an Indiana driver’s license. Photo by Shelby Mullis, TheStatehouseFile.com
The current law only provides that the veteran may have that status on the driver’s license or other identification.
Jim Bauerly, of the Military/Veteran Coalition of Indiana, said his group helped draft the proposed legislation.
Bauerly said there are 469,210 veterans living in Indiana and fewer than 28 percent of veterans in Indiana receive benefits they are entitled to. On average, 38 percent of veterans across the country receive their benefits, which amounts to $2.8 billion annually, he added.
By providing surviving spouses with the ability to gain a veteran designation on their IDs, the state could identify more people eligible for benefits.
In addition, the bill would allow veterans to add the veteran status to their IDs when renewing their driver’s license. Currently, veterans have to go to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles and file a special form in order to receive identification as a veteran.
William Henry of the American Legion, Department of Indiana, also testified in favor of the bill.
Henry said it’s a smart approach that will help organizations like his identify and notify veterans and their surviving spouses of benefits available to them.
Deonta Larkins is a reporter for TheStatehouseFile.com, a website powered by Franklin College journalism students.
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New Date for the 2017 Philadelphia Independent Film Awards
We're coming back early - so update your calendars today!
The Philadelphia Independent Film Awards is moving the date of the 2017 event to May 4-7, 2017. Nominated films will be screened May 4, 5, and 6. Awards will be announced May 7 during the 2017 gala. Check in with our blog regularly to stay up to date on the latest awards show developments.
Film awards submissions closed
Submissions for 2017 are now closed!
Thank you to every independent filmmaker who has submitted their film, web series, or tri-state film project for consideration for a Philadelphia Independent Film Award. Nominees will be announced March 17, 2017.
Sign up for our mailing list to keep up-to-date on the latest Philadelphia Independent Film Awards news.
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New Approach to Protecting Prion Protein from Altering Shape, Becoming Infectious
A team of researchers from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine have identified a mechanism that can prevent the normal prion protein from changing its molecular shape into the abnormal form responsible for neurodegenerative diseases. This finding, published in the July 18 issue of Cell Reports, offers new hope in the battle against a foe that until now has always proved fatal.
Prion diseases include Creuzfeldt-Jakob disease and fatal familial insomnia. Unlike other transmissible diseases, the infectious agent is not a virus or bacteria, but an abnormally shaped prion protein. Scientists believe it self-replicates by binding to normal prion proteins and forcing them to change shape to become an abnormal, and thus diseased, protein.
Once heretical, the notion that proteins alone can act as self-propagating infectious agent is now becoming accepted as a new paradigm in biology and medicine. However, the mechanism by which prion protein changes its shape remains largely unknown and highly controversial, hindering efforts to develop drugs for prion diseases, says Witold Surewicz, PhD, professor of physiology and biophysics and senior author of the study. A heated debate continues as to which part of the prion protein undergoes the change and what is the three-dimensional structure of the infectious form of the protein.
The researchers generated a variant of prion protein designed to stabilize the normal shape of one specific part of the protein. They accomplished this goal by replacing just one out of more than 200 amino acid residues, the building blocks of the protein. In a series of experiments, the researchers found that the modified prion protein was highly resistant to changing its shape. In other words, this approach may be successful in blocking the coercive action of the abnormal prion protein.
The team then created transgenic mice that produced this superstable human prion protein and infected them with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease prions. The mice did eventually develop symptoms, but the signs did not emerge for more than a year in fact, it took about 400 days. In contrast, mice without the modified prion protein showed symptoms within 260 days.
Our discovery that a tailor-made mutation in one specific region of prion protein can prevent it from changing shape to a disease-associated conformation helps resolve the ongoing major controversy in the field regarding the mechanism by which infectious prions self-replicate, says Qingzhong Kong, PhD, associate professor of pathology and first author on the paper.
With no effective treatments currently available for these fatal diseases, this finding has also important implications for the development of new drugs. It suggests a novel pharmacologic strategy in which scientists can either identify or design a molecule that binds to prion protein and stabilizes its normal shape, thereby preventing propagation of the disease.
The study is a result of a collaborative effort between the laboratories of Surewicz, Kong, Pierluigi Gambetti, MD, professor of pathology at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine, and Frank Sönnichsen, PhD, professor at the University of Kiel in Germany.
The study was supported by National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and National Institute of Aging grants including: NSO44158, NS038604, NS052319, and AG014359.
Source: Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine
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Commercial Truck Drivers: Here’s How Not to Get Sued
By Michael GrossmanFebruary 06, 2017Reading Time: 6 minutes
Among the most easily prevented type of accident where a truck driver is usually at fault are those where passenger vehicles collide with poorly marked trailers. While some may argue that these types of accidents are uncommon, we've seen accidents that involve this fact pattern, not once, not twice, not three, but four times in the past month alone.
In almost every one of the incidents we've highlighted, negligent action on the part of a truck driver appears most likely to blame for the fatality of another motorist. I understand that many commercial truck drivers will feel like a truck accident law firm like ours is "out to get them." But in the interest of showing good faith, as well as preventing needless deaths on the highway, I plan to tell every commercial driver how to not get sued after these types of accidents.
If you're thinking that this sounds like a trick, I freely admit that in a way it is. While some people believe that we want these types of accidents to occur so that our firm can become involved and make money off of them, the fact is that collisions with commercial vehicles produce so many fatalities and such horrific injuries that only a monster wouldn't do what they could to see that they don't occur. That's the tricky part of the proposal, because not only will truck drivers who follow these steps shield themselves from liability, but they'll also prevent a great many collisions to begin with. Everybody wins.
How Truck Drivers Can Avoid Being Sued
As someone who keenly follows the trucking industry, I'm fully aware that if I buy something off of a store shelf, be it food, clothing, or an electronic doodad, that it probably arrived at that store via a truck. Our whole way of life is based around truck drivers bringing vital goods from where they are made to where we can purchase them. Without truckers, modern life just isn't possible.
Complicating this convenience is the reality that a good portion of the world isn't really designed to be safely traversed by a 40-ton vehicle. This often means that these large vehicles have to maneuver in areas where it takes a real professional to safely operate. Places like Highway 52 in Kingstree, South Carolina.
It was on that stretch of highway when an unidentified man was killed when his car collided with the trailer of a log truck that was backing out of a private driveway. Just looking at the images of the stretch of highway, it seems fairly straight, with an unobstructed view. This might lead some to believe that the road was designed with 18-wheelers in mind. However, there isn't a divided rural road in the country that was designed to accommodate an 18-wheeler in reverse. In fact, such roads are death traps when 18-wheeler drivers attempt to execute those types of maneuvers, because of the amount of time the trailer blocks the highway, coupled with the high rate of speed for other vehicles.
I'm sure that the truck driver in Kingstree didn't have a choice but to back out of the driveway, but there are safe ways to do that and unsafe ways. Safe driving not only saves lives, but also shields drivers from lawsuits.
What most people don't understand about personal injury law is that people can get away with a lot of dangerous behavior if two conditions are met. The first condition is that the behavior is unavoidable, like say picking up some logs in a narrow private driveway. The second and more important factor is whether or not the person doing the dangerous thing provides adequate warning to people that may be put in harm's way.
I know that most truck drivers generally decide to execute dangerous maneuvers because they really don't have any other choice. Just like I'm not going to attempt to parallel park my car, or do a three-point turn unless I have to, the vast majority of truckers would rather avoid having to make complicated maneuvers in their trucks.
At the same time, there are truck drivers who will attempt a dangerous turn instead of driving a couple miles out of their way. This violates the first condition for avoiding liability. Look at it this way; every aspect of a lawsuit is viewed through the eyes of a potential juror. Leaving trucks out of the equation for a moment, if you hear that someone did something dangerous to save a few minutes and someone got hurt, you're natural reaction will be to ask, "Why didn't they just take the time to behave in a safer manner?"
Think of the lack of sympathy that most people have for parents who leave their kids in the car during the summer. Sure, we've all been in a hurry, but at the same time, we all know that children's safety is more important than saving a couple of minutes. Heck, a large part of parenting is being inconvenienced for the benefit of your child. So if there's a safer way to do things, take the extra time and do them the right way.
This type of thinking is something that jurors do. Juries tend to reward the cautious and punish the reckless. A driver who thoughtfully avoids dangerous situations bolsters their credibility in the eyes of a jury.
Sometimes, drivers don't have a choice but to attempt to turn where they are. Like I mentioned before, there are large parts of the country where the roads weren't designed with 18-wheelers in mind. It's still possible for a driver to be pretty much lawsuit-proof, even in these circumstances. The key is to alert passengers that the driver is about to attempt a dangerous maneuver.
The best way to warn other motorists is with signs or road flares, like you would see for road construction. If it turns out that before backing out of the driveway in Kingstree, the truck driver placed signs or road flares hundreds of yards in either direction, then the driver has a really solid defense that oncoming motorists were warned of his dangerous maneuver.
If the truck and trailer were equipped with lights and other safety features that increased visibility out to 500 yards, thereby complying with federal regulations, then one would be hard pressed to argue that motorists weren't warned.
In many situations, the safest solution is to have someone ride along with the truck driver to serve as a flagger and lookout. This person can serve the dual both alerting other motorists of the presence of an 18-wheeler, while at the same time relaying information to the driver.
If you notice a recurring theme in this advice, it's that with appropriate warning, it's next to impossible to convince a jury that a truck driver acted negligently. Imagine this scenario. A truck that was well-marked and visible from 500 yards away, backed out into a road. There were signs even further down the road alerting motorists that they were approaching a hazard. A car comes along and continues driving as if there was no hazard in the roadway and crashes into the 18-wheeler.
In such a scenario, I find it difficult to imagine a hypothetical jury that would not put the blame for the accident on the driver of a non-commercial vehicle. After all, short of barring trucks from large sections of the country, which is impossible, there isn't much more that a driver can do besides give adequate warning to other drivers that danger is ahead.
If a driver did all of these things, that driver and the company they worked for would be nearly bulletproof when it comes to lawsuits. Of course, the problem is that in many of these types of accidents, truck drivers don't adequately warn oncoming motorists.
Making Oneself Lawsuit-Proof Saves Money
What do all of these warning devices and procedures have in common? Why aren't they standard practice for every trucking company across the country? The answer is that they cost money. Whether it's proper reflective equipment, signs, or even an extra person in the truck to flag, none of those things are free. Given the very competitive nature of the commercial trucking industry, this means that when some companies are struggling to survive, having proper safety equipment is the first area that gets cut.
The calculus for these companies is pretty simple. They reason that "Times are tight, so we're only spending money on gas and salaries." Unfortunately, this type of planning doesn't account for the tremendous costs of lawsuits. Like most other disastrous events in life, there's a tendency to think that "it can never happen to me." Companies who adopt this attitude aren't just gambling with their own lives and fortunes, but with the lives of other motorists who share the roads.
The simple fact of the matter is that many trucking company who get sued after accidents where someone collides with a trailer could have done something to prevent the accident. In the ultimate act of hypocrisy, many will decry the cost of the lawsuit, while ignoring just how little it would have cost to prevent one in the first place. This is to say nothing of the loss of life or injuries that usually accompany these types of accidents.
Contrary to popular belief, lawyers can't just file a lawsuit against anyone they please. Someone has to have acted negligently for a lawsuit to be viable. The really tragic part of these accidents is that a truck accident law firm can tell truck drivers what they need to do to shield themselves from lawsuits, but there will still be those who ignore that advice.
June 21, 2019 5 minutes
Grossman Law Offices Accepts Semi-Truck Accident Referrals Throughout Texas
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Say What You Mean: Character, Integrity and Independent Agents
By Mitch Dunford | April 2, 2009
“I meant what I said, and said what I meant…”
Although that quote was written in 1954 by Dr. Seuss in his book “Horton Hears a Who,” it is a powerful reminder today to act with character and integrity.
“Horton Hears a Who” tells the story of Horton the Elephant, who hears a small speck of dust talking to him. It turns out the speck is a tiny planet, home to a city called Whoville that is inhabited by microscopic-sized people known as Whos. The Whos ask Horton (who cannot see them but can hear them) to protect them from harm, which Horton promises to do — despite opposition from the other jungle animals who believe Horton has lost his mind. As it becomes more difficult to protect the Whos, Horton is encouraged to leave the Whos to fend for themselves. Yet Horton stands behind his promise, declaring, “I meant what I said, and I said what I meant, an elephant is faithful 100 percent.”
Horton’s motto is a good reminder for all of us. There is little debate on where we find our country economically. The auto industry is in crisis; financial markets are a mess; the unemployment rate is growing daily; banks are closing; foreclosures are at an all-time high; and bad economic news continues.
Despite the constant diet of bad news and stark economic realities we are left to deal with, if you look at the situation through the clear lens of truth, you’d find that what led us here was not a crisis of cash, but a crisis of character.
Decades of dishonesty, greed and the notion that character doesn’t matter have caught up to us. As business leaders, politicians and others in positions of trust have relied upon the crazy notion that competency is everything and personal integrity is expendable, we find ourselves reaping the fruits of that ideology — and it’s not good.
Integrity and trust are fundamental principles of leadership and power,
and are the foundation of a strong economy. Our unique economic system is tied to freedom, and freedom is tied to responsible and ethical behavior. When we allow in ourselves and in our leaders a pattern of irresponsible behavior, we give up our freedoms in an effort to repair the damage. And as our freedoms erode, so does our unique economy.
You have chosen to work in the insurance industry. While others seek to minimize risk you embrace it. You study it, you calculate it, you even profit from it. You are now, and have been for hundreds of years, our economy’s last line of defense. You make it possible for businesses to open and grow, for loans to be made, for new inventions to come to market, and for young people to buy their first car or their first home.
Without you and your industry, the way of life to which we have grown accustomed would slow to a grinding halt.
Inside the insurance industry, there is tremendous potential for growth, both personal and financial. The industry is one of the most lucrative professions in the world.
But with that opportunity comes a responsibility: to act with integrity and with character in how you do business. Our economy cannot afford to lose confidence in our industry.
To close a sale, there may be temptation to not fully explain a policy’s new conditions or exclusions. There may be temptation to suggest coverage exists that really doesn’t, and then to blame someone else for the error when the claim is denied. Our industry must resist temptations to deceive.
It starts with a personal decision in each of us to do the right thing: to value our character, reputation and the important role our industry plays in the health of our economy more than money. To say in our quiet moments, “I meant what I said, and I said what I meant.”
There is astonishing power when a single person makes a single, honest decision. It can be contagious. As dishonesty breeds mistrust, honesty gives rise to trust, and trust provides the foundation for more honesty. It starts with one, each one of us doing the right thing for the right reason.
A government “stimulus” package will not save us. A bailout of AIG or GM will not solve the underlying problem. Instead, the quiet personal resolve to act with character and integrity in everything we do, and to demand the same behavior in our leaders, will lead to long-lasting, positive change. There is still something noble in the American spirit. I believe in us. I believe in our character as Americans to dig deep and to dig out of any problem, to do the right thing, and to do the extraordinary.
Mitch Dunford is CEO for Insurance Journal’s parent company, Wells Publishing Inc. E-mail him comments at mitch@insurancejournal.com
About Mitch Dunford
Mitch Dunford is CEO of Wells Media Group, Inc., publisher and operator of Insurance Journal magazine, InsuranceJournal.com, InsuranceJournal.tv, ClaimsJournal.com, MyNewMarkets.com, and Insurance Journal's Academy of Insurance. Wells Publishing is the world's leading B2B media company serving the U.S. property / casualty insurance industry and has gained a reputation for successfully building and employing new technology tools to deliver content to their customers. Mitch and his wife Cathy are the parents of six children. More from Mitch Dunford
Companies: AIG (American International Group), Wells PublishingCategories: National NewsTopics: Agents & Brokers, Economy, Government
Lazy Mazy says:
Is the insurance industry known for integrity and honesty? It is inevitable that the government will increasingly regulate the insurance industry, because pleas for personal h... read more
Bob Slocum says:
Mitch: That is a great article. Your message is right on point and I hope everyone in our industry will take to heart. As Earl Nightingale said "It has to start somewhere, let... read more
The NAAFA Board of Directors says:
May I speak for our group, the National Association of American Family Agents (NAAFA) when I say we wholeheartedly agree with you? Dishonesty is like a contagious disease tha... read more
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CA Logic: Raise Gas Taxes, Then Demand An Investigation Into Why Gas Prices Are High
April 27, 2019 by IWB
Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,
California is home to some of the most power-hungry politicians on Earth. These people actually hiked the gasoline tax, and are now demanding an investigation into why gas prices are higher in California than elsewhere in the United States. It would be sad if it wasn’t so insane.
California Governor Gavin Newson is demanding an investigation into why the state’s gas prices are so high. But as Reason points out, it’s not all that difficult to see what that California politicians are the culprit. In fact, the reason the gas prices are high is that Newsom (and other politicians) raised taxes on gasoline.
As lieutenant governor, Gavin Newsom supported a 2017 bill increasing the state’s gas taxes. When running for governor in 2018, he opposed a ballot initiative that would have repealed that same increase, reported Reason. But like all politicians, Newsom is unwilling to admit that he and his comrades in the California government have caused the problem. So begins the finger-pointing. The governor sent a letter to the California Energy Commission (CEC) on Tuesday demanding that the state agency “investigate” California’s roughly $4.03 per gallon gas prices, which are currently the highest in the country. Those prices are also well above the national average of $2.86 per gallon.
“Independent analysis suggests that an unaccounted-for price differential exists in California’s gas prices and that this price differential may stem in part from inappropriate industry practices,” wrote Newsom in his letter to the CEC.
“These are all important reasons for the Commission to help shed light on what’s going on in our gasoline market.”
California currently imposes the second-highest gas taxes in the country. A state excise tax currently adds $.417 per gallon (almost 42 cents per gallon), and that rate that will increase to $.473 (47 cents per gallon) come July. But that’s not all. On top of that tax, the state imposes a 2.25 percent gasoline sales tax. There’s more. California has also added a low-carbon fuel standard and a cap-and-trade scheme for carbon emissions which together already increase the state’s gas prices by $.24 per gallon above the national average, according to a 2017 state government report.
READ 3 Stocks To Buy As Oil Prices Rise Above $50
The worst part is that Newsom isn’t the only problem causer asking for blame to shifted to “inappropriate industry practices” as opposed to their gas tax hikes. In January, 19 state legislators (17 of whom had voted in favor of that 2017 gas tax increase, while the other two had only entered office in 2018) sent a letter to State Attorney General Xavier Becerra, in which they demanded that the state’s Department of Justice (DOJ) investigate the “unexplained gasoline surcharge” that was estimated to cost Californian families $1,700 a year.
READ California Governor’s Budget Proposes Economic Relief, No New Taxes.
Yeah. It’s a real head-scratcher.
Even someone who understands just the basics of economics knows that high levels of taxation and regulation and a lack of competition in the state’s fuel sector are not mutually exclusive explanations to the high gas prices. Government fees and red tape often have the effect of squeezing out marginal producers and retailers (eliminating competition) giving remaining firms greater ability to raise prices. It’s called supply and demand. The demand remains but much of the supply is gone. Once the competition (supply) is gone by way of taxation and regulation, the companies that remain can jack the prices up as high as they want.
California’s government is not doing its residents any favors when it comes to their policies.
Tags demand, investigation, logic, prices, raise, taxes Post navigation
Jimmy Dore: New Election Ordered After Ca. Dems Caught Cheating Progressives
The Day of Reckoning Is Near (We Are Being Warned)
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Intellectual Property Professors Call on Congress to Modernize the Copyright Office
By Sandra Aistars
Library of Congress. Licensed under CC BY 2.0.
We congratulate Dr. Carla D. Hayden on her nomination by President Obama as the14th Librarian of Congress. Dr. Hayden’s exemplary record in library science dates back nearly four decades, and her recent tenure as CEO of the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, Maryland, is testament to her commitment to and expertise in the field. It is clear from the White House’s video inviting us to get to know Dr. Hayden that she will be an enthusiastic leader dedicated to promoting culture, free speech, and access to knowledge, and that she fully understands the vital role libraries play in our communities. As Dr. Hayden recognizes, libraries, the keepers of our culture, are the “original treasure chests.” We share her enthusiasm for the great works of culture and science the Library of Congress preserves and makes available to Americans from all walks of life.
As professors of Intellectual Property law, we write this letter to suggest to Congress that the confirmation of Dr. Hayden offers an opportunity to make further progress on the important work of updating and improving the status and resources of the Copyright Office, a department of the Library of Congress. Congress has been considering this issue since at least 2014. The United States Copyright Office has itself been at the forefront of this effort to examine and update the Office’s services for the digital age by leading an open and transparent conversation not just internally within the Library of Congress, but also with policy makers and users of the Copyright Office’s services.
The Copyright Office as currently structured faces three major challenges: (1) insufficient funds, staff and infrastructure to efficiently perform its core functions; (2) operational impediments stemming from its integration with the Library of Congress; and (3) potential risk of constitutional challenges to its decision-making authority should the Office take on increased regulatory or adjudicatory responsibility. Congress could improve the effectiveness of any future legislative work it undertakes regarding the Copyright Act by first addressing these structural challenges to ensure it has a strong partner in executing future copyright policy decisions.
Funding and Infrastructure Concerns: As a market supporting entity, the Copyright Office has very different business needs than the Library of Congress, and it requires an information technology (IT) infrastructure tailored to those needs. However, a recent report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) notes that the U.S. Copyright Office is required to rely heavily on the Library of Congress’s systems to carry out its mission with respect to registering copyrights, depositing copies of works, recording ownership transfers, and providing information to the public. The GAO found that these Library IT systems have “serious weaknesses” that hinder the ability of the Copyright Office to fulfill its mission. Likewise, the Copyright Office’s new strategic plan points out that “there is no question that it must now modernize to meet current and future needs.” The plan also notes that while technological improvements are essential, true modernization requires “re-envisioning almost all of the Copyright Office’s services.”
Operational Impediments: In modernizing the U.S. Copyright Office, Congress should make sure that it puts in place a legal structure that best positions the Copyright Office for success. Today, no agency exists with comprehensive and independent rulemaking authority in the area of copyright law. The Copyright Office is a department within the Library of Congress, and the Register of Copyrights, as head of that department, is limited to establishing regulations for the administration of functions and duties of her office, subject to the approval of the Librarian of Congress. In certain limited cases, such as the triennial rulemaking proceeding relating to exemptions from certain provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), the Register is empowered to conduct notice-and-comment rulemaking, but she may only recommend regulations to the Librarian of Congress.
Risks of Constitutional Challenges: Similarly, although she is the head of the U.S. Copyright Office and an expert in copyright law, because she is not a principal officer of the government (e., a Presidential Appointee), the Register of Copyrights is not empowered to appoint and oversee the work of administrative law judges adjudicating copyright matters within the Office. After litigation challenging the constitutionality of the appointment of the Copyright Review Board judges by the Register, the authority to appoint and dismiss Copyright Royalty Board judges was vested in the Librarian of Congress (a Presidential Appointee), with the Register merely reviewing the work of the judges for error.
Should Congress continue the trend over recent decades of assigning the Copyright Office additional duties (e.g., as a result of the ongoing review of the Copyright Act), such problems will be compounded unless the Register is appropriately empowered by Congress. We believe the current structure is inefficient and incompatible with good government administration. It saddles the Librarian with responsibilities outside the core competencies for which the role of Librarian is established and vetted. Moreover, it muddles the authority and accountability of the Register, who is fully vetted for administering the Copyright Act.
