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Team:ETH Zurich/human/interviews/expert7
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*[https://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/complicity/article/viewFile/8764/7084 Complicity and Simplexity, Ian Stewart]
*[http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00668821 Grassberger, Peter. "Toward a quantitative theory of self-generated complexity."International Journal of Theoretical]
*[http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00668821 Grassberger, Peter. "Toward a quantitative theory of self-generated complexity."International Journal of Theoretical Physics 25.9 (1986): 907-938. ]
Physics 25.9 (1986): 907-938.
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iGEM ETH Zurich 2014
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Interview with PD Dr. Harald Atmanspacher
There are various definitions of complexity. Most of the time, the notion of system is mentioned in those definitions. Would you say that complexity is a property of a system?
I would say that complexity is not a property, but a characterization of a system. The next question is what could be the defining criterion for this characterization. At some point, people tried to come up with formal definitions of what complexity could actually be and how it can be measured quantitatively. Before that happened, for a long time, for decades actually, people were talking about complex systems in a colloquial sense. What you’ll find in literature is criteria like, for instance: “The coupling of a system with its environment is important for the behavior of the system” (open systems), “Many complex systems have a lot of constituents” (Nevertheless, we can find complex systems with a small number of degrees of freedom, for example in deterministic chaos). What you need for complexity is non-linear behavior, non-linear feedback. Another criterion that some people use is that you are dealing with systems far from thermal equilibrium. In biology, you are typically far from the thermal equilibrium. Another feature of complex systems is their intrinsic instability, which makes it difficult or impossible to treat their behavior as stationary. In many of these complex systems, it is not easy to find those domains of behavior in which they are stationary, stable structurally, stable dynamically, stable. There are these stability islands, which are generally not easy to find. This is a number of terms and concepts which have been used for a long time.
Can one measure complexity quantitatively?
The first attempt to really define complexity in more rigorous way was already happening in the 1960s, it was done not by physicists but by mathematicians. Kolmogorov and others had a definition of complexity that has later been called “algorithmic complexity”. When you have a pattern and want to measure its complexity, their approach was the following: if you construct an algorithm that you can run on a computer, then the length of the shortest algorithm that is capable of reproducing the pattern is the algorithmic complexity of the pattern. If you have a completely regular pattern, like a period 2 process, this is a very short algorithm. That is not a huge algorithm and the complexity is low. On the other hand, if you construct your pattern as a random sequence of black and white pixels, then the shortest algorithm to reproduce that is the sequence of pixels. So that is the longest algorithm in relation to the pattern itself that you can imagine. It will be the pattern with the highest complexity score. There was a point of criticism that was quickly raised: in this sense, complexity is indeed nothing else than randomness. Then, the question is: why do we need two different names for the same phenomenon? In the 1980s, people came up with a different view point. The intuition was: if you have a completely regular behavior, that is not complex anyway but, if you only have a completely random behavior, this should also not be called complex. What should be called complex is an intricate mixture between random and regular elements in your pattern.
This is a basic distinction between two different general categories of complexity measures: one of them just being a measure of randomness, the other one characterizing the mixture between order and randomness.
In a review paper back in the 1990s, we reviewed all the complexity measures that existed at that time(more than 40). We tried to identify to which class they belong and how they behave on the basis of a very simple example, an artificial example: the so-called logistic map. The logistic map is a discrete recursive map. That means that you have a starting value x. The value of x at the next step is given by rx(1-x). It is a very simple map. It is a nice example because it is very simple on the one side and on the other side; it exhibits quite a lot of complicated, complex if you prefer, dynamics.
What were the results of your review?
First of all, we had a distinction between monotonic and convex measures. Then, within these categories, there are multiple different definitions of complexity and they all react to different features of the logistic map in different ways.
For instance, take the epsilon-machine complexity. That is a very sophisticated and powerful measure. That’s worth knowing. So far as I know, it is the only measure of complexity that is embedded in a very comprehensive theoretical background. The person who originally developed this was Jim Crutchfield. He was one of the pioneers in chaos theory in the 1980s.
In a way, all the other people including ourselves, just tried to identify certain measures of complexity that we thought would be interesting for a particular purpose but we did not care about a theoretical framework for them. Finally, if you are interested in identifying certain kinds of instabilities in a system, particular measures serve this purpose best but they are maybe not very sensitive to other features, like identifying periods.
Is complexity linked to Emergence?
Yes because that’s another one of these colloquial features of complexity. Complex systems often have a hierarchical structure. So you have levels of description. For instance, you can describe complex systems in terms of individual constituents, like individual neurons in the brain. Then, you also have other levels of description: for instance, the level at which neural assemblies are formed. Then, these neural assemblies often have properties. Some people call them emergent properties, which you cannot simply derive from their constituents unless you know something about the collective level. In physics, when you study the relationship of individual molecules in a box of gas and the thermodynamic behavior. Temperature is, of course, not a property of single molecules. In this sense, it is also an emergent property and much has been written about that example.
Emergence is very intensely discussed in the context of complex systems. Another issue that is more and more discussed in the context of complex systems is the issue of reproducibility of certain results or experiments.
Why are complex systems most of time not reproducible? Is it due to the subjectivity of the observer that has to be taken into account?
That is one issue but I think even more basic is the intrinsic instability of complex systems. When you have unstable behavior, what usually happens is that systems search their sample space in such a way that they end up relaxing into stable attractors. But in complex systems, this can take an enormously long time. There are lots of studies which started in 1990s about these super-transients. The behavior of your complex system can remain transient. This means that your complex system does not reach the stationary regime for an extremely long time. Whenever you are still in the transient phase and you try to reproduce something, you fail, because of the instability. If you know a little bit more about your system then you may be able to calculate with certain tools the time that it takes for the system to become stationary and that helps you. Then you can say: “To achieve reproducible results, I have to wait that much time”. But if you don’t have this knowledge, then you are completely lost.
Most of the research results we are talking about are a few decades old. Was there an evolution in the field of complexity this past few years or has the research on complexity attained a bottleneck?
I think there was a very decisive point in time in the study of complexity. That was when people could buy for not so much money high-power computing system. The reason is obvious. You cannot analytically solve complex systems in most cases and if you really want to study them, you have to run them in simulation studies. Everything that happened before the late 1970s was more or less heuristic: mathematicians had analyticalexamples for complex systems. Those examples were the simplest ones. After powerful computer came up, everything could be simulated. Then, the whole field exploded.
You just talked about simple complex systems. Does an antagonist notion of complexity like simplicity exist?
Of course. The notion of simplicity has not become such a buzz word in science. Using the complexity measures we talked about before, one possibility would be: if the complexity is low, then the system will be simple. There is an interesting book on complexity. The final chapter of this book says something about Simplexity and Complicity, as opposed to Simplicity and Complexity. This word game tends to say that it is not that easy to tear complex behaviors and simple behaviors apart from another.
You described diverse measures for complexity. Would it be possible to build a universality theory of complex systems?
There are differences in the notion of universality classes on the way from regular to chaotic behavior. I am not saying that complexity lacks completely of a kind of universal behavior. But what we do not have is a compact set of equations that describes everything, like Maxwell’s equations. Maxwell’s equations resulted from the attempt of physicists to create a fundamental universal law for electromagnetism. In complex systems research, something like this has simply never happened. My intuition is that it is a fundamental problem in complex system theory and it is not simply that we have to work harder or to work for a longer time. Considering universality as a methodological pillar on scientific work, Peter Grassberger had an intuitive argument about this issue. He brings in the issue of meaning. For him, complexity is nothing else than the “difficulty of a meaningful task”. Thus, meaning implies subjectivity, which implies uniqueness, which is opposed to universality. That created some real controversy at that time in the study of complex systems because people realized that when you try to import meaning as an explicit object of study in physics, then you are really not doing physics anymore. At that time, a lot of people considered this as a no-go in physics. But Grassberger was courageous, he did it. I think it is interesting because it opens up a whole new level of discussion and deliberation. My favorite notion in this kind of discussion is contextuality. I would not contrast universality with the subjective but with the contextual.
What do you mean by contextuality?
For instance, measures of complexity are not universal but they have to be applied in a way that respects the context of the question that you have. What do you want to know? What do you look for? If your answer would be independent of the context, then it would be universal.
It seems to be a vain quest to have a global wrap up of complexity. However, could meta-models give new insights on this issue?
I cannot rule this out. That would change the whole methodology of theory building. What you usually do is considering experimental results, facts or data and then you try to find a model that more or less fits your data. With a meta-model, you would presuppose the data and the model that you have and try to see the relationship between them. It may be a possible path to come up with something more universal than present-day models of complex systems.
Wackerbauer, Renate, et al. "A comparative classification of complexity measures." Chaos, Solitons & Fractals 4.1 (1994): 133-173.
Complicity and Simplexity, Ian Stewart
Grassberger, Peter. "Toward a quantitative theory of self-generated complexity."International Journal of Theoretical Physics 25.9 (1986): 907-938.
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An American Couple Holidaying In Mexico Came Across Abandoned, Malnourished Animals. What They Did to These Animals Will Sweep You Off Your Feet!
Amazing!, Cats, Dogs
Jeff and Diana Hall, residents of Burnsville, Minnesota were holidaying in Mexico. While in La Paz, this couple which owns the Camp Bow Wow doggy day camp back home, came across a sight that melted their heart.
They came across a pack of stray animals; famished, homeless cats and dogs. Abandoned and malnourished, the adorable little creatures they came across were struggling to survive.
Though animals are capable of spreading so much love and happiness, not all of them are lucky enough to get loving and caring families. Homelessness among animals is a global problem. A recent survey by DoSomething.org points out that there are five homeless animals for every ONE homeless man on this planet.
Considering that these animals were living on the roads, they had probably been seen by thousands before the Hall couple. Most people however chose to ignore these strays. They counted the animals. There were 34 of them in all. “8 puppies about 3-4 weeks old, 5 puppies about 14 weeks old, 14 adult dogs and 7 cats,” mentions their GoFundMe page.
That was a huge number but this animal loving couple did not have the heart to walk away, leaving them to the mercy of onlookers. To begin with, the Halls reached out to a local animal shelter. Already packed to its capacity, the shelter expressed its inability to take in such a huge lot.
At this point, the two decided to take charge of the situation. Aware of the international regulations, the Halls knew they could not take them back home. They provided these strays with food and water for a few days. But somehow were distraught about their inability to do more for them.
Slowly, the animals reciprocated to their loving gestures and began to show their affection for the Halls too. “It took a while for a couple of them to trust us, but in the end they were all happy to eat out of our hands — even the toughest little guy finally came around.”
Having gone through a harrowing experience together, they got along fabulously. “We couldn’t believe how they all got along! They were well behaved and very friendly,” write the Halls on their GoFundMe about the bunch whom they decided to name Baja 34 Pack.
The fundraising organization for them was therefore named the Baja 34 Rescue Project. The funds thus raised has helped this compassionate couple cover the cost of these animals’ health care. “They had to spayed and neutered. They also needed vaccination.” They hope to able to raise sufficient funds to be able to transport them to home town in Minnesota. There, they hope, the animals can find loving new families.
Their goal, according to their GoFundMe page, is to help the animals “find their forever families in the state of Minnesota!”
The animals have started arriving in Minnesota in small lots. Several of these, including the three pups which arrived only last week, have already been adopted. The Halls, obviously pleased to see their effort bearing fruit and the animals finding affectionate caretakers, are all praises for their foster family, as they like to call the Baja 34 pack.
“Each and every one of these dogs and cats are well behaved and would make wonderful family pets. Although they are starving for food, it was apparent they are also starving for love,” they mention.
The laudable efforts of this endearing couple to place the miserable little animals in safe, doting hands has won over the hearts of millions of animals lovers in all parts of the globe.
It comes as no surprise that monetary support is trickling in slowly albeit steadily. Visit the Baja 34 pack’s GoFundMe page if you wish to show them some love.
Get Weekly Pet Stories!
Brutus, the Adorable Rottweiler, Becomes the Second Dog Ever To Walk On All Four Prosthetic Limbs
The Little Pup Is Having A Very Intense Dream And Then….. “Hello!” (Wonder What She Was Dreaming About?)
This Is The Courting Ritual Dance Of Two Sea Horses, And Its The Most Beautiful Thing You Will See Today!
OMG! This Boxer Pup Howling Is The Cutest Thing On The Internet!!
Meet George. The Cat Who Spends Most Of His Time On Two Legs!
11 Dogs Who Understand Your Obsession With Pizza!
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Ochoa v. City of Oceanside
CECILIA PEDROZA OCHOA, et al., Plaintiffs,
CITY OF OCEANSIDE, et al., Defendants.
ORDER GRANTING UNITED STATES’ MOTION TO DISMISS
HONORABLE LARRY ALAN BURNS UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
This case arises out of the death of Daniel Pedroza. Plaintiffs allege that an officer with the Oceanside Police Department shot Pedroza without probable cause. Plaintiffs have sued three federal defendants-U.S. Internal Affairs, the U.S. Department of Justice, and the White House. The United States has moved to dismiss the claims against these three defendants. (Docket no. 30.)
Legal Standards
A Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(1) challenges a complaint’s jurisdictional allegations. If the court determines at any time that it lacks subject matter jurisdiction, the court must dismiss the action. Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(h)(3). The burden of proof on a Rule 12(b)(1) motion is on the party asserting jurisdiction. Sopcak v. N. Mountain Helicopter Serv., 52 F.3d 817, 818 (9th Cir. 1995).
A Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim challenges the legal sufficiency of a complaint. Navarro v. Block, 250 F.3d 729, 732 (9th Cir. 2001). The Court must accept all factual allegations as true and construe them in the light most favorable to Plaintiffs. Cedars Sinai Med. Ctr. v. Nat'l League of Postmasters of U.S., 497 F.3d 972, 975 (9th Cir. 2007). “Threadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements, do not suffice.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009).
Jurisdiction to Sue Federal Agencies Under 42 U.S.C. § 1983
Plaintiffs brings their first cause of action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Section 1983 “impose[s] liability upon a ‘person, ’ and a federal agency is not a ‘person’ within the meaning of these provisions.” Jachetta v. United States, 653 F.3d 898, 908 (9th Cir. 2011). Nor is the White House. Cf. Lamb v. White House Staff, 2009 WL 2526442, at *2 (D.S.C. July 22, 2009) (dismissing claim against “White House Staff” because “a defendant in a section 1983 action must qualify as a ‘person, ’” and White House Staff did not). Because the federal defendants are not “persons, ” Plaintiffs fail to state a § 1983 claim against them.
Plaintiffs’ Tort Claims
The remainder of Plaintiffs’ claims arise under state tort law. Alleged violations of state tort law by the federal government can be maintained only in an action pursuant to the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA). FDIC v. Craft, 157 F.3d 697, 706 (9th Cir. 1988) (“The FTCA is the exclusive remedy for tortious conduct by the United States.”). The filing of an administrative claim with the appropriate federal agency is a jurisdictional prerequisite to filing an FTCA suit. Brady v. United States, 211 F.3d 499, 502 (9th Cir. 2000). Plaintiffs bear the burden of establishing jurisdiction under the FTCA and must affirmatively allege compliance with the FTCA’s administrative exhaustion requirement. Gillespie v. Civiletti, 629 F.2d 637, 640 (9th Cir. 1980) (“The timely filing of an administrative claim is a jurisdictional prerequisite to the bringing of a suit under the FTCA, and, as such, should be affirmatively alleged in the complaint” (internal citation omitted)). Plaintiffs do not allege compliance with the FTCA’s exhaustion requirement, so the Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over their tort claims against the federal defendants.
Failure to Allege Facts to State a Claim Against Federal Defendants
Plaintiffs repeatedly refer to conduct performed by “Defendants, ” but never mention any acts specifically performed by the federal defendants. Plaintiffs therefore fail to give the federal defendants fair notice of a legally cognizable claim against them. See Malletier v. The Flea Mkt, Inc., 2009 WL 1625946, at *2 (N.D. Cal. June 10, 2009).
The United States’ motion to dismiss (Docket no. 44) is GRANTED. Plaintiffs’ claims against the federal defendants are DISMISSED. If Plaintiffs think they can amend their complaint to fix the problems identified in this order and the United States’ ...
