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Access to the conference
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The 5EDA organizers would like to express their gratitude to the sponsors which support have made the conference possible.
UNADEV
L’Union Nationale des Aveugles et Déficients Visuels (UNADEV) – The National Union of Blind and Visually Impaired was created in 1929 in Bordeaux, France. It is a registered association for assistance and charity. For over 90 years, UNADEV has grown nationwide through eight different regional centers and numerous local partner associations. Our actions focus on three missions: providing help and support to visually impaired people for their social and professional inclusion; raising awareness and informing the general public and decision-makers; supporting medical research and prevention of blinding diseases.
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Like all other European or American National Dermatology Societies, the French Society of Dermatology was born at the end of the 19th century, more exactly in 1889.
In addition to the dissemination of knowledge through presentations and publications, the Society also aims to support and promote clinical research and fundamental research in France. For more than 20 years, it has devoted a large part of its budget to the financing of unique and innovative projects. It has thus remained true to the purpose of its creators after more than 120 years of existence.
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IBM Center for The Business of Government
Donald E. Wynn, Jr.
Submitted by rgordon on Mon, 04/23/2018 - 14:35
Donald E. Wynn, Jr. is an associate professor in the School of Business Administration at the University of Dayton. He holds a PhD in Business Administration from the University of Georgia. His research appears in journals such as MIS Quarterly, MIS Quarterly Executive, the Information Systems Journal, Cutter IT Journal, the Journal of Organizational and End User Computing, Communications of the AIS, and the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science.
Read more about Donald E. Wynn, Jr.
Making Open Innovation Ecosystems Work: Case Studies in Healthcare
Submitted by rgordon on Sat, 12/30/2017 - 20:19
Broadcast Date:
Renee M. E. Pratt
What is Open Innovation and is it Successful?
Case Studies Illustrating Open Innovation
Three Best Practices
Read more about Making Open Innovation Ecosystems Work: Case Studies in Healthcare
Submitted by rgordon on Wed, 09/16/2015 - 10:23
In the mist of tightening budgets, many government agencies are being asked to deliver innovative solutions to operational and strategic problems. One way to address this dilemma is to participate in open innovation. This report addresses two key components of open innovation:
Associate Professor, Management Information Systems, Operations Management, and Decision Sciences Dept
300 College Park Drive
Dayton, OH 45469-2130
wynn@udayton.edu
Donald E. Wynn, Jr. is an associate professor in the School of Business Administration at the University of Dayton. He holds a PhD in Business Administration from the University of Georgia. His research appears in journals such as MIS Quarterly, MIS Quarterly Executive, the Information Systems Journal, Cutter IT Journal, the Journal of Organizational and End User Computing, Communications of the AIS, and the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. He has published research articles in a number of areas, including open source software, behavioral information security, EHR software, technological ecosystems, and research methodologies.
Copyright © 2018 IBM Center for The Business of Government
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Subscribe to the IBM Center general e-Newsletter
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Ruth Wilson papers
The Ruth Wilson papers date from 1957 to 2002 and measure 2.5 linear inches.
The papers are comprised of correspondence and the book The Forty Best Exotic Trips on the Planet. The correspondence dates from 1957 to 1959, and contains letters to her parents from Germany where Wilson worked for the Stars and Stripes. The letters and postcards contain observations of Post-War Europe, and information concerning her professional life. The Forty Best Exotic Trips on the Planet is a compilation of journal entries and photographs of Wilson and her husband's many worldwide experiences between 1989 and 2000. The collection includes Wilson's obituary and a memorial testimony given by Joseph Gingery.
Wilson, Ruth, 1924-2002 (Person)
Copyright held by the donor has been transferred to The University of Iowa.
Ruth Wilson was born on July 11, 1924 in Wayne, Nebraska. She attended grade school in Wayne, until the Wilson family moved to Iowa so her father could receive his doctorate degree. While attending high school in Iowa City, Wilson was introduced to journalism and held several positions pertaining to the subject, including state president of the high school journalism group. Wilson attended the University of Iowa, and began working at the Daily Iowan. After graduating from the University of Iowa with a Baccalaureate of Arts degree, she was hired as the telegraph editor for the Cedar Valley Daily Times in Vinton, Iowa, and then at the Telegraph Herald in Dubuque, Iowa. Here she served as a reporter, assistant state editor, and then the state editor. Developing a desire to travel, Wilson obtained a position in Germany for Stars and Stripes, the Army newspaper. Wilson lived in Darmstadt where she gained experience and traveled the European continent. Upon returning to the U.S., Wilson was hired at the Milwaukee Journal, and remained there for twenty-five years, eventually working her way up to the contact editor position. Wilson married Joe Gingery, a widower with whom she had worked at the Milwaukee Journal, on August 31, 1980, and they both kept their original last names. They traveled around the world together between the years 1989 to2000, and together compiled a book, The Forty Best Exotic Trips on the Planet. Wilson died unexpectedly on July 16, 2002.
2.50 linear inches
Journalist who worked for the Stars and Stripes in postwar Europe.
The papers (donor no. 863) were donated by Bu Wilson and Joseph Gingery in 2002.
Other Descriptive Information
http://sdrc.lib.uiowa.edu/iwa/findingaids/html/WilsonRuth.htm#content
Darmstadt (Germany)
Gingery, Joseph
Nineteen fifties
Wilson, Ruth, 1924-2002
wa00012. Women and War
wa00012/wa00012.2. Women on the Home Front
Andrea Sheehan, 2003.
External Documents
Other URL
Ruth Wilson papers, Iowa Women's Archives, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City.
Ruth Wilson papers, Iowa Women's Archives, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City. http://aspace.lib.uiowa.edu/repositories/4/resources/2425 Accessed January 17, 2021.
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Microsoft word - v15-1_all_2005-b.doc
Koka, Deane & Lambert Health Worker Confidence in Diagnosing and Treating Mental Health Problems Health worker confidence in diagnosing and treating mental health
problems in Papua New Guinea
Betty E. Koka, Frank P. Deane and Gordon Lambert
Illawarra Institute for Mental Health University of Wollongong Abstract
Confidence in identifying different diagnostic categories of mental disorders by general health workers who provide the bulk of Papua New Guinea's (PNG) mental health care is vital for the country's provision of mental health care. Making a psychiatric diagnosis is complicated by PNG's diverse culture and estimated 800 distinct languages. These cultural-linguistic factors influence help-seeking behaviour and continued use of traditional treatment despite the introduction of western approaches to mental health care. The aim of this study was to determine the confidence of health workers in identifying and diagnosing different categories of mental health problems in this complex environment. A sample of 209 Papua New Guinea health workers from four geographic regions completed a questionnaire that assessed background levels of training and confidence in diagnosing a range of modern and culture specific diagnoses. Overall, respondents reported relatively little prior mental health training. Consistent with this were the relatively low levels of confidence for culture specific diagnoses (e.g. sorcery), but significantly higher levels of confidence with modern diagnoses (e.g. depression). The implications of the findings for training and provision of mental health care are discussed. Traditional treatments based on cultural beliefs about the causes of mental illness remain an important part of health care in developing countries including Africa (Jeiyeoba, 1988; Roberts, 2001), Asia (Razali & Najib, 2001; Zhang, 2001), the Middle East (Al-Krenawi, Graham, Ophir & Kandah, 2001) and India (Banerjee & Roy, 1998; Chadda, Agarwal, Singh & Raheja, 2001). Even in highly developed countries like the United States of America, migrant populations continue to seek traditional alternatives prior to using western treatment (Flaskerud, 1986; Kim, et al., 2002). This suggests that traditional medicine plays an important role in both developed and developing countries where economic and cultural factors affect access to western mental health care. It also suggests that deep-seated cultural beliefs may be a major barrier to the uptake of western psychiatric treatment (Razali & Najib, 2000). • Traditional beliefs concerning causes of mental illness ("longlong" in Pidgin or "Kavakava" in the Motu language or "Kiakaenge" in the "Enga" language) and other physical illness in Papua New Guinea (PNG) are widely centred on sorcery, South Pacific Journal of Psychology, Volume 15(1), 2004 Article (29 - 42) Koka, Deane & Lambert Health Worker Confidence in Diagnosing and Treating Mental Health Problems witchcraft, spirit possessions/supernatural agents, violation of social norms and "taboos", and illnesses due to no known cause (Sinclair, 1957; Burton-Bradley & Julius, 1965; Langness, 1965; Burton-Bradley, 1973; Lewis, 1975; Robin, 1979; Frankel, 1986; Hamnett & Connell, 1981; Lepowsky, 1990; Stavovy, 1996). Spirits and supernatural agents are believed to cause illness when an individual or a group has violated social taboos and norms or have failed to fulfil culturally expected obligations. Alternatively, illness caused by sorcery and witchcraft is thought to be related to frustrations, jealousy of achievements of others, anger, and revenge/payback. Chronic illness and death are almost always attributed to sorcery. Sorcery is commonly used both to explain the cause of illness and as a form of treatment. • Illnesses attributed to both sorcery/witchcraft and spirit possession/supernatural agents are commonly known as illnesses of the settlement/village or "sik bilong ples" (Hamnett & Connell, 1981). Illness not attributed to sorcery/witchcraft and spirit possession/supernatural agents are commonly known as just an illness or "sik nating." These include simple acute illness and seasonal or environmentally associated illnesses such as the common cold, diarrhoea and fever during fruit/nut season (Hamnett & Connell, 1981). "Sik nating" also includes abnormal behaviours of excessive laughing, singing and self-decorating during the mushroom season ("mushroom madness") and during pundanus nut season ("pundanus madness") (Reay, 1960, 1965). Persons affected by the seasonal illnesses usually recover without treatment. Illnesses believed introduced to PNG as a result of western contact are known as "illness of the white man" or "sik bilong waitman." These include problems associated with lifestyle changes such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer. In the case of mental illness factors associated with immigration from rural areas into urban centres have created major lifestyle problems including the break down of cultural norms, unemployment, increased consumption of alcohol and use of substances such as cannabis (PNG Department of Health, 2000). Beliefs about causes of psychological and physical illness also influence help-seeking behaviours. Traditional treatment is usually sought prior to western treatment. For example, a study by Stavovy (1996) found that patients with a diagnosis of schizophrenia sought traditional treatment at some point during the course of their illness. Other studies have reported the use of traditional treatment prior to and alternately with western treatment despite the introduction of formal western health care in the 1950's (Burton-Bradley, 1965, 1973; Pulsford & Cawte, 1972; Hamnett & Connell, 1981; Frankel, 1986; Lepowsky, 1990; Stavovy, 1996; Decock et al., 1997). Another interesting distinction is that western treatment is seen as cure for symptoms whereas traditional treatment is seen as a cure for the cause of the illness (Hamnett & Connell, 1981; Frankel, 1986). Traditional treatment involves four main types of healing processes: medicines, spells, rituals and counselling (Stavovy, 1996, p.135). The medicines used include a range of herbal plant parts such as leaves, stem, roots, flowers and seeds. Animal sacrifices in part or whole are also included as medicine. A form of words repeatedly chanted during the healing process represents the spell. The ritual involves a traditional specialist, using medicine and the words of the spell, carried out as a whole healing process or act. These healing practices are also used for protection against sorcery, spirits and supernatural agents that cause illness and misfortunes. The fourth type of treatment involves counselling the concerned individual and others who may be seen as contributing to the problem by either the head of the family, elders or the chief of the clan or tribe. The outcome of the counselling session usually ends with the counsellor telling the client(s) what to do to help solve the problem. The type of treatment applied is dependent on the varied cultural South Pacific Journal of Psychology, Volume 15(1), 2004 Article (29 - 42) Koka, Deane & Lambert Health Worker Confidence in Diagnosing and Treating Mental Health Problems beliefs regarding the cause of the illness. The most widely practised traditional treatment described in the literature appears to be sorcery. Sorcery is used to treat illnesses believed caused by sorcery. Sorcery practice can also be performed for prevention and protection from illness and other misfortunes. Sorcery beliefs and practices in relation to; cause of illness, diagnosis of sorcery as a form of culture specific diagnosis, use of sorcery as a form of treatment, prevention, and protection are influenced by strongly held cultural beliefs and languages. Cultural beliefs and languages are inseparable and are likely to resist change. Sorcery involves the art of black magic or spells by a sorcerer or witch. It is also known as "posin" (or poison) in Neo Melanesian Pidgin or "puripuri" in motu. Sorcery is also identified as poison because sorcery and poisoning tend to overlap in some cultures. Similarly, the sorcerer is described as "man bilong workim posin" in Pidgin. How the sorcery is believed to be performed by the sorcerer or witch varies among individuals and cultural-linguistic groups (Stavovy, 1996). For example in some cultures the sorcery or magical ritual may occur directly by administering certain types of poison in drinks or food, it may also be performed using body parts of the victim such as hair, or using scraps of left over food from the victim and/or the victims clothing. Hair, clothing, left over food and other belongings of the victim may be buried in cemeteries where dead spirits can have access and make the victim mentally ill ("longlong"). In some cultures it is believed that spirits can be sent to the victim by the sorcerer to make the victim ill. These provide just a few examples of widely varying sorcery practice in PNG. Most people fear sorcery and witchcraft and do not discuss such issues for fear of illness and misfortune. Sorcery attributed illnesses appear to be linked with anger and revenge or "payback" for insults or death, and jealousy of others' achievements. However, not all sorcery is bad, a sorcerer can also perform sorcery to promote health and protect one from illness and misfortunes (often invoked by sorcery and witchcraft). Sorcery can also be used for matchmaking and love potions. Spirit possession is usually thought to involve evil spirits and spirits of dead family members or ancestors. Spirit possession is often believed to occur as a punishment for crime, or misbehaviour such as violation of social "norms" or "taboos". Violation of norms or taboos might involve trespassing restricted areas where ancestral spirits and evil spirits dwell or not fulfilling socially required obligations such as looking after parents when they are old. For example, if a sibling has not been good to the parents while they were living, then the spirits of the dead parents are believed to come back to punish the offspring and make him/her mentally unwell. Whilst there are some common beliefs about spirit possession and sorcery across cultures, beliefs about different types of spirit possession and sorcery that lead to mental illness also vary across cultures in PNG and between the different cultural-linguistic groups (Stavovy, 1996). Sorcery and witchcraft are the most widely practiced and feared traditional practices that are believed to cause both psychological and physical illness and form the basis for most traditional treatment (Sinclair, 1957; Burton-Bradley & Julius, 1965, Burton-Bradley 1965, 1973; Pulsford & Cawte, 1973; Frankel, 1986; Lepwosky, 1990; Stavovy, 1996). Sorcery and witchcraft beliefs and practices are feared for their powers even among some educated Papua New Guineans. For example, a study by Burton-Bradley (1990) found 84 percent (n = 110) tertiary education students believed sorcery practice has the power to cause illness. Stavovy, (1996, p.103) also found that patients suffering from schizophrenia believed sorcery and spirits possession to be the cause of their illness. These and a number of other studies support the reports that there is wide practice and belief concerning sorcery to be the cause of mental illness as well as other chronic and serious physical illness (Hamnet & Connell, 1981; Frankel, 1986; Stephen, 1987; Lepowsy, 1990). The strength of these beliefs and their high resistance to change are important considerations when caring for persons with both psychological and physical illness Stephen (1987) warns "to ignore beliefs in sorcery is to ignore an important dimension in any problem" (Stephen, 1987, p.1). South Pacific Journal of Psychology, Volume 15(1), 2004 Article (29 - 42) Koka, Deane & Lambert Health Worker Confidence in Diagnosing and Treating Mental Health Problems However, the Papua New Guinea Health Department in its recent policy to promote traditional medicine for the next decade has excluded sorcery and witchcraft related practices as forms of traditional treatments (PNG Department of Health, 2000). The rationale for this decision is based on one factor that they are inherently dangerous practices and should not be given legitimacy (PNG Department of Health, 2000). However, there are no data to distinguish between dangerous and non-dangerous forms of sorcery and witchcraft practices. While a number of studies have examined the beliefs about causes of mental illness and individual psychotic reactions in different cultural-linguistic groups in general population (Sinclair, 1957; Reay, 1960; 1965; Rodrique, 1963; Newman, 1964; Burton-Bradley & Julius, 1965; Langness, 1965; Salisbury, 1967; Hoskins et al., 1969; Lewis, 1975; Stavovy, 1996), little is known about the knowledge and confidence of general clinical health workers in the use of both modern and cultural mental health approaches to the treatment of mental illness in such a complex environment. There are several factors that are likely to impinge on what general clinical health workers know about mental health issues and their ability to diagnose mental health problems/disorders. Perhaps foremost is the amount of training they have received. However, there are also substantial differences in the reliability of "classification" related to culturally specific disorders and Western systems of diagnosis. For example, the common culture specific "diagnoses" identified and included in the present study also overlap considerably with beliefs/perceptions concerning the causes of both mental illness and physical illness. Thus, they may not be seen as a diagnosis in the same way as defined by Western classification systems. With traditional culture specific mental illnesses in most instances there is little distinction between causes and the "diagnosis". Thus, the conceptualisation and classification, particularly of culturally specific mental health problems are greatly influenced by culture, language, and beliefs (Sinclair 1957; 1964; Burton-Bradley, 1963, 1973, 1990; Burton-Bradley & Julius, 1965; Stavovy, 1996) as well as training. In PNG the specialist mental health workforce is very small. There are only five qualified psychiatrists with a sixth in full time management and part time clinical work and one senior registrar still under training (a ratio of one psychiatrist per every one million people and all psychiatrists were located in Port Moresby). There are approximately seventy-four professionally trained psychiatric nurses (a ratio of one psychiatric nurse to every 67,567 people) and one tertiary referral psychiatric hospital (located 15 kilometres outside Port Moresby). Only four provincial hospitals out of eighteen hospitals have acute psychiatric units and these specialist units are located in Port Moresby, regional and provincial centres serving the minority of the population (18%). The majority of the population (82%) live in the rural areas of PNG. This means that a substantial amount of mental health assessment and treatment falls to general health workers. However, there are almost no data regarding the capacity of this important workforce in providing mental health care. The aim of the present study was to explore and provide a preliminary description of the background mental health training of general health workers. In addition, it will describe their confidence in providing aspects of traditional culturally based assessment and treatment and modern Western based approaches to mental health treatment. This study was part of a larger study that investigated mental health issues in PNG. The research protocol was reviewed and approved by the Medical Research Advisory Committee of the PNG Department of Health and the University of Wollongong Human Ethics Committee. Health workers
The study focused on three broad categories of health workers in PNG: Health Extension Officers
(HEO), Nursing Officers (NO), and Community Health Workers (CHW). Health Extension
South Pacific Journal of Psychology, Volume 15(1), 2004 Article (29 - 42) Koka, Deane & Lambert Health Worker Confidence in Diagnosing and Treating Mental Health Problems Officers have a basic training period of three years at the College of Allied Health Sciences in Madang followed by one-year internship. Their place of employment is in supervisory levels at health centres, health sub-centres and in management in health department, provincial health office and district health offices. They perform clinical, management and community health duties. Some HEOs also work in health training institutions and hospitals in specialised areas after completing relevant post-graduate training programs. Nursing Officers (NO), have three years basic training in nursing and they are employed in hospitals, health centres, and health sub-centres and urban clinics. Few NOs are taking up management responsibilities at the provincial and district levels. Community Health Workers (CHW) have a two-years basic training and are trained to work in aid-posts in villages with limited facilities. They are primary health care workers who identify common illnesses and refer patients to health centres or health sub-centres for further management. Some CHWs are employed in hospitals, health centres, health sub-centres and urban clinics. The length of time allocated for mental health during basic training for each of these three categories of general clinical health workers is discussed further in the results and discussion section of this study. These three categories of health workers were significant because they allow for a further identification of workers on the basis of their assumed level of basic knowledge (the more years spent in basic training the higher their level of knowledge and in theory the greater their ability to diagnose and treat the different types of mental disorders). They also allow for a further identification of workers on the basis of their exposure to traditional medicine. (The more remote the health care setting the higher the likelihood of exposure to traditional medicine and its influence on them as western trained health workers with their own cultural-linguistic backgrounds). Participants
The sample comprised all 209 general clinical health workers who attended a series of four
regional mental health training workshops conducted by the PNG Department of Health. Health
workers held the following positions: 70 HEOs, 95 NOs, and 44 CHWs representing 2.4%
(209/8895) of the total workforce in these health worker categories in PNG (Department of
Health, 1998). There were 129 male and 80 female health workers with ages ranging from 22 to
53 years (M = 34.67, SD = 6.88). Their educational background ranged from elementary to grade
12 (less than grade 9 = 11; grades 9 to 10 = 148 and grades 11 to 12 = 50). Their length of service
in the health department ranged from 1 to 32 years (M = 11.48; SD = 7.96), with most being in
service for 1 to 11 years (62%). Participants were most commonly employed in health centres (n
= 96, 46%) followed by district hospital (n = 25), health sub-centre (n = 21), aid posts (n = 17),
provincial hospital (n = 13), urban clinics (n = 13), while the remainder were from a range of
other settings (n = 18). The participants also represented all 20 provinces within the four regions
of PNG (Southern Region, n = 66, Momase Region, n = 54, Highlands Region, n = 58, New
Guinea Islands Region, n = 31). Provincial and institutional supervisors nominated health workers
for the training. Prior to participation in the training workshops all attendees were provided with
information about the study and the opportunity to participate in the research.
The questionnaire items used in the present article comprised the first part of a larger three-part
study. This first part focused on health worker characteristics and confidence in assessment and
treatment of various forms of mental illness in PNG.
The second part involved retrospective review of three of the most recent patients treated by the health workers in the community. The third part focused on pre-post mental health workshop training outcomes (e.g. knowledge change). South Pacific Journal of Psychology, Volume 15(1), 2004 Article (29 - 42) Koka, Deane & Lambert Health Worker Confidence in Diagnosing and Treating Mental Health Problems The English version of the questionnaire was translated into the Neo-Melanesian language (Pidgin) and then back translated by two PNG health workers for verification. The questionnaire was pilot tested on a sample of eight university students from PNG to identify ambiguous or confusing items but this resulted in no changes. The present study assessed participants' level of confidence in diagnosing six common mental disorders (schizophrenia, depression, personality disorder, anxiety disorder, substance use disorder and somatization) based on ICD-10 (WHO, 1993) and DSM-IV (American Psychiatric Association, 1994). The assessment of confidence level also included assessing confidence in diagnosing five culture specific diagnoses (sorcery, witchcraft, magic, spirit possession and amok syndrome) commonly recognised throughout PNG (Sinclair, 1957; Burton-Bradley & Julius, 1965; Meggitt, 1965; Pulsford & Cawte, 1973; Burton-Bradley, 1973, 1990; Hamnett & Connell, 1981; Flaskerud, 1986; Frankel, 1986; Lepowsky, 1990; Stavovy, 1996; Noble, 1997; Mai, 1997). As noted, these culture specific diagnoses are also beliefs concerning causes of mental illness. However, they are also used as diagnoses and in some cases (e.g. sorcery) may also be used as a form of treatment. The item stem stated, "Health workers are confident in diagnosing the following". The modern diagnostic categories and cultural specific illnesses were then listed with a confidence rating provided for each of the eleven disorders. Each disorder category was rated on a 4-point Likert scale ranging from, (1) strongly disagree to (4) strongly agree. The scale also provided a "don't know" option. Participants were instructed to consider the term "health worker" as the same category of health worker in which they were currently employed. Using the same response scale, seven additional items were included to expand on confidence ratings for both modern and culture specific disorders. For both modern and culture specific mental health problems they were asked: "health workers understand the difference between above mental illnesses". For modern diagnostic categories they rated the degree of agreement to, "health workers use the above diagnostic categories to make a diagnosis when they see a person with mental illness", "health workers know when and where to refer a mentally ill person who needs specialist mental health care". For culture specific diagnoses they were asked to rate, "health workers are confident in consulting and working with a traditional healer regarding treatment of patients with culture specific mental illnesses", "health workers are familiar with specific symptoms of these culture specific diagnoses", and "health workers are familiar with cultural beliefs concerning the causes of mental illnesses". The questionnaire also had a range of items to determine levels of training in mental health. These included the number of weeks devoted to mental health training at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Several items also asked about health workers capacity to speak the local language since it was suspected that this maybe related to familiarity and use of more traditional cultural approaches to mental health assessment and treatment. Other additional items in the study included ratings on use of both traditional treatment and medication using a 4-point response format (1 = Not at all, 2 = A little bit, 3 = Somewhat, 4 = A great deal). Participants were asked "do you use modern medication e.g., chlorpromazine", "are you confident in prescribing modern medication", "do you get enough supplies of psychotropic drugs to meet your needs", "are you familiar with the different types of traditional treatment for mental illness used in your area", "do you have access to traditional treatment". The results of these additional items are reported in the results section. Procedure
A letter was sent from the PNG National Health Department to all the Provincial Health Advisors
South Pacific Journal of Psychology, Volume 15(1), 2004 Article (29 - 42) Koka, Deane & Lambert Health Worker Confidence in Diagnosing and Treating Mental Health Problems informing them of the regional mental health training workshops and of the study being carried out during the workshop. The provincial officers were requested to nominate individuals for training and to inform them about the potential to participate voluntarily in the study. Due to communication and geographical difficulties it was impossible to send information packages and consent forms to the participants prior to the study. Participants were given information on the study and consent forms during registration on the first of the 5-day training workshop. The researcher (BK) reviewed the information package with the participants, highlighting the voluntary nature of participation and confidentiality. All workshop participants agreed to participate in the study. Training workshops and the study were conducted in four regional locations: Port Moresby for Southern Region (n = 66), Madang for Momase Region (n = 54), Mt Hagen for Highlands Region (n = 58) and Rabaul for New Guinea Islands Region (n = 31). The workshops were conducted between September 2001 and December 2001. Data for the present study were gathered prior to commencing training on the first day of each training workshop. Table 1 provides the mean confidence levels in diagnosing a range of mental disorders. The mean level of confidence ranged from substance use disorder (M = 2.65) to amok syndrome (M = 1.85). In general, the modern diagnostic categories had higher mean levels of confidence (with the exception of schizophrenia) while participants showed lower mean levels of confidence for the culture specific diagnoses. Table 1 Mean level of confidence in diagnosing a range of mental disorders Substance Use Disorder 11% (n = 20) 6% (n = 12) Anxiety Disorder 12% (n = 22) Personality Disorder 14% (n = 25) Spirit Possession 23% (n = 39) 34% (n = 52) 17% (n = 30) 24% (n = 40) 23% (n = 38) 16% (n = 29) 26% (n = 30) *1=Not at all, 4 = A great deal A number of participants chose the "don't know" option. This lead to "missing data" for the calculation of mean scores on the modern and traditional categories. To check the potential effects of this missing data, t-test comparisons were made by calculating the mean of available items (e.g. 4 of the 6 diagnoses in the modern category) compared to using the means only when all items were available (i.e., 6 of 6 diagnoses in the modern category). Using the mean only when all items were completed, there was a significant difference between confidence in making modern diagnoses (M = 2.19, SD = .61) and culture specific diagnoses (M = South Pacific Journal of Psychology, Volume 15(1), 2004 Article (29 - 42) Koka, Deane & Lambert Health Worker Confidence in Diagnosing and Treating Mental Health Problems 1.95, SD = .59; t (77) = 3.21, p < .01). When using the means of available items (i.e., some missing items) the pattern of findings was the same, with confidence in making modern diagnoses (M = 2.43, SD = .67) significantly higher than for culture specific diagnoses (M = 2.13, SD = .70; t (187) = 4.67, p < .001). Differences between confidence ratings for modern and culture specific diagnoses were significant with or without the inclusion of missing data, in that, participants believed health workers were significantly more confident in diagnosing modern categories of mental disorders than culture specific diagnoses/illnesses. Participants were also asked how much they agreed with the statement that health workers understood the difference between the modern subset of diagnoses and the traditional subset of diagnoses. For modern diagnoses, 22% agreed that health workers understood the differences and 78% disagreed. For culture specific mental health problems, 38% agreed and 62% disagreed that health workers understood the differences between the culture specific problems. A paired t-test indicated that respondents felt significantly less confident at differentiating between modern diagnoses (M = 1.98, SD = .71) than between culture specific diagnoses (M = 2.23, SD = .76; t (157) = -3.99, p < .001). Table 2 also provides the proportion agreeing and disagreeing with additional items regarding understanding and confidence of health workers regarding different mental health problems. In general, the results indicate a lack of confidence and understanding regarding differential diagnosis. Despite some uncertainty about the differences between cultural diagnoses just over half indicate that they were familiar with cultural beliefs concerning the causes of mental illness. Most agreed that they know when to refer to a specialist. Table 2 Agreement about understanding and confidence of health workers regarding different mental health problems Understand difference between modern diagnoses 42 Use modern diagnosis Know when and where to refer for specialist mental health care Understand difference between culture specific diagnoses 63 Confident in consulting and working with traditional healer Familiar with symptoms of culture specific diagnoses 60 Familiar with cultural beliefs concerning causes of mental illness Note. Sample sizes for each item vary due to "don't know" ratings. * Agree ratings were 4 (strongly agree) and 3 (agree). Disagree ratings were 1 (strongly disagree) and 2 (disagree). Health worker training in mental health
Respondents indicated that they received a mean of 2.63 weeks of training devoted to mental
health/psychiatry during undergraduate and postgraduate training. This ranged from no training to
10 weeks (Median = 2.00, SD = 2.53). Some of the participants indicated they could not recall if
they had any training in mental health.
Most respondents indicated 2 weeks training (n = 57), followed by; 0 week (n = 47), 1 week (n = 36), 6 weeks (n = 33) 8 weeks (n = 8), 5 weeks (n = 6) and 3 and 10 weeks (n = 4). South Pacific Journal of Psychology, Volume 15(1), 2004 Article (29 - 42) Koka, Deane & Lambert Health Worker Confidence in Diagnosing and Treating Mental Health Problems Ninety-five of the 209 respondents indicated that they had a postgraduate qualification. However, 85% (81/95) indicated that none of their postgraduate training was dedicated to mental health topics. Four respondents indicated they received 40 weeks of postgraduate training and this group comprised specialist psychiatric nurses. The remaining 10 participants with postgraduate qualifications had received between 1 and 2 weeks training in mental health. A one-way ANOVA assessing undergraduate weeks mental health training between HEO, NO and CHWs showed significant differences among the groups (F(2,206) = 50.60, p < .001). All Post hoc comparisons used Least Square Difference method. NO's received significantly more weeks of mental health training (M = 4.2, SD = 2.88) than either HEOs (M = 1.6, SD = .89) or CHWs (M = .89, SD = 1.15). As noted the numbers of years general training for health worker positions are 3 years for HEO, 2 years for NO and 1 year for CHW, but results suggest that NOs receive more training related specifically to mental health. Given the wide range of mental health specific training and difficulties some participants had recalling the amount of mental health specific training they had received, we chose to analyse confidence by health worker position. A one-way ANOVA assessing confidence in diagnosis between HEO, NO and CHWs was conducted. This revealed significant differences between health worker type and levels of confidence in diagnosis for modern disorders (F (2,199) = 8.58, p < .001), and culture specific disorders, (F(2,188) = 4.54, p < .05). Specifically, CHW's were significantly less confident with diagnosis of modern disorders compared to both HEOs and NOs, whereas for culture specific disorders, HEOs were significantly less confident than NOs. Similarly, CHWs were less confident using modern medications than both HEOs and NOs. The assumption that a health worker speaking the local language is more familiar with the cultural beliefs concerning causes of mental illness and therefore more confident in making culture specific diagnoses was assessed. Sixty per cent (n = 125) of participants could speak the local language of the area where they worked, whereas 40% (n = 83) could not speak the local language. However, there were no significant differences between those who spoke the local language and those who did not with regard to confidence in diagnosing modern or culture specific disorders. Use of different treatments
Table 3 provides mean ratings regarding use, confidence and familiarity with both modern and
traditional culture specific treatments. The percentage of those rating "not at all" is provided in
the far right column. These data suggest that modern medication is used by most with some
degree of confidence, but 15% of respondents have difficulty with supply of psychotropic
medications. Over half are not familiar with the traditional treatments used in their local area and
76% do not have any access to these treatment approaches.
South Pacific Journal of Psychology, Volume 15(1), 2004 Article (29 - 42) Koka, Deane & Lambert Health Worker Confidence in Diagnosing and Treating Mental Health Problems Table 3 Mean use, confidence on familiarity with medication and traditional treatments (N = 209) Use of modern medication Confident in prescribing modern medication Get enough supply of psychotropic medication Familiar with traditional medicine used in your area Access to traditional treatment Items were rated using a 4-point response format (1 = Not at all, 2 = A little bit, 3 = Somewhat and 4 = A great Deal). One-way ANOVAs revealed no significant differences between health workers type (HEO, NO, CHW) and either familiarity or access to traditional culture specific treatments. However, there were significant differences between health worker types with regard to the amount they used modern medications (F(2,206) = 13.73, p < .001). HEOs indicated they used medications significantly more than both NOs and CHWs. NOs used medications more than CHWs. There were also significant differences between health workers with regard to their confidence in prescribing medications (F(2, 206) = 29.16, p < .001). CHWs were significantly less confident prescribing medications than both HEOs and NOs (all p < .001). However, these findings may have in part been influenced by access to supplies of medications and/or levels of training in mental health. There was a significant difference between health workers with regard to problems of supplies of medication (F (2, 206) = 28.80, p < .001) with HEOs' reporting significantly greater access to supplies of medication than both NOs or CHWs. CHWs' reported the most difficulty with supplies of medication. Finally there was a correlation between weeks of undergraduate training in mental health and confidence in prescribing medication with respondents receiving more training also reporting being most confident (r = .30, p < .001). Discussion
The findings of this study indicate that health workers have relatively low levels of confidence in diagnosing both modern and culture specific mental disorders. Respondents also indicate a general lack of understanding and confidence in differential diagnoses or the difference between different types of modern and culture specific mental disorders. Despite some uncertainty between different culture specific diagnoses, over half the sample indicated they were familiar with cultural beliefs concerning causes of mental illness. A majority of respondents also indicated a lack of confidence in consulting and working with traditional healers but agreed that they knew when and where to refer to a specialist. The data may suggest that while health workers are aware of general cultural beliefs in the population regarding causes of mental illness, they are not confident about differential types of culturally bound mental health problems. This may in part be due to the wide range of idiosyncratic beliefs and presentations from community to community, or simply due to the lack of clear differential characteristics. Whilst this may have flow on effects in terms of their confidence working with traditional healers, this lack of confidence may also be a function of the at times secretive and taboo nature of some traditional healing practices. Low levels of confidence in diagnosing mental illness are likely to be at least in part due to the South Pacific Journal of Psychology, Volume 15(1), 2004 Article (29 - 42) Koka, Deane & Lambert Health Worker Confidence in Diagnosing and Treating Mental Health Problems complexities created by the culturally diversity of PNG where there are an estimated 800 language groups. Such cultural-linguistic factors are likely to play an important role in influencing concepts, perceptions and experience of symptoms that flow on to making a diagnosis and treatment decisions. Sinclair (1957) and others (Burton-Bradley, 1973; Robin, 1979; Stavovy, 1996) found that the beliefs of Papua New Guineans' concerning the causes of mental illness complicate the diagnostic process thus making it difficult to arrive at a specific diagnostic formulation (Ng, 1997). For example, low levels of confidence in diagnosing schizophrenia may be explained by cultural phenomenon such as dreaming and visions that complicate the establishment of symptoms such as hallucinations and delusions. A further potential contributing factor is the general lack of distinction between various forms of psychotic illness classified in Pidgin as "longlong" meaning "crazy" In addition to the above factors, the results of this study indicate the need for more comprehensive preparation and training of health workers during basic/undergraduate training. Current undergraduate training programs for HEO, NO and CHW devote very little time to modern and traditional mental health issues. These inadequacies are reflected in the low level of health workers' confidence in distinguishing between different types of mental disorders, a lack of confidence in making a diagnosis, and a lack of knowledge of alternative treatment approaches. As a consequence it is more likely that the patient will be referred to a limited range specialist services or they will be left to their family to provide care. In many cases families manage to maintain and care for their mentally ill relative in their communities without assistance from the health care system. It is only when the individual concerned becomes aggressive or violent that referral to specialist services is needed. When this happens the patient is almost always referred to the local hospital for management and in extreme cases to Laloki Psychiatric Hospital in Port Moresby. Respondents also reported that they use modern medication more frequently than traditional treatments. However, use of modern medication differs by health worker types. HEOs are confident in using medication and prescribe medication more frequently than both NOs and CHWs. HEOs also have greater access to supplies of medication and as a consequence are more likely to use them. Nursing Officers are less confident in prescribing and using medication than HEOs but they are more confident than CHWs. This may be in part due to different levels of training of the groups with NOs receiving significantly more training in mental health than either HEOs or CHWs. Finally, CHWs are least confident in prescribing and using medication and also have significantly less training in mental health and indicate they have the poorest access to supplies of medication. As mentioned above, more than half the respondents reported they were familiar with culture specific diagnoses yet they were not confident in approaching traditional healers. This may be attributed to a number of factors. Firstly, traditional healers may be reluctant to collaborate with health workers who they may view as competitors. The practice of traditional healing is an important means of income and therefore traditional healers may be reluctant to share their expertise with others. Secondly, the use of some forms of traditional healing such as sorcery, witchcraft and magic is explicitly prohibited by government policy. This may create barriers for mental health workers in cases where traditional healers also practice sorcery and witchcraft. Finally, health workers may be reluctant to refer patients to traditional healers because of fear that they may suffer some form of misfortune as consequence of, for example, violating a taboo. In summary, the absence of specialist mental health resources at a provincial and district level means that general health workers will continue to be called upon to deliver the bulk of mental health care in Papua New Guinea. This situation is unlikely to change in the short term. As a consequence there is a pressing need to better prepare health workers to manage mental health problems in their basic training and to follow this up with ongoing support and supervision once South Pacific Journal of Psychology, Volume 15(1), 2004 Article (29 - 42) Koka, Deane & Lambert Health Worker Confidence in Diagnosing and Treating Mental Health Problems they have entered the workforce. A major finding of the study is that CHWs who have arguably the most contact with people suffering from mental illness in their local communities, also have the least mental health training and poorest access to medical supplies. Based on the findings of this study, it is suggested that CHWs training should be improved to carry out mental health promotion and prevention activities at the primary care level. The training should include; detection of early signs and symptoms of mental disorders, basic skills in psychiatric first aid and provide guidelines on working with families, traditional healers and when to refer to specialist services. The results of this study indicated low levels of confidence in identifying and diagnosing different categories of mental illness by general health workers. Whilst health workers seemed most confident with diagnosing modern versus traditional culture specific disorders, they had more difficulty with differential diagnosis amongst the modern disorders. Just over half agreed that they were familiar with cultural believes concerning causes of mental illness but only 20% felt confident in working with traditional healers on mental health issues whereas around 77% agreed they knew when to refer for specialist mental health care. The relative lack of confidence with regard to many aspects of assessment of mental health problems may have been a function of highly variable levels of mental health specific training amongst the different categories of health worker. In general, CHWs received the least mental health specific training and tended to be less confident than both HEOs and NOs with regard to a range of mental health assessment and treatment activities. CHWs tended to use modern medication less than other health workers but this may have been related not only to their training, but poor access to adequate supplies of medications. There were few differences between health worker types with regard to familiarity or access to traditional culture specific treatments. The study highlights the need for ongoing training of health workers in mental health assessment and interventions. In particular, there is a need for clearer guidelines regarding incorporation of modern systems of diagnosis with cultural understandings of mental illness for clinicians in the field. Similarly, more detail is needed about how to collaboratively work with family and traditional cultural healers and at the same time integrate psychotropic medications into a comprehensive treatment approach. General health workers will continue to provide a significant level of care for Papua New Guinea's mental health needs. Consistent with the recommendations of the WHO (1982) there remains a need to retrain general health professionals where existing mental health services and other resources are limited. The PNG Health Department's policy on promoting traditional medicine can also be supported by making a focus of this training on how to best integrate psychopharmacological and traditional culturally based mental health approaches. References
Al-Krenawi, A., Graham, J. R., Ophir, M., & Kandah, J. (2001). Ethnic and gender differences in mental health utilization: The care of Muslim Jordanians and Morocco Jewish Israeli out-patient psychiatric patients. International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 47, 42-54. American Psychiatric Association, (1994). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, Fourth Edition. Washington, DC. Author. Barnejee, G., & Roy, S. (1998). Determinants of help seeking behaviour of families of schizophrenia patients attending two teaching hospitals in India: An indigenous explanatory model. International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 44, 199-214. Burton-Bradley, B. G. (1965). Cross cultural psychiatry. Australasian Bulletin, 6, 12-18. Burton-Bradley, B. G. (1973). Longlong! Transcultural psychiatry in Papua New Guinea. Port Moresby: PNG Department of Health. Burton-Bradley, B. G. (1990). History of medicine in Papua New Guinea: Vignettes of an earlier period., Kingsgrove, NSW, Australia. Australasian Medical Publishing Co. Burton-Bradley, B. G., & Julius, C. (1965). Folk psychiatry of certain villages in the central South Pacific Journal of Psychology, Volume 15(1), 2004 Article (29 - 42) Koka, Deane & Lambert Health Worker Confidence in Diagnosing and Treating Mental Health Problems district of Papua. Technical paper No.146, Noumea, South Pacific Commission. Chadda, R. K., Agarwal, V., Singh, M. C., & Raheja, D. (2001). Help-seeking behaviour of psychiatric patients before seeking care at a mental hospital. International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 47, 71-78. Chakraborty, A. (1991). Culture, colonialism and psychiatry. The Lancet, 337, 1204- 1209. Decock, A., Hiawalyer, G., & Katz, C. (1997). Talking health: The wisdom of the village. Port Moresby: Health Promotion and Education Unit, Population and Family Planning project, PNG Department of Health. Flaskerud, J. H. (1986). The effects of cultural compatible intervention on utilization of mental health services by minority clients. Community Mental Health Journal, 22, 127-141. Frankel, S. (1986). The Huli response to illness. Cambridge, UK. Cambridge University Hamnett, P., & Connell, J. (1981). Diagnosis and cure: The resort to traditional and modern medical practitioners in the North Solomons, Papua New Guinea. Social Science and Medicine, 15, 489-498. Hoskins, J. O., Cuthbertson, G., & Cawte, J. E. (1969). Community psychiatry in the Islands Region of New Guinea: I. Epidemiology. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 3, 376-382. Hoskins, J. O. (1969). Community psychiatry in the Islands Region of New Guinea: II. A Design. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 3, 383-389. Jeiyeoba, A. D. (1988). Notes on the utilisation of traditional and modern/western mental health practices among the Yoruba, Nigeria. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 25, 179-184. Kim, M., Han, H., Kim, B. K., & Duong, D. N. (2002). The use of traditional and western medicine among Korean American elderly. Journal of Community Health, 27, 100-120. Langness, L. L. (1965). Hysterical psychosis in the New Guinea highlands: A Bena Bena example. Psychiatry, 28, 258-277. Lepowsky, M. (1990). Sorcery and penicillin: Treating illness on a Papua New Guinea Island. Journal of Social Science and Medicine, 30, 1049-1063. Lewis, G. (1975). Knowledge of illness in a Sepik society. A study of the Gnau, New Guinea. University of London: The Athlone Press. Meggitt, M. J. (1965). The lineage system of the Mae-Enga of New Guinea. London: Oliver Mai, M. (1997). The practice of forensic psychiatry in Papua New Guinea: A Review. Unpublished thesis submission. University of Papua New Guinea. Moi, W. (1976). Growing up in Ambasi. Papua New Guinea Medical Journal, 19, 14-18 Newman, P. (1964). Wild man behaviour in a New Guinea highlands community. American Anthropologist, 66, 1-19. Ng, C. H. (1997). The stigma of mental illness in Asian cultures. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 31, 382-389. Noble, F. S. (1997). Long-term psychiatric care in Papua New Guinea. Psychiatric Bulletin, 21, 113-116. Papua New Guinea National Department of Health. (1998). National inventory of health facilities 1998. Port Moresby, Author. Papua New Guinea National Department of Health. (2000). National health plan 2001-2010. Health vision 2010: Program policies and strategies, Volume II. Port Moresby, Author. Pusford, R. L., & Cawte, J. (1972). Health in a developing country: Principles of medical anthropology in Melanesia. Melbourne, Jacaranda Press. Razali, S. M., & Najib, M. A. (2000). Help-seeking pathways among Malay psychiatric patients. The International Journal of Social Psychiatric Services, 46, 281-289. Reay, M. (1960). Mushroom madness in the New Guinea highlands. Oceania, 31, 137-139. Reay, M. (1965). Mushrooms and collective hysteria. Australian Territories, 5, 18-28. Roberts, H. (2001). A way forward for mental health care in Ghana? The Lancet, 357, 1859. Robin, R. (1979). Psychopathology in Papua New Guinea: A collection of four papers. University of Papua New Guinea Printery. South Pacific Journal of Psychology, Volume 15(1), 2004 Article (29 - 42) Koka, Deane & Lambert Health Worker Confidence in Diagnosing and Treating Mental Health Problems Rodrigue, R. (1963). A report on a widespread psychological disorder called Lulu seen among the Huli linguistic group in Papua. Oceania, 33, 274-279. Salisbury, R. (1966). Possession on the New Guinea Highlands: Review of literature. Transcultural Psychiatric Research Review, III: 103-108. Sinclair, A. J. M. (1957). Field and clinical survey report of the mental health of the indigenes of the Territory of Papua New Guinea. Port Moresby: Government Printer. Stavovy, T. (1996). Idioms of psychosis in Papua New Guinea: Thesis submitted for Masters degree of Psychological Medicine, Monash University. Carlton, Victoria. Stephan, M. (1987). Sorcerer and witch in Melanesia. Melbourne University Press. World Health Organisation. (1982). Primary health care training manual for developing countries. Manilla, Unpublished Paper. Author World Health Organisation. (1993). The ICD-10 classification of mental and behavioural disorders. Diagnostic criteria for research. Switzerland. Author Zhang Feng, (2001, February 21). China Daily, China daily staff; New York, pp. 2-3.