Although the signers of this letter have a variety of perspectives on copyright and where the functions of the Copyright Office should ultimately reside within the government, we agree on this: Regardless of what other modernization efforts Congress undertakes with respect to the U.S. Copyright Office, we firmly believe that the U.S. Copyright Office should be led by a Register who is a principal officer of the government—appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. This structure would ensure that the Office has appropriate authority to administer the nation’s copyright laws and that the Register is accountable to the Administration and to Congress for her actions.
As the Library of Congress ushers in a new era with a new Librarian, the time is ripe to ensure that the Copyright Office has the accountability and authority to best serve all of its stakeholders—most of all the American public. The nomination of Dr. Hayden as the next Librarian of Congress provides us with the opportunity to clarify the importance of the roles both the Library of Congress and the U.S. Copyright Office play in creating, cataloging, and administering the systems that preserve and promote our nation’s culture, by ensuring that the two talented leaders have a close partnership and a direct working relationship, with appropriately defined authority and responsibility for their respective areas of expertise.
We have no doubt that Dr. Hayden will rise to the task of modernizing the Library of Congress, while properly focusing on preserving our culture and providing greater access to knowledge. At the same time, we strongly believe that now is the time to modernize the Copyright Office. Given its critical role and expertise in copyright law, the continued success of our copyright system requires a Copyright Office that has the resources and authority to serve its users in the digital age.
Sandra Aistars
June M. Besek
Executive Director, Kernochan Center for Law, Media and the Arts and Lecturer
Robert Brauneis
Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Intellectual Property Program
Stephen Carlisle
Copyright Officer
Alvin Sherman Library, Research, and Information Technology Center
Jon M. Garon
Dean and Professor of Law
Nova Southeastern University | Shepard Broad College of Law
Hugh C. Hansen
Professor of Law and Director, IP Institute
Jiarui Liu
Assistant Professor of Law
Philippa S. Loengard
Deputy Director, Kernochan Center for Law, Media and the Arts and Lecturer
Adam Mossoff
Christopher M. Newman
Sean M. O’Connor
Boeing International Professor
Sean A. Pager
Associate Director, Intellectual Property, Communications & Information Law Program
Eric Priest
Faculty Director, LL.M. Program
Mark F. Schultz
Southern Illinois University School of Law
Sandra Aistars is Clinical Professor at Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University, leading the law school’s Arts & Entertainment Advocacy Program. She also serves as Senior Scholar and Director of Copyright Research and Policy at the law school’s Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property (CPIP).
Tags:Congress, copyright, Copyright Modernization, Copyright Office, Copyright Office budget, copyrights, Dr. Carla Hayden, Library of Congress
Posted In:Capitol Hill, Copyright, Government, Guest Contributors, IP News, IPWatchdog Articles
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NPB, J. League remain in holding pattern after latest task force meeting
Medical experts urge continued patience as NPB calls off All-Star Series
J. League Chairman Mitsuru Murai speaks during an online news conference on Monday. | KYODO
Nippon Professional Baseball and the J. League hosted the seventh meeting of their joint COVID-19 task force on Monday morning, with neither league making any concrete announcement regarding when games will be played.
One thing that is known, however, is that there will be no NPB All-Star Series this year. That decision was reached in a meeting with NPB and club representatives later Monday afternoon. The league is hoping to begin its season in mid-to-late June.
The Japanese government extended its state of emergency, which was originally scheduled to be lifted May 6, until the end of the month, and the task force’s medical panel on Monday morning advised the leagues that it would be difficult to set dates for their respective campaigns under the current circumstances.
The panel also advised the leagues that while the declining number of new infections is a positive, the task force should take the possibility of a recurrence into account.
Speaking at an online news conference following the meeting, which was held via video conference, Mitsuo Kaku, who heads the medical panel, acknowledged that the virus situation has begun to settle down to the point that pro sports are returning in some parts of the world. Kaku added that Japan’s leagues would need to remain vigilant even after getting underway.
In Asia, Taiwan’s Chinese Professional Baseball League and South Korea’s Korea Baseball Organization have both opened their seasons. South Korea’s pro soccer circuit, the K-League, has also begun play.
In Europe, German soccer’s top-flight Bundesliga will resume its season in empty stadiums on Saturday.
The U.S.-based UFC hosted a mixed martial arts event on Saturday in Jacksonville, Florida, and has two planned for this week.
“Obviously, if the situation improves, and the state of emergency is lifted on the 31st, we can start moving toward discussions about (how to resume) team practices, preseason games and the start of our season,” said NPB Commissioner Atsushi Saito.
Saito denied reports that emerged prior to the meeting suggesting NPB was looking to begin its season as early as June 19.
“As I’ve repeatedly said, we will only try to get ourselves ready for when the situation improves, so that we can host (our season),” he said. “And when I say get ourselves ready, that refers to — I believe it’s the same for soccer — the physical preparations of the players, preparations for playing in games. They would need a certain number of weeks to prepare. We need sanitary preparations as well. We would have to proceed with all those simultaneously.”
Local media had also reported that NPB had come up with a plan to group each league’s teams in a centralized location, with Tokyo and Osaka being the candidates, to reduce the risk of infection from traveling.
While Saito didn’t dismiss the possibility, he added that his office has not “discussed the matter yet.”
On Sunday, economic revitalization minister Yasutoshi Nishimura said that the government is looking into lifting the state of emergency before May 31 in many of the 34 prefectures that were not among those hit hardest by the virus.
Kaku said it would be necessary for the task force to create guidelines for how the leagues should respond in the event of infections that occur after their seasons resume. The panel already put such guidelines forward in early April, but Kaku hinted that they would need to be updated to reflect the current situation.
Former J. League player Ryuji Bando, who is participating in the meetings in his role as a specially appointed member of the league’s board of directors, said players are hoping they can all be given PCR tests upon their return to the pitch, according to J. League Chairman Mitsuru Murai.
Murai, however, said the J. League isn’t considering the possibility while many in the general public have not been able to be tested. At the same time, he is optimistic about the government’s consideration of an antigen test, which would make it possible for the public to be tested in less time than a PCR test would require.
Both NPB and the J. League held their own meetings with their club representatives later in the day. NPB officials have also decided to hold an meeting with team owners on Tuesday.
Mitsuru Murai, Atsushi Saito, covid-19, covid-19 in Japan, Ryuji Bando
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September 30, 2020 Cisco Bradley Interview No comments
I had the oppotunity to speak with guitarist Lucas Brode earlier this month about the record, A Vague Sense of Virtue that he released with drummer Kevin Shea on September 25. I previously reviewed the band during a live performance at the Troost in 2018. The record is available on Bandcamp.
Cisco Bradley: What was the spark for the music on your new record, A Vague Sense of Virtue?
Lucas Brode: Well, most things I do tend to come about very organically and gradually – not necessarily sparked, but more so slow burning. I am constantly writing and sometimes I realize that certain pieces or ideas actually belong together for the same project. This collection of music came to me while obsessively listening to Paul Motian records and re-watching all the films of David Lynch chronologically for the millionth time. I had also just found the Jakob Bro record Streams with Thomas Morgan and Joey Baron, which totally blew my mind. Anyway, those things inspired me to take some simple melodies I wrote and organize/improvise with them in this sort of light/dark dichotomy. Like opposing sides of spectrums conversing with each other, sometimes sharing the same space-time, and working to create a subconscious or dreamlike environment. Or maybe it’s superconscious? Those might be the same thing depending on the context.
Lynch works with this idea of dream logic, which is exactly what it sounds like. When you are in a dream, you never question why you’re walking through your old high school that becomes your grandmother’s house when you turn the corner. It just makes sense in the moment. So the work travels from one place to the next within its own self-realized sense of understanding and it doesn’t have some pre-described method or style imposed upon it or guiding it. It’s not genre specific or locked into a certain school of thought. Paul Motian’s music is like that too. He totally had his own sense of meter-less time that flows in its own way and that drove his sound. I would say dream logic is the thing that ties this record together musically. And I see Pauline Oliveros’s deep listening concept as very similar, but more sensory and grounded, so that was a big driving force in the sound collage elements and the mixing of the record as well. All of these artists work within a fairly egoless framework, which is a goal for me too.
CB: How did you and Kevin Shea first meet? What about his approach to music made the duo work?
LB: Kevin I had known about forever. I’ve been a huge Don Caballero fan for a long time and he was in Storm & Stress with Ian Williams, the guitarist. That music is so beautiful and loose and unique. His drumming is like nothing else. I was familiar with Talibam! and his improvising with others too. I recently found out he is on a Rhys Chatham record that I was really into for awhile. My friends in the great post-rock band Jerkagram knew him for years and kept telling me I needed to play with him. I think it was the last show of a solo tour I did in 2015 that we first met. It was at Palisades in Bushwick, which I heard is some kind of fancy restaurant now? Weird. We started playing together shortly after that in various formats. I just love how unpredictable his playing is and he has such a wide dynamic and textural range. I think the textures he creates on this record are remarkable. Texture is huge for me. The fact that he has a background in punk-related music AND jazz really helps me connect to him musically in a special way. His playing isn’t genre-specific or locked into a certain school either, so it’s perfect for this music. Honestly, what really makes it work though is that he’s just a joy to be around. He could be a horrible drummer and I would still enjoy making music with him. The fact that he is one of best and most unique drummers around is just a big plus. I really have no interest in making music with people who are not enjoyable to spend the time with. I got really into Hal Hartley films last year and then of course I found out he loved that stuff too. So we can hang beyond the music, which just ends up making the music even better.
CB: What are the major aesthetic influences on you as an artist?
LB: I am not sure if this is an aesthetic thing in the traditional sense, but I think about movement through spectrums. I want to make use of time, not just have it go by. Especially in work that involves improvisation. The simplest example would be dynamics. I always want to be traveling through a range. So one side of the spectrum is silence and the other side is your loudest possible volume. I never want to just pick a spot and stay there for too long. It has got to go somewhere for me to feel right about it. There are spectrums for tonality, texture, density, mood, all sorts of things. If you are hanging in one spectral zone, you have to be traveling through another one. I really want to show a wide emotional range, which is hard when things are too static. I try to get the music to ‘hit’ like that too. Deeper than just the brain or the body. Hopefully, it does. Honesty is very important too. I always look for that in any work. I don’t want there to be any posturing. It has to feel like it’s coming from a real place and not just a surface level thing. I would rather observe someone searching for something than observe someone trying to prove they already found it.
CB: What was your process for studying guitar?
LB: Well, studying early on was just strumming along with punk songs as a kid. I basically figured out how scales and intervals worked from making connections with the punk songs I learned. When I later started studying music theory, it reinforced and put names to some things I already basically knew. I also started playing jazz in high school, but I really didn’t really know what I was doing until much later when I started actually enjoying standards and stuff. It was only after I made connections in the way the harmony flowed, instead of seeing each moment as a static thing, that I started being able to get through tunes in a way that felt right. I’m not sure I have a process for studying these days. I play a lot and just try to find the sounds that the guitar wants to make. I have no interest in fighting the guitar or forcing it to do things it doesn’t want to do. I have no interest in having control or power over the instrument. I see it as more of a partnership. I stopped using a pick years ago. It just started feeling forced. I utilize open strings and harmonics and some sounds that many consider incidental or accidental or even non-musical. Also, I’ve been learning some pop and indie rock songs to try and find what people really connect to en masse and then figure out how to put them on the guitar without losing the truth of the thing. Sinead O’Connor, Hole, Phoebe Bridgers, Tom Waits, The Replacements, all sorts of stuff. Mostly quickie solo guitar arrangements, but sometimes a bit more fleshed out. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t – but I find it very worthwhile and enjoyable.
CB: What other projects are you working on at the moment?
LB: My number one project right now is staying sane and healthy. Finding some internal homeostasis in this chaos. It’s a full-time job that we all have now more than ever and it’s the most important thing. I’ve been trying to exercise and meditate more and find things to keep me grounded. My newest way of doing this is watching VHS tapes, which I find very soothing. In terms of music, my main project has always been solo guitar. I had been touring solo a lot over the past few years before things shut down. I actually have two solo records that I finished earlier this year. One is electric and one is acoustic. Now that this record is out I have to figure out how to release those. I also have an improv trio recording with Majid Araim from Atlanta on mandolin and Al Margolis doing his thing. That should hopefully come out sometime within the next year too. I recorded and mixed and mastered all that stuff myself. I have been mixing and mastering some recordings for my friend Jessica Ackerley too, some really great duo improvisations with folks. I would love to do more of that work, it’s super fun. My main NYC project over the past year has been a trio with Ben Rolston on bass and Colin Hinton on drums. I call the music Cowboy Slowcore. A totally different collection of songs that I hope to record with them in the near-ish future. I have I think two albums worth of material for that project already. We were doing monthly shows at Troost in Greenpoint where we did a lot of covers too. Sad cowboy songs like Wichita Lineman and I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry, but also doing other stuff in that style like My Bloody Valentine and the Cranberries. Some of the most beautiful musical moments I’ve had in a long time. Daniel Carter actually saw our first show and the first thing he said to me after was, “Do you watch that show Twin Peaks?” which is the greatest compliment I have ever received.
CB: Is there more music to come from the duo with Kevin Shea?
LB: We have a duo album of improvisations that I self-released on Bandcamp last year! It was recorded by my friend John Thayer at Thump in Brooklyn on the same day as A Vague Sense of Virtue, after we finished all the drums. It’s called The Importance of Being or Not Being, Whichever. Before this project, we actually had a trio playing totally different music. First Johnny DeBlase played bass and then Ben Backus, who I played with in Hannibal, Montana, for years. That music is wild. All odd time stuff, sort of like free-jazz math rock I guess. I think you saw that project at some point actually. I really hope we can record that music eventually. It deserves a proper document. I try not to make the same record twice though, so I doubt Kevin and I will do another record anything like this one. This is the one.
Cisco BradleyInterview: Lucas Brode 09.30.2020
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Maria Sibylla Merian – Pioneering Scientist, Artist, Traveler
Women in the 1700s didn’t work, they weren’t scientists, and they didn’t travel alone. Maria Sibylla Merian broke through all these barriers, creating a career for herself by combining art and science in a whole new way. Her drive to know sent her (at age 52!) to South America to study in the rainforest. Her life would be extraordinary if she were living today, but it’s even more so in that world.
This article is about Maria’s life and travels, as a woman adventurer.
Maria’s Life and Work
Born in 1647 in Frankfort, Germany, Maria was curious about the natural world from a very early age. When she was three years old, she began to study bugs and plants. She would bring home chrysalises and watch until they turned into butterflies. By the time she was 13, she was raising silkworms and other insects. She began to roam the countryside near her home to search for insects, and she recorded their behaviors, the timing of their metamorphosis and the plants they lived with.
Early caterpillar sketches
Soon she was creating illustrations, which were printed at her step-father’s printing company. She began to correspond with some of the scientists of her day, and she came to be known for her illustrations, like those to the right. Note the detail on these sketches. Her first works, two books of caterpillar prints, were published when she was 32 and 36.
In 1665, Maria married Johann Graff from Nuremberg; her first child, Johanna, was born in 1668 and her second child, Dorothea, in 1678. Her marriage was not a happy one, and in 1685, Maria, her daughters, and her mother moved to Waltha Castle in Friesland, where there was a sect of Labadists.
The Labadists were a pietist religious movement that emphasized piety, simplicity, and self-denial. Maria had to give up many of her possessions, including her books (yikes!) but not her drawing materials. Of course, she continued to study natural history while she was there.
When she left the Labadists in 1691 Maria and her daughters moved to Amsterdam (her mother had died), and her husband divorced her in 1692. I should mention that she was making money selling books and her artwork throughout her adult life, so she wasn’t destitute as most women of the time would have been.
Maria’s Journey to Surinam
At 52, in 1699, free from her husband and eagerly wanting to know more about the natural world, Maria sold some paintings and financed her own exploration to Surinam, a Dutch colony on the northeastern coast of South America. She went there in part because the Labadists had a colony there and she took her younger daughter Dorothea (age 21) with her. She planned to stay five years, doing “vigorous investigations” of insects, to bring back specimens to be studied, painted, and cataloged.
The perils of the journey to Surinam were what you might expect in the 18th century. Shipwreck was a distinct possibility, as were pirates.
Once in Paramaribo, the capital of Surinam, Maria found a world that was not so clearly delineated as that in Amsterdam. The line between jungle and town was thin. Tigers, wild boars roamed freely. Insects were everywhere, some carrying yellow fever or malaria.
The natives – Amerindians, slaves, and maroons (offspring of native Indians and African slaves) – she found more helpful than Dutch colonists in her explorations. The natives slept in hammocks to keep cool; the Dutch slept in beds and got bitten. Maria’s room was alive all night with the hum of insects.
At first, she stayed in town, wandering kitchen gardens and cataloging new species of butterflies. After a while, she started venturing into the rainforest, where she found a different world. She soon saw that the typical seasonal pattern of Europe didn’t apply here. The rainforest was hot and dry or hot and wet; there was no winter dormancy. The forest was a dense tangle of trees and shrubs; snakes could drop out of a tree and she was constantly wet from the oppressive heat and daily rains.
In her Surinam book, Maria said,
The forest grew together so closely with thistles and thorns, I sent slaves with hatchets ahead, so that they chopped an opening for me, in order to go through to some extent, which was rather combersome.
Most of the insect activity took place above the ground, sometimes as high as the canopy (the treetops), 150 feet in the air. Butterflies were abundant; overwhelming, in fact. Thousands of them flew over her head and if she found one she had no guarantee of knowing what kind of plant it liked, or whether she would ever see it again.
Sometimes she propped a ladder on a tree to gather caterpillars, or she would request that a tree be chopped down.
The butterflies were complex – some poisonous ones mimicked non-poisonous ones, while non-poisonous ones mimicked their poisonous cousins. There were even moths that looked like hummingbirds. She knew that drawings of mysterious creatures would spur sales, so she sketched as many as she could.
In her second year in Surinam, she fell ill. It isn’t clear whether it was yellow fever or malaria. In any case, there was no quinine at the time, no medicines to lessen her symptoms. She reluctantly returned to Amsterdam, saying, “This heat treated me poorly and I was compelled to return home earlier than planned.”
The Rest of Maria’s Life
After she returned from Surinam, she spent several years creating what I would consider her masterpiece, Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium (Metamorphosis of the Insects of Surinam). The version to the right is a facsimile, in German, and it’s $75.00. Maybe someday someone will publish an English version. I love the prints!
Maria had a stroke in 1715 and died in January 1717. Both of her daughters followed in her footsteps. Johanna and her husband went to Surinam, where she painted and collected specimens, and Dorothea worked with her mother’s collection after her death, completing her work.
Chrysalis: Maria Sibylla Merian and the Secrets of Metamorphosis
In this article, I skimmed over much of Maria’s life to concentrate on her studies of natural history and her journey to Surinam.
I used this biography by Kim Todd for much of the information about Maria’s life. There is little written by or about her; only 17 letters, a will, a lawsuit, and her books and notebooks. There is almost nothing about her personal life or her inner life.
In this type of biography, the author must take some liberties and expand the facts. Todd did a good job of this, providing insight into the times and places where Maria lived, and the people she knew. When she imagined Maria’s thoughts, she went a little too far, but overall the biography was enjoyable and interesting.
Why Maria Sibylla Merian is Important
Unlike other women in the 18th century, Maria achieved some recognition in her time, and she was well-regarded as both a scientist and artist. She was quite entrepreneurial; she had a good eye for what would sell, and she wasn’t afraid to publicize herself. She worked in her family’s printing business, where she learned much about the commercial world of the time
In some ways, Maria was a product of her time and place. The central role of Dutch women in the 18th century was home and domesticity, but the social atmosphere of the time gave them more freedom and fewer social restrictions than women in other European countries.
Todd notes that the repressive society of the time didn’t allow women to enter into fields where sex in any form might be discussed, and certainly studying reproduction (even if it relates to butterflies) might have been a problem for her. I have a feeling that Maria’s choice to express her scientific interests in artistic ways might have eased her entry into scientific society.
She had a goal from a young age, and she made herself one of the premier experts in her field. Maria wasn’t afraid to venture out of the easier life in Amsterdam to make the perilous journey to Surinam with her daughter. Her adventurous spirit and curiosity overrode any fears she might have had.
She did return early, but she had already collected two year’s worth of specimens, so it wasn’t a wasted effort. Up until just before her death, she continued to be productive and energetic.
The scientific world owes much to Maria Sibylla Merian’s groundbreaking discoveries and the art world is richer for her beautiful drawings. If you want more proof of her value to the world, here it is: Maria was featured in a Google Doodle on April 2, 2013, the 366th anniversary of her birthday.
Further Reading By and About Maria Sibylla Merian
A World Away: What Surinam Can Teach Us (Forbes, Aril 7, 2014, Melik Kaylan)
In a 2015 article in Entomology Today, Maria Sibylla Merian was one of five featured female entomologists in a special series.
Amazon has a number of books about her, including several for young readers. You can also find books of her art prints, although I wasn’t able to find a copy of Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium in English.
Maria Sibylla Merian: Recovering an Eighteenth-Century Legend, by Sharon Valiant. In Eighteenth-Century Studies,Vol. 26, No. 3 (Spring, 1993), pp. 467-479. Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
The Getty Museum had an exhibition in 2008 featuring Maria and her daughters. Some art books related to Maria are noted on their exhibition website.
Read my Goodreads review of Chrysalis: Maria Sibylla Merian and the Secrets of Metamorphosis.
Disclosure: The books featured in my posts have links to Amazon.com, and I receive money if you click on a link and buy a book from one of these links.
Filed Under: Women Adventurers Tagged With: 18th century women, botanists, Chrysalis, Maria Sibylla Merian, natural scientists, rainforests, Surinam
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‘We have to assume every person has it.’ Moss Point is COVID-19 hot spot on Coast.
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As national and state statistics are starting to show African Americans have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19, Moss Point stands out as one majority black Mississippi community where those numbers are playing out in a stark reality.
Of the 111 people who have tested positive in Jackson County, almost 50% are from Moss Point, said Singing River Health System CEO Lee Bond.
Five of the six people who have died in Jackson County also are from Moss Point.
The Mississippi State Department of Health on Wednesday revealed statewide figures on the impact of COVID-19 on the black community. Of the 2,003 reported cases, 56% are black people. And of the 67 deaths, 72% are black.
The Associated Press also released Wednesday an analysis of nationwide data, which shows nearly 3,300 of the nation’s 13,000 deaths thus far — about 42% — were black.
Bond said the health department’s figures are part of a trend.
“Our African-American community is subject to conditions like high blood pressure and COPD that make it harder to fight the virus,” Bond said.
Louisiana’s state health department released data Monday showing that hypertension was the underlying condition that was most common among those who died from COVID-19, according to NOLA.com. Diabetes and chronic kidney disease ranked second and third.
COVID-19 cases with underlying conditions by race in Mississippi as of April 8, 2020.
“I would say this disease is colorblind, but we have a culture throughout our Gulf Coast where we love each other and we love to get together. If we don’t stop visiting, we’re not going to stop the spread.”
Bond said simple steps can be taken in Moss Point to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
“The virus appears to be most commonly spread by family members visiting family members in other households,” he said. “Our advice is if you don’t live there, don’t go there. If they don’t live there, don’t let them in.
“If everyone would stop visiting each other for just a few days, we could all get the world back to work within a week and a half.”
State Rep. Jeramey Anderson, who represents Moss Point, self-quarantined in Jackson for 14 days before returning to his district to be with family. He reinforced much of what Bond had to say.
“People in Moss Point have to stay home,” he said. “That’s pretty much the gist of the whole thing. If someone doesn’t live in a household, you shouldn’t allow them in.”