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Business Partners in Ukraine
100 Reasons to Invest in Ukraine
Association of Foreign Investors in Ukraine
Open business in Ukraine
Buy business in Ukraine
Invest Funds
1) Ukraine’s new tax code implemented in 2010 established zero taxation for small businesses for a period of five years and for the hospitality sector and light industry for 10 years.
2) Income tax rate in Ukraine is (01.04.2011 the rate is 23 %, from 01.01.2012 – 21%; from 01.01.2013 – 19 %; from 01.01.2014 – 16 %).
3) Budget deficit in Ukraine is projected to be 3, 08% or 38,6 billion UAH in 2011.
4) Current account deficit in Ukraine is projected to be not more than 3,5%.
5) Ukraine’s GDP was over $300 billion and its per capital GDP was about $6,700 in 2010, and its GDP growth is projected to be over 4% in 2011 for the second year in a row.
6) Ukraine is a leader in GDP growth rate among the CEE nations.
7) Ukraine has a population of more than 45 million, and a labor force of more than 22 million.
Debt & Equity Markets
10) The market capitalization of the Ukrainian PFTS Stock Exchange is over $25 billion.
11) More than 800 securities are traded on the Ukrainian PFTS Stock Exchange, and 38 securities are traded on the Ukrainian UX Stock Exchange.
12) In 2010, the PFTS index rose 70.2% and the UX index rose 67.9%, outperforming all major global indices.
13) The Ukrainian stock exchanges (PFTS, UX) are projected to increase 30-40% in H2 2011.
14) The ratio of total market capitalization of Ukrainian companies to their total sales is 30% lower than comparable countries (Russia, Kazakhstan, Central and Eastern Europe, Turkey).
15) Shares of Ukrainian banks are traded more cheaply than stocks of similar banks in Central and Eastern Europe.
16) Investors resumed buying several € billion of Ukrainian corporate and sovereign Eurobonds in September 2010.
17) Ukraine reached an agreement with the International Monetary Fund for a new $14.9 billion loan in July 2010, which Ukraine has begun to drawn down in tranches.
International Trade Organizations
18) Ukraine is a member of the WTO.
19) Ukraine plans to enter into a free trade agreement with the CIS in May 2011.
20) Ukraine plans to enter into a free trade agreement with the EU in 2011.
Investment Ukraine
21) Ukraine led Europe in 2009 with a 48% growth year-over-year in foreign direct investment projects .
22) Ukraine received about $6 billion in foreign direct investment in 2010, a 7% growth rate year-over-year.
23) Ukraine expects to receive $21 billion in foreign direct investment in 2011-2012, 40% of it from foreign investors.
25) Ukraine’s infrastructure investments for the European Football Championship Euro 2012 include $2 billion for airports, $4 billion for high-speed rail, and over $1 billion for highways and stadiums.
26) Ukraine plans to develop the Northern European model of highways within 5 years.
27) At an International Economic Forum in September 2010, German and Swiss companies pledged to invest €185 million in the Kharkov region of Ukraine.
Ukrainian-Russian Economic Cooperation
28) In November 2010, Russia and Ukraine agreed to a 10-year program on economic cooperation, that included 19 joint projects costing a total of $48 billion.
29) Ukrainian-Russian trade exceeded $35 billion in 2010 toward a long term target of $100 billion.
30) In 2010, Ukraine signed a nuclear power plant deal with Russia valued at $5-6 billion.
Privatization in Ukraine
32) In 2011, Ukraine intends to accelerate the privatization of industrial enterprises, such as telecom providers, power utilities and power distribution companies, chemical manufacturers, and seaports.
33) In the first privatization of 2011, Austrian investment firm EPIC bought a 92.79 percent stake in Ukraine’s main fixed-line operator Ukrtelecom from the Ukrainian government for $1.3 billion.
Energy in Ukraine
34) Ukraine produces about 100,000 barrels of oil per day.
35) Ukraine produces over 20 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year, and has proven reserves of over 1 trillion cubic meters.
36) Ukraine has five nuclear power stations with fifteen reactors with a total power output of 13.6 thousand MW, 47 thermal power stations with a total power output of 32.4 thousand MW, 6 large hydraulic power stations on the Dnieper and 55 small stations on other rivers.
37) Ukraine is a member of the EU Energy Community.
38) Ukraine’s energy strategy is for 20% of energy to come from renewable energy sources by 2020.
39) Ukraine’s feed-in tariff for renewable energy is nearly twice that of some G8 members.
40) Ukraine offers VAT exemption for importation of capital equipment used in renewable energy projects.
41) Ukraine has high average wind speeds, a good solar radiation profile, plentiful biomass raw materials, and numerous dams on the Dnieper River, all ideally suited for renewable energy generation.
42) The World Bank has pledged $200 million to Ukraine to develop energy efficiency projects, and has pledged to buy 10 million Ukrainian carbon credits.
43) Ukraine plans to sell 50 million ERUs for $1 billion.
44) The EBRD has already provided €5 billion for about 200 projects in Ukraine, and continues to provide funding of about €1 billion per year for projects in Ukraine.
45) Ukraine plans to raise $6.5 billion to modernize its gas transport system.
46) 15 wind power parks with €7 billion in planned investment are in progress in Crimea, Ukraine, and two solar power plants have been commissioned in Crimea, toward a goal of 750MW of wind energy and 1000MW of solar energy in Crimea.
47) Ukraine plans to build 52 hydroelectric power plants in the Ivano-Frankovsk region.
National Innovation Project
48) The Government of Ukraine plans to apply the best practices of Silicon Valley, Singapore, and Skolkovo in its National Innovation Project.
49) Ukraine is planning to construct a Technopark in Borispol, Kiev Oblast.
50) Ukraine will create a University of Innovation and Nanotechnology.
51) Ukraine created a new Council of Domestic & Foreign Investors that includes the CEOs of Microsoft and other multinational corporations.
IT Outsourcing in Ukraine
52) Ukraine has the world’s 5th largest and fastest growing IT outsourcing services market in the world, with revenues in 2011 expected to reach $1 billion
53) There are over 4,000 IT companies and about 300 ISPs in Ukraine, employing over 100,000 hardware, software and IT consulting professionals.
54) Ukraine has about 20 major IT educational centers producing about 30,000 IT-graduates annually with bachelor, MSc or PhD diplomas.
55) The cost of employing a software developer in Ukraine, or outsourcing IT business solutions development to Ukraine, is still about one-half of the cost of doing so in the EU or the US.
56) The IT industry in Ukraine is trending from system integration and development of “turnkey” information systems to Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) and IT business solutions adapted for a long-term perspective.
Telecommunications in Ukraine
57) The telecom services market in Ukraine has annual revenues of more than $1 billion.
58) There are more than 55 million mobile telecom subscribers in Ukraine (higher than 100% saturation).
59) Ukraine has an internet penetration rate of greater than 33%, or over 15 million users.
60) Ukraine has 425 airports and 7 heliports.
61) Ukraine has over 20,000 km of railways, nearly 17,000 km of roadways, and over 20,000 km of waterways.
62) Ukraine has pipelines for gas – 33,327 km; oil – 4,514 km; and refined products – 4,211 km.
63) Ukraine has over 150 merchant marine ships, plus nearly 200 additional merchant marine ships of foreign registry.
64) Ukraine has ports and terminals in Feodosiya, Illichivsk, Mariupol, Nikolaev, Odessa, Yushny, and Sevastopol.
Metallurgy in Ukraine
65) Ukraine owns 5% of the world’s deposits of minerals, the total value is 11 trillion USD.
Ukraine produces about 30 million tons of iron and steel annually, accounting for about 5% of GDP, and is the world’s third largest exporter of iron and steel.
66) The metallurgy sector in Ukraine, its largest key industry, includes 14 integrated steel making plants, 7 pipe plants, 10 plants producing metallic articles, 16 merchant-coke plants, 17 refractory production plants, 3 ferroalloy plants, 20 non-ferrous metallurgical works, 35 factories reprocessing ferrous and non-ferrous scrap metal, and other enterprises.
67) Ukraine has about 27 billion tons of iron ore deposits.
68) Machine-building is the largest Ukrainian industrial sector, and the largest machine-building subsectors in terms of their employment are instrument-making, tractor and agricultural machinery building, electric engineering, automobile building, chemical and petrochemical engineering, and machine-tool construction.
69) Ukraine also manufactures science-intensive and highly technological machines and equipment, including the development of the rocket and space industry, aircraft building, production of advanced tankers and large-tonnage vessels, fabrication of turbines for nuclear power plants, highly-efficient gas-pumping installations, equipment for high-voltage power transmission lines, etc.
70) Ukraine produced about 70,000 cars in 2010, and total car production in Ukraine is expected to grow 20-22% in 2011 and reach 271,600 units per year by the end of 2014.
71) Škoda’s Ukrainian arm Eurocar alone is expected to produce 100,000 units in 2011.
72) Ukraine is one out of just nine countries worldwide currently designing and building transport aircraft as well as top-class civil aircraft.
73) The Antonov Aircraft Plant manufactures the An-124 Ruslan, the world’s most power aircraft, and the An-225 Mriya (Dream) aircraft, which has been recognized by the International Aviation Federation as having scored 124 world records.
Shipbuilding in Ukraine
74) The Ukrainian shipbuilding industry is a complex of colleges, universities and research centers; experienced design bureaus; 9 shipbuilding yards with different capacities and specialisation; and a number of ship repair yards.
75) Its close geographical location to European Union, combined with availability of up-to-date design bureaus, powerful production facilities of shipyards, experienced labor force, presence of strong national metallurgic industry make the Ukrainian shipbuilding industry very attractive alternative to distant shipbuilding centers.
76) Ukraine, once “the breadbasket of the Soviet Union”, has the potential to become “the breadbasket of Europe”.
77) Among all the European countries, Ukraine is a leader in growing of sugar beet, buckwheat and carrot; second place in growing of wheat (after Russia) and of tomato (after Poland).
78) The market for wheat, barley, sunflower and canola, also grown in Ukraine, has been excellent.
79) More than 60% of Ukraine is covered in Black earth top soil.
80) 28% of the population work in or are involved in agriculture, and labor is inexpensive.
81) Ukraine plans to allow the purchase of farm land in 2013.
82) The multi-branch chemical sector of Ukraine includes chemical, petrochemical and chemical-pharmaceutic sub-sectors with over 1,600 enterprises and structural units.
83) This sector in Ukraine produces mineral fertilizers, non-organic acids and soda; synthetic resins, plastic masses, chemical fiber, man-made caoutchouc and threads; and car and motor-cycle tires, hoses, and consumer goods.
84) At the present time there are 58 companies manufacturing drugs in Ukraine, mostly producing lower-priced products, such as generic drugs and vitamins.
85) Two of the countries giants in the Ukrainian pharmaceutical industry, Kyivmedpreparat and Halychpharm received the Ukrainian Government’s approval to merge and form Arterium Corp, which will be involved in the research, marketing and distribution of new medical products.
86) Nonetheless, pharmaceuticals imported into the country accounted for 62 per cent of the Ukrainian drugs market; therefore, there is a huge market potential for drug manufacturers willing to establish research, marketing, manufacturing, and distribution in Ukraine.
87) The compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of generic medicines is projected to be 31% in Ukraine in local currency between 2011 and 2013, and by way of comparison, the innovative drug subgroups will develop on average by 14% per annum.
88) The fast moving consumer goods industry in Ukraine includes over 3,000 enterprises producing textile, knitting, clothing, leather, footwear; basic foods, such as sugar, salt, oil, alcohol, confectionery, etc.; meat and dairy processing, sugar refining, flour milling and cereals production, oil extraction and starch and molasses; and other products.
89) The FMCG sector In Ukraine has considerable production, research and labor potential, but its production capacities are not fully utilized; thus, vast reserves of the sector are potentially available to strategic investors.
Retail in Ukraine
90) The Fozzy Group, the largest retailer in Ukraine, increased their revenues by 37.5% in 2010 on a 6% y-o-y increase in retail trading space.
91) Grocery retailers on the Ukrainian retail market increased their total retail trading areas by 6% y-o-y in 2010 to 2.1 million m².
92) The Ukrainian ATB-Market retail grocery chain reported the highest growth in operated retail space – a 16% y-o-y increase, after opening 71 new stores in 2010
93) The Ukrainian retail industry is still unconsolidated, with the top 10 retail operators accounting for less than 25% of the total share, and thus M&A opportunities exist for strategic investors
Hospitality in Ukraine
94) More than 12 million foreign tourists visit Ukraine each year, to see the Carpathian Mountains, the coastline of the Black Sea, the Dnieper River, vineyards, ruins of ancient castles; ancient churches, cathedrals, and monasteries; world-class opera and ballet, and more
95) In the Ukrainian resort and hotel industry, demand greatly exceeds supply; there are many resorts and tourist places which are up for sale and many of them have put out proposals for investments
96) The Government of Ukraine is still seeking investors to build hotels for the one million football fans anticipated to attend the European Football Championship Euro 2012
Political Stability in Ukraine
97) Ukraine has a popularly elected President who is favored to win re-election in 2015, and a ruling coalition in the Ukrainian parliament headed by the President’s party that is expected to solidify their majority in the next parliamentary election in 2012
Anti-Corruption Law
98) In March 2011, the Ukrainian parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, passed a tough anti-corruption law that was praised by the EU
Crime Rate in Ukraine
99) With the exception of software piracy, Ukraine’s crime rate is below that of many industrialized nations
100) Ukraine has anti-money laundering controls approved by the global Financial Action Task Force (FATF)
Source: http://bearmedia.com.ua/
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How the British connect business and education
The BBC has an interesting article on increasing communication and coordination between businesses and colleges (Colleges and Firms 'Must Listen' - May 24, 2006). Colleges are not meeting business needs for prepared workers, both in the area of basic skills (the conventional college education) and ongoing professional training, and to address the disconnect between these two groups, the government is setting up a network of 450 'skills brokers' to liase between businesses and colleges.
Like the British, we tend to operate in silos - there seems to be limited interplay between education's stakeholders. While I've heard about isolated attempts at true collaborative efforts (see here for one example), it's more common to see groups talking past one another - schools trying to bring in businesses on the school's terms (donations of money or volunteers into programs designed by the schools) or, on the flip side, businesses trying to dictate reform to schools (something Larry Cuban writes about here).
If we can't get people at the top of the business and education communities to sit down of their own accord and work out a partnership plan that incorporates shared responsibilities and mutually agreed-upon outcomes, perhaps we do need an independent liaison to tackle the job. Because it needs to happen before business will ever make a real investment in education, and it needs to happen before we can expect to see schools producing a majority of students who are ready for the next stages of their lives.
Great new business/education partnership resource
The Daniels Fund, a foundation in Denver, has just published a new report on school/business partnerships titled "What Works: Seven Strategies for Success." Well worth checking out.
One thing I've found surprising is that, despite the number of relationships between business and education and the many forms those relationships take, there is so little published on the subject. I'm continuing to look for such resources as I build up the Business/Education Partnership Forum - if you know of any, please send them my way.
PS - Thanks to Howie Schaffer's PEN Newsblast for the tip!
The Business Education Partnership Forum goes live!
I'm proud to announce the launch of the Business Education Partnership Forum, an online resource and community hub for anyone interested in business' involvement in education at the local, state, or national level!
The site offers resources for schools and businesses, an index of organizations, a center for case studies, and an online forum to facilitate networking and discussion - I hope it becomes a true resource to people working in this area.
Please visit the site and do the following:
If you have any thoughts on how to make it more valuable and relevant to people in the field, email me with your thoughts.
If your organization is involved in business/education engagement in some way, please add it to the Organizations section
If you know of resources that would be of interest, please submit them
Join the Forum section and start posting!
While I've been able to add some content to the site, there's a lot more to do (particularly in building up the organizations section). Please remember that the site is ultimately going to be a byproduct of its participants - that means if you want to see it succeed, you should be proactive in recommending resources and regularly posting/responding on the Forum.
Thanks for your interest - I look forward to seeing you on the Business Education Partnership Forum!
Cheating the system
From The Simpsons:
Bart: Well Dad, here's my report card. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.
Homer: [incredulously] A-plus?!? You don't think much of me, do you boy?
Bart: [almost proudly] No sir!
Homer: You know a D turns into a B so easily. You just got greedy.