The authors would like to thank the following people for their support: Dr Uma Ambihaphar, PNG
Department of Health for funding the training workshops, Getzo Yamale, Dr G. Tienang, Dr M.
Angali, Dr N. Sharma, M. Magaru, Dr Gilbert Hiawalyer, Mr Kanu Jiko, Dr Tania Stavovy, Dr Janice
Skillen, Dr Jessica Grainger and all of the staff who participated in the workshops.
Authors' Note
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Ms. Betty E. Koka, Illawara Institute
for Mental Health, University of Wollongong. E-mail: [email protected] or
Manuscript originally submitted February 2003.
Revised and accepted July 2003.
South Pacific Journal of Psychology, Volume 15(1), 2004 Article (29 - 42)
Source: http://spjp.massey.ac.nz/issues/2004-v15/v15_koka.pdf
descargas.revistamexicanaintegralensalud.com.mx
Investigación Captopril por vía oral y sublingual en pacientes con urgencia hipertensiva Captopril orally and sublingually in patients with hypertensive urgency 1Arquimides Mackelin Ortega Vázquez, 2Norma Elena Corona Amador. 1Adscripción: UMF 56 León; Guanajuato. 2Adscripción: HGZ/UMF 21 León; Guanajuato. Resumen Introducción La Urgencia hipertensiva se presenta generalmente en enfermos con hipertensión arterial sistémica. El 1% de los pacientes hipertensos tendrán crisis hipertensiva de la cual el 76% será Urgencia hipertensiva y 24% emergencia ( Papaduopulos D,2010). Objetivo Evaluar si el Captopril sublingual es mejor para el control de la urgencia hipertensiva que el captopril vía ora en los pacientes atendidos en urgencias de la UMF 56 de Julio a Diciembre del 2013. Material y métodos Se realizó un estudio cuasi experimental, el tamaño de la muestra se calculó de la diferencia entre dos proporciones, con un nivel de confianza del 95%, con 40 pacientes en cada uno de los grupos (sublingual Vs oral); por casos consecutivos y de forma aleatoria se asignó al grupo oral o sublingual, en ambos casos se administró molida la tableta de captopril. La población de estudio fueron los derechohabientes que acudieron al servicio de urgencias de UMF 56 de Julio a Diciembre del 2013, y que cumplieron los criterios de diagnóstico de urgencia hipertensiva. Resultados Captopril molido sublingual mostro mayor rapidez en cuanto el control de la Tensión Arterial Media ≤ 100mmHg y disminución TAM ≥ 20%, Comparando los promedios de control de las TAM de ambos grupos encontramos una diferencia estadísticamente significativa de P= 0.0035. Conclusión Observamos que el 16.25% de la muestra desconocía ser hipertenso. El 82.35% (42 pacientes) de los pacientes descontrolados son manejados con un anti-hipertensivo. Encontramos una relación directamente proporcional del índice de masa corporal y al grado de descontrol de hipertensión a su ingreso.
seu.edu.ge
Einstufungstest (B2): 1. Leseverstehen Lesen Sie zuerst die 10 Überschriften. Lesen Sie dann die fünf Texte und entscheiden Sie, welcher Text (1–5) am besten zu welcher Überschrift (a–j) passt. Tragen Sie Ihre Lösungen in den Antwortbogen bei den Aufgaben 1–5 ein. Neue Richtlinie für Zertifizierung von Medikamenten für Kinder
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City pushes free tax prep, underused tax credit
by Holly Bieler Queens Ledger
Feb 04, 2015 | 5425 views | 0 | 191 | |
With tax season in full swing, government officials gathered Monday at the Bed-Stuy Restoration Corporation’s Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) site to discuss the free tax preparation, as well as the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC).
The EITC is a refundable tax credit for low-income individuals and families which an estimated 1 in 5 eligible households across the city still don’t receive.
“In the last administration they spent approximately $165,000 on bus and subway ads to let people know about [the EITC],” said Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA) Commissioner Julie Menin. “We did not think that was enough.”
Monday’s event was the latest in an unprecedented $3 million campaign targeting the estimated 250,000 EITC-eligible households in New York City who don’t file for the credit each year. The campaign aims to raise the number of filing households by 50,000 this year over last.
“Our challenge is to reach all eligible workers to make them aware of the EITC,” said Louis Morizio, Territory Manager of Stakeholder Partnerships, Education and Communication of Internal Revenue Service. “There’s millions of people a year who miss out on the credit they deserve.”
This year’s campaign included a phone bank last Saturday, in which 2,000 volunteers fluent in three languages called an estimated 270,000 New Yorkers to help spread awareness of the EITC.
The DCA will also invest nearly $2.3 million to expand the core services of the partners offering free tax preparation, and will add 60 VITA sites this year over last, totaling 200 citywide.
“Some New Yorkers are eligible for up to $10,000 that they’re just leaving on the table,” said Menin. “The average [EITC credit] is $2,500. We’re talking about really significant amounts of money.
“Through this new outreach that the city is doing, we’re expecting that we can give $260 million back in terms of refunds and saved tax preparation fees,” she added. “That’s $260 million that’s going to go back to New Yorkers.”
Joining Menin were representatives from the office of Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, the IRS and Food Bank for New York City, which runs the Bed-Stuy VITA site.
“The EITC, combined with the refund, is the biggest check low-income workers are going to get in the year,” said Triada Stampas, vice president of Research & Public Affairs of Food Bank For New York City. “We know when they get that check people’s food purchases increase, and the quality of food they’re able to afford increases as well. Protein and produce are the two categories that low-income people buy more of in the months when they get their tax return.”
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The Best Brand of Fidget Spinner
My middle daughter has been begging to get a fidget spinner, which is a little gizmo that (according to the marketing) cures ADHD, anxiety, and stress. In fact, it’s just a small central bearing around which spins an evenly-distributed weight made of plastic or metal. And while the jury is still out on their healing properties, they are undeniably fun to play with and pretty darn cool.
If you have children, you’re no doubt already familiar with fidget spinners, and you’re probably also aware that there are about a metric gajillion of them for sale on Amazon that look more-or-less the same, all sold by companies no one’s ever heard of.
So how does a dad go about finding the best brand of fidget spinner for his daughter? Well, it’s actually pretty simple.
If you’re like most people, when you read “the best brand of X,” you interpret that to mean “the best X.” And finding “the best” of something requires a discussion about what criteria and specifications make one X better than another X. But “the best X” is not the same thing as “the best brand of X”.
In my case, finding “the best fidget spinner” would have required locating some authority (TheWireSpinner.com?) who had evaluated all of the options and determined which one was objectively “the best.”
But “the best brand” of fidget spinner is something different. A brand is how you feel about a thing, so finding “the best brand of fidget spinner” meant what I actually had to find was the one I felt best about buying and giving to my daughter.
I could have spent an hour (or more) trying to sort through the options on Amazon, paralyzed by choice and worrying that I’d end up with a piece of junk from a no name company I had to exchange a week later after it broke. But doing that would have made me feel miserable.
So instead, I got in my car and drove five minutes down the road to Geppetto’s, an awesome local toy store chain. And lo and behold — they had a rack of fidget spinners right behind the counter. Also behind the counter was an exceedingly helpful associate who is evidently the world’s leading expert on fidget spinners and helped me choose between the three types of spinners Geppetto’s offers.
I chose a fidget spinner confident that Geppetto’s (a store I trusted) wouldn’t stock a junky product, and that even if the spinner I bought went bad, I could easily return to the store and exchange it with no questions asked.
Sure, I paid a little more for it than I might have on Amazon, but in exchange I feel great about my purchase and my daughter loves it. Warm feels all around.
And that, simply put, makes the spinner I bought the best brand of fidget spinner for me. (Ironically, I don’t even know the name of the company that makes it.)
If you’re a maker, it’s easy to obsess about the thing you’re making and its characteristics, thinking your thing need to be “the best” for anyone to want it. But the truth is none of us ever buys “the best X,” even when we claim we are. We’re always buying “the best brand of X,” and sometimes that’s just right around the corner.
Brand Bit: Auditorium Toy Co.
From time to time, I’m going to highlight some of my favorite brand builders — large and small — to point out some of the delightful things they’re doing.
I especially love people and companies that build brands using details. You know what they say (with apologies to someone who is not Ludwig Mies van der Rohe), “Brand is in the details.”
In this first post, I want to give props Brad Denboer’s late, great Auditorium Toy Co.. I bought one of their Boattail Racers back in the day, and loved everything about it.
The slower you put things together, the slower they fall apart. Auditorium Toy Co.
Auditorium promoted its products as “heirloom toys”, and the motto used in the Boattail Racer’s sales material was “the slower you put things together, the slower they fall apart”. These toys weren’t hunks of plastic crap you’d throw out in next week’s trash. These were toys that would last, and that you’d want to pass down to your children to give to their children.
This ethos was expressed by the toy itself, which was beautifully crafted and manufactured, but the detail that caught my eye was the printed “ownership record” included in the (also beautifully crafted) box. This ownership record included the date of manufacture, the serial number, and a series of “given by/received by” entries you could use to record when and to whom the toy was bestowed. The thirteen pre-printed entries had date entries with century prefixes that began in the 21st century and stretched out to the 24th century.
Such a simple, delightful thing. The date entries could have been left blank and the century prefixes not included. But with that little detail, Auditorium reinforced its “heirloom toy” brand, and made my emotional connection to the brand that much stronger as I imagined my great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren playing with the toy. And they didn’t have to spent a single extra cent to do it.
Peter Drucker on brand
In my last post, I concluded with this: “all businesses, including yours, exist solely to build a brand.”
Whenever I write or say this, it provokes a response, and this time was no exception. “How can you say building a brand is the sole purpose of my company?”, the responses go. “What about earning a profit/delivering value to shareholders/creating a great product/acquiring customers/et cetera?”
My answer is that all of those things are important, but they all depend on a strong brand, and so building a brand is more fundamental to the purpose of business.
The difficulty, perhaps, is that we often talk about brand without actually using the word “brand”. Consider this quote from Peter Drucker:
The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.
Once you understand that your brand is how a person feels about you (I’m going to stop saying “you/your company/your product”), you see that Mr. Drucker is really talking about brand.
How do you create a customer? You establish a emotional connection between you and them that’s positive and prompts them to use your services (and hopefully give you money for the opportunity). And how do you keep a customer? You nurture and grow the emotional connection between you and the customer to make it enduring.
Everything else we do in our businesses either contributes to this (creating a great product that meets your customer’s need builds a positive emotional connection with them), or is derivative to it (with passionate customers and a good business model, you’ll earn a profit and deliver value to your shareholders).
By definition, to create and keep a customer, you must create and grow a brand. Ergo, the purpose of business is to create and grow a brand. Q.E.D.
Thinking bigger than product
It’s a cautionary tale that’s so familiar it spawned an archetype: the brilliant engineer who invents game-changing technology that never succeeds in the marketplace because (as every good product manager knows) a technology is not enough. Technology is but one thing needed to build something bigger — a product. The archetypical engineer has a blind spot that hides from her this larger truth. Enter product managers, gifted with insight into the holy product, who swoop in to save the day. (Having been a product manager myself, I can poke fun.)
Now, while there is some truth to this story, fortunately the understanding that a technology is but one part of a successful product has become widespread (including, it must be said, by lots of those “stereotypical” engineers). But ironically, there’s yet another blind spot that affects those most convinced they see the full picture. In this new blind spot looms something bigger than product. What looms there is brand.
Just as the stereotypical engineer focuses too much on technology and fails to appreciate product, the stereotypical product manager focuses too much on product and fails to appreciate brand. Yes, technology is not enough and is but one thing needed to build a product. But just as true is that a product is not enough. Product is but one thing needed to build something bigger — a brand.
Successful teams and companies understand this and orient all of their activities towards creating this greater asset. They understand this fundamental truth: all businesses, including yours, exist solely to build a brand.
Starting simply
I’m a big fan of simplicity in design. Given the human propensity to complicate and do more, simplicity remains vastly underrated despite its obvious appeal and value. One of my favorite articulations of this in the context of product design comes from Brian Christensen: “Most people need less done well, not more done poorly.”
But recently I’ve been thinking a lot about simplicity in the context of brand design. Specifically, I’m pondering John Gall’s famous comment on systems design, sometimes called Gall’s Law, which states:
A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over with a working simple system.
I’ve come to believe a similar “law” is at play with creating great brands. I’d state it like this: A strong and complex brand that works is invariably found to have evolved from a strong and simple brand that worked.
By “simple brand” I don’t mean something akin to Al Ries’ “Law of the Word” where FedEx = Overnight delivery, Kleenex = tissue, etc. I think that’s overly simplistic, and is one of the rigid ways of thinking that lead people astray from a real understanding of brand.
Powerful brands are rich and complex things, and the best of them are organic and alive. But any rich and complex emotional connection must start with, and be grounded in, a simple emotional connection. That’s what I mean by a “simple brand”.
Think of the relationships in your life. If you’re married, think of how you came to love your husband or wife. That relationship didn’t appear fully formed with all the richness and complexity that comes with years of shared experiences. Rather, it started with something simple. Maybe you noticed her hands, or her eyes, or the way she laughed. And from that initial connection, a richer relationship developed.
I’ve taken away two key insights from my pondering:
First, take care to not overdefine your brand at the start. Don’t limit yourself to one word, but neither indulge the temptation to have 12 “core values”. Focus on your core, and articulate that in a simple way others can connect to.
But second, don’t make the mistake of limiting yourself to that initial brand definition. Allow your brand to grow and develop as your customers develop a more rich and complex connection to it.
Grounding your brand in a simple core, but allowing your brand to change and grow, is the path to creating something powerful and enduring.
Seeing the invisible
It’s one thing to understand that a brand is how people feel about a thing, but it’s another thing to fully grasp the implications of that and fit it into one’s worldview. One thread I’ve been pulling on for a long time is to find the perfect metaphor for brand. It’s been a fun but frustrating mental exercise.
To fully capture the concept of brand, we must represent not just the thing, but how people feel about it. It’s the reaction to the action, the context to the text, the ground to the figure. Yet those comparisons are imperfect, since a brand exists in some sense independently of its stimulus.
I’ve cycled through a lot of metaphors — echolocation, chemical reactions, the electromagnetic spectrum, holograms, dark matter — and it’s been fun to think about, but I haven’t nailed it yet. I’ll keep trying.
But suffice it to say this: to fully understand brand, you need to see not just what’s there, but the effect it has on the world around it. And when that clicks, you’ll look at everything a bit differently. You’ll see there’s McDonald’s, and there’s how you feel about McDonald’s; there’s the trusty Honda you drive to work each day, and there’s how you feel about your Honda; there’s your family, and there’s how you feel about your family.
Once you have the ability to see the world that way, you have the power to influence it. And that’s when the fun begins.
A definition of brand
I’ll confess to a deep cynical streak about certain things. One of those things is business writing, especially writing about marketing and brand. Most of this “content” seems designed by its “contributors” to do nothing more than create “engagement” for the web behemoths publishing it to attract eyeballs to pay the bills. What’s worse, this word spew often serves to confuse more than illuminate.
A prime example of this is kind of writing is writing about brand. With rare exceptions like Marty Neumeier’s books, most brand writing consists of some a combination of anecdotes about ranchers, cattle, Nike sneakers, and Tide laundry detergent, with some version of the phrase “your brand is what your customers say it is” thrown in for good measure. It’s not that this writing is wrong, per se, just that it ends up obfuscating what I believe is actually a simple (even primal) concept.
Here’s how I define brand: a brand is how a person feels about a thing. Defined this way, a few things become clear.
First, we all instinctively understand brand, because all of us (with the possible exception of one Dr. Sacks’ patients) feel about things.
Second, almost everything has a brand. Barack Obama has a brand; golden retrievers have a brand; the park bench has a brand; your grandmother has a brand; 7th grade has a brand; because you feel something about all of those things (although in the case of some things like the park bench, it may amount to little or nothing).
Third, every thing has as many brands as there are people to feel something about it. My brand for golden retrievers is not exactly the same as your brand (although in all likelihood there’s a lot of similarity between our two golden retriever brands, unless you’re some kind of monster).
Now, saying that brand is a simple concept and that we all understand it instinctively, is not to say that we all are conscious of it and its effects on the world around us. But that can be gained with a change your perspective and the courage to take the red pill.
The Universe is one of those things that begs the use of the phrase “mind blown” without irony or hyperbole. 91 billion light-years in diameter (that we can observe, the totality is likely much larger), 13.8 billion years old (give or take), filled with perhaps as many as 10 trillion galaxies, each with 100 billion or so stars. (That’s 100 octillion stars in total, but who’s counting?)
The Universe is so vast and filled with stuff that we have a hard time looking at nothing. If we point our most powerful telescopes at the parts of the sky that seem absolutely empty, after enough time we find that, in fact, that part of the sky isn’t empty at all, but is as filled with galaxies as the parts that shine brightly with stars.
But of all the unfathomable facts about the Universe, perhaps this is the most mind blowing (see?) of all: by our best estimates, everything we can see and observe — all the matter — accounts for only 15% of the total. The other 85% is something that neither emits nor absorbs light or any other electromagnetic radiation and we can’t directly detect in any way. The vast majority of the matter in the Universe is not matter at all, it’s dark matter.
Dark matter makes up the vast majority of our Universe, and yet we can’t see it at all; we can only infer its existence from its effect on what we can see. And that, dear reader wondering why you’re reading about the Universe on a site dedicated to brand strategy, brings us to brand.
There is so much sturm and drang in the business and tech worlds, and all of it focused on what we can see and directly observe. Very little attention is paid to that which we can’t see, but which has a profound (even dominant) influence on everything around us. Product, sales, customer support, growth hacking, et al — these are the matter of the business world. But brand…brand is the dark matter. More on this in the days to come.
In the Beginning, there was Brand
I didn’t start out as a “brand guy”. I was an engineer, and not even one of the software persuasion. I was a mechanical engineer, steeped in Newtons and torques and shear strengths. Yet while those things filled my head, my heart found purchase in design methodology. How do you meet a person, understand their problem, and conceptualize and ultimately build something that provides them a solution? I made this question my course of study, and it served me well not only in physical product design, but later as I moved on to software products and — ultimately — brands.
“Wait”, you say. “I can follow your step from physical to software products, but…brands?” Indeed. Because while designing physical products, I learned the value of empathy — the ability to put one’s self into the shoes of another, to feel their emotions, and through it gain an understanding of their problem and how it might be solved. And as I would come to discover, empathy is at the core of creating powerful brands.
This might seem an odd statement to you if your understanding of brand is garnered from articles with breathless titles like “How Your Brand Can Use Instagram To Supercharge Sales Growth”. That endless parade of words makes a brand sound like something fleeting and insecure that must ever reinvent itself to take advantage of the newest thing. But that understanding is wrong. Because a brand is not something fleeting and new. Created well, even a “new” brand is grounded in something powerful and old. Very, very old.
I define “brand” as simply this: how a person feels about a thing. And as emotions are as old as humankind, to create brands is to work with a stuff primal to our being. To create a good brand, one must understand the emotional state of (i.e., one must empathize with) those who experience it.
Whether one seeks empathy to create great products or create great brands, the task is the same, only the level of abstraction of the output changes. In fact, I say we are all brand builders. Whether engineers, or product managers, or copywriters, or graphic designers, or salespeople, or customer support…in the end, we shape the emotional state of those who experience what we make.
When considered in this way, you realize this is what humans have done with one another from time immemorial, and it’s what we each have done since our earliest days. In the beginning, there was brand, and we were brand builders. We remain brand builders still, even if most of us don’t realize it yet.
Why We ❤︎ Brand
© 2021 Bez Brand. All rights reserved.
Made with pith and punch in sunny San Diego.
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Composers Association of New Zealand
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ISCM 2020
Creative New Zealand/Jack C. Richards Composer-in-Residence at the New Zealand School of Music 2010/2011
The appointment is jointly funded by the New Zealand School of Music, and Creative New Zealand (subject to annual confirmation) with additional sponsorship from Dr Jack Richards. It has been created to foster New Zealand musical composition by providing the appointee with the opportunity to write full-time within an academic environment for the period of tenure. Applicants should be composers of proven merit and be New Zealand citizens or hold New Zealand residency. There is no restriction on the occupation of applicants, but they should not be employees of Creative New Zealand or Victoria University or Massey University (Wellington campus), or have been employed by Victoria University or Massey University (Wellington) in the twelve months prior to the closing date. Students working towards the completion of a tertiary qualification (in the year of the residency) are also ineligible. Individuals who have been a composer in residence in a Creative New Zealand financially supported residency within the previous twelve months are not eligible (this does not include recipients of grants). In extenuating circumstances, the panel may waive this restriction.
The Victoria University appointment will be for twelve months from 1 July 2010 to 31 June 2011. The appointee will be resident in Wellington for that time and will be attached to the New Zealand School of Music as a Victoria University employee. While there is no obligation of formal teaching, some contribution is expected to be made to Victoria University and to the New Zealand School of Music’s cultural and academic life, in a manner appropriate to the personal strengths and preferences of the appointee, in agreement with the Head of School. Victoria University will provide access to administrative, library and other facilities.
Salary is expected to be NZ$45,000-$50,000 for the twelve-month period + 8% holiday pay to be paid when the term of appointment ends. Limited assistance may be given towards payment of travel and removal expenses, but neither the University nor Creative New Zealand can provide living accommodation. However, in collaboration with the Lilburn Residence Trust, the former home of Douglas Lilburn at 22 Ascot St. Thorndon, is available for the appointee’s use, at a modest rental, for the term of the residency. This is subject to approval by the trust.
Further enquiries may be made to Michael Norris, New Zealand School of Music, tel 04 463 7456 or email Michael.Norris@vuw.ac.nz
Closing date for applications is 13 November 2009.
For further information and to apply online please visit: http://vacancies.vuw.ac.nz/
This entry was posted in Opportunities, Residency on 14 October 2009 by CANZ.
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Posts filed under wrigley field guide
Wrigley Field – Past, Present, & Future Of Wrigley Field Cubs World Champions!
Wrigley Field in Chicago, Illinois, is the second oldest ballpark in baseball, close behind Fenway Park in Boston (home to the Red Sox). Nicknamed ‘Friendly Confines,’ it still retains the authenticity of the old days. When fans come to cheer the Cubs, they don’t miss out on spotting a few highlights, like the marquee located outside their home plate entrance, ivy covered outfield walls, their classic hand-operated scoreboard, and more.
History Of Wrigley Field
The existence of Wrigley Field dates back to before the beginning of World War I, when Charles Weeghman acquired the Chicago Whales. He formed a new team in the ballpark, which was then located in an undeveloped side of Chicago. He hired Zachary Taylor Davis to plan the development of Wrigley Field, and it was thereafter named ‘North Side Park.’ It was later named after Charles as the ‘Weeghman Field.’
The construction of the ballpark started on March 14, 1914, and ended on April 23, 1914, which also marked the first game played by the Whales. It turned into a 14,000 seat ballpark, with one exclusive V-shaped Grandstand and wooden bleachers all around. The original dimension of Weeghman Field was 310 ft. to the left, 356 ft to the right, and 440 ft in the middle. It was also the first ever ballpark to have fixed concession stands. The Chicago Whales would only play for two years because the Federal League soon went bankrupt.
The Cubs used to play on the West Side Grounds from 1893, but by 1915 they were struggling for an audience. Charles Weeghman acquired them later that year and shifted the team to his field for the following season. Their first game was on April 20, 1916, and the ballpark was renamed ‘Cubs Park’ after Weeghman sold his acquisition to William Wrigley Jr.
During the early months of 1923, the park went through renovations. The Grandstand moved 60 ft back and there were new installations of wooden bleachers. This increased the capacity of the park to 20,000. It was further renovated in 1926, and the park was finally named ‘Wrigley Field’. There was then a double deck for the Grandstand, bleachers were moved from the left field, the playing area was lowered and the capacity reached 38,396.
There were more implementations by 1937, and bleachers were constructed in the outfield. This was also when their renowned 27 by 75 ft hand-operated scoreboard was planted right behind the centerfield seating. The other highlight of ivy was also incorporated at this time. The lights were installed before the season of 1942, but were donated to the government for World War II.
Post World War II Scene
After the 1940s, there was little change in the field to keep a note of. In 1981, the Cubs were acquired by the Tribune Company and in 1982, there was an electronic board installed under the old scoreboard:
After many disapprovals and threats, the Cubs were allowed to install lights on the field. The first night game took place on August 8, 1988. There were private boxes constructed in 1989, on a mezzanine level which was initially used for broadcasting and the press. There was another one constructed in the upper deck right behind home plate.
There were 200 seats added right behind home plate after the 2003 season which brought the audience closer to the field. There was a further addition of 1,800 seats in 2005, increasing the capacity to about 41,000 people.
Wrigley Field was previously known to have a bad grass field because the infield crown extended 40 ft towards the outfield. Players ran up and down a hill during their games! This problem was resolved in 2007, with the help of a reformed drainage system. The playing field was then replaced with artificial grass.
Present Scene For the Wrigley Field
Wrigley Field is now the only existing Federal League ballpark. However, with all the lights and video board, it retains that old fashioned feel. One amusing fact about the field is that they don’t allow advertisements. However, many can be found on the sides of buildings in the neighborhood.
Wrigleyville, the vicinity around Wrigley Field, bustles with ballhawks on game days. They wait at Waveland Avenue to catch home run balls. Lots of people sit on top of the building located behind the field to watch the game action. The ivy still overshadows the brick walls, while the scoreboard is manually operated. The neighborhood usually makes parking difficult for the games. Fans often opt to ride the CTA red line train to the Addison stop and then get to the field.
Wrigley Field is the home of the Cubs, but it was also home to the Chicago Bears from 1921-1970 before they moved to Soldier Field. This historic area is currently undergoing a massive change, which is likely to revamp it like never before.
Current Renovations At the Wrigley Field
After the renovations of 1937, the next big transformation is to overhaul all the facilities. It started after the 2014 season and is called the ‘1060 Project’. With a requirement of $575 million, it is all set to be complete in 2019.
Every section of Wrigley Field will be upgraded, and it has already started with the outfield. The Cubs moved the exterior walls into Waveland and Sheffield Avenues to expand bleachers, which will add 300 more seats, and add concessions. One of the most striking additions is the HD video board of 95 x 42 ft to the left. There will also be another 2,250 square feet video board to the right.
Chicago Cubs Achievements
The Chicago Cubs took part in 11 World Series so far. In 1906, they lost to the White Sox 4 games to 2, but made it back to the World Series in 1907 and 1908, being the first team to play 3 straight years back to back. They were also the first team to win twice, but after that they went 108 years without a World Series win. It was the longest occurrence in all of the American sports.
The Chicago Cubs were termed ‘Lovable Losers’ with multiple losing seasons. With superstars like Anthony Rizzo and Kris Bryant, the team accomplished their first World Series Championship since 1908, in 2016, after winning against the Cleveland Indians. Certain players on the Cubs were inducted into the Hall of Fame. They include Ernie Banks, Greg Maddux, Ryne Sandberg, Ron Santo, and others.
Posted in Sports and tagged chicago cubs history, history of chicago cubs, wrigley field guide
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LGBTR, a new acronym, a new flag
Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 2019-05-05 09:21
Nicolas Bruno
We all know that Brazil has not been going through good times since Bolsonaro became president. With the press being constantly threatened and attacked by the Bolsonaro government and its allies and citizens' rights being violated every day by disastrous public policies and a political party involved in controversies, with its members divided into several strands, the population is adrift.
According to the website Grupo Abril's Exam, Bolsonaro stated: "Brazil can not be a gay country; we have families. " It is clear the ignorance and the offenses that the president has against the diversity, present in the Brazilian population. Even so, gay tourism grew by 11%, according to the newspaper O Globo.
On several occasions it may be noted that Bolsonaro governs following his own ideologies and those of his constituents, forgetting that he occupies a public office and governs a country in which blacks, whites, gay, heterosexual, cis or trans and a great variety of people, pay taxes and contribute to the development of the country, as well as paying their salary as president of the republic.
Failing such egocentric attitudes of a person unprepared for public office, the same is mirrored in Donald Trump, president of the United States, who divides opinions of his own party.
Given that in the United States the LGBT community has chosen to include black and brown colors on the flag as a way of representing races and fighting racism, several entities in Brazil are also adopting this stance. The key factor for such a change came when Bolsonaro vetoed a Bank of Brazil advertisement that portrayed sexual, gender and racial diversity, according to news published by Veja's website.
On this occasion, I become a public novelty. The abbreviation LGBT that can mean Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Resources or Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Races, but in Portuguese can be adapted for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transvestite, Transsexual or Transgender, Races is the most appropriate for the reality of Brazil.
It can not be accepted that a government, paid with public money, destroys important public policies for all Brazilian society.
Live the Diversity! Viva LGBTR!
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Labels and zombies
Tag clinical communication . labels . psychiatry
It’s like clockwork. My Twitter timeline regularly contains references to what people who receive psychiatric treatment should be referred to. I think it’s time to write the ‘label post’ again.
For me, it’s started with the tweet by Allen Frances
I prefer to go even further:
'A patient who meets criteria for schizophrenia'.
'Schizophrenia' is just a construct- not something you can have. https://t.co/RXiu1MVQUR
— Allen Frances (@AllenFrancesMD) September 12, 2020
who responds to a tweet suggesting that there are no ‘schizophrenic patients’, there are ‘patients with schizophrenia’. To this Frances says: I prefer to go even further: ‘A patient who meets criteria for schizophrenia’.
Is Dr Frances right? Of course, he is. Have we now found the best way to talk about patients in mental healthcare? Not even close. All those discussions are not more than irritating; lip service paid to incessant and largely irrelevant debates on language in psychiatry, all justified by the ‘language matters’ slogan. And all, again, serving no particular point or goal.
Incidentally, it’s worth reading the responses under Allen Frances’ tweet. Some people cheer and agree, some still are unhappy with the label being ‘slapped’ onto a person. After all, if you use the word ‘schizophrenia’, you’re using ‘the label’ and that’s bad. After all, we must consider the questions whether mental illness exists, as discussed by another website I’ve never heard of. Needless to say, Dr Frances’ point that schizophrenia is only a construct not a ‘real thing’ doesn’t matter, after all he’s a shrink, so he must wish you ill.
I do despair…..
Let me repeat: I consider such discussions pointless and moot. Yes, there are certainly people who think that they are important, they find being called ‘patient’, or even the use of words such as ‘schizophrenia’ offensive. But there are also people who don’t mind, in fact, there are people for whom such ‘labels’ are important, useful, and are used to build at least part of the person’s identities around them. Can everyone win? No, of course, they can’t. Both standpoints, together with a spectrum between them, are valid. And you can continue arguing till you’re blue in the face. Incidentally, as I don’t think any compromise is possible, I think it’s better to move on.
The second reason why I find those discussions irritating is because of the arguments that the preferred label reflects the true nature of things. So, we discuss them to hone our description of true reality. Such arguments are nonsense. Each language use, including those damned labels, carry a host of ideological assumptions and people choose those labels because of those assumptions, regardless of whether they are aware of them or not.
Finally, such discussions consistently assume that the change of phrases (labels) will result in a changed reality. Eternally happy people will live in a world of everlasting peace from the day of the change day onward. Needless to say, nothing of the sort will happen.
In fact, let’s imagine that tomorrow the WHO changes, for example, the label ‘borderline personality disorder’ (I must admit that I find the ‘personality disorder’ labels particularly unhelpful and problematic) and calls it, let’s say, for the sake of argument, ‘behavioural pattern A’. What exactly would change? Would any psychiatrist behave differently? Would the any health service change anything? Would there be different recommendations? Would the attitudes towards patients change (on many occasions I heard psychiatrists admit that they don’t like BPD patients)? I’m afraid not. Nothing would change. In fact, I think that ‘behavioural pattern A’ would at first be identified as ‘former BPD’, and in time it would become as stigmatising as BPD was. In fact, this is precisely what history of psychiatry teaches us. Psychiatry can be seen as a history of label change. And what happened? Nothing. Zilch. Nada. The new phrases take on the stigmatising capacity of those which were replaced. And so, what exactly is the fight all about?
A reservation: we might still want to change BPD into BPA, but only because of the ideological baggage the former carries, or, simply, because we like it better. It creates a better picture of the world. And that’s fine. But the change will result in nothing that is claimed about it. Those diagnosed with behavioural pattern A will continue to be in a very undesirable situation. If you want to help them, stop thinking about language (and I do know many people really dislike me for saying this).
Now, let me offer a few more linguistic comments on the discussions about labels. Their significant weakness is that the discussants ignore the fact that they are not discussing dictionary entries, but they are supposed to be discussing the way certain people (patients, clinicians, administrators or, indeed, Twitter users) communicate. So, mostly, it is unclear what the discussions are all about. Let me give a couple of examples for what they can be about (the list is far from exhaustive).
1. Is the discussion about words referring to a group of people receiving healthcare? Just like we refer to doctors or nurses, we (probably) must have a way to refer to those on the side of the metaphorical (or not) stethoscope. As I said above, because of the diversity of people in psychiatric treatment, it is as unlikely as it can be, that there will ever be a consensus about how to refer to such a group of people. Someone will always be happy, someone will always be unhappy. Is there a point in discussing? In my view, not really. Will it stop the incessant debate? Hardly.
Do note that at this level, it’s pointless to ask people what their preference is, or that they should be called by their names etc. Here we are referring to an entire group of people. Like it or not, we need a label, be it because we need a way to say that there is a group of people who are entitled to social support, benefits, leave from work etc. etc.