The Moss Point-Jackson County NAACP on Wednesday issued a “high alert” to the black community in Moss Point “and underprivileged people in general throughout Jackson County.”
“We want to stress the importance of social distancing, staying at home with limited visitors, maintain a 6-feet distance from others, washing hands frequently, and wearing a mask away from home,” NAACP chapter president Curley Clark said in a statement. He has also scheduled a press conference for 11 a.m. Thursday.
Gov. Tate Reeves has issued a mandatory shelter-in-place order that asks people to practice social distancing and limit public gatherings to 10 people or fewer, but Anderson worries some in his community still don’t appreciate the threat.
“While some people have taken precautions, there is a very large group of folks in Moss Point that do not understand the seriousness,” Anderson said.
“We have to assume every person has it. If we truly want to get through this pandemic we have to make those same assumptions with friends and family members.”
Anderson emphasized that even though a gathering includes 10 or fewer people, the six-foot rule still applies.
“Just because you are in a gathering of of 10 or less, that doesn’t exempt you from getting infected,” he said. “There are so many people that think just because they have a gathering at their house or go to a gathering of 10 or less, you’re not going to get the virus. That’s not true.”
Mississippi resident starts petition for shelter-in-place orders
PETITION FOR MISSISSIPPI TO SHELTER-IN-PLACE CIRCULATING
Rep. Jeramey Anderson pushes for statewide shelter-in-place order
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Chattanooga (TN), Tuscaloosa (AL)
Obento: Japanese Culture in a Box – Learn to make a Japanese lunch box –
Photo by Debra Samuels
The Japan Foundation, New York, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and the University of Alabama present Obento: Japanese Culture in a Box – Learn to make a Japanese lunch box -, a presentation and a hands-on workshop on obento, a Japanese term for ‘lunch’ or ‘lunchbox.’ This event is conducted by The Boston Globe food writer and cookbook author Debra Samuels, a long-time resident of Japan.
Participants will have an opportunity to learn the cultural background of Obento as Samuels illustrate common differences in value, presentation, and nutritional balance between typical American and Japanese lunches. Under Samuels’ guidance, everyone will have the opportunity to make their own obento.
The obento or bento phenomenon has caught on in the US because of the appeal of its balance of nutrition and beauty. There are dozens of blogs on bento geared toward adults and children. Three out of the top ten best-selling Japanese cookbooks on Amazon are on bento. The new school year also prompts many articles in newspapers and magazines that refer to making these colorful meals in a box when looking for healthy alternatives to excite the palate and the eye. Manga and anime have spread Japanese popular culture bringing a familiarity with Japanese food culture to a very broad audience.
Samuels has lived in Japan for over a decade and offers her extensive knowledge and experiences with Japanese food traditions.
2:30pm – 4:00pm Wednesday, October 15, 2014
Metropolitan Building Room 303
615 McCallie Avenue,
To attend this event please RSVP to:
Ms. Asami Nakano at Asami-Nakano@mocs.utc.edu
The event is free, but participants are required to make a $10 refundable deposit prior to the event to secure your reservation. The deposit will be refunded upon completion of the workshop.
If paying by check, please make it payable to The Asia Program and mail it to:
The Asia Program
300 Pfeiffer Hall, Dept.2222
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga,
Chattanooga TN37403
5:00pm – 6:00pm Monday, October 20, 2014
Ms. Yumi Miyatake at ymiyatake@ua.edu
Please note that the program at Tuscaloosa venue is mainly open to students at University of Alabama and its communities. If you are not a student at University of Alabama and would like to attend, please contact Ms. Yumi Miyatake.
Debra Samuels, cookbook author, food and travel writer and cooking teacher, has been working with children, families, and food in a variety of settings for over twenty-five years. Since 2000 she has been a food stylist and regular contributor to The Boston Globe. She is the author of My Japanese Table: A Lifetime of Cooking with Friends and Family (Tuttle Publishing).
This program is co-organized with The Japan Foundation, New York, the Asia Program, College of Health, Education & Professional Studies at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and Critical Languages Center, Department of Modern Languages and Classics at the University of Alabama.
For further information please contact: Tomomi Tanikawa tomomi_tanikawa@jfny.org / 212-489-0299 ext. 153
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Tendances & perspectives Skyscrapers: A licence to thrill
Skyscrapers: A licence to thrill
It's no longer enough to be a tall building or skyscraper with just a restaurant at the top. Visitors now want to walk and even slide, high in the sky.
Times and tastes have changed. It is no longer enough to be a tall building with just a restaurant at the top offering a birds-eye view of the city: visitors want to walk, jump, even slide, high in the sky.
A thrill-seeker generation is game for something special – an added attraction, a visitor experience – and the property market is feeding global demand, delivering towering structures with a difference worldwide.
In Canada, Toronto has the EdgeWalk, where you can go full-circle, hands-free in a harness all the way round the roof on the exterior, atop the 116-storey CN Tower. If you would rather jump than walk, New Zealand offers the Auckland SkyJump, where daredevil visitors plummet on a wire 192 feet down the Sky Tower, at a speed of 85km/h.
Alternatively, for a fairground ride with a twist, the OUE Skyspace LA, at the newly-renovated US Bank Tower in Los Angeles opened in 2016. There, California’s tallest open-air observation deck will come complete with a 45ft-long glass slide to carry visitors down from the 70th to 69th floor, outside the building, 1,000ft up.
This dynamic growth pattern in commercial high-rise development appears part of a broader trend affecting the tourism market at large, observes Wayne Allison, National Director, Project Management, at JLL.
“There’s an evolution in tourism, which is proving influential. For attractions and destinations to engage and connect, perhaps repeatedly, there has to be a value-add,” he says. “This seems to be a driver not just for bolt-ons to new buildings, but also upgrades to existing, even historic landmarks. Both the Eiffel Tower and Tower Bridge now have a feature glass floor and there is a demand for more interactive and immersive kinds of visitor experience, especially among a younger demographic.”
When tall alone is not enough
To boost the profile of an aspiring world city in a global marketplace, signature high-rise structures still represent a must-have for 21st-century development. However, with competition rising like the skyline, the real estate challenge is changing. As a crowdpuller, tall still works, just not on its own, explains Emma Cullen, Projects & Marketing Manager for the Eureka Skydeck experience, in Melbourne, Australia.
“Tall buildings have always played a big role,” she says. “Most large cities can be identified by a single tower or structure, such as the Empire State Building, Burj Khalifa or The Shard. Now, however, with the growth of urban high-rise living, a tower’s beautiful design or highest peak doesn’t automatically grant icon status.”
Cullen speaks from a unique perspective, literally. A gold-plated skyscraper by the Yarra River, Eureka Tower is the world’s tallest residential building, boasting the highest public observation deck in the Southern Hemisphere. As well as an unparalleled visual panorama, Eureka Skydeck is also home to the Edge Experience – a glass cube that projects out from the 88th floor suspending visitors almost 300 meters above the city.
This, Cullen argues, is the kind of differentiator a modern tower needs: “A thrill experience develops a point of difference for a tower and drives media exposure and visitation to the public access points, such as observation decks. Executed right, it can generate significant brand strength, which only elevates the property value.”
Providing an additional draw for the public also means the likes of high-rise office buildings can play a more active part in the fabric of a 24-hour city, suggests David Reynolds, JLL National Director and Head of Neighbourly Matters.
“With tall buildings in general, the agenda is complex: it’s a matter of trying to find a balance between requirements of a growing population, urban density, job creation, wealth expansion, lifestyle, community and well-being,” he explains. “We have to recognize that government, local authorities and planners don’t want dead zones in cities – for instance in financial districts such as London, Frankfurt and New York after 6pm. Tall buildings offering alternative attractions help with growth and introduce a different source of revenue.”
Tech steps in to add the thrill factor
It seems likely that the immediate future will see developers building-in even bigger, better and faster attractions to fuel the public appetite – as evidenced by the upcoming project at Embassy Gardens in London, which will showcase a pair of 10-storey buildings linked together by a high-level glass-bottomed swimming pool.
However, fashions in tourism and consumer culture are also being driven by trends in the entertainment sector, where there is a lot of interest in digital gaming and excitement about Virtual Reality (VR) technology, such as Oculus Rift.
Innovation in this field could impact significantly on exactly how real-estate thrills get delivered. According to Reynolds, VR may well help creatives work around the twin obstacles of corporate restraint and planning restrictions.
“With the technology coming through, who is to say we won’t have a change in direction? At the minute, we have physical zip-wires and slides. However, you may have a breakout space in a corporate world where the physical manifestation may not be tolerated, but you can however utilize VR solutions instead.
“Similarly, in the more conservative planning areas like London and Paris, it will typically be baby steps with the physical thrill features, unlike Vegas or Dubai. So, again, VR equivalents may help gain more immediate buy-in.”
Looking ahead, strong prospects are forecast for ongoing integration of physical and digital worlds. Particularly with respect to high-rise development, therefore, this marriage of place and technology offers the real-estate sector a dynamic opportunity, Allison believes.
“I think VR is going to fly. People are already being walked through buildings with a 360° immersive virtual experience. You will see VR alongside physical sensory elements and effects catering to smell and touch to heighten the experience.”
Indeed, modern culture is increasingly putting a premium on novel experiences. “It comes back to making sure the real-estate environment in which we live, work and play is exceeding people’s expectations. Meeting expectations has already been built – the future lies in the rest,” Reynolds concludes.
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JLL Real Stories Heading back to the new normal
Heading back to the new normal
How colleagues in Milan are returning to work as JLL’s European offices reopen
From London to Berlin, JLL offices in Europe have now opened for the first wave of people returning after months of lockdown.
This includes the reopening of offices in Italy, one of the hardest-hit countries on the continent. Stefania Toffolo, procurement and office manager at JLL in Milan, was at the center of the effort to make people feel safe and welcome upon their return.
“After so long at home – it was still winter when Milan shut down – you really get the sense that people are happy to be back in their normal working environment,” she says.
As people return to offices, local authorities have put strict health and safety checks in place – much tighter than in other cities. Every day, employees have their temperature monitored at the entrance, and staff sit at well-spaced desks around the office.
“The centre of Milan is still very quiet and we’re still some way off that lively lunchtime vibe in the nearby restaurants and coffee bars. We’ve encouraged people to bring their own lunches in and eat in the courtyard. We’re all re-adjusting to this new office life.”
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Fight over Chief Rabbinate’s attitude toward American Orthodox rabbis reaches Knesset
MK Elazar Stern (Hatnua) accuses Chief Rabbinate of alienating Jews in Israel and abroad by its policies.
Chief Rabbi David Lau at opening of Pantry Packers 370
(photo credit: Hadas Parush)
The Knesset Caucus on People, Religion and State held a hearing Wednesday intended to address growing discord between Orthodox North American rabbinical organizations and the Chief Rabbinate.
But non-Orthodox leaders at the session spoke out against the modern Orthodox proponents of the hearing who have raised concerns with the behavior of the Chief Rabbinate, arguing that the fundamental problem with religious relations in Israel was the “Orthodox monopoly.”
The session was proposed by the ITIM advocacy and religious services advisory group to deal specifically with what the organization has claimed is an increasingly restrictive Chief Rabbinate attitude as to which rabbis in the Diaspora, and particularly in North America, it accepts as authorized to provide documentation on matters of Jewish and marital status.
Caucus chairman MK Elazar Stern (Hatnua) accused the Chief Rabbinate of alienating Jews in Israel and abroad by its policies.
“Regardless of the differences between us here, that which joins us together is the understanding that the current situation and the behavior of the State of Israel and its institutions distance Judaism [from the public] and shrink the Jewish people in Israel and the Diaspora,” said Stern.
ITIM director Orthodox Rabbi Seth Farber noted that while concerns over the Jewish status of immigrants from the former Soviet Union were understandably complicated due to the Communist regime’s suppression of religion, “now they are casting doubt on American Jewry, but in this instance we’re talking about a great and thriving community with great Torah sages at its head.”
Farber said the issue was creating “a huge divide” between Israel and American Jewry.
ITIM is proposing as a solution that any Orthodox institute more than 10 years old and with 50 or more members be accepted by the Chief Rabbinate as able to authorize issues of Jewish and marital status, with those institutions being able to de-authorize their own members if they so wish.
In response to the criticism, the Chief Rabbinate, which did not send a representative to the hearing, issued a statement including the criteria by which it evaluates Orthodox rabbis abroad.
As first published by The Jerusalem Post on Monday, the rabbinate says that it first determines if the rabbi who signed the documentation was ordained by a recognized Orthodox Jewish institute; if the rabbi and the institutions of his community operate in accordance with Jewish law; and if the rabbi in question has the requisite information, skills and knowledge to sign such a document.
While most of the discussion dealt with this issue, non-Orthodox rabbis, as well as some of the MKs present, criticized the modern Orthodox movement abroad and in Israel for nevertheless seeking to preserve an Orthodox monopoly instead of embracing pluralistic alternatives.
Reform Movement director Rabbi Gilad Kariv spoke out in particular against the Rabbinical Council of America, one of the largest Orthodox umbrella groups in the US, for having this week endorsed the Chief Rabbinate as the “pillar of fire at the front of the global Orthodox Jewish camp illuminating and guiding the way.” Kariv was referring to a statement of cooperation issued by the Chief Rabbinate and the RCA this week in Berlin.
“You have anointed over yourselves the Chief Rabbinate, which is going through a process of haredification and brutalization,” said Kariv, pointing out the “absurdity of the situation in which they are today coming to the Knesset to say this upsets them.”
Kariv continued that “since the RCA has regrettably turned this addiction to the Chief Rabbinate’s abuse against Orthodox Judaism abroad into a tradition,” cooperation and discussion would be increasingly difficult between non-Orthodox Jewish denominations and the large Orthodox organizations in the Diaspora.
Executive director of the RCA Rabbi Mark Dratch said he thought Kariv “over-spoke.”
Dratch acknowledged that there are “issues” in need of resolution between the Chief Rabbinate and the Orthodox North American rabbinical groups, but said that there was no crisis in the relationship.
He also expressed optimism, based on recent conversations with the chief rabbis this week, that solutions to the issues would be reached in the very near future and that they were on the path to strengthened ties.
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Fitzgerald said Trump has produced results, including an economic expansion — but he also didn't answer whether he thought the president, who often uses bullying rhetoric, was a good role model.
"I feel good about where we are not only in regards to Wisconsin's economy, which continues to expand, but it's the federal government as well which can tweak certain things and keep us in a good place," he said. "I think the policies that President Trump has put in place, they work."
Fitzgerald backed Trump's policies on building a wall on the nation's southern border, including diverting money from the Pentagon budget to pay for the barrier.
He also supported the president on trade policy, adding there has been "back and forth" with Canada on dairy issues.
"You got to be on the offense and I think that's where the president is at. He is continually trying to push that envelope," he said.
That drew the ire of Democratic Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, who said Wisconsin farmers are "certainly offended" by the president's trade policies.
"How can they feel confident that better days are ahead when the Senate leader is more concerned with being the president's lackey than come up with a solution to the crisis?" Barnes tweeted.
Asked if climate change was a significant global threat, Fitzgerald said the issue "deserves a lot more scrutiny."
"I know that certainly the scientific community has said there are indicators, definitely something going on. But at this point, I don't know if we can draw any hard conclusions on the issue," he said.
The usually unreserved state senator spoke for just a couple minutes Tuesday and took only a handful of questions before ending the Oconomowoc news conference within a total span of eight minutes.
Republicans also eyeing the seat are mostly from the Milwaukee area: state Sen. Chris Kapenga and former U.S. Senate candidate Kevin Nicholson, who both live in Delafield; state Rep. Adam Neylon of Pewaukee; Matt Walker, son of the former governor; Matt Neumann, son of former Congressman Mark Neumann; and Ben Voelkel, communications director for U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson.
Democrat Tom Palzewicz, who challenged Sensenbrenner in 2018, also is running. Last year, Sensenbrenner beat Palzewicz 62% to 38%.
Palzewicz said in a tweet Tuesday it's unfortunate Fitzgerald is "doubling down" on the partisan division already existing in Wisconsin.
"He’s been a part of the problem in Madison," Palzewicz said. "Wisconsinites want solutions of equality and prosperity sent to Washington. That candidate is already in the race."
Spending levels in the last two state budgets, which were largely or completely written by Republican lawmakers, could give Fitzgerald's Republican primary opponents some ammunition. Kapenga especially has not been a fan of the spending plans, saying the state was spending too much.
Fitzgerald and his brother, former Assembly speaker and current lobbyist Jeff Fitzgerald, were born in Chicago and moved to Hustisford when Scott Fitzgerald was 10.
Fitzgerald studied journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh and for six years in the 1990s owned the Dodge County Independent News weekly newspaper. He served in the U.S. Army Reserve for 27 years.
His current term in the state Senate expires in 2022, meaning he could keep his seat should he be defeated in the congressional race.
Molly Beck reported this story from Madison. Bill Glauber reported from Oconomowoc.
Contact Molly Beck at molly.beck@jrn.com. Follow her on Twitter at @MollyBeck.
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UK: Honda - The Car of the Future is Here...
Honda is making history today - the very first day when a hybrid car goes on sale in Britain. The all-new Honda Insight coupe, represents a technical milestone, the beginning of a new era for UK motoring and shows how clever & clean cars of the 21st Century will be…
The Insight is called a hybrid because it is powered by a petrol engine and a 10 kW electric motor / generator mounted between the 1.0-litre, 3-cylinder, VTEC petrol engine and the 5-speed manual transmission. During acceleration the electric motor assists the petrol engine, increasing performance to the level of a 1.5-litre unit. During deceleration, the electric motor acts as a generator recharging the 144-volt power pack mounted between the rear wheels. So, Insight owners will never have to 'plug-in', as this car does not require an outside source of electric power.
The Honda combines a lively sporty performance - acceleration from 0-to-62 mph in 12 seconds and a top speed of 112 mph - with ultra-low emissions and fuel consumption. The car produces just 80 g/km of CO2, and CO, HC and NOx are way below future European Union limits. In the Government fuel economy tests, the Insight has achieved over 94 mpg running on unleaded petrol.
The normal on-the-road price for Honda's Insight is £17,000. However, the first 200 cars sold in the UK are eligible for funding by the Powershift demonstration project scheme which reduces the cost by £1,000 to £16,000.
UK: Ferrari UK Moves Online
USA: AutoTradeCenter.com Saves Millions for American Honda Finance Corp
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The Administration’s Theory for How the 2001 AUMF Could Apply to ISIS
Senator Tim Kaine, in a statement on Monday, marked out the position that expanded military operations against ISIS are not covered by Congress’s 2001 authorization for use of military force (AUMF). Sen. Kaine then stated that he is “encouraged by reports that indicate Administration officials have signaled that seeking Congressional authorization for U.S. military action against ISIL is being considered” (my emphasis added). Reports indicate, however, that the administration is also still considering the opposite—that it does not have to go back to Congress on the ground that the 2001 AUMF applies to ISIS. The NSC spokeswoman recently told Defense One, “We are reviewing the applicability of the 2001 AUMF to this situation” (see also here).
I have previously written that the 2001 authorization does not cover ISIS, and I noted: “As readers of Just Security, Lawfare, and Opinion Juris know, a remarkable consensus of opinion has emerged across our blogs that ISIS is not covered by the 2001 AUMF.” One of the reasons is that ISIS split off from al-Zawahiri’s Al Qaeda central at least as far back as February 2014 (the fissure was evident before then).
So what explains this disconnect? What might be the administration’s theory for application of the 2001 AUMF to ISIS?
As Marty Lederman has explained, the administration has long maintained that the general legal framework for a group to be covered under the AUMF is two-fold: (1) the group has entered the fight alongside Al Qaeda and (2) the group is engaged as a co-belligerent in directing hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners.
[As an aside, last year I discussed an alternative ground in international law—in addition to the co-belligerency standard—as a basis for expanding the use of force to other parties to a conflict.]
We know that the administration takes the view that Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in Yemen meets the two-part standard. And thus the US is also battling AQAP as a party to the conflict. So, what if AQAP were to work in collaboration with another military organization in directing hostilities against the United States? Is that the legal hook that the administration is considering?
AQAP has been sharply divided over whether to support ISIS. That situation recently changed. In a statement on August 17, AQAP officially supported ISIS against the United States:
“We announce solidarity with our Muslim brothers in Iraq against the crusade. Their blood and injuries are ours and we will surely support them”;
“We assert to the Islamic Nation [all Muslims worldwide] that we stand by the side of our Muslim brothers in Iraq against the American and Iranian conspiracy and their agents of the apostate Gulf rulers.”
ISIS and AQAP may also be involved in training each other’s fighters, and AQAP has publicly provided ISIS advice on how to evade US airstrikes (see also here).
It is notable that one of the missing pieces is the direction of hostilities against the United States. That situation may, of course, itself change. In that respect, it is also relevant that the White House chose to describe the killing of journalist James Foley as “a terrorist attack against our country.”
I do not evaluate here the viability of this theory. It is important, as an initial matter, to know what the theory might be. Maybe a journalist should ask the administration a follow-up question.
AQAP,
December 14, 2020 by Priyanka Motaparthy and Osamah Alfakih
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Six Reasons Why a Terrorist Designation for Yemen’s Houthis is a Bad Idea
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The 116th Congress’s Record on International Human Rights: The Good, the Bad, and the Unfinished Business
October 19, 2020 by Joanne Lin
October 9, 2020 by Luke Hartig
National Security at the United Nations This Week (Sept. 11-18)
September 18, 2020 by Tim Hirschel-Burns
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Industrial Construction Markets & Investment Oil & Gas Pipelines & Transportation Service & Supply
First Nations receive $620 million in contracts for LNG Canada pipeline
By Nelson Bennett
Tuesday, June 26, 2018, 5:52 PM MDT
First Nations along the corridor for the natural gas pipeline that would feed the LNG Canada plant in Kitimat have signed agreements worth $620 million in support of the project, including one First Nation that had threatened to withhold support for LNG over the Site C dam.
TransCanada Corporation announced June 26 that it has signed agreements to provide $620 million worth of contracts to more than a dozen First Nations governments and businesses. Another $400 million worth of contract and employment opportunities for First Nations is expected to be awarded.
“This amount of contracting work awarded to First Nations businesses and communities is unprecedented in British Columbia for a pipeline company," said Karen Ogen-Toews, CEO of the First Nations LNG Alliance.
“And it tells an important story — that there is strong First Nations support in BC for responsible LNG development, and for the natural-gas projects and pipelines that will feed the export plants.”
The announcement comes on the heels of a previous announcement that indicates the companies behind the $40 billion LNG Canada project may be getting close to a final investment decision.
On June 19, TransCanada announced that it had conditionally awarded contracts to several joint ventures to build the Coastal GasLink pipeline: Surerus Murphy Joint Venture, SA Energy Group, Macro Spiecapag Joint Venture and Pacific Atlantic Pipeline Construction Inc. Those contracts are valued at $2.8 billion.
Among the First Nations that have signed contracts with TransCanada are the West Moberly.
In 2014, West Moberly Chief Roland Wilson warned the provincial government that moving ahead with Site C dam could result in his people opposing any LNG development.
"I've said you can't have both," Wilson said, according to CTV and other media. "If you want to push Site C, we're not going to be in favour of any LNG projects, any of the pipeline projects up there. We don't want to be there but if that's the case, we don't have any other choice."
But Wilson now appears to be fully supportive of the project.
“This is a major milestone for West Moberly First Nations,” he is quoted as saying in a press release.
“Our team has worked diligently over the past five years to ensure that our cultural and environmental principles are protected, and we continue to work closely with the Coastal GasLink team to maximize the economic benefits for our community members and future generations.”