-- from the 'Kamp Krusty' episode
Cheating and education have gone hand in hand for a long time. But we usually think of it in terms of students, not the administrators, right?
According to Education Sector, individual grade-changing is small fry - a real achievement would be rigging the grades of an entire state, which is exactly what many are doing to varying degrees. From their report "Hot Air: How States Inflate Their Educational Progress Under NCLB":
Critics on both the Left and the Right have charged that the No Child Left Behind Act tramples states' rights by imposing a federally mandated, one-size-fits-all accountability system on the nation's diverse states and schools.
In truth, No Child Left Behind (NCLB) gives states wide discretion to define what students must learn, how that knowledge should be tested, and what test scores constitute “proficiency”—the key elements of any educational accountability system. States also set standards for high school graduation rates, teacher qualifications, school safety and many other aspects of school performance. As a result, states are largely free to define the terms of their own educational success.
Unfortunately, many states have taken advantage of this autonomy to make their educational performance look much better than it really is. In March 2006, they submitted the latest in a series of annual reports to the U.S. Department of Education detailing their progress under NCLB. The reports covered topics ranging from student proficiency and school violence to school district performance and teacher credentials. For every measure, the pattern was the same: a significant number of states used their standard-setting flexibility to inflate the progress that their schools are making and thus minimize the number of schools facing scrutiny under the law.
Some states claimed that 80 percent to 90 percent of their students were proficient in reading and math, even though external measures such as the federally funded National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) put the number at 30 percent or below. One state alleged that over 95 percent of their students graduated from high school even as independent studies put the figure closer to 65 percent. Another state determined that 99 percent of its school districts were making adequate progress, while others found that 99 percent of their teachers were highly qualified. Forty-four states reported that zero percent of their schools were persistently dangerous.
This sort of dishonestly boggles the mind - one, that people try it, and two, that we let them get away with it. You've got to admit that we make it easy by not setting uniform definitions of key educational metrics - for example, we don't even have consensus on how to define a dropout, much less what it means to be "proficient" in any particular area. But that doesn't excuse this kind of trickery - it's simply unconscionable.
posted by Brett Pawlowski at 12:47 PM | 0 comments
Textbooks: an overlooked piece of the reform puzzle
According to industry research, between 80-90% of teachers rely on the textbook as a fundamental instructional tool. So what happens to learning when those textbooks are, as a rule, terrible?
MSNBC.com explores this issue as part of a special report titled "Can America Compete?" in the article "A textbook case of failure." From the article:
If America’s textbooks were systematically graded, Wang and other scholars say, they would fail abysmally.
American textbooks are both grotesquely bloated (so much so that some state legislatures are considering mandating lighter books to save students from back injuries) and light as a feather intellectually, flitting briefly over too many topics without examining any of them in detail. Worse, too many of them are pedagogically dishonest, so thoroughly massaged to mollify competing political and identity-group interests as to paint a startlingly misleading picture of America and its history.
Textbooks have become so bland and watered-down that they are “a scandal and an outrage,” the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a nonprofit education think tank in Washington, charged in a scathing report issued a year and a half ago.
“They are sanitized to avoid offending anyone who might complain at textbook adoption hearings in big states, they are poorly written, they are burdened with irrelevant and unedifying content, and they reach for the lowest common denominator,” Diane Ravitch, a senior official in the Education Department during the administrations of Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, wrote in the report’s introduction.
“As a result of all this, they undermine learning instead of building and encouraging it,” she added.
The problem, according to the article, is that textbooks are hugely expensive to produce, which means that they must find a ready market upon publication. In order to be acceptable to the market, they must be approved by committees in each state - and, since California and Texas make up 1/3 of the market, the committees in those two states hold tremendous sway over what is produced. And the power held by those committees is being directed by activists with a political, not educational, agenda.
Also from the article:
In Texas, the Board of Education is dominated by political conservatives who are heavily lobbied by conservative activists, among them the evangelical group Focus on the Family and the husband-and-wife team of Mel and Norma Gabler, whose tireless campaigning for religiously centered teaching materials has made them among the most influential forces in the production of American textbooks.
Texas’ textbooks, which are often adopted by other states that have few alternatives, have included board-ordered passages mandating politically conservative definitions of marriage, abortion and same-sex relationships and instructing students that pregnancies are best prevented by “respecting yourself” and getting “plenty of rest.” They have eliminated any mention of condoms, even though Texas leads the nation in teenage pregnancies.
In California, by contrast, the controlling forces are “social content standards” that insist that the state’s textbooks — even those in math and the sciences — portray ethnic groups, women, the elderly, the disabled and religious groups in precise proportionality to their representation in the population.
Scott Foresman-Addison Wesley, now part of textbook giant Pearson Prentice Hall, developed a 161-page manual titled “Multicultural Guidelines” in 1996 just to navigate the process in California. As summarized in the Fordham Institute report, the manual says company textbooks:
must include illustrations of tall and short people, heavy and thin individuals, people with disabilities, and families headed by two parents, by one parent, by grandparents, by aunts/uncles, and by other adults. When writing about the development of the U.S. Constitution, authors are directed to cite the dubious claim that it was patterned “partially after the League of Five Nations — a union formed by five Iroquois nations.”
Education is a complex system, and the changes we are focusing on in a relatively few areas will absolutely fail if the rest of the system is not addressed simultaneously. What happens if you improve teacher training/education and then stick teachers with these textbooks as their foundational instructional tool? Can a better-qualified teacher get better results if these are the types of materials s/he has to work with?
I've been thinking a lot about systems theory - will post more on it soon - but it's so clear that with instructional tools like these, targeted education reform efforts will trip and fall before they ever make it out of the gate.
Report: Counting the Cash for K-12
Excellent report here on education spending titled "Counting the Cash for K-12: The Facts About Per-Pupil Spending in Colorado," published by the Independence Institute. While the report is focused on education spending in Colorado, they use national data in several instances for comparative purposes, and the information they provide is relevant to people across the country with an interest in K12 spending.
Their primary conclusion is that we should look less at how much we spend per student and more at how we’re spending, since school budgets and per-pupil spending do not correlate with achievement. What’s more, people can manipulate or reframe spending figures to make them look better or worse depending on their purposes – a trick that can confuse the entire discussion.
Some particularly interesting pullouts:
An analysis by a professor at Stanford found that only 27 of 163 studies showed a positive relationship between per-pupil spending and student performance. Two-thirds of those studies showed insignificant correlations, and the rest actually showed a negative relationship.
According to data from NCES, there is no significant relationship between per-pupil spending and NAEP scores, nor is there a correlation between an increase in spending and a change in NAEP scores over a 10 year period.
In the 2004-05 school year, ten states claimed to be 49th in education funding: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Louisiana, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Utah. This is only possible through various interest groups filtering spending data and presenting it in a way that supports their objectives. (In Colorado’s case, comparisons were made in terms of student spending as a percentage of personal income – because of Colorado’s fairly affluent population, per-pupil expenditures looked unreasonably low. In real dollars, spending on students in Colorado is ranked 31st in the country according to NCES data.)
Well worth reading the entire report to learn more about real spending, manipulation of numbers for political purposes, and the lack of correlation between spending numbers and student achievement.
posted by Brett Pawlowski at 9:30 AM | 0 comments
An impasse on civic science
This comes from one of NASSMC's email briefs last week:
News Brief #3565 Category: Postsecondary Education
TITLE: “Civic science”
Harvard president Lawrence Summers emphasized the importance of creating a more science-literate student body when he was inaugurated to his post in 2001. But when he leaves Harvard in June, not much will have changed.
Plans to revamp Harvard’s undergraduate science curriculum were stymied by faculty disagreement over what constitutes science literacy. A Committee on General Education that meant to overhaul Harvard’s core curriculum considered three definitions, but never reached a consensus.
“One was the view that to understand science you actually have to do lab work,” said Louis Menand, a professor of English who sat on the committee. Another theory favored courses “of relevance to the average citizen.” The third called for knowing “something about the history and philosophy of science.”
There was also disagreement within each theory. In trying to decide which science fields are most socially relevant, for example, members came up with a wide range of answers, including environmental studies, evolutionary biology, genetics, immunology, and computer science.
Many experts outside of Harvard advocate teaching the practical side of science to nonscientists so that they will be able to make sense of it in their everyday lives. Yet few scientists appreciate the civic importance of making science understandable for all students, said Jon Miller, a professor of political science at Northwestern University.
“General education courses need to be, for scientists, your last chance to speak to someone before they are elected senator,” he said.
SOURCE: Boston Globe, 30 April 2006 (p. E01)
WEBSITE: http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2006/04/30/civic_science/
This, to me, is a very interesting quandary. We want to raise the profile of STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math), and it's hard to argue against that sentiment in theory. But when it comes down to brass tacks - what gets taught in (assumedly) a very limited time frame - who gets to say what will be covered, and to what end?
The changing face of education
A very important article in the Washington Post on Wednesday – apparently, “Of US Children Under 5, Nearly Half Are Minorities.” To put that into perspective, the country is currently 2/3 Caucasian – and, as Jeffrey Passel of the Pew Hispanic Center states in the article, “As the children age, they are the ones who in 20 years will be having children.”
That throws two tremendous challenges into the face of public education – challenges that will manifest on an epic scale.
First, we have a poor track record of educating African-American and Hispanic children. They consistently trail whites and Asians on NAEP tests, and they also have much higher dropout rates than other populations. If we don’t learn to reach these audiences much more effectively, our problems will only accelerate and intensify.
Next, this brings up real issues of school funding. As Andrew Rotherham has noted, as the population ages, they will feel less inclined to outlay more and more money for public education. As the article states, some older people will be even less inclined to lend their support if the school population looks less and less like them.
Solutions? Anyone?
New resources for community partnerships
Thanks to the Public Education Network's weekly newsblast for highlighting the following new resources:
The Iowa Association of School Boards has created a resource section to help school boards better communicate with their communities.
The Coalition for Community Schools has released a report entitled "Growing Community Schools: The Role of Cross-Boundary Leadership."
If you don't subscribe to the PEN newsblast, you should - it's one of the best resources available for anyone interested in public involvement in education.
Quitting smoking, changing schools
I started smoking in 1986, towards the end of my freshman year in college. Everyone was doing it, so I did it too. And I did it well: I was hooked, and kept at it for more than 12 years.
I knew it was a stupid habit: it’s expensive, has terrible health effects, and makes you and everything you own smell horrible. And yet, I couldn’t stop. I tried over and over – but I couldn’t do it.
And then I met Mary Brubaker. Beautiful, smart, funny – and a nonsmoker who, despite all odds, was willing to date a smoker like me. But she also made it clear that, while she enjoyed spending time together, she couldn’t see a future with someone who smoked.
I quit on Thanksgiving Day, 1998, and haven’t touched a cigarette since. As for Mary, we were married the following year and now have two little ones under our roof - quite something for a couple that didn’t have a future together :-)
The moral is that it’s incredibly hard to change by moving away from something without having something to move towards. If you want to change in any material way, you need to have something to move towards that’s so compelling it allows you to summon the strength to overcome habit and inertia and undergo a real transformation.
There’s a parallel here to education reform. We have a laundry list of what we don’t like about our current education system, and it’s a long list indeed. So why haven’t we been able to reform education? Why have we been unable to create any real change?
I submit that it’s because we’re trying to move away from something without having any idea of what we’re moving towards. We don’t have a vision of what we want education to look like: a clear, concrete vision that excites us, rallies us, and gives us a ruler against which to measure our common progress.
Create the vision of Education 2.0 – then we’ll be able to create positive change.
The third rail
When we commit to fixing some aspect of public education, the solutions pour forth. Take literacy, for example: to enable every kid to read, we’re increasing funding, commissioning (and actually reading!) research, boosting classroom time, testing (and testing again), increasing professional development, installing scripted programs, bringing in tutors, holding rallies, and pushing formal schooling down to younger and younger children. (Have I missed anything? I’m sure I have.)
But there’s one component to the development of literacy that we dare not mention. It doesn’t show up in any policy discussions, nor do we talk about it (publicly, at least) as being a part of any of the solutions mentioned above. It is The Solution Whose Name We Dare Not Speak.
Parents. There, I’ve said it.
Research has clearly shown that parental involvement - parents seen reading in the home, parents reading to their children, parents ensuring that children have an array of reading materials available to them - is one of the most critical indicators of success in helping a child learn how to read.
And the education community treats this as an unmentionable secret.
Sure, we address it to an extent at the local level: schools send home tip sheets, bring parents in to sign reading compacts, and do their best to keep parents apprised of kids’ progress through updates and report cards. But we’re asking too late – so many of the building blocks of literacy happen before a child ever walks into a formal school – and I think we’re probably beating around the bush, hinting and cajoling without ever laying things out in black and white.
My jaw would drop – DROP – if I ever saw a public figure call us on this. Just imagine the following speech by a politician:
My fellow parents,
The ability to read is the single most important indicator of success in life. If your child does not learn to read and read well, his opportunities in life are so limited that you may as well buy him a mop and a bucket right now: he won’t get much further than minimum-wage manual labor for the rest of his life.
Despite what you hear from the talking heads in the news, our schools are perfectly capable of teaching a child to read. But we have to have children who are ready to learn, who have a supportive environment at home that reinforces what they’re doing at school.
From almost the time that they’re born, it is your responsibility – and only your responsibility - to prepare them to successfully learn how to read. Fortunately this is simple to do.
Read to them every day, preferably a few times a day. Let them see you reading. Make sure they have access to a wide variety of reading materials in the home.
That’s all it takes: do that, and they’ll be ready to learn how to read when they get to school. We’ll take it from there, although of course we’ll still expect you to do your part at home by continuing to read, continuing to emphasize the importance of reading, and holding yourselves and your child accountable when we send home work that reinforces what we’re doing in school.
And if you don’t? Shame on you. You’re failing your children, relegating them to a life filled with the frustration and despair that come with living on the fringes of society. They will always look longingly at the lives that others are able to build for themselves and knowing that success is permanently out of their grasp. It won’t be the fault of the schools, nor will it be the fault of “society.” It will be your fault, and yours alone.
So please: read to your children. Let them see you read. Give them access to books and other reading materials. And help them lay the groundwork for a life that can take them anywhere they decide they want to go.
Good night, and good reading.
Is it really such a political lighting rod to expect parents to be parents? Why aren’t we stating what is so obvious to so many: that parents have an essential role in the education of their children?
Now, I do realize that we’re not in the age of the stable, nuclear family – that some parents are trying to raise kids on their own, some are working two or more jobs, and some are struggling with things I can’t even imagine.
But the fact is, every kid has a limited window of opportunity here: if we miss it, their potential for literacy, and with it an education and a shot at a good life, shrinks dramatically. There are no do-overs – we get one shot, and that’s it.
It’s time for every parent to be reminded of their role in the education of their children - no sense keeping it a secret anymore.
posted by Brett Pawlowski at 9:36 AM | 22 comments
Bringing young scientists into the classroom
Now this is exciting (courtesy of the NASSMC newsbrief):
TITLE: “The Sounds of Science”
Mya Thompson, a graduate student in Cornell University’s department of neurobiology and behavior, is sharing her love of science with middle-school students through a National Science Foundation fellowship.
The $50-million fellowship program aims to get enthusiastic young scientists into the classroom to excite schoolchildren. At the same time, the experience forces the grad students to practice talking about science in a way that non-scientists can understand.
“You have to be able to not just talk like you’re in a scientific conference,” Thompson says.
Thompson teaches boys at the Hillside Children’s Center, in Varick, New York, about the nature of sound. She has taught lessons on how sound is produced, how it travels, and how it looks in soundscapes, scientific graphs of soundwaves.
After recording outdoor sounds on campus for a 24-hour period, Thompson shows the students soundscapes of periodic five-minute intervals. Red spikes indicate a louder sound, yellow spikes represent medium-loud. The boys study the graphs and guess at what the sounds might be.
Ms. Thompson also shares soundscapes from her research in the Central African Republic. She is recording elephant sounds, looking for ways to distinguish between male and female, young and old. She hopes her work will aid in counting the animals and bolstering conservation efforts.
SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education, 28 April 2006 (A64)
WEBSITE: http://chronicle.com/weekly/v52/i34/34a06401.htm
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CultureVulture
House Porn
Also in Etc
Love Masters, NY Aug 8, 2011
2017 Emmys Live Blog Andrew Osborne
Big Apple Bites Sept 07 Michael Wade Simpson
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1vMpkIRAjo
Philip Glass, SF
Philip Glass at the piano
Photo by Philip Meier
Same, Same, Different
Philip Glass, piano
Solo recital of Six Etudes—Nos. 1, 2, 3, 6, 9, 10 (1994-1999), “Mad Rush” (1980), “Metamorphoses”—Nos. 2,3,4 (1989), “Dreaming Awake” (2006), and “Wichita Vortex Sutra” (1990)
Novellus Theater, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco
Philip Glass didn’t come to the Bay Area just to play piano at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts—although it was nice that he did. At 74, Glass remains insanely productive; he was also here to make an appearance at Lucinda Childs Dance Company’s performance of their 1979 collaboration, “Dance”—a collaboration they shared with visual artist Sol LeWitt. Both Childs and Glass were also in California to launch another acclaimed collaboration, this time with avant-garde stage director and playwright Robert Wilson, whose epic opera, “Einstein on the Beach” (1976) will have its West Coast premiere at Cal Performances in 2012. What a better time, with this schedule, to just sit at the piano and knock out a few tumbling arpeggios and shifting rhythmic phrases, as only Glass can do?
Six Etudes are part of an evening length of sixteen studies total. Each approach the piano a bit differently, resulting in diverse yet familiar compositions. Those played April 30 range from the romantic melancholy of No. 2, to an urban traffic pulse and intensity of No. 3, to the meeting of two opposing characters (low octave to higher octave) that melt together in No. 9, and concluding with the frenetic rhapsody that progresses into a jazzy style in No. 10.
“Mad Rush” was originally composed for organ, to which Lucinda Childs choreographed a solo just after it premiered in 1980. “Mad Rush” (view a sample here) has a complexity of rhythm and an orchestral arch to it, with drops of notes the higher octaves.
“Metamorphoses” is another set of compositions drawn, in part, from a staging of Kafka’s “Metamorphosis” by Gerald Thomas. The melancholy Metamorphosis No. 2 with its heavy held base note that repeats throughout the variations 3 and 4 elicits a sense of nostalgia and defines the sonic flow typical of Glass compositions. What keeps this hugely characteristic arrangement of his, and much of the entire program, from coming off tired and trite goes beyond the genuinely unique freshness of most of his compositions, and that Glass is the one playing them.
“Dreaming Awake,” which has also been set to choreography by Molissa Fenley, superimposes rhythmical structures and acrobatic changes in temper.
The final composition, before an encore of “Nights on the Balcony,” was “Wichita Vortex Sutra,” named after Allen Ginsberg’s antiwar poem from the 1960s. This poem was used in his first collaboration with Glass in 1990 in the chamber opera “Hydrogen Jukebox” (named from a verse in Ginsberg’s epic poem, “Howl.”)
Of this creative venture, Glass says: “In 1988…I happened to run into Allen Ginsberg at St. Mark’s bookshop in New York and asked him if he would perform with me. We were in the poetry section, and he grabbed a book from the shelf and pointed out ‘Wichita Vortex Sutra.’ The poem, written in 1966 and reflecting the anti-war mood of the times, seemed highly appropriate for the occasion. I composed a piano piece to accompany Allen’s reading, which took place at the Schubert Theater on Broadway.”
When Ginsberg died in 1997, Glass put the piece aside, only recently reviving it. For this recital, Ginsberg’s prerecorded reading of the poem was played over Glass’ composition. Although the sentiment for this piece was present, it was performed as if the two of them were competing to see who could play and speak the loudest. I’m not sure why this delivery was presented this way unless to express the antiwar tension of that—and current—time or if the sound wasn’t mixed well. “Wichita Vortex Sutra” is a lovely piano piece on its own, and Ginsberg’s passionate poem—delivered with his trademark raspy voice—stands equally by itself, and yet, as presented, they seemed to be having their own tug of war.
So, how did Glass do, playing his own compositions that are mostly indistinguishable one from the other? Clearly, he still genuinely enjoys what he does, which includes telling restrained history-rich war stories about each piece. And this in itself is worth paying attention to, because while the music may repeat itself over and over, who’s to say how much longer this groundbreaking composer will be playing recitals? He is a living legend and, as such, at a fairly intimate concert such as Novellus Theater, it is equally challenging to distinguish the art and the artist—both with their repetitive structures and stylistic nuances.
david@moryoga.com
Philip Glass at San Francisco Jazz Festival San Francisco,
Michael McDonagh
The Complete Piano Etudes of Philip Glass San Francisco,
Philip Glass & Ravi Shankar music at the Proms London,
Mary Nguyen
New Century Chamber Orchestra San Francisco,
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Big Earl's History
The History of Big Earl’s Greasy Eats
Known as the old Cave Creek gas station, Big Earl’s Greasy Eats was designed as a station for Standard Oil in 1935 and patented in 1936. In 1936, Phoenix had 127 service stations, 14 of which were Standard Oil stations. Today, the Cave Creek station, Big Earl’s Greasy Eats, is the only known surviving example of a 1930s art deco Standard gas station in the greater Phoenix metropolis. Now a world famous restaurant, the former station originally was located on 19th Avenue in Phoenix and was moved to Cave Creek in 1952. It functioned as a Standard station until the late 1980s. Open 364 days a year, Big Earl’s Greasy Eats serves breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Brooke Dallas purchases Big Earl's Greasy Eats
Cave Creek, Arizona – Brooke Dallas, a native Cave Creek resident who worked for iconic Big Earl’s Greasy Eats for more than four years, purchased the business.
Dallas, who has many plans for the retro restaurant/bar, says buying the business was her destiny.
“I wanted to buy Big Earl’s Greasy Eats because I have worked here for years and have a deep connection with the restaurant and the many relationships I have fostered here,” says Butler. “It became apparent to me that this is where I should be.”
Butler says her team of 17 employees already has removed the stage and dancing poles, which were key to the development of the restaurant/bar’s annual White Trash Bash, which takes place every July.
“We are excited to bring a lot of fun and interesting changes to Big Earl’s in the coming weeks and months,” adds Butler. “Our team has added tater tots and fried pickles to the menu and are offering even more exciting adult milkshake varieties, and we plan to will add more new food items for later this year. One of our goals is to bring back the 1950s feel that made this place a piece of Arizona history, however, we have committed to continue serving the same award-winning food that people have come to love.”
Dallas is planning to add Monday night family nights, video truck games monthly and a party to celebrate the sale of the establishment.
Big Earl’s Greasy Eats is located at 6135 E. Cave Creek Road, Cave Creek, Ariz., 85331. The phone number is 480-575-7889, the email is: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and the website is bigearlsgreasyeats.com.
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My Test Blog
My Test Wordpress Blog
SVG Test
This is a test of the new Gutenberg editor and the SVG app in WordPress 5.0 Alpha.
Generated by Parallax View's SVG Family-Tree Generator V4.4.1. See http://parallax-viewpoint.blogspot.com/2017/05/interactive-trees-in-blogs-using-svg.html M: 9 Aug 1897 in Marylebone, London M: 21 Feb 1921 In Fulham, London B: 4 Dec 1900 in Chelsea, London D: 3 Apr 1991 in Gosport, Hampshire B: 4 Dec 1900 in Chelsea, London D: 3 Apr 1991 in Gosport, Hampshire Lily Rose Lefever (1900–1991) B: 16 June 1899 in Chelsea, London D: 1993 in Fulham, London B: 16 June 1899 in Chelsea, London D: 1993 in Fulham, London Elsie May Lefever (1899–1993) B: 1902 in Fulham, London D: 1902 in Fulham, London B: 1902 in Fulham, London D: 1902 in Fulham, London Albert Daniel Lefever (1902–1902) B: 25 Jul 1904 in Chelsea, London D: 1 Nov 1947 in Fulham, London B: 25 Jul 1904 in Chelsea, London D: 1 Nov 1947 in Fulham, London Violet Dorothy Lefever (1904–1948) B: 16 Jun 1906 in Fulham, London D: 1989 in Fulham, London B: 16 Jun 1906 in Fulham, London D: 1989 in Fulham, London William Daniel Lefever (1906–1989) B: 15 Sep 1872 in Bethnal Green, London D: 2 May 1952 in Fulham, London B: 15 Sep 1872 in Bethnal Green, London D: 2 May 1952 in Fulham, London Daniel Lefever (1872–1952) B: 18 Jul 1878 in Chelsea, London D: 9 Aug 1897 in Fulham, London B: 18 Jul 1878 in Chelsea, London D: 9 Aug 1897 in Fulham, London Amelia Harriet Edwards (1878–1956) B: 9 Dec 1895 in Fulham, London D: 25 Feb 1964 in Gosport, Hampshire B: 9 Dec 1895 in Fulham, London D: 25 Feb 1964 in Gosport, Hampshire Richard George Spencer (1895–1964) Reginald William Spencer (1921-2001) Doreen Elsie Spencer (1930-2015)
Born 4 Dec 1900 in Chelsea, London Died 3 Apr 1991 in Gosport, Hampshire
Born 16 June 1899 in Chelsea, London Died 1993 in Fulham, London
Born 1902 in Fulham, London Died 1902 in Fulham, London
Born 25 Jul 1904 in Chelsea, London Died 1 Nov 1947 in Fulham, London
Born 16 Jun 1906 in Fulham, London Died 1989 in Fulham, London
Born 15 Sep 1872 in Bethnal Green, London Died 2 May 1952 in Fulham, London
Born 18 Jul 1878 in Chelsea, London Died 9 Aug 1897 in Fulham, London
Born 9 Dec 1895 in Fulham, London Died 25 Feb 1964 in Gosport, Hampshire
No notes available for Reginald William Spencer (1921-2001)
No notes available for Doreen Elsie Spencer (1930-2015)
Married 9 Aug 1897 in Marylebone, London
Married 21 Feb 1921 In Fulham, London
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A Man Escaped [Blu-ray] Robert Bresson
By Robert Bell
Being a comprehensive Criterion package, the Blu-ray release of Robert Bresson's ascetic, cold and exact prison escape movie, A Man Escaped comes complete with three documentaries from three different decades on the subject of the reclusive, exceptionally single-minded director. The first, a 1965 episode of Cinéastes de Notre Temps, features Bresson's first on-camera interview, which is broken up into an abundance of brief quotes suggesting a focus on cinematography as an art form unrelated to performance and theatre. Amidst many protracted clips from his films, he discusses showing only the minimum visual experience for the viewer to get a sense of what is going on. Though it's never said, it's a hint at his auteur vision or projected communication of how he sees things as translated through the medium of film. This idea is discussed comprehensively in the 1984 doc, The Road to Bresson, which features conversations with Paul Schrader, Louis Malle, Andrei Tarkovsky and actors that discuss his forced suppression of their instinct to perform. This second documentary analyzes the works of Bresson and his tendency towards insular thinking—not watching anyone else's films and ignoring the progression of cinema beyond his works—noting his intensity and specific knack for crafting works of visual specificity. For example, The Man Escaped is a masterpiece of deceptive simplicity, using a mathematic, minimalist precision to document the facts and experiences of French Resistance leader Fontaine (François Leterrier) and his plan to escape prison. Shots are exact and oft-repeated, showing only the actions necessary to encapsulate the single-minded pursuit of a man seeking freedom from oppression. More than a mere prison escape movie, this cool handling of the mirror and use of actors as empty vessels or models—as Bresson puts them in some of his notes outlined in the third doc, The Essence of Forms--works as a piece about humanity and its will (no references to Schopenhauer are made). Some have referred to it as a spiritual work, while others read into the intense preservationist nature of the human psyche—one that considers killing a cellmate to protect one's own needs—presented. These concepts are discussed in detail in the third documentary but are handled with more romantic nostalgia than was presented in the earlier examinations, showing the affects that time has on perception. An essay from film scholar Tony Pipolo and a discussion about the use of sound are also included with the 2K digital restoration of a film that looks clear and crisp on the Blu-ray format. (Criterion)
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#FFUNSA
About the Faculty of Philosophy
Teaching Process
Department of Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian Language
Department of Comparative Literature and Library Sciences
Department of German Language and Literature
Chair of Archaeology
Chair of Art History
Department of Literatures of the Peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Department of Oriental Philology
Department of Pedagogy
Department of Romance Languages and Literatures
Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures
Centre for Scientific Research and Expert Activities
The Chair for English Language and Literature—currently the Department of English Language and Literature—was established in 1951 as part of the Chair for German Language and Literature and English Language and Literature. In 1961, separate Chairs for English Language and Literature and for German Language and Literature were established. Obren Vukomanović and Ljubica Vojnović were the first to teach English language courses, while Olga Humo and Ivo Vidan were the first to teach English literature courses. In 1954, Branka Bokonjić joined the teaching staff and Svetozar Koljević joined the following year. In 1957, Damir Kalogjera joined the Department as a teaching assistant. In 1955, the Chair graduated its first students.
The core teaching and research fields at the Department are branches of linguistics (morphology, phonetics, morphosyntax, syntax, sociolinguistics, pragmatics, the history of language, contrastive linguistics and linguistic theory), contemporary English language, English and American literature, including both surveys and the study of individual literary movements and periods (the age of Shakespeare, Renaissance poetry, Romantic poetry, the 18th and 19th century novel, the American Renaissance, American literature of the 1920s, 20th century British literature), the social and cultural history of Great Britain and the United States, the methodology of English language teaching in primary and secondary schools, and translation and interpreting studies. The programme is organised in two cycles (3+2).
The development of the Department of English Language and Literature can be traced through the number of graduates: In 1955 one student graduated; in 1956 two students graduated; in 1966 seventeen students graduated; seventy-two graduated in 1976; forty-three in 2004; while in 2009 there were 41 graduates from the first cycle of the Bologna programme and 43 graduates from the four-year pre-Bologna programme.
The Department and its individual members and associates have taken part in projects at various academic institutions, participated at academic and professional conferences, and published monographs and journal articles in Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian, as well as in English, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the former Yugoslavia, and further abroad. Members of the Department have taught at universities in Europe, America and Asia as visiting professors, and have lectured at local and foreign universities and other academic and professional institutions. They have also received various prestigious graduate and postdoctoral research grants.
In terms of its teaching staff, a high point for the Department was in 1990 when there were 24 members of the teaching staff, including 12 PhDs. In the recent past, dozens of instructors, associates and foreign lectors from the former Yugoslavia, as well as from Great Britain, the USA, France and Spain, have worked at the Department for shorter or longer periods.
During the war, only one professor, Dr. Zvonimir Radeljković, remained at the Department. During these very difficult years, Dr. Radeljković served as the dean of the Faculty, ensuring not only its survival but also its dignity.
In the post-war years, the number of faculty members and associates grew relatively quickly. Dr. Zvonimir Radeljković was joined by Dr. Srebren Dizdar, Dr. Midhat Riđanović, Dr. Lada Šestić, Dr. Snežana Bilbija, higher lector Spomenka Beus, teaching assistants Ksenija Kondali, Merima Osmankadić and Amira Sadiković, and later by Dr. Nedžad Leko, Jasminka Mehić and Dževahira Arslanagić. International visiting professors offered a lot of assistance in teaching during the war and the immediate post-war period. This was made possible by donations primarily from the Open Society Foundations (Soros Foundation) and the World University Service—Austrian Committee. Key among them were the American poet Christopher Merrill who taught English literature while the conflict was still ongoing, Dr. Dora Maček from the University of Zagreb, Noreen Skennion and Christopher Biehl from the USA, and Desmond Maurer from Ireland.
Since its establishment, leading critics and writers from Great Britain, the USA and other countries—critics such as David Daiches and Graham Hough, writers such as Chinua Achebe, Mark Strand, William Kennedy and James Hawes—as well as leading world linguists, such as Claire Kramsch, Bas Aarts and Daniel Perrin, have lectured at the Department.
The Bologna reform was an opportunity for the Department to enrich its programme by modernising its curriculum and programmes. Therefore, after the three-year first cycle, students can choose among four programmes: teaching, linguistics, literature and translation. This has shown itself to be the right decision and the Department is successfully educating new generations of teachers, translators and scholars. The Department of English Language and Literature is the only one in Bosnia and Herzegovina to offer students instruction in interpreting.