And no, formulation (for some a strategy which will also cure cancer) will not be a way forward, we need some population-level criteria. Nor will be discussions whether mental illness exists or not. It doesn’t matter what your view is, if you can get, say, disability benefits because you suffer, you need criteria. Call it what you will, but you are likely to have to call it an illness, because in today’s societies, it is illness or disability that give you such benefits (with all their arbitrariness, ideologies underpinning, social constructs and what have you).
And I am yet to hear an idea how to deal with this.
My own personal view is that life is way too short to be bothered by it. I accept, however, that for some people it is considerably more important than it is for me. In a way, I regret this is the case. Yet, label change is extremely unlikely to bring out any change in practice. And while it is likely to make some people happy, others will be made unhappy.
2. The second context invoked by discussions is that of clinical interaction. This gets a bit more complicated.
I’ve been asked what I would like to be called only once. I said “Professor Galasinski” (I must admit I wanted to see what would happen) and the medic did not call me that even once. He avoided calling me anything altogether, which I think is very interesting, and worthy of a separate blogpost. In any case, I find such questions an imposition, there is no reason to ask them, clinicians should assume that normal social graces apply and should go for normal everyday formality.
In my view, doctors calling their patients by their first names take liberties and the only way to preserve a bastion of symmetry is when I call you by your family name and you reciprocate. Of course, I realise that I am still likely to call you using your professional title, still it’s better than nothing. Incidentally, over the years, I have tried to address doctors using “Mr” or “Mrs”, or ‘Ms’, and both doctors and, in particular, receptionists balked at that. I was immediately corrected. That in itself suggests how important forms of address are and that symmetry is only pretence.
Should doctors use illness labels? Well, the argument from the previous point applies. The issue is how you present this. I would imagine that simply saying: “you have schizophrenia” is unhelpful and insensitive. There are all sorts of ways in which to say this in an empathic, understanding manner, accepting that a person might reject such a diagnosis.
Before I finish, I would like to end with a reference to a tweet from a person I follow on Twitter. She listed, among others, the following observations on her hospitalisation: no real therapy; uncaring staff; disgusting environments; boredom; intimidating ward rounds and others. Someone else, quoting the tweet, added: over-medicating; coercion, even assault; damaging power dynamics; seeing others in distress and others.
This is a pretty damning picture of mental health services, and psychiatric hospitals in particular. It’s also a picture I recognise. When I was doing research and visited a number of hospitals, there are still things I wish I hadn’t seen. For example, I have seen mindless and brutal coercion, I have seen open and cavalier lack of respect. And as I recall such scenes or events, I start thinking: are you for real? Are you really still arguing about what is the best way to call a patient? Do you really think that the patient whom two orderlies shoved a bottle into his mouth to wash the medication down, as they pinned him down on the floor with a knee, gives a single flying f….about what label you use to refer to him?
If you can afford wondering discussing the bloody labels, you must really think that everything else is just hunky dory. Psychiatric hospitals are those wonderful places where people are offered empathy, support, respect….., psychiatric consultations are communicative events of love and joy, while psychiatric medication is commonly regarded as happy pills. So, now you can wonder about the minutia like the labels.
For me, I still can’t get rid of an image which has haunted me for years. I was waiting (I can’t remember what for) in a closed ward, just mindlessly looking ahead, when all of a sudden, I saw a figure or a woman. She was dressed in heavy duty hospital pyjamas. She was heavily distended, so her belly was clearly seen as the trousers were tightly wrapped around it. She had long hair which was obviously unwashed for a significant period of time, greasy strips of hair on her front and back. But the most haunting were her eyes. Her eyes were empty, unseeing. Hollow. She shuffled her feet with effort, moving very slowly along the corridor. That young woman, drugged out of her mind into a psychiatric zombie, also didn’t care about what label was used to refer to her.
As this image keeps haunting me, I do refuse to engage with labels. And I really don’t care how many people think they are the most important thing psychiatry should deal with. They’re not, period.
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Superfund: Implementation and Selected Issues
Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress
Superfund is the federal government’s principal program for cleaning up the nation’s
contaminated waste sites and protecting public health and the environment from releases of
hazardous substances. Enacted into law as the Comprehensive Environmental Response,
Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA, P.L. 96-510), the program became known as
Superfund because Congress established a large trust fund—originally supported by taxes levied
on specific petroleum products and chemicals—to provide the majority of the program’s funding
needs. Although the 26-year-old program has seen less attention compared with earlier years,
Superfund issues continue to generate debate. This report provides a background and overview of
the Superfund program and examines four topics that received interest in recent years.
The first issue concerns Superfund program funding: who should pay for the program, general
taxpayers or a dedicated tax on industry? The program was originally funded by a tax on industry
that expired at the end of 1995. Without dedicated taxes, and with a relatively small balance in the
trust fund, Congress has been using general revenues for a larger percentage of cleanup funds.
Members introduced bills to reinstate the taxes in the current and past three Congresses, but so far
these efforts have lacked the necessary support.
The second issue regards Superfund program appropriations. Recent evidence indicates that
appropriations from the past several years have fallen short of program needs. The
Administration’s FY2007 budget proposal for Superfund also fell below levels that, according to
some estimates, are needed to meet program obligations. Without reinstating the Superfund taxes,
any increased appropriation would be funded through General Treasury revenues.
The third issue involves Superfund interaction with abandoned and contaminated hardrock mines.
The number of hardrock mining sites requiring cleanup in future years, particularly those without
identifiable responsible parties, could play an important role in the Superfund funding debate.
There is also a concern that the threat of CERCLA liability may act as a cleanup disincentive for
“good samaritans” who might offer cleanup assistance at abandoned hardrock mines.
The fourth issue concerns Superfund’s role at animal feeding operations. Stakeholders argue
about whether these operations should be required to report ammonia air emissions, primarily
resulting from animal waste, as hazardous substance releases. This issue also concerns the
responsibility for releases of animal waste that reach water bodies.
Legislative Background...................................................................................................................1
Superfund Program Implementation...............................................................................................2
Responding to Releases.............................................................................................................2
Site Assessment...................................................................................................................3
The National Priorities List.................................................................................................3
The Removal Program........................................................................................................4
The Remedial Program.......................................................................................................5
Cleanup Standards..............................................................................................................6
CERCLA Liability....................................................................................................................7
Natural Resource Damages.......................................................................................................7
Federal Superfund Sites............................................................................................................8
The State Role in the Superfund Process..................................................................................8
Selected Superfund Issues...............................................................................................................9
Superfund Trust Fund and Taxes...............................................................................................9
Superfund Program Funding Needs and Appropriation Levels..............................................12
Abandoned Hardrock Mines...................................................................................................15
Backgr ound ....................................................................................................................... 15
Mining Sites and the National Priorities List....................................................................16
Federal Land Issues...........................................................................................................17
Good Samaritan Issues......................................................................................................17
Legi slation ........................................................................................................................ 19
Releases from Animal Feeding Operations.............................................................................19
Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................... 20
Figure 1. Removal and Remedial Program Annual Appropriations Compared With Total
Superfund Annual Appropriation, FY2003-FY2007....................................................................5
Figure 2. Superfund Trust Fund, Beginning Year Balance, FY1994-FY2007..............................10
Figure 3. Superfund Appropriations: FY2001-FY2007 Enacted and FY2008 Requested
Versus Resources for the Future Projections of Funding Needs................................................13
Figure 4. Administration Budget Request Versus Enacted Superfund Appropriation,
FY2004-FY2008 ........................................................................................................................ 15
Table 1. CERCLA and Amendments...............................................................................................2
Author Contact Information..........................................................................................................21
he Superfund program had its 25th anniversary in 2005. Although Superfund debate has
lessened, as compared with past years, particular aspects of the program continue to
generate debate. Policymakers are faced with broad programmatic concerns, as well as T
more specific issues concerning program implementation. This report discusses some of these
questions: Who should pay to clean up the nation’s most contaminated sites if responsible parties
cannot be found? Is the program receiving enough funding to meet its current and future
obligations? How does the statute interact with abandoned hardrock mining sites and animal
feeding operations? To supply the context for these issues, this report first provides a background
and overview of the Superfund program.
On December 11, 1980, Congress enacted the Comprehensive Environmental Response, 1
Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA, P.L. 96-510) to create the hazardous substance
cleanup program. The program became known as “Superfund” in reference to the trust fund
established by the law. The fund was originally supported by taxes levied on specific petroleum
products and chemicals, and a corporate environmental income tax. Until recent years, the
Superfund taxes provided the majority of the funding for the needs of the program.
At the time of CERCLA’s enactment, other federal environmental statutes provided federal
agencies with only limited authority to address contamination at abandoned sites. CERCLA gave
the federal government the authority to take direct action to respond to instances involving
uncontrolled releases of hazardous substances (or pollutants and contaminants) that may endanger
public health or the environment. CERCLA also enables the Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) to compel the persons responsible to clean up their contaminated sites. If the potentially
responsible parties (PRPs) cannot be located, or they are unable (generally for financial reasons)
to perform cleanup, EPA is authorized to use monies from the Superfund Trust Fund to clean up
the site.
CERCLA was expanded and reauthorized by the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization 2
Act of 1986 (SARA, P.L. 99-499). Amendments after SARA have been narrowly focused. In
1992 and 1996, Congress enacted legislation allowing for easier transfer of military bases with
contaminated areas to local entities. In 1996 and 1999, Congress provided conditional liability
exemptions for financial institutions and recycling facilities. In 2002, Congress enacted the Small
Business Liability Relief and Brownfields Revitalization Act (P.L. 108-118), which added further
liability relief and authorized the Brownfields Program. Table 1 lists the various CERCLA
amendments.
1 CERCLA, as amended, is codified at 42 U.S.C. 9601-9675.
2 SARA also created other authorities, most notably SARA Title III, otherwise known as the Emergency Planning and
Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA).
Table 1. CERCLA and Amendments
(codified generally as 42 U.S.C. 9601-9675)
Year Act Public Law Number
1980 Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act P.L. 96-510
1986 Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act P.L. 99-499
1990 Omnibus Reconciliation Act (extended authorization) P.L. 101-508, §§ 6301, 11231
1992 Community Environmental Response Facilitation Act P.L. 102-426
1996 Defense Authorization Act of Fiscal Year 1997 P.L. 104-201, § 334
1996 Asset Conservation, Lender Liability, and Deposit Insurance Protection Act P.L. 104-208, Division A, Title II, Subtitle E
1999 Superfund Recycling Equity Act P.L. 106-113, appendix I, title VI
2002 Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfields Reauthorization Act P.L. 107-118
The National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution Contingency Plan (NCP) contains the 3
procedures and regulations for implementing the Superfund program. Generally, EPA leads the
response to releases on land and in inland waters, whereas the Coast Guard leads the response in
coastal waters of the United States.
Actions under the Superfund program are triggered by a release (or threat of release) of a
hazardous substance into the environment. The CERCLA “environment” includes all media:
water (surface and groundwater), soil, and air. CERCLA defines “hazardous substance” to include
all the materials identified as hazardous under the Resource Conservation Recovery Act (RCRA),
the Clean Water Act (CWA), the Clean Air Act (CAA), and the Toxic Substances Control Act
(TSCA). CERCLA also authorizes EPA to respond to releases of “pollutants or contaminants,”
which are broadly defined to include virtually anything that can threaten the health of “any
orga nism.”
Petroleum is specifically excluded from the definition of hazardous substance and pollutant or
contaminant. This means that neither CERCLA authority nor trust fund monies may be used to 4
respond to releases of petroleum. However, the 2002 Brownfields law authorizes the cleanup of
some petroleum-contaminated sites.
3 The NCP is codified at 40 CFR Part 300.
4 Petroleum spills are covered under other statutes, such as the Oil Pollution Act of 1990. For more information
regarding oil spills, see CRS Report RL33705, Oil Spills in U.S. Coastal Waters: Background, Governance, and Issues
for Congress, by Jonathan L. Ramseur.
The Superfund cleanup process starts either with a site discovery or with a notification to EPA of
a potential hazardous substance release. Sites of concern can be discovered by various parties:
citizens, state agencies, or EPA Regional offices. CERCLA § 103 requires release notification.
Facilities must notify the National Response Center if there has been a release of a hazardous 5
substance above a certain threshold, termed a reportable quantity (RQ).
Since the inception of the Superfund program, EPA has catalogued more than 47,000 potentially
contaminated sites in the agency’s database: the Comprehensive Environmental Response, 6
Compensation, and Liability Information System (CERCLIS). After a site has been identified, 7
EPA or a state agency performs a preliminary assessment to judge the site’s potential hazards.
After further screening, EPA uses the Hazard Ranking System (HRS) to score the site’s
contamination and its risk of exposure to surrounding communities.
Sites that score high enough on the HRS are eligible for the National Priorities List (NPL), which
is generally considered the official list of the most hazardous sites in the nation. Only a small
percentage of the sites assessed are placed on the NPL. Over Superfund’s history, EPA has placed
1,569 sites on the NPL (as of October 1, 2007). Of these sites, 321 have met cleanup goals and
have been subsequently removed (deleted) from the NPL. At an additional 1,030 sites all physical
construction activities have been performed, and operation and maintenance (such as treatment of 8
contaminated groundwater) is ongoing. These sites are referred to as “construction complete.”
The NPL has been described as the centerpiece of the Superfund program, and thus it has been a
focal point for Superfund criticism. As noted in a comprehensive report prepared by Resources 910
for the Future (RFF) (hereafter referred to as the RFF Report):
The expense and pace of cleaning up NPL sites has been, and continues to be, a contentious
topic among followers of the Superfund program.... [E]ven though more than half of all NPL
sites have been deemed “construction complete”—meaning that all physical remedies are in
place and immediate risks posed by the site have been addressed—there remain hundreds of
sites placed on the NPL during the early years of the program where cleanup remedies have
still not been fully implemented.
Some interest groups have questioned the listing process itself and the slow pace of cleanup at 11
NPL sites. The decision to list a site on the NPL is ultimately at EPA’s discretion. Many factors,
5 40 CFR § 302.6. EPA codified the list of hazardous substances and their respective RQs in 40 CFR § 302.4.
Hazardous substance RQs can range from 1 pound to 5,000 pounds.
6 http://www.epa.gov/superfund/sites/products/archinv.htm, visited October 3, 2007.
7 In practice, this activity is often carried out by a contractor.
8 http://www.epa.gov/superfund/sites/query/queryhtm/npltotal.htm, visited October 3, 2007.
9 In the FY2000 VA-HUD-Independent Agencies appropriation (P.L. 106-74) conference report, Congress directed
EPA to contract with RFF to analyze the projected federal costs of the Superfund program for the period FY2000-
FY2009.
10 Katherine Probst, et al., 2001, Superfund’s Future: What Will It Cost?, Resources for the Future, Washington, DC,
2001, p. 31.
11 The process has been called “more art than science.” Probst, Katherine, 2005, “Superfund at 25 - What Remains To
(continued...)
other than the HRS score, influence whether a site is proposed for listing—for example, state 121314
support, community concerns, and Superfund budgetary issues. EPA has stated that
The NPL is only of limited significance, however, as it does not assign liability to any party
or to the owner of any specific property. Neither does placing a site on the NPL mean that 15
any remedial or removal action necessarily need be taken.
There are two categories of response activity in the Superfund program: (1) short-term removal
action and (2) long-term remedial action. The trust fund can support removal action at NPL or
non-NPL sites. However, trust fund monies can be used for remedial activity only if the site is on 16
the NPL.
The removal program grew out of the recognition that certain hazardous substance releases would
necessitate a quick response. Removal action seeks to stabilize a site, and in some cases this
minimizes the need for further cleanup. Removal action can be undertaken at sites regardless of 17
their NPL status, and historically, most removal actions occur at non-NPL sites. CERCLA limits 18
removal action to a one-year effort and expenditures of not more than $2 million. This limit
applies only to efforts led by EPA and funded by trust fund dollars, not at sites where the
responsible party is performing cleanup.
Not all actions under the removal program are considered equally urgent. EPA groups removal
actions into the following three categories:
(1) Classic emergencies. Those actions where the release requires that on-site activities be
initiated within minutes or hours of the determination that a removal action is appropriate.
(2) Time-Critical Actions. Those actions where, based on an evaluation of the site, EPA
determines that less than six months is available before site activities must be initiated.
(...continued)
Be Done?” Resources, Fall 2005, p. 20.
12 P.L. 104-19 (an FY1995 appropriations bill) directed EPA to obtain a letter of concurrence from the governor of a
state prior to listing a site in that state on the National Priorities List. P.L. 104-134 (an FY1996 appropriations bill)
provided similar direction. EPA, as a matter of policy to further enhance the role of states in the Superfund program,
continues to request a governor’s letter of concurrence prior to NPL listing.
13 An NPL designation generally carries a stigma, and local communities often worry about the effects an NPL site will
have on nearby property values.
14 For example, EPA might be hesitant to list “mega sites” on the NPL, unless the parties responsible for the site have
been identified. RFF Report, p. 89.
15 See, for example, U.S. EPA, “National Priorities List for Uncontrolled Hazardous Waste Sites,” 70 Federal Register
54329, September 14, 2005.
16 40 CFR § 300.425(b)(1).
17 From FY1992-FY1999, approximately 76% of removal actions occurred at non-NPL sites. RFF report, p. 16.
18 CERCLA § 104(c)(1). These limits can be exceeded if a waiver is obtained. EPA estimated that as of January 2001,
about 8% of the removal actions conducted by EPA have exceeded $2 million. RFF report, p.16, citing EPA analysis.
(3) Non-Time-Critical Actions. Those actions where, based on an evaluation of the site, EPA 19
determines that more than six months is available before on-site activities must begin.
Removal actions may include, but are not limited to:
• repairing a hazardous waste storage unit (e.g., landfill cover),
• transporting leaking drums to an appropriate disposal facility, and
• erecting a security fence to reduce opportunity of exposure.
In recent years, the removal program has consistently received about one-third of the amount
appropriated to the remedial program (see Figure 1).
Figure 1. Removal and Remedial Program Annual Appropriations Compared With
Total Superfund Annual Appropriation, FY2003-FY2007
Sources: Prepared by the Congressional Research Service from the following: (1) Removal and Remedial data:
FY2003 and FY2004 amounts are EPA estimates provided by the Office of Congressional Affairs; FY2005
amounts are from the conference report on the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act
for FY2006 (H.R. 2361, H.Rept. 109-188, p. 154); FY2006 and FY2007 amounts are from EPA’s FY2007 and
FY2008 budget justifications, Appendix, Program Projects Table, p. 82 and p. 78, respectively; (2) Total
Appropriations data: FY2003-FY2005 are from prior year funding comparisons in committee reports on annual
appropriations bills from FY2004-FY2006; FY2006 and FY2007 are from EPA’s FY2007 and FY2008 budget
justifications. FY2005 and FY2006 amounts include rescissions.
The remedial program is the core of the Superfund program. In contrast to removal actions,
remedial actions, in general, take more time, cost more money, and represent a more permanent
19 See EPA’s Response Program description at http://www.epa.gov/superfund/programs/er/hazsubs/ralts.htm.
solution. Congress consistently apportions about half of the annual Superfund appropriation to the 20
remedial program (see Figure 1).
The remedial program consists of multiple process steps, each with its own term of art. Although
the remedial process does not typically follow a linear, step-by-step progression, a simplified
version of events is discussed below, highlighting the main milestones.
The remedial program first involves a comprehensive investigation of the site and analysis of
cleanup alternatives or remedies. This examination process (the Remedial 21
Investigation/Feasibility Study, or RI/FS) can take months, or even years.
Following completion of the RI/FS, EPA selects a remedy to address the site’s contamination.
EPA must solicit public comment when determining the remedy for the site, and states typically
play an active role in the remedy selection process. CERCLA directs EPA to select a permanent
remedy or treatment whenever possible. The less-preferred option is to leave the waste in place
and reduce human exposure (e.g., soil cover or security fence). If the method chosen is not
permanent, EPA must review the site every five years to ensure remedy protection.
After EPA decides the site-specific cleanup remedy and issues a formal Record of Decision
(ROD), the remedial design (RD) phase commences. The RD is the engineering plan used to
implement the remedy chosen by EPA. Development of the RD takes, on average, approximately 22
two years. After the RD is complete, the actual cleanup process (Remedial Action) begins. For
sites where cleanup has been completed, the total process, from start (a proposed listing on the 23
NPL) to finish (cleanup goals achieved), takes between 8 and 11 years, on average.
CERCLA directs EPA to assure that Superfund site cleanups protect human health and the 24
environment. CERCLA specifically requires cleanups to meet “any standard, requirement, 25
criteria, or limitation” under any federal or state environmental law. EPA may waive this
requirement if, for example, meeting the standard will not provide a balance between (1) the need
for protection of health and the environment at the site and (2) the availability of monies in the 26
trust fund for other locations.
20 Other substantial accounts in the total appropriation include the removal program ($194 million), enforcement ($180
million), and operations and administration ($122 million). Amounts reflect FY2006 enacted appropriation.
21 The RFF report (p. 48) cites EPA data from FY1993-FY1999, which indicates the average duration is 2.6 years.
22 The RFF report cites EPA’s estimate at 1.7 years, but the report authors calculated an average RD duration of 2.25
years. RFF report at p. 210.
23 EPA estimates the average duration is eight years, but the RFF report finds this calculation to be inaccurate because
only completed actions are included. If incomplete actions are also included, as demonstrated in the RFF report, the
average duration increases to 11 years ( pp. 48-52).
24 CERCLA § 121(d).
26 CERCLA provides five other conditions that allow EPA to waive the requirements. CERCLA § 121(d)(4).
CERCLA contains a liability scheme that is, by any measure, stringent. If a hazardous substance
is released, or threatened to be released, from a facility, CERCLA liability may attach to a wide
variety of persons. A potentially responsible party (PRP) is any individual or company that may
have contributed to contamination at a Superfund site.
PRPs may include
• current or former owners of a facility or vessel,
• current or former operators of a facility or vessel,
• generators who sent hazardous substances to the site, and
• transporters who brought hazardous substances to the site.27
CERCLA liability is considered to be strict, joint and several, and retroactive:28
• Strict liability means that a party can be held responsible regardless of
negligence. Moreover, under CERCLA, proof of causation is not necessary.
• Joint and several liability means that any liable party can be held responsible for
the full cost of cleanup, regardless of the degree of involvement.
• Retroactive liability means that parties can be held responsible for actions that
caused contamination prior to the passage of CERCLA.
CERCLA’s liability scheme provides EPA with strong enforcement authority to require PRPs to
address site contamination. The joint and several component creates an incentive for one PRP
(already identified by EPA) to locate other PRPs, so that the cleanup costs can be shared.
The statute does provide several defenses, exemptions, and mechanisms for eliminating or 29
reducing a party’s CERCLA liability. This report does not discuss these devices. For
information regarding several of them, see CRS Report RL31911, “Innocent Landowners” and
“Prospective Purchasers” Under the Superfund Act, by Robert Meltz.
In addition to cleanup costs, CERCLA requires PRPs to address the environmental harm they
caused by restoring or replacing any injured natural resources. PRPs must also pay for the lost use
of a publicly owned resource and the associated damage assessment. CERCLA designates federal,
state, and tribal authorities to serve as natural resource trustees within their jurisdiction. Only the
27 CERCLA § 107(a).
28 The CERCLA statute does not include the text “strict, joint and several, and retroactive.” These features of CERCLA
liability derive from legislative history, case law, and the CERCLA instruction that its liability standard is the same as
that in Clean Water Act § 311. See CERCLA § 101(32).
29 See, for example, CERCLA §§ 107(b), 107(d), 107(n), 107(o), 107(p), 107(q), 107(r).
30 For more background on this issue, see CRS Report RS20772, Superfund and Natural Resource Damages, by Mark
Reisch.
trustees can make a natural resource damages claim under CERCLA.31 In some respects, liability
for natural resource damages is more narrow than the liability for cleanup costs. For example,
natural resource injuries occurring wholly before the enactment of CERCLA (1980) are 32
excluded. Also, a claim must be brought within three years of its discovery and connection to a
particular release.
With the passage of SARA in 1986, federal facilities became subject to CERCLA in the same 33
fashion as non-governmental entities. Before SARA was enacted, no federal facilities were
placed on the National Priorities List (NPL). Since 1986, EPA has placed 172 federal facilities on 34
the final NPL. Almost all federal facilities on the NPL are defense sites, including military
facilities administered by the Department of Defense (DOD) and former nuclear weapons
production sites administered by the Department of Energy (DOE). These sites are among the
most contaminated of those on the entire NPL.
The Superfund Trust Fund cannot be used to pay for cleanup at federal facilities. The agency
responsible for the contamination is responsible for cleanup, and funding for removal or remedial
action must come from that agency’s budget. However, the trust fund may be used to provide
alternative water supplies if groundwater contamination migrates beyond the facility boundaries
and other PRPs are involved at the site.
At federal sites on the NPL, EPA oversees remedy selection and remedial action. Federal sites
that do not qualify for the NPL are subject to state laws concerning removal, remedial action, and
enforcement. At these sites, states oversee cleanup activity. There are almost 800 sites nationwide 35
that fall into this category.
SARA encourages state involvement at Superfund sites, and outlines minimum requirements for
state participation at virtually every phase of decision-making, from site assessment to
enforcement and actively managing the site cleanup. CERCLA § 104(c) requires states to pay
10% of the remedial cleanup costs, and 100% of the operation and maintenance costs beginning
10 years after construction of the remedy has been completed. However, if the facility was
operated by the state (or a political subdivision thereof) at the time of disposal, the state must
share 50% of the removal or remedial cleanup costs.
31 “Although private parties do not have a statutory cause of action for natural resource damages, they may assert
similar claims under common law theories, such as negligence and strict liability.” Bradley M. Marten and Cestjon L.
McFarland, “Litigating CERCLA Natural Resource Damage Claims,” Environment Reporter, July 19, 1991, p. 671.
32 CERCLA § 107(f).
33 CERCLA § 120.
34 http://www.epa.gov/superfund/sites/query/queryhtm/npltotal.htm visited May 24, 2007.
35 A CERCLIS search (January 18, 2007) identifies 787 federal sites not on the NPL, of which 15 were deleted from
the NPL and 6 are proposed to be on the NPL.
This cost-sharing component may play a role in whether sites are listed on the NPL. Although not
currently required by law, EPA typically does not propose new sites to the NPL without a state’s 36
agreement. For budgetary reasons, states may be hesitant to add Fund-led sites to the NPL.
Most Superfund sites are not on the NPL. Of the roughly 10,000 sites currently in the CERCLIS
database, about 90% are not on the NPL. At these non-NPL sites, the federal role may include
cleanup assessment or removal activity, or the federal government may have no presence at all.
State cleanup programs have the authority to assess and clean up non-NPL sites and to identify
other potential hazardous sites. The majority of the state cleanup programs have authorities 37
similar to the federal Superfund program.
This section of the report discusses four Superfund issues that have received interest in recent
years. The first two issues concern program funding, including who should fund the program
(industry or general taxpayers) and how much funding is needed to meet the program’s
obligations. The second two issues concern CERCLA interaction at specific site types: abandoned
hardrock mines and animal feeding operations.
In February 2002, controversy erupted over the Bush Administration’s proposal not to request 39
renewal of the Superfund taxes in its FY2003 budget submission—a decision repeated in its
submissions for FY2004 through FY2008. Congress has concurred with the Administration’s
position and chosen not to renew the Superfund taxes.
The tax authority expired in 1995, but the fund’s balance remained positive until FY2003.
Without dedicated taxes, and with a relatively small balance in the trust fund, Congress has been
using general revenues for a larger percentage of cleanup funds. Although several Members of
Congress have introduced bills to reinstate the taxes during these years, such efforts have lacked
the necessary support.
CERCLA established the Superfund program and its trust fund in 1980. Although General 40
Treasury revenues have provided some support for the program since its inception, the trust
fund traditionally provided most of the funding for the Superfund program. Congress raised trust
fund revenues primarily through excise taxes on the petroleum and chemical industries, and a
37 Environmental Law Institute, 2002, An Analysis of State Superfund Programs: 50-State Study, 2001 Update, p. 13.
38 For a more comprehensive discussion, see CRS Report RL31410, Superfund Taxes or General Revenues: Future
Funding Issues for the Superfund Program, by Jonathan L. Ramseur, Mark Reisch, and James E. McCarthy.
39 The Administration had not requested renewal of the taxes in its FY2002 budget submission either, but the issue did
not become particularly contentious, in part, perhaps, because the fund had a larger balance at the time.
40 From FY1991-FY1995—the five year period prior to the expiration of the Superfund taxes—General Treasury
revenues contributed approximately 17% of the total revenues supporting the Superfund Trust Fund.
corporate environmental income tax. These dedicated taxes sustained the trust fund until the
taxing authority expired December 31, 1995. Since 1995, efforts to reinstate the taxes have not
At the end of FY1996, the trust fund reached a peak balance of $3.8 billion (see Figure 2).
Without a consistent source of funding, the balance dwindled essentially to zero by the end of 41
FY2003. The annual budgets have compensated for the lack of dedicated tax revenue by
increasing the contribution from the general fund of the U.S. Treasury. In fiscal years 2004-2007,
virtually the entire Superfund program was funded through General Treasury revenues
appropriated by Congress. The FY2008 budget request followed this course, proposing to fund
the vast majority of the $1.24 billion requested appropriation from General Treasury revenues.
Figure 2. Superfund Trust Fund, Beginning Year Balance, FY1994-FY2007
Source: Prepared by the Congressional Research Service, with information provided by OMB Budget of the
United States Government, Appendix, Fiscal Years 1996-2008.
In a majority of cases, Superfund cleanups are paid for by potentially responsible parties
(PRPs)—usually current or previous owners and/or operators of the site. According to EPA, PRPs 42
conduct cleanup at more than 70% of the sites on the NPL. At approximately 30% of the NPL
sites, either EPA cannot locate PRPs for these properties or the PRPs located do not have the
necessary financial resources to assist with cleanup. It is primarily for this group of NPL sites
41 The trust fund received (and continues to receive) income from interest earned, cost recoveries, and fines and
penalties, but these sources are minor compared with the previous tax revenues.
42 At many sites, EPA cannot immediately locate a financially viable PRP, or there are disputes among the PRPs
concerning their degree of responsibility. In such cases, the statute permits EPA to proceed with cleanup using the trust
fund’s resources, to locate PRPs after or during cleanup, and to recover the cleanup costs from PRPs at a later date.
(often called “orphan” sites) that EPA uses funds from the trust fund to conduct cleanup activities.
In general, the current Superfund funding debate (i.e., whether a dedicated tax or General 43
Treasury revenues should support the trust fund) applies to this subset of NPL sites.
Proponents of reinstating the Superfund taxes argue that the cleanup of orphan sites should rely
on taxes paid by the chemical and petroleum industries and companies that use CERCLA
hazardous substances, not ordinary taxpayers. They refer to this as the “polluter pays” principle.
When Bush Administration spokespersons indicate support for the “polluter pays” concept, they
generally mean that cleanup should be funded by the parties directly involved (i.e., PRPs) rather
than by industrial sectors or corporations that did not directly contribute to a specific site’s
contamination. Opponents of reinstating the tax argue, for example, that the tax is overreaching
and unfair, as it applies to all industry sectors and to both compliant and noncompliant
companies. Superfund tax proponents contend that in the context of federal budget deficits, it may
be difficult to maintain spending at needed levels without dedicated taxes.
Amendments to CERCLA have addressed some of the claims of unfairness. The Asset
Conservation, Lender Liability, and Deposit Insurance Protection Act of 1996 (P.L. 104-208)
limited banks’ and other lenders’ exposure to Superfund liability at a contaminated site to the
amount of their loans. Businesses engaged in recycling were absolved of liability if they met
certain criteria showing that their activities were genuine recycling, and not shams to disguise
illegal disposal of hazardous substances (Superfund Recycling Equity Act, P.L. 106-113).
Additional limits on CERCLA liability were provided in the Small Business Liability Relief and
Brownfields Revitalization Act (P.L. 107-118), which made contributors of small amounts of
hazardous substances at an NPL site exempt from liability if the wastes were disposed prior to
April 1, 2001. Also exempted were residential property owners, small businesses, and small
nonprofit organizations that sent only municipal solid waste to NPL sites, as well as property
owners whose land abuts a Superfund site, prospective purchasers of contaminated property, and
innocent landowners.
Since the 107th Congress, legislation has been introduced that would reinstate the Superfund th
taxes, but these efforts have failed. In the 110 Congress, several members, including Senate
Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer and Subcommittee on
Superfund and Environmental Health Chair Hillary Clinton, have spoken in favor of restoring the
taxes. Representative Maurice Hinchey (H.R. 1887) and Senator Robert Casey (S. 1179)
introduced companion bills that would reinstate the taxes, and for the first five years would
increase them by 50% to fund a response at “megasites” (where cleanup costs exceed $50
million) and at sites that present high health risks. Representatives Earl Blumenauer and Frank
Pallone introduced H.R. 3636, which would reimpose the taxes beginning with the date of
enactment until January 1, 2018. Representative Pallone’s H.R. 3962 would restore the taxes at
their previous rates through the end of 2015.
43 Although 70% of the NPL cleanups are performed by PRPs, the RFF report (chapter 5) finds there may be many
orphan sites eligible for the NPL (i.e., have a high enough HRS score) that remain unlisted for various reasons
(discussed in the NPL subsection above). Thus, one might argue that the 70%-30% ratio understates the universe of
orphan sites that need federal funding for cleanup.
Related to the Superfund program funding debate is the concern that the Superfund program is
not receiving enough funding to match its annual obligations. Recent evidence indicates that
appropriations from the past several years have fallen short of program needs. If Congress
decides to increase annual appropriations without reinstating the Superfund taxes, General
Treasury revenues contribution to the program will increase, possibly conflicting with deficit
reduction goals.
As noted above, in July 2001, Resources for the Future (RFF) released a comprehensive study, 44
mandated by Congress, that estimated future program needs for fiscal years 2000-2009. RFF
calculated that the base case program needs for FY2008 would be $1.7 billion. The report also
estimated a high and low case: $1.5 billion and $1.8 billion per year, respectively. RFF concluded
that funding needs would remain above $1.6 billion annually through FY2009 (using RFF’s base
case). As Figure 3 indicates, annual Superfund appropriations in recent years have consistently
been several hundred million dollars less than the funding needs projected by RFF.
Several factors contributed to RFF’s projections for increased funding needs. First, RFF
anticipated that numerous “mega sites” would move beyond the analysis and design phases and 45
into the actual construction and cleanup phases. In the RFF analysis, the cost of remedial action
at mega sites was projected to remain above historic levels through FY2007, and the cost of the
Superfund program as a whole was projected to remain above FY2001 levels through at least 46
FY2009 (the final year in the analysis).
Second, EPA’s Office of Inspector General (IG) highlighted the concern that hardrock mining
sites may have a significant financial impact on the trust fund. The IG identified “156 hardrock
mining sites nationwide that have the potential to cost between $7 billion and $24 billion to clean
up.” Although the IG points out uncertainty regarding the risks to human health and the 47
environment at these sites, there is also uncertainty concerning PRPs and their ability to pay for 48
44 In the FY2000 VA-HUD-Independent Agencies appropriation (P.L. 106-74) conference report, Congress directed
45 “Mega sites” are sites at which the projected cleanup cost is $50 million or more. The average cost at mega sites is
projected to be $140 million. RFF Report, p. 87.
46 RFF Report, pp. 127, 266.
47 This factor is important because sites must be on the NPL to qualify for long-term cleanup (remedial) assistance from
the trust fund.
48 EPA Office of Inspector General, Annual Superfund Report to Congress for Fiscal Year 2004, EPA-350-R-05-001,
August 2005, p. 3.
Versus Resources for the Future Projections of Funding Needs
(amounts in millions prior to transfers)
Sources: Prepared by the Congressional Research Service using the following sources: FY2001-FY2005 enacted
amounts are from prior year funding comparisons in committee reports on annual appropriations bills from
FY2002-FY2006; FY2006 and FY2007 enacted (FY2007 is from continuing resolutions), and FY2008 requested
amounts are from EPA’s FY2007 and FY2008 budget justifications; projected funding levels are from the
Resources for the Future report, Superfund’s Future: What Will It Cost?
There is evidence that funding shortfalls have occurred in recent years. According to an EPA IG
report, in FY2002, the EPA regional offices received no funds for seven of the sites at which the
regions requested construction funding. At five different sites, the Regions received less than half 49
of the total funds requested. In FY2003, the IG identified an additional 11 sites that could not
begin construction because of a funding shortfall, and at least 5 other sites that did not receive 50
their full funding request in that year. Although the IG did not report on the subject in FY2004,
a survey of EPA staff by the House Energy and Commerce Committee Democratic staff found a 51
reported shortfall of $263.1 million. EPA challenged some of the committee data but confirmed
49 Letter of October 25, 2002, from Nikki L. Tinsley, EPA Inspector General, to Senator James Jeffords, Chairman,
Committee on Environment and Public Works, and Senator Barbara Boxer, Chair, Superfund, Toxics, Risk, and Waste
Management Subcommittee, pp. 1-3.
50 U.S. EPA, Office of Inspector General, Congressional Request on Funding Needs for Non-Federal Superfund Sites,
Report 2004-P-00001, January 7, 2004, pp. 4, 8-9.
51 Letter from Representative John Dingell, Ranking Member of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, to
Mike Leavitt, EPA Administrator, August 13, 2004.
in letters to House and Senate Democrats that, due to lack of funding, it did not start construction 52
at 19 sites that were ready for construction in FY2004.
Congress could increase appropriation levels to meet the increased funding needs. The
Administration notes that it requested increases in funding in both its FY2004 request for $1.39
billion and its FY2005 request for $1.38 billion, which Congress did not provide. Congress cut
the FY2004 and FY2005 requests by $132 million and $134 million, respectively. Although the
Administration’s request in FY2006 ($1.28 billion) was lower compared with previous years,
Congress cut the proposal by $40 million, enacting $1.24 billion. The Administration requested
$1.26 billion for FY2007, a $20 million decrease from its previous request, but $20 million above th
the amount enacted by Congress in FY2006 (See Figure 4). The 109 Congress adjourned
without finalizing FY2007 appropriations for EPA, but it enacted a continuing resolution (P.L.
109-383, H.J.Res. 102) to provide funding through February 15, 2007. Pursuant to the formula
provided in the continuing resolution, the Superfund program will continue to receive funding 53
consistent with the FY2006 enacted appropriation. For FY2008 the Administration has
requested $1.24 billion.
Given RFF’s projected funding needs for the Superfund program and the relatively minimal
amounts available to the fund from sources other than general revenues, Congress will face
competing interests if it attempts to appropriate all of Superfund’s needs. RFF estimates that
General Treasury revenue contributions as high as $1.5 billion per year would be needed to
finance Superfund through the rest of the decade in the continued absence of Superfund taxes.
This could prove difficult in light of current federal deficits and other funding priorities.
52 See Letter from Mike Leavitt, EPA Administrator to Representative John Dingell, Ranking Member of the House
Committee on Energy and Commerce, October 14, 2004. See also “FY04 Cleanup Delays Renew Democrats’ Criticism
of Superfund Budget,”Inside EPA Superfund Report, October 25, 2004. The data in the article were confirmed by EPA
in a personal communication March 3, 2005.
53 The funding formula sets continuing appropriations for programs and activities generally at either the current
(FY2006) level, the level in the pertinent House-passed bill, or the level in the Senate-passed bill, whichever is lowest.
On May 18, 2006, the House passed the FY2007 Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies appropriations bill (H.R.
5386, H.Rept. 109-465) providing a total of $1.26 billion for EPA’s Superfund account (prior to transfers to other
accounts). This is $14.8 million more than the FY2006 enacted amount. The Senate did not pass a bill, thus under the
continuing resolution, funding will continue at FY2006 levels.