Wilson could not be reached for comment.
Other First Nations that are supporting the project and receiving contracts include the Doig River, Lheidli T’enneh, Wet’suwet’en First Nation, Burns Lake Band, Saulteau First Nation Skin Tyee Saik’uz.
Another five First Nations businesses have also signed agreements for contracts, including two that provide remote work camp services.
According to TransCanada, 95% of the First Nations along the 670-kilometre pipeline corridor, from Dawson Creek to Kitimat, have signed agreements, and to date, one-third of the field work already done has been by First Nations contractors.
— Business in Vancouver
JWN Energy's Bemal Mehta featured on PetroLMI podcast
Bemal Mehta, our senior vice-president of Energy Intelligence was recently interviewed on PetroLMI’s popular podcast Not Your Grandpa’s Energy Industry.…
Petronas takes 25% stake in LNG Canada project
Investor pressure on companies including Enbridge, BP boosted climate disclosures in 2020
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Epsilon Gamma Chapter was established in February 1958 and received its charter at the Convention in Bedford Springs, Pennsylvania, that June. It was formally installed in November.
Epsilon Gamma was the seventh sorority at the University of North Carolina. At its start, it was the first and only “two-year chapter” in Kappa’s history because UNC admitted junior women transfers, undergraduate women who lived locally in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and women graduate students in some departments — only allowing two years of membership in chapters. Before 1925, it had been primarily an all-male university. Eventually, sophomores and freshmen could join, and the first-semester Recruitment was finally allowed.
Epsilon Gamma was awarded the standards award for sisterhood at the 2018 Convention.
Epsilon Gamma is the only chapter on campus to remain in the same house since its founding in 1958. Subsequently, it is the only one that owns its house.
Kappas took home the gold and were named the 2018 UNC Women's Intramural Street Hockey Champions.
Every semester, the chapter hosts a Kappa thrift shop for seniors to pass down T-shirts and other items to underclassmen.
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Antitrust Claims: A Novel Line of Attack by Groups Opposing Natural Gas Infrastructure Projects
Environment, Land and Natural Resources Alert
By: John Longstreth, Sandra E. Safro, David L. Wochner, Jennifer Bruneau Abbey
The Sierra Club and other environmental groups have made little secret of their opposition to the continuing use of fossil fuels and to the development of infrastructure to support that use. A new wrinkle in their multifront attack on fossil fuel-related projects can be seen in a series of recent filings with federal regulatory agencies asserting that two natural gas pipeline projects violate the antitrust laws. Although styled as “complaints,” the filings do not initiate an adjudicatory proceeding in the usual sense of a complaint but rather appear to be requests for enforcement or competition advocacy actions by federal antitrust agencies. The challenged projects are joint ventures of energy utility companies and the natural gas supplied by each will serve their respective natural gas or electricity retail distribution affiliates. The claims that this structure is anticompetitive are novel and face substantial obstacles under established antitrust law.
Overview of the Antitrust Claims
The recent antitrust challenges to pipeline projects first surfaced with respect to the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) project, which includes 600 miles of new pipeline, three compressor stations, and related facilities across West Virginia, Virginia, and North Carolina. ACP is owned by subsidiaries of four utility companies, affiliates of which will purchase some of the gas supplied by the pipeline. Sierra Club argues that this structure is anticompetitive because it will stifle the development of renewable energy alternatives for use in generating electricity and limit ACP’s incentive to complete the project efficiently, thereby unnecessarily increasing costs for retail customers.
Sierra Club has also asserted an antitrust theory against the NEXUS project, which involves the construction of 256 miles of new pipeline, four compressor stations, and related facilities across Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Michigan, and Ontario. NEXUS is a joint venture between two utility companies. Sierra Club claims that one of the companies is monopolizing electricity generation because its natural gas supply will be sourced from the NEXUS project, the cost of which it can then pass on to its Michigan retail customers through its preexisting regulated monopoly over a segment of the retail market. Sierra Club also argues that the project is anticompetitive because it is more costly than other alternatives for supplying increased energy demand.
The Theories Asserted Face Significant Challenges Under Established Antitrust Principles
The antitrust laws impose specific requirements designed to assure that claims truly assert harm to competition in a well-defined market. It is not sufficient to make assertions of harm to the interests of a specific market participant or to a policy goal unrelated to the goals of the antitrust laws to encourage free and fair competition and the generally resulting lower prices and increased output. [1] A full antitrust analysis would exceed the bounds of this alert, but a few initial observations can be made.
First, many of the antitrust arguments Sierra Club advances are based on the assertion that these pipeline projects do not make economic sense and that the utilities must therefore have some separate anticompetitive motive. However, there are numerous other pipelines under construction in the same general geographic area, as might be expected given the boom in natural gas production over the last decade. This suggests both that there is a good economic case for construction of new natural gas transportation capacity, and that control of a single pipeline would not allow its owners to control any properly defined market. Antitrust agencies and courts will not second guess reasonable business decisions being made in the marketplace. [2]
Second, in claims such as these, antitrust complainants are required to identify some relevant antitrust market that would be monopolized as a result of activity they challenge. The complainants in the recent filings against the pipelines either do not do so, or attempt to define markets based on the activities of a single market participant, which is generally disfavored under the antitrust laws. [3]
Finally, theories of economic harm must take account of the heavy regulation of energy markets at the state and federal level. Such regulation, for example, prohibits a utility from passing on costs to retail customers that are not prudently incurred. An antitrust theory based on a utility’s asserted intention to do just that could be viewed as implausible.
Environmental organizations have shown a willingness to use every potential legal means to stop or delay natural gas development activities and other energy infrastructure projects. Such is the avowed goal of the Sierra Club’s “Beyond” campaign. [4] Antitrust represents a new line of attack in this ongoing effort. Monitoring of developments in this area, and access to sound antitrust analysis and advice in the event of a challenge, is thus necessary for market participants seeking to protect these projects.
[1] See, e.g., Cargill v. Montfort of Colorado, Inc., 479 U.S. 104, 109 (1986) (quoting Brunswick Corp. v. Pueblo Bowl-O-Mat, Inc.,429 U.S. 477, 489 (1977) (holding that an antitrust plaintiff must show not just an injury caused by the challenged conduct, but an antitrust injury; i.e., an injury “of the type the antitrust laws were designed to prevent and that flows from that which makes defendants' acts unlawful”).
[2] See, e.g., Remarks of Deborah Platt Majoras, Chairman, Federal Trade Commission, “The Consumer Reigns: Using Section 2 to Ensure a ‘Competitive Kingdom’”, Opening Session, Hearings on Section 2 of the Sherman Act Sponsored by the Federal Trade Commission and the Antitrust Division, U.S. Department of Justice, at 10, 12 (2006) (“[A]ny legal framework needs to avoid second-guessing business judgments that were objectively reasonable at the time that they were made,” and courts and agencies must “tak[e]care to ensure not to chill procompetitive behavior.”).
[3] See, e.g., Queen City Pizza, Inc. v. Domino's Pizza, Inc., 129 F.3d 724 (3d Cir. 1997) (rejecting market of “pizza ingredients and supplies used by Domino's pizza stores”).
[4] See http://content.sierraclub.org/naturalgas/(describing efforts to end natural gas production and liquefied natural gas exports).
Sandra E. Safro
David L. Wochner
Find more items tagged as: Antitrust, Competition, and Trade Regulation, Energy, Environment, Land, and Natural Resources, Oil and Gas, Power
Australian Productivity Commission Releases Final Report into Regulation of the Resources Sector
The Service's CO-Balancing Act: Final Carbon Capture Credit Regulations Target Broad Taxpayer Implementation and Administrability
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New UAE VAT and Tax Procedures Laws
Corporate/M&A Alert
By: Zaid Abu-Shattal, William M. Reichert, Adela M. Mues, Mona B. Lemp
As of 1 January 2018, value added tax (“VAT”) at the rate of 5% will be applied on a wide range of goods and services in the United Arab Emirates (“UAE”). This follows from the Gulf Cooperation Council’s (“GCC”) entry into a GCC VAT treaty (the “GCC VAT Treaty”) earlier this year, the UAE’s publication of Federal Law No. 7 of 2017 on Tax Procedures (the “UAE Tax Procedures Law”) in July and Federal Decree-Law No. 8 of 2017 on VAT (the “UAE VAT Law”) in August. These developments are part of the GCC’s initiative to introduce new sources of revenue for its member states.
The UAE VAT Law sets out the principles for the application of VAT, however it leaves much of the detail to the as yet unpublished Executive Regulations of the UAE VAT Law (the “Executive Regulations”). The Executive Regulations are expected to be issued in the near future by the Ministry of Finance. Further clarification may also be set out in executive regulations to be issued pursuant to the UAE Tax Procedures Law.
VAT FAQs
VAT is a tax imposed on the “value” of the supply or import of various goods and services; it is not levied on profit or income. It is seen as a “neutral” or “indirect tax” as businesses essentially collect tax for the government and it is the end consumer who ultimately bears the financial burden of VAT.
VAT is imposed at each stage of a supply chain. A simplified example would be the case of a manufacturer who pays 5% VAT on raw materials. That manufacturer then assembles a product for sale to its customer, a household consumer. The customer will pay a purchase price that includes the manufacturer’s cost (cost of the raw materials, assembly cost and manufacturer’s profit margin) and 5% VAT. The manufacturer collects VAT from the customer for remittance to the government, but can recover the VAT it pays for the purchase of raw materials by offsetting the VAT paid for raw materials against the VAT received from the customer.
The UAE VAT Law describes the nature of supplies and imports that are subject to VAT, as well as the calculation of the taxable value of such supplies and imports.
What will be the VAT tax rate imposed in the UAE?
The UAE VAT law provides for a uniform VAT tax rate of 5%. This is in line with the tax rate adopted in the GCC VAT Treaty.
Will there be exceptions?
Yes, the supply of some goods and services will be ‘exempt’ or ‘zero-rated’, meaning that no VAT will be charged. The main difference between an exempt and zero-rated supply is that: (i) businesses making exempt supplies are not able to recover any VAT that they pay on the goods and services related to such exempt supplies (“input expenses”); whereas (ii) businesses making zero-rated supplies are able to recover VAT paid in relation to input expenses, if applicable.
Examples of some exempt and zero-rated goods and services referred to in the UAE VAT Law are included below:
exempt supplies - the supply of certain financial services (to be specified in the Executive Regulations), residential buildings through sale or lease (unless they are zero-rated), bare land and local passenger transportation; and
zero-rated - direct or indirect exports to countries outside of the GCC, transportation of goods and persons by land, air or sea, supply or import of investment-grade precious metals, the initial sale of a newly built residential building within three years of its completion, the initial sale of buildings specifically designed for use by charities and of buildings converted from non-residential to residential use, the supply of crude oil and natural gas, the supply of educational services by institutions that are government owned or funded and the supply of preventive and basic healthcare services.
Will VAT apply in the UAE’s free zones?
It is unclear how the UAE will treat supplies made in free zones. The UAE VAT Law introduces the concept of “Designated Zones” and defines a Designated Zone as any area designated as such by a UAE Cabinet decision (at the recommendation of the UAE Minister of Finance). It remains to be seen whether the Executive Regulations will clarify whether some or all free zones will be Designated Zones, or whether the UAE Cabinet will issue separate decisions in this respect.
Designated Zones will be treated as being outside of the UAE for VAT purposes. The UAE VAT Law states that goods may be transferred from one Designated Zone to another without any VAT becoming payable. The Executive Regulations will set out the conditions under which business conducted within a Designated Zone will be considered as being conducted within the UAE for VAT purposes. The Executive Regulations are expected to set out the procedures and conditions for the transfer of goods to and from a Designated Zone, as well as the required method for keeping, storing and processing such goods in Designated Zones.
What businesses will be affected?
Pursuant to the GCC VAT Treaty and the UAE VAT Law, VAT will be collected by a “Taxable Person”, which includes individuals, companies and partnerships conducting “Business” and supplying taxable goods or services. Taxable Persons are responsible for registering with the UAE’s Federal Tax Authority (“FTA”), charging, collecting and paying VAT to the FTA and for all VAT-related record keeping and filing.
The UAE VAT Law defines “Business” broadly to include any on-going and regular commercial, industrial, agricultural and professional activities or services, as well as excavation activities or any activities related to the use of tangible or intangible property.
What are the penalties for non-compliance?
The UAE VAT Law provides that tax evasion is subject to the penalties set out in the UAE Tax Procedures Law. Amongst other consequences, the UAE Tax Procedures Law provides for the imposition of a prison sentence and/or a monetary penalty not exceeding five times the amount of the evaded tax. This is in addition to any other penalties applicable under any other law.
When is the UAE VAT Law coming into effect?
The UAE VAT Law will come into effect as of 1 January 2018.
How should businesses prepare for VAT implementation?
Businesses, as well as certain governmental entities to be determined by a UAE Cabinet decision, that are Taxable Persons will be expected to register with the FTA and obtain a tax registration number. The system for these registrations is expected to be available within the next month.
The GCC VAT Treaty sets out the following registration thresholds for businesses in the GCC:
mandatory registration - businesses with annual supplies in a GCC country exceeding or expecting to exceed AED 375,000 (or c. US$ 100,000) are required to register with the relevant state’s tax authority (i.e. the FTA); and
voluntary registration - businesses with annual supplies in a GCC country exceeding or expecting to exceed AED 187,500 (or c. US$ 50,000) may, but are not obliged to, register with a tax authority.
The UAE VAT Law states that the mandatory and voluntary registration thresholds applicable in the UAE will be set out in the Executive Regulations.
To register for VAT, the above thresholds must: (i) have been exceeded in the past 12 months; or (ii) be expected to be exceeded in the next 30 days. The UAE VAT Law further provides that voluntary registration is permitted in cases where a Taxable Person’s expenses exceed the voluntary registration threshold. This should benefit start-ups whose expenditures may initially exceed taxable supplies. The main advantage of voluntary VAT registration is likely to be that it will allow registered businesses to apply for tax refunds or offset VAT on input expenses.
Administrative processes
As noted above, the UAE Tax Procedures Law and UAE VAT Law refer to executive regulations which have yet to be published, but which should provide further detail on various issues including registration with the FTA, Arabic language requirements for VAT invoices and records, and the appointment by businesses of legal representatives to serve as contact points with the FTA.
VAT-related record keeping
The UAE VAT Law requires Taxable Persons to keep certain records including, by way of example, records of all supplies and imports of goods and services, all tax invoices and other documents related to receiving goods or services, all tax credit notes and all records of any goods or services that have been exported. Businesses should take steps to put in place adequate document collection and record keeping systems by 1 January 2018.
Review of contracts and record retention
Businesses should review existing contracts and arrangements with both suppliers and customers for clarity as to whether costs are currently inclusive or exclusive of VAT. New contractual terms may be needed to prevent businesses from incurring VAT-related losses. General terms and conditions and standard contracts should also be amended accordingly.
The UAE VAT Law sets out a list of the categories of records that must be kept. The GCC VAT Treaty refers to a record retention period of not less than five years, while the required retention period in the UAE will be set out in the Executive Regulations. It remains to be seen whether the record retention period under the UAE VAT regime will match or exceed the period set out in the GCC VAT Treaty.
Intra-group supplies
Issues such as tax grouping and tax liabilities of corporate groups will also need to be examined. The UAE VAT Law allows two or more related businesses to apply to the FTA for registration as a “tax group” provided that they meet certain conditions, such as being related parties and being each legally established or having a fixed place of business in the UAE. A “tax group” will be treated as a single Taxable Person. This means that intra-group transactions will not be subject to VAT.
UAE businesses should familiarise themselves with the new VAT regime immediately and start putting in place appropriate systems and controls to ensure that they are fully compliant with the UAE VAT Law by 1 January 2018. Publication of the Executive Regulations will help guide this process and allow businesses to manage the impact of VAT on their operations.
Zaid Abu-Shattal
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Oklahoma City Street Supervisor Mike DeGiacomo dies
DeGiacomo passes away after cancer fight
Updated: 10:40 AM CDT Oct 1, 2012
Mike DeGiacomo, city street supervisor and the face of the city of Oklahoma City during the 2009 Christmas Eve and February 2011 blizzards, has died.Representatives of the city of Oklahoma City say DeGiacomo, 62, died of stomach cancer, which was discovered after he passed out while doing yard work. Doctors removed a tumor, his spleen and most of his intestines on Sept. 17.DeGiacomo was in the hospital for two weeks and was talking Sunday about returning to work. His kidneys began to fail in the evening Sunday, and he died about 10 p.m., according to officials.“The city family is saddened by Mike’s passing,” City Manager Jim Couch said in a news release. “He was a well-liked, smart, innovative professional who was dedicated to improving the quality of city streets for residents in Oklahoma City.”DeGiacomo worked for the city for 27 years, serving in the personnel department, animal welfare and most recently as the streets superintendent in Public Works. He worked for the state of Oklahoma from 2000-2003. Funeral arrangements will be announced later.Crime footer
Mike DeGiacomo, city street supervisor and the face of the city of Oklahoma City during the 2009 Christmas Eve and February 2011 blizzards, has died.
Representatives of the city of Oklahoma City say DeGiacomo, 62, died of stomach cancer, which was discovered after he passed out while doing yard work. Doctors removed a tumor, his spleen and most of his intestines on Sept. 17.
DeGiacomo was in the hospital for two weeks and was talking Sunday about returning to work. His kidneys began to fail in the evening Sunday, and he died about 10 p.m., according to officials.
“The city family is saddened by Mike’s passing,” City Manager Jim Couch said in a news release. “He was a well-liked, smart, innovative professional who was dedicated to improving the quality of city streets for residents in Oklahoma City.”
DeGiacomo worked for the city for 27 years, serving in the personnel department, animal welfare and most recently as the streets superintendent in Public Works. He worked for the state of Oklahoma from 2000-2003. Funeral arrangements will be announced later.
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Entertainment › Cine News › Shankar reveals Vikram's 'I' budget
Shankar reveals Vikram's 'I' budget
Shankar makes his films with huge budgets and most of his movies have been considered as the highest budget flicks of its time.
Be it his Mudhalvan or Endhiran, the money-spent on the productions had made other film industries to turn around and look at Tamil film industry in surprise. There were reports that his latest film I is also falling into the same category as it is set to become a biggest-ever film made in India and budget is rumoured to be 185 crore.
Trashing media reports, deviating from the statement made by actor Vikram some time back (See 'Earlier' Section) about the production cost of his upcoming Shankar-directed Tamil-Telugu bilingual I, Shankar has stated categorically that the film’s budget is less than Rs.100 crores.
Vikram and Amy Jackson pair together for the second time after A.L. Vijay’s Thandavam as on-screen pair for Shankar’s I. Vikram-Shankar combine has already tasted tremendous with Anniyan which released some years back. As such, industry-watchers feel that their combination is sure to rock for another time as Shankar is also due for a super-duper hit after Rajini’s Enthiran: The Robot which released in 2010.
Vikram had stated in a recent interview that the budget was well over Rs.150 crores. This set tongues wagging as many wondered whether Vikram’s stardom at this juncture deserved such a huge investment.
Writing in his blog-site, Shankar has said “The budget of I would be less than Rs.100 crores and we have already shot in China, Bangkok, Kodaikkanal and Jodhpur besides in Chennai. Two-thirds of the film’s shoot including 4 songs and 3 stunt sequences have been shot so far. We are also assisted by a technical team, which worked in Hollywood projects such as Avatar and Lord of The Rings.
“It’s also far from the truth saying that we didn’t shoot in China and erected a China-like set in Kodaikkanal. We shot wherever we wanted to in China and were give fullest cooperation by the Chinese government in this regard,” wrote Shankar.
Clarifying on it, the director said that he generally returns most of the equipments used for the filmmaking and this brings down the production cost drastically.
I is into the post production stages and will hit the marquee next month, it is expected. The film stars Vikram and Amy Jackson as the lead pair, with AR Rahman composing the tunes.
In an interview to a Delhi-based daily, Vikram has said that the movie is made with the budget of Rs more than 150 cr, which is the highest ever budget movie in Indian film industry. However, doubts are being raised by a section of traders on the budget, as I is neither a sci-fi nor a graphical extravaganza.
Adding to that the lead stars of I are less popular than of Endhiran, which featured Rajini and Aish. The expensive part of the movie is the rich visuals captured on camera in some of the popular destinations in the world.
An industry insider claims that the producer would find it very difficult to recover the investment if the said budget is true. Nonetheless, some of the well-known technicians from Hollywood are working in the project.
Amy Jackson I Shankar Vikram
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As Formal Distance Learning Begins, One San Diego Unified Student Finds His Rhythm
By Joe Hong
Photo by KPBS Staff
Above: Frank Granda in a video conference interview in April 2020.
Frank Granda, a junior at Serra High School in the San Diego Unified School District, had spent the past few weeks adjusting to the new realities of distance learning in the coronavirus era.
So this week, with the official launch of the district’s online learning program, he felt ready to go. On Monday, Granda met with his photography class on Google Hangouts. On Tuesday, he had Zoom meetings with teachers.
“I just got a huge chunk, a week’s worth of work, and I have to do this in one day,” Granda said in an interview Monday afternoon.
Before the physical school sites closed, Granda, who is high functioning on the autism spectrum, was placed in smaller classes and received extra help from his teachers. He says the transition to distance learning was tricky at first, but now he’s gotten the hang of it.
RELATED: San Diego Unified School District Gears Up For Formal Online Instruction
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Reported by Joe Hong , Video by Andi Dukleth
“I would actually consider it an improvement because normally I have to be with 30 other students who also need support and help,” he said. “But now it's just me. I can mostly be free to finally get the support I need to get my grades up.”
Granda’s experiences are more the exception than the rule, experts say. For many students with disabilities, distance learning has been a poor substitute, in-person classes. They no longer have access to services like speech and occupational therapy and the online platforms don’t meet their needs.
“It’s really no one’s fault. These are kids that just require more support,” said Chris Brum, an education professor at San Diego State University. “Everyone’s trying to do the best they can. That’s why these kids are in specialized settings.”
RELATED: School Closures Leaving Special Ed Students In Limbo
Granda is being provided with two hours a week on Zoom with teachers and aides. He says the most challenging part is not having immediate, face-to-face help. He’s had to adapt to having to wait hours for teachers to respond to his messages.
“It’s a bit challenging,” he said. “The only complaint is that I have to wait until Tuesdays and Thursdays at a certain time to get the support I need.”
Although Granda has found a rhythm, he says he misses being on campus. In fact, he’s learned to appreciate school even more.
“One day I’m going to tell my kids — look little Jimmy, you’re lucky you get to go to school," he said. "When I was your age we didn’t get to go to school. We were stuck at home looking at our computers getting strained eyes and headaches!”
Listen to this story by Joe Hong.
Joe Hong
As an education reporter, I'm always looking for stories about learning. My favorite education stories put a student's face on bigger policy issues. I regularly sift through enrollment data, test scores and school budgets, but telling student-centered stories is my top priority.
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San Diego Unified Delays In-Person Learning Due To COVID-19 Surge
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Chy Squicciarini
Ernest Cline’s Armada: A Pop Culture Stuffed Sci-Fi Novel
For sci-fi fans who had the pleasure of reading Ready Player One by author Ernest Cline, Armada is definitely a novel you want to get your hands on. It’s a fast thrill ride filled with heavy nostalgia. It’s a must-read for anyone brought up in the pop culture world of the 80s and 90s.
Upon picking up this book I thought to myself, “Well if Ernest wrote a book as good as Ready Player One then surely this will be amazing”. I have to be honest here, the first two chapters were rather underwhelming for me. But, I forced myself to keep on reading and was pleasantly surprised at how quickly I became invested in the characters.