At this moment, there are two Chairs at the Department of English Language and Literature (the Chair of English Language and the Chair of English and American Literature) with 21 faculty members and associates: two full professors (Dr. Srebren Dizdar, Dr Nedžad Leko), five associate professors (Dr. Sanja Šoštarić, Dr. Shahab Yar Khan, Dr. Merima Osmankadić, Dr. Amira Sadiković, Dr. Ksenija Kondali), eight assistant professors (Dr. Selma Đuliman, Dr. Larisa Kasumagić-Kafedžić, Dr. Ifeta Čirić-Fazlija, Dr. Lejla Mulalić, Dr. Faruk Bajraktarević, Dr. Melisa Okičić, Dr. Nataša Stojaković, Dr. Nejla Kalajdžisalihović), one teaching associate (Davor Njegić, MA), three teaching assistants (Alma Žero, MA, Srebrenka Mačković, MA, Nermina Čordalija, MA), one lector (Vedad Lihovac) and one foreign lector (Stephen Hefford).
During its sixty years of existence, the Department has established special relations with a number of institutions abroad, especially in Great Britain, the USA, Norway, and Japan. Notable among them are the Scottish Universities’ International Summer School from Edinburgh where students from the Sarajevo Department of English Language and Literature have been participating for over a decade; Grand Valley State University from Michigan where faculty and students from the Sarajevo Department have taught and studied; the Department of English Language and Literature in Bergen, Norway where a significant number of faculty and associates from the Department have taught, studied and carried out research for their MA theses; and Smith College from Massachusetts with which the Sarajevo Department of English Language and Literature has been developing a partnership not only for a very active exchange of students and faculty, but also for developing a programme in American Studies under the patronage of the State Department. Invitations for visiting positions at far-away universities such as Sophia University in Japan and ongoing projects with prestigious partners, such as the European Centre for Modern Languages (ECML) and the College of William and Mary (the second oldest higher education institution in the US) and many others, testify to the broad scope of teaching and research activities at the Department.
A contemporary curriculum with a dynamic and comprehensive teaching approach make the Department attractive to many international students and faculty who come to Bosnia and Herzegovina through various exchange programmes. The Department has hosted colleagues from various European countries each year since the introduction of programmes such as Erasmus and Mevlana.
The Department has established a biannual academic conference, “Conference on English Language, Linguistics, Teaching and Translation Studies” (CELLTTS), that brings together scholars and researchers from around the world.
FREEDOM OF ACCESS TO INFORMATION
UNIVERSITY OF SARAJEVO
Franje Račkog 1, 71000 Sarajevo
© Faculty of Philosophy, University of Sarajevo (IT Support Service & Chair of Librarianship)
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Tag: 爱上海CQ
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BURLINGTON, Vt.–At Champlain College’s Commencement Ceremony on May 7, the College presented its Distinguished Citizen Award to Major General Martha T. Rainville –the Adjutant General of the State of Vermont–and the members of the Vermont National Guard.The ceremony was presided over by the chair of the Champlains Board of Trustees, William G. Post, Jr., and President Dr. Roger H. Perry, who delivered the Commencement Address and will retire at the end of June. Post said the awardees have collectively demonstrated tremendous leadership skills and community service, both in and outside of the Guard.When Champlains trustees met to discuss this years recipients, these were some of the words that were shared: Dignity, service and caring, Post said.Champlain College Trustee Bill Cody recently retired from the Army National Guard and he said, The Vermont Guard has served our country and our state above and beyond the call of duty. And Marthas care and concern for the welfare of the soldiers, air men and women, and their families are unsurpassed.Post said General Rainville has handled an important and sensitive job with grace and dignity in a very difficult timea time when soldiers have been deployed for active duty in the Middle East and other parts of the world. The efforts of the Guard and the General have been noticed across the state and on the national level. U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy said, Adjutant General Martha Rainville has been a superb leader during an especially difficult time for members of the Vermont National Guard and their families. He has said the Guard embodies the spirit of service that has always been a hallmark of Vermonters.Members of the Guard stand ready to assist Vermonters in times of need, Post said. They also make their mark as distinguished citizens by being involved in many civilian and community organizations, and General Rainville exemplifies that trait. Rainville has been involved in St. Albans town government, the Northwestern Medical Center, the American Heart Association, District 6 Environmental Commission, Vermont Veterans Home, and in her church.General Rainville oversees 4,000 members of the Vermont Army and Air National Guard and she manages a budget of $115 million. read more
The evergreen Neil Danns accepts Liverpool FC Academy coaching role
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By Ras WadadaFORMER Liverpool FC Academy student and current professional player, English-born Neil Danns Jr, has been appointed U-13’s and U-14’s coach of the academy where he began his football nurturing at the tender age of 12.The soon-to-be 38-year-old Golden Jaguars player, who has over 500 professional games in England to his credit and 17 International appearances for Guyana, brings to the academy a wealth of experience across all levels of the `Beautiful Game’.Speaking exclusively to Chronicle Sport via WhatsApp recently, the Liverpool born-and-bred midfielder said that his duties will be part-time and he is looking forward to the opportunity to coach.“Coaching is something I have always been interested in. I got my coaching badges 3 years ago, so that when the time comes like now I am ready.“This opportunity at Liverpool has to do mainly with the fact that I came through the youth system there until I was 16 years and also my son plays for the academy so I am always there watching my son at training and communicating with the coaches who thought it would be best for me to join the coaching staff in order to pass on my knowledge to the younger generation.“It is indeed a great opportunity for me since it does not interfere with my playing and I am really excited I must say,” Danns declared.“What makes this opportunity more special is that some of the coaches who helped me hone my talents there from 12 years old are still there and coaching my son. It is unbelievable to hear them calling my son the same name they used to call me; Yorkey or Dwightee in reference to Caribbean legend Dwight Yorke whom I admired so much as a youth. It’s amazing and it makes me proud.”Danns, who currently holds a UEFA `B’ Licence certificate is aiming to secure his `A’ Licence next summer and feels this is the ideal start to his coaching career. At the moment he has no immediate plans to quit playing although he admits in a couple of years’ time he will hang up his boots and go full-time into coaching.“This involvement at the academy will give me good experience and prepare me for full-time coaching. It is important to pass on whatever knowledge you have, so whenever I am in Guyana I sure will be sharing what I have learnt with coaches and players,” Danns assured.The youthful-looking golden jaguar explained that he will give four sessions of 2 hours each week and when he has an off-weekend from playing he will overlook the games of the youths at the academy.Danns Jr got reconnected to his roots in Guyana, thanks to Guyana’s former captain Christopher Nurse and football agent Fizul Khan, who invited him to join the Golden Jaguars and without hesitation he responded in the affirmative.“My connection to Guyana is through my grandfather, Edmond Danns, who was born and raised in Linden as I found out. I am thankful also to one of my cousins in Guyana, Carwyn Holland, who gave me so much knowledge about my roots and where my grandfather was from.“He made me visit Linden and I was able to see where my roots are on my father’s side and man, it was amazing. Unfortunately my grandfather died while my dad was young so I never had the chance to meet him.It was so fulfilling to finally get to Guyana and see exactly where my DNA was from and ever since I first came to Guyana I fell in love with the country and the people. It has given me some of the most amazing life experiences that I could have ever wished for; so to represent my grandfather and carry his name on my back when I am playing for Guyana is something very special.“It was such a special feeling, especially at the Gold Cup and there is no better way I could have honoured him, having never met him,” recalled the man who scored all 3 goals for Guyana at their debut appearance of the Gold Cup last year.Danns stated that it would be a dream come true, to one day coach the Golden Jaguars, “Maybe in the distant future I will be able one day to take up the role as head coach – another dream of mine.“To be able to take up such a role would be something very, special as football continues to bless me with so much. I would love for that day when I will be able to lead out Guyana as head coach and more importantly pass on my experiences.“At the moment I think coach Maximo is doing an absolutely fantastic job with the National team and it’s a pleasure to be part of his plans and what he is building”.The midfielder, whose professional career began in 2000, at the age of 18, has played over 500 games in England at various divisions from Premiership to League One and scored over 100 goals at central midfield, but his greatest moment was scoring for Guyana at the Gold Cup.“Scoring the penalty against Panama remains my greatest moment as a golden jaguar since it was Guyana’s first goal at a major International tournament. It is a moment I will cherish forever and it will live with me forever. I still watch the footage and every time I watch it I am filled with so much pride since I know most Guyanese watching the game live and on TV felt just as proud”.“Everything I do, I do to the best of my abilities, whether it’s playing football or raising my children. Everyone has got talent. It doesn’t matter if you are blessed with more talent, or less talent than anyone. The only thing that matters is that you push yourself into being the best that you can be.“When I am finished playing and go into coaching full-time I will have the same mentality and give it my all and if that is enough to get me into a job at the Championship or Premier level I would be grateful,” proclaimed the scorer of nine goals from 17 appearances as a Golden Jaguars player.
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Home > Posts tagged "Donald Trump"
Huawei files motion to challenge US ban
by Iheanacho Henry - May 29, 2019 May 29, 2019
Huawei this morning began the process of challenging the Trump administration’s sweeping ban. The Chinese hardware giant has filed a motion for summary judgement that calls into question the constitutionality of the section of the National Defense Authorization Act used to halt imports. The company’s Chief Legal Officer cited Huawei’s usual
U.S. to fix trade gap with Japan – Trump
US President Donald Trump kept up pressure on Japan to cut its trade surplus with America, saying ahead of a summit with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that he expected some announcements, probably in August, with the trade gap straightened out rapidly. Trump added that he expected “good things” to emerge from
Trump’s latest explanation for the Huawei ban is unacceptably bad
By Russell Brandom Over the past week, the US government has taken extreme and unprecedented steps against Huawei, cutting it off from every US partner at the risk of a long-term rupture in trade between the US and China. But while the impact of the order is clear, it’s still not
Prince Charles to meet Trump during state visit to UK
Britain’s Prince Charles has agreed to meet with US President Donald Trump during his state visit to the United Kingdom in early June, CNN reported. Trump and Charles, heir to the UK throne, are expected to meet for afternoon tea at Clarence House, the official residence of the Prince and
Trump plans official launch of re-election campaign mid-June – sources
President Donald Trump is facing a potentially difficult path to winning a second term in November 2020, plans an official rollout to his re-election campaign in mid-June, sources said on Monday. The mid-June is the four-year anniversary of his first run. Trump is likely to kick off his campaign with a
Unemployment hits 49-year low in US
by Iheanacho Henry - May 6, 2019 May 6, 2019
Hiring accelerated and pay rose at a solid pace in April, setting the stage for healthy United States economic growth to endure despite fears of a slowdown earlier this year. Employers added 263,000 jobs, with the unemployment rate dropping to a five-decade low of 3.6 per cent from 3.8 per
Trump arrives UK for first State visit.
by admin - July 12, 2018
President Donald Trump and First lady, Melania, on Thursday arrived the Stansted Airport in the UK for his first official visit since becoming US President. Trump and Melania landed on Air Force One at 2pm in London as they embark on a four-day tour of the UK, according to reports. They will
Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin to hold talks in July.
by admin - June 28, 2018
United States President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin have scheduled bilateral talks for July 16 in Helsinki, Finland, the White House said in a press release on Thursday, as well as by the Kremlin. “President Donald J. Trump and President Vladimir Putin of the Russian Federation will meet on
CIA report says that North Korea is NOT willing to give up its nuclear weapons in the near future but is thinking of opening a burger restaurant in Pyongyang as a show of goodwill.
A new U.S. intelligence evaluation shows that North Korea does not plan to give up its nuclear weapons in the foreseeable future. This contradicts President Donald Trump saying that Pyongyang plans to do just that in the future. Trump continues to chase a nuclear summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong
Reality star, Kim Kardashian set to meet Trump at the White House to discuss pardoning a first-time drug offender.
by admin - May 30, 2018 May 30, 2018
Kim Kardashian will be meeting Donald Trump at the White House on today to discuss pardoning a first-time drug offender Alice Johnson as well as the countries prison reforms. She will first sit down with the president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, before seeking a pardon from President Trump for Alice Johnson -
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The Michael Nelson Prize
The IAMHIST-Michael Nelson Prize for a work in media and history is a biennial prize awarded for the book, radio or television programme or series, film, DVD, CD-ROM, or URL making the best contribution on the subject of media and history, which has been published or shown in the preceding two years.
The prize is dedicated to Michael Nelson, whose passion for media and journalism inspired IAMHIST throughout the years. For more information on Michael Nelson, please consult: www.michaelnelsonbooks.com
Two awards are made. The first, a prize of $1000, will be for the best contribution by a book; the second, a prize of $1000 will be for the best contribution by a (multi) media contribution: this second prize will consider media such as films, CD-ROMs, and URLs separately from print media,
For the most recent call for submissions, and rules for the Michael Nelson prize, please visit here.
In 2017, Shelley Stamp was awarded the Michael Nelson Prize for Lois Weber in Early Hollywood (California: University of California Press, 2015).
Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television Prizes
Each year the IAMHIST Council awards prizes for the best articles by both an established scholar and a new scholar published in the Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television. They are:
The David H. Culbert Routledge-IAMHIST Prize for Best Article by an Established Scholar
Previous winners have included:
Kate Fortmueller, ‘Gendered Labour, Gender Politics: How Edith Head Designed her Career and Styled Women’s Lives’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 38: 3 (September 2018), pp.474-94.
Sangjoon Lee, ‘Creating an anti-communist motion picture producers’ network in Asia: the Asia Foundation, Asia Pictures, and the Korean Motion Picture Cultural Association’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 37: 3 (September 2017), pp.517-538.
David Goodman, ‘A transnational history of radio listening groups I: the United Kingdom and United States’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 36: 3 (September 2016) pp.436–465, and ‘A transnational history of radio listening groups II: Canada, Australia and the world’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 36: 4 (December 2016) pp.627–645.
Valeri Whitmer, ‘Channelling Anti-Fascism: Macleish, Welles and the Disorienting Power of the Announcer’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 35: 2 (June 2015), pp. 319-338.
The Philip M. Taylor Routledge-IAMHIST Prize by a New Scholar
Penny Chalk, ‘Edgar Dale’s Film Appreciation Programme: An Early Education in Adaptation’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 38: 4 (December 2018), pp.729-42.
Laura Mayne, ‘Whatever happened to the British “B” movie? Micro-budget film-making and the death of the one-hour supporting feature in the early 1960s’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 37: 3 (September 2017), pp.559-576.
Andrew J. Bottomley, ‘The Ballad of Alan and Auntie Beed: Alan Lomax’s radio programmes for the BBC, 1943–1960’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 36: 4 (December 2016) pp.604–626.
Rebecca Harrison, ‘Writing History on the Page and Screen: Mediating Conflict through Britain’s First World War Ambulance Trains’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 35:4 (December 2015), pp. 559-578.
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Stolen Art
A Film by Simon Backes
In New York City in 1978, an unknown Czech artist by the name of Pavel Novak held an exhibit at WX Gallery entitled "Stolen Art," which featured paintings by Rembrandt, Courbet, Van Gogh and other great masters, all reproduced with astonishing accuracy by Novak. Following the claim by a private collector that one painting, Courbet's "The Calm Sea" was actually an original stolen from his home, the FBI shut down the exhibit and Novak disappeared without a trace.
In investigating the scandal created by this outlaw artist, filmmaker Simon Backes learns that few today are aware of the event while those who are refuse to speak about it. His search takes him worldwide-from New York to Prague, Leiden, Paris, St. Petersburg, St. Moritz and Rome-as he visits leading museums and interviews art experts, curators, collectors, journalists, and critics, including Karel Michalik, a colleague of Novak's, who wrote a provocative essay for the exhibit's program.
In the course of its investigation-which includes Super 8mm footage of the 1978 exhibit (with Andy Warhol, among others, in attendance) and journalist Barbara Lorey's tape-recorded phone interview with Novak-the film discusses his philosophy of the "reappropriation" and "redistribution" of great art, how authentic art can be distinguished from reproductions, the relationship between artists, critics and collectors, the role of memory in art appreciation, and the role of art forgers.
In trying to determine whether Novak was a brilliant art forger or a remarkable thief, however, the mystery merely thickens and the question becomes not so much who created what, but who created whom?