FY2004-FY2008
Sources: Prepared by the Congressional Research Service using data from the following sources: FY2004-
FY2005 enacted amounts and FY2004-FY2006 requested amounts are from prior year funding comparisons in
committee reports on annual appropriations bills from FY2004-FY2006; FY2006 enacted amount and FY2007
and FY2008 amounts are from EPA’s FY2007 and FY2008 budget justifications.
Although CERCLA liability is a powerful tool for EPA to drive cleanup of contaminated sites, the
threat of CERCLA liability may act as a cleanup disincentive at abandoned hardrock mines.
There are thousands of inactive or abandoned hardrock mines in the United States. As discussed
previously, the number of hardrock mining sites listed on the NPL in future years, particularly
those without identifiable PRPs, could play an important role in the Superfund funding debate.
This section examines the interaction between CERCLA and contaminated hardrock mines.
Hardrock mining involves the extraction of metals found in the earth’s hard formations.54
Although the raw materials generated are essential to the U.S. economy, the hardrock mining 55
process creates vast quantities of waste materials. EPA’s Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) data
54 Hardrock mining includes gold, silver, copper, and other metals, but not coal.
55 For example, in 1992, gold and copper mining in the United States generated 1.2 billion metric tons of waste
materials. In contrast, approximately 200 million metric tons of municipal solid waste are produced annually. U.S.
EPA, 1997, National Hardrock Mining Framework, Appendix A, at A-1, at http://www.epa.gov/superfund/programs/
aml/policy/hardrock.pdf.
show that the metal mining industry consistently leads other industry sectors in total annual 56
releases of TRI chemicals.
Hardrock mining played a central role in the development of the American West. However, as
mining sites became uneconomical, mines were closed or the owners simply walked away. The 57
precise number of inactive or abandoned mines is unknown. Though arguably a conservative 58
estimate, EPA states that there are 200,000 inactive or abandoned mines throughout the 59
country. The actual number of sites that pose a threat is also unknown. Estimates vary, and they
seem to depend on how a threat is classified. For example, the Western Governors Association 60
estimated that approximately 20% of abandoned mine lands (AMLs) may present a “concern” to 61
water quality, public safety, or both. In its 1997 report, EPA found that only a small percentage
of AMLs “contribute significantly” to threats to human health or the environment, but the
aggregate impact is substantial, with many localized areas suffering serious environmental
impacts. In 2002, an EPA team found that 5%-10% of the abandoned mines across the country
may pose a “real environmental and health risk.”
CERCLA provides EPA with the authority to address environmental contamination (e.g., acid 62
mine drainage) at AMLs. Pursuant to CERCLA authority, EPA has completed or overseen 63
removal actions at 74 hardrock mining sites. EPA has listed at least 88 hardrock mining sites on 64
the NPL. At least 17 of these mines are considered mega sites, with cleanup costs over $50
million at each site.
Considering the large universe of AMLs, one might question why such a small percentage of the
sites are listed on the NPL. There are several factors, particular to the mining industry, that may
explain this. First, AML ownership often goes back more than 100 years and involves numerous
private and public entities. Thus, the identification of PRPs is especially complex at mining
56 See TRI Public Data Releases at http://www.epa.gov/tri/tridata/index.htm.
57 For more information on inventory efforts, see, for example., GAO, 1996, Federal Land Management: Information
on Efforts to Inventory Abandoned Hardrock Mines, GAO/RCED-96-30, available at http://www.gao.gov/archive/
1996/rc96030.pdf.
58 The Mineral Policy Center places the number at approximately 500,000 (see http://www.mineralpolicy.org/
AbandonedMineLegacy.cfm). Though it is often quoted, the 1996 GAO report and others find fault with the Mineral
Policy Center’s estimate.
59 U.S. EPA, 1997, National Hardrock Mining Framework, p. 2, at http://www.epa.gov/superfund/programs/aml/
policy/hardrock.pdf; U.S. EPA Office of Inspector General, 2004, Nationwide Identification of Hardrock Mining Sites,
Report No. 2004-P-00005, p. 4.
60 Most groups use the phrase “abandoned mine lands” (AMLs), but several sources describe the sites as “inactive or
abandoned mines” (IAMs). In general, these terms seem to be interchangeable, though AMLs include land that is
contiguous to the mine proper.
61 Western Governors Association, 1998, Cleaning Up Abandoned Mines: A Western Partnership, p. 5, available at
http://www.westgov.org/wga/publicat/miningre.pdf.
62 CERCLA § 104 (Response Authorities).
63 See EPA’s abandoned mine lands CERCLIS inventory at http://www.epa.gov/superfund/programs/aml/amlsite/
removal.htm.
64 For EPA’s list of AMLs on the NPL (as of April 2005), see http://www.epa.gov/superfund/programs/aml/amlsite/
npl.htm.
sites.65 Second, the average cleanup cost—about $22 million—at a non-mega mining site is more
than double the average cost of non-mega sites in other industries. Cleanup activities at mega
mining sites can cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Third, states may provide some resistance to
Fund-led (i.e., sites without PRPs) cleanup at mining sites, because the Superfund statute requires 66
the state to pay 10% of the remedial costs and 100% of operation and maintenance costs. At 67
mining sites, these costs could be significant and last for an indefinite period of time.
On the other hand, several factors may lead EPA and the states to increase the number of AMLs
on the NPL. For instance, growing populations in the West, due either to business development or
purchases of second homes, may bolster the pressure to remove contamination from local water
sources. Moreover, CWA requirements may provide further pressure to address the pollution from
AMLs. Section 303(d) of the Clean Water Act requires states to identify pollutant-impaired water
segments and develop “total maximum daily loads” (TMDLs) that set the maximum amount of 68
pollution that a water body can receive without violating water quality standards.
As with the total number of inactive or abandoned mines, the precise number of these mines on 69
federal lands is unknown. The federal government owns a substantial percentage of the land in 70
the western states, and many of the AMLs are on federal land. CERCLA prohibits the use of 71
trust fund dollars at federally owned facilities. Federal land managers may need to clean up the
site with funds from their own budget, if the federal government is considered the owner of the
abandoned mine.
The term “good samaritan” refers to parties (e.g., government agencies, nonprofits, and
corporations) that attempt to clean up abandoned mines for which the parties have no legal
responsibility. In most cases, these parties have a vested interest in cleaning up the contaminated
mines and are not acting purely for altruistic reasons, as the term “good samaritan” might imply. 72
Some stakeholders believe that the threat of CERCLA liability serves as a disincentive to good
65 At the start of EPA’s enforcement-first policy in FY1991 through FY1998, only 33% of remedial action at mining
sites was performed by PRPs. In contrast, the same measurement at other site types (chemical manufacturing, oil
refining, etc.) was generally doubled, ranging from 56% to 89%. Probst, p. 216.
66 CERCLA § 104(c)(3).
67 RFF Report, p. 92.
68 For more information on the TMDL program, see CRS Report 97-831, Clean Water Act and Total Maximum Daily
Loads (TMDLs) of Pollutants, by Claudia Copeland.
69 For various agency efforts on this calculation, see GAO, 1996, Federal Land Management: Information on Efforts to
Inventory Abandoned Hardrock Mines, GAO/RCED-96-30.
70 The Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service own almost 40% of the land in the 12 western states.
National Research Council, 1999, Hardrock Mining on Federal Lands, p. 19.
71 CERCLA § 111(e)(3).
72 CWA liability is also a concern for Good samaritans. For more information regarding the CWA, see CRS Report
RL30030, Clean Water Act: A Summary of the Law, by Claudia Copeland. For a discussion regarding CWA liability at
abandoned mines, see, for example, McAllister, Sean, 2003, “Unnecessarily Hesitant Good Samaritans: Conducting
Voluntary Cleanups of Inactive and Abandoned Mines Without Incurring Liability,” 33 Environmental Law Reporter
10245, at http://www.restorationtrust.org/goodsam.pdf (hereafter “McAllister, 2003”).
samaritan groups who might offer cleanup assistance. Under CERCLA’s joint and several
liability, EPA can hold one PRP responsible for the entire site cleanup. Under the statute’s broad
liability structure, good samaritans could potentially become liable as site owners, operators, or as 73
persons who arrange for the disposal of a hazardous substance. For example, good samaritans
who conduct remediation activities, such as the treatment of acid mine drainage, might be 74
considered a site operator. Many groups argue that the threat of CERCLA liability creates a
chilling effect, discouraging volunteer cleanup at abandoned mining sites. These parties have
called for federal legislation that would provide good samaritans with protection from
Superfund’s liability scheme.
In general, most parties support the concept of encouraging good samaritan assistance at AMLs.
However, some environmental groups are concerned about providing exemptions from
CERCLA’s liability, pointing out that the strong liability provisions often drive cleanup at mining 7576
sites. Furthermore, some argue that the Superfund statute already provides liability protection 77
for good samaritans. CERCLA § 107(d) (often referred to as the “good samaritan provision”)
might allow good samaritans to provide cleanup assistance at the direction of EPA, without the
threat of liability.
The Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfields Revitalization Act of 2002 (P.L. 107-118),
which amended portions of Superfund, added the “bona fide prospective purchaser” (BFPP) 78
exemption. This provision allows parties to purchase contaminated property without accepting
the liability for historical contamination, notwithstanding that they knew of the contamination 79
when they purchased. The BFPP exemption is conditional. For example, BFPPs must take
“reasonable steps” to (1) stop continuing releases, (2) prevent threatened future releases, and (3)
prevent or limit human, environmental, or natural resource exposure to earlier hazardous 80
substance releases. Thus, BFPPs may need to address the releases related to the actions of
former owner/operators. Regarding this issue, EPA stated:
Congress did not intend to create, as a general matter, the same types of response obligations
that exist for a CERCLA liable party (e.g., removal of contaminated soil, extraction and
treatment of contaminated groundwater).... Nevertheless, it seems clear that Congress also
did not intend to allow a landowner to ignore the potential dangers associated with hazardous 81
substances on its property. [Emphasis in original.]
73 CERCLA § 107(a). See also Testimony of Assistant Administrator for Water, U.S. EPA, Benjamin Grumbles, in
U.S. Congress, House Subcommittee on Water Resources and the Environment, 109th Cong., 2nd sess., March 30, 2006.
74 See, for example, Testimony of Administrator of Colorado Water Quality Control Commission, Paul Frohardt, in
75 See, for example., Testimony of Velma Smith, Senior Policy Associate with the National Environmental Trust, in
76 See, for example, McAllister, 2003, 10245; Kodish, Jeffrey, 2002, Addendum: Restoring Inactive and Abandoned
Mine Sites: A Guide to Managing Environmental Liabilities, at http://www.restorationtrust.org/legalguides.htm.
77 See, for example, Kodish, Jeffrey, 2002, Restoring Inactive and Abandoned Mine Sites: A Guide to Managing
Environmental Liabilities, p. 115, at http://www.restorationtrust.org/legalguides.htm., and McAllister, 2003, p. 10256.
78 CERCLA §§ 101(40), 107(r).
79 For a more legal analysis of the BFPP provision and other liability defenses, see CRS Report RL31911, “Innocent
Landowners” and “Prospective Purchasers” Under the Superfund Act, by Robert Meltz.
80 CERCLA § 101(40)(D).
81 Memorandum from Susan Bromm, Director of EPA’s Office of Site Remediation and Enforcement, to Regional
Directors, “Interim Guidance Regarding Criteria Landowners Must Meet in Order to Qualify for Bona Fide Prospective
Regardless of the opportunities for avoiding liability, interested parties argue that the threat of
Superfund liability remains. In a general sense, good samaritans may be uncertain how EPA 82
would apply the BFPP provisions at a particular mining site. This uncertainty is perhaps
amplified due to the possibility of citizen suits, which may occur if environmental or community 83
groups disagree with an agency’s interpretation or application of the law.
Four good samaritan bills were introduced in the 109th Congress. None of the bills received
committee action, although the House Transportation and Infrastructure, Water Resources and
Environment Subcommittee held an oversight hearing on hardrock mine cleanup and good th
samaritans on March 30, 2006. No bills have been introduced in the 110 Congress. For more
information, see CRS Report RL33575, Cleanup at Abandoned Hardrock Mines: Issues Raised th
by “Good Samaritan” Legislation in the 109 Congress, by Claudia Copeland and Robert Meltz.
In the United States, there are approximately 238,000 animal feeding operations (AFO)—
agriculture enterprises where animals are kept and raised in confinement. Animal waste from
these operations generates several chemicals (e.g., ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, and phosphorous)
that are listed as CERCLA hazardous substances. CERCLA requires facilities to report hazardous
substance releases into the environment, including ambient air, that are above reportable 85
quantities (RQ). The RQ for hydrogen sulfide and ammonia is 100 pounds per day; the RQ for 86
phosphorous is 1 pound per day.
In recent years, there have been questions as to how CERCLA applies to animal feeding
operations. For example, are AFOs required to report ammonia air emissions as releases under
CERCLA, and if so, how should the releases be counted in regards to the RQ? Several federal 87
courts have addressed this particular issue by examining the CERCLA definition of “facility.”
Instead of counting each barn, lagoon, or land application area as separate facilities, these courts
have ruled that the entire site should be considered a facility for purposes of CERCLA. Under this
interpretation, large AFOs (referred to as concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs)
will be more likely to breach the reportable quantity levels because multiple release locations at a
given site will be aggregated.
Purchaser, Contiguous Property, or Innocent Landowner Limitations on CERCLA Liability (“Comment Elements”),”
March 6, 2003, p. 9.
82 For example, what are “reasonable steps” under the BFPP exemption?
84 For further discussion, see CRS Report RL33691, Animal Waste and Hazardous Substances: Current Laws and
Legislative Issues, by Claudia Copeland.
85 The Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act (EPCRA, P.L. 99-499, USC §§ 11001-11050) also
contains reporting provisions. Facilities must report to state and local officials any releases greater than the reportable
quantity of a CERCLA hazardous substance or an “extremely hazardous substance” under EPCRA.
86 40 CFR § 302.4.
87 See Sierra Club v. Seaboard Farms, 387 F.3d 1167 (10th Cir. 2004); Sierra Club v. Tyson Foods, 299 F. Supp. 2d
693, (W.D. Ky. 2003).
At a hearing before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and
Related Agencies on February 28, 2007, EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson testified that the
Agency was developing a regulation to exempt CAFOs from Superfund mandates to report air 88
emissions. He said this would be a “very narrow regulation.”
Another question concerns CERCLA liability for manure that reaches water bodies (via erosion 89
or leaching into groundwater). Manure is often applied to the land as fertilizer, but CERCLA 90
excludes the “normal application of fertilizer” from the definition of release. Interested parties
have argued that some AFOs are taking advantage of this exclusion by applying more manure to
the land than is necessary. In the past three years, two federal district courts have looked into this
matter, but both cases were settled. The terms of the settlements were not made public, and the
settlements effectively ended the court proceedings without a formal ruling on the CERCLA 9192
applicability issues. However, a third case involving this issue is currently in the federal
This court activity has increased concern in the agricultural community that other legal actions
will follow, and that the courts will continue to apply CERCLA to AFOs. This concern has led to th
recent congressional interest. Members in the 109 Congress made several attempts to exempt
manure from the requirements of CERCLA. Although one of these legislative proposals (H.R.
4341) gained considerable support (191 co-sponsors), the proposals also generated opposition
from environmental groups and state and local governments. None of the bills were enacted. In th
the 110 Congress, H.R. 1398 and S. 807 follow a similar approach. There has been no action on
either bill. Senator Blanche Lincoln submitted Senate Amendment 1556 to the energy bill, H.R. 6,
on June 13, 2007; it would have added an exemption for manure from the definitions of
“hazardous substance” and “pollutant or contaminant,” and would have provided exceptions from
other provisions of CERCLA. However, during debate the amendment was not offered. H.R. 6
passed the Senate on June 21, 2007.
Superfund issues, such as the four described above, continue to generate debate and interest. The
selected topics discussed in this report are not mutually exclusive; activity in one of the issues
may influence policy in another. For example, if more abandoned hardrock mining sites are added
to the NPL, Congress may consider increasing annual appropriations to the Superfund program.
This action could affect the argument concerning who should pay for the program. Similarly,
CERCLA’s level of application to animal feeding operations could affect the use of agency
88 “EPA Plans Exemption for CAFO Emissions from Superfund Reporting,” Inside EPA.com, February 28, 2007. As of
October 21, 2007, the regulation had not been proposed.
89 Data collected for the EPA’s 2000 National Water Quality Inventory identify agriculture as the leading contributor to
water quality impairments in rivers and lakes and the fifth leading contributor to impairments in the nation’s estuaries.
Animal feeding operations are only a subset of the agriculture category, but 29 states specifically identified animal
feeding operations as contributing to water quality impairment.
90 CERCLA § 101(22).
91 See City of Waco v. Schouten, W.D. Tex., No. W-04-CA-118 (settled January 17, 2006); City of Tulsa v. Tyson
Foods, Inc., N.D. Okla., No. 01-CV-0900-EA (settled July 16, 2003).
92 Oklahoma v. Tyson Foods, Inc., N.D. Okla., 4:05-CV-329 (filed June 13, 2005). The case is expected to come to trial
in 2009, according to the Oklahoma Attorney General’s office. “Oklahoma AG’s Vow Fails to Limit Industry Fears
Over CAFO Waste Suit,” Water Policy Report, September 17, 2007, viewed at InsideEPA.com, October 22, 2007.
resources in the future. If more sites fall under the CERCLA umbrella, finite agency resources
may be strained, thus further fueling a debate over Superfund taxes and funding levels.
Mark Reisch Jonathan L. Ramseur
Analyst in Environmental Policy
jramseur@crs.loc.gov, 7-7919
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BATTLE ON, JOHN
OUR thoughts are with John Hartson and his family after it was confirmed that the former Hammers striker is battling testicular cancer that has spread to his brain.
Hartson was diagnosed with the illness after he went to Singleton Hospital in Swansea suffering from severe headaches.
The 34-year-old ex-Wales striker and father of three is said to have begun a course of radiotherapy and chemotherapy treatment yesterday.
Hartson moved to Glasgow in 2001 after being signed by then Celtic manager Martin O'Neill for £6m and spent five years at Parkhead, scoring 89 goals.
He was voted player-of-the-year by his fellow professionals and the Scottish Football Writers' Association.
During his international career, he scored 14 goals before stepping down in February 2006 to concentrate on his club football.
Hartson made his Wales debut in March 1995 in an away match against Bulgaria, often leading the line as a lone striker, until his last game in November 2005 against Cyprus.
He began his senior career at Luton in 1992 as a 17-year-old and the player's bustling style soon caught the eye of bigger clubs.
Arsenal paid £2.5m for Hartson in January 1995.
A £3.3m move to Upton Park followed two years later, although that stay was marred by an altercation with team-mate Eyal Berkovic.
In 1999 Wimbledon paid a whopping £7.5m for Hartson, while spells at Coventry, Celtic, West Bromwich Albion and Norwich - on loan - followed before he announced his retirement as a player in February 2008.
When the 6ft 1in target man retired he said his biggest regret was not having played for his beloved Swansea City, the local club he had supported since a boy.
Since his retirement as a player, Hartson has proved himself an articulate and knowledgeable football commentator for media outlets, including the BBC and Setanta, since hanging up his boots last year.
Hartson seemed destined to move into football management and has been linked with vacant posts at the likes of Falkirk, Swansea and East Stirlingshire.
Big John will always be remembered by West Ham fans for the major role he played in helping Hammers to avoid relegation at the end of the 1996-97 season. Signed in February from Arsenal at the same time fellow new signing Paul Kitson arrived from Newcastle, they scored the goals that saw Harry Redknapp's side preserve their Premier League status against all the odds.
Now we wish John all the best in the biggest battle of his life.
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/ Music
/ “The Legendary Fist of Takinawa” by Jeremy Rice
Music News Reviews
“The Legendary Fist of Takinawa” by Jeremy Rice
Sebastian Cole 4 November 2019
Strings as soft as silk form a delicate, colorful harmony as “The Legendary Fist of Takinawa,” one of nine songs found of Jeremy Rice’s Jeremy Rice and the Legendary Fist of Takinawa, takes shape before us, but there’s a cloud of hesitation that follows its reverberating warmth. The fragile landscape is quickly shattered with the appearance of a chugging riff and a lumbering bassline in the background, and we soon discover an energetic surge of electricity in the lead vocal from Rice that can be found in every track he appears on in this debut LP (which, as you would guess, is all nine of them).
URL: https://www.jeremyrice.net/
“Nme,” “Beleev” and the sterling singles “Arriianne” and “Somebody Like You” are really well-mixed pop songs with reliably crisp finishes and a strong focus on Rice’s singing abilities. There’s an interesting mix of standard, vocal-centric tunes and abrasive, almost punky pop/rock numbers of Jeremy Rice and the Legendary Fist of Takinawa, and though some might feel a little overwhelmed by all of the variety that the disc has to offer, I think that this is essentially what a good virgin outing should consist of – it’s the many layers of its artist’s personality on display all at once.
I would have stuck “The Legendary List of Takinawa” at the start of the album and put the combo of “Johnny Rogers” and “Arriianne” a bit closer to the end, but only to make this LP flow just a little better than it already does. In this current arrangement of the songs, it feels rather sprawling and difficult to process in a single sitting, but aside from that the content here is beefy, and even slightly over the top in a few instances (“Dream Tonight,” in particular, sparkles just a touch more than it really needs to).
The guitar parts in “Underneath the Ground” and “Arriianne” are a lot more rugged than they are anywhere else on the record, but it doesn’t disrupt the mood of the music at all – if anything, I actually think that it adds a touch of contrast where there would have otherwise been none. The only real problem Rice has in this album is recycling a familiar hook from one track to the next; if he can spread out the melodies a little more than he has in songs like “Somebody Like You,” he’s going to maximize his appeal to serious and occasional pop fans alike.
CD BABY: https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/jeremyrice4
It’s nowhere even close to being a perfect debut, but Jeremy Rice and the Legendary Fist of Takinawa is a likeable LP with a strong pop center and a lead singer in the aforementioned Jeremy Rice who can really belt it out when it counts the most. There are a few growing pains that he can clearly get past between now and the next time he hits the recording studio, but by and large I would have to say that Rice has a lot to look forward to at this juncture of his career – provided he can keep making harmonies as powerful as the best ones we hear on this album, of course.
Sebastian Cole
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Encyclopedia > 1982 Lebanon War
Lebanon War
Redirected from 1982 Lebanon War
The history of Lebanon contained many periods of prosperity separated by chaos and wars between the different minorities.
Beginning of the Civil War--1975-81 Fullscale civil war broke out in Lebanon in April 1975. After shots were fired at a church, gunmen in Christian East Beirut ambushed a busload of Palestinians. Palestinian forces joined predominantly leftist-Muslim factions as the fighting persisted, eventually spreading to most parts of the country and precipitating the President's call for support from Syrian troops in June 1976. In fall of 1976, Arab summits in Riyadh and Cairo set out a plan to end the war. The resulting Arab Deterrent Force, which included Syrian troops already present, moved in to help separate combatants. As an uneasy quiet settled over Beirut, security conditions in the south began to deteriorate.
After a PLO attack on a bus in northern Israel and the Israeli retaliation caused heavy casualties, Israel invaded Lebanon in March 1978, occupying most of the area south of the Litani River. In response, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 425 calling for the immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces and creating the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), charged with maintaining peace. Israeli forces withdrew later in 1978, turning over positions inside Lebanon along the border to a Lebanese ally, the South Lebanon Army (SLA) under the leadership of Maj. Saad Haddad, thus informally setting up a 12-mile wide "security zone" to protect Israeli territory from crossborder attack.
In 1981 heavily armed forces of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) occupied large areas of southern Lebanon. Terrorism against the State of Israel increased; The PLO's armed forces used Lebanon as a base to attack Israel with rockets and artillery. PLo soldiers fought with Lebanese forces, and killed many thousands of Lebanese citizens. Due to continued civil war since 1975, Lebanon had no effective central government at the time.
Israel launched an attack against its Northern neighbor Lebanon in 1982. While Israel claimed it needed to defend its Northern border, many independent observers pointed to Lebanon's water resources and arable land.
The 1982 attack was the result of a slow escalation. In the years following the 1948 war, Israel's border with Lebanon was quiet compared to its borders with other neighbors. However, in March 1978, after a series of clashes between Israeli forces in Lebanon, Israeli forces crossed into Lebanon. After passage of Security Council Resolution 425, calling for Israeli withdrawal and the creation of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon[?] peace-keeping force (UNIFIL), Israel eventually withdrew its troops. In July 1981, after additional fighting, President Ronald Reagan's special envoy, Philip C. Habib[?], helped secure a cease-fire between the parties.
In June 1982, Israel invaded the southern half of Lebanon. While a few pro-Israeli Lebanese did at first welcome the Israelis, almost all Lebanese came to resent Israeli occupation. Heavy Israeli casualities and a lack of clear goals led to increasing disquiet among Israelis at the war as well. Within six months after the war began, Israel withdrew from most of the Lebanese territory it occupied but continued to occupy a ten mile wide area of Lebanese territory along the Israeli-Lebanese border; it referred to this area as its "security zone". Israel finally withdrew from the "security zone" in 2000, during the Prime Ministership of Ehud Barak. Israel continues to occupy a small area called "Sheeba Farms", which Lebanon claims to be Lebanese territory but Israel insists is Syrian, not Lebanese, territory.
In August 1982, the PLO withdrew its forces from Lebanon. With U.S. assistance, Israel and Lebanon reached an accord in May 1983 that set the stage to withdraw Israeli forces from Lebanon. The instruments of ratification were never exchanged, however, and in March 1984, under pressure from Syria, Lebanon canceled the agreement. In June 1985, Israel withdrew most of its troops from Lebanon, leaving a small residual Israeli force and an Israeli-supported militia in southern Lebanon in a "security zone," which Israel considered a necessary buffer against attacks on its northern territory.
British Mandate of Palestine
Balfour Declaration 1917
1922 Text: League of Nations Palestine Mandate
1947 UN Partition Plan
Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel, May 14, 1948
1948 Arab-Israeli War
1949 Armistice Agreement
1956 Suez War
1967 Six Day War
1970 War of Attrition
1973 Yom Kippur War
1978 Camp David Peace Accords between Egypt and Israel
1990/1 Gulf War
1993 Oslo Peace Accords between Palestinians and Israel
Camp David 2000 Summit between Palestinians and Israel
Proposals for a Palestinian state
2003 invasion of Iraq
Middle East conflict
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Encyclopedia > Battle of Puebla
Battle of Puebla
The Battle of Puebla took place on May 5, 1862 near the city of Puebla, Mexico during the French invasion of Mexico. It was a major Mexican victory, and is commemorated in the Mexican holiday the Cinco de Mayo.
2 The Combatants
Background In late 1861 Napoleon III of France sent his troops to Mexico, supposedly to collect debts owed by a previous Mexican government which Mexican President Benito Juarez had agreed to pay, but only in installments over time. Napoleon III's troops took the port city of Veracruz on December 8, 1861. It soon became apparent, however, that their actual goal was not collection of debts, but rather the control of Mexico.
The Combatants French General Conde de Lorencez[?] commanded 6,000 to 6,500 well trained troops.
Mexican General Ignacio Zaragoza commanded some 2,000 to 4,000 forces. Less than 1,000 were regular Mexican army; these were suplimented with local militias, hastily conscripted men of Puebla, and untrained volunteers.
The pass leading to Puebla was protected by Fort Loreto and and Fort Guadalupe. Zaragoza had defensive trenches dug across the road and linking the forts.
The Mexicans were aided by the weather, as the rain made the ground muddy slowing the movement of French artillery.
General Lorencez was at first contemptuous of the Mexican troops, assuming they would quickly flee from heavy fighting. He therefore directed his first charge directly at the Mexican center. The Mexicans held their ground and drove the French back.
The French regrouped and launched two more charges, both of which were similarly defeated.
The Mexicans then counter-attacked, including a force of Zapotec Indians, many armed only with machetes but who none the less succeded in overrunning part of the French lines. Porfirio Diaz (later to be President of Mexico) led a well disiplined company of Mexican cavalry which flanked the French.
The French then pulled back some distance as dark fell. General Lorencez waited two days for a Mexican counter-offensive, but Zaragoza did not wish to attack the French in open country where he would lose his defensive advantage. Unwilling to risk another attack on the Mexican position, Lorencez then withdrew his forces back to Orizaba[?].
Aftermath On May 9, 1862, President Juarez declared that the anniversary of the Battle of Puebla would be a national holiday, the Cinco de Mayo.
The French realized their forces were inadiquate to their intended task, and were eventually reinforced with an additional 30,000 troops. In 1863 the French again marched towards Mexico City -- this time bypassing Puebla on their route-- and succeeded in taking the capital and installing the puppet regime of Emperor Maximilian.
While the Battle of Puebla did not stop the French takeover of Mexico, it was an important victory for the Mexicans none the less. It greatly raised Mexican morale and strenghtened determination to resist the invasion. It gave the Juarez government more time to prepare, and while they were forced to abandon Mexico City and retreat to the north of the country, they continued to maintain a working government which was recognized as the legitmate government of Mexico by many foreign nations, and eventually succeeded in defeating Maximilian and his allies in 1867.
The Mexican victory surprised much of the international community, demonstrating the Mexican resolve not to be governed by a foreign monarch and that the Mexicans could defeat one of Europe's best armies.
The Battle of Puebla was also of historic importance in that it quashed Napoleon III's hopes of a quick take over of Mexico, which he could then use as a base to aid the Confederates in the American Civil War.
List of battles - List of battles 1400 BC-600 AD - List of battles 601-1400 - List of battles 1401-1800 - List of battles 1801-1900 - List of battles 1901-forward
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Timeline: Egypt’s efforts to combat climate change
Sama Osama, Tuesday 24 Sep 2019
The fertile arc-shaped basin is home to nearly half the country’s population AFP
UN plans vast urban forests to fight climate change
Youth leaders at UN demand bold climate change action
Egypt plays key role in climate change negotiations: Environment minister
Egypt took part in the UN Climate Action Summit in New York on Monday; it was organised by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres in order to follow up progress made by states in fulfilling their commitments to limiting global warming.
Egypt is co-chairing a joint coalition on climate adaptation and resilience with the UK, with the goal of raising funds for implementing resilience and adaptation strategies that address the impacts of climate change.
This coalition was announced in June by Egyptian Minister of Environment Yasmine Fouad, its goal is to raise funds for implementing the resilience and adaptation strategies that address the impacts of climate change.
According to the UNDP, Egypt is extremely vulnerable to climate change due to its large population. Its Mediterranean coast and low-lying Nile Delta are also threatened by the rises in sea level expected to result from climate change.
Other predicted effects include a decrease in country’s water supply, which could have serious implications given Egypt’s rapid population growth and existing status as a country already in “water poverty,” according to international measurements.
The timeline below features some of the major measures Egypt has taken in order to combat climate change, whether on its own or under the umbrella of the international community.
Climate Action Summit
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“Helping people makes our heart feel full’: A refugee family in Trikala makes protective masks and uniforms for the local community
© UNHCR / e-Trikala
It has been three months since Safar started making protection masks for COVID-19. So far, he has sewn more than a thousand masks, which have been distributed to refugees, but also to the residents of Trikala city in central Greece, where he lives with his family. The asylum-seeking family from Iraq has been living for the last nine months in an apartment rented as part of the ESTIA programme implemented by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, in cooperation with the Municipality of Trikala and its Development Agency, e-Trikala.
For twenty-five years, Safar had his own small tailor’s shop in Zakho, northern Iraq, near the border with Turkey. He made traditional costumes, but also army and police uniforms. As he says, he could never imagine that one day he would sew masks to help protect people from a deadly virus.
“The pandemic does not discriminate. It affects us all. I remember my father saying: ΄Helping people makes our heart feel full’. That’s how I feel. The residents of Trikala have treated us with respect and love. They understand that we have gone through a lot of hardship and that we are trying to rebuild our lives,” Safar adds.
When a resident of Trikala learned about the voluntary offer of the Iraqi refugee, he decided to help him ordering 500 protective masks. For the family of seven from Iraq, this first order is a step towards a new life. Safar wants to work as a tailor again and hopefully to start his own small business.
“I want to stand on my two feet, work and support my family. I want to stay in Greece, but I have to find a job. I have five children and responsibilities. But I also have dreams for the future”, Safar notes.
As the Iraqi man is already feeling part of the local community, he made masks for the teachers and students of the 2nd High School, where two of his children attend classes.
“My children are learning Greek in this school, while they also love math and physics,” Safar says. “One morning they entered the classroom holding masks in their hands. The teacher and their classmates were surprised. My sons explained that we feel the need to thank them for everything they have done for us.”
Meanwhile, the 45-year-old tailor found another way to show his gratitude. He decided to sew one hundred full body protective uniforms for the staff of e-Trikala. “These people take care of us. The interpreters, social workers and psychologists are coming in contact with many refugees and other beneficiaries on a daily basis. So, I thought that these uniforms would protect them from coronavirus” Safar adds.
@ UNHCR / e-Trikala
“We stand with these people and do everything we can to help them. The society of Trikala has embraced refugees”, says Odysseas Raptis, CEO of e-Trikala. “Safar’s initiative to make a hundred uniforms for our staff shows that asylum seekers appreciate our work and our efforts, too. We can move forward together”.
Since 2017, when ESTIA started being implemented in Trikala, about 414 accommodation places for asylum seekers have been created in 68 apartments, while currently 363 asylum seekers and refugees are hosted in the city of Thessaly. The programme is co-financed by the European Union Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund.
ESTIA Accommodation Capacity Weekly Update – 7 December 2020
ESTIA Accommodation Capacity Weekly Update – 30 November 2020
ESTIA Accommodation Capacity Weekly Update – 9 November 2020
Ενημερωτικά σημειώματα
UNHCR Greece
The Emergency Support to Integration & Accommodation – ESTIA programme is co-funded by the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund of the European Union:
In 2020, € 175 million are available. This will allow UNHCR to maintain up to 25,500 places in urban accommodation by the end of the year.
The ESTIA cash assistance scheme aims to exceed 92,000 people in 2020.Refugees and asylum-seekers receive a pre-defined monthly cash grant through a dedicated cash card. This allows them to meet their basic needs as they choose, with dignity, while supporting the local economy
In 2019 the ESTIA programme was funded by the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund of the European Union:
In 2019, €190 million were available. This allowed UNHCR to maintain up to 25,000 places in urban accommodation. The ESTIA cash assistance scheme reached more than 90,000 people in 2019.
In 2017 and 2018 the ESTIA programme was funded by the European Union Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid:
In 2018, €167.5 million was available. This allowed UNHCR to gradually establish 27,000 places in urban accommodation by the end of the year. The ESTIA cash assistance scheme reached more than 60,000 people in 2018.
In 2017 a budget of €139 million was available in order to provide 22,000 urban accommodation places and pre-defined monthly cash grants through a dedicated card to refugees and asylum-seekers in Greece.
To major donors to the refugee emergency in Europe – the European Union, the United States of America, and the United Kingdom – as well as to all government donors and private donors for their generous contributions. The financial support provided by donors who have contributed with non-earmarked and broadly earmarked funds, as well as for those who have contributed directly to the situation and the Greece operation allows to provide direct assistance and protection, and help find solutions for refugees and asylum-seekers. In this changing operational context, UNHCR is appealing to donors to provide contributions that can be allocated as flexibly as possible.
© Copyright 2017 | UNHCR Greece.
This website covers humanitarian aid activities implemented with the financial assistance of the European Union. The views expressed herein should not be taken, in any way, to reflect the official opinion of the European Union, and the European Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.
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post-Soviet space
2021/01/12 - 12:07 • International, Russia
Pandemic prompting Russia to reaction, isolation, and decay, Shevtsova says
Because of the pandemic, 2020 was “’the year of the Apocalypse” for both Russia and the West, but the two responded in opposite ways: the West sought to address the underlying problems the coronavirus revealed, Lilia Shevtsova says....
2019/04/30 - 12:19 • More, Op-ed
Russia didn’t ‘feed’ the USSR: the entire USSR ‘fed’ the nomenklatura, Mirovich...
One of the most widespread myths in Russia today is that in Soviet times, Russia took care of everyone, Maxim Mirovich says; but in fact, Moscow didn’t “feed” anyone. Instead, “the entire country worked for the Soviet...
In post-Soviet countries, ethnic Russians are assimilating to titular nationalities, Kozlov says
Something unprecedented is happening to ethnic Russians in many post-Soviet states, Vladimir Kozlov of Moscow’s Higher School of Economics says. As a result of intermarriage with members of the titular nationalities, ethnic Russians...
When wars end without recognized victors and vanquished
How wars end is at least as important as how they begin, although that aspect of conflict seldom attracts as much attention. When there is a clearly defined and recognized victor and an equally clearly defined vanquished, peace is...
2018/04/06 - 14:46 • International
Ukraine less westernized than Baltic States, Moldova, Georgia – research
Ukraine ranks 6th among 14 former Soviet republics by its level of integration into the western political, economic, and cultural space. The first annual «Westernization Index 2018» was released by the StrategEast in collaboration with...
Profound contraction of ethnic Russians in former Soviet republics since 1989
The number of ethnic Russians in what were the non-Russian republics of the former Soviet Union has fallen from 25 million in 1989 to 14 million today, but only 6.5 million of that decline consists of Russians who returned to the Russian...
Bleak future for Belarus seen if Europe follows US and ends backing...
US President Donald Trump has proposed cutting all assistance to the democratic opposition in Belarus, a move that if copied by European countries which currently provide far more aid, could make the future of Belarus ever bleaker,...
Putin’s failure to attract CIS leaders to Victory parade marks shift from...
Only one leader of another former Soviet republic, Moldova’s Igor Dodon, joined Vladimir Putin for Moscow’s Victory Day parade, a development that “may not have been planned but that certainly should have been foreseen,” marking as...
Russia must decentralize or it will stagnate and then disappear, Pastukhov says
The new Russian revolution, Vladimir Pastukhov says, is today “only a question of time” but will provide “a final answer to the question as to whether Russia will disappear altogether” or will prove capable of “transforming what...
Russia and Belarus protests – ‘part of general crisis in post-Soviet space,’...
The anti-corruption protests in Russia and the anti-vagrants tax ones in Belarus are “the direct result of the end of the social contract” between the regimes and the population, itself the result of “a general crisis in the...
2020 was a hard year for nearly the entire world: the COVID-19 pandemic and the multiple ensuing crises showed how easily our civilization can be upset by something as microscopic as a virus. Ukraine faced additional challenges. Ukrainian...
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You are currently in > Just a blog about Indonesia > Some 221 Indonesians facing death penalty abroad
Some 221 Indonesians facing death penalty abroad
JAKARTA - A total of 221 Indonesians are facing the death penalty in three foreign countries, according to the spokesman of the Indonesia Migrant Workers Task Force, Humphrey R Djemat, here on Monday.
"In Saudi Arabia there are 45, in Malaysia 148 and in China 28," he said after attending a meeting between the minister of law and human rights, the coordinating minister of political, security and law affairs and the minister of foreign affairs.
Of the 148 citizens facing the death penalty in Malaysia, 118 were involved in narcotics, 28 in murder and the rest in firearms cases.
All of the Indonesians facing the death penalty in China were involved in narcotics cases while 23 of 45 Indonesian migrant workers facing the death penalty in Saudi Arabia had already been sentenced. They were mostly involved in adultery and black magic cases while the cases of six of them had been settled out of court and the others were still being processed.
Djemat said the task force had found that several cases in Saudi Arabia needed to be reviewed such as those of Warnah and Sumartini.
"Among the cases reviewed by the task force, those involving alleged black magic were no longer relevant as the persons reported to have gone missing by acts of black magic had already returned home. Therefore, the cases of Warnah and Sumartini must be reviewed," he said.