Armada starts off with protagonist Zach Lightman, a lonely teenager who lost his father at a young age. He turns to video games as a source of comfort. Because his late father enjoyed gaming so much, it helps Zach feel more connected to the man he misses so much. Zach is good, better than good. He is at the top of this game and quickly snags one of the highest scores in Armada. When the game surprisingly turns out to be real, he realizes he is actually fighting for his own life and everyone else on earth. This is when readers really start to root for him.
The most exciting part of the book is the significant amount of pop culture references and easter eggs that Cline likes to use in his writing. If you are nostalgia heavy then this is right up your alley. From Star Wars and Power Rangers, to Van Halen and Queen, reading Armada and searching for easter eggs is like playing your own analogue game. This just adds another element of fun to the act of just simply reading a book. I mean, you’ve got to get a notebook just to make extensive lists of all the pop culture references you’ve found, and if you miss one you go back to find it!
After finishing Armada, I wondered about what an adaptation on the big screen would even look like. In my ChyFi opinion, Ready Player One is easily one of the best sci-fi novels of all time for...solid reasons. When the big news that incomparable Steven Spielberg (E.T, Jurassic Park, Jaws) was set to direct the film, die-hard fans were more than excited. However, besides the great cinematic effects and soundtrack - the story was warped and felt empty, which left myself and other Cline fans upset. How could they change the story around so much or try to fit the entire extensively detailed narrative into one film? Of course we would notice! Because of this, I am a little bit skeptical that if Armada does move ahead with a film adaptation there’s a probable chance of being disappointed again. We haven't heard any news of a film since 2018.
Image courtesy of Ernest Cline
All in all Armada is a great book. It’s an amazing adventure that I think everyone who has a passion for reading sci-fi needs to go on. I’m hoping that the self-proclaimed nerd himself, Ernest Cline, will get back on his game and give us a sequel or even a trilogy. Is it too much to ask for more Ready Player One books too? It’s what the fanboys and girls want!
You can find these two books at Armada by Ernest Cline and Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.
Jeremy Bulloch, Original Star Wars Boba Fett Actor Dies at 75. Mandalore Mourns.
Obi-Wan Series Theory: "I sense something. A presence I've not felt since..." Last Tuesday?
Raised by Wolves - Leader of the pack? Or just howling at the moon?
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UK ratchets up criticism of China over Uighurs, Hong Kong
FILE – In this Wednesday April 22, 2020 file photo, Britain’s Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab leaves 10 Downing Street, London. Britain’s foreign secretary hinted Sunday, July 19 he may move to suspend the U.K.’s extradition arrangements with Hong Kong, and accused Beijing of “gross and egregious” human rights abuses against its Uighur population in China’s western province of Xinjiang. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein, file)
LONDON (AP) — Britain and China issued new salvos of criticism against each other Sunday, with the U.K. foreign secretary hinting that he may suspend the U.K.’s extradition arrangements with Hong Kong over China’s moves against the city-state.
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab also accused Beijing of “gross and egregious” human rights abuses against its Uighur population in China’s western province of Xinjiang.
In response, the Chinese ambassador to Britain warned that China will deliver a “resolute response” to any move by Britain to sanction officials over the alleged rights abuses.
The comments were the latest signs of sharply increased tensions between the U.K. and China. Issues include China’s treatment of its Uighur minority and a new, sweeping national security law that China imposed on Hong Kong, a semi-autonomous territory that Britain handed over to China in 1997.
Britain’s recent decision to prohibit Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei from being involved in the U.K.’s superfast 5G mobile network has further frayed bilateral relations.
Raab said Sunday that Britain’s government has reviewed its extradition arrangements with Hong Kong and that he plans to make a statement Monday in parliament on the topic.
Earlier this month, Australia suspended its extradition treaty with Hong Kong in response to China’s imposition of security legislation on the semi-autonomous territory. Critics see the new law as a further erosion of the rule of law and freedoms that Hong Kong was promised when it reverted to Chinese rule.
Raab added that while Britain wants good relations with China, it could not stand by amid reports of forced sterilization and mass education camps targeting the Uighur population in Xinjiang.
“It is clear that there are gross, egregious human rights abuses going on. We are working with our international partners on this. It is deeply, deeply troubling,” he told the BBC.
Liu Xiaoming, the Chinese ambassador, denied there were concentration camps in Xinjiang during an interview with the BBC and insisted there are “no so-called restriction of the population.” When confronted with drone footage that appeared to show Uighurs being blindfolded and led onto trains, Liu claimed there are many “fake accusations” against China.
Beijing was ready to respond in kind should Britain impose sanctions on Chinese officials, Liu added.
“If the U.K. goes that far to impose sanctions on any individuals in China, China will certainly make a resolute response to it,” he said. “You have seen what happened between China (and) the United States … I do not want to see this tit-for-tat between China-U.S. happen in China-U.K. relations.”
Liu also said Britain “should have its own independent foreign policy, rather than dance to the tune of the Americans like what happened to Huawei.”
The criticism echoed comments this week by a Chinese government spokeswoman who accused Britain of colluding with Washington to hurt Huawei and “discriminate, suppress and exclude Chinese companies.”
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Kyle Dine PRIVACY POLICY
Kyle Dine (the “Company”) is committed to protecting the privacy of its users. This Privacy Policy (“Privacy Policy”) is designed to help you understand what information we gather, how we use it, what we do to protect it, and to assist you in making informed decisions when using our Service. Unless otherwise indicated below, this Privacy Policy applies to any website that references this Privacy Policy, any Company website, as well as any data the Company may collect across partnered and unaffiliated sites.
For purposes of this Agreement, “Service” refers to the Company’s service which can be accessed via our website at www.kyledine.com or through our mobile application. The terms “we,” “us,” and “our” refer to the Company. “You” refers to you, as a user of Service.
If you have any questions regarding this Privacy Policy or the practices of this Site, or wish to withdraw your consent for the continued collection, use or disclosure of your Personal Information, please contact us by sending an email to kyledine@gmail.com.
Last Updated: This Privacy Policy was last updated on Thu May 24 2018.
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Water Contamination Lawsuits
Alarmingly, water contamination is increasing, causing harm to thousands and thousands of people and the environment. Environmental laws are in place to protect us and environmental law policy prohibits the dumping of toxic waste or other hazardous materials in our lakes, rivers, streams, and public land. But new chemicals used in fracking by natural gas companies, for example, can impede regulation and pollute drinking water. As a result, individuals and communities often seek help from an environmental law firm. Besides fracking and illegal dumping, other practices such as construction using toxic lead pipes and industries using underground storage tanks can cause water pollution.
FREE WATER CONTAMINATION LAWSUIT EVALUATION
Send your Water Contamination claim to a lawyer who will review your claim at NO COST or obligation.
Water Contamination Practices
Despite the Clean Water Act (1972) and other environmental laws and regulations to reduce water pollution and safeguard US waterways, water contamination is a major concern. The Environmental News Service reported a decade ago that over 60 percent of industrial and municipal facilities discharged more pollution into waterways than federal law allowed between July 2003 and December 2004.
Along with contaminants from industrial practices such as mining and underground storage tanks, groundwater - used as drinking water by more than half of the US population, and a major source for crop irrigation - is polluted through fertilizers, pesticides, untreated septic waste and more.
Well water can be polluted from contaminants used at various sites such as oil refineries, gas stations, dry cleaning stores, machine shops, railroad yards, farms, land fills, chemical plants/waste storage facilities, lumber yards, or incinerators. For instance, nitrate contamination often occurs in rural areas that rely heavily on well water. To compound the well water problem, toxic chemicals may have increased contamination by leaching into the ground water.
Types and Sources of Drinking Water and Ground Water Contamination
There are numerous types of drinking water contaminants, however, these are the more prevalent types:
Other types of Drinking Water Contamination include petroleum, gasoline, oil, MTBE, TCE, PCE, phenols, various volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and other chemicals.
Agricultural Sources
Drinking water can be contaminated by agricultural runoffs, such as fertilizers and pesticides, fecal matter, and bacteria. Exposure to water contaminated with bacteria or pesticide can be life-threatening, depending on the levels and duration of the exposure.
A water study in 2012 found that run off polluted by nitrate from agriculture practices like fertilizers were endangering the water supply of 1 in 10 people living in the study area in rural California. Nitrate contamination is caused by over-application of fertilizer to crops and from huge amounts of manure generated by concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, where large numbers of poultry, swine, cattle or other animals are housed and raised in confined areas.
Industrial Sources
Industrial sources can contaminate drinking water supplies through wastewater discharges and stormwater runoff. The chemicals used in industrial applications vary greatly, and new chemicals are constantly invented, particularly for fracking operations by the oil and gas industry.
Contaminated Water Health Risks
Water contamination research has proven that people exposed long-term to high levels of water contaminates like benzene, lead, nitrates, and a wide range of other chemicals have become ill due to that exposure. Some chemicals such as benzene, which is carcinogenic and linked to leukemia, are deadly.
Drinking contaminated water can result in a number of serious health risks. For instance, if the water is contaminated with solvents, pesticides and other chemicals, the health effects can include damage to the liver, kidneys, and reproductive system, and many chemicals are carcinogenic.
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) lists some common but dangerous substances found in ground water and well water, including rocket fuel, lead, germs and disease-carrying parasites, arsenic, coliform, and other harmful contaminants.
Nitrate contamination symptoms include shortness of breath and methemoglobinemia, or "blue baby syndrome,"a potentially fatal blood disorder. Other illnesses and conditions that have been linked to high levels of nitrates in drinking water include:
Gastrointestinal illnesses, including cancer
Thyroid disorders, including cancer
Environmental Laws, Acts and Regulations—Federal and State
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) identifies contaminants to regulate in drinking water. The EPA sets regulatory limits for the amounts of certain contaminants in water provided by public water systems and these standards are required by the Safe Drinking Water Act. The Clean Water Act is the federal Act responsible for the quality of water and any matter relating to pollution.
State Law is typically the basis of water contamination liability, and is effective when the water pollution can be made with scientific certainty and traced to a particular party. One of the most important elements of all environmental claims based on state law is causation. For instance, a community trying to prove that their toxic well water has increased the likelihood that they will get cancer may have a difficult time proving a definite link between a defendant's actions and a health issue that developed years later.
Federal Law makes it easier than state law to file a contaminated water lawsuit against polluters. The federal Clean Water Act (CWA) and the Superfund law set specific water standards and permit requirements and force polluters to clean up contamination or reimburse others for cleanup. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) can go directly after companies that violate the law directly. The EPA can also assist in a private water pollution lawsuit by continuing the investigation with federal resources.
The CWA allows anyone who is or may be affected by water contamination to bring a citizen suit in federal court. You can bring a lawsuit against an individual or corporation that is violating the law and request an order to stop further contaminating practices. You can also request civil penalties, court costs, and lawyers' fees.
Because corporations typically don't want to settle in court - a settlement might set a precedent that would endanger their future business - an experienced water contamination law firm can help you and your community demand compensation and cleanup of contaminants.
Fracking lawsuits claiming groundwater contamination have been filed nationwide, with a number in California. As a result, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has undertaken studies and analyses of the possible effects of hydraulic fracturing on drinking water resources.
People living near fracturing operations have filed water contamination lawsuits due to changes in their water quality following fracking of nearby gas wells. Oil and gas deposits are often found in the same spot as underground water supplies. Water contamination can occur underground through the injection of chemicals directly into water supplies during fracking. When the collected chemicals are stored deep underground, they may eventually reach the water supply. Or in the case of Porter Ranch, CA, the underground storage tank can leak. Surface contamination can occur through spilled or stored chemicals that are carried to water pathways through storm runoff. As well, due to mass quantities of water being used by the hydraulic fracturing process, water quality and availability, and sensitive ecosystems can be affected.
Some recent water contamination lawsuits include:
Porter Ranch Methane Gas Leak Since one of 115 natural gas wells owned by SoCal Gas at Porter Ranch began leaking methane gas on October 23, there have been conflicting reports and rumors about a number of concerns, from public safety and health issues to environmental damage. Attorney Patricia Oliver has heard from concerned residents that underground methane leaks will affect the groundwater. Her law firm has asked for an investigation because of this concern.
Lead Contamination in Michigan Drinking Water Lead contamination in Flint, MI has resulted in February 2016 in a criminal investigation involving the FBI, federal prosecutors, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Inspector General and the EPA's Criminal Investigation Division. The lead crisis in Flint is believed to affect as many as 8,000 children under the age of six, who were exposed to unsafe levels of lead as a result of a budget-cutting measure that involved switching the city' drinking water sources.
Some 18 cities in Pennsylvania were found to have even higher lead levels than Flint, according to a 2014 study by the Pennsylvania Department of Health.
Lead in Drinking Water Lawsuit against the City of Chicago Chicago residents in February 2016 filed a class-action lawsuit in Cook County Circuit court against the city, alleging that their drinking water has been contaminated with lead for years. The lawsuit refers to a 2013 EPA study that found elevated lead in homes' drinking water after city construction disrupted lead service lines and they failed to warn residents about the risk, as reported by the Chicago Tribune. Instead of replacing the city's lead pipes, officials opted to use chemicals to flush out the lead.
Roxana Property Owners' Benzene Contamination Lawsuit Against Oil Refinery Owners Property owners in the Village of Roxana, Illinois filed a benzene water contamination lawsuit last in 2012 against Shell Oil Company, ConocoPhillips and WRB Refining LP, seeking to hold the former and current owners and operators of the Wood River Refinery responsible for releasing carcinogenic chemicals underneath portions of the village (Case No. 12-cv-336-GPM). The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois rejected Shell' immediate efforts to dismiss the case and in 2013 certified a class of property owners to pursue these claims.
Camp Lejeune and VA Water Contamination
Camp Lejeune in North Carolina was inhabited by US service personnel and their families beginning in 1953. Various ailments and examples of ill health have been traced to nearby tanks that stored industrial solvents such as perchloroethylene, trichloroethylene, vinyl chloride and benzene, suspected of leaking from the tanks into the camp water supply.
The contamination was discovered in 1982, with Camp Lejeune given the designation of a Superfund site by the US Environmental Protection Agency in 1989. However, it wasn't until 2012 - 30 years after the contamination was first discovered - when legislation was finally passed with a view to bringing benefits to an estimated 750,000 Americans who may have been exposed to the contamination.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) reported that the widespread use and storage of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) led to the release of these chemicals - specifically trichloroethylene (TCE) and tetrachloroethylene (perchloroethylene, PCE - into the environment, including the groundwater. However, according to the Tampa Bay Times (December 5, 2015), a veteran diagnosed with sarcoma attempted to obtain benefits but he was denied because he did not have a "malignancy."
Water Contamination Legal Help
If you think your water is contaminated due to the negligence of another, you may want to seek legal help to file a water contamination lawsuit against the responsible parties to help with medical expenses and lost income. Call your doctor and drink bottled or distilled water until the issue has been investigated. It is important that you report suspected water contamination to your local Environmental Government agency. As well, it may be a good idea contact the EPA - you might be able to help others in a similar situation.
Please click here for a free evaluation of your Water Contamination claim
Ohio Drinking Water Contaminated with Acid
Type 2 Diabetes Linked to Arsenic in Water
Shell Canada Proposes Heavy Oil Refinery Air and Water at Risk in Michigan
WATER CONTAMINATION LEGAL ARTICLES AND INTERVIEWS
Attorney Discusses RICO Lawsuit Involving Governor and Oil Companies: California’s “Water-Gate”
Bakersfield, CA Just when you think the water situation in California can’t get much worse, fracking in Kern County has resulted in contaminated water that has so far killed one plaintiff’s cherry orchard. A RICO lawsuit filed two days ago claims that Governor Jerry Brown’s office ordered the California Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR) to approve permits to inject contaminated water, which violates the Safe Drinking Water Act.
“The potential impact to our food supply and water supply is enormous,” says attorney Patricia Oliver.
Kern County Group Files RICO Lawsuit Against Governor and Oil Companies
Los Angeles (June 3, 2015) (Press Release) The Committee to Protect Agricultural Water, a citizen organization comprised of farmers and individuals concerned about California’s drinking water, filed a civil Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) complaint in Federal Court. The RICO Complaint alleges that Governor Jerry Brown’s office ordered the California Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources (“DOGGR”) to approve permits to inject contaminated water in violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act.
Fracking Linked to Adrenal Problems
Valley Grove, WV Five years ago Mollie and her husband purchased their dream home in the country. Chesapeake Energy a few years later started fracking nearby and their dream turned into a nightmare. Mollie believes her adrenal issues and other health problems are directly caused by hydraulic fracturing contamination.
MORE WATER CONTAMINATION LEGAL NEWS
New York State to Permanently Ban Hydraulic Fracturing in 2015
Study: People Who Live Near Fracking Sites More Likely to Report Health Problems
Fracking Lawsuit Based on Nuisance Dismissed
New Earthquake-Fracking Lawsuits?
Fracking—the Great Divide
READ MORE Environment Settlements and Legal News
Carol L Oliwa
The land which my house was built on has been in my family since the 1800's we never had a problem with our water supply until about 15 years ago when the Town of Ellington started putting Sodium Chloride on the roads in the winter. If did not take long for this Sodium Chloride to seep into the ground, find a stream and follow it down to my well. There are several cases like mine in Ellington CT I have contacted the state environmental dept. The town will give us free water but it is just tap water which has been run through a reverse osmosis filter. We have been buying water for 15 years from a natural spring company which delivers to the town of Ellington but they refuse to give us the same good spring water that they get at the Ellington Rec Dept and the Ellington Police Building. Since the town Contaminated our well I feel as though I should receive the same treatment the town receives.
Melissa M DeLazier
Too bad the FDA and CDC will not share this information, it would save so many lives. They continue, along with LEED, EPA continue to advance the narrative of medical equipment, ie, HCUs, scopes, faucets, etc, causing these infections, instead of informing hospitals and the public about the 100% direct cause, which is the tap water in these hospitals, which have all been modified to adhere to "green" standards. By doing so, they allow these infections and deaths of patients to continue. Legionellas, CRE "superbug", NTM, they are all caused by the same source, the tap water and modified plumbing systems in the hospitals. Simply change the plumbing back. Raise the temperatures, remove the low-flow fixtures. Hospitals that have done so have completely eliminated these events.
FOR THE SECOND TIME IN 35 YEARS Satellite Beach, FL is experiencing a Cancer Cluster and it turns out the ground water is contaminated with harmful chemicals.
I had a grapefruit sized tumor removed in 1989 that turned out benign.
In 2004 at age 51 I was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma Large B Cell diffuse Stage 2A ... since then I have had 4 relapses. 35 chemo treatments and a Stem Cell Transplant in 2015 at age 62 which has rendered me permentaly and totaly disabled.
I moved away last year for financial reasons and now I find out why i may have gotten the cancer with no family history.
Satellite Beach, FL is just south adjacent to Patrick Air Force Base
Abbe Bauer
Please contact me I'm being poisoned in my home from the water!!!
Octavia Andrews
Atlanta tx water was contaminated with Trihalomethanes (TTHM) violation type MCL LRAA in 2015 my brother along with two other gentlemen have passed away or dying of liver cancer in last 2 years i kmow of more cases of people with liver problems in same city they have papermill plant by main source of water international paper mill.lake wright patman.it was radioactive contaminanats as well.
Request Water Contamination Legal Help
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Education Law for Principals - Issue #1
The first of 3 issues devoted to current legal news for principals and other administrators.
Log-in to read your postscripts issue.
Transgender Students on Your Campus: What Are Their Rights?
What rights do transgender students have on campus? That is a question many school districts, school attorneys, parents, state legislatures, and courts have been asking lately.
This school’s efforts to promote healthy eating was a big hit on that campus to the administration, students, and of course, parents!
Kid President’s Message to Graduates
Education Law for Principals Conference Q&A Continued…
Our conference Q&A session was a big hit, but not all of the questions could be answered. Let’s take a look at a few. . .
4 NEW SCHOOL LAW COURT RULINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT
Teacher Testimony of Student’s Abuse Allowed
Ohio v. Clark, Dkt. No. 13-1352 (U.S. June 18, 2015).
This case involved the criminal conviction of an Ohio man for child abuse, based in part on a preschool teacher’s testimony concerning statements the child made to her.
Title VII Pregnancy Accommodations Clarified
Young v. United Parcel Service, Inc., Dkt. No. 12-1226 (U.S. March 25, 2015).
After a female UPS employee became pregnant, her doctor restricted her from lifting more than 20 pounds. Because UPS required its drivers to be able to lift 70 pounds, UPS told the woman that she could not work while she was pregnant.
Abercrombie & Fitch Religious Accommodation Suit
EEOC v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores, Dkt. No. 14-86 (U.S. June 1, 2015).
Abercrombie & Fitch refused to hire a Muslim woman because her headscarf violated the store’s dress policy.
Teacher Allowed To Proceed With Discrimination Suit
Jackson v. Frisco ISD, Dkt. No. 14-40371, __ F.3d __, 2015 WL 3687803 (5th Cir. June 15, 2015).
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals is allowing a former Frisco ISD teacher/coach to pursue race discrimination and retaliation claims stemming from his nonrenewal.
Fall Special Ed Law Edition of Postscripts
Issues will be published in November, December, and January.
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Meeker Massacre in Colorado
Ute Indians by the Detroit Photographic Company
With the possible exception of the Ghost Dance outbreak of the Sioux in 1890, the Meeker Massacre was probably the most violent expression of Native American resentment toward the reservation system.
Occurring in September 1879, in what is now Rio Blanca County, Colorado, at the White River Agency, the Ute Indians were fed up with Nathan C. Meeker, the Indian Agent, and his brand of “management.”
The White River Agency was founded in 1873 for several bands of Ute Indians, who had agreed in a treaty to settle on a reservation there. Five years later Frederick Walker Pitkin, campaigning on a theme of “The Utes Must Go!”, was elected Governor of Colorado. Both Pitkin and other local politicians and settlers made exaggerated claims against the Ute tribe, as they wanted to gain the rich land occupied by them under a treaty made in 1867.
Nathan Meeker
The same year that Pitkin was made governor, Nathan C. Meeker, founder of the city of Greeley, Colorado, was appointed as Indian agent for the White River Agency. Meeker, who lacked experience with Native Americans, tried to extend policies of religious and farming reforms.
The Ute resisted Meeker’s undiplomatic and stubborn efforts to make them farm, raise stock, discontinue their pony racing and hunting forays, and send their children to school. They also resented the settler encroachment on their reservation and the poor management of the Indian Bureau.
When Meeker claimed he had been assaulted by a subchief during a petty quarrel, the government sent approximately 150-200 soldiers, led by Major Thomas T. Thornburgh, commander of Fort Steele, Wyoming, to settle the affair.
On September 29, 1879, before the soldiers arrived, the Indians attacked the agency, burned the buildings, and killed Meeker and ten of his employees. Meeker’s wife, daughter, and another girl were held as captives for 23 days.
In the meantime, the Ute attacked the approaching troops from Fort Steele in what is known as the Battle of Milk Creek, Colorado. In this skirmish, the Ute were defeated, ending the uprising.
An etching that appeared in the December 6, 1879 edition of Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper depicts the aftermath of the “Meeker Massacre.” Meeker grave at lower left; W.H. Post grave at lower right
The battle site is located on Colorado Highway 64, about three miles west of Meeker. It is indicated by a wooden marker on the south side of the highway but the battle actually took place in a privately owned meadow on the north side of the White River. A few traces of building foundations reveal the location of the Indian agency. A monument indicates the spot where Meeker died.