"Fascinating… the film goes out of its way to be accessible to art newbies and explains many interesting concepts of art appreciation and interpretation in the midst of a Usual Suspects-like mystery that also plays like a comedy of errors that is international copyright law."— Erin Donovan, linktv.org
"An investigation with the allure of a philosophical thriller… brimming with intelligence and erudition."— Philippe Simon, Cinergie, revue du Cinema Belge
"Is true art illegal? Do paintings lose their beauty once they are privately hoarded and can no longer be appreciated collectively? The questions raised are as intriguing as the answers."— Angie Driscoll, Hot Docs Festival Program
Art, Cultural Studies, US & Canadian Broadcast Rights
The contemporary art world is changing dramatically. How are collectors, museum directors, dealers and artists responding to transformations in the market?
Explores the artist's work and philosophy, using extensive interviews and documentation of artwork installed around the world.
Secret Museums
For millenia erotic art has been created, often by some of the world's best-known artists. But it is rarely on public display.
Last Updated January 10, 2021 [Build 3.0.a048-d7]
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Jennifer Sinor
On Teaching and Writing
Sky Songs: Meditations on Loving a Broken World
Sky Songs is a collection of essays that takes inspiration from the ancient seabed in which Jennifer Sinor lives, an elemental landscape that reminds her that our lives are shaped by all that has passed through. Beginning with the conception of her first son, which coincided with the tragic death of her uncle on an Alaskan river, and ending a decade later in the Himalayan home of the Dalai Lama, Sinor offers a lyric exploration of language, love, and the promise inherent in the stories we tell: to remember.
About Jennifer Sinor
Writer, teacher, mother, and certified yoga instructor, Jennifer Sinor is the author of several books of creative nonfiction, including, most recently, Sky Songs: Meditations on Loving a Broken World. The recipient of the Stipend in American Modernism, Jennifer has also been nominated for the National Magazine Award. When she is not writing or teaching or spending time with her husband, the poet Michael Sowder, and their two teenage sons, Jennifer can be found practicing yoga in Logan, Utah. A professor of English, Jennifer teaches creative writing at Utah State University. Read More
© 2021 Jennifer Sinor
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Japanese Football Stadiums / December 28, 2020
As the International Cricket Council (ICC) again gears up to organise a major cricketing tournament, the first global event of the year comes in the form of the ICC Women’s World Cup Qualifier 2017, which is all set to get underway in Colombo, Sri Lanka from Tuesday. 10 teams in the form of India, Ireland, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, South Africa, Bangladesh, Thailand, Zimbabwe, Scotland and Papua New Guinea (PNG) will compete for the four spots that are up for the grabs. The 15-day tournament starts on February 7, 2017, as the opening game takes place between the hosts Sri Lanka, who take on the Indian eves, at the P Sara Oval. The top four teams in the super-six stage will be qualifying for the main event, which will be held in England in June 2017. ICC Women’s World Cup Qualifier 2017: Live cricket streaming online
Although one team will be crowned the champions following the final on February 21, four will make it to the main stage of the ICC Women’s World Cup 2017 along with the ICC Women’s Championship. However, the remaining two teams from the Super-six stage would be guaranteed of an ODI status in the next ICC cycle. With the stakes high in the qualifier contest as well, every team would be aiming to gain something from the event. Meanwhile, the matches of this qualifier event will also be streamed live by the ICC through its digital platforms for the first time ever, indicating ICC’s continued stance on developing and improving the quality of the Women’s game. The first match between hosts Sri Lanka and India is all set to be streamed live on Tuesday.
Here are the team standings:
Super sixes:
N/R NRR
India +1.847
South Africa +0.877
Pakistan +0.382
Sri Lanka -0.055
Bangladesh -1.006
Ireland -2.049
Group A:
Zimbabwe -1.565
Thailand -1.491
Group B:
Papua New Guinea -2.623
“The ICC Women’s World Cup Qualifier 2017 is a very important event, with some of the best teams competing for spots in the ICC Women’s World Cup 2017. I’m sure the comprehensive coverage of the Colombo event across our digital platforms will showcase the talents of the players to a huge audience of cricket fans, and continue to build the profile of the women’s game, ” said Geoff Allardice, ICC’s General Manager.
Source: www.cricketcountry.com
- AFC Qualification
- AFC qualifiers
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A Centennial Tribute to Margaret Lockwood
Move-In Day at UC San Diego
Tonight's Movie: Prairie Thunder (1937) - A Warner...
Tonight's Movie: Jason Bourne (2016)
Tonight's Movie: Cool Runnings (1993)
Tonight's Movie: Sully (2016)
Tonight's Movie: Just Pals (1920)
Tonight's Movie: State Fair (1933)
Tonight's Movie: Yours, Mine and Ours (1968) - An Olive Films Blu-ray Review
Henry Fonda and Lucille Ball star in the family comedy YOURS, MINE AND OURS (1968), released on DVD and Blu-ray last week by Olive Films.
I've seen the movie a number of times over the years, and the good-looking Blu-ray edition made revisiting the film a particularly enjoyable experience.
Growing up I enjoyed numerous books and movies inspired by true stories about large families, such as CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN (1950), ROOM FOR ONE MORE, or THE FAMILY NOBODY WANTED, to name just a few.
YOURS, MINE AND OURS is another story in that vein, based on Helen (North) Beardsley's book WHO GETS THE DRUMSTICK? Helen North was a widow with eight children who married Frank Beardsley, a widower with ten children. They went on to have two children together, though only one is shown in the film.
Fonda and Ball star as the Beardsleys. The film was a reunion for the actors, who had starred in THE BIG STREET in 1942. They're pros, of course, although I must say I really noticed this time around they were getting on in years to be playing these roles; according to his obituary, Frank was 45 when they married. Helen was 31. Fonda and Ball were...let's just say not 45 and 31!
YOURS, MINE AND OURS is a highly watchable if imperfect movie. It's hard not being entertained by a couple trying to work out a relationship while surrounded by 18 children and the attendant challenges of raising them, plus Van Johnson adds some wry humor as Fonda's best friend.
At the same time, the film has moments of exasperating silliness and at times verges on the crass. That said, despite the fact that it's a flawed film it's drawn me back to rewatch it multiple times over the past decades, a testimonial to the film's staying power. Viewers who like the actors or share my enjoyment of "big family" stories will probably enjoy it as well.
The most recognizable children and teens in the cast are Morgan Brittany (billed Suzanne Cupito), Kimberly Beck, Tim Matheson, and a very young Tracy Nelson. Some of the other children, including Mitch Vogel, Eric Shea, and Michelle Tobin, were familiar episodic TV faces "back in the day." The cast also includes Tom Bosley as the family doctor and Ben Murphy as a boyfriend.
YOURS, MINE AND OURS was directed by Melville Shavelson, who was also one of several people who worked on the script. It was filmed by Charles F. Wheeler. The movie runs 111 minutes.
Incidentally, I've not seen the 2005 remake with Dennis Quaid and Rene Russo, but understand it changed the story and characters considerably.
As a postscript, one of Helen's children has written a book alleging that reality was a far cry from that portrayed in his mother's book and in the movie.
I own the previous MGM DVD which was released a number of years ago, and the widescreen Olive Films Blu-ray is a nice step up from that older fullscreen-only DVD. I put the DVD in the player for a quick comparison of a few scenes; the fullscreen version of the 1.85 film isn't as bad as one might anticipate, but the new widescreen print is definitely more desirable, whether it's a shot of an aircraft carrier or a gazillion children crowding into a kitchen. The Blu-ray also has a noticeably crisper picture.
The Blu-ray includes the trailer.
Thanks to Olive Films for providing a review copy of this Blu-ray.
When I first saw this film I was young and it never occurred to me that the leads were appreciably older than their characters. They were grown-ups and actors. The older I get the more I tend to notice this sort of thing. I don't let it detract from my enjoyment of the movie. It is noted, accepted and then pushed to the back as the movie continues.
That's a good description, Caftan Woman! Agree with all of the above.
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Excerpt: Investigative Journalism in the Age of the Social Web
This is an excerpt of my most recent feature on Mashable.com. Read it in full here.
In a society that is more connected than ever, investigative journalists that were once shrouded in mystery are now taking advantage of their online community relationships to help scour documents and uncover potential wrongs. The tools and information now available to journalists are making the jobs of investigative outlets more efficient.
The socialization of the web is revolutionizing the traditional story format. Investigative reporters are now capturing content shared in the social space to enrich their stories, enabling tomorrow’s reporters to create contextualized social story streams that reference not only interviewed sources, but embedded tweets, Facebook postings and more. Journalists are also leveraging the vast reach of social networks in unprecedented ways. In many respects, social media is enabling watchdog journalism to prosper. Here’s how.
Distributed Reporting
On the social web, investigative journalists are tapping citizens to take part in the process by scouring documents and doing shoe-leather reporting in the community. This is advantageous because readers often know more than journalists do about a given subject, said Jay Rosen, a journalism professor at New York University.
“That was always the case, but with the tools that we have today, that knowledge can start flowing in at relatively low cost and with relatively few headaches,” Rosen said. Rosen admits that we are just starting to learn how to do this effectively, but there are certainly some great experiments being done.
Talking Points Memo Muckraker had success with this approach by having its readers help sort through thousands of documents pertaining to the investigation of the U.S. Department of Justice’s controversial firing of seven United States attorneys in 2006. TPM provided clear instructions to its readers to cite specific documents that included something interesting or “damning.”
Even though they had hundreds of readers contribute in the comments, it’s important to remember the often invisible factors that contribute to that success. The site’s readers had a shared background knowledge because they had been following the story as Josh Marshall and his team developed it over months of reporting. They were also motivated to show that the attorney general had done something wrong, Rosen pointed out.
A similar example on a grander scale is that of The Guardian deploying its community to help dig through 458,832 members of parliament (MP’s) expense documents. They’ve already examined roughly half of those, thanks to the 27,270 people who participated. The Guardian rewarded community participants by creating a leader board based on the quantity and quality of their contributions and also highlighting some of the great finds by its members.
Read it in full here.
Online Journalism, Social Media, Tools, Trends
Facebook, investigative journalism, journalism, mashable, reporters, Social Media, Twitter
Vadim Lavrusik
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House-Museum Ilyo Voivoda
The house was built in the seventies of the nineteenth century and after the Liberation to 1898 in it lived Ilyo Voivoda - one of the renowned figures of the National liberation movement.
The house was restored in 1979-1980, and officially was opened as a museum in January, 1981. Together with the monument of the voivode and the restored houses of two others revolutionary activists from Kyustendil - Konstantin Popgeorgiev Berovski and Tonche Kadinmostki is formed a complete Renaissance memorial complex.
Now the house is restored and hosts an exposition called: “The National Liberation fights of the people from Kyustendil. Focus is given to the battles from the XV century up to the Liberation, as well as to the people’s contribution to the national liberation and unification of the Bulgaria in the late XIX and early XX century. The exhibition is located in six rooms, has an area of 150 square meters and contains about 800 exhibits. It follows the national-liberation activities of the population in Kyustendil until Bulgaria's Liberation. Basic accents in it are the life and work of Ilyo, а rebellion of May 1876, the participation of local people in the Bulgarian volunteer force and the town's liberation from Ottoman rule in January 1878.
Address: 189 boulevard Tsar Osvoboditel, Kyustendil
Telephone: 078/55-01-26
on the stage of Kyustendil theater for the first time in Bulgaria and in the world Mother by Maxim Gorki was performed.
the first woman - circus performer - Pavlina Pencheva is from Kyustendil.
in Kyustendil there are about 40 hot springs with temperatures from 50 to 73
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Sci-Tech Kids! – GPS Systems for Navigating Your Adventure
Posted in AK! Columns, October 2010 Issue, Sci-Tech Kids
by Brad Bradshaw, Sci-Tech Kids! Editor
In the 15th and 16th centuries, great explorers like Christopher Columbus faced a huge dilemma. They were traveling in totally unfamiliar land. How could these people know where they were going or how far they had gone? Back then, there were two methods of navigation: map and compass and star. As is familiar to outdoorsmen and soldiers, the map and compass method of navigation relies on the red needle of a compass pointing to magnetic north of the earth, which ranges from 8 to 15 degrees from true north. The star method of navigation, used mainly by sailors, uses an instrument called an astrolabe to determine the angle from the horizon to the north star, which is then used to determine one’s location. These two practices remained the primary methods of navigation for over four hundred years. However, in 1973 the United States Department of Defense revealed a new technology, called the Global Position System (GPS).
Personal GPS System
The GPS system was originally created as a military technology for use in tracking and firing long range missiles. However, the system also has numerous civilian uses. Let’s take a closer look at how it all works.
The “system” part of GPS describes a group of 36 satellites that orbit the earth. They are arranged in two circles, so that, from any point on Earth, one can spot at least two of them. These satellites both receive and transmit radio signals and function on a unique bandwidth (so they don’t get confused with the actual radio!) So how do these satellites know where you are?
The science backing GPS technology is pretty complicated, but it’s based on something you may be familiar with: the Doppler Effect. The Doppler Effect states that the frequency of waves emitted by an object moving toward you will increase, while the frequency of such a wave decreases when the object moves away from you. Let me explain this with an example. Let’s say you are standing on a sidewalk and a school bus is driving on the road toward you. The noise of the bus’ engine would increase as it got nearer toward you. The sound also goes up in pitch slightly. Then, as the bus passes you, the noise it makes will become quieter and deeper. This is the Doppler Effect in action! Any device that uses GPS sends out radio waves to GPS satellites. These satellites interpret the frequency of the radio wave to determine how far away you are. When at least two, and usually three of these satellites has calculated your distance, they transmit a signal back to your GPS with your exact location.
There’s a second very cool use for GPS favored by backpackers and hikers. Not only can GPS satellites find your location, they can also determine your altitude. For anyone climbing a mountain, this figure is very important. To find your altitude, four GPS satellites must receive your signal. They can then find how far you are from sea level (an altitude of 0 meters) in a process called triangulation.
What started off as a military technology for guiding long-range missiles has become a far-reaching tool with numerous applications. People use GPS every day from driving their cars to making phone calls. GPS units in phones are used in emergencies by 911 operators to send police or fire rescue crews to your location. Some dog collars have GPS units in them so that you can find your pet if he runs away.
Some people have even turned GPS navigation into a sport! Geocaching is a fun activity that combines hiking and a treasure hunt. You can download the coordinates of a “geocache” on your GPS unit, then hike to it to find treasure! There are such caches all over the world and the prizes range from candy to small toys. Check out more information on the sport at www.geocaching.com
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COVID-19 For the latest updates, click here
Toyota Canada newsroom
Toyota in the Community
Future and Concept
Innovation and Advanced Technology
Cars and Mini Vans
Hybrid, EV, PHEV, and FCEV
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TOYOTA LAUNCHES PRODUCTION OF ALL-NEW 2014 COROLLA & ...
TOYOTA LAUNCHES PRODUCTION OF ALL-NEW 2014 COROLLA & REDESIGNED 2014 TUNDRA
Plants in Mississippi and Canada begin building 11th generation of Corolla; redesigned 3rdgeneration Tundra pick-up built exclusively in San Antonio, Texas
Toronto, ON., (August 2, 2013) – Consumers have a lot to look forward to this fall as production of the all-new 2014 Corolla has begun at Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Mississippi, Inc. (TMMMS) and Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada, Inc. (TMMC). The start of production for the redesigned 2014 Tundra also began this week at Toyota’s Texas plant.
With nearly 40 million units sold, the Toyota Corolla is the best-selling car nameplate in the world, and this year marks its 47th year on the market. The 2014 Corolla will be available for sale in September.
The Mississippi plant initially began production of Corolla in November 2011 further advancing the company’s efforts to design, develop and build vehicles where they are sold. TMMMS has the annual capacity to produce 160,000 vehicles and employs nearly 2,000.
Building the Corolla is truly an effort by Toyota team members all across North America. Corolla engines are built in Buffalo, W. Va., engine plant. Cylinder heads and blocks for those engines are produced at both of Toyota’s Bodine Aluminum castings plants, located in Troy, Mo., and Jackson, Tenn.
The Mississippi plant will mark the start of production with a Team Mississippi Appreciation Day for team members, supplier team members and their families on September 7 at the BancorpSouth Arena in Tupelo, Miss.