He said he had appointed a lawyer to handle the cases and give advocacy to those facing the death penalty.
Not only in Saudi Arabia, he said he had also set up a law office in Malaysia to provide advocacy to Indonesian migrant workers who are facing the death penalty.
In the future, he said, a memorandum of understanding should be signed by the Indonesian and Saudi as well as Malaysian governments so that the two foreign countries could coordinate with Indonesia with regard to information on Indonesian migrant workers facing problems or legal cases in those countries.
"So far, knowledge about Indonesian migrant workers involved in criminal offenses in Saudi Arabia and Malaysia was only obtained after their cases had reached the courts. We do not want this to happen again. We wish those who are in trouble with the law receive advocacy and justice," he said.
The Indonesian embassy in Malaysia was also ready to give advocacy to workers who were facing legal problems.
On the occasion, Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs Djoko Suyanto said the task force had given some recommendations to ensure that in the future migrant workers who had legal problems would have lawyers to advise them and the Indonesian, Malaysian and Saudi Arabian governments would make an MOU on information transparency on Indonesian workers facing problems.
"The task force would end its duty in December 2011. Those are the recommendations that the task force has given to settle migrant worker problems," he said.
The meeting was attended by Law and Human Rights Minister Amir Syamsuddin, his deputy Denny Indrayana and Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa.
04 November 2011 · Teacher arrested for sexually abusing six children
29 October 2011 · Bali immigration checks foreigners' working permits
24 October 2011 · Police chief shot dead at airport in Indonesia's Papua
08 October 2011 · 12-year-old Indonesian boy arrested for of sex attacks
16 September 2011 · Yudhoyono: 'No sentence cuts for corruption, terrorism convicts'
14 September 2011 · Antasari: 'Former prosecutors to be brought to court'
Tags: penalty, death, Indonesians, abroad
Posted in Crime @ 07 November 2011 18:07 CET by Blog Bot · · permalink
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No disclosure means divorce
Remember the dictum about never asking a woman for advice about women? This answer from Dear Prudence to a man who belatedly found out about his wife's sexual past is exhibit A.
Your wife violated two rules: One, she didn’t tell you when she should have told you. Two, when she told you, she told you too much.
But you now need to put what you’ve learned into perspective. You two have been together for five years, and you don’t indicate that during that time you have ever had cause to doubt your wife’s fidelity or her satisfaction with your sex life. I don’t know if meeting you was the turning point in her life, or if by the time she met you she had moved past her emotional problems and was ready for a more fulfilling relationship. Whatever it was, it’s clear that when you got together she was a different person from the one who sought out illicit and even degrading encounters. You must know that people do change and that many people are able to leave destructive habits behind for good.
Your wife was not obligated to spill all to you when you were courting. But at some point after you two became serious, she should have informed you to some degree about her past, enough to convey the salient point that she once went through a difficult period during which she “self-medicated” through sex. She could have mentioned that she’d slept with married men and been unfaithful in previous relationships without going into detail. It would have allowed you to have a sense of her past without having disturbing images seared in your mind.
What’s important now is for you to remember that your wife is the same person you’ve known for the past five years, and that there’s no reason this confession should cast a shadow on your good fortune at finding each other. It would be sad if her desire to have you understand her better leads to your loving her less. You just recently got this news and have understandably been ruminating on it. Now it’s time to stop. See if you can decide to push these thoughts out of your mind and make the choice to return to being grateful for your life together.
Notice that at no point does Dear Prudence say that the woman should have told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Being solipsistic, women are always eager to protect their ability to hide their own secrets from men. But the fact is that any woman who behaved like this because "she felt sad" is almost certainly going to do it again, particularly one who exhibited no respect for the institution of marriage when on the other side of it. They've only been married for two years, and it's quite obvious that the distressed gentleman is a Delta fall-back scenario for the woman; the fact that he feels "quite lucky" to have her suggests that she's the most attractive woman who has ever been nominally interested in him, or at least in a relationship that involves him supporting her. Imagine that.
It's true, people do change. But they change for the worse as well as the better, and the scenario he is in is so common that there is a name for it: Alpha Fucks and Beta Bucks. It seldom ends well even when there is a considerably less sordid backstory. There is a good reason he's having trouble accepting the fact that he married under false pretenses; he should follow the lead of the gentleman who belatedly found out about his wife's college threesomes and Next her without looking back.
There will always be reasonable exceptions, but in general, young men should start expressing a firm No Disclosure Means Divorce policy, as this is the only way that women will begin coming clean and permitting men to make informed decisions with regards to whom they will or will not marry. In law, willful failure to fully disclose amounts to misrepresentation and is grounds for negating a contract, and the same principle obviously applies to marriage.
Wikipedia: Misrepresentation is a concept in the contract law of England and some other Commonwealth countries, referring to a false statement of fact made by one party to another party, which has the effect of inducing that party into the contract. For example, under certain circumstances, false statements or promises made by a seller of goods regarding the quality or nature of the product that the seller has may constitute misrepresentation. A finding of misrepresentation allows for a remedy of rescission and sometimes damages depending on the type of misrepresentation.
Labels: Delta, Marriage
make woman face consequences for their choices? the horror! woman can't stomach.the idea of accountability.
She knew she wasn't marriage material which is why she hid it until they got married. Although I wouldn't want all the gritty details, if the gal said she self-medicated with sex before we got married...that would be enough for me to next her. Sex is not meant to be your personal anti-depressant and she has the wrong idea about what it is about.
A woman's past does matter.
'cheated in most relationships'
What do you think the odds are she did in the 7 year period she's with this guy?
One Fat Oz Guy said...
I briefly went out with a born again who rode the carousel. She nexted me for a guy in her newly discovered church. I dodged a bullet because she made the poor guy wait until marriage.
This was a woman who had been 'collecting' one night stands with different servicemen (one fireman, one policeman, one army, etc) and I was told she was only missing an Air Force man to make her 'set' complete.
I'm so glad I wasn't made to wait for what so many men got for nothing.
All her friends defended her when I told them I'd dodged a bullet. Their hampsters were running wild! They saw nothing wrong with sleeping with one guy after a few hours and making the next guy wait until marriage.
Matt said...
If your girlfriend is not a sweet naive 14 yr old, just assume there are videos of her doing terrible things and behave accordingly.
One of the central tenets of feminism is that men must must must pay the penalty for any and all mistakes ever made by women because sexist and equality. This women and the column writer are trying to convince this man to take on a burden he shouldn't have too for something he didn't do and shouldn't be penalized for. This psychotic reasoning takes a few irrational leaps - 1. deny that what she did was a big deal 2. Excuse her for lying about it because its such a big deal that she wouldn't get goodies she wants if he found out and finally 3. Convince the guy that she is now somehow a "different person" despite covering up her past and showing remorse only for the fact that she was found out and now must pay a penalty for this. This is NOT a woman who has repented of her past this is a woman who demands someone else pay the penalty and not bother her with her evil conduct which she obviously do again if she thought it would benefit her and she could get away with it.
They like to set up a false dichotomy between ignorance and obsessive knowledge, and then imply that the guy who insists on knowledge is an insecure loser or a sort of cuckold fetishist.
It's true that most guys don't want every detail, in the sense of, "And then my third boyfriend was Jim. His dick curved to the left so I named it Lefty. Our first time was at a party, in the bathroom... The second time we...." A guy who wants to sit through that level of detail probably is weird. But he should know the general highlights, especially known red flags:
- How many men? How many serious relationships, how many one-night stands?
- How many did she break up with and then get back together with? That's a big red flag.
- How many acts, roughly? Has she pretty much been having sex weekly or more since she started, or does she sometimes take a break or wait until things have gotten serious?
- What sort of acts? Mostly vanilla sex, or did she get into anal, bondage, choking, etc. with some/all of them? (Whether or not you think those things are wrong, they're a gauge for what she finds exciting -- and possibly a list of things she'll refuse to do with you, the Nice Guy she's chosen for her New Life As A Good Girl.)
- Anything else unusual: threesomes, orgies, prostitution, porn...
- How many / what type of pictures/videos are out there of her naked / having sex? (I say "how many" instead of "are there?" because I'm convinced nearly every woman these days has sent at least one naked selfie to a guy. What's out there to come back and throw this stuff in your face years after you dealt with it?
- How many of her past partners is she still in touch with? If this number is > 0, this is a HUGE red flag. If she claims to still be great friends with one of them and intends to hang out with him as platonic friends, she'll be fucking him after you have your first fight, if not before.
- Diseases, pregnancies, abortions, babies given up to adoption, claims that she was raped or "raped."
- Any therapy or medication related to all this?
A man needs this kind of overview so he can judge how she'll act in marriage, and he can get it without sitting through lurid descriptions of which guy stretched her out the most. It's also important because her attitude while telling him gives him a chance to judge how she feels about it -- repentant and ashamed, or nostalgic and reticent?
Double E said...
to add to cailcorishev's list,
If any of those questions are met with shaming about how you should accept people for who they are, and if you love them enough the past doesn't matter, then that is the biggest red flag of all.
As rare as it is, some people DO change. But rationalizations show that while their behavior might have temporarily changed (for their benefit, like snagging beta bucks) their character sure hasn't. It's only a matter of time.
Double E, absolutely. I don't have a problem with a woman saying, "I really don't want to tell you about my past, because I'm ashamed of it and I've worked hard to be a better person, and I'm afraid you won't like me anymore when you know it all." That's normal. But once you tell her it's necessary, she should be able to give you the facts, without larding them up with excuses or turning it into humble-bragging.
A woman once told me, "There are some things you need to know before we go any further," then just dumped it out in maybe a half-hour monologue. Not many excuses, just "These are the things I've done, and I haven't done them since such-and-such time. Here's what I've done to change and here's how they still affect my life." Simple and direct. And while I was shocked and disappointed by some of the revelations, I was also impressed by the way she handled it, and she came away looking much better in my eyes than if she'd tried to hide it all and I'd found out later.
LonestarWhacko said...
Knock, knock.....real world here.....Disclosure is a great idea, but, frankly, you're relying on a woman to be honest. Here's the problem...Women have a real hard time pair bonding when the notch count goes up. Let's put it where it is....if you marry a slut, you're gonna pay. Nowadays it's relatively easy to find out who and what a woman is. Check her out closely on the net. Electronic surveillance is easy to set up. Considering the consequences, that's not out of the question. Yes, it sucks, but marriage is such a major deal, that, really, if you don't prepare yourself, you can really get taken badly. Verify before you trust.
"it’s clear that when you got together she was a different person from the one who sought out illicit and even degrading encounters."
"she once went through a difficult period during which she “self-medicated” through sex"
"she’d slept with married men and been unfaithful in previous relationships"
"...your good fortune at finding each other"
"...being grateful for your life together"
Pure comedy gold.
"but marriage is such a major deal, that, really, if you don't prepare yourself, you can really get taken badly"
Actually, it's probably wise to avoid the institution of marriage altogether.
Get a woman when you need sex and companionship, but don't marry one.
"born again who rode the carousel"
I've been told the local megachurches are full of these kinds of women, and the kinds of "Christian" men who prey on them.
Bible Study Game.
Forgiveness is a Christian ideal.
[Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?"
Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times."
"Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt."
"At this the servant fell on his knees before him. 'Be patient with me,' he begged, 'and I will pay back everything.' The servant's master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go."
"But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. 'Pay back what you owe me!' he demanded."
"His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, 'Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.'"
"But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened."
"Then the master called the servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?' In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed."
"This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart."]
'If any of those questions are met with shaming about how you should accept people for who they are, and if you love them enough the past doesn't matter, then that is the biggest red flag of all.'
I'd agree. What's funny is a lot of women will say this statement without being prompted at all. Just a general thought she has for the day.
Practically speaking, if you really care about your wife's past, ask her early in the relationship. If she lies, the lying is a deal breaker.
Lying is worse than cheating. A good relationship requires complete trust. Make this clear too, that way she has a motivation to tell you the truth (for fear of losing you).
Most of these problems with women can be solved by a real man taking charge of a situation. Women have gone wild because men allowed them to behave like disobedient children.
Bodichi said...
@Agalltyr
You mistakenly (or perhaps purposefully with maliciousness) equate forgiveness and negation of consequences.
'Forgiveness is a Christian ideal.'
The basis of that story is when we sin against our brother or sister we sin against God. If a person realizes that, they seek forgiveness from God first. Once they receive God's mercy then do they understand what it means to forgive and be forgiven. They have the capability to forgive a servant with a lesser debt to them.
To me it's more important that a person with a sordid past seeks forgiveness from God...instead of blaming others, playing the victim, or covering it up. Then they know what it means to forgive.
Plain fact is that women will lie to you. Anything she says to you that's of consequence must be viewed with LUPO...Lying until proven otherwise. Women are genetically programmed to lie. That's just the way it is. Marriage 2.0 rewards liars.
And yes forgiveness is not the same as the negation of temporal consequences of sin. Women with a past like that would do better in a convent giving their life to God.
"Women have gone wild because men allowed them to behave like disobedient children."
Always the man's fault.
Because no real men.
Here's the real deal (if you read the story of Adam and Eve)...
'There is a bad influence whispering in the woman's ear to go wild. Women go wild because they want to. Men sit on the sidelines and don't do anything to stop her...because they want her to go wild too.' Think of the apple as the PG version of what it really means.
Vox:
Brilliant summation. Agree 100% Cosign Cail and Double E.
agal:
Forgiveness, yes. Forgetting, no. Relief of consequences, no.
Forgiveness does not equate to reconciliation. Forgiveness does not equate to "return to relationship as it was before". Forgiveness does not equate to "the man must conduct himself as if none of this had ever happened". Forgiveness does not equate to "the man must act as if her lying had never happened". Forgiveness does not equate to "the slate is wiped clean". Forgiveness does not equate to "born again virginity".
Because, you see, she did do those things. And she did lie about them. What's done is done, and cannot be undone. The consequences must be identified, addressed, accepted, and walked out.
Never seen that, but what I did witness is a guy who let it slip that he goes to various church DivorceCare sessions to troll for lonely hearts.
Fruit inspector.
So are justice, prudence, chastity, and temperance. Try again.
Well, are you going to bet your future on a slut? It doesn't matter that she's sorry. She isn't able to pair bond with you. She'll leave you for another just as soon as she's comfortable and bored. Hypergamy is ugly. Women are always going to be looking for the better deal. Frivorce and economic rape are the end result. Red Pill explains WHY you never want to deal with a slut.
Do you read nothing but Dan Brown novels? Your blog reads like a gai worshiping slave to ishtar. Do you believe you are the sacred daughter of Jesus?
'Well, are you going to bet your future on a slut?'
I wouldn't bet on my present with a slut. I don't know why many men seem to think this is a good idea.
I think some of you are missing the point. True, it would be an horrific mistake to marry a slut.
But people CAN and DO change. The trick then, is knowing IF she really has changed. There are ways. On the flip side, I tell my daughters:
"Men lie. Men will tell you that you're beautiful, that they've never met anyone like you, that they love you, just so they can get you to take your panties off for them. And many of them are very convincing liars. Some of them you will want to believe. Some of them you will believe. But you better not confuse your belief with evidence. Test them and see. The one most reliable test of a man's intentions is simply to make him wait. This is a test I failed many times. It is a test few dishonest men will tolerate for long. And while you're making him wait, get to know him. Find out how he thinks, what his moral code is, what his parents taught him (by mouth and by example), and what he thinks about all of that. Find out if he is honest, reliable, kind, noble, honorable. Make a judgement based on the evidence. You might still be wrong, but you'll be far less likely to be wrong."
A little thought and you could come up with similar advice for young men dealing with modern women.
Some of the comments here seem to divide men and women into a Manichean good and evil. That's NOT the message of game; that's NOT the meaning of hypergamy.
We men have our own problems. No, it is not all our fault, but we ARE at fault, every bit as much as women are.
Be a man, and own your fallibility. Only then can you fight it like a man.
Simple, really. They're conditioned to believe that a woman's past doesn't matter. Wrong. The past is an accurate way of predicting the future. Feminism depends on conditioned, supplicant, male behavior. You see, slaves have a slave mentality. There's a mountain of money made in the frivorce industry. Think of all those lawyers just waiting to carve your future up for a slut. Happens every day. Women lie, and actually deceive weak men, to their destruction. Just more grist for the mill. MGTOW is a rational response to feminist theft.
swiftfoxmark2 said...
But forgiveness is not given without the offender first apologizing. There are people who God will not forgive solely because they refused to acknowledge their own sin.
Back to the matter at hand, I've seen this frequently during my inquires into the manosphere. There are several stories where a man finds out that his wife (usually of 5-7 years) has a much more colorful sexual past than she indicated when he first married her. On top of that, she refuses to do even half the things with her husband that she did with other guys.
I know that it's the old "Alpha Fucks Beta Bucks" scenario as VD mentioned, however, a good Christian wife has to give all of herself to her husband sexually, especially if she has done it before.
As for the husband, there really isn't anything he can do. I would argue that he should not divorce her as, presumably, he sworn an oath before God to keep her until death does him part (or adultery). As painful and as hard as it is, an oath before God counts for more than his own pride or sexual needs (ladies, take note on this as wives are more likely to initiate divorce than husbands).
So my recommendation is to lay out everything on the table. Tell her that you have felt her holding back, that she is not satisfying him, and that she needs to understand that her fraud, her lie, has damaged the relationship.
Whatever happens next is up to her. I know that seems to not be Alpha, but honestly, women are the gatekeepers of sex, regardless of what men like to think. So she will need to figure out what she needs to do in order fix things.
Of course the easy path is divorce.
Gunnar Thalweg said...
What is ironic is women misinterpret men's likely reactions. Men, in general, simply want accurate information so that we can make the best-possible decision. Even if that answer is no, we will respect those who tell us the truth. Women don't seem to understand that about men. It seems to me that women are so relationship-oriented that they don't seem to understand or care that the relationship is based on truth. It's an attitude of, "Well, now we're together and it's good, so what's the problem?"
That's good parenting. We need more fathers dispensing this to their daughters.
Basically the same advice for young men to women..look for evidence and be more watchful and alert. Put away your sexual desires and romantic feelings for the time being and see how they react in situations when things aren't always going well. Get to know them too.
scuzza:
True, men can be at fault. Men can and do lie to get into girls' pants. That is totally irrelevant to this topic, though; and it is totally irrelevant to the issue presented in the OP and that Prudie was addressing.
Another difference is that women are often trained by parents, the culture, churches, etc. specifically about the phenomenon of men lying to get sex. Men are much, much less often trained about women's perfidy, bad faith, lies, and misconduct.
@deti:
Which do you suppose happens more...men lying to get sex, or women using their wiles to get men to sleep with them? I barely ever see the second addressed and yet the Bible talks about it, and it certainly does happen.
a good Christian wife has to give all of herself to her husband sexually, especially if she has done it before.
Yep. I may have said this before, but I think many guys would be glad to forget their wives' sordid past as long as it didn't negatively affect their own sex lives. In other words, he can accept the fact that she learned to deep throat from Ron Jeremy -- if she uses that skill to wake him up every morning. When he finds out the Princess he's falling for has had a lot more dick than he suspected, he thinks, "Well, at least she's not frigid, so I won't be one of those guys begging for missionary twice a month if she's not too busy. Silver lining."
But that's just not true; the most nympho-seeming woman can go cold when she makes that AF/BB shift and marries. Doesn't always happen, but it's common enough to be a comedy trope. So that guy gets doubly-cheated, if he didn't know the facts before the marriage: he's trapped with a woman who's not who he thought she was, and he doesn't even get the side benefits he might have expected to come with that.
@Scuzza
Women lie. Women will tell you that you're special, smart, funny, and caring, that they've never met anyone like you, that they love you, just so they can drain every resource from your pocket and harness a yoke to you until you die from exhaustion. Many of them are very convincing liars, they will tell you the bukkake they did with the football team was to make them feel better. Some of them you will want to believe when they say the drunken hookup in a club that lead to their bastard spawn was an accident. Some of them you will believe when they say the threesome they had in college was just a onetime thing. But you better not confuse your belief with evidence; they might be all over the internet, more than likely you have met a few guys who have been inside them. Test them and see. The one most reliable test of a woman’s intentions is simply ask her will she submit to you. This is a test most will fail. It is a test few dishonest women will tolerate for long. And while you're testing her limits, get to know her. Find out how she thinks, what her moral code is (if she even has one), what her parents taught her (besides that she was a precious, unique, snowflake of specialness) and whether she can put down her smart phone for longer than 5 minutes. Find out if she is honest, reliable, kind, and most of all submissive. When she says you are judging her, she made the judgment easy. Always be ready to walk away. You might still be wrong, but you'll be far less likely to be wrong.
earl:
First, women don't have to use wiles at all to get men to sleep with them. If all they want is sex from reasonably attractive men, all they have to do is show up with a pulse and minimally functional brain activity.
Second, women use wiles to finagle varying degrees of commitment from men. That "commitment" can be the form of something as light as he calls her the next day; or something as heavy as lifelong marriage. Women lying and using wiles to finagle commitment from men happens all the time, and it's clear that's what happened to Prudie's correspondent.
I don't know which happens more: men lying or women lying; but I know they happen frequently; and I know that women are trained on men's perfidy and misconduct much, much more than men are trained on the perfidy and misconduct of women.
It seems to me that women are so relationship-oriented that they don't seem to understand or care that the relationship is based on truth.
Because it's NOT based on truth for them. A woman judges her relationship by her current feelings about it. If she feels good about the relationship, it IS good. If she feels bad, it IS bad. Now, a lie may be the reason she feels bad, but so could the fact that her husband keeps saying, "I dunno, what do you want to do?" And if she feels good about the relationship, she's very likely to be able to rationalize lies or abuse by her man. It's all about her feelings.
Which is why she doesn't want to tell him the truth about her past: she can't predict how he'll feel about it, and (she thinks) if it changes his feelings, he might dump her. And the more things she tells him, the more different feelings he might have, and the less control she has over the situation. Just dumping it all out and waiting for him to react is terrifying for her, so they've pretty much reframed the entire concept as a taboo.
Besides, she doesn't understand why he'd want to know, since she doesn't really want to know about his. He feels happy now; why would she want to make him unhappy?
[Dear captcha morons: why the heck would I know what sushi looks like?]
Viking said...
The Catholic code of canon law also considers misrepresentation as grounds for nullity.
A person contracts invalidly who enters into a marriage deceived by malice, perpetrated to obtain consent, concerning some quality of the other partner which by its very nature can gravely disturb the partnership of conjugal life. (Canon 1098)
In other words, a valid marriage doesn't come into being if it happens under false pretenses.
liberranter said...
Nowadays it's relatively easy to find out who and what a woman is. Check her out closely on the net. Electronic surveillance is easy to set up.
True, but that only addresses the present, not the past (although present behavior is certainly a good indicator of past behavior).
If you're really serious about the woman (i.e., you're a reckless daredevil who is foolishly considering the "m" word), hire a private investigator to delve into her past. I mean leave no stone unturned. It will cost you, probably some VERY BIG BUCKS, but the alternative is buying a pig-in-a-poke, and as the OP (and Vox's other recent story on this same theme) points out, that seldom ends well for a man. As others here have reminded us, women are pathological liars when it comes to talking about their sexual pasts.
It's a sickening thought that we have to treat every woman we become seriously attracted to as a potential confidence trickster, but alas, that's the world we now live in. Small wonder that growing legions of men can't be bothered anymore.
@deti
Fair enough so what we have is basically the idea floating out their that men can lie for sex and women can use their wiles (such as sex) to secure whatever commitment it is they want. The advice is the same for both sexes. Make them prove it...by waiting and getting to know them and their thinking patterns. Who knows...maybe after they both wait and prove it they get what they want by getting married.
Of note: I know this isn't a 100% guarantee of success...but it has better odds than lying or manipulation to get what you want.
Anyone who wonders why some men might take an adversarial view towards some women, or women in general, should go back and read Vox' post and the linked Prudie post.
A major reason is women lying about their pasts for the express purpose of presenting herself as higher value and "less experienced" than she really is, all to the end of getting a Beta Bux guy to commit his wallet.
And it seems that too many women believe this is somehow rare; that women almost never do this; that the only women who do this are low value sluts; and that well, this can all be avoided if men just choose better; and that if a man gets a woman like this it's his fault for "failing to choose wisely".
As Entropy said, some of these women are really really good liars. And as we're finding out, this isn't rare; it's common and getting increasingly common.
@Viking Gamer
You have to be careful with canon law, as the 1983 Code has a lot of crap and weasel-wording from Vatican II slipped in. Go with the 1917 Code, which is available in English and far more reliable.
But from what I understand, if one of the parties takes the marriage vows with false intentions -- in particular, not intending to have children whether or not the ability exists, or not intending to stay with the potential spouse until death -- the marriage is invalid.
'As Entropy said, some of these women are really really good liars. And as we're finding out, this isn't rare; it's common and getting increasingly common.'
Well one thing we didn't hear in the story...did the guy at one point ever in the 5 years ask her about her past before they got married?
From how I read it...she brought it up to him 2 years after they were married.
@Liberranter - Would you agree that surveillance is necessary? Feed some cheese into the situation. Audio is good for this. Set up a situation that she'll have to talk to her friends about. Reliable gear is very small nowadays, and is very user friendly. Point is, due your due diligence first. Protect your self. Fob her off on an beta. You can do a lot with 3,000.00. Or you can pay a PI. Sad to say, most men simply aren't smart enough to adapt to changing circumstances. Marriage can be Darwinian. She's going to harpoon someone. Does it have to be you?
Joshua_D said...
cailcorishev said...
A woman once told me, "There are some things you need to know before we go any further," then just dumped it out in maybe a half-hour monologue. Not many excuses, just "These are the things I've done, ..."
So, did you stick it out with this woman, or leave her to her past?
Earl,
Have you ever been in a LTR and the topic of past lovers not come up? From her or you?
most men aren't smart enough to adapt to changing circumstances
Or, they're too naive, fooled by love, wearing white knight blinders.
@Corvinus
While I like the Pio-Benedictine code better it is just not the code that is in effect currently. I was simply pointing out that even the Catholic Church effectively agrees with Vox concerning marriage and misrepresentation. Getting a tribunal to agree with your particular case is a different thing. Your mileage will vary depending on which diocese you talk to.
But yes, there are a number of things that if not understood can become impediments including being open to the possibility of children, permanence, fidelity and freely given consent which is predicated on being fully informed.
Not even considering legitimate denominational differences but just given our society's current attitudes toward marriage in practice, I am not sure many marriages are actually happening. A lot of people are just living together.
I was ready to stick it out with qualifications, but she blew it up later when it started getting serious. Probably dodged a bullet there, because although she was being honest about the facts, she wasn't nearly as over it as she appeared, and went seriously off the rails later.
@cail
That is just it.
"... she wasn't nearly as over it as she appeared, and went seriously off the rails later. "
They are never over it, ever.
If you are a bank manager do you ever hire a formerly bankrupt man who stole large sums of money from his last employer?
'Have you ever been in a LTR and the topic of past lovers not come up? From her or you?'
They seemed to flow out organically from her and/or me if that's what you mean. I didn't mark it on the calendar *talk about past lovers*.
Which is why I wonder if this guy knew something already but didn't have the heart to ask questions.
Regarding questions about girls' pasts: Yeah, it usually would just come out naturally. You don't sit down and have "the talk" where it becomes an interrogation. There's just a point where she will talk about her past. Then you have to do things like draw them out and ask some not-so-pointed questions. You also have to use slut tell tools. You also have to presume that if the girl you're dealing with is 23 or older, or went to college, or moved away to college, or has held a job, then she has most definitely had some sexual experience.
I will say that for each of my serious relationships, there was a point where that talk was had and the questions like Cail set out above were asked: How many men, what kinds of men, what sorts of acts, pregnancies, abortions, diseases. Now, you can have those talks, but whether you get accurate and complete and truthful answers is another matter.
They are never over it, ever.'
I'd say that's true. And given the current climate where a woman can divorce you for almost nothing...women like this are too big a risk to get married to.
I didn't say it was a smart decision, did I?
The point is, the information and the way she delivered it gave me something to work with. I went in with my eyes open, but also aware of red flags to watch for. I set my boundaries and gave her some time to see how she'd deal with not being in total control and having things her way (short version: not well). When she blew it up, I wasn't caught by surprise and brokenhearted, because I'd known that was a significant possibility.
Of course, women may read that as a cautionary tale against being honest, since it made it harder for her to snow me if she'd wanted to. Women aren't going to want to give up that advantage, but that's all the more reason men have to demand it, and not let themselves be cowed with shaming talk about insecurity or "You're being controlling!"
Seems to me that some are still missing the point. The whole message of Game is that men and women are fundamentally different.
So yes, it is superficially true that women lie. But as cailcorishev points out, women lie for different reasons, from a different set of perceptions, feelings and motivations.
It is not true, in my opinion, that my initial comment was irrelevant to this thread, because there was a substantial set of comments before it of the style of "women do x" as if this defines all women all the time. Again, that is not the message of Game. Women tend toward hypergamy, but there are also those women who do not and have not given into the temptation. Women tend toward solipsism, but there as many brutally honest women as there are strictly honorable men.
As I said, the key is to find them, and to keep them. To do this, one must know how to identify them. I haven't yet had occasion to have this conversation with my son, he being 3 & 3/4 years old atm, but I will have it with him one day, God willing. My point was that, with a little thought, a little effort, a little creativity, a father and mother should be able to come up with a parallel set of principles by which a young man might make his way through the minefield that is modern feminist-infested culture. You cannot do this successfully of all you have is "men good, women bad". That is simply the same feminist coin flipped up the other way. We must warn our children against their own weaknesses at least as much as against other people's.
(I do have an 18 year old stepson, and we've had some conversation about such matters, but I came into his life when he was already a teen, and his natural (atheist) father is still a strong influence, so I've perforce had to take a more subtle approach with him than I took with my own daughters. Nonetheless I've done my best to prepare him, both for the reality of how fallen women think and behave, and for the challenge of finding one worth keeping.)
On the whole, I dont disagree strongly with any of the replies to my comment, except that it was irrelevant. I did not, and do not, think so.
DT said...
"If any of those questions are met with shaming about how you should accept people for who they are, and if you love them enough the past doesn't matter, then that is the biggest red flag of all."
This is what happened to me, and I'm trying to sort out the consequences after 12 years of "marriage."
I don't think I can forgive her for shaming me into accepting all her baggage, even though I know I let myself be shamed. At this point, I don't think it would matter if she became the perfect wife in an instant - I can't get over the fact that she shamed me into this life. I feel like everything is built on a crap foundation, and it's not recoverable.
Your recommendation is stupid and indicates that you have learned nothing from any Game-related blog over the years. Telling a man to very seriously request honesty from a woman who has already proved that she is both unfaithful and willing to misrepresent herself is just ridiculous.
Seriously, what the fuck? You idiots act like these guys have never had the bright idea of talking, truly talking, to their wives. They have. It didn't do any good. Now what?
Be honest for once. Should they walk or should they suffer in noble silence.
"I feel like everything is built on a crap foundation, and it's not recoverable. "
But that is exactly what a wrong-headed woman would say, and she would justify it explicitly on how it feels.
If you cannot forgive, if you cannot trust, then say so, as a man, and walk away, without excuses.
If you have to justify doing so by resort to your feelings, you might as well stay, since there's nowhere you can go to get away from yourself.
Feelings are rarely a sound guide to right action, and never a safe one.
It is not true, in my opinion, that my initial comment was irrelevant to this thread, because there was a substantial set of comments before it of the style of "women do x" as if this defines all women all the time.
Yes, it was. Your response is all-too-similar to that of a Christian white knight who wants to turn every discussion of female wrongdoing into one about male insufficiencies. This is about a specific situation and your response to it was woefully inadequate.
Vox, is there any evidence that is so? I've made a number of comments here; do they show such a desire?
...shaming talk about insecurity or "You're being controlling!"
Arguably the grandmother of all slut tells.
@PPP:
Would you agree that surveillance is necessary?
Yes, absolutely. The point I was trying to make is that it's more relevant to the present than the past, even though, as I also mentioned, present behavior is most certainly a very solid indicator of past behavior as well. I would put surveillance into the category of "integrity checking;" that is, how does she behave when she thinks that you (or anyone else close to you) aren't looking?
sysadmn said...
Can you imagine any advice columnist telling a woman, "Yes, he admitted he was abusive in several prior relationships because it made him feel better. However, he hasn't hit you yet. You must know that people do change and that many people are able to leave destructive habits behind for good. Go for it!" ?
Noah B. said...
Women will tell you much more about their past if you listen to their whorish stories with interest rather than coming across as judgmental and insecure.
'Women will tell you much more about their past if you listen to their whorish stories with interest rather than coming across as judgmental and insecure.'
Yup...that's what I meant by it happening organically. Women I'm not even in a relationship with will tell me stuff like that.
Noah, good point. I think some guys assume we're talking about an interrogation here, like one day you sit your prospective bride down and question her about her past, and then you'll know everything. And if you don't do that, you'll know nothing and it's on you.
That's not how people work. When you spend a lot of time together, stuff comes up. She'll be worried about how her past will affect you if/when you find out, so she'll hint around at it to see your reaction. She'll ask about your past, and then segue into bits of hers. She'll tell you some of the less shocking parts, to gauge how you'd take the worse ones. It's a gradual process, and if you act non-judgmental and unbothered, it's quite possible that she'll divulge a great deal of it.
That's not to say you'll get 100% honesty -- you should never expect that -- but you can get a general picture of what you're dealing with, just by giving her plenty of rope.
"That's not how people work. When you spend a lot of time together, stuff comes up."
So how much time should you spend waiting to find out if the woman you're with is a whore?
"So how much time should you spend waiting to find out if the woman you're with is a whore?"
There shouldn't be a rigid timetable, but to my way of thinking it should be before you are in a committed relationship and/or care enough that whatever she tells you could hurt you. If she has a really sordid past it's probably still going to hurt to hear about it, if only because it sucks to hear about how people have wrecked their lives. It's never fun when someone you barely know lays some seriously heavy shit on you.
Athor Pel said...
I've never had a girl Not tell me about her past. From my point of view they can't keep their mouths shut about themselves. And if you want to keep them talking then do not react to what they are saying. Maybe ask some questions to string them along, push that self revelation cart down the road some more but otherwise, keep a stone face that seems as if it is listening.
Funny thing, not only could they not stop talking about themselves but they all disqualified themselves. All I had to do was wait for it to happen. When I say disqualified I mean not just from marriage but from taking up any more of my time.
"Should they walk or should they suffer in noble silence."
Depends primarily on whether there are kids. If no kids, cut losses and walk, no questions asked, don't look back. The guy in the OP should walk. If there are older kids, walk. If there are younger kids, it's dicier. He should work it out for the kids' sake as best he can, and make clear that continuation of the marriage will be on his terms as much as possible.
"Athor Pel said...
I've never had a girl Not tell me about her past. From my point of view they can't keep their mouths shut about themselves."
How is your personal experience relevant? Because apparently plenty of men have married whores who kept their mouths shut in order to get married.
"apparently plenty of men have married whores who kept their mouths shut in order to get married."
It's almost never dichotomous. As is the case with many things discussed around here, what most women actually do is something in between.
Usually it's not a case where a slut disclosed absolutely nothing at all about her past, or lied and said she was a virgin when she was N=30 with a couple of threesomes and an abortion, with a hardy case of HPV. Usually in a case like that, the slut tells some of the truth, but not all of it. She discloses N =10 or 15 and the HPV, or something similar.
That's why we have the "rule of 2 or 3": Consider what the woman admits to and double or triple it, and now you have a much better idea of her N. You also look at the slut tells to augment your understanding. There are slut tell lists all over the manosphere, you can find them easily at Return of Kings or Heartiste.
I've never seen a case where a woman who's starting to get serious about a guy won't start talking about old boyfriends and sex partners with a guy she's serious about. And when it happens you start drawing her out and reaffirming her to get her comfortable and talking about her past. You won't hear everything, but you'll likely hear a lot. If you have a woman who doesn't say anything about her past at all, that's a huge red flag, in my opinion, because it suggests a lack of emotional intimacy.
'Because apparently plenty of men have married whores who kept their mouths shut in order to get married.'
What do you mean by mouth shut? They didn't come outright and say it?
Women are different...when they are more comfortable with you, then the start slowly revealing that stuff or testing those waters. Maybe they didn't care enough about these guys to even do that step with them...I don't know.
Trust said...
Talk? Brilliant.
Women have been marinated since kindergarten in the notion they are victims, and they rebel at even the most reasonable expectations.
Talk. Wow, how did no man come up with that by now.
Vox, I will concede this: my comment was "too similar to white knighting". I see that. You were quite correct.
I'll predict right now that in the years to come, as Sheryl Sandberg-style "lean in", Open Hypergamy becomes more prevalent, we will see many, many more stories like this play out. Woman enjoys alpha badboys and sex with them to about age 28, conceals past, marries beta provider schlub.
The past can't be concealed forever, though, and the awful truth eventually comes spilling out somehow, years after the wedding. It will take the form of a drunk confessional, a vindictive ex-friend who knew the bride when she used to rock 'n roll, or a sex tape/selfie collection surfaces somewhere. Most men will be severely shamed into staying with their wives, who compounded their carouseling by later lying about it.
"Seriously, what the fuck?"
I LOL'd at that. My reaction most of the time.
'The past can't be concealed forever, though, and the awful truth eventually comes spilling out somehow, years after the wedding. It will take the form of a drunk confessional, a vindictive ex-friend who knew the bride when she used to rock 'n roll, or a sex tape/selfie collection surfaces somewhere.'
Well all that plus we live in the information age...so her ability to cover that type of stuff off is becoming less likely. Perhaps before the internet age she could do a better job covering up her past.
Folks, audio surveillance is very useful. Low powered equipment isn't very much. Button mics are really small, and sound pretty good. Here's the point.....you can wind a woman up, and then she'll go talk to someone else. Seriously. If you can't figure out how to do that, well, perhaps self defense isn't for you. Listen to how she frames her feelings. All you're trying to do is find out BEFORE you decide to get married. All women have something to hide. And, just as certainly, she's going to blab about it to someone else. Frivorce is marital fraud abetted by the government. You need something to level out the playing field. Video isn't much more difficult, just more equipment that we all use every day. A problem most men may have is that they consider bugging a conversation to be wrong. Fact is, you can't unhear a very compromising conversation. If this seems unfair, perhaps you are truly a victim, and we don't have room in the lifeboat.
BTW, let the white knights marry the sluts....someone has to be the proverbial saying, right? Here's the problem with a woman who has had 3 or more lovers....she can't pair-bond with you in the manner that a marriage requires. She can't help it....she's been desensitized to the right hormones, due to overuse. That's the real secret the feminists want to protect.....once a woman is a slut, she's worthless for a family. But, now we understand why.
"de ti said...
I've never seen a case where a woman who's starting to get serious about a guy won't start talking about old boyfriends and sex partners with a guy she's serious about."
You've never seen a case? Really? How many cases have you been privy to? Does this case that Vox is taking about count as "cases you have seen"?
Bob Loblaw said...
100%. Women who've cheated on past boyfriends (especially "most" past boyfriends) will cheat on you in any relationship that lasts more than a couple weeks. Whatever biological circuit that bonds a woman to a man emotionally is burned out in that kind of girl, and in her eyes there's nothing that makes you special.
If he's been with her for seven years she's cheated on him with with multiple men. He just doesn't know about it.
@eric absolutely. Especially a woman who "may or may not have" had sex with the same man as her mother. I can only imagine what her mother is like.
I feel sorry for this guy. The fact that he asked a female advice columnist of all people is more evidence of how deep in the hole he is.
Btw Im not completely convinced he isnt just trolling her to get the response from the manosphere . Of course fake or not, the opportunity to make these points has presented itself. These situations are real.
Well troll or not...if the words cheat come out of her mouth, she's done it to you too.