© Kathy Weiser-Alexander, updated September 2019.
Battle of Milk Creek
Colorado Indian Battles
Colorado Main Page
Indian War Timeline
Indian Wars, Battles & Massacres
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Littler Shareholders Maury Baskin and Michael Lotito Testify at NLRB Public Meeting
Nearly 50 speakers have or are slated to testify during the National Labor Relations Board’s 2-day public meeting on the proposed expedited or “ambush” election rule. The Board sought input on approximately 20 different issues stemming from the proposed rule, which would make significant changes to pre- and post- representation election process. Among the speakers were Littler Shareholders Michael Lotito and Maury Baskin, who testified specifically about the proposal’s expedited timing of the pre-election hearing; the requirement that an employer identify all potential bargaining unit issues in its statement of position or forever waive them; the types of matters that should be resolved at the pre-election hearing; and how the rules should address voter lists. A live stream of the public meeting – which is scheduled to run through 4:30 today – can be viewed here.
Speaking on behalf of the Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC), Maury Baskin on Thursday emphasized that the proposed rule represents “the most radical and sweeping proposed changes to the Board’s election case handling regulations in at least 50 years,” and called for the proposal’s withdrawal. With respect to the expedited timing of the pre-election hearing, which would occur within seven days following the filing of the election petition, Baskin asserted that this new standard is not only insufficient, but also “would be inconsistent with the federal definition of a ‘fair hearing’” used in other statutes, and conflicts with the Board’s own standard for unfair labor practice notice of hearings. Additionally, Baskin pointed out that the U.S. Department of Labor recently proposed to set their minimum notice of hearings to 14 days so that they would be consistent with other federal rules. “There is no reason for this Board to become a rogue agency that gives employers so little notice of pre-election hearings.” Baskin said that for most employers, particularly smaller ones that are not familiar with the NLRB and its processes, rules and procedures, seven days is simply “not enough time.”
As for the requirement that the employer’s written statement of position identify all unit issues before evidence is even heard at the pre-election hearing, Baskin said it was fundamentally unfair to lock employers into a position before they know what testimony will be offered. Employers simply cannot be sure what their position will be until they hear what evidence is presented, he testified.
Speaking on behalf of the International Franchise Association (IFA), Michael Lotito outlined the many problems inherent in the proposed rule’s requirement that questions of voter eligibility involving less than 20% of the bargaining unit be automatically deferred until after the election instead of addressed at the pre-election hearing, as is current policy.
Among other fundamental issues that must be resolved prior to the election is: who is the employer? Lotito explained that Former Acting General Counsel Lafe Solomon had issued a memorandum in 2012 suggesting that joint employment questions need to be answered before the election. The proposed rule, however, “is not clear on this point. Moreover, the Division of Advice is currently considering whether a joint employment relationship exists between a franchisor and a franchisee. . . the rule should make clear that issues about who is and who is not an employer must be litigated to conclusion before an election is scheduled.”
In a similar vein, Lotito said the final rule must make clear that determining the status of an individual as an employee eligible to vote in the election is an issue that needs to be firmly established prior to the election. Some employees, such as part-timers and those hired through a temporary agency, might ultimately be excluded from the unit. Similarly, employees with management duties could be considered statutory supervisors ineligible to vote. Under the new rule, Lotito said, these employees share a new community of interest – “legal limbo.”
”The ability to make an informed decision is the cornerstone of our election process,” Lotito testified. “How is the part-time employee supposed to find out if he wants to support a union if he doesn’t even know if the union will ultimately represent his interests?”
Other topics debated at the public meeting included whether electronic signatures should be permitted to satisfy the showing of interest; whether or how the rules should address “blocking charge” policy and the procedures used for placing a representation case in abeyance pending the outcome of unfair labor practice charges; whether non-parties should be served with Board filings; and whether or how post-election Board review procedures should be amended.
The extent to which the Board will take these public comments into consideration when crafting a final rule is uncertain. The formal comment period has closed, although comments responding to those already submitted are due on or before April 14, 2014. For employers, the wait for the final rule begins.
Legislative and Regulatory PracticeWorkplace Policy Institute
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Prudential regulation of banks in Nigeria
Banwo & Ighodalo
Nigeria May 1 2019
While some countries have separated their financial regulators along the lines of licensing, prudential regulation and consumer protection, in Nigeria all roles are primarily performed by the CBN. In February 2011, the CBN released its Supervisory Intervention Framework for the Nigerian Banking Sector (Supervisory Framework 2011), which was designed to complement the CBN's Prudential Guidelines for Deposit Money Banks in Nigeria 2010 (DMB Prudential Guidelines). It reflects the fact that CBN has adopted a risk-based supervisory approach.
The risk-based supervisory approach is a continuous process of updating risk assessments through on-site and off-site examinations of financial institutions to create an early warning system so the CBN can anticipate and deal with emerging issues. This approach results in the CBN producing a composite risk rating for financial institutions. Under the Supervisory Framework 2011, financial institutions will be awarded one of the following risk scores:
1: for institutions with low risk profiles;
2: for institutions with moderate risk profiles;
3: for institutions with above average risk profiles; and
4: for institutions with high risk profiles.
Prudential supervisory function
Pursuant to Section 13 of the BOFIA, the CBN has the power to establish and enforce capital ratios and prudential standards over all deposit-taking financial institutions operating in Nigeria. The CBN's website sets out all the prudential guidance notes currently in force. The DMB Prudential Guidelines comply significantly with the Basel II framework, but adjust certain sections of the framework to better reflect the distinctive features of the Nigerian economy.
The CBN mandates all banks licensed to carry out banking business in Nigeria to perform an annual internal capital adequacy assessment process and forward copies of their reports to the CBN no later than four months after the end of the year. Failure to comply with this obligation puts a bank at risk of having its banking licence revoked.
Furthermore, the CBN's Framework for the Regulation and Supervision of Domestic Systemically Important Banks 2014 (D-SIB Framework) mandates that banks classified as systemically important banks maintain a minimum capital ratio of 15 per cent and set aside an additional surcharge of 1 per cent of their respective minimum required capital adequacy ratio (CAR). Failure to maintain the CAR stipulated by the CBN constitutes a ground for the revocation of a bank's banking licence.
The NDIC
The NDIC also supports the CBN by implementing the CBN's banking policy. The NDIC, through its off-site surveillance, ensures compliance with the CBN's prudential standards and guidelines. Off-site surveillance is carried out by the NDIC's insurance and surveillance department. This consists of analysing the returns from licensed banks and other deposit-taking financial institution, on a periodic basis to ascertain their compliance with prudential regulations. The analysis culminates with a report on the condition and performance of the bank in question, with recommendations for corrective action in weak areas.
Consequences of a licensed deposit-taking financial institution's failure
Where the financial position of a DMB becomes precarious, the NDIC may, after consulting with the CBN, take over management of the bank in order to salvage the operations of the bank by the creation of a bridge bank. In this regard, the NDIC is empowered to, inter alia, take over the management of the failing bank until its financial position is substantially improved; acquire, manage and dispose of the failing bank's impaired assets either directly or through an asset management company; and incorporate a bridge bank to assume the deposits, assets and liabilities of the failing bank, as the NDIC may determine.
Where the restructuring of the bank proves unsuccessful, the NDIC Act establishes a legal regime for the winding up of a failed bank. Further details are set out in subsection iv.
ii Management of banksCorporate governance requirements for banks
The corporate governance requirements for banks in Nigeria are laid out in the 2014 CBN Code of Corporate Governance for Banks and Discount Houses (Code). The Code is designed to align and update corporate governance in the Nigerian banking industry with international best practices. Compliance with the Code is mandatory for all banks in Nigeria, and they are required to render returns on the status of compliance to the CBN at the end of every quarter.
In this regard, the Code provides that the size of the board of directors (board) of any bank shall be a minimum of five members and a maximum of 20 members; and the board of a bank is required to be composed of more non-executive directors than executive directors. Further to this and to ensure the continuous injection of fresh ideas, the Code stipulates that non-executive directors of banks shall serve for a maximum of three terms of four years each, while the tenure of the MD or CEO shall be subject to a maximum period of 10 years, which may be broken down into periods not exceeding five years at a time.
The Code emphasises the importance of risk governance as part of a bank's general corporate governance framework, and promotes the value of the board and several board committees with effective control functions. Specifically, the Code:
regulates equity holding in banks by investors;
discourages a government majority stake in banks by limiting the maximum holding of any government to 10 per cent;
encourages a whistle-blowing framework and the protection of stakeholders' rights; and
strengthens disclosure requirements and transparency in banks' annual reports.
Legal and regulatory duties of management of banks
In accordance with the Code, the management of banks in Nigeria are generally responsible for policy implementation, and the development of a sound system of risk management and internal control policies that must clearly define the roles and responsibilities of the board, its risk management committee, as well as the roles and responsibilities of management and internal audit function.
Bank holding company structure: decision-making over subsidiaries
The Nigerian bank holding company (HoldCo) subsidiary structure is based on the principle of corporate personality such that the subsidiary banks are different and distinct from their HoldCos. Accordingly, pursuant to the CBN Guidelines for Licensing and Regulation of Financial Holding Companies in Nigeria, 2014 (HoldCo Guidelines), no financial HoldCo shall arrogate for itself any of the powers or functions of the board of directors, or internal management responsibilities and obligations of any of its subsidiaries or associates of any such subsidiaries. In addition, no financial HoldCo shall interfere with the day-to-day activities of the subsidiaries; nor shall it be involved in the credit administration and approval process of its subsidiaries.
Restrictions on bonus payments
There are no regulations currently in place in Nigeria that restrict bonus payments to the management and employees of banking groups. However, it is noteworthy that the Code requires every bank to have a remuneration policy established by its board, and to disclose the policy to the shareholders in the bank's annual report. Under the Code, it is also expected that a committee of non-executive directors are responsible for determining the remuneration of executive directors.
The prudential standards relating to regulatory capital for Nigerian Banks are found in the DMB Prudential Guidelines, which are based on the standards of Basel II, and the CBN's Guidance Note on Regulatory Capital 2018 (Regulatory Capital Guidelines), modelled on Basel III.
Risk-weighted capital
Under the DMB Prudential Guidelines, a DMB with a national banking licence must maintain a minimum of 10 per cent of the total risk-weighted assets as capital funds on an ongoing basis. DMBs that have been authorised by the CBN to carry out banking activities outside Nigeria must maintain a higher CAR of 15 per cent.
The capital a DMB must maintain to achieve its CAR must be made up of Tier 1 and Tier 2 capital. Under Section 2 of the Regulatory Capital Guidelines, Tier 1 capital includes disclosed reserves and shareholder equity, which constitute issued and fully paid up ordinary shares or perpetual non-cumulative preference shares.
Under Section 3 of the Regulatory Capital Guidelines, Tier 2 capital is made up of two components: hybrid debt instruments and subordinated debt. Hybrid debt instruments feature characteristics of equity and debt.
The CBN has determined that hybrid instruments may be included in Tier 2 capital where they are able to support losses on an ongoing basis without triggering liquidation. To qualify as Tier 2 capital, hybrid instruments, inter alia:
must be unsecured, subordinated and fully paid up;
must be available to participate in losses without the bank being obliged to cease trading;
must not be redeemable at the initiative of the holder or without the prior consent of the CBN;
may carry an obligation to pay interest, but that obligation cannot permanently be reduced or waived;
should allow the obligation to pay interest to be deferred where the profitability of the bank would not support payment; and
where redeemable, must have an original maturity of at least 10 years, and must clearly specify that repayment is subject to authorisation by the CBN.
In calculating the amount of Tier 1 and Tier 2 capital that comprise a bank's capital base, net of all permitted deductions, the calculation is subject to certain limits. Fundamental Tier 2 capital can constitute, at most, 33.33 per cent of net Tier 1 capital. There is no limit on the inclusion of Tier 1 capital for the purpose of calculating regulatory capital.
Consolidated supervision
Neither the DMB Prudential Guidelines nor the Regulatory Capital Guidelines impose specific requirements for DMBs in Nigeria that form part of a group. The HoldCo Guidelines stipulate that a financial HoldCo must have at least two subsidiaries, and the conglomerate's focus must be in the financial services sector. The consolidated supervision approach for Nigerian banks is the solo-plus approach, complemented by a quantitative and qualitative assessment of the banking group to assess the potential impact of other members of the group on the operations of the supervised bank.
The CBN requires all banks operating in Nigeria to ensure that their level of cash flow is matched by expected receipts, so that banks always have enough cash to meet the requests of their depositors. This is to ensure that each bank's cash balance plus assets, when compared to the total liabilities owed by each bank, is high enough for the bank to meet its obligations as they fall due. The CBN sets out the minimum liquidity ratio benchmarks for the banking sector in its Monetary, Credit, Foreign, Trade and Exchange Policy Guidelines (MCFT Policy Guidelines).
The MCFT Policy Guidelines are a periodic publication of the CBN designed to provide guidance to financial institutions for the medium-term fiscal period, and to demonstrate the CBN's direction and policy objectives. The latest version of the MCFT Policy Guidelines covers the period from January 2018 to December 2019. Under the current guidelines, the CBN requires that banks maintain minimum liquidity ratios as follows: DMBs: 30 per cent; merchant banks: 20 per cent; and non-interest banks: 10 per cent.
Local regime divergence from Basel III
The Basel frameworks have been progressively implemented in Nigeria since January 2013. The Basel II and III Framework Guidelines list all areas of national discretion set out under the International Convergence of Capital Measurements and Capital Standards, although these deal mostly with the International Convergence of Capital Measurement and Capital Standards, June 2006 (Basel II Framework).
Key areas of divergence include the fact that under the Basel II and III Framework Guidelines, the CBN departs from Paragraph 49xii of the Basel II Framework by not permitting banks in Nigeria to employ short-term subordinated debt as a third tier of capital.
iv Recovery and resolutionResolution of failed banks in Nigeria
The NDIC is the main body responsible for the resolution of failed banks in Nigeria. The BOFIA also mandates the CBN to step in, when a bank is in crisis, in order to turn over management and control of such bank to the NDIC. The NDIC is empowered to provide financial and technical assistance to failing or distressed banks in the interest of depositors. Financial assistance can take the form of loans, guarantees for loans taken on by the bank or the acceptance of accommodation bills. Similarly, technical assistance may include taking over the management and control of the bank, changes in management or assistance in a merger with another viable institution.
In 2002, in collaboration with the CBN, the NDIC introduced the Contingency Planning Framework for Banking Systemic Crises to facilitate the prompt resolution of failing banks. The aim of the Framework is to reduce the incidence of systemic distress by improving the supervisory processes, providing transparent and objective thresholds for regulatory intervention, and promoting self-regulation among banks. Some of the mechanisms that the NDIC (in collaboration with the CBN) has adopted for the resolution of failed banks are open bank assistance (OBA), purchase and assumption (P&A) transactions and bridge banks.
The OBA
The NDIC may decide to offer a failing bank financial assistance if it meets certain requirements. Financial assistance in the form of OBA is made available to a failing bank without interrupting its operation as a going concern. The NDIC does this by offering a loan to the failing bank, guaranteeing a loan that the bank has taken on or accepting an accommodation bill. In addition to the conditions listed above, the bank must also meet the liquidity threshold prescribed by the NDIC.
P&A transactions
This is a resolution transaction in which a healthy bank purchases some or all the assets of a failed bank and assumes some or all its liabilities. If the whole bank is purchased, the acquirer may receive a government payment covering the difference between the market value of assets and liabilities. If only some deposits are assumed, the acquirer may be given the option of assuming any of the others, and take their pick of the failed bank's assets.
A bridge bank is a temporary bank established and operated by the NDIC to acquire the assets and assume the liabilities of a failed bank until a final resolution can be accomplished. In some instances, the bridge bank will retain the failed bank's licence, but it will operate under a different name in the same premises used by the failed bank. In other instances, the CBN may revoke the failed bank's licence and issue a new licence to the bridge bank. The bridge bank would permit continuity of banking services to all customers and fully protect the depositors and creditors of the failed bank.
Another form of bank resolution for failed banks is the acquisition of non-performing loans of failed banks by AMCON.
In accordance with BOFIA, in the event that a failed bank over which NDIC has assumed control cannot be rehabilitated, the NDIC may recommend to the CBN other resolution measures, which may include revocation of the failed bank's licence. Where the licence of a failed bank has been revoked, the NDIC may apply to the relevant court for a winding-up order in respect of the failed bank. Upon the court's order for winding up of the failed bank, the NDIC shall give notice by advertisement in national newspapers or other news media requiring all depositors with the failed bank to forward their claims to the NDIC. The NDIC, acting as liquidator of the failed bank, shall have power to realise the assets of the failed bank.
Bail-in powers
Currently there are no bail-in powers in the Nigerian banking industry, and we are not aware of any proposals for bail-in powers of banks or regulatory bodies.
Recent issues of convertible debt instruments by banks or their holding companies
A relatively recent case of a debt-equity convertible debt instrument within the banking industry in Nigeria is the Ecobank group convertible bond issue. Ecobank Nigeria is a subsidiary of Ecobank Transactional Incorporation (ETI), and in 2017 ETI announced the raising of US$400 million in convertible bonds from its existing shareholders. The convertible bond issue, with a five year maturity, has a coupon rate of 6.46 per cent above three months LIBOR with an option to convert at an exercise price of six US cents during the conversion period. ETI explained that upon the occurrence of a change of control, the debt will be convertible at the option of the holder of the debt into ETI ordinary shares at an exercise price of six US cents during conversion period of 19 October 2019 to 13 October 2022 in accordance with the terms of the convertible debt. The debt will be redeemed at 110 per cent of the principal amount if the conversion option is not exercised.
Banwo & Ighodalo - Basirat Raheem-Muhammed, Ezomime Onimiya, Ibrahim Hassan and Oluwatobi Pearce
COVID-19 and Commercial Transactions: Some Emerging Legal Issues *
A general introduction to the banking regulatory regime in Nigeria *
Lagos State Small Claims Court: A Milestone In Dispute Resolution *
Overview of product registration and other incidental matters at the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control *
National identity management in Nigeria: Matters arising *
Related Nigeria articles
In review: prudential regulation of banks in Nigeria *
The banking regulatory regime in Nigeria *
Corporate Governance in Nigeria * - USA
Bank capital requirements in United Kingdom * - United Kingdom
Africa TMT July Briefing * - Africa
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Police opened fire on a gay bar because the owner was handing out water to protestors
The police shouted, "The game is over!" before they opened fire without warning.
By Alex Bollinger Wednesday, June 3, 2020
A police officer approaches the owner of the Ruby DeluxePhoto: Screenshot/Twitter
Police opened fire on an LGBTQ bar in North Carolina after they received an anonymous tip that the bar was giving water bottles to protestors.
Tim Lemuel is the owner of the Ruby Deluxe in Raleigh. He said that on Saturday night, his business was vandalized with a white supremacist symbol and the bar’s glass doors and windows were broken.
Related: This man brought a gun to a gay bar & shouted slurs
So on Sunday evening he decided to stay at his business, in part to deter vandals. He also set up a first aid station for people who needed medical attention, washing tear gas and pepper spray out of people’s eyes and handing out water bottles and granola bars.
He said that he and some staff were working there for about seven hours before six police officers arrived and told them to move just after midnight.
“This is my business,” Lemuel responded in video that has since been posted online. “I rent this space.”
The police officers again told him to move. “The game is over. Get out.”
Lemuel walked back toward his bar, and police said, “You’ve been told,” and opened fire.
RALEIGH POLICE JUST FIRED FLASH BANGS AND LESS LETHAL ROUNDS AT MEDICS, INCLUDING THE OWNER OF RUBY’S DELUXE, A QUEER BAR WHERE THE MEDICS WERE STATIONED. pic.twitter.com/sGckVjRC1e
— film pigs not ppl ☭ (@bennykoval) June 1, 2020
“I was in the Army for eight years, so the bangs didn’t bother me, but my staff were scared out of their minds,” Lemuel later told the News Observer. “If you’ve never been in that situation it appears like you’re going to be killed.”
Lemuel said that deputies had already passed by the bar, which isn’t far from the Wake County Justice Center.
“During the seven hours, they had, you know, every opportunity to come down and check on us, see what was going on or tell us their concerns,” he said.
“They just chose not to. And at some point they just went straight for guns blazing.”
Jen Varani was also helping at the first aid station. She said that it was clear that they weren’t protestors.
“But we weren’t chanting. We weren’t yelling. We weren’t gesturing to them. There was nothing that we were doing to instigate a response like that.”
The Wake County Sheriff’s Office, though, said that the shooting was justified because it worked and forced the first aid station to disband.
“Once deputies urge the crowd to disperse several times and there is non-compliance, the next step is to disperse the crowd,” a spokesperson said.
The spokesperson said that police showed up at the bar because of an anonymous tip that the bar was handing out water to protestors.
But the Wake County Sheriff’s Office use of force policy says that officers can’t use weapons – neither lethal nor “less-than-lethal” – if people are only putting up passive or verbal resistance. The policy says that less-than-lethal weapons can only be used if someone is “an immediate risk of death or serious physical injury to themselves or others.”
The attack occurred on Monday night. Curfew wasn’t imposed in Raleigh until Monday night.
“Had it been anybody, it would have been bad enough,” said Raleigh City Council Member Nicole Stewart. “The idea that it was an individual, a business owner, trying to help other individuals in our community made it that much more startling. And I couldn’t let it sit.”
Stewart sent the video to the city manager and the police chief and is asking for an investigation into the shooting.
“It is a safe space for so many people,” said Council Member and Ruby Deluxe patron Saige Martin. “It is a home to queer folks.”
“We are still dealing with those same issues for those same people today,” he said, referring to the Stonewall uprising. “And hearing those words echo so aggressively as if there was a game to be had? I think (it) speaks perfectly well to the kind of culture and thinking that exists and pervades law enforcement today.”
Editor’s note: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that the shooting occurred early Tuesday morning. We regret the error.
Derek Chauvin, George Floyd, Jen Varani, Nicole Stewart, Protest, Raleigh NC, Ruby Deluxe, Saige Martin, Tim Lemuel, Wake County Sheriff's Office
Tony Perkins asserts racial unrest is due to accommodating “preferences” & “devaluing” of human life
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What are you looking for Book "Race And Racisms" ? Click "Read Now PDF" / "Download", Get it for FREE, Register 100% Easily. You can read all your books for as long as a month for FREE and will get the latest Books Notifications. SIGN UP NOW!
Race And Racisms
Ideal for instructors who want the flexibility to assign additional readings, Race and Racisms: A Critical Approach, Brief Second Edition, is a topical text that engages students in significant questions related to racial dynamics in the United States and around the world. Shorter thanGolash-Boza's highly acclaimed comprehensive text, the Brief Second Edition features a streamlined narrative and is enhanced by its own unique features.Organized into topics and concepts rather than discrete racial groups, the text addresses:* How and when the idea of race was created and developed* How structural racism has worked historically to reproduce inequality* How we have a society rampant with racial inequality, even though most people do not consider themselves to be racist* How race, class, and gender work together to create inequality and identities* How immigration policy in the United States has been racialized* How racial justice could be imagined and realizedCentrally focused on racial dynamics, Race and Racisms, Brief Second Edition, also incorporates an intersectional perspective, discussing the intersections of racism, patriarchy, and capitalism.