Toyota’s Cambridge, Ontario plant has produced Corolla for 25 years - since 1988. TMMC also builds Lexus RX350, RAV4, RAV4 EV, and produces Matrix for the Canadian market. Annual capacity for the plant is 470,000 vehicles and it employs approximately 7,000.
2014 Tundra production underway
The start of production for the 2014 Tundra was celebrated this week by team members at Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Texas, Inc. (TMMTX).
The 2014 Tundra was redesigned, inside and out, representing the first major change since the launch of the current generation for the 2007 model year. The Tundra was completely engineered by Toyota Technical Center in Ann Arbor, Mich., and designed by Calty Design Research centers in Newport Beach, Calif., and Ann Arbor. The Toyota Tundra is built exclusively in San Antonio, Texas with 75 percent North American content. The 2014 Tundra will be available for sale in September.
Tundra production at Toyota’s Texas plant initially began in November 2006. The plant also builds the Tacoma and has the annual capacity to produce 200,000 trucks. More than 2,800 team members are employed at TMMTX.
Toyota’s Huntsville, Ala., engine plant is supplying all engines for Tundra production. Cylinder heads and blocks for those engines are produced at both of Toyota’s Bodine Aluminum castings plants, located in Troy, Mo., and Jackson, Tenn.
This September, the Texas plant will mark its 1 millionth vehicle built and then in October, will celebrate the 10 year anniversary of the plant’s groundbreaking.
Toyota has announced 10 North American production increases in the past 20 months including manufacturing plants in Princeton, Indiana; Huntsville, Ala.; Buffalo,
W. Va.; Georgetown, Ky., and Ontario, Canada. Cumulative investment total is approximately $2 billion, adding more than 4,000 jobs.
Toyota Canada Inc.
Toyota Canada Inc. (TCI) is the exclusive Canadian distributor of Toyota, Lexus and Scion cars, SUVs and trucks. Toyota is the first full-line manufacturer to make all of the elements of the Star Safety System standard on every vehicle starting in 2011. The Star Safety System includes Vehicle Stability Control (VSC), Traction Control (TRAC), Anti-lock Brake System (ABS), Electronic Brake-force Distribution (EBD), Brake Assist (BA) and Smart Stop Technology (SST). TCI’s head office is in Toronto, with regional offices in Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal and Halifax and parts distribution centres in Toronto and Vancouver.
Toyota employs over 18,000 team members at its Canadian corporate operations, including two assembly plants in Southwestern Ontario, an aluminum wheel manufacturing plant in Delta, B.C., a cold weather research facility in Northern Ontario and over 300 Toyota, Lexus and Scion Dealerships. A consistent award winner for product quality and ownership satisfaction, Toyota has sold over four million vehicles in Canada. More information about Toyota is available at media.toyota.ca or www.toyota.ca.
Corolla, English, Matrix, RAV4, Tacoma, Tundra, Corporate
Every effort has been made to ensure the product specifications, equipment, and content on this site are accurate based on information available at time of publishing. In some cases, certain changes in standard equipment or options may occur, which may not be reflected online. Toyota Canada reserves the rights to make these changes without notice or obligation.
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© 2021 Toyota Canada Inc.
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Category: Personal Blog (page 1 of 27)
People are losing their fool heads over the new Cadillac commercial. Watch it here really quick:
If you want a good laugh, go directly to the YouTube site and read the comments, or perhaps check this article out by Bustle:
Now, as if admitting that the writer has nothing of substance to say, she opens with a really big close up (and therefore having no possibility of being flattering) picture of the man, who admittedly has a mild creepiness to him. I imagine this is why he played a bad guy in Justified.
Believe it or not, I’m not a fan of blind patriotism despite what you may think, especially after my last post. But that has been replaced by this idea that simply hating on your country is a sufficient indicator of your intelligence and incorruptibility. I’m not sure so much that we’re moving into a new era, or if it’s just easier to see what with the ease in a which many people can get a message out there. But on the intellectual level, hating on a commercial such as this is the equivalent of jumping in with, “Yeah, but the book was better!” when someone compliments a movie.
If you’re denying that America is the greatest country on this planet then there are only 1 of 2 possible explanations: 1) You simply don’t value the things that make our species great (art, science, general advancement of the species); or 2) You’re just insane.
As to 1): I’m an American. Odds are that I’m probably going to use more American cultural markers as a sign of my national and cultural superiority. I suppose it’s possible to look at a country with a great welfare system, high quantity of leisure time, more (or less) religious influence, or more economic equality, and take that as a sign of that nation’s superiority. But you’d be wrong. At the end of the day, out there in the black is death, destruction, and the end of all mankind. The culture that helps us survive it is the best culture. Now if the 13th Imam is actually coming back, then I guess I’m wrong and Arab nations are the best. But I think it’s safe to say that that’s probably not the case. Additionally, it’s hard to call anything specifically an American cultural marker. We’re probably the most diverse nation on the planet.
Now I’d like to hit on a few key thoughts in this person’s article:
“He goes on to note that other countries take August off. That also sounds nice, but it’s clear he thinks this is an insult.”
Yeah, because it IS an insult. Work isn’t necessarily slaving away for “the man”. It isn’t always the 9-5 at the factory or those mythical 80 hour weeks that everyone claims they have that they don’t. Work can be your 9-5 then coming home and sitting on your computer typing out code for the next big iPhone app. It can be playing your guitar instead of sitting on your ass in front of your television. It could be making television. It could be going to the gym and working out. Work is production in this sense. It’s making your atoms come together to create! He points to this in the commercial by citing men who achieved greatness, not just laborers.
And herein is where the naysayers get lost. They are the people who stunt growth. They don’t understand that some people do more than work a 9-5. Some people chase dreams. There’s more to success than wearing your fingers to the bone. Some of it is having the balls to chase a dream. To take chances. To decide to sell your silly possessions and put that money into a beat up race car to take to the county drag strip. Maybe you’ll never make it. Hell, you probably won’t. But dammit, don’t try to tell me that only being born talented or with a silver spoon in the right country is my only hope. History bears that false.
Intestinal fortitude isn’t everything. Hard work isn’t everything. There are no guarantees of a payoff. But that’s why there’s valor in the risk. There’s glory in taking chances. Perhaps we should glory in the risk takers rather than trying to tear them down along the way. The whole damn world is full of people who tell you you’re wrong from the day you fought your way out violently from inside your mother. It’s a war out there people. And the more you listen to the crybabies and the naysayers the further from success and survival you’ll be.
But there’s this hatred from those critics. They don’t like you being cocky or taking credit when you succeed. “You didn’t build that! Somebody else made that happen!”
Why do they tell you this? Because they don’t understand the mindset of winners, or warriors, or entrepreneurs, and ass kickers. And when they see it, it throws their own weakness back into their face. When you work a safe job with a steady paycheck as you are taught to do in school, you want to be rewarded. And you are, with a modest roof and security. But hard work on its own isn’t enough if you want more. It needs a winner’s mindset. It needs a refusal to fail. But we are taught in school to be cogs in the machine. To invest 10% of our money and maybe some day when we’re old and frail we can be comfortable.
Comfortable. In the Corps we had a saying, “Complacency kills”. It’ll kill you in peace just as quick as in war. In complacency our body atrophies. Our soul shrinks. The safe job and steady paycheck is okay. But if you aren’t chasing greatness. If you aren’t seeking to produce, then, as in the commercial, take your August off, be happy, but don’t cry about why the other guy has a prettier wife, or scratch your head as to why your job at the factory isn’t causing people to line the streets of your home town to cheer for you after a moon landing.
“In the end, McDonough unplugs his hybrid Cadillac while saying, “You work hard, you create your own luck, and you’ve gotta believe anything is possible.” Ugh. Optimism is great, but along with everything else he says this commercial is more about promoting the grand idea of American capitalism — which, of course, has never, ever left a poor person behind — than it is about a car.”
Poor people get left behind in the American capitalist system. It’s a cut throat world of risk and reward. Fortune favors the brave. Yeah, you gotta believe anything is possible, because when you don’t, you accept your station. You cannot grow past your own personal limitations. In other words, even if you’re wrong (and you very often are) then you still have to believe it, because the alternative is suicide and complacent serfdom. I’d rather be a belligerent serf than a someone somewhat better off who’s reached his limits. I’ll always know there’s a hope for a better tomorrow.
“Wait, so he’s saying if I work hard and only take off two weeks, I can afford a mansion and a Cadillac. I’m in! I’ve gotta go tell everyone making $7.25 an hour that they shouldn’t want the minimum wage raised, they just need to work harder and they’ll have a new hybrid car too!”
You missed the message ma’am. But the best way to show your superiority is to fall back on sarcasm and be offended for others. It isn’t all about hard work. If that were the case, then we’d seek employment based solely on hours, rather than pay scales. It’s about using your head, working hard, and being bold. It’s about laughing at naysayers in their smarmy faces and forging ahead anyways. It’s about being willing to be a casualty if it gives you a chance at the brass ring. Risk and reward.
But the message wasn’t about stuff. That was just the backdrop. But it’s expected that’s what you’d say if you’re a critic. Goldwater stated in his book Conscience of a Conservative that “Liberals, on the other hand, — in the name of a concern for “human beings” — regard the satisfaction of economic wants as the dominant mission of society.” You talk about telling the poor about how “they’ll have a new hybrid car too!” The message wasn’t about being able to buy the stuff. It was about being able to make the stuff. He wasn’t saying that if you work hard you can buy the car. He was saying that Cadillac was bold and created something awesome — a powerful, luxury hybrid. Did he cite Ali, Wright, Gates, Paul for their wealth? No! They were cited for the fact that they accomplished great feats. The marketing angle was that you were supposed to see yourself as an American badass, and that this car was a marvel befitting a kindred spirit. But so has it always been with the capitalists and the socialists. Capitalists are creators — socialists are consumers.
All this said, well, damn those are ugly cars.
I’m a libertarian. Yet I’m also what many call an imperialist. I also believe in one world government, though I would grab my rifle in a heartbeat and head off in aid of the first state to secede from the United States. Come with me on an adventure…
I believe in American empire. That isn’t to say that I adore my country in its current form. This monstrosity we’ve created is not America. The modern police state is not America. NSA spying is not America. The welfare state is not America. This is America:
Americans are thinkers. They are arrogant, rebellious and unruly. We mock kings. We do not bow before them. We do battle with nature. We are explorers. We are liberators.
America is less a place than it is an idea. Such novel ideas as that men should not kneel before others, or that the fruits of a man’s labor are his own, and cannot be taken just because he’s outvoted, are ideas that led to the most prosperous nation that ever existed. We’ve moved away from that today.
But let us imagine a new nation. Let us call it, oh, I don’t know, America. Now in this new America we live up to our ideals rather than just piss rhetoric out of our mouths. Why should this culture not dominate the globe?
A friend of mine recently decried the Iraq War, saying that it’s a shame that Iraq has become a terrorist breeding ground. I don’t know about you, but I’d prefer a terrorist breeding ground to a stable, totalitarian torture state. We Americans might be a bunch of cowboys, but don’t think for a minute our deaths are in vain. The destruction of these tyrants is worth our lives regardless which nation we invade. You know why we Americans are so arrogant? You know why we act like we’re better than you? Because we ARE better than you. We spill our blood to liberate this whole god damned planet. Our warriors give their lives cheaply, and it makes their lives all the more valuable.
You don’t find men like this everywhere. I’ve seen Americans fight harder for the liberty of Iraqis than the Iraqis did. I saw the same during my time in the Philippines in 2002. The bulk of these people have lost their freedom to thugs and tyrants due to their own cowardice and decadence. They don’t deserve their liberty. But deserve’s got nothing to do with it. Rights should not have to be earned. In America you will find no dearth of men willing to give their lives in the defense of others, even outside our borders. Why? Because “[w]e hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”
All men. Not all Americans. All men.
Now, why should such a nation not supplant every pissant dictator, thug, and wannabe tyrant? Why should we leave in place governments that intrude on the rights of man? I recently read an article about prison life in North Korea. How could it possibly be immoral to walk men across the DMZ right now? Make no mistake, I’m not advocating forced military intervention. I’m talking about a volunteer force from our standing military. In my constitution, written elsewhere on this blog I have a military branch dedicated to just this sort of thing.
Do not talk to me of accepting the customs of others. Liberty and the rights of man are not negotiable under your customs. If you do not abide them, then your customs and culture are forfeit. British General James Napier illustrates this perfectly. From Wikipedia:
A story for which Napier is often noted involved Hindu priests complaining to him about the prohibition of Sati by British authorities. This was the custom of burning a widow alive on thefuneral pyre of her husband. As first recounted by his brother William, he replied:
“Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs.”
This brings us to the idea of what America was to be. Our system was to be a federalist one. We were to have a powerful, restrained, central government. We’ve lost sight of that. Properly executed however, this opens the door to valid, legitimate one-world government. Our federal government was not supposed to roll over the states. Each state was to have its own rules and customs. So too should our whole world. There is power in diversity. We should have communists, and monarchies, and republics, and states with obscure religions run by priests and holy men, or racist communities. We should have full anarchist states and places as diverse as a Disney ride. And we should have everything in between. But a man should always have the ability to opt-out and choose his society. One world government that ensures local governments honor this ability can allow every sort of custom and human deviancy to exist. Then the marketplace of ideas will weed out the bad ideas and the good ones will grow. So one-world government could allow for the Indian custom of Sati, so long as it was a custom chosen willingly, not one where your place of birth doomed you into the local culture.
This is why our federal government should exist expressly for the preservation of our natural rights. Past that, each state should be able to choose its own rules and customs.
So why would I grab my rifle and help the first state to secede? Simple. Because everything I’ve espoused is theory. It isn’t practice. In practice, government grows. It doesn’t shrink. It grows and becomes powerful. The more powerful it becomes the more it attracts those that hunger for power. Those that hunger for power expand the state to achieve it. And thus the cycle continues.
Ladies, you are what is right with America. I wish we had more like you. You’ve set an example, but remember, that doesn’t mean you can let up. You’re Marines. Semper Fidelis…
…and call me.
http://www.businessinsider.com/four-female-marines-pass-infantry-training-2013-11
Seriously, 90% of my hits come from people searching for some variant of “hot” and “redhead”. If that’s the case, then dammit, I should at least have one hot redhead drop me a line sometime over the last year. Not. Fair.
Redheads. Bane of my existence. Each of these have grabbed my heart in my formative years. Note: I’m still in my formative years.
Women in the Infantry (almost)
October 31, 2013 / Hoplite0352 / 0 Comments
It appears that 4 female Marines are going to pass infantry school. I’ve spoken at length about women in the infantry before so I’m not going to rehash it here. I would like to make a few points though. First off, I’d like to congratulate these women. When I graduated boot camp I did not feel it was terribly difficult physically. Mentally on the other hand…
Perhaps the biggest surprise for me was the fact that boot camp did NOT even come close to preparing me for infantry school. The humps and range runs were very difficult for me. So congratulations to these women. They’ve done something to be very proud of. It’s also worth noting that in general you cannot just drop out of infantry school. You can be dropped, and if you’re persistent you can drop out of boot camp or infantry school, but you can’t just put up your hand and say, “I quit” like people going out for special forces can. These women had the option to quit that the men didn’t. That they pushed through is a testament to their character.
Secondly, I am somewhat concerned about watering down the standards. I’m not sure when they chose to do so, but the final hump was 12.5 miles. This is just a shade over the 10 miles the final hump in boot camp is. I haven’t been out all that long (I graduated infantry school in 2000) and the final hump was 18 miles (word is that it was closer to 21, but I’ll stick with the published number). Were my tin foil hat improperly adjusted I’d say women joining the infantry and lowering of the most grueling task in infantry school are related.
Finally, and perhaps the part most entertaining to me, is the fact that these women will not actually be attached to an infantry unit. They’re going back to their pogue units. I would hate to be a male Marine in the same admin/supply/motor T/air wing/whatever section as a female Marine who passed infantry school. Those men would have to go to work every day knowing that the most badass Marine in their section was a female. Seriously, grunts think they’re invincible. Grunts think they’re better than everyone else. If you’re an admin Corporal or Sergeant and you want to chew this female Lance Corporal’s ass for any reason, and she’s passed infantry school, well, good luck with that.