As far her lying or telling the truth about her number (N >0)...the important thing to remember is there IS a number.
"Joshua_D said...
April 3, 2015 at 1:25 PM "
I did not say they told me everything. This is why I gave the advice for encouraging her to further self disclosure. Just like Deti said, they drip it out piecemeal. If you want more pieces then you follow our adivce. One piece may not disqualify her, but the next one might.
I stand by what I said, every woman I've been involved with has told me about her past. It was up to me to decide what I did with that information. With my ex-wife, I didn't really pay much attention and I paid for it. She told me things before and during the marriage but I did not know what those things truly signified back then. So I did the same mental rationalization dance described by Scuzzaman.
I thought, oh she's changed. I bought the repentance story before she proved it through some tests.
Now, every woman I went out with after the divorce, I waited for them to prove their repentance. They failed, every time. In spectacular fashion in some cases.
Would you marry someone that sleeps with a business partner triggering the dissolution of the business?
How about someone that at 40 years old gets drunk and has a fist fight with her girl friend in the middle of the road?
One of the worst was the American girl that married a Bangladeshi student just so he could get his green card, then slept with him and his brother before the scheduled divorce. I didn't ask whether she slept with them one at a time or at the same time. Since her story made it sound like it was simultaneous I didn't want to confirm it.
She told me things before and during the marriage but I did not know what those things truly signified back then.
Yep. When you're in love (or lust), you tend to put the best possible interpretations on her revelations. "Hmm, so she did the entire basketball team one afternoon? Well, I guess that shows her generosity and team spirit." The key is that you need to put the worst possible interpretation on everything she reveals, because that's what she's doing in her mind as she dribbles it out.
A man lies outright about big things that could be a dealbreaker: "No, I'm not married." "No, that girl you saw with me in the bar is my sister. I was spanking her because it was her birthday." A woman (or a Gamma, now that I think about it) lies in lots of little, often innocent-seeming ways, to make herself look better. You have to read everything she says through that filter. It's not so much, "Is this thing she just told me an outright lie," but, "What could she be sanitizing or obfuscating by the way she told me this?"
And for the slow reader: No, this is not a way to say it's men's fault when they get shafted, or that men have an obligation to do this much filtering. It's not an attempt to absolve women from responsibility for their behavior. But if you're going to deal with women, especially romantically (and most men will, like it or not), this is how they are.
"How about someone that at 40 years old gets drunk and has a fist fight with her girl friend in the middle of the road?"
I would need to know more about this one. It does sound pretty sketchy but under the right circumstances maybe I could understand.
Whatever N is, it's all about what you yourself are willing to accept. I've dated plenty of girls with 5 > N > 10 and their sexual history didn't seem like a huge deal. OTOH I once dated a girl and found out she'd been a virgin three months prior and already had N = 5, and I dated a "virgin" who had blown more guys than she could recall with certainty. I found both of those pretty alarming and broke things off before either one got serious.
There is a difference between virginity and chastity. If she used other orifices to get around still being a 'technical virgin' I wouldn't consider her a virgin.
If you've ever hired people, and worked with HR departments (almost overwhelmingly staffed by women, for some reason), then you will have likely heard the behaviourist idea:
"Past performance is the best indicator of likely future behaviour".
(Yes, there's a small element of doubt in that word "likely", but play the odds. Fewer people actually change than claim to have changed.)
de ti said...
The past can't be concealed forever, though, and the awful truth eventually comes spilling out somehow, years after the wedding. It will take the form of a drunk
confessional, a vindictive ex-friend who knew the bride when she used to rock 'n roll, or a sex tape/selfie collection surfaces somewhere. Most men will be severely shamed into staying with their wives, who compounded their carouseling by later lying about it.
I think what is much more likely to happen is that in the future men will start assuming by default that all women are current or former cock carousel-riding sluts and will simply blanket disqualify all of them as wife and mother material. Any women intent on becoming a wife is going to have to be willing to go through a Spanish Inquisition-style investigation (for lack of a better term) into her sexual past - assuming that any potential beta mule is even willing to wife her up.(or that there will even exist significant numbers of beta mules in the western world of the future). As I said upthread, given the generally unacceptable risks that will be associated with marriage in a world populated in the main by CRS's, very few men are likely to bother.
'Any women intent on becoming a wife is going to have to be willing to go through a Spanish Inquisition-style investigation (for lack of a better term) into her sexual past - assuming that any potential beta mule is even willing to wife her up.'
I'd say sexual past is the #1 indicator about her potential wife skills...but the other thing I would look at if #1 deemed worthy is also her attitude. If all she thinks marriage is about her being the princess of some sort that's a toxic idea too. Basically I'd want someone on board with how the Catholic church views what a marriage is.
Thank you for this effort
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Italy: A Country for Tax-Savvy Old Men?
Giorgio Beretta (Editor) (Università Carlo Cattaneo - LIUC)/ January 11, 2019 January 9, 2019 /Leave a comment
The Italian Stability Law for 2019 finally approved on 30 December 2018 has introduced a new art. 24-ter in the Income Tax Act (ITA). It includes a substitute tax of 7%, in lieu of ordinary taxation, on all non-Italian-sourced income earned by foreign pensioners transferring their tax residence in the southern regions of Italy. The special regime is optional and available for the fiscal year in which the transfer of residence occurs and for the following 5 years. Despite its novelty, the potential field of application of the regime already appears quite narrow. Contrary to the special regime for High-Net-Worth-Individuals (HNWIs) inserted in art. 24-bis ITA in 2017, the new regime for incoming pensioners is in fact subject to several requirements. These requirements are summarized below in bullet points and a short clarification is provided for each of them.
1. Subjective Requirements
The new regime is limited to pensioners. The identification of the applicant as a “pensioner” is made through a reference to the person in question receiving “pension income” as defined by art. 49(2)(a) ITA, which for income tax purposes includes pensions in the same category of income from dependent employment. Foreign pensions are therefore defined not based on a renvoi to the domestic tax rules of the relevant foreign state (and indeed, which state? The country in which the entity paying the pension is located or the country of the taxpayer’s last tax residence?), but by way of a “mirror reading” of the Italian relevant tax rules.
Interestingly, the definition of art. 49(2)(a) ITA includes not only “pensions of all kinds” but also other similar payments (even non-periodic or lump-sum). As explained by the Italian Ministry of Finance in the Circular Letter No. 1 of 1973, pension remuneration in particular includes sums paid in respect of past employment other than dependent employment (e.g. self-employment), disability pensions, and survivor’s pensions. Instead, the regime does not seem to be equally available to individuals receiving social security or war pensions, since under Italian income tax such kinds of pensions are exempt.
It should also be considered that no distinction is made under Italian income tax between pensions from private and public employment, as instead provided by arts. 18 and 19(2) of the OECD Model. Given the broader possibility to tax pensions from public employment granted to the source state under art. 19(2) of the OECD Model, which Italy consistently follows in its tax treaties, it can however be assumed that the new special regime would appeal especially to those receiving a pension from private employment, since this latter is taxed only in the recipient’s residence state.
The regime entails a look-back period. The option for the special regime is in fact restricted to pensioners who have not been Italian tax resident for at least 5 years before exercising the option in the first income tax return. Tax residence is determined based on the three alternative criteria laid down in art. 2(2) ITA, i.e. (i) registration in the municipality register of resident individuals, (ii) domicile in Italy under art. 43(1) of the Civil Code, or (iii) residence in Italy under art. 43(2) of the Civil Code.
Limitations also exist with regard to the country of departure. The applicant must in fact be a former resident of a country with which, at the moment of the exercise of the option, tax cooperation agreements are in place, such as the OECD Multilateral Convention on Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters, the EU Directives on Administrative Cooperation and Tax Recovery (respectively, Directive 2011/16/EU and Directive 2010/24/EU), a tax treaty, or a TIEA. The existence of a tax cooperation agreement is necessary to enable Italian tax authorities to transmit information about the exercise of the option for the special tax regime to the tax authorities of the last state in which the individual was a former tax resident.
Finally, although not expressly mentioned in the provision, former residents of black-listed countries are excluded from the regime, since under art. 2(2-bis) ITA Italian nationals who transfer their residence to black-listed countries are still regarded as Italian tax residents, unless proof to the contrary is provided.
2. Objective Requirements
The new 7% substitute tax applies exclusively to all non-Italian-sourced income, i.e. not only foreign pensions but potentially all types of foreign-sourced income. Similar to what the special regime for HNWIs under art. 24-bis ITA provides, in order to establish whether income derived by the taxpayer is foreign-sourced, the new art. 24-ter ITA makes reference to the sourcing rules laid down in art. 23 ITA (by way of a “mirror reading” of the criteria listed therein).
Connected with its subjective requirements, the regime prescribes that pension must be paid by a foreign entity. As such, the objective scope of the regime appears quite narrow, since, for instance, it cannot be opted by individuals who have worked for an Italian company in a foreign country and have remained in that country once retired. Also, the regime is not available to Italian pensioners who, in recent years, due to the combined effect of the financial crisis and the poor amounts of most Italian pensions, have fled Italy in great numbers to relocate in a country with a milder tax regime (e.g. Portugal).
Nonetheless, the special regime also covers capital gains from the sale of all types of non-Italian shareholdings (the different tax treatment of substantial and portfolio shareholdings has been removed as from 2019). An analogous possibility, with regard to capital gains from substantial shareholdings, is instead precluded to HNWIs under the regime of art. 24-bis ITA. Indeed, the lack of a similar limitation in the new regime of art. 24-ter ITA may render it more vulnerable to tax planning (e.g. a pensioner relocating to Italy to realize capital gains from the sale of his substantial shareholdings in a foreign company or, even worse, a pensioner acting as a figurehead of a taxpayer resident abroad).
3. Territoriality Requirements
The transfer of residence by the individual requires the fulfillment of two cumulative conditions. First, the individual must transfer his tax residence in one of Italy’s southern regions (Abruzzo, Apulia, Basilicata, Calabria, Campania, Molise, Sardinia, Sicily). Second, the individual must become a resident of a municipality, located in those regions, having no more than 20,000 inhabitants. Since the special regime does not cover the entire Italian Peninsula, tax benefits provided therein might be found in breach of the prohibition of state aid laid down in art. 107 TFEU, especially considering that eligible municipalities are singled out exclusively based on the low number of their inhabitants and not on economic indicators suggesting that the standard of living in those areas is abnormally low.
4. Tax Benefits
The new regime provides, in lieu of ordinary taxation, for a substitute tax of 7% on all non-Italian-sourced income of incoming pensioners (interestingly, the OECD considers preferential regimes with a tax rate lower than 10% on foreign financial assets at a high risk of being used to circumvent the Common Reporting Standard). Applicant taxpayers are instead required to pay ordinary income tax on all of their Italian-sourced income.
Despite the nature of substitute tax and the rate applied are straightforward, there are uncertainties with regard to the circumstance that the tax must be “calculated on a lump-sum basis”. Probably, this provision merely serves to rule out the possibility to deduct any kind of expenses, meaning that the tax at a flat 7% rate is levied on a gross basis. Alternatively, the provision in question could perhaps be explained by the fact that an identical expression is contained in the wording of art. 24-bis ITA (introducing a lump-sum substitute tax of EUR 100,000 per tax year on foreign income of HNWIs), from which the legislator has borrowed massively for designing the new regime. Thus, the phrase in question could be the unintended result of a “copy and paste” exercise.
Although the option cannot be exercised for each single item of income (e.g. only for foreign pensions), the taxpayer is not obliged to include all foreign states where the income he derives is sourced according to Italian sourcing rules. The taxpayer can in fact cherry-pick the countries to include in the special regime and the territorial extension of the regime can be modified by the taxpayer in the tax return filed each year. Income sourced in a foreign country not included in the special regime is subject to ordinary taxation and a foreign tax credit is granted in respect of the taxes levied in that state.
Finally, among the benefits provided by the new regime, like the special regime for HNWIs, there are also an exemption from Italian wealth taxes on the value of foreign real estate and financial assets held abroad (“IVIE” and “IVAFE”), as well as the non-application of foreign asset reporting obligations (“quadro RW”). Benefits are however limited to income and wealth taxes. No favorable regime is introduced for other types of taxes, such as inheritance and gift taxes, as instead provided under the special regime for HNWIs, despite such an extension could arguably have been very much appealing to individuals in the last span of their life.
5. Validity Period
The special regime is available for the fiscal year in which the option is exercised and for the following 5 fiscal years. However, the option can be revoked at any time by the taxpayer. Moreover, the option is forfeited in the event the substitute tax is not paid in a timely manner, or where the subjective, objective, and territoriality requirements summarized above are no longer fulfilled by the applicant. In this connection, the permanence of a tax cooperation agreement between Italy and the country of the applicant’s former tax residence does not seem to amount to a requirement for the application of the regime. Rather, what is clear enough is that, while the effects of the regime for previous fiscal years are permanent, a renewal of the option is not permitted in case of revocation or forfeiture of the original one.
The new special tax regime for incoming pensioners follows suit the introduction under Italian tax laws, in the last few years, of several special tax regimes aimed at encouraging foreign individuals to move and invest in Italy, such as the fiscal incentives for incoming professors and researchers of art. 44 of Law Decree No. 78 of 2010, the favorable regime for highly skilled inward expatriates of Legislative Decree No. 147 of 2015, and the special regime for HNWIs of art. 24-bis ITA. All these special regimes contain some deviations from the fundamental pillars of the Italian tax system, such as the equality and ability-to-pay principles and the progressivity rule enshrined in arts. 3 and 53 of the Italian Constitution. And yet, despite the significant tax benefits granted and the important derogations made, the author submits that, given the several constraints which it entails, the new special regime would hardly meet the goal to encourage foreign pensioners to relocate in Italy.
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Who is “Business”? Notes for the 2019 IFA Congress in London
Johann Müller (International tax professional)/ January 15, 2019 January 8, 2019
Cyber-Diplomacy and Digital: Some Legal and Economic Aspects
Piergiorgio Valente (Crowe Valente/Valente Associati GEB Partners; Link Campus University, Rome)/ January 8, 2019 January 7, 2019
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Double Duty Pro-Am Weekend for Pardus
20 Runoffs News
Kristen Susanne Poole
The SCCA is fond of calling themselves a family. More importantly, the members of the SCCA have proven that it’s true over and over again, in a variety of ways.
Maybe the most impressive is the way that the SCCA has embraced “our own” no matter where they’ve gone after getting their start. Once an SCCA driver, always an SCCA driver. This was true of Hall of Famers Mark Donohue, Bobby Rahal and Roger Penske. And this will be true of drivers in the future.
How do we know? Because the SCCA community will pay a little more attention to the NASCAR Xfinity Series race when 23-year-old Preston Pardus straps into his No. 90 Chinchor Electric/Danus Chevrolet Chevrolet Camaro on Saturday afternoon, just 24 hours after he competes at Road America for a Spec Miata National Championship.
That’s right—Spec Miata and NASCAR, one day apart, at two different tracks. It’s a busy week for Pardus, who is looking for his second National Championship in the No. 42 Danus Utilities/East Street Racing/5x Racing/PR/G-LOC Brake Mazda Miata.
“I love the Runoffs,” Pardus said at Road America. “I think it’s my favorite SCCA event each year. With what’s at stake—the National Championship—that adds on to it. It makes it pressure packed. The Xfinity stuff is pro racing. It’s stressful in a different way. But these are my two favorite events, the Runoffs and I love the Roval in the Xfinity car. If I could only do two races, that would be it. In one weekend, that makes it better.”
From that standpoint, 2020 has provided at least one silver lining for Pardus. In an effort to lessen potential exposure, NASCAR eliminated practice and qualifying for Xfinity Series races. That means Pardus is free to conduct both, without having to choose.
Even with a gold medal from 2017 at Indianapolis in Spec Miata and a provisional pole after two qualifying sessions by a scant 0.001-second (yes, that’s correct!) under his belt, neither race will be an easy one for Pardus.
Particularly Spec Miata.
“You can’t go into it thinking you’ve got it,” Pardus said. “You want to have a shot to win one of these things, but there are probably 20 good guys here that can win the race on any given day. Even if you look at the times, the top 20 are within a second and a half. You can’t just say you’re going to do something in this class. It depends on the day. If you can run in the top 10 here, it’s still a good event.”
But at least there’s a chance in Spec Miata. Equipment is king everywhere, and NASCAR is no different.
“We don’t have the budget that the top teams have,” Pardus said of his Xfinity ride. “We don’t do it every week. Going into those weekends, you’ve got to dial it way back. I’d say a top 20 is good for us, maybe a top 15. Especially this weekend, it’s a playoff event and those guys have their best equipment trying to advance through the championship. In either event though, you can’t set your expectations too high because the competition is really there.”
But there are definitely similarities, as strange as that may seem on its surface.
“The thing with the Miatas is that you’ve got the draft, so if you make one mistake, you’re losing two or three spots – if you’re lucky,” Pardus explained. “If you go off, you’re probably going to lose four or five. It trains you good for the NASCAR stuff, because those guys are always tight on each other and close. It teaches you that you can’t make mistakes. You can’t make a mistake in Spec Miata in a 35-minute race. And in NASCAR, if you make a mistake, you’re going to have a stage caution or something but that’s track position that you could have had coming down pit road. I feel like there are similarities in race craft and making mistakes—you just can’t do it.”
No matter what the future holds for the young superstar, it most likely includes Spec Miata and his SCCA family.
“It’s all about money and budget,” Pardus said of his future. “I love doing the Miata stuff, so I want to do it as much as possible. On the NASCAR side, I’m only doing three races this year. So it’s nice to fill in the gaps, because I would hate to only do three races per year. You need to be in the car to stay competitive, because the guys you race with are always racing.”
Whatever he decides, there’s no doubt that Pardus is an SCCA racer. And as part of the family, we’ll be rooting for him.
Friday’s Spec Miata race, beginning at 1 p.m. CT, and all 26 Runoffs races this weekend can be seen through free, live, online video coverage of Runoffs races, presented by Mazda, Friday, Oct. 9 through Sunday, Oct. 11 at SCCA.com. Bob Varsha will be joined by returning Runoffs broadcasters Ryan Myrehn, Tom O’Gorman and Larry MacLeod while Heyward Wagner again provides coverage from pit lane.
Get two screens ready—while watching Saturday’s Runoffs races, Pardus’ NASCAR Xfinity Series race from Charlotte can be seen at 3:30 p.m. ET, live on NBC. Incidentally, one of Pardus’ competitors is four-time Runoffs veteran Josh Bilicki in the No. 78 Gravely Toyota Camry.
Image Credit: Jon Krolewicz, SCCA Staff
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"Revolution"
Dread Scott. What is the Proper Way to Display a U.S. Flag?, 1988. Installation for audience participation: Silver gelatin print, books, pens, shelf, active audience, US flag; 80 x 28 x 12 inches. Courtesy the artist.
In 1989, the artist and activist Dread Scott incited national debate with his work, What Is the Proper Way to Display a US Flag? Scott’s installation, which included photos of flag-draped coffins and of South Korean students burning US flags, beckoned viewers to ponder the work’s titular question. Mulling over this, each participant stood on an American flag on the floor and wrote responses in a ledger. Yet President George H. W. Bush deemed the work disgraceful, and the US Senate passed legislation in protection of the American flag. In protest of the mandatory patriotism contained in the new law, Scott and three others elected to display the flag in an improper way: they burned flags on the steps of the Capitol in Washington, DC. Controversy flared and a Supreme Court case ensued. At the time, the artist, whose nom de plume recalls the 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford decision, was twenty-four years old.
Dread Scott in his apartment, New York, 2014. Photo: Jacquelyn Gleisner.
“I don’t think art by itself is a revolution, but I think that it can contribute to people more substantially and fundamentally seeing a different world.”
Twenty-five years later, I sat at a wooden table in Scott’s Fort Greene apartment as he described the gulf between his work and ideology before the controversial artwork. Scott’s bridge between form and content functioned as a conduit to the limelight. Moreover, the hybrid installation-performance and its fallout cemented Scott’s belief in constructing work that engages radically and meaningfully with society. The phrase “I make revolutionary art to propel history forward” begins his artist statement on his website.
And history needs to progress because, as Scott stated, “This world is a great horror.”1 The Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution was adopted in 1865 and abolished slavery, yet this institution was entrenched in the foundation of this country and its trappings remain manifest. As evidence, Scott pointed to the recent death of Michael Brown, a young black man in a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri. On August 9, 2014, Brown was chased on foot and shot six times by Darren Wilson, a white police officer. In the wake of Brown’s death, protests and racial tensions escalated. While the fate of the officer is being decided by a grand jury and the FBI is investigating the incident for civil rights violations, Scott believes that artists should raise society’s awareness to this type of recurring sore.
Dread Scott. Sign of the Times, 2001. Screenprint; 39 x 39 inches. Courtesy the artist.
After Michael Brown was killed, Scott tweeted an image: a piece called Sign of the Times that he had made following the shooting of a different black man, Amadou Diallo. In 1999, Diallo, a twenty-three-year-old immigrant from Guinea, was shot by four plainclothes New York City cops in the Bronx. A total of forty-one shots were fired; nineteen of those bullets struck Diallo. In response to this event, Scott created a screen print reminiscent of yellow-and-black traffic signs, with the text “Danger: Police in Area.” The fact that this piece could apply to a situation fifteen years later stresses the relevance and prescience of the ideas that inform Scott’s practice as an artist. “I don’t think art by itself is a revolution,” Scott explained, “but I think that it can contribute to people more substantially and fundamentally seeing a different world.” Artists can focus a lens for others to view the injustices of this world.
Artists can focus a lens for others to view the injustices of this world.
Artists can project a glimpse of a better world, too. For example, in 2009 Scott worked with a dozen inner-city teenagers in Philadelphia to make a piece that imagined their futures. The installation, …Or Does it Explode?, was titled after the last line of the Langston Hughes poem, Harlem. The first line of this poem is a poignant query: “What happens to a dream deferred?” Scott echoed this inquiry in his interviews with the group of teens, and the installation culminated in twelve life-size photographic portraits of their responses. Commissioned and funded by ArtWorks!, the education program of the City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program, this public-art project was accompanied by audio that recorded the dreams and hopes of the group. One teenager wanted to become a philosopher and travel the world. Another aspired to become a social worker or lawyer but realistically admitted she would not be able to attend college because her high-school education had been subpar. The collection presented perspectives that were both lofty and an affront to the subtext of the American Dream, the belief that hard work will always lead to upward social mobility.
Dread Scott. …Or Does it Explode?, 2009. Duratrans prints, lightboxes, narrative audio; 28 feet 6 inches x 16 feet 4 inches x 1 foot. Courtesy the artist.
Because transcending their social class is impossible for some Americans, Scott positioned the installation’s life-size light boxes horizontally on the ground, like coffins. The morbid gesture suggested the grim futures for certain members of society. Scott referenced lyrics from “Things Done Changed” by the late rapper, Notorious B.I.G. (or Biggie): “If I wasn’t in the rap game / I’d probably have a key knee-deep in the crack game.” Biggie’s words outline two routes for inner-city youth: an improbable escape from social and economic hardships afforded by fame or, the more likely path, a hard-trodden life of crime fueled by drugs on the streets. Scott believes that for some youths, given the slim odds of achieving success as a rap star, breaking laws that do not appear to support their social class can seem a rational choice.
Capitalism does not profit all members of society equally, Scott asserts, and a society in which crime is perceived as a reasonable option for members from low-income backgrounds is indeed a horror. But Scott is optimistic. His challenge to others is to “consistently fight with everything you understand to bring the horrors of the world to an end.” Furthermore, Scott charges artists to “find ways to make rich, substantive work that will talk about these issues.” He began his revolution as a young art student with a bold question that morphed into a demand for change. Twenty-five years later, Scott is still asking hard questions.
1. All quotes from Dread Scott are from a conversation with the author on September 12, 2014.
Jacquelyn Gleisner
Jacquelyn Gleisner is an artist, writer, and educator. She holds an MFA from the Cranbrook Academy of Art and a BFA with honors from Boston University. Her work has been exhibited in the United States and internationally in Italy, Finland, and Botswana. Gleisner lives in New Haven, Connecticut.
Columns & Features
Amadou Diallo
Pingback: The Demands of Dread Scott - 1-954-270-7404
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Intel agrees to sell its NAND business to SK Hynix for $9 billion
October 20, 2020 at 01:22 AM EDT
SK Hynix, one of the world’s largest chip makers, announced today it will pay $9 billion for Intel’s flash memory business. Intel said it will use proceeds from the deal to focus on artificial intelligence, 5G and edge computing. “For Intel, this transaction will allow us to to further prioritize our investments in differentiated technology […]
SK Hynix, one of the world’s largest chip makers, announced today it will pay $9 billion for Intel’s flash memory business. Intel said it will use proceeds from the deal to focus on artificial intelligence, 5G and edge computing.
“For Intel, this transaction will allow us to to further prioritize our investments in differentiated technology where we can play a bigger role in the success of our customers and deliver attractive returns to our stockholders,” said Intel chief executive officer Bob Swan in the announcement.
The Wall Street Journal first reported earlier this week that the two companies were nearing an agreement, which will turn SK Hynix into one of the world’s largest NAND memory makers, second only to Samsung Electronics.
The deal with SK Hynix is the latest one Intel has made so it can double down on developing technology for 5G network infrastructure. Last year, Intel sold the majority of its modem business to Apple for about $1 billion, with Swan saying that the time that the deal would allow Intel to “[put] our full effort into 5G where it most closely aligns with the needs of our global customer base.”
Apple acquiring most of Intel’s smartphone modem business in $1B deal
Once the deal is approved and closes, Seoul-based SK Hynix will take over Intel’s NAND SSD and NAND component and wafer businesses, and its NAND foundry in Dalian, China. Intel will hold onto its Optane business, which makes SSD memory modules. The companies said regulatory approval is expected by late 2021, and a final closing of all assets, including Intel’s NAND-related intellectual property, will take place in March 2025.
Until the final closing takes places, Intel will continue to manufacture NAND wafers at the Dalian foundry and retain all IP related to the manufacturing and design of its NAND flash wafers.
As the Wall Street Journal noted, the Dalian facility is Intel’s only major foundry in China, which means selling it to SK Hynix will dramatically reduce its presence there as the United States government puts trade restrictions on Chinese technology.
In the announcement, Intel said it plans to use proceeds from the sale to “advance its long-term growth priorities, including artificial intelligence, 5G networking and the intelligent, autonomous edge.”
During the six-month period ending on June 27, 2020, NAND business represented about $2.8 billion of revenue for its Non-volatile Memory Solutions Group (NSG), and contributed about $600 million to the division’s operating income. According to the Wall Street Journal, this made up the majority of Intel’s total memory sales during that period, which was about $3 billion.
SK Hynix CEO Seok-Hee Lee said the deal will allow the South Korean company to “optimize our business structure, expanding our innovative portfolio in the NAND flash market segment, which will be comparable with what we achieved in DRAM.”
As the smartphone market declines, 5G models are set to see continued growth in 2020
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Home Bio Things You Didn’t Know About Gene Wilder
Things You Didn’t Know About Gene Wilder
Instead of his real name, Jerome Silberman, he opted to use a stage name, Gene Wilder, derived from the names of actors in movies he had watched.
In true 2016 fashion, another legend bids the world goodbye. If you have ever wanted to reply condescendingly to a comment on Facebook, you most likely have a folder choke full of Willy Wonka memes. Gene Wilder, the iconic comedy stalwart passed away at the ripe age of 83 from Alzheimer’s.
In recent years, Mr. Wilder has only made select public appearances, but his disease was a secret. He didn’t lead his life in the limelight so away from his iconic movie roles; he was extremely private yet remained a force with which to reckon. Here are a few facts you didn’t know about the great Wilder.
The performance bug bit Gene early, with him taking an interest in performing arts at a very young age. As his number one fan, his mother sent him to a school in Hollywood where on account of being bullied, he only enjoyed- not really- a short stint.
Instead of his real name, Jerome Silberman, he opted to use a stage name, Gene Wilder, derived from the names of actors in movies he had watched. Drawing inspiration from a doctor’s words when his mother was diagnosed with Rheumatism, he set his sights on being a credible comedy star, and he lived true to that dream.
Drugs perhaps
Some of Gene’s roles had a major redirection due to drugs. Mel Brooks gave him the coveted part of Waco Kid in the cinematic classic, Blazing Saddles due to a previous actor’s replacement having an issue with drugs. He was supposed to team up with the great Richard Pryor in yet another comedic gem, Trading places but Pryor got cut out because of his drug use. However, he and Pryor reunited in the lukewarm, action thriller See No Evil, Hear No Evil.
The remake of Willy Wonka
Gene intimated that he respected the acting chops of versatility itself, Johnny Depp. However, he said that to keep that respect; he was not going to watch Depp’s portrayal as Charlie in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as he found it ‘insulting.’
Alzheimer’s and smiles
Gene Wilder oozes class, this man. He had been suffering from the disease for a while but in the interest of wanting the Willy Wonka image to associate with chocolate rather than Alzheimer’s, he chose to keep that secret to himself. Everyone who watched him in the role truly salutes that gesture.
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Departments A-I
About Onslow County
Attracted by the waterways and longleaf pine forests, the first European and English settlers arrived here in 1713 in what was originally part of the colonial precincts of Carteret and New Hanover. Onslow County was formed in 1734 and was named for the Honorable Arthur Onslow, Speaker of the British House of Commons. After a lethal 1752 hurricane, the county courthouse was relocated from Town Point to Wantland’s Ferry; this settlement was eventually incorporated in 1842 and named Jacksonville after President Andrew Jackson. Largely a collection of sparsely populated agrarian and maritime communities, Onslow County dramatically changed in the early 1940s with the establishment of the Army’s Camp Davis near Holly Ridge (now closed), and the creation of Camp Lejeune in 1941.
Onslow County’s flat, gently rolling terrain covers 767 square miles and is located in the southeastern coastal plain of North Carolina, approximately 120 miles east of Raleigh, and 50 miles north of Wilmington. The City of Jacksonville is the County seat, and the areas surrounding the City constitute the major population centers and growth areas in the County. Onslow County is home to more than 185,000 people and includes the incorporated towns of Holly Ridge, Richlands, Swansboro, North Topsail Beach, part of Surf City, and unincorporated Sneads Ferry. Approximately 156,000 acres comprise the U.S. Marine Corps Base, Camp Lejeune and more than 43,000 marines and sailors are stationed there.
The structure of local government in Onslow County was established in the late 19th century and consists of a five-member Board of Commissioners, elected at large for four-year terms. The Board establishes policies and ordinances implemented by the County Manager and his staff.
Onslow County offers the ultimate in outdoor coastal recreation and sports with over 30 miles of beautiful beaches, rivers and ocean teeming with an abundance of marine life, and forests filled with diverse wildlife. The scenic 40 mile long New River is the only large river in the continental United States with headwaters and mouth in the same county. Onslow County also remains an important agricultural force, its rich farmland still yielding bountiful crops. Today the abundance and beauty found in scenic terrain, shoreline, and seascape continue to define Onslow County, attracting industry, tourism, and families to our distinctive community.
To learn more about the past and present-day Onslow County, be sure to visit the Onslow County Museum.
Citizen Contact Form
Getting Involved - Volunteer Information
Onslow County Public Safety Memorial
234 NW Corridor Blvd.
boc@onslowcountync.gov
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Search Newspaper History
Listen to American newspaper writing from 108 years ago. Updated daily.
They Want to Keep Their Collars Clean
Essay from the Rock Island Argus, August 19, 1912. By Edna K. Wooley.
The source material for the Newspaper History podcast is from the National Digital Newspaper Program. This program’s online archive can be found at Chronicling America. It is a partnership between the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress.
“The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety. ”
-from About Chronicling America
All audio on the Newspaper History website © Michael Scherer.
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Follow this link to view the new and improved Digizen site.
Digizen
DigiCentral
Cyberbullying: A whole-school community issue
Today’s children and young people have grown up in a world that is very different from that of most adults. Many young people experience the internet and mobile phones as a positive, productive and creative part of their activities and development of their identities; always on and always there. Above all, information communication technologies support social activity that allows young people to feel connected to their peers.
Unfortunately, technologies are also being used negatively. When children are the target of bullying via mobiles phones or the internet, they can feel alone and very misunderstood. They may not be able to identify that what is happening to them is a form of bullying, or be confident that the adults around them will understand it that way either. Previously safe and enjoyable environments and activities can become threatening and a source of anxiety.
As mobile phone and internet use become increasingly common, so has the misuse of this technology to bully. Current research in this area indicates that cyberbullying is a feature of many young people’s lives. One study carried out for the Anti-Bullying Alliance found that 22% of young people reported being the target of cyberbullying.
This document explains how cyberbullying is different from other forms of bullying, how to respond and combat misuse through a shared responsibility, and how to promote and develop a culture of confident technology users to support innovation, e-safety and digital literacy skills.
Cyberbullying, A whole-school community issue' is a summary of the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) Guidance for schools on preventing and responding to cyberbullying, which was written in conjunction with Childnet International and published in September 2007. This document seeks to give practical advice to young people, their carers and school staff about the issue of cyberbullying.
Sub Menu:
What is Cyberbullying?
Preventing Cyberbullying
Responding to Cyberbullying
Key Safety Advice
How is Technology Used to Bully?
When and How to Contact the Service Provider
Download overview document
© Copyright Childnet International 2007- All rights reserved
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Drunk Monkey Blog
Anti-Apologetics and Molecular Biology from an Alcoholic Primate
Term Paper from “Biocultural Evolution of Religion”
Yes, it isn’t anything groundbreaking but I thought the results were still interesting.
The tables didn’t work, but you can view a Google version of it with partially formatted tables HERE.
Relative Permanence of Religious Beliefs Acquired in Childhood:
A Comparison of Conservative and Liberal Denominations
Congregations of conservative churches have been growing at a faster rate than those of liberal denominations for some time now [1]. While there have been many reasons suggested for this uneven growth rate, this paper will only focus on one possible aspect- the children. It is most common for children to be taught the religion of their parents along with many other beliefs the parents may hold (such as political beliefs). However, these beliefs are not always permanent. It is sensible to predict that the beliefs of some religions are more permanent than others. For the purposes of this paper, “permanence of religious belief†is defined as how long or how often the beliefs are held by those brought up in the religion. This paper is an attempt to examine which factors most affect the permanence of religious beliefs and identify which denominations are most affected by these factors (liberal or conservative). The main source of data for this paper is the United States General Social Survey of 2004.
When the analysis is complete, predictions can be made about the relative permanence of belief for various religions and denominations and comparisons can be made- especially between conservative and liberal denominations. It is predicted that conservative denominations are better at passing their beliefs onto their children, and that this accounts for part of the faster growth rate of those churches. In this way the factors contributing to the transmission of beliefs can be identified as memes that either contribute to the survival of the religion (increase permanency) or are detrimental to its survival. Other sources of new adherents would also have to be accounted for (those not inculcated with the beliefs as children) because not all new adherents are children. The other main difference between conservative and liberal denominations when accounting for the difference in growth is probably evangelization, but that is beyond the scope of this paper.
One of the first factors that must be looked at when comparing denominations is the religious beliefs of the parents. If parents are not very religious, they will tend not to strongly inculcate their children with religious beliefs. It is important that both parents are members of the same religion. Ariana Need and Nan Dirk De Graaf examined data from the 1992-1993 Dutch Family Survey, specifically focusing their analysis on those that leave the faith of their childhood (those that become “unchurchedâ€) [2]. They found that 46% of those surveyed who had one religious and one non-religious parent left the church. When there were two parents of different religious faiths a smaller amount of those surveyed left the church (33%). An even smaller amount (27%) left the church when both parents were of the same religion. This clearly indicates that religious faiths that discourage marrying outside the faith will tend to have more permanent religious beliefs. The reason for this correlation may have to do with exposure to different choices- if the parents are in agreement on religious beliefs they are more likely to be taught as a fact rather than as different opinions. It is predicted that such inter-faith marriages are more common among those with more liberal theological beliefs because different denominations or religions are more likely to be seen as equals.
The religious commitment of parents is also important to how their children will be introduced to the beliefs. One way to measure the religious commitment of parents is by looking at church attendance. In the same Dutch Family Survey, De Graaf and Need found that 37% of those whose parents attended church services less than once a week left the church compared to 25% of those that attended more than once a week. Jonathan Kelley and Nan Dirk De Graaf analyzed a survey of over 16,000 people in 15 nations in order to determine how religious beliefs are affected by parent and national religiosity [3]. They found that more frequent church attendance correlates strongly with more orthodox beliefs (a belief in a personal god that concerns himself with human beings personally). More orthodox beliefs also correlate strongly with more frequent parental church attendance and a more religious environment in the nation as a whole. It is predicted that members of conservative denominations attend church more frequently and thus would be positively affected by this.
The study also concluded that citizens of religious countries are affected more by the national religiosity than those of secular countries, and that family religiosity played a much more important role for citizens in secular countries. A secular country in this case is not one in which the government is secular, but rather is one in which most of the citizens are not religious or do not hold orthodox beliefs. Because of this relationship we can conclude that religions whose adherents tend to be highly devout will prosper in more secular countries, but the effect will not be as pronounced in countries that are very religious. The effect of this relationship is that more devout (orthodox, conservative) denominations will prosper even more when there is less religious influence in society.
This is consistent with the previous findings of Paul Perl and Daniel Olson- the market share of a particular religion and the commitment of its members are inversely proportional [4]. This means that religious groups in mostly secular countries will tend to show more commitment and will probably pass on their beliefs with more permanence- leaving the faith would mean leaving the close-knit community. An earlier study examined this relationship and found that the same principle was true for Catholics (a more liberal denomination) – commitment was higher where the relative population was lower [5].
All of this data seems to indicate that religions with less than average church attendance will have adherents with less orthodox beliefs that are less effective at transmitting religious beliefs to their children. This was confirmed in another study that examined the average time and money commitment for various denominations [6]. More orthodox denominations demanded more of a commitment and were more likely to have strict rules. The relationship is still unclear- it may be that orthodox beliefs cause more church attendance or more church attendance causes more orthodox beliefs- but the result is still the same- those with more orthodox beliefs and those that attend church more frequently (often the same group) will be more likely to pass their beliefs to their children with more permanence.
Family structure also seems to play a role in the transmission of religious beliefs [7]. Conservative denominations (and less often their liberal counterparts) often espouse a “traditional family†of which the most important aspect is a stay-at-home mother. This allows much more time to be spent transmitting beliefs directly and less time being exposed to people outside of the faith (in daycares, for example). It has been shown that religion is passed on better when the parents are less educated (especially the mother), when the father works more and the mother works less, and when the father is the decision-maker of the household [7]. All of these are hallmarks of a “traditional†family. It is predicted that these aspects will be more correlated with members of conservative denominations than with members of liberal denominations. This means that family structure is yet another factor that contributes to better transmission for conservative denominations than for liberal denominations.
Finally, education may play a role in the transmission of religious beliefs. In the analysis of the 1992-1993 Dutch Family Survey, Need and De Graaf found that in every case parents with a higher-level education were less successful at passing on their religious beliefs [2]. For instance, 15% of those whose parents had less than primary education left the church while 69% of those whose parents completed higher-level secondary education left the church. One possible explanation for this is that educated parents will encourage their children to pursue education. Higher education may then directly affect the religious beliefs of the offspring- when children (by then young adults) go to college they often are exposed to more viewpoints on religion and more liberal views in general. Less educated mothers are probably more likely to be stay-at-home parents, thus tying education levels into the traditional family structure.
To summarize, some of the main factors that affect the permanence of religious beliefs that are passed on the children are:
1) Inter-faith Marriages– Parents who both share the same beliefs are best at passing on those beliefs. Parents who belong to different denominations and cases where one parent is non-religious are much less successful. It is predicted that liberal denominations will have more of these mixed marriages.