Author : Tanya Maria Golash-Boza
Race and Racisms: A Critical Approach engages students in significant questions related to racial dynamics in the U.S. and around the world. Written in accessible, straightforward language, the book discusses and critically analyzes cutting-edge scholarship in the field. Organized into topics and concepts rather than discrete racial groups, the text addresses: * How and when the idea of race was created and developed * How structural racism has worked historically to reproduce inequality * How we have a society rampant with racial inequality, even though most people do not consider themselves to be racist * How race, class, and gender work together to create inequality and identities * How immigration policy in the United States has been racialized * How racial justice could be imagined and realized Centrally focused on racial dynamics, Race and Racisms also incorporates an intersectional perspective, discussing the intersections of racism, patriarchy, and capitalism.
Representing Race
The Media play a diverse and significant role in the practical expression of racism and in the everyday politics of ethnicity. Written by two veterans of research on media and 'race', this book offers a fresh comparative analyses of the issues and sets out the key agendas for future study.
Author : John Downing
Routledge International Handbook Of Contemporary Racisms
The study of contemporary forms of racism has expanded greatly over the past four decades. Although it has been a focus for scholarship and research for the past three centuries, it is perhaps over this more recent period that we have seen important transformations in the analytical frames and methods to explore the changing patterns of contemporary racisms. The Routledge International Handbook of Contemporary Racisms brings together thirty-four original chapters from international experts that address key features of contemporary racisms. The Handbook has a truly global orientation and covers contemporary racisms in both the western and non-western geopolitical environments. In terms of structure, the volume is organized into ten interlinked parts that include Theories and Histories, Contemporary Racisms in Global Perspective, Racism and the State, Racist Movements and Ideologies, Anti-Racisms, Racism and Nationalism, Intersections of Race and Gender, Racism, Culture and Religion, Methods of Studying Contemporary Racisms, and the End of Racism. These parts contain chapters that draw on original theoretical and empirical research to address the evolution and changing forms of contemporary racism. The Handbook is framed by a General Introduction and by short introductions to each part that provide an overview of key themes and concerns. Written in a clear and direct style, and from a conceptual, multidisciplinary and international perspective, the Handbook will provide students, scholars and practitioners with an overview of the most pressing issues of Racisms in our time.
Author : John Solomos
"A very clear and engaging introduction to a contemporary analysis of 'race' and racism(s). This text effectively combines key theoretical perspectives with vivid contemporary examples." - Dr Rebecca Barnes, University of Derby "Fantastic book for helping students get past the stuntedness of the term 'racism' to understand the way in which racisms are part of our social practices and institutions. - Dr Lucy Michael, Hull University "This is a solid text, covering the topic in a thoughtful manner. Studying and teaching racism is a complex issue, and this book is a very good resource." - Dr Sanjay Sharma, Brunel University We hear much about 'race' and 'racism' in public discourse but the terms are frequently used without clear definitions or practical examples of how these phenomena work. Racisms: An Introduction introduces practical methods which enable students to think coherently and sociologically about this complex feature of the global landscape. Steve Garner argues that there is no single monolithic object of analysis but rather a plural set of ideas and practices that result in the introduction of 'race' into social relations. This differs over time and from one place to another. Focussing on the basics, this book: Defines 'race', 'racism', 'institutional racism' and 'racialization'. Provides examples of how these function in fields like the natural sciences and asylum. Clearly sets out theoretical arguments around collective identities ('race', class, gender, nation, religion). Uses empirical case studies, including some drawn from the author's own fieldwork. Points students toward sources of further web and text based information. Engaging and accessible this book provides a signposted route into key elements of contemporary debates. It is an ideal introduction for undergraduates studying 'race' and ethnicity, social divisions and stratification.
Author : Steve Garner
Situating Race And Racisms In Time Space And Theory
Grounded in real life and theoretically charged, the nine essays in this interdisciplinary collection explore how "race," racisms, and racialization are changing and suggest strategies for reading their emerging forms and discourses. "Race" has historically been defined by visible difference, but the slippery nature and malleability of racisms and racialising processes challenge scholars and activists to remain vigilant, responsive, and critical in their analyses and actions. This collection explores the strengths and weaknesses of postmodern social theory in the struggle against racism. Recognizing diversity as a conduit for resilience, endurance, and strength, the editors have tried to encourage coalition building by bringing together historians, sociologists, cultural theorists, and literary scholars in "dialogue" with artists and activists. Topics considered include nation formation, racialized states, cultural racism, multiculturalism, hyphenated and mixed-race identities, media and representation, and shifting identities. Contributors include Jeannette Armstrong, director of the En'owkin International School of Writing in Penticton, Canada; Frances Henry, professor emirita at York University; Yasmin Jiwani, assistant professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Concordia University; Paul Maylam, chair of the Department of History at Rhodes University, South Africa; Minelle Mahtani, assistant professor in the Department of Geography and Planning, and the Program in Journalism, University of Toronto; Roy Miki, professor of contemporary literature in the English Department at Simon Fraser University; Roxana Ng, professor in the Department of Adult Education, Community Development and Counselling Psychology at the Ontario Institute of Secondary Education/University of Toronto; Ali Rattansi, retired professor of sociology at City University London; Ann Stoler, distinguished professor and chair, Department of Anthropology, New School University in New York; and Carol Tator, course coordinator in the Department of Anthropology, York University.
Author : Jo-Anne Lee
Publisher : McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
Race And Racism In Russia
Race and Racism in Russia identifies the striking changes in racial ideas, practices, exclusions and violence in Russia since the 1990s, revealing how 'Russianness' has become a synonym for racial whiteness. This ground-breaking book provides new theories and substantive insights into race and ethnicity in a Russian context.
Author : N. Zakharov
A groundbreaking history of racism Racisms is the first comprehensive history of racism, from the Crusades to the twentieth century. Demonstrating that there is not one continuous tradition of racism, Francisco Bethencourt shows that racism preceded any theories of race and must be viewed within the prism and context of social hierarchies and local conditions. In this richly illustrated book, Bethencourt argues that in its various aspects, all racism has been triggered by political projects monopolizing specific economic and social resources. Racisms focuses on the Western world, but opens comparative views on ethnic discrimination and segregation in Asia and Africa. Bethencourt looks at different forms of racism, and explores instances of enslavement, forced migration, and ethnic cleansing, while analyzing how practices of discrimination and segregation were defended. This is a major interdisciplinary work that moves away from ideas of linear or innate racism and recasts our understanding of interethnic relations.
Author : Francisco Bethencourt
Race In Mind
The notion that intelligence is somehow related to race is a notoriously tenacious issue in America. Anthropologist Alexander Alland provides the most comprehensive overview of the recent history of research on race and IQ, offering critiques of the biological determinism of Carlton Coon, Arthur Jensen, Cyril Burt, Robert Ardrey, Konrad Lorenz, William Shockley, Michael Levin, and others. This reasoned, authoritative history also explains the basis of evolutionary genetics for the general reader, concluding that biologically, race cannot explain human variation. Written in a lively, conversational style, Alland imparts real, substantive scientific arguments, cuts through the ideological posturing and jargon that so often characterizes discussions about race, and shows us a more nuanced and scientifically valid way to understand the diversity that is the human condition.
Author : A. Alland
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The London Festival of Architecture has always proved to be a platform for vigorous debate – both about our theme and about wider issues affecting London. On our Views Pages we give space to a range of contributors including industry leaders, curators, academics, politicians and other less-heard voices to express their views and ideas. These are their opinions and not necessarily those of the Festival. We hope you find them in equal parts inspiring and challenging.
Ros Morgan on Boundaries
Ros Morgan is Chief Executive of the Heart of London Business Alliance. In this essay, Ros talks about the important challenge of choosing which boundaries to celebrate and which ones to obscure.
The Heart of London Business Alliance is defined by geographical boundaries. It is located in the City of Westminster and spans the neighbourhoods of Piccadilly, Leicester Square and St James’s as well as the edges of Chinatown, Covent Garden, Trafalgar Square and Whitehall. Among many famous streets in the area are Piccadilly, Regent Street St James’s, Haymarket and Jermyn Street, which all have long, rich histories. To some extent, the definition of our patch is instinctive – it feels about right. As with many boundaries, it is also pragmatic. Its boundary has been set based on the property locations of current Heart of London Business Alliance members, including an extension beyond the current BID area to the east of Charing Cross Road. The area is also defined and divided by countless – often overlapping – boundaries: physical boundaries such as pedestrianised zones and vehicular and public transport routes, but also the thresholds between different land ownerships, different uses, historic character zones and different development projects.
Some, like the threshold between two historic neighbourhoods, are fundamental to our enjoyment of the city. They highlight its richness and its history; celebrate its complexity and contrasts: the area is notable for its contrasting characters, from the formality and gravitas of Regent Street’s Portland stone facades to the ‘Piccadilly Lights’, projecting its animated collage of advertisements throughout the day and night. Others, such as the boundary between different landownerships, may not contribute anything at all.
Heart of London has been working with public realm consultants Publica over the past year, to establish the principles for a long-term programme of improvements to the public realm to ensure that we retain and enhance the qualities which give the area its unique urban character and world-class status at the heart of the West End. A key concern is to ensure that the boundaries – both within and around – our core area are carefully considered; that we celebrate the boundaries which enrich our understanding and experience of the city, but obscure those which don’t. We have extended our area of interest to one or two city blocks beyond our patch – taking in connections to Covent Garden, Mayfair, Whitehall, Soho and a larger portion of St James’s – to ensure that thresholds with surrounding streets and neighbourhood are given the attention they deserve. We are working hard to ensure that boundaries within the Heart of London area, particularly between discrete development projects, are not perceived as boundaries at all, but rather as part of a rich, coherent, seamless public realm.
These are the areas which can all too easily become the most impoverished corners of our city. Sudden changes in, say, street furniture or signage or paving treatment or management regime, can simply add to the sense of disorientation or clutter. There is a very fine line between an exciting juxtaposition and an inexcusable mess.
Heart of London Business Alliance is a 2019 London Festival of Architecture (LFA) festival hub. To find out more please visithttps://heartoflondonbid.london/events/lfa-2019/
BLOG POST | 04 / 23 / 19 | Rob Fiehn
Rob Fiehn on Boundaries
Rob Fiehn is a London-based freelance communications consultant, working within the built environment industry. In this essay, Rob shares his thoughts on our our 2019 theme of boundaries.
The more I think about the abstract concept of boundaries, the more I become confusingly ambivalent. I’ve always thought about them as wholly negative. A boundary is like a border or a wall (concepts which have been widely covered in global press recently) and they are divisive and unhelpful. Often boundaries separate people and places, with the impression that one group is not welcome in a neighbouring zone. As a child of the 80s, the Berlin Wall seemed to be an ever-present backdrop to the world’s problems, representing a schism between families, culture and national identity. Even at a young age I was aware of it as a violent political act and the day that this particular boundary was brought down was a symbol of liberation that reverberated around the world. Unfortunately, it seems that humans rarely learn from our collective mistakes and walls are back on the agenda.
Within the city body boundaries are a part of everyday life. Invisible lines delineate boroughs which are almost imperceptible to the average Londoner but they have massive ramifications in terms of planning and regulations. We also unwittingly run up against mental barriers all the time, often linked to a sense of privilege and ownership. The recent segregated playgrounds that have become a national scandal throw this into stark contrast although few of us were genuinely surprised. The housing crisis is another daily reminder that economic boundaries control our lives in cities and London is possibly one of the worst offenders in a world of inequalities. In architecture, we regularly discuss the chasm between education and practice and this seems to set up an unnecessarily antagonistic boundary between universities and commercial organisations.
We’re attempting to tackle all of these issues in the upcoming series of the Negroni Talks as part of LFA 2019 and despite the doom and gloom we are hopeful. For instance, once you identify a clear boundary it becomes possible to bridge the gap or even smash right through it. We can empower architects to demonstrate to the rest of society that there are no hard boundaries and many solutions to everyday problems arise when we cast them aside. Not only that but the interstitial space between boundaries is often where the most exciting things happen. The borderlands between local authorities is one visceral example where visionary buildings can be created in the spaces where control is in doubt. The profession must use the tools in their architectural skillset to investigate boundaries and then demonstrate why they’re irrelevant in the bigger picture.
BLOG POST | 04 / 10 / 19 | Clare Richards
Fluid Boundaries – community contemporary dance performances responding to architectural landmarks
Clare Richards is the founder and director of ft’work (Footwork Architects), a non-profit organisation, working to help create thriving communities and ensure clear social principles underpin development within the built environment. She is also a patron of the London Festival of Architecture. In this essay she shares her thoughts on our 2019 theme of boundaries.
LFA Patron, ft’work, is partnering with leading contemporary dance company Shobana Jeyasingh Dance in a public dance response to the Festival’s theme of ‘boundaries’, bridging the gap between physical, social and cultural barriers.
Here’s our first update.
SJD has now recruited dancers from schools and community groups. Secondary school students from Oaklands School and Mulberry School will be taking part alongside senior dancers from Green Candle Dance company. Under Shobana Jeyasingh’s guidance and using her hallmark creative process, they’ll shortly begin work with the company’s dancers, producers and an architect to create a short intergenerational, site-responsive performance. The final work will be performed in two outdoor locations in central London, as well as in the participants’ schools and local communities.
The first site has been selected — Aldgate Square. It’s ideal for several reasons. The backdrop of both old and new buildings reflects the rich social and commercial history of the City: a church, a school, a public square, shops and office blocks. The physical form of the renovated square, with a sculptural stone boundary, seats, pavers, flowerbeds and lawn, provides a range of levels, textures and surfaces. It has a large footfall, with a new café at one end and with people enjoying the space for their lunch breaks.
Our amateur dancers are looking forward to creating their own dance movements and to explore the architectural landmarks. It will allow the young people to dance directly with older dancers, to benefit from a truly creative approach to making movement and to work with their bodies and minds. By also performing in front of their peers, they’ll have a unique opportunity to bring contemporary dance to new audiences. As one of the teachers remarked: ‘This is a great project with huge benefits for participants and the public’.
BLOG POST | 04 / 03 / 19 | Chris Dyson
Boundaries Change…
Chris Dyson is the principal of Chris Dyson Architects. In this essay, Chris shares his thoughts on our our 2019 theme of boundaries.
Living and working in Spitalfields, I have seen the boundaries of time change a neighbourhood for the better. Commercial Street used to be a major division between the City of London and the poorer parts of our neighbourhood, carved out by Act of Parliament in 1825 to improve the safe passage of goods from the Thames to the West End. The Spitalfields that I have come to know and love is now a cosmopolitan place with a great tradition of accepting people and affording them places to live, such as French Huguenots, Russians, Irish and most recently Bangladeshi. Being open in spirit as place and people has, I think, made Spitalfields what it is today: long may it continue to thrive.
For good or ill, Commercial Street is still the main artery – lined with 4 and 5 storey warehouse buildings with episodes marking places along what is becoming our high street – no longer a divide but a place in itself. However the traffic and pollution is atrocious and I hope one day the artery of vehicles can be restricted to the bare essentials and cyclists will have a safer passage along its length.
Our practice recently relocated to the junction of Fashion and Commercial Streets, giving us a corner profile and great address – where much like a department we offer the visitor coffee, bespoke tailoring and architecture! Just as Harry Selfridge first did in 1908, the department store in its finest form offers no boundaries, drawing people to visit and marvel at wonders sourced from all over the world. Our Cobb Street project, now on site on the edge of the City, is an artist’s studio and residence reflecting this ongoing process of change. The mixed use development will offer much back to animate the local streets, hopefully creating a new artistic quarter in this part of Spitalfields.
Youth knows no bounds on the streets here, enjoying the cafes, gyms, yoga centres, clubs and all the independent retail experiences the place has to offer. Old Spitalfields Market is a great model of private development for public good – formed like a donut with shops lining its perimeter and a covered piazza style space within with myriad small independent food outlets. As a building form it has obvious boundaries with gateways, but is essentially open and inviting, providing a heart to the neighbourhood. Here I can walk my dog Milo and visit my favourite bike shop for coffee and feel at one with the place. Much like Halifax Piece Hall, it provides a sense of place – open and inviting and quite the opposite of an Oxford or Cambridge college quadrangle.
As architects we can draw upon these successful urban models as we create new masterplans for the expansion of our city. Tall buildings and increased density work well if designed alongside green open spaces for interaction – something we do miss around here, although I’m hopeful that the redeveloped Bishopsgate Goodsyard and nearby Allen Gardens may offer this in the future.
Like so much of central London, Spitalfields is a palimpsest of people, places and activity where boundaries constantly change. Recognising that old ways are no longer relevant is not a negative act: it I can be a positive one that offers new hope and relevance for the neighbourhood. We must learn to embrace change and throw away the boundaries we impose upon ourselves.
Inspiration for our place …“Changing Place, Changing Time, Changing Thoughts, Changing Future” artwork by Maurizio Nannucci (2003).
Neon light. Private collection Stetten, Germania. Courtesy Peggy Guggenheim Museum.
BLOG POST | 03 / 13 / 19 | Vanessa Norwood
Vanessa Norwood on Boundaries
Vanessa Norwood is the creative director of the building centre. In this essay, Vanessa shares her thoughts on our our 2019 theme of boundaries.
Boundaries shift. Architecture is often viewed with a sense of permanence but time brings a fluidity to the physical fabric of our cities. Boundaries are not erased with each new community that settles but reclaimed, repositioned and repurposed. Architecture adapts.
Boundaries are the result of many forces that push and pull the city and its inhabitants; the political zeitgeist, the will of developers reacting to the financial opportunities of a place, the need for growth and modernity often at odds with our desire to keep the familiar. ‘Gentrification’ shifts boundaries and large areas of the city that once housed artists and students become unaffordable. We ourselves are shifted by boundaries.
London has faced recent criticism for becoming a ‘property portfolio’ where booming prices and government policy has led to a social apartheid within the city. London is home to anincreasing number of ‘ghost towers’ as foreign investors, deterred by tightening regulations and a looming Brexit, find the glut of luxury developments less appealing.
Writer and activist Jane Jacobs led a campaign in the late 1950s to save what we consider today to be quintessential New York, Little Italy and Soho, from Robert Moses and his developer’s scythe. Jacob’s 1961 book The Death and Life of Great American Cities celebrated the active sidewalk; ‘Dull, inert cities, it is true, do contain the seeds of their own destruction and little else. But lively, diverse, intense cities contain the seeds of their own regeneration, with energy enough to carry over for problems and needs outside themselves’.
Truly democratic public space is of vital importance to an activated city. George Monbiot in his 2017 book How Did We Get Into This Mess? warns against the semi-privatisation of public space noting that UK city centres ‘are being turned by the companies that run them into soulless, cheerless, pasteurised piazzas’ where street life is ‘reduced to a trance-world of consumerism, of conformity and atomisation.’ The UK Government has recently appointed a Minister responsible for ‘loneliness’ while the co-chair of the Jo Cox Commission for Loneliness reports ‘When the culture and the communities that once connected us to one another disappear, we can be left feeling abandoned and cut off from society.’
Good architecture is a key protagonist in the story of a successful city. When Lina Bo Bardi designed a building having been set the conditions that it must not obstruct important views of the city beyond or destroy a valued ground level gathering space she pulled the building in two making the elevated form of the Sao Paulo Museum of Art completed in 1968 one of the 20thcentury’s most iconic works.
The London Festival of Architecture offers an opportunity to celebrate the city and to bring us together to consider what we must cherish and what must be challenged.
Clare Richards on Boundaries
Clare Richards is the founder and director of ft'work (Footwork Architects), a non-profit organisation, working to help create thriving communities and ensure clear social principles underpin development within the built environment. She is also a patron of the London Festival of Architecture. In this essay she shares her thoughts on our 2019 theme of boundaries.
I did two things this week in preparation for LFA 2019. The first was to visit a hospital-based project in Waterloo that intercepts young victims of gang violence and then works with them for 6 months back home. The second was a meeting with a leading contemporary dance company which, as part of its outreach, creates choreographies to bring together people of all ages and backgrounds.
So what do knife crime and dance have to do with a festival of architecture, or the built environment for that matter? The stark picture of London, as it sets about addressing a housing crisis and failing high streets, is of growing inequality, intolerance, child poverty, homelessness and isolation. Rather than improving people’s lives, many communities see regeneration and development as something that is done to them, not with or for them.
I happen to believe strongly that it’s the collective responsibility of those of us shaping the city’s built environment to rise to the social challenge that this represents. The question of how to value and bring value to London’s existing communities is at the heart of this, yet our preoccupation is with the red line that marks the boundary of a site — whether as a physical constraint, a design challenge, or an economic opportunity. Behind physical boundaries there are invisible social boundaries, yet they only feature in development currency to the extent that we choose to identify them, reveal them and respond to them.
In fact I’m an optimist and I think we’re moving in the right direction. I was heartened at the launch of the RIBA’s current exhibition, Making it Happen, New Community Architecture, to hear curator Pete Collard describing a growing interest among students and young architects in “designing for public good”. This isn’t just about being more socially aware, it also makes good economic sense — thriving communities add value in every sense.
That’s why, for this year’s festival, I am working on two projects exploring how physical and social boundaries overlap. The first is a series of short films, one of which will trace an apparently innocuous postcode boundary, with a voice-over of comments by the young victims of violence for whom this boundary has a very different meaning. The second is a cross-cultural and inter-generational dance project on the theme of ‘boundaries’, culminating in two site-specific public performances.
The Festival is now so well-established, its reach so impressive, that it can call upon London’s huge pool of design talent to come up with ambitious events responding to all manner of boundaries — social, cultural, technical, material and physical. The LFA not only shows the world what London’s designers have to offer, it’s an important showcase for what we can offer our city, which is why ft’work greatly values being a Patron.
I see this year’s theme as an opportunity to push the festival’s own boundaries, to reach outside the design world to all Londoners.
Peter Murray on the streets of London and boundaries
The West End Project is a splendid thing. It involves widening the pavements of Tottenham Court Road, excluding all motor vehicles except for buses. Gower Street will revert to two lanes for traffic and will be enhanced by a segregated bicycle route.
The first phase of the project will be completed in spring this year in plenty of time for the delayed opening of the Elizabeth Line which will spew over 200,000 pedestrians a day onto the pavements around the new station.
High-quality new paving is being installed. Elegant and smooth, it aspires to the sort of placemaking one finds as a given in European cities like Barcelona, Madrid and Milan. But why on earth is there an untidy line of mortar which straggles down the middle of the sidewalk, spoiling its pristine appearance?
It’s a small and often unnoticed boundary that is a characteristic part of the London street scene.
New paviors butt uncomfortably against panels of glazed blocks that allow daylight into the basements of the buildings fronting the street or panels that allow smoke out in the case of fire.
It’s not just a problem for Tottenham Court Road, but many of the public space improvements of recent years. Look at the impressive work that has been carried out in Bond Street recently and you’ll find the same thing happens where there are basements which run out under the highway.
In some cases, it has been possible for designers to negotiate with the building owners to extend the paving treatment over their private property, but not where there are glazed blocks. In some areas, it was not possible pave over private property because it would have meant the local authority taking on liability for any structural damage – something that it was understandably unwilling to consider.
The project was made considerably more complicated by time-consuming negotiations; even where there was a willing property owner, lawyers ensured any agreement was hard won. Sometimes tenants wanted a seamless sidewalk, but property owners weren’t interested.
These little boundaries, these untidy lines between public and private city reflect the primacy of property ownership in the capital. The problem has been overcome where the historic estates are funding street improvements, and since they own the freeholds of all the buildings, they are able to extend paving up to the building edge.
So do we seek a way to recreate the seamless sidewalks of our continental neighbours or do we accept London’s untidy, pragmatic way of responding to physical change? It’s probably the latter, although it would be nice to think that contractors could come up with a more elegant solution for joining the public and the private elements of our pavements than a smear of mortar.