In short, Marine Corps, toughen up your damn standards. But all the same, congratulations ladies. I’d be honored to meet one of you over a beer. I’ve always wanted a wookie I could call my own, and it’d be amazing were she a grunt as well.
That about sums it up
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Youth (NGY)
Trinity Bible Study
Trinity Church App
Serve on a Team
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History of Trinity
Our church’s story began in 1927, when members of the First Church of the Nazarene in Los Angeles set out to fulfill Christ’s mandate to “make disciples of all nations” by starting a Sunday School class for the local Chinese community. Church members would travel through the neighborhood every Sunday morning and invite immigrants from China and Hong Kong to church. In those days, most of those who came were children and teens. Classes were held in the church basement and later moved to the second floor of the 7th St. wholesale market.
Eventually, the congregation grew to such a size that the wholesale market facility could no longer accommodate it. In 1944, they purchased a house on the corner of 21st and Trinity Street and put up a sign reading, “Chinese Mission.” Rev. Peter Kiehn preached at the Sunday services until 1946, when he and his wife returned to China to continue their missionary work there.
First Chinese Church of the Nazarene
In 1946, Rev. Wilbur Lee, who was bilingual in English and Cantonese, assumed leadership. The congregation became known as Chinese Church of the Nazarene. During Rev. Lee’s tenure, the congregation grew rapidly and crowded the small building. Some Sunday school classes were held on the stair steps or even inside of members’ cars. On June 29, 1950, the church was formally incorporated and became First Chinese Church of the Nazarene.
By the late 1940’s it was apparent that the church needed larger quarters. It was proposed to construct a building that could accommodate up to 300 worshipers. An empty lot on the corner of Jefferson Ave. and Trinity St. was purchased with a small down payment. Ground was broken for the new church building on November 26, 1950. The church building was built at an estimated cost of $35,000 raised from contributions and proceeds from the sale of the building at 21st and Trinity.
Relocation to Monterey Park
As the years went on, the surrounding neighborhood changed. The population had become predominantly African-American, Hispanic, and Latino. Our then pastor Rev. Charles Crosby was aware that Monterey Park had a significant Asian-American population and felt the church would have a stronger future if it relocated there. In 1977, the congregation made the move to Monterey Park, sharing an existing facility with a Nazarene church which was experiencing declining membership. That congregation eventually disbanded and by God’s grace, we assumed ownership of the property, grateful for church’s our new home. We changed our name to Trinity Church of the Nazarene, in memory of our former location near Trinity St., and to reflect our desire to welcome all ethnicities.
Merger with Hillside Community Church
In late 2015, Trinity began exploring a potential merger with Hillside Community Church in Rowland Heights. After experiencing several years of growth, Trinity’s attendance had begun to plateau due to overcrowding and limited facilities. Struggling with insufficient parking, classrooms, office space, and a small sanctuary, the church was looking for creative ways to expand its ministry. Meanwhile, Hillside was searching for a new pastor but had been unable to find a suitable candidate.
Our pastor, Rev. Albert Hung, along with Los Angeles District Superintendent Greg Garman and Rev. Sam Chung, pastor of Hillside Community, proposed that Trinity “adopt” Hillside and become a multi-site church with a common vision, leadership team, and budget. Both churches enthusiastically supported the idea, and on April 10, 2016, our combined membership overwhelming voted in favor of the merger. Trinity sent a team of experienced, mature believers to the new Rowland Heights Campus to help revitalize the church’s ministry to the community. At the same time, the move freed up space at the Monterey Park location to allow for new growth.
About Hillside Community Church
The story of Trinity Church – Rowland Heights Campus began on February 1, 1976, when Reverend Jim Goss started holding worship services in a simple farmhouse at 2804 Fullerton Rd. The new church was known as Rowland Heights Church of the Nazarene.
Under the visionary leadership of its pastors and can-do attitude of its members, the church grew in attendance and influence in the community. Many people were brought to faith in Christ. Additions were made to the main building and a Family Life Center was constructed. In March of 2006, the church was renamed Hillside Community Church of the Nazarene. In the years that followed, the church launched a Christian preschool as well as ministries for the Chinese, Spanish, Korean, and Filipino communities.
Hillside was well-known in Rowland Heights for its popular annual events such as “Eggstravaganza” (Easter Egg Hunt) and Harvest Festival in October, often drawing crowds upwards of 600 people. The church also earned a favorable reputation for its support of local elementary schools.
On April 10, 2016, the membership of Hillside Community Church voted to unite with Trinity Church of the Nazarene to become a multi-site, multi-cultural church with a common vision and leadership. Today, the church is known as Trinity Church –Rowland Heights Campus, and continues its commitment to help people from all nations find life in Jesus Christ.
1976-1990 Rev. Jim Goss
1990-2001 Rev. Mark Pitcher
2001-2004 Rev. Joe Halbert
2005-2016 Rev. Samuel Chung
2016-Present Rev. Albert Hung
Who We Are Today
As the first mission to the Chinese speaking community in the Church of the Nazarene, Trinity holds a unique place in our denomination’s history. Our previous Lead Pastor, Albert Hung, believed that we must build on that legacy by becoming a multiplying church, where disciples make disciples, leaders train leaders, and churches plant churches. We believe God led us to relocate to the San Gabriel Valley for a reason. Therefore, we are working hard to become a multi-generational, multi-ethnic, and multi-lingual church that reflects the diversity of our community and is welcomed as a vital partner in our city’s future. We believe the gospel ought to be good news for everyone, not just for believers. We want to be a church that loves unchurched people, and to be a church that unchurched people love to attend. We love Jesus. We love the people of this city. And we believe that God has called and empowered us to change the world for the better, one person at a time.
1946-1952 Rev. Wilbur Lee
1952-1956 Rev. Milton Cowles
1956-1957 Rev. Stanley Yu
1957-1959 Rev. Louis McMahon
1959-1961 Rev. Wesley F. Crist
1961-1971 Rev. Delbert Morse
1971-1973 Rev. Roy Smith
1973-1975 Rev. Robert Owen
1975-1989 Rev. Charles Crosby
1989-1994 Rev. Charlie Ah Sing
1994-2005 Rev. Steve Peisner
2005-2007 Rev. Keith Parmalee
2008-2018 Rev. Albert Hung
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Nephesh haChaim
Nephesh Hachaim 1:6
But the idea that we ourselves actually “animate” and function as the soul behind “the body of the universe”, so to speak, isn’t to be taken literally. Because while the very instant a soul wants a part of its body to move, it does, yet we ourselves don’t have that kind of sure, immediate, and definitive effect on things 1.
It comes to this: G-d created man last 2 so that he’d comprise and be a compendium of all the heavenly and earthly phenomena that preceded him, and so that all those phenomena would contribute to and be played out in his own makeup and component-parts 3.
Indeed, each of our elements and parts were to correspond to a specific celestial world and capacity, and we were to be a paradigm of heaven and earth, which were themselves to correspond to our makeup 4. But then Adam and Eve sinned and a lot of that was moderated 5.
The mitzvah-system is also connected to its celestial roots and to the entirety of creation. And in fact each and every mitzvah is a compendium of millions of celestial capacities and lights 6.
As such, whenever someone performs a mitzvah he can either rectify things connected to the specific world and capacity relevant to that mitzvah, elevate them, or he can bolster their light or holiness — but only to the degree that G-d wants us to.
But one’s ability to affect such changes with his mitzvot depends on the quality of his performance of them, and on whether and to the degree to which he purifies his thoughts when he’d engaged in them, too. And that in turn adds holiness and vitality to that part of his being that’s engaged in the mitzvah that corresponds to it 7.
Were we to fulfill all of the mitzvot with all of their factors and conditions on the physical level, and were we to do that with pure and holy thoughts, we’d rectify all of the celestial worlds, would have become an intrinsic instrument of that 8, and we’d consequently be made holy and would be constantly surrounded by G-d’s Glory 9.
But when we’d sin and sully one of our capacities and organs, that would reach up to the corresponding source of that celestial world and capacity, which could destroy it (G-d forbid!), lessen it, sully it, dim and diminish its pure light, as well as weaken and diminish its holiness — depending on the particular sin we’d committed, how we’d committed it, and depending on the status of the world involved.
For not all the worlds can be affected the same way, in fact. The lower worlds could actually be destroyed (G-d forbid!), light could be withheld from higher ones, higher-yet worlds would be forced to emit less light or would be diminished somehow, while the arcane lights and holiness of the very highest worlds would be diminished 10.
And that’s because the impurity would touch upon the upper realms, since they’re all incorporated in those upper realms and contribute to them intrinsically 11.
1 R’ Chaim presents the first of his several complex and important notes to this chapter here. In short, it offers an illustration of the fact that things don’t instantaneously move to our “command” from the fact that the angels don’t (see Chullin 91b).
That might seem to be a far-fetched proof but it isn’t. For if it’s angels who enable things to happen here (see Derech Hashem 2:5:3-4), it follows then that if they don’t immediately respond to our order that we don’t control them (and the functions of the universe) the way a soul controls a body.
2 That is, He created man as the sum of all that preceded him. See our discussion of this in footnotes 14 and 18 to the previous chapter.
3 R’ Chaim cites Zohar 2:75b (which — like most of the other sources cited here — speaks to our having been created in G-d’s image, which is of course the major theme of this Gate), 3:48a, 3:117a; Idra Rabbah 135a, 141a; Reiya Mehemena, 3:238b; Tikkunei Zohar Chadash 2:97a; Zohar Chadash, 1:64b, 2:23b, 58b; Eitz Chaim 26:1, and Ari’s Likkuttei Torah, Ki Tissah and Ha’azinu.
4 This will be expanded upon in 2:5 below.
5 The point about Adam and Eve’s sin was offered in R’ Chaim’s second footnote here (rather than in the text itself as we laid it out, though it’s not clear why.).
This footnote offers a lot of R’ Chaim’s insights into Jewish Thought, so we’ll take each point separately.
A. He offers that Adam and Eve were originally made up of only holy component parts (also see Ramchal’s Adir Bamarom p. 11, and Leshem, Deah 2:3:1). And that wrong thus originally stood outside of their beings.
Thus while they were free and able to choose to do wrong by enabling it to enter their beings, their doing it was only as likely as one of us freely choosing to walk into fire (I.e., they certainly could have, but why would they want to?).
B. It was only after they sinned that wrong became a part of their — and our own — inner being, and then entered the universe’s system, too, given that man and the universe mirror each other. That’s when things began to be negatively affected by human actions.
(It’s thus vitally important to recognize that everything cited in this chapter and beyond takes place in the less than perfect world that resulted from their sin.)
C. By now, though, wrong is such a part of our inner being that we mistakenly think its promptings are coming from our very own selves, and it seems to us as if we ourselves want to do wrong. But it’s not us per se so much as those internalized forces of wrong that are “speaking” to us (R’ Chaim directs our attention to Eitz Chaim, Sha’ar Kelipot Nogah 2; Sha’ar Gilgulim 1; and Berachot 17a, Shabbat 146a. See Chovot Halevovot 5:5, and Hilchot Geirushin 2:20, as well).
(This last point is a very telling insight into our own misunderstanding of things. It offers that we tend to “misread” our hearts, for it’s not we ourselves who want to sin but rather the forces of un-holiness using our own voices like unholy ventriloquists!)
D. All of that thus brings about a great admixture of things in our hearts so that we’re sometimes righteous and other times wrongful, In fact, even our deeds can be somewhat right and sometimes wrong at the very same time (see Rambam’s remarks at the end of his commentary to the Mishnayot of Makkot). As such, no one is utterly righteous and no one is utterly wrongful (see Hilchot Teshuva 3:2), as we all have imperfect intentions from time to time.
E. The state of affairs in which wrong entered our beings as a consequence of Adam and Eve’s sin continued on until the time we received the Torah at Mount Sinai (Shabbat 146a, also see 3:11 below), though it tragically returned when we constructed the golden calf (Ibid. 89a).
F. The statement that Adam and Eve would die if they sinned (Genesis 2:7) wasn’t a threat of punishment so much as a warning that they’d internalize impurity by sinning and that the only thing that could rectify that would be the decomposition of their body and the subsequent purification of their beings (see Derech Hashem 1:3 and Da’at Tevunot 72).
G. In any event, death and human impurity will continue until the End of Days, when death will be undone (Isaiah 25:8) and the spirit of impurity will be removed (Zachariah 13:2) (also see Ma’amarim 5).
(The central point here seems to be that now that we’re in this less-than-perfect situation, whatever we do is a combination of right and wrong, thus we affect the universe both for the better and for the worse. So, R’ Chaim’s point at the beginning of the chapter that we don’t really serve as the “soul” of the universe — which he’ll address in the very next chapter in another light — could also be explained this way: we’re not exactly the world’s “soul” because we’re no longer on the level we’d need to be. After all, how could the world’s “body-parts” respond to us immediately if we’re at one and the same time telling them to do one thing [i.e., the right thing] and its opposite [i.e., the wrong thing]? And the repetition in this chapter of a lot of what’s offered in 1:4 above about our capabilities and inner makeup likewise serves to make the point that those factors are now on a lower status.)
6 Cited are Zohar 2:85b 165b; Tikkunei Zohar 129b-130a; and Eitz Chaim, Sha’ar Hayichudim 2. See 4:29-30 below.
7 But, again, we can no longer affect them to the degree we could have had Adam and Eve not sinned and had our ancestors not erected the golden calf.
R’ Chaim offers another note here that is likewise full of insights into Jewish Thought.
A. As soon as someone has it in mind to perform a mitzvah something of a “trace” (i.e., an impression) of that mitzvah is implanted in its celestial source above — even before the person actually performs it. And that enables a “surrounding light” to shine down upon him, and for a degree of holiness to encompass him (cited are Zohar 2:31b, 2:86b, 2: 128a, 3:122a. Also see 1:12 below and Ma’amarim 29).
(Notice the reintroduction of the idea of one thing encompassing another, the way bodies encompass souls of course, G-d’s being encompasses the universe — and how upper worlds encompass the lower worlds they control as discussed in note 4 to1:5 above. Along the same lines, see 7C below which discusses being encompassed by the Garden of Eden, 7D about being encompassed by holiness, and 7E about being encompassed by Gehenom.)
B. That holiness and the encompassing lights then enable that person to “attach himself onto G-d”, if one could say as much, in his lifetime.
C. The “encompassing light” then helps him to actually fulfill the mitzvah, which then strengthens that light. And that then gives him the wherewithal to fulfill yet other mitzvot given that he’s “literally sitting in the Garden of Eden” then (as R’ Chaim puts it. See 1:12 below, Ruach Chaim 6, and Ma’marim 2 at end) where the yetzer harah has no power to thwart him (see Ma’amarim 20, 24).
D. You can actually sense the holiness you’re surrounded by at that time if you concentrate, and can thus grow in your soul.
E. The opposite is true, too, though. For when you sin — not just think about sinning (see Kiddushin 39b where it’s pointed out that one would have to actually commit a sin for harm to be done, and yet would only have to think of fulfilling a mitzvah to reap the benefits of that) — you draw a spirit of impurity down upon yourself (see Zohar 2:31b and 2:86b cited above), become surrounded by an impure spirit, and the very “air of Gehenom surrounds you” even though you’re alive (see Avodah Zara 5a).
8 The term used here is merkava or “chariot”. That’s to say that you’d be the “driver behind the wheels” of the instrument that accomplished all of that.
9 R’ Chaim cites Zohar 2:155a; and Raiyah Mehemna, 3:239a. See 4:15 below.
10 R’ Chaim cites Zohar 2:85b, Tikkunei Zohar 129b.
11 R’ Chaim’s final note to this chapter is presented at this point. It cites the fact that the idea that the upper realms are all connected to man can be found in Tikkunei Zohar Chadash 97a; Raiyah Mehemna, 3:219b; as well as in Sha’arei Kedusha 3:2; Likkutei Torah, Ki Tisa and Ha’azinu; and in Bereishit Rabba 8:3 and Kohelet Rabba 2:12.
Posted in Hashkapha, Kabbalah, Mussar, Nephesh Hachaim, Reb Chaim of Volozhin, Torah, Volozhin
Nephesh Hachaim 1:13
Rabbi Yaakov Feldman on Introduction
micha on Introduction
Mussar
Reb Chaim of Volozhin
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