2) Church Attendance– Parents who attend services more often (and thus parents whose children attend services more often) are better at passing on their beliefs. Those who attend services more often tend to have more orthodox beliefs (whether or not the attendance is the cause or the effect of those beliefs) and thus it is predicted that members of conservative denominations will attend services more frequently.
3) Strictness and Time Commitment – churches that have strict rules demand more time commitment have higher than average church attendance. They also happen to be mostly conservative (again benefitting more conservative denominations than liberal denominations).
4) Family Structure– almost all aspects of a “traditional family†contribute to better transmission of beliefs. It is predicted that this type of family is more common among conservative denominations.
5) Education– in general, less education (especially for the mother) contributes positively to the transmission of religious beliefs. It is predicted that members of conservative denominations will have less education, especially for the mothers.
All of these factors are expected to result in more permanent beliefs being passed to the children of members of conservative denominations. This enhanced transmission of beliefs would partly explain the growing membership of conservative denominations and declining membership of liberal denominations.
The results of the 2004 General Social Survey were analyzed so that conclusions could be made about how much these factors differ between liberal and conservative denominations [8]. The survey was performed by personal interview of over 2800 individuals with over 1100 different variables collected. The most important variable analyzed was “Fundamentalism/ Liberalism of respondent’s religion†(FUND)- it made it easy to compare conservative and liberal denominations without having to know what the denominations are and also helped to account for those that do not belong to a specific denomination.
Inter-faith Marriages
The first factor examined was the amount of inter-faith marriages for conservative denominations compared to the amount for liberal denominations. The variables that were examined are “Fundamentalism/Liberalism of respondent’s religion†and “Fundamentalism/Liberalism of religion of spouseâ€.
According to the table, those in a fundamentalist religion were 81.2% likely to be married to someone with a similar level of fundamentalism, while moderates were 79.8% likely and liberals were 70.7% likely. The correlations were statistically significant (X2=847.178 with 9 degrees of freedom for a P-value of less than 0.001). This confirms the prediction that members of conservative (fundamentalist) denominations are less likely to be married to someone of different religious beliefs and according to previous studies would then pass on their religious beliefs with more permanence.
For this analysis, the variables analyzed were “Fundamentalism/Liberalism of respondent’s religion†and “How often do you attend religious services?â€
The results of this analysis are very clear. The fundamentalists are the most likely to attend most often (17%) while the liberal members were least likely (2%). The liberals were most likely to never attend (35%) while the fundamentalist were the least likely to never attend (7%). The correlations are significant (X2=648.557 with 27 degrees of freedom for a P-value of less than 0.001). This confirms the prediction that members of conservative denominations are more likely to attend religious services frequently and thus likely to pass on their beliefs with more permanence than those who attend less often (members of liberal denominations).
Strictness and Time Commitment
In this analysis the level of fundamentalism of the respondent’s religion was compared to their involvement in a religious organization- from belonging and being actively involved to never having belonged. There were no variables that could be specifically analyzed for the strictness level of the denominations.
The results of this analysis are also very clear. The fundamentalists are most likely to actively participate in a religious group or church (51%) and least likely to have never belonged to such a group (11%). The liberals are least likely to actively participate in a religious group (24%) and most likely to have never belonged to such a group (28%). The correlations are again significant (X2=155.201 with 12 degrees of freedom for a P-value of less than 0.001). This confirms the prediction that more time commitment (active involvement) in a church or religious group is correlated with more fundamentalist denominations. This commitment serves to increase the sense of community and religious commitment and thus increase the permanence of the beliefs passed onto the children in the same way that increased church attendance does.
This analysis is different from the others because there is obviously no variable for having a traditional family. The variables that were chosen are “AGREE OR DISAGREE?: A working mother can establish just as warm and secure a relationship with her children as a mother who does not work. (FECHLD)†and “AGREE OR DISAGREE?: It is much better for everyone involved if the man is the achiever outside the home and the woman takes care of the home and family. (FEFAM).†The prediction is that those who disagree with the first question and agree with the second are more likely to have a traditional family.
Both of these tables indicate that members of more fundamentalist denominations are more likely to favorably view a traditional family structure and therefore it is logical to conclude that they are more likely to have a traditional family structure. Fundamentalists are the most likely to strongly disagree with the first question (10%) and least likely to strongly agree with it (20%). They are also the most likely to strongly agree with the second question (12%) and least likely to strongly disagree with it (12%). The opposite is true for liberals in every case- 27% strongly agree and 5% strongly disagree for the first question with 6.4% and 26% for the second question. As predicted, the traditional family structure is more closely associated with members of conservative denominations. It has been shown that various aspects of such a family structure benefit the permanence of religious beliefs passed to children [7] and thus this is another factor that contributes to increased permanence in the transmission of religious beliefs for members of more conservative denominations.
The final factor that was analyzed is education. It appears that less education (especially for the mother) enhances the transmission of beliefs. For this analysis a comparison was made between the highest educational degree of the respondent and the highest education degree of their spouse. The results were analyzed first for members of conservative denominations and then for members of liberal denominations. Only results from male respondents who were currently married were analyzed so that the comparison made was between husbands and wives.
In this case chi-square analysis could not be used because there were not enough cases to sample from. Instead, frequency tables were created. In all cases the husband was more likely than the wife to have a graduate degree. One interesting note is that husbands are more likely than wives to not have a high school degree, with the percent difference being higher for members of fundamentalist denominations (4.9% compared to 0.5%). This is probably because men may drop out of high school to work more often than women. The gap in higher education was comparable for members of fundamentalist denominations (37.4% of husbands had junior college, a B.A. or a graduate degree compared to 33% for the wives) than it was for members of liberal denominations (55.1% compared to 50.1%) with the main differences occurring in graduate education. The difference in education between husbands and wives does not appear to be significant aside from graduate education- roughly husbands belonging to fundamentalist denominations were about 75% more likely than their wives to have a graduate degree while liberal husbands were only about 50% more likely that their wives to have a graduate degree.
The biggest difference between conservative and liberal denominations is overall education (52.6% of members of liberal denominations had one of the higher degrees compared to 35.2% for members of conservative denominations). This confirms the prediction that more education is associated with members of liberal denominations and will hurt the transmission of their beliefs more because it is more prevalent.
In conclusion, several factors affect the permanence of religious beliefs passed on to children. These factors can be seen as memes that either help or harm the health of the religion. All of the factors examined could be correlated to either conservative denominations or liberal denominations by analyzing results from the 2004 general social survey. All of these factors helped spread the beliefs of conservative denominations to their children and hindered the transmission to children of members of liberal denominations. This difference in passing beliefs on to children may partly account for the different growth rates seen today- conservative denominations are growing faster while liberal denominations are shrinking. However, this does not spell the end of liberal denominations- according to some studies a lower market share increases commitment to the religion which would then increase transmission of beliefs to children and thus increase market share [4] [5].
Future studies would benefit greatly from more targeted studies that draw from an international pool of subjects. Data was lacking for some factors (such as the strictness of the denomination) and could be improved for others (such as the data on belonging to a religious group). A larger study would also allow better analysis of education differences between husbands and wives. Data could also be collected from the children of respondents after several years have passed in order to confirm the differences in the permanence of religious beliefs and to examine whether “unchurching†is a permanent change or whether it is only temporary. Data should also be collected on other sources of converts, such as those who join a different faith than they were born into. Conservative denominations probably have higher rates of evangelism and thus more of these converts, which would further explain the gap in the growth of denominations.
[1] Perrin, Robin, Paul Kennedy, and Donald Miller. “Examining the Sources of Conservative Church Growth: Where Are the New Evangelical Movements Getting Their Numbers?” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 36(1997): 71-80.
[2] Need, Ariana, and Nan Dirk De Graaf. “‘Losing My Religion’: A Dynamic Analysis of Leaving the Church in the Netherlands.” European Sociological Review 12(1996): 87-99.
[3] Kelley, Jonathan, and Nan Dirk De Graaf. “National Context, Parental Socialization, and Religious Belief: Results from 15 Nations.” American Sociological Review 62(1997): 639-659.
[4] Olson, Daniel, and Paul Perl. “Religious Market Share and Intensity of Church Involvement in Five Denominations.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 39(2000): 12-31.
[5] Stark, Rodney, and James McCann. “Market Forces and Catholic Commitment: Exploring the New Paradigm.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 32(1993): 111-124.
[6] Olson, Daniel, and Paul Perl. “Variations in Strictness and Religious Commitment Within and Among Five Denominations.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 40(2001): 757-764.
[7] Myers, Scott. “An Interactive Model of Religiosity Inheritance: The Importance of Family Context.” American Sociological Review 61(1996): 858-866.
[8] “General Social Survey, 2004.” The Association of Religion Data Archives. Pennsylvania State University. 4 May 2007 <http://www.thearda.com/archive/files/descriptions/GSS2004.asp>.
Update… Maybe
In the next few days I will post portions of a paper that I am writing on the effectiveness of religious indoctrination among various religions (or “Relative Permanence of Religious Beliefs” if you want to be nice about it).
It will be organized as following:
1) Identify what factors lead to people leaving their childhood religion
2) Identify which religions have these factors or are most affected by them
3) Predict which religions have the most people leaving based on the factors
4) Present actual statistics about which religions have the most people leaving
If I cannot find solid statistics it will be more of a proposal for research into the topic.
After this series of posts I will try to keep up the blog, but no promises.
Anti-apologetics
October 23rd, 2006
This is originally from an older blog that I neglected. I will try and get the concept off of the ground here.
I have grown tired of trolling various Christian and atheist forums (mostly Myspace boards) and refuting the weak apologetics that are constantly offered. I have decided to make this blog “community oriented”. Aside from the occasional post that I come up with all on my own, I will have at least weekly (if I get enough of a response) features where I will post an e-mail that I recieve and my own response. Most of these discussions will probably last for two or three articles.
Do you think there is good evidence that Jesus was an historical person? Do you think evolution is false? Do you think that your religion is the one, true faith? Do you think that a god can be logically proven? Do you think that a non-supernatural origin of the universe and life is impossible? Do you think that non-religion leads to immorality? Do you have any “unconventional” ideas that you think you can convince me of (ghosts, UFOs, 9-11 government conspiracies)?
If you do- and if you are at all capable of having an intelligent discussion- you can feel free to send me an e-mail . There will definitely be few e-mails at first, at least until the blog grows in readership. You can send me your apologetics and I will attempt to both classify and dissect your argument piece by piece. After a thorough refutation (unless the evidence is so profound that I agree with you) you can respond back to me in an e-mail. This will go on for as long as I see fit, when I will start a new e-mail chain/ discussion.
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You are here: Home / Archives for funerals
Changing Mortuary Practices in Japan
September 1, 2020 by Hanna Pickwell
Yohko Tsuji
The typical inscription on most Japanese tombstones does not show the names of the deceased. It says instead “Ancestral grave of the X family,” reflecting a lingering political heritage of the Meiji oligarchy (1868–1912). The imperial government established the ie (家), or the patrilineal family to which every citizen must belong, and mandated ancestor worship with the family grave as its locus to ensure the ie continuity (Tsuji 2002, 177-199). Hence, generations of family members in the direct line of descent—the family head, his wife, their heir, the heir’s wife, and so on—are buried together. Their descendants are responsible for looking after the family grave and worshipping their ancestors. A tale of two cemeteries in northern Osaka shows us much about recent changes in Japanese mortuary traditions.
The first is a municipal cemetery established in 1969. It had 4,000 graves by 1987 and was expanded to 6,364 in 2000. On the large terraced hillside overlooking the skyscrapers of Osaka City, one can see countless rows of traditional three-tier graves in which the cremains of several generations of family members are interred. Most inscriptions on them say “X family’s ancestral grave.” A few newer gravestones are carved with Chinese characters, such as serenity (寂), dream (夢), and appreciation (感謝).
Image description: Numerous stone grave markers line different levels of a cemetery. They all have wide, broad bases with smaller tiers stacked atop each other. The stone on the top tier of each grave is taller and narrower than those underneath and has a vertical inscription on it.
Caption: Traditional three-tier graves at the Municipal Cemetery. Yohko Tsuji
Yet this cemetery is not quintessentially traditional, because graves were not inherited but newly purchased; it is affiliated with neither Buddhist temples nor neighborhood communities; and it is an individual, not a family, who contracts a cemetery plot, though after the individual’s death the contract is transferable to another individual. This cemetery, like numerous public and commercial cemeteries, sprang up during Japan’s economic growth that began in the 1960s. The mass migration to urban areas at that time caused an acute shortage of graves because newcomers, whose family graves were located far away and hard to visit, tried to find alternative graves near their new homes. In 1971, the shortage and high cost of urban graves resulted in the construction of a columbarium with 552 locker-style repositories, adding another nonconventional feature to this cemetery.
More notable modifications of burial traditions occurred in 2019. The municipal government built a large monument to collectively entomb the cremains of 14,000 unrelated people in order to economize the burial space and to memorialize those entombed, thereby relieving each family from maintaining their own grave and worshipping their ancestors there. This monument helps to solve two major death-related problems in contemporary Japan: an increasing number of deaths as the baby boomer generation ages, and a growing number of people who have no grave or no family members to take care of their grave and afterlife.
Image description: A black sphere sits atop a raised circular platform that rests on a tiled circular pattern of dark grey stone. On the edge of the largest circle are four bouquets of flowers with colorful blossoms of yellow, pink, orange,and white.
Caption: Monument for Collective Burials at the Municipal Cemetery. Yohko Tsuji
The second cemetery, established in 2012 and known as sakurasō (桜葬) or a cherry blossom cemetery, offers a different approach to resolve the same problems. Adopting the principle of jumokusō, or tree burials (Boret 2014), no tomb stones or monuments exist at the park-like site of this cemetery. Instead, cherry trees are planted to signify six burial areas, where unrelated people’s cremains are buried without markers. Each burial area has a few stones with small metal plates on them bearing varying inscriptions: some show the deceased’s names and dates of birth and death, and others include words of thanks or personal messages, such as “Good-bye. It was an interesting life.” A service to commemorate all of the dead is held annually.
Though the land of sakurasōcemetery belongs to a Buddhist temple, it is managed by a nonprofit organization (NPO) and is available to anyone regardless of religious belief. Like the monument at the municipal cemetery, these graves require neither maintenance nor descendants. The NPO offers support both before and after death by performing tasks that have traditionally been undertaken by next of kin but have become harder to do: checking on older people living alone, assisting with hospitalization, serving as the stand-in chief mourner for a funeral, and so on. The NPO also organizes regular meetings of those who will be buried together, creating a community of hakatomo which literally means “grave friends.”
This tale of two cemeteries illustrates the unmistakable transformations in Japanese mortuary tradition (Tsuji 2018, 17-30). They reflect and adapt to the changes in Japanese families, neighborhoods, workplaces, economy, ecology, and demographics that have occurred in the last half a century. Particularly, the family’s central role has diminished. Instead individual choices and decisions have become more important. Despite myriad societal changes however, death continues to be significant in people’s lives. Indeed, over 33 million websites are available to check the cost of a cemetery lot. Choosing a nontraditional grave and entrusting the care of the afterlife to extrafamilial entities, such as the municipal government and the sakurasōcemetery management, provides a tenable means of securing care of death and the afterlife. It does not necessarily mean that people have stopped practicing mortuary rituals. Rather, their nonconventional choices of graves and conformity to mortuary tradition coexist. During biannual religious weeks in the spring and the fall, extra buses are operated to the municipal cemetery for people who worship their ancestors. Some family members regularly visit the sakurasō cemetery, including on death anniversaries of their loved ones.
As Japanese society is rapidly aging, death and dying are becoming even more visible with the mass media constantly featuring pertinent information and people’s concerns about shūkatsu (終活), or preparation for death and the afterlife, escalating. Furthermore, as these cemeteries demonstrate, mortuary tradition is evolving and generating new types of practices.
Another such example is the practice of burial with one’s pet. Traditionally, pets are not allowed to be entombed with humans. Behind this ban is the Buddhist worldview, which places animals and humans in separate stages of the reincarnation cycle. However, in the last few decades, this clear demarcation has been blurred as pets have become increasingly regarded as indispensable family members. Called uchi-no-ko, or “our child,” just like human progeny, the pet shares daily life with many Japanese inside their residences rather than in a kennel outside. Uchi-no-ko is fed pet and human food rather than the leftovers given in the old days. People also clothe their pets with sweaters, caps, and socks and have them groomed regularly. They buy pet medical insurance and take them to veterinarians for illness and injury, not to mention check-ups and shots.
When uchi-no-ko dies, many Japanese have a funeral, hiring a pet funeral operator or asking a Buddhist priest to chant a sutra. They bury their fur child in a pet cemetery and visit it frequently, dismissing a more customary method of calling the health department to have the pets’ remains incinerated or, if the family has a yard, burying them in a hidden corner.
These pet parents suffer the loss of their children and are concerned about their pets’ afterlives as much as their own. Because the burial of pets in human graves is not permitted at most cemeteries, the everlasting separation from their pet and the uncertainty of the pet’s afterlife aggravate their grief. Buddhist priests frequently receive questions, such as: “Can uchi-no-ko rest in peace or go to heaven?” and “Can I and uchi-no-ko meet again after my death?” These pet owners strongly wish to be reunited with their pet in the same grave after their death. To address such sentiments, some cemeteries, including the aforementioned sakurasō cemetery, allow humans and pets to be buried together.
The tale of two cemeteries and the burial with one’s pet attest to the malleability of tradition. For its persistence, tradition must change, adapting to social transformations and accommodating people’s altered needs. Japanese mortuary tradition continues to evolve to handle death, “the supreme and final crisis of life” (Malinowski 1948, 47), in a contemporary world awash with immense changes.
Yohko Tsuji is an adjunct associate professor of anthropology at Cornell University and the author of the forthcoming book, Through Japanese Eyes: Thirty Years of Studying Aging in America. She has conducted fieldwork in America, Japan, and Thailand, and published articles on aging, death, conception of time, and social change.
The SEAA column is currently accepting submissions. Please contact Shuang Frost ([email protected]) and Hanna Pickwell ([email protected]) with your essay ideas and comments.
Cite as: Tsuji, Yohko. 2020. “Changing Mortuary Practices in Japan.” Anthropology News website, August 13, 2020. DOI: 10.14506/AN.1471
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TEC World Leaders Series: Jonathan Heiliger, Facebook/North Bridge
Following a historical Facebook IPO, don't miss your chance to meet our very special guest – Jonathan Heiliger on June 7th in Palo Alto.
Being an accomplished serial entrepreneur and technologist, Jonathan joined Facebook in 2007 to take charge of technology behind the tremendous FB growth - more than 20 times over just 4 years. After leaving Facebook in 2011, Jonathan invested and nurtured multiple local startups and just recently joined as a General Partner one of the most successful VC funds - North Bridge Venture Partners.
Jonathan kindly agreed to discuss a multitude of topics – starting from Facebook growth technology secrets (shh.. check out the Open Compute Project) to new cool technologies he is looking for as an investor.
When: June 7, 2012, Thursday
Where: WilmerHale, 950 Page Mill Road Palo Alto, CA 94304 US
Jonathan Heiliger, Partner, North Bridge Venture Partners
Jonathan joins North Bridge from Facebook, where he was VP of Technical Operations from 2007 until 2011, as Facebook grew from 35 million users to over 800 million. Heiliger brings to North Bridge his passion for creating and scaling solution-focused technology companies as an active advisor, investor or executive. Jonathan will focus on identifying companies that are attempting to solve problems of significant scale and scope and is based in California.
At Facebook, Jonathan oversaw global infrastructure, site architecture and internal systems. Prior to Facebook, Jonathan held executive technical operations roles at Walmart and Danger (acquired by Microsoft). He also spent several years as Chief Operating Officer for Loudcloud (which became Opsware and was later acquired by HP). Earlier in his career, Jonathan co-founded and was the CTO of Frontier GlobalCenter, and later founded Global Crossing’s corporate venture capital group.
Jonathan’s investment portfolio encompasses more than 30 companies, including Cotendo, Last.fm (acquired by CBS), Sonus Networks, SpringTide (acquired by Lucent), Talaria, Tango and Qumranet (acquired by RedHat).
Jonathan currently serves on the board of directors of DuPont Fabros, Jive Software and Webmonsters, and advises a select group of early-stage technology companies that include Box.net, Cloudera, Redwood Systems and Square.
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The Big Picture and the Closeup
Policy and Law. Plus Drama, Life, Literature and Religion.
As presented by Jack L. B. Gohn.
Big Picture Columns
The Closeup
What It Takes To Build A Theater Town
Posted on February 14, 2015, 9:57 pm, by Jack L. B. Gohn, under The Close Up, Theater Reviews and Commentary.
Theater Reviews Page | Previous Theater Review | Next Theater Review
Published in The Hopkins Review, New Series 8.2 (Spring 2015)
For a brief spell, back in the days when the Baltimore Business Journal had an arts-and-leisure page, I was the theater critic. In 1993 the BBJ killed that page, arts and leisure being viewed, I guess, as unbusinesslike. Having lost my own business reason to keep an eye on the Baltimore theater scene, I turned my attention to other matters the next 17 years. Then, in 2010, through my journalist wife’s good graces, I was offered the chance to take up reviewing again, now for the Baltimore “page” of BroadwayWorld.com. My resulting rediscovery of Baltimore theater at that point was like Rip Van Winkle’s awakening: the place was the same but almost everything in it had changed.
Clocking Out, Clocking In
As it happened, the moment I clocked out was close to the moment Vince Lancisi clocked in. Coming out of Catholic University in Washington with a master’s degree in directing, Lancisi in 1990 envisioned bringing a repertory professional theater company to a town that didn’t have one. Baltimore, he judged, filled the bill.
As he tells the story, when he looked at Baltimore he saw one top-notch regional theater, Center Stage, plus a thriving community theater scene, and very little else that was locally produced. There were, then as now, two large houses, at that time the Morris Mechanic Theatre and the Lyric Opera House, where national touring companies of Broadway shows could alight for a week or two, but of course those shows were anything but local. And, though Lancisi does not mention it, there was one house, the Theatre Project, where avant garde productions, local, national, and international, staged brief runs. Even adding that detail, however, Lancisi was right that this state of affairs left a need the new company he had in mind could help supply. All he had to do was convince Baltimore audiences to agree that the need existed, and that the dozen or so community theaters, whatever their virtues, were no substitute for what a small professional company could offer. Lancisi dubbed his company Everyman, partly as a reference to the medieval morality play, partly to proclaim for the troupe’s aspiration to universality.
When Lancisi and I compared notes, we agreed that in the interim between the early 90s and 2010, while I was playing Rip Van Winkle and he was building Everyman, Baltimore became a theater town.
No Magic Formula, But …
Definitions first: what does one mean by the phrase “a theater town”? Clearly, there’s no easy synonym, no bright line demarcating theater towns from others, much less a magic formula for making one emerge. Nonetheless, it’s very easy to take Baltimore as a test case, and look at what’s been added over the last two decades. Without some of these additions, the label wouldn’t have fit. The additions are what make the difference, and they are worth considering.
Surely the single most striking difference between 1990 and now is that where there was once only one company staging original professional productions in its own house, there are now four, spanning an impressive spectrum.
First and foremost is the same pillar that sustained Baltimore at the beginning, Center Stage, now in its 52nd season, a typical age for a product of the regional theater movement. I have been around to witness most of Center Stage’s trajectory. At the beginning, Center Stage bore some resemblances to Everyman today: a focus on mainstream, non-musical dramas and comedies, with a good helping of classics. And there was at Center Stage, if not a regular company, a solid core of actors who regularly appeared there, some of whom stayed principally in the region for most of their careers. A couple escaped into the larger world and became national names, like Terry O’Quinn and Christine Baranski. But audiences could look to see many of the same faces from production to production, and watch pronouncedly local talent grow and become more assured.
The Equity Trap
That local flavor to Center Stage was just ending around the time Lancisi’s company arrived, with the appointment of Irene Lewis as Center Stage’s artistic director. There were two notable changes when Lewis took over from Stan Wojewodski, Jr. One change was salutary: the repertoire was altered to take into account that Baltimore is a majority-minority town. Plays by African American playwrights began to appear, and casts became more diverse. The other change looked good but wasn’t: local actors became close to unwelcome, as Center Stage’s casting took on a decidedly New York look. It became rare for programs to reflect any, or at least any recent, Center Stage experience among the on-stage talent. Basically, Center Stage became a home-away-from-home for Off-Broadway casts, a source of gigs for actors who had never been to Charm City before and most likely never would again.
Of course the fits between actors and roles became amazingly precise; when you have all the wealth of unemployed New York talent to choose from, you can make some astonishingly on-point casting decisions. But who were all these people (other than being members of Equity)? No one knew, and no one ever found out. Nor did it help that the Lewis regime coincided with the last gasp of most of the few remaining corporate headquarters in Baltimore; in the consolidation of the world’s most influential corporations, Baltimore had become a branch town. And in the Lewis era, Center Stage became a branch town too.
New Impressario in Town
The company, and the world of Baltimore theater, deserved better leadership, and received it when in 2011 the board announced an electrifying and unexpected choice: charismatic Guyanan-and-British playwright and impressario Kwame Kwei-Armah. (He will say he “stands on [Lewis’] shoulders,” and this may be more than mere politeness; still, things are different now.) Center Stage audiences knew him from his play Elmina’s Kitchen, produced there in 2005, a bitter slice-of-life from the London suburb of Hackney, turf ruled by black gangsters. He may have been an exotic addition to the scene, but he quickly signaled a serious commitment to Baltimore, networking quickly with everyone: managers of the other companies, academia, even (impressive to me for obvious reasons) the local corps of reviewers, whom he lunched and staged an open-ended dialogue with.
He also announced a policy of trying to develop local talent in a way Center Stage had not done for a while. Kwei-Armah and managing director Steve Richard launched a wide variety of new initiatives, chose a more daring selection of plays, and created a sense of excitement around the now-venerable institution that had been missing for a while. And the numbers reflected the turnaround: attendance, subscriptions, and revenues all rose.
Picking Up the Discards
Meanwhile, Everyman has been developing local talent right along. Lancisi was committed from the start to building a repertory troupe of Equity actors. In fact, his company had picked up some of the largely or totally discarded Center Stage “regulars” from before the Lewis regime, including Tana Hicken, Wil Love, and Vivienne Shub. And together Lancisi’s crew forged a somewhat lonely path to something like parity with the Center Stage colossus. In the 2013-14 season, after years of careful and provident planning, Everyman moved into new quarters in a beautifully refurbished former vaudeville house and movie theater in the heart of the old Baltimore downtown. This space was a step up in the most literal sense. I had seen, in Everyman’s old space in what is now known as the Station North Arts District, balcony scenes that had to be rendered only a few steps up from the characters “below,” because there was no way to achieve any more significant grade separation. In the opening production at the new downtown theater Everyman at last had a stage with sufficient vertical clearance to perform August Osage County (where a set’s three different floors are de rigeur).
When Everyman largely picked up Center Stage’s “discards” and added new actors to the mix, it was a small step to creating a pool of local Equity talent who were associated with more than one stage, but the traffic was flowing mostly from Center Stage to Everyman, not the other way around. There has of late been at least one instance of talent moving in the other direction, Bruce Nelson, an actor who was nurtured at Everyman and then got picked up to perform some important roles at Center Stage, including Groucho’s persona Captain Spaulding in a dramatized Animal Crackers and Vanya in Christopher Durang’s instant classic Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike. But basically that effort has stalled. Most of the Center Stage casts are still unknowns in Baltimore, probably because it is hard to develop a pool of local Equity talent without a larger number of places for the members of such a pool to play. Stephen Richard, Center Stage’s Managing Director, tells me that there is now – as opposed to perhaps as recently as five years ago – “a strong Baltimore, and certainly Baltimore-Washington corps of actors.” And he says that there is at least talk at Center Stage of consciously training local actors to work at Center Stage’s level. The jury is still out on Center Stage’s seriousness about this, but it is at least the right aspiration.
Having It All
Lancisi expects change, too, but in a different way, not so much by local actors moving back and forth among local venues as by local actors “having it all,” jumping from Everyman to national stage and screen, and back again, an incubator for national talent. He cites the example of company member Eric Berryman, whose dance card was so filled up with commitments in New York and elsewhere he had to take a pass on this season altogether, but is fully expected back. Megan Anderson and Dawn Ursula, two other members of the company, had recurring roles on The Wire and continue fully engaged at Everyman. Danny Gavigan will be doing three plays with Everyman next season – and living in Los Angeles the rest of the time pursuing film work.
The forces inhibiting the local sharing of talent do not operate so powerfully out of the acting sphere, in crafts unconstricted by Equity. The local career of Joseph Ritsch is a prime instance. In addition to serving as Co-Producing Artistic Director for the REP Stage, an Equity troupe in nearby Columbia, Maryland, Ritsch has directed at Everyman and teaches and has directed at Towson University. Nor is he remotely alone. Lancisi teaches at University of Maryland Baltimore County. Center Stage and Everyman share personnel with every academic theater program and many community theaters, and Everyman provides internship opportunities for students at the Baltimore School for the Arts (and an institution that counts Jada Pinkett Smith and Tupac Shakur among its graduates is indeed a likely source of talent).
Everyone Got Fed
There are more things to share than talent. When Everyman moved downtown, as Elliott Rauh told me, everyone else in the small-theater Baltimore world “got fed.” Rauh is one of the founders and the Managing Director of the collective known as the Single Carrot Theatre (after Paul Cezanne’s comment that “[t]he day is coming when a single carrot freshly observed, will set off a revolution.”). Every other theater company in town got something from the surplus materials that Everyman was leaving behind, said Rauh. In Single Carrot’s case, the physical loot was some of Everyman’s chairs and filing cabinets. For Rauh, this was just a small example of Everyman’s generosity. Over half the Single Carrot company “has gone through Everyman’s doors and received a paycheck” for some kind of work there. More than that, as Rauh commented to me. “Vinnie is such a strong mentor for everyone.”
Weird Shit
Single Carrot’s founding legend is well-known in the Baltimore theater world, and Lancisi played a role in it. The Carrots started as a group of drama students at the University of Colorado, looking around in 2006 for a town in which to continue working together. They hit upon Baltimore in large part because they spoke to Lancisi, who was generous with his connections, and with his advice, which, succinctly, was to come to Baltimore. Acceding to that recommendation, Single Carrot immediately made a splash with small quirky productions that Rauh happily recalls “may not be what you would find at a community theater or the major institutions here,” staged in bohemian spaces that may have been cold and may have required audience members to ascend many flights of stairs, but were in areas of emerging nightlife, productions that were either from young playwrights new to the Baltimore scene or were collaborative compositions of the collective. These unusual productions quickly created what Rauh calls “a patron base,” or, more pointedly, “a population of people that loved weird shit in this city.”
In a review prompted by my first encounter with them in 2010, a play about theme parks where the planet’s ecological crisis was held at bay, and about Native Americans brought in as “local color,” I mentioned that the Carrots’ youthful energy reminded me a lot of the first crop of Not Ready for Prime Time Players on Saturday Night Live in the 1970s. Like the SNL ensemble, the Single Carrot troupe were very good, very different, and no one (least of all themselves) had any idea what the limits of their talent were. But they have been figuring it out.
Turning Point in the Founding Legend
The Carrots are professionals, in that they are each paid a stipend, and many of them live on it. But a remarkable thing about their achievement is the speed with which they have been transcending the “starving artist” stereotype, against the backdrop of some notable challenges.
Most notable of these was the abrupt closure of Load of Fun, the artistically-graffitoed performance space within a disused auto dealership that Single Carrot had been using from 2007 to August 2012. When City inspectors found Load of Fun not up to code, and pulled its use and occupancy permit, everything happening in the building, including not only Single Carrot but at least one other theater company and an art gallery space, was potentially out of business. In the six years that the Carrots had been plying their trade in Baltimore, however, they had made good and powerful friends. Fred Lazarus, the president of the Maryland Institute College of Art, called Rauh and assured him the Institute would find a temporary space for the planned season to proceed. And then, Rauh and his colleagues leveraged other connections and friends to raise the funds to do in an auto repair shop what Lancisi and company had done in the disused vaudeville house: create a theater that was not a mere make-do but a gleaming trophy space. And today, when you enter the Single Carrot facility, you see beside the door a placard announcing an affiliation even more powerful in Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University. It’s an instance of what Rauh calls “cultural capital.”
Single Carrot’s new season, its eighth, is announced on its website, and the shows it promises continue to be things most of the audience has never heard of. But that lack of familiarity is not (as might be the case if Kwei-Armah tried to make Center Stage too breathtakingly original) the kiss of death. Rather it is the biggest reason why we can be pretty certain there will be a sixteenth season eventually.
Which is not to say that Center Stage is not part of the story of Single Carrot’s success. Center Stage receives hundreds of scripts a year, many of them promising but not right for the company that is formally designated “The State Theater of Maryland.” Gavin Witt, Center Stage’s Associate Artistic Director, who knows what the Carrots do, forwards many promising scripts to the Carrots.
Growing a Fringe
Ian Gallanar, Founding Director of the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company, which has moved to Baltimore this year after eleven years performing in the exurbs of Howard County, speaks admiringly of the Single Carrot troupe: “Single Carrot came in and they went: ‘This is how you do it,’” he says. “And because of that,” there were suddenly a lot of fringe troupes out there.
Some shy away from the “fringe” label, but it is useful. It refers to organizations that from bylaws or tax returns might look like community theaters, but somehow aren’t. Their actors and staffs are generally unpaid like the actors and staffs of community theaters. But fringe companies are informed by a kind of vision that makes the “community theater” label seem inadequate, even inaccurate. Typically they serve a particular vision or speak for a particular slice of the community only. Thus there is the Strand Theater Company (specializing in works by and about women), Iron Crow Theatre (“a queer theatre celebrating the renegade and the unorthodox, in all of us”), Glass Mind Theatre (“exploring the boundaries of the theatrical experience through interactive concepts”), and the Baltimore Rock Opera Society (“LET’S PARTY!!!!”) Center Stage’s Stephen Richard observes that he does not know of any city with a vibrant theater scene of which this kind of presence is not an element. Baltimore now has it.
The Bard’s New Home
Chesapeake Shakespeare’s Gallanar immediately follows up on his “this is how you do it” observation with the caution that it is exceedingly hard for fringe companies to summon the business savvy that made Single Carrot’s transformation into an institution possible. When he talks about the business savvy it takes to institutionalize a theater company, he speaks with authority attested to by the setting in which we’re talking: the first balcony of the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company’s new home in a former bank in downtown Baltimore.
Below us the set for the house’s third production is in rudimentary construction. We can look almost directly down because this space is deliberately configured to be highly reminiscent of the Bard’s “wooden O, with the stage thrust forward into the middle of the circle, so that it is three-quarters in-the-round, and nearly as close to the balcony and second balcony as it is to the groundlings. Above the Corinthian columns that hold up the high ceiling are highly ornate and brightly-colored squares of plasterwork. The theater is simply a knockout.
Gallanar agrees that the new theater not only permits but indeed requires a significant expansion of the repertoire. Once you have a facility that can do shows year round, you cannot just have it empty. More shows in that space is a “consummation devoutly to be wished.” Two months earlier, I had attended press night for the very first show there, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a production so good I went back and saw it again on my own nickel.
Apart from the fact that Single Carrot and Chesapeake Shakespeare have spanking new digs, they might appear to be artistic antitheses. The Single Carrot troupe look like and prize the mystique of artistic insurrectionists from the far west; Chesapeake Shakespeare, under the guidance of Managing Director Lesley Malin (whom I credit for the best Beatrice I ever saw) is heavily classically-trained. The Single Carrots’ most conventional production may have been a Vaclav Havel work in which they switched around the gender roles to make it more subversive. William Shakespeare, for all his “infinite variety,” generally remains the ultimate safe choice for theatrical programming. True, Chesapeake Shakespeare’s version of anything by Shakespeare, replete with musicians, warm-up acts, encouragement to take drinks to seats, may be what Malin calls “Shakespeare for Baltimore,” and a bit distinct from what one might experience in Washington’s two Shakespeare venues. But at the end of the day, it is still Shakespeare (and assorted other mostly classical playwrights, e.g. Wilde and Chekov this season).
And yet the differences may be more superficial than one would expect.
Partly there is the history each company shares of wandering “in the wilderness” that preceded the triumphant entry into these two new facilities. Single Carrot’s hegira has already been described. In a similar vein, Chesapeake Shakespeare offered summer performances outdoors under the isolated ruins (reachable mainly by shuttle bus) of a 19th-century young ladies’ finishing school high above the Patapsco River, and in other seasons (when there were other seasons) peripatetically. (I once saw them do Merchant of Venice in the upper loft of a barn. While the summer shows in the ruins will continue, the barnstorming is over.)
Then too the companies share audiences that skew younger than most. This is predictable with a fringe company made up of young people, but somewhat surprising with a troupe that mainly does plays in an archaic form of our language written over four hundred years ago. It is reported, however, that Shakespeare companies everywhere do well with younger audiences, perhaps because rightly or wrongly Shakespeare is often viewed as “safe” to take young people to. As Gallanar and Malin each pointed out to me, the result of Shakespeare’s universal popularity is that most cities have at least one Shakespeare company, and there is a league of Shakespeare theaters.
And like Single Carrot, Chesapeake Shakespeare has been forced to go the non-Equity route (for the most part: there may be one or two Equity “guest contracts” now and again). In his comments to me, Vince Lancisi regretted that all the professional companies in town could not be Equity, and he hopes that someday they all will be. And there are subtle quality differences one can sense when the company is comprised exclusively of actors who have gone through the career screening that an Equity membership bespeaks. That should not obscure Baltimore’s good fortune, however, to have four professional companies, three of them repertory, each with its own impressive house. It is also Baltimore’s good fortune to have them synergizing so well (whether it be through sharing chairs or scripts or filing cabinets or simply turning up at each other’s opening nights, which to my observation is becoming something of a custom in Baltimore of late).
Amateurs in Name Only
But wait, as a commercial might say, there’s more! I would not want to suggest that the only reason Baltimore has transformed itself into a theater town is these four professional companies, nor these plus the three new theaters, nor even all of that plus the emergence of a more pronounced fringe. It is these things plus everything else, much of which is happening in the world around.
You can actually see this more clearly below the professional level. Go back and read the cast blurbs in a Baltimore community theater program from the 1980s, and then look at the blurbs in a program from the same company today or better yet one of the fringe companies. Odds are you will observe in progress the professionalization of the nominally amateur sphere. Once, the actors’ and directors’ credentials consisted mainly of other community theater roles. Today, the brief resumes are apt to reflect those roles still but also some academic training or significant professional experience. The increasing frequency of BFAs and formal training may well be the consequence of the academic programs turning out more trainees and graduates than the market can bear. (A universal lament among the theater managers I spoke to was the supreme difficulty of making a living as a theater professional.)
And in the Baltimore area, there are some academic significant players, including in Washington the programs at Catholic, George Washington, Georgetown, and American Universities, and more locally University of Maryland Baltimore County (which has its own gleaming new theater), Towson University, and Goucher College (seedbed of the previously mentioned Baltimore Rock Opera Society), not to mention Notre Dame University of Maryland and historically black Morgan State University. And at least at the musical end of the spectrum, it also reflects the new professional venues which have emerged into greater prominence in recent years: theme parks and cruise lines among them. Everyone is just getting better at the game. (And even at the professional level, Malin observed that the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company “require[s] a different kind of actor now.”)