BLOG POST | 01 / 16 / 19 | Martyn Evans
Martyn Evans on Boundaries
Martyn Evans is Development Director at the Darlington Hall Estate and Deputy Chair of the London Festival of Architecture. In this essay he shares some of his thoughts on our 2019 festival theme of boundaries.
Where does one place end and another begin? The nature of commercial development in cities like London means that sites are almost always developed in complete isolation. The need to deliver independently viable schemes drives development language: ‘Our scheme in Clapham’; ‘Our site in the heart of The City’. What this immediately engenders of course, however well the scheme is designed, is a sense of disconnection from the surrounding environment and an abrogation of responsibility to see an individual site as part of a living, breathing eco-system. The creation of false boundaries.
We can look back, with rose-tinted hindsight, to the days when Abercrombie and Forshaw had all of London on their drawing board and an opportunity to present a vision for the core of virtually an entire city. I’m sure there are many in London’s Boroughs and in City Hall who would love the power to deliver such a vision today. Fortunately, what happens to London now is delivered from a more localised and democratic imperative. Well…that’s the theory anyway.
Of course, the gutting of London’s borough planning departments by austerity and the private sector plucking out the best people, means that planning teams can just about deal with the workload of applications. The days when borough architects could design and control how community development played out are long gone, replaced by an adversarial system where the much deeper pockets of private sector developers tip the scales well in their favour. One of the clearest results of this is the piecemeal, boundary-strewn development programme that characterises much of London today.
So, what to do? How do we encourage developers to look over their own fences, to see the world around them and care about more than that which drives their development appraisals? Architects have a clear role to play. What drives architects, so much more than developers, is an understanding of people. How they want to live, work and relax and how they want to interact with the places where they live. That requires an inherent understanding of how boundaries are broken down, how people travel and how they relate to those around them. Like meerkats, architects need to be the first up on their hind legs, sniffing out what’s going on in the world and reporting back to the group – in this case, their clients.
It’s the responsibility of developers to work WITH planners to demonstrate a clear understanding that whilst there might be real financial and construction boundaries to development schemes in cities, political and social boundaries only exist where they are built. How about if we all came to work every day determined to step outside the boundaries we create, work together and see our city for what it is, a beautiful mess that works best when it is at its most free.
Breaking Boundaries and Transforming a Society
Del Hossain is Managing Director of Adrem Group. Del is an Architect, a Wellbeing Psychologist, a former London Business Mentor of the Year and has been a Managing Editor for Business publications for the RIBA. In this essay he shares his take on our theme of boundaries, following a recent trip to Colombia.
Comuna 13: the transformation of a bario through colour
What do the East End of London and Medellin in Colombia have in common? Beyond the commonality of notorious gangland families immortalised onto film, they have also both existed as impoverished environments. Today, both places have had a miraculous metamorphosis and crossed significant boundaries because of technology and creativity.
The once dilapidated terraces of Shoreditch are now a nursery for creativity and state of the art technology-based entrepreneurialism, which has become a threshold of change. Imagine a similar grit and position it into Central America and you have the vibrancy of the barrios with their reconquered spaces in Comuna 13 in Medellin.
Medellin has 16 favelas, the most notorious of which was Comuna 13. Cradling the side of a valley of a huge hill, boundaries were crossed with catastrophic repercussions and in 1993, Comuna 13 was called the most dangerous place in the world. Violence and car bombs were commonplace but the city’s urbanist leader, Echeverri, created a programme to address these territories. By looking at the urban environment through the planning of a social infrastructure such as schools, play spaces and communal areas, murder rates were significantly decreased by 95%. This in itself is an incredible story of how an unapproachable area with a no-go boundary became approachable but add to that the power of art and the human story emerges.
The youth of the community started to depict the narratives and recent history onto the walls through mesmerising graffiti. The amazing street art attracted so much mainstream attention that competitions took place for the best pieces, with artists practicing in sheds used as make-shift artists’ studios.
A reference to mothers waving white flags, surrendering to soldiers to stop them from shooting
Each piece of Graffiti depicts a different tale
Spanish Hip-Hop
In the recent years, the internet had brought Spanish Hip-Hop into the favelas as another creative medium. As a result, young internet sensations are able to make a better income through digital streaming. Other creative but more traditional business pursuits such as cooking, and hair dressing salons have also sprung up, alongside collector’s edition street wear such as t-shirts and hoodies.
Further assisted by government funds, the community now have access to escalators built alongside the hill, saving tremendous time and effort of climbing over 300 steps. With better connectivity to outside communities, local businesses are able to utilise this to develop and thrive.
This is a positive example of boundaries being changed and the transformation of an embattled neighbourhood through improved urban planning, art and a community led culture.
An escalator traversing up the hill introducing a raft of people and interests to the barrios
Peter Murray on Boundaries
Peter Murray is the founder of the London Festival of Architecture and the chairman of New London Architecture. In this essay he shares his thoughts on our 2019 theme of boundaries.
London grew and flourished because of its river, but of all the capital’s boundaries, the Thames must be the greatest. When the Romans built the first London Bridge in AD 50 they linked the stable, rising north bank to the marshy low-lying south; to this day the varying geological makeup of two banks has impacted hugely on their development and their prosperity.
Until the opening of Putney Bridge in 1729 London Bridge was the only crossing in the capital – earlier plans had always been defeated by lightermen who were worried about losing their ferry monopoly. Since then the proliferation of crossings from Tower to Hampton Court has done much to knit the south and north of the capital together; except in the east. Between the Tower and Thurrock, only the much-maligned Emirates Air-Line cable car takes people across the Thames above water. There are plans afoot to remedy this situation – Silvertown Tunnel, due to open in 2024, will ease blockages in the Rotherhithe and Blackwall tunnels and designs are being prepared for a walking and cycling bridge between Rotherhithe and Canary Wharf as well as rail connections across to Thamesmead – TfL funds permitting.
The tunnel proposals are rightly criticised for merely increasing the number of cars and the volume of pollution; active travel infrastructure – walking cycling and public transport as mooted in the Mayor’s Transport Strategy – must surely be the way forward to deliver sustainable connectivity and allow convergence of riparian communities. After all, it was the Jubilee Line extension and the Millennium Bridge which did most in recent years to boost the local economy of Southwark. Road bridges don’t have the same effect – vehicles are, in the main, driving through, not stopping and adding to the economy.
Which brings me to the nub of this blog: the proposed car-free bridge from Nine Elms to Pimlico, the result of a competition launched five years ago. The winning designers Bystrup and Robin Snell Architects are still at consultation stage in the search for a suitable landing site on the north bank. Both political parties in Westminster Council are fighting the plans as are the residents of Pimlico resurrecting once more the historical conflict between the established north with the upstart south.
Recently, I brought the wrath of local amenity groups on my head by accusing them on Twitter of being Nimbies. For some reason, they find this insulting in spite of the fact that they are saying in no uncertain terms “we do not want this in our backyard”. While some of the antagonism towards the project is based on the loss of public space around the landing points, talk to locals and they just don’t like the idea of the influx of cyclists and pedestrians from the south through their ‘urban village’.
Which made me realise how relevant LFA’s theme is to the contemporary debate about development. How do we get the balance between such local communities and the wider city? As a cyclist, I always find it odd that people will accept thundering traffic through their neighbourhood but fight tooth and nail to stop a new cycle route, as we have seen in Swiss Cottage with Cycle Superhighway 11 and in Chiswick with the CS9.
Permeability is an essential part of placemaking in today’s city, focusing on active travel and healthy streets to link communities rather than separate them – and that includes communities on both sides of the river.
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The Hard And Fast Times of Janis Joplin
By Bill DeMain (Classic Rock) 13 May 2016
In 1966, a strung-out Janis Joplin returned to Texas with everything she owned in shoe boxes, but the promise of California's bright lights was always going to draw her back to meet her fate
(Image credit: Camera Press)
Thomas Wolfe was right: you can’t go home again. In August 1970, when Janis Joplin returned to Port Arthur, Texas for her tenth high-school reunion, she told a local reporter that she was attending “just to jam it up their asses” and to “see all those kids who are still working in gas stations and driving dry-cleaning trucks while I’m making fifty thousand dollars a night”.
Some of those same kids once called Janis a pig and a weirdo and threw pennies at her, teasing her about everything from her weight to her acne to her outspokenness about civil rights. Many of them never left Port Arthur, so 10 years hadn’t brought many changes. But here was Janis, a rock star, a counterculture icon and a wealthy woman, returning with sweet revenge on her mind. And a secret hope that she might finally be accepted. She arrived in hippie style – a loose white blouse, purple and pink feathers in her hair, oversized tinted glasses, and a bounty of bracelets jangling on each wrist. But as often happens when we go home, we revert to our insecure, teenage selves. At the reunion, Janis quickly felt the chill of her classmates, who stood apart, snickering and making catty remarks about her.
“It was such a sad thing that even with the great success that she’d had they couldn’t applaud her,” her younger sister Laura Joplin tells Classic Rock. “The things she’d accomplished didn’t register, because it wasn’t their success. The best they could do was give her an old tyre as a trophy for coming the longest distance to the reunion. That was so insulting.”
The few fellow outcast pals Janis had from the class of 1960 didn’t bother to show up. So there she was, a thin-skinned rebel, being grilled by the local TV station. When asked: “How were you different from your schoolmates in high school?” the armour fell away, as Janis said: “I don’t know. Why don’t you ask them?” And when asked: “Did you go to the high-school prom?” she choked back a little sob and said: “No, I wasn’t asked.” But then, recovering her royal bearing, she turned it around with a chuckle and said: “And I still haven’t recovered. It’s enough to make you want to sing the blues!”
Joking aside, the blues that Janis sang, mined deeply from a sensitive soul, was firmly rooted in her stormy relationship with Port Arthur.
Janis the young folkie (Image credit: Alamy)
A little about the town without pity. Port Arthur was established in 1895 as a railroad stop. Six years later a gusher put it on the map as one of Texas’s new oil meccas. By January 19, 1943, when Janis Lyn Joplin was born, Texaco and Gulf Oil had set up refining industries there. Janis’s dad was an engineer for Texaco, her mom a registrar at a local business college. Janis later said: “It was a town filled with bowling alleys, rednecks and plumbers, leading such tacky lives.”
But Janis and her younger siblings Laura and Michael were encouraged in art and music and, in Laura’s words, “given permission to be different”. She says: “My dad would sit us down to listen to his favourite records. The one that comes to mind was a Pablo Casals concerto. Dad was trying to get us to feel the power of the emotion in the music. So we grew up believing that music was serious. When we did laundry, and my mom, who’d been a singer, had show tunes on, it was about learning how to sing. And she’d stop you as you were carrying the towels across the living room, and say: ‘Support those notes. Enunciate those words. Your audience needs to hear you!’”
By high school, Janis was painting, strumming folk songs on her guitar, reading Jack Kerouac, writing for the school paper, and wearing sweatshirts, tight jeans and loafers without socks. The classic free-spirited artist in the making. Along with that came a bright-eyed intelligence and independence.
“The world was changing,” Laura says, “and Janis’s interpretation of being good included things that a lot of people in the south weren’t yet ready to include. Port Arthur was conservative, and had an active chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. So when Janis was in high school, speaking out for racial integration during a social studies class discussion, she became a target.”
Loving Odetta and Bessie Smith, smoking weed and sneaking into seedy nightclubs in nearby towns on weekends with a bunch of male friends further sullied her reputation, setting her apart from her classmates. After a semester at Lamar College, then a year at University of Texas in Austin, where a bunch of cruel frat boys orchestrated a campaign to vote her Ugliest Man On Campus, Janis finally escaped Texas in 1963. Or as she once put it: “They laughed me out of class, out of town and out of the state.”
“She hitchhiked to California with her friend Chet Helms, and didn’t tell my parents,” Laura recalls. “She just took off. She was a pretty headstrong kid. But it was a period where she was kind of lost, and still searching.”
Have a drink on me, Janis kicks back (Image credit: Getty Images)
In her first run at San Francisco, Janis joined the local folk scene, singing in front of audiences in beatnik coffee houses like Coffee And Confusion. Regulars there included Marty Balin, David Crosby, and James Gurley who would be the lead guitarist with Big Brother & The Holding Company, a band that Janis would front. Janis lived for free in the basement of a house that belonged to a folk-singing couple. She’d go upstairs once a week, sing a song, and that served as rent. Her remarkable voice had that effect on almost everyone who heard her. When she wasn’t singing, she studied records by Lead Belly and Billie Holiday.
“They can go no farther than from A to B in a song and make you feel like they’ve told you the whole universe,” Janis would later say. On Sundays she went to black churches, sat in the back and sang gospel. Money was always tight, so she lived off early-morning raids on the produce district, grabbing crates of damaged fruit. When that didn’t work she shoplifted. She painted and wrote poetry. She even met her idol Bob Dylan at a club. “Bob, I just love you,” she said. “I’m gonna be famous some day.” To which Dylan replied: “Yeah, we’re all gonna be famous.”
There was also lots of booze. And drugs. As Chet Helms said, they “walked right into the speed crowd. And Janis felt she had to pay her dues to sing the blues, that in some sense, she had not suffered enough.” Long before acid became the hippie drug of Haight-Ashbury, everybody was doing Methedrine. It was regarded as a harmless antidote to depression, fatigue and weight problems. And for beatniks, meth was part of the artistic process. It was a way to make more paintings, more novels and more songs. The availability of the drugs, and Janis’s hunger for new experiences, made her particularly susceptible not only to Methedrine, but also the even more insidious heroin. Her hangouts changed to Amp Palace, a cafe where amphetamine junkies hung out, and the Anxious Asp, a lesbian bar. As she later said: “I wanted to smoke dope, lick dope, suck dope. Anything I could lay my hands on, I wanted to do it.”
It didn’t help that the guy she started shacking up with, Peter de Blanc, had an even worse addiction problem. “Her relationship with Peter was intense,” says her sister Lauren. “She had used, overused and gotten so strung out that her friends held a party and they passed a hat to get enough money to put her on a Greyhound bus and send her back home.”
In May 1965, an emaciated and exhausted Janis returned to Port Arthur. “She got out of a taxi with all of her clothes packed in various shoe boxes that kind of tumbled on the ground,” Laura recalls. “She was definitely small and skinny, I think down to about eighty-eight pounds. We were overjoyed to see her, though. I took her down to Jefferson City to get her new clothes, and pretty quickly she gained some weight back. I think she was finally committed to seeking help and getting her feet on the ground. It was the beginning of a very positive period in her life.”
Positive but daunting. The idea of Janis going straight and living up to expectations was like putting a wild songbird in a tiny cage. She re-enrolled at Lamar College to pursue a teaching degree, swore off booze and drugs, and firmly put musical dreams out of her head. She combed her wild hair into a matronly bun, wore conservative dresses. She even played canasta with friends. To complete the Stepford-esque picture, she got engaged to Peter de Blanc. While de Blanc returned to his home town in New York to get clean, Janis started making a marriage quilt, and shopping for china, linens and cutlery for the wedding. A future of white picket fences and PTA meetings beckoned.
In a letter Janis wrote to de Blanc that summer, she says: ‘I have your picture on my desk where I do my homework, and everyone in the family’s seen it at least three times. Everyone agrees you’re handsome. I really love you. In attempting to find a semblance of a pattern in my life, I find I’ve gone out with great vigor every time and gotten really fucked up. All I did was be wild, drink constantly, fuck people, sing. Jesus fucking Christ, I want to be happy so fucking bad.’
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“My sister was doing some soul searching,” Laura says. “She had not found her place. There was still a strong desire for music. She was seeing a therapist, and he tried to get her to see that music and drugs weren’t wedded, it was possible to do one without the other. That didn’t prove to be possible for Janis. But she was trying to figure it out.”
She started to hear from de Blanc less frequently. And one day when she called his number, a female voice answered. Janis discovered in short order that her fiancé was engaged to another woman, who had a child on the way. It crushed her.
Laura says: “I don’t think it was an intentional desire on his part to lie to her as much as it was to keep her in Port Arthur, safe and grounded. Janis was doing good, had been home for a while, but she was feeling bored. So after the engagement was broken she wanted a break between semesters at college. She went back to California, loved it and never came back.”
Janis fronting Big Brother & The Holding Company
In late May 1966, Janis moved to San Francisco with a mission: to make it – and make it big. By then, Chet Helms had become a club owner and manager, and was working with a new band called Big Brother & The Holding Company. They were auditioning girl singers. Janis listened to two of their songs and told Chet: “That’s what I want to do!”
Two weeks later she made her debut with Big Brother at the Avalon Ballroom. Drummer Dave Getz, bassist/guitarist Peter Albin and guitarists Sam Andrew and James Gurley had been together for more than a year, and made a name for themselves with their raw, bluesy instrumentals. Andrew later said: “We were heavy. We’re in the newspapers all the time. We are doing this woman a favour to even let her come and sing with us. She came in and was dressed like a little Texan. She didn’t look like a hippie, she looked like my mother, who is also from Texas. She sang real well but it wasn’t like: ‘Oh, we’re bowled over.’ It was probably more like, our sound was really loud, it was probably bowling her over. We weren’t flattened by her and she wasn’t flattened by us. It was a pretty equal meeting. She was real intelligent and she always rose to the occasion. She sang the songs. But it wasn’t like this moment of revelation like you would like it to be, like in a movie.”
That said, it’s undeniable that in the months after, Janis’s singing and stage presence blossomed at a rate that the Big Brother boys couldn’t match. It was as if all the pent-up and repressed hurt and yearning from Port Arthur came bursting forth in one soulful eruption, informed and refined by her study of heroes such as Bessie Smith and Otis Redding. Interviewed at the time by Flip magazine, even Janis seemed surprised at her growth. “I don’t know what happened. I just exploded. I’d never sung like that before. I used to stand still and sing simple, but you can’t sing like that in front of a rock band. You have to sing loud and move wild with all that in back of you. Now, I don’t know how to perform any other way.”
Bigger audiences and greater acclaim followed, giving Janis her first taste of stardom. And in the middle of her rise, her family came west to see what all the fuss was about. “We got to see Janis’s apartment,” Laura recalls, “near Golden Gate Park, and it was a hippie pad – mattresses on the floor, madras bed covers. Janis had just had a poster done, and it was a photo of her semi-topless, with beads and a shawl. She had papered the living room walls with these posters. When you walked in the door, that’s what you saw. Janis said: ‘Oh, it hardly shows, Mother, it hardly shows.’ She walked us through the neighborhood, past the boutiques, and introduced us to friends. Later that night she brought us to see Big Brother at the Avalon. And that was… surprising. It was hard to get. It was such a different sound than anything we’d ever heard.”
She adds with a laugh: “When we left the Avalon, I remember my mother saying to my dad: ‘You know, dear, I don’t think we’re going to have much influence any more.’”
In June 1967, Big Brother appeared at the Monterey International Pop Music Festival in California. Drummer Dave Getz said: “In the beginning, she didn’t try to take over. She really tried to integrate into the band and be part of it. But the big turning point was Monterey Pop.”
You can draw a sharp before-and-after line to Janis’s career, even down to her show-stopping delivery of Big Mama Thornton’s Ball And Chain. In those eight minutes, the legend was born. Janis, in the throes of the slow, minor-key blues, eyes closed, microphone against her lips, wringing out ragged and multi-tone soul screams from her tiny frame, then hushing to a whisper. Swaying, pumping her fists, twirling her hips, shaking her thick matted hair, her pale face beaming in ecstasy. As a performance, it’s a combination of total command and vulnerability. And that’s what makes it so relatable, so powerful. It’s the difference between a great technical singer and someone revealing her innermost self.
“Once she got real recognition from the Monterey Pop Festival,” said Sam Andrew, “I think she began to see what the possibilities were. And the possibilities were somewhat over-the-top.”
After Monterey, Janis sent a bunch of positive reviews and a letter home that said, in part: ‘This band is my whole life now. I really am totally committed and I dig it. Wanted to send you these clippings. Since Monterey all this has come about. Did Port Arthur news have anything on these? If so, please send. I just may be a star someday. It’s funny, as it gets closer and becomes more probable, being a star is losing its meaning.’
California dreaming, Janis and the Big Brother and the Holding Company play live in San Francisco (Image credit: Getty Images)
Of course, the rest of the story is a fast-motion rise-and-fall montage: signing with Columbia records and manager Albert Grossman, Cheap Thrills, gold albums, world tours, TV appearances, Janis going solo, Woodstock, Pearl. And then, on October 4, 1970, a heroin overdose and death. She was 27. But was it an accidental fall?
“I don’t think Janis was living a life with the inevitability of death,” Laura says. “I think she was getting cleaner, and her life was getting stronger. But, who knows how, she ended up with some heroin that wasn’t normal. And just a little skin pop of that to relax ended up killing her. It was far from a typical overdose.
"Someone gave Janis the drug, then left. Janis walked down to the lobby, chatted with the desk clerk, got some change, bought some cigarettes, went back to her room, sat down on her bed and fell over dead, still clutching the change in her hand. The coroner got rid of the excess heroin after the police took it. When people asked to check it, it had already been destroyed. That’s the story I’ve heard. Authorities were frightened of drugs, and they wanted this to be a fear story.”
Forty-five years on, Janis’s true legacy lives on not as a drug casualty, but through her music, and a superb new documentary, Janis: Little Girl Blue. When asked what she thinks her sister’s career might have been like had she lived, Laura pauses, and then says: “Really, what I think of is all the Thanksgiving dinners I’ve missed with her. I think she would’ve had a wonderful career, and still be singing. But there was so much living that never got done. She didn’t get to meet my daughter. We didn’t talk about the books that we’d read, and go shopping. That’s my sister.
“People remember things that fit in with the picture they have of the artist,” she continues. “There’s nothing wrong with that. But the legend is of a woman who had a tremendous ability to communicate emotionally and powerfully. And she also had a drug problem. Sometimes those things go together.”
Ellen Page, Janis director Amy Berg and Juliette Lewis at the film’s screening
Q&A with Amy Berg, director of the film Janis: Little Girl Blue
What was your initial vision for your film Janis: Little Girl Blue?
I read the letters [that Janis wrote] early on, and that was the angle that I wanted to take, to find a way to have Janis tell her own story. I had read [Janis biography] Buried Alive when I was a teenager, and I was influenced by her music, but I didn’t know who Janis the woman was. I think her legacy has always been tainted by the way she died, alone in this hotel room, rather than the way she lived and the things she left us with. I wanted to emphasise the woman, the artist and the musician.
How did your perception of Janis change through making the film?
She cared so much about everybody, and everybody liking her and everyone being happy, and she was just very generous with her heart. Some might say maybe she was too generous with her heart. But she definitely gave everything to everyone that she met. I went in thinking that she was less sensitive, I went in with some clichés in my head. Those were erased after I spoke to people and kept hearing over and over the same kind of thematic stories.
What moved you the most about Janis’s rise to fame?
She is a groundbreaking female who was not afraid to break the rules. She paved a path for women to walk on and be who they are inside. Janis gave them carte blanche to be who they are. There’s a freedom in that. It hadn’t existed before Janis.
Do you have a favourite moment in the film?
The letter that I open the film with is so important to me, because she’s trying to soothe herself in this letter. She’s taking stock of where she’s at. The line that really sticks out for me is: “Need to be proud of myself,” because obviously everyone was proud of Janis, and she knew that. She wasn’t naïve, but she still wasn’t able to comfort herself. That is so sad to me, because I think that she would have gotten there.
If Janis had lived, how do you think her career would have developed and what would she be doing today?
She probably would have mellowed out at this point, but I think her style would have been as original as it was back then.
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