A Golden Age of Playwriting, a Bumper Crop of Critics
And the game is getting better too. By common consensus among the people I talked with, the country is in the midst of what Lancisi call “the golden age of playwrights.” In a world that is giving us people like Lynn Nottage, Lee Blessing, Theresa Rebeck, Naomi Wallace, Kate Moira Ryan, Michael Weller, Lisa D’Amour, Bruce Norris, Doug Wright, Jason Robert Brown, Christopher Durang, Sarah Ruhl, Donald Margulies, Tracy Letts and Colman Domingo, just to name a few new playwrights recently produced in Baltimore or its immediate environs, and Amy Herzog, who will see two plays produced by Center Stage in 2015, there is so much exciting material that it is just hard to go wrong using it, and there is a vast pool of playwriting talent out there that has not even been tapped in Baltimore yet (see my reviews of the nearby Contemporary American Theater Festival in 2012 and 2014 in these pages for numerous cases in point). The juggernaut is still picking up steam.
Nor should the impact of the somewhat expanding local theatrical commentariat be ignored. Theater is a dialogue between performers and audience, as we well know, but it is also a dialogue between performers and reviewers. The Internet, though deeply implicated in the decline of the press, has in this particular probably given back more than it took away. Between my previous stint as local critic and my new one, there have emerged five on-line publications that regularly review theater locally: not only my own home, BroadwayWorld.com, but also Maryland Theatre Guide, the Baltimore Post Examiner, and two DC-based sites: DC Metro Theatre Arts, and DC Theatre Scene. The fact that these are not paper publications has facilitated broader coverage. BroadwayWorld alone, for instance, has five or six reviewers working in Baltimore at any given time, and we still do not cover everything that is happening. No physical newspaper could ever give space to so many reviewers or provide such deep coverage. Add to the online commentary the remainders of the conventional press (the Baltimore Sun, the Baltimore City Paper, and one or two paper publications plus a broadcaster or two), and there is more than a sufficiency, if not yet a plethora, of reviewing voices, some quite sophisticated, poking and prodding the artistic directors and actors and directors and keeping them grounded. (Or at least so I, as one of the reviewers, would like to think.)
Growth at the Edges
Even at the extreme edges, expansion goes on. For instance, the expanding art burlesque scene, with roots in the theatrical tradition of revue as well as striptease, shares facilities, performers, and audiences with the theater fringe and the community theater. Or, at the other extreme, the Baltimore Symphony orchestra now has its own playwright-in-residence, Didi Balle. (I recently witnessed her short play about Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony, presented in conjunction with a performance of the symphony itself.)
The future promises more and better. For example, plans, perhaps over-ambitious, perhaps not, have been announced for a theater incubator project on Howard street that would provide a home for five fringe-y companies: Annex Theater, EMP Collective, Effervescent Collective, Stillpointe Theatre, Acme Corporation, and Psychic Readings.
As Elliott Rauh summed it up, Baltimore has “great arts funding, a welcoming arts community, a big city with a small city feel, and a place where we as artists can afford to live and be artists and make the work we want to.” Baltimore has benefitted now from a generation of what Lancisi called “blood, sweat, tears, and development,” development that included the contributions of people Lancisi calls “cultural philanthropists” like the late Tana Hicken, who donated performances of The Belle of Amherst to raise money for the new theater, and held bake sales to boot.
As the joke goes, after a while you’re talking about real money. You’re talking about a foundation so broad a great many things can rest on it. And that, I think, is the not terribly secret, not terribly original explanation of Baltimore’s new “overnight” status as a theater town: it was the work of three generations at least: one to build the community theaters, one to build Center Stage, and one to build almost everything else upon that foundation. And if you were sleeping like Rip Van Winkle, you might have missed it.
Copyright (c) Jack L. B. Gohn
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Why Not Me?
An excerpt from Why Not Me?
One evening last year, I was onstage at a Q&A in Manhattan hosted by a magazine to discuss my life and career. This was one of those fancy events where ticket prices are high, and there’s wine and cheese beforehand, and cocktails, but no real meal is served at any point. It made you wish you had just shushed the naysayers and brought three hot little sliders in your clutch to nibble at opportune moments. No one else seemed to mind the lack of food, though, because the theater was packed, primarily with an older, mostly white crowd.
I was very tired. I had filmed a full week on the show, traveled on a red-eye from Los Angeles, done press all day, and arrived at the theater. It would be the last hurdle before I could go back to my hotel, take off my pants, and eat a room-service club sandwich while I watched syndicated reruns of The Big Bang Theory. Sheldon’s sweet bazinga! would lull me to sleep, as is always my preference.
At the end of the interview, the moderator opened the floor to the audience. I noticed that the small group of people who lined up to ask me questions looked very different from the majority of the crowd. They were mostly young women of color. After a few people went, a young Indian girl stepped forward to take the microphone. She looked about fifteen, and not only out of place in that crowd but also a little young to be asking a question in front of such a big audience. I think she felt it, too, because I could see from the stage that she was shaking. After a moment of nervous silence, she asked, “Mindy, where do you get your confidence? Because I feel like I used to have it when I was younger but now I don’t.”
Context is so important. If this question had been asked by a white man, I might actually have been offended, because the subtext of it would have been completely different. When an adult white man asks me “Where do you get your confidence?” the tacit assumption behind it is: “Because you don’t look like a person who should have any confidence. You’re not white, you’re not a man, and you’re not thin or conventionally attractive. How were you able to overlook these obvious shortcomings to feel confident? ”
But this wasn’t coming from a white man. This was coming from a vulnerable young girl who thought that maybe, when I was her age, I too had faced similar obstacles. All she wanted was guidance, or maybe a little empathy.
My answer was not very good. My tiredness betrayed me, and I think I said something like: “Wow, I don’t know. I think it’s from my parents always telling me I could do anything. I wish I had a better answer for you.” I wished her good luck, and she nodded politely and said thank you.
When I get asked the same question over and over for years, the words of my answer begin to lose their meaning, even for me. Talking about confidence has become, to me, like listening to the flight attendant go through the in-flight passenger safety announcements. I could be leafing through a copy of American Way as I speak. I open my mouth and glib phrases like “supportive parents” and “strong sense of self” leak out. People seem mollified, but who knows? Maybe they are tuning me out too.
As I watched her walk back to her seat, a wave of guilty regret hit me. This girl had done a lot to summon up the courage to ask a question, and she didn’t even want anything in return other than my honest answer. She didn’t want a selfie or for me to read her script, or to call her cousin’s friend who loved The Office so she could tell me, “No, I loved Office Space. Were you in that? ” She just wanted me to give her practical advice, and I answered in a way that was technically true but did not offer a lot of insight. And everyone had been fine with it.
And that really sucks. Because then why am I even speaking on panels in the first place?
So this essay is for that girl who went out of her way to be vulnerable in front of so many people, to whom I gave such a shitty, unhelpful response. Because I’ve thought about it now and I have my real answer. Hopefully she hasn’t stopped liking me and moved on to Laverne Cox, though if she did, how could I blame her? She seems inspirational as hell and her legs are like whoa.
For the record, I, like everyone else, have had moments when I felt unattractive and stupid and unskilled. When I started at The Office, I had zero confidence. Whenever Greg Daniels came into the room to talk to our small group of writers, I was so nervous that I would raise and lower my chair involuntarily, like a tic. Finally, weeks in, writer Mike Schur put his hand on my arm and said, gently, “You have to stop.” Years later I realized that the way I had felt during those first few months was correct. I didn’t deserve to be confident yet. I happen to believe that no one inherently deserves anything, except basic human rights, and not to have to watch an ad before you watch a trailer on YouTube.
So here it is: Mindy Kaling’s No Fail, Always Works, Secret Guide to Confidence. This is why you spent your entire vacation reading this book instead of talking to your family.
Confidence is just entitlement. Entitlement has gotten a bad rap because it’s used almost exclusively for the useless children of the rich, reality TV stars, and Conrad Hilton Jr., who gets kicked off an airplane for smoking pot in the lavatory and calling people peasants or whatever. But entitlement in and of itself isn’t so bad. Entitlement is simply the belief that you deserve something. Which is great. The hard part is, you’d better make sure you deserve it. So, how did I make sure that I deserved it?
To answer that, I would like to quote from the Twitter bio of one of my favorite people, Kevin Hart. It reads:
My name is Kevin Hart and I WORK HARD!!! That pretty much sums me up!!! Everybody Wants To Be Famous But Nobody Wants To Do The Work!
HARD WORK; OR, THE THING NO ONE WANTS TO HEAR ABOUT
People talk about confidence without ever bringing up hard work. That’s a mistake. I know I sound like some dour older spinster chambermaid on Downton Abbey who has never felt a man’s touch and whose heart has turned to stone, but I don’t understand how you could have self-confidence if you don’t do the work.
I work a lot. Like, a lot a lot. I feel like I must have been watching TV as a kid and that cartoon parable about the industrious ants and the lazy grasshopper came on at a vital moment when my soft little brain was hardening, and the moral of it was imprinted on me. The result of which is that I’m usually hyper-prepared for whatever I set my mind to do, which makes me feel deserving of attention and professional success, when that’s what I’m seeking.
I didn’t always feel this way. When I was a kid, I thought I could cruise through life and get ahead on charm, like a little Indian Ferris Bueller. In the summer after fourth grade, my parents enrolled me in a two-week-long basketball camp. If it surprises you that a girl with my build was interested in basketball, it should. But I was, because I had a fantasy that I was in Hang Time. And I was terrible. I could’ve gotten better, but I didn’t want to do drills. I just wanted to play pickup games, socialize, and drink Gatorade. I never wanted to practice. At the end of the two-week camp, I was no better at basketball. But at the farewell ceremony, trophies were handed out and I got one for “Coolest Clothes.” I ran home, delighted, and placed it proudly on top of our TV for all to see.
Weeks later, I went to the TV room to find that it was gone. My beautiful trophy! Was it stolen by a gang of criminals jealous of my peach denim shorts from the Limited Too?! Mom told me she had “put it away.” I didn’t understand. Someone had singled me out for praise and the trophy deserved to be seen. Then my mom said something to me, slowly and carefully, like she always did to make sure I was really listening: “They gave you that trophy so you wouldn’t feel bad, not because you deserved it. You should know the difference.”
I was of course incredibly hurt and thought Mom was nuts. I thought, there’s a great deal of value in being well dressed at basketball day camp. It keeps morale up and adds a sense of cheeky fun to the whole day. Later, I realized what she had said was true. A bunch of unearned trophies around the house would make me hooked on awards, which is bad in general, but especially bad if you don’t deserve them. The whole experience made me want to win another trophy, but win it for actually doing something great.
Hard work is such a weird thing. As children and teenagers you are told it’s a really good thing, but for adults it suddenly becomes the worst thing in the world.
We do a thing in America, which is to label people “workaholics” and tell them that work is ruining their lives. It’s such a wide-spread opinion that it seems like the premise to every indie movie is “Workaholic mom comes home to find that her entire family hates her. It’s not until she cuts back on work, smokes a little pot, and takes up ballroom dancing classes with her neglected husband that she realizes what is truly important in life. Not work.” Working parents have now eclipsed shady Russian-esque operatives as America’s most popular choice of movie villain. And to some degree, I understand why the trope exists. It probably resonates because most people in this country hate their jobs. The economies of entire countries like Turks and Caicos are banking on US citizens hating their jobs and wanting to get away from it all. And I understand that. But it’s a confusing message for kids.
The reason I’m bringing this up is not to defend my status as someone who always works. (I swear I’m not that Tiger Mom lady! I don’t think you need to play piano for eleven hours with no meals! Or only watch historical movies, then write reports on them for me to read and grade!) It’s just that, the truth is, I have never, ever, ever met a highly confident and successful person who is not what a movie would call a “workaholic.” We can’t have it both ways, and children should know that.
Because confidence is like respect; you have to earn it.
THE TINIEST BIT OF BRAVERY
For those of you who would like to have less confidence, one way is to constantly read about how people think you suck. Or to hear people say stuff like “She’s just not a star.” And I hear that all the time. It’s especially hard, when you hear these things every day, to want to keep putting yourself out there. People’s reaction to me is sometimes “Uch, I just don’t like her. I hate how she thinks she is so great.” But it’s not that I think I’m so great. I just don’t hate myself. I do idiotic things all the time and I say crazy stuff I regret, but I don’t let everything traumatize me. And the scary thing I have noticed is that some people really feel uncomfortable around women who don’t hate themselves. So that’s why you need to be a little bit brave.
People marvel that I am on TV because I don’t look like other people who have been on TV. And to some degree, I get it. I like the way I look, but I’m not, like, someone you could see effectively playing Brookshelle LeFemme on Pretty Lying Children or whatever.
One of the unexpected and wonderfully fair things I have learned in my career is that if Hollywood were filled just with perfect-looking people, then soap operas would be the most- watched things in the world. But they’re not. Looks are great, but they’re not compelling enough. I’ve noticed that successful actors with long careers are usually talented actors with charismatic screen presences, and all of them must exude one thing: confidence. Yes, a lot of them are good-looking, but from my eleven years in Hollywood, I have learned a secret: “good-looking” by Hollywood standards is achievable by every human on the planet. Every average-looking American is just a treadmill and six laser hair removal sessions away from looking like Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively (who are a great couple, by the way).
So that’s what I think whenever I read something like: “How’d this chick get a job? I guess they’re just giving away shows to every overweight minority woman who wants one now? Hahaha.” So even though that hurts my feelings, I’m smart enough to realize, Oh, this poor dummy doesn’t understand the way Hollywood works. Then I think of ways that I would beat him to death with my SAG Award.
Which is why you need the tiniest bit of bravery. People get scared when you try to do something, especially when it looks like you’re succeeding. People do not get scared when you’re failing. It calms them. That’s why the show Intervention is a hit and everyone loves “worrying about” Amanda Bynes. But when you’re winning, it makes them feel like they’re losing or, worse yet, that maybe they should’ve tried to do something too, but now it’s too late. And since they didn’t, they want to stop you. You can’t let them.
WE CAN DO IT! NO, I’M SERIOUS. WE REALLY CAN!
A general assumption about confidence is that women, particularly young women, will have very little of it, and girls will have zero of it. Just the attitude alone makes me sad: “We have to help our girls and teach them to be confident.” Well, guess what, young girls. You aren’t damsels in distress. You aren’t hostages to the words of your peers. You aren’t the victims that even your well- meaning teachers and advocates think you are.
We just assume boys will be confident, like how your parents assume you will brush your teeth every morning without checking in on you in the bathroom. With girls, that assumption flies out the window. Suddenly, your parents are standing in the bathroom with you, watching you brush your teeth with encouraging, worried expressions on their faces. Sweetheart, you can do it! We know it’s hard to brush your teeth! We love you! Which must make girls think, Yikes. Is brushing your teeth a really hard and scary thing to do? I thought it was just putting toothpaste on a toothbrush. I get worried that telling girls how difficult it is to be confident implies a tacit expectation that girls won’t be able to do it.
The good news is that, as a country, we are all about telling girls to be confident. It’s our new national pastime. Every day I see Twitter posts, Instagram campaigns, and hashtags that say things like “We Will!” or “Girls Can!” or “Me Must, I Too!” on them. I think widespread, online displays of female self-confidence are good for people, especially men, to see. I just sometimes get the sneaking suspicion that corporations are co-opting “girl confidence” language to rally girls into buying body wash. Be careful.
So, if that girl from the panel is reading this, I would like to say to her: Hi, it’s Mindy Kaling. I’m sorry I let you down. The thing is, I’m in my mid-thirties and I was wearing my Spanx for fourteen hours straight. You’ll understand when you’re older. Here’s how I think you can get your confidence back, kid:
Work hard, know your shit, show your shit, and then feel entitled. Listen to no one except the two smartest and kindest adults you know, and that doesn’t always mean your parents. If you do that, you will be fine. Now, excuse me, I need to lie down and watch Sheldon.
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Tuesday's Broadcast Ratings: "America's Got Talent" Continues Its Reign for NBC
By The Futon Critic Staff (TFC)
Primetime Preliminary Fast National Nielsen Data
(includes all DVR playback through 3:00 am)
Here are the highlights of the 14 ad-sustained programs that aired in primetime on the broadcast networks last night (7/5/16):
NBC (9.868 million viewers, #1; adults 18-49: 2.1, #1) was still the top draw on Tuesday with new episodes from "America's Got Talent" (12.573 million viewers, #1; adults 18-49: 2.6, #1) and "Maya & Marty" (4.459 million viewers, #5; adults 18-49: 1.0, #T2).
ABC (3.550 million viewers, #3; adults 18-49: 0.9, #2) then took home the silver with its mix of "The Middle" (3.420 million viewers, #7; adults 18-49: 0.7, #T8), "Black-ish" (2.624 million viewers, #10; adults 18-49: 0.6, #11), a new "Uncle Buck" (3.235 million viewers, #9; adults 18-49: 0.9, #5), the season finale of "Uncle Buck" (3.258 million viewers, #8; adults 18-49: 1.0, #T2) and an original "To Tell the Truth" (4.381 million viewers, #6; adults 18-49: 1.0, #T2).
Meanwhile, CBS (5.659 million viewers, #2; adults 18-49: 0.8, #3) offered up a repeat "NCIS" (6.749 million viewers, #2; adults 18-49: 0.8, #T6), week two of "Zoo" (4.991 million viewers, #4; adults 18-49: 0.8, #T6) and a repeat "NCIS: New Orleans" (5.239 million viewers, #3; adults 18-49: 0.7, #T8).
Next up was FOX (1.555 million viewers, #4; adults 18-49: 0.5, #4) with second runs of "Hotel Hell" (1.999 million viewers, #11; adults 18-49: 0.7, #T8) and "Coupled" (1.110 million viewers, #12; adults 18-49: 0.4, #12).
And finally, a repeat "The Flash" (0.929 million viewers, #13; adults 18-49: 0.2, #T13) and a new "Containment" (0.820 million viewers, #14; adults 18-49: 0.2, #T13) on The CW (0.874 million viewers, #5; adults 18-49: 0.2, #5) closed out the night.
Week-to-week changes (adults 18-49):
+8.33% - America's Got Talent
0.00% - To Tell the Truth
0.00% - Uncle Buck - 9:30
0.00% - Containment
-9.09% - Maya & Marty (vs. 6/21/16)
-11.11% - Zoo
-18.18% - Uncle Buck
Year-to-year changes (adults 18-49):
+66.67% - To Tell the Truth (vs. Extreme Weight Loss)
+66.67% - Uncle Buck - 9:30 (vs. Extreme Weight Loss)
+18.18% - America's Got Talent
-33.33% - Maya & Marty (vs. Hollywood Game Night)
-50.00% - Containment (vs. iZombie (Repeat))
In late-night metered market ratings (via NBC's press release):
· In Nielsen's 56 metered markets (the Dallas market is currently excluded), household results were: "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon," 1.9/5 with an encore telecast; "Late Show with Stephen Colbert," 1.7/4 with an encore; and ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live," 1.6/4 with an encore.
· In the 25 markets with Local People Meters, adult 18-49 results were: "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon," 0.7/4 with an encore; "Late Show," 0.3/2 with an encore; and "Jimmy Kimmel Live," 0.5/3 with an encore.
· From 12:35-1:05 a.m. ET, ABC's "Nightline," averaged a 1.1/4 in metered-market households and a 0.3/2 in 18-49 in the Local People Meters.
· From 12:35-1:35 a.m. ET, "Late Night with Seth Meyers" (0.9/3 in metered-market households with an encore) beat CBS's "Late Late Show" (0.8/3 with an encore). In the 25 markets with Local People Meters, "Late Night" (0.3/3 in 18-49 with an encore) topped "Late Late Show" (0.2/1 with an encore).
· At 1:35 a.m., "Last Call with Carson Daly" averaged a 0.6/2 in metered-market households with an encore and a 0.2/2 in adults 18-49 in the 25 markets with local people meters.
Here are the highlights of the 12 ad-sustained programs that aired in primetime on the broadcast networks one year ago (7/7/15):
NBC (8.711 million viewers, #1; adults 18-49: 2.0, #1) was the network to beat on Tuesday with a new "America's Got Talent" (10.358 million viewers, #1; adults 18-49: 2.2, #1) and the return of "Hollywood Game Night" (5.416 million viewers, #5; adults 18-49: 1.5, #2).
The silver then went to CBS (6.999 million viewers, #2; adults 18-49: 0.9, #2) with a repeat "NCIS" (7.481 million viewers, #3; adults 18-49: 0.8, #T4), week two of "Zoo" (7.530 million viewers, #2; adults 18-49: 1.1, #3) and a repeat "NCIS: New Orleans" (5.987 million viewers, #4; adults 18-49: 0.8, #T4).
Next up was ABC (2.269 million viewers, #3; adults 18-49: 0.6, #3) and repeats of "Fresh Off the Boat" (2.865 million viewers, #6; adults 18-49: 0.6, #T6) and "Black-ish" (2.603 million viewers, #7; adults 18-49: 0.6, #T6) followed by a new "Extreme Weight Loss" (2.036 million viewers, #9; adults 18-49: 0.6, #T6).
Meanwhile, FOX (2.068 million viewers, #4; adults 18-49: 0.5, #4) served up a new "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" (2.463 million viewers, #8; adults 18-49: 0.6, #T6) and a special repeat "Bullseye" (1.672 million viewers, #10; adults 18-49: 0.5, #10).
And finally, repeats of "The Flash" (1.439 million viewers, #11; adults 18-49: 0.4, #T11) and "iZombie" (0.941 million viewers, #12; adults 18-49: 0.4, #T11) on The CW (1.190 million viewers, #5; adults 18-49: 0.4, #5) closed out the evening. In the netlet's target demo (women 18-34), the former posted a 0.3 rating while the latter delivered a 0.3 rating.
-8.33% - America's Got Talent
-8.33% - Zoo
-14.29% - Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? (vs. 6/23/15)
-14.29% - Extreme Weight Loss
+29.41% - America's Got Talent (vs. America's Got Talent (Repeat))
+22.22% - Zoo (vs. NCIS: Los Angeles (Repeat))
+15.38% - Hollywood Game Night (vs. The Night Shift)
+9.09% - Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? (vs. Various (Repeats))
-40.00% - Extreme Weight Loss (vs. Extreme Weight Loss/Celebrity Wife Swap)
Source: Nielsen Media Research
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College Basketball Players Contract Negotiation Corporate Sponsors Endorsements International Basketball NBA Players NBA Teams Sports Agents Sports Business
Ball Brothers Planning To Sign With Raymond Brothers, Roc Nation Sports
Per Jonathan Givony of ESPN, the highly acclaimed Ball brothers have become the latest to join the sports management division of Jay Z’s Roc Nation. Lonzo, LiAngelo, and LaMelo will be represented by Raymond Brothers, who was recently hired as Director of Basketball and Sports Technology/Specialty Projects. Roc Nation Sports represents many NBA players, including Kyrie Irving, Spencer Dinwiddie, and Danny Green. LaMelo Ball looks to join the ranks ahead of the NBA Draft while Lonzo is already in his third pro season.
Many have pinned LaMelo as the potential #1 overall pick after he spent some time playing for the Illawarra Hawks in Australia. He turned down the opportunity to play college basketball, opting for the National Basketball League (NBL) instead. Rumors circulated that LaMelo and his manager Jermaine Jackson purchased the Hawks franchise. However, the NBL released a statement indicating a deal has not been finalized: “The league can confirm LaMelo Ball and his management had discussions about being involved with the club while he was playing in the NBL last season. At this point we are continuing to work with current license holder Simon Stratford on a number of options for what we hope will be a fruitful outcome for Illawarra and the NBL.”
Lonzo Ball, who plays guard for the New Orleans Pelicans, previously signed with Creative Artists Agency (CAA), but the two parted ways earlier this year in March. This came on the heels of Lonzo severing ties with Alan Foster, co-founder of the sneaker and apparel company, Big Baller Brand, over a missing $1.5 million and concerns about the business manager’s criminal past, ESPN reported. This year, Lonzo was enjoying his best professional season before Commissioner Adam Silver announced league postponement. He was averaging 12 points, 7 assists, and 6 rebounds per game while starting in 84% of games. Lonzo, pictured below, was the #2 overall pick in 2017 yet may have been picked too late to hold bragging rights over brother LaMelo. LiAngelo is a member of the G League’s Oklahoma City Blue.
Jermaine Jackson made a statement to ESPN regarding the family’s decision to sign with Roc Nation Sports. “This was a family decision. This is now an extended family. They put together a beautiful game plan with Jay-Z. The basketball game is about to change. They are going to create something totally new.”
“We talked to several agents, but the family had good vibes with Roc Nation,” Jackson added. “I’ve known Jay-Z since I played for the Knicks, but this is what the kids wanted to do. Jay-Z is a master at what he does. He’s global. It’s power beyond power.”
According to Givony, Roc Nation will be tasked with negotiating marketing opportunities, including LaMelo Ball’s sneaker contract. Jay-Z was named creative director of Puma Basketball in June 2018, but, according to Jackson, the Balls are speaking to several sneaker companies vying for LaMelo’s endorsement.
This has been a busy month for Roc Nation Sports. Their recent NFL Draft class featured top-10 picks Andrew Thomas and C.J. Henderson, selected by the Giants and Jaguars, respectively. Now, the high-profile Ball family has joined the ranks.
Tags Jay-z, LaMelo Ball, LiAngelo Ball, Lonzo Ball, Raymond Brothers, Roc Nation Sports
By Jason Morrin
Jason is a second-year law student at the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University. He graduated from Indiana University.
Twitter: @Jmorr1 Email: Jasonmorrin97@gmail.com
← How Will Brands Adopt The College Athlete? → CAA’s Todd France Scores Win In Case Concerning Kenny Golladay
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079-26435555 | 079-26436666
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Institute of Medical Sciences and Research is a 1500 bedded multispeciality hospital and medical college. The hospital is the country’s first and largest public hospital made of steel. At 78 m in height, it’s Gujarat’s tallest hospital, and built within 1.10 lakh square meters. SVP is designed as per the Joint Commission International (JCI) standards In case of emergency, patients are relocated to a safer place in a short span of time, which has 18 floors, 2 basements, and a helipad. The only hospital to have physiotherapy, medical, and nursing college on the same campus, with separate hostel for boys and girls which can accommodate 550 students.
To be the most affordable and the best in class healthcare service provider in Gujarat.
To excel in providing hospital services in a transparent and inclusive manner.
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Institute of Medical Sciences & Research was selected the Winner for the Best Steel Building in Public Sector.
The peacock plume of health consists of the four pillars of healthcare that SVP believes in Excellence,Trust, Transparency and Inclusion The four pillars come together to form the medical cross. Drawn from the heritage of Gujarat, the peacock plume with its different hues embodies the spirit of inclusion. Our Brand Mark is our signature and represents who we are.
of the Future, Today.
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Institute of Medical Sciences and Research (SVPIMSR) is a new super specialties teaching hospital, showing the way to the nation by transforming healthcare in every direction.
svpimsr@gmail.com
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Institue of Medical Sciences and Research (SVPIMSR)
Ellisbridge, Ahmedabad, Gujarat 380006
Copyright © Amdavad Municipal Corporation
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Flyers struggle out of the gate
Posted on Monday, May 7, 2018 by WCHL Hockey
This Week in Philadelphia
Season 27 in the WCHL is underway and exactly one week old. The Flyers coming off a solid preseason were hoping for a fast start out of the gate. The Flyers opened at home against Boston, it what can only be described as a forgettable experience for the home crowd. The Flyers were a no show as they gave up almost 40 shots and were shutout 4-0. The second game of the season on the road to Long Island the boys produced a better effort, but still lost in the shootout 4-3.
Coach Wilson
" This certainly wasn't the kind of effort I was looking for, giving up four goals a game will get you a nice long vacation come playoff time and we need a better effort from our top two lines and between the pipes."
In game three the Flyers put together a really solid game in front of the hometowners, outshooting Columbus 41-25 and coming away with a 3-2 win. McDavid finally had his first point of the season, as the Flyers were a pedestrian 1-1-1. Game four was the first explosion of the offense and McDavid. On the road in Buffalo the Flyers, ran away with the game 7-1, thanks in large part to a six point night by McDavid including a hat trick. It is noteworthy to point out McDavid was named team Captain just prior to the start of the regular season.
Conner McDavid
" No question I have been a little snake bit to start the season, I was holding the stick a little to tight, I just felt a lot of pressure to perform at my best, I was not playing relaxed hockey, but Saad and Osh brought me around, this after all is a team game. When the group chooses you as their Captain, you just want to be what they expect."
The Flyers performance in game four carried over into game 5, as the Flyers travelled to Washington. The Flyers had not won a game against the Caps in almost two seasons. In a barn burner, up and down at break neck kind of tilt, the Flyers managed to keep pace with the high flying Caps and come away with a 6-5, shootout victory. The Flyers outshot Washington 51-36.
GM Bourque
" Corey getting chased after 4 goals on 12 shots, was not a good sign, he doesn't look like his old self, but the fact that Grubauer stepped up and made 23 of 24 saves, that was big, especially the manner in which we clawed back into the game and eventually won it."
The Flyers won their third straight and third straight on the road, as they travelled to Tampa Bay for a match against the Lightning. Probably the most solid hockey game they have played to date. The Flyers won 4-2, in a game where shots were even and Crawford had a good outing saving 23 of 25 shots. At this point the Flyers were 4-1-1, with only 1 win coming at home. Unfortunately the Flyers returned home and despite out shooting Carolina 38-31, they dropped a 6-1 decision to the Canes. Once again Crawford was chased from the net in front of the home crowd.
The end of the week saw the Flyers, with a record of 4-2-1, which is solid but those two losses were lob sided losses, making the record feel worse than it was. Goaltending has been an issue and it is an issue that need not exist. The Flyers look like a team that can produce offense, but they also look like a team that has not come close to its A game. Granted it's early and things can change.
" We will take it and we will work a little bit more on consistency, wild swings is not what we are looking for, we want to tighten this up and I believe we can."
....out for this week.....peace....
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Bride Shock Guests At Reception, Strips To Her Pants, Dances & Twerks With Husband (Photos+Video)
The wedding bride being ushered into the venue by the father
A very excited bride has given guests at her reception a night to remember after she stripped off her gown to reveal her underwear, as she dances and twerks for her husband
A woman is going viral after she gave her wedding guests enough memories to last a lifetime during her reception, ABC News reports.
Justin and Stephanie Payne, a Houston couple who met 8-years ago through mutual friends, were married on August 10 at Chateau Chrystale in the Westheimer area.
The wedding was nothing short of non-traditional. In fact, the bride wore two beautiful gowns: first, stunning the guests with a gold wedding gown, then entering the reception in a dazzling white floor-length dress. However, guests weren't prepared for later in the reception.
The wedding couple dancing at their reception
"I didn't want to get the traditional white gown, I actually wanted a red gown, red is both our favorite colors, so I said I'd find what I could find," Stephanie told Eyewitness News.
"I think they weren't expecting that. I don't think they were expecting anything that happened... I wanted to be different and untraditional, but most weddings I've seen, they didn't do any dress changes."
The bride re-entered the reception with shorts, a Mardi Gras mask, and moves that surely no one will ever forget. Needless to say, everyone was surprised.
The bride suddenly changed her dress and started dancing and twerking
"To be honest, I remember all the lights flashing from everybody cameras, everybody awing and everybody oohing, and stuff like that, and just the moment I see my husband there... I'm just gonna do what I'm gonna do. I wanted to wow him and I wanted everybody to be happy, and everyone to enjoy a good show," she said.
And as for the groom, he didn't miss a beat as his bride showed her moves. "He was in awe too. If you look at the video, he got into it, too," she said.
Some people had a different reaction to Stephanie's reception, saying that they thought it was inappropriate.
Stephanie says she would tell those people, "Why would I want to be like someone else? Where is the action? Where is the happiness? Where is the party at? Where is the celebration? It doesn't have to be mellow.
"Everything doesn't have to be so mediocre and to keep doing the same thing as tradition. Let's have a really good party. I'd tell them to be open-minded!"
Thankfully, the bride and groom were able to enjoy the beginning of forever in a fun, judgement-free zone surrounded by friends and loved ones.
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456 - Magister militum Ricimer defeats the Emperor Avitus at Piacenza and becomes master of the western Roman Empire.
1775 - Portland, Maine burned by the British.
1780 - Royalton, Vermont and Tunbridge, Vermont last major raid of the American Revolutionary War.
1781 - George Washington captures Yorktown, Virginia.
1793 - Marie Antoinette, wife of Louis XVI is guillotined at the height of the French Revolution.
1793 - Battle of Wattignies.
1813 - The Sixth Coalition attacks Napoleon Bonaparte in the Battle of Leipzig.
1834 - Much of the ancient structures of the Palace of Westminster in London is burnt down.
1841 - Queen's University is founded in Kingston, Ontario, Canada.
1843 - Sir William Rowan Hamilton comes up with the idea of quaternions, a non-commutative extension of complex numbers.
1859 - John Brown leads raid on Harper's Ferry, West Virginia
1869 - Cardiff Giant, one of the most famous American hoaxes, is discovered.
1869 - England's first residential college for women, Girton College, Cambridge, is founded.
1875 - Brigham Young University is founded in Provo, Utah.
1882 - The Nickel Plate Railroad opens for business.
1905 - The Partition of Bengal (India) occurred.
1906 - The Captain of Köpenick fools the city hall of Köpenick and several soldiers by impersonating a Prussian officer.
1916 - Margaret Sanger founds Planned Parenthood by opening the first U.S. birth control clinic.
1923 - The Walt Disney Company is founded by Walt Disney and his brother, Roy Disney.
1934 - Chinese Communists begin the Long March; it ended a year and four days later, by which time Mao Zedong had regained his title as party chairman.
1939 - World War II: First attack on British territory by German Luftwaffe.
1940 - Benjamin O. Davis Sr. named first African American general in the United States Army.
1940 - Warsaw Ghetto established.
1944 - First flight of the Junkers Ju 287.
1945 - The Food and Agriculture Organization was founded in Quebec City, Canada.
1946 - Ten war criminals of the Second World War, condemned in the Nuremberg trials are hanged.
1949 - Nikolaos Zachariadis, leader of the Communist Party of Greece, announces a "temporary cease-fire", effectively ending the Greek Civil War.
1951 - The first Prime Minister of Pakistan, Liaquat Ali Khan, is assassinated in Rawalpindi.
1961 - Cork Airport opened in Ireland.
1962 - Cuban Missile Crisis between the United States and Cuba began.
1964 - People's Republic of China detonates its first nuclear weapon.
1968 - United States athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos are kicked out of the USA's team for performing a Black Power salute during a medal ceremony.
1968 - Kingston, Jamaica is rocked by the Rodney Riots, inspired by the barring of Walter Rodney from the country.
1969 - United States - The "miracle" New York Mets win the World Series, defeating the Baltimore Orioles 4 games to 1.
1970 - Canada - In response to the October Crisis terrorist kidnapping, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau invokes the War Measures Act.
1972 - Rainbow, a British television programme for children, debuts. Emmerdale, the UK soap opera debuts.
1973 - Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho are awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
1975 - The Balibo Five, a group of Australian television journalists based in the town of Balibo in the then Portuguese Timor (now East Timor), are killed by Indonesian troops.
1978 - Karol Józef Wojtyła becomes Pope John Paul II.
1984 - Desmond Tutu is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Professional Wrestler Shawn Michaels made his debut.
1987 - Great Storm of 1987: hurricane force winds to hit much of the South of England killing 23 people.
1991 - Luby's massacre: George Hennard runs amok in Killeen, Texas, killing 23 and wounding 20 in Luby's Cafeteria.
1991 - Jharkhand Chhatra Yuva Morcha is founded at a conference in Ranchi, India.
1995 - The Million Man March occurs in Washington, DC.
1996 - Eighty-four people are killed and more than 180 injured as 47,000 football fans attempt to squeeze into the 36,000-seat Estadio Mateo Flores in Guatemala City.
2002 - Bibliotheca Alexandrina in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, a commemoration of the Library of Alexandria that was lost in antiquity, is officially inaugurated.
2002 - Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002, was signed into law by President George W. Bush.
1396 - William de la Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk, English soldier (d. 1450)
1430 - King James II of Scotland (d. 1460)
1483 - Gasparo Contarini, Italian diplomat and cardinal (d. 1542)
1535 - Niwa Nagahide, Japanese warlord (d. 1585)
1663 - Prince Eugene of Savoy, French-born Austrian general (d. 1736)
1710 - Andreas Hadik, Austro-Hungarian general (d. 1790)
1714 - Giovanni Arduino, Italian geologist (d. 1795)
1726 - Daniel Chodowiecki, Polish painter (d. 1801)
1752 - Johann Gottfried Eichhorn, German theologian (d. 1827)
1754 - Morgan Lewis, Governor of New York (1804-07) (d. 1844)
1758 - Noah Webster, American lexicographer (d. 1843)
1762 - Paul Hamilton, Governor of South Carolina (1804-06) and U.S. Secretary of Navy (1809-12) (d. 1816)
1789 - William Burton, Governor of Delaware (1859-63) (d. 1866)
1802 - Isaac Murphy, Governor of Arkansas (1864-68) (d. 1882)
1806 - William Pitt Fessenden, U.S. Secretary of Treasury (1864-65) (d. 1869)
1815 - Francis Lubbock, Governor of Texas (d. 1905)
1819 - Austin F. Pike, American politician from New Hampshire (d. 1886)
1840 - Kuroda Kiyotaka, Prime Minister of Japan (d. 1900)
1841 - Prince Hirobumi Ito, Japanese governor of Korea (d. 1909)
1854 - Oscar Wilde, Irish writer (d. 1900)
1854 - Karl Kautsky, Marxist theoretician (d. 1938)
1855 - Samedbey Mehmandarov, Russian general (d. 1931)
1861 - J. B. Bury, Irish historian (d. 1927)
1863 - Austen Chamberlain, English statesman, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1937)
1878 - Maxey Long, American athlete (d. 1959)
1886 - David Ben-Gurion, first Prime Minister of Israel (d. 1973)
1888 - Eugene O'Neill, American writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1953)
1888 - Paul Popenoe, American activist (d. 1979)
1890 - Michael Collins, Irish patriot (d. 1922)
1890 - Paul Strand, American photographer (d. 1975)
1897 - Louis de Cazenave, France's oldest living man
1898 - William O. Douglas, U.S. Supreme Court Justice (d. 1980)
1900 - Edward Ardizzone, artist and illustrator (d. 1979)
1900 - Primo Conti, Italian painter (d. 1988)
1903 - Cecile de Brunhoff, French storyteller (d. 2003)
1908 - Enver Hoxha, Albanian dictator (d. 1985)
1914 - Mohammed Zahir Shah, King of Afghanistan (d. 2007)
1917 - Alice Pearce, American actress (d. 1966)
1918 - Louis Althusser, French Marxist philosopher (d. 1990)
1919 - Kathleen Winsor, American writer (d. 2003)
1922 - Max Bygraves, English singer/songwriter
1922 - Leon Sullivan, American civil rights leader and pastor (d. 2001)
1923 - Bert Kaempfert, German orchestra leader and songwriter (d. 1980)
1923 - Linda Darnell, American film actress (d. 1965)
1925 - Angela Lansbury, English-born actress
1927 - Günter Grass, German writer, Nobel Prize laureate
1928 - Mary Daly, American feminist
1928 - Fernanda Montenegro, Brazilian actress
1928 - Ann Morgan Guilbert, American actress
1930 - Carmen Sevilla, Spanish actress
1931 - Charles Colson, American Watergate conspirator
1931 - James Chace, American historian (d. 2004)
1934 - Peter Ashdown, British racing driver
1936 - Andrei Chikatilo, Russian serial killer (d. 1994)
1936 - Akira Machida, Japanese judge
1936 - Peter Bowles, English actor
1938 - Nico (born Christa Päffgen; singer-songwriter, fashion model, actress) (d. 1988)
1938 - Carl Gunter Jr, Louisiana State Representative (d. 1999)
1940 - Barry Corbin, American actor
1940 - Dave DeBusschere, American basketball player (d. 2003)
1941 - Tim McCarver, baseball player and commentator
1943 - Fred Turner, Canadian bass player (Bachman-Turner Overdrive)
1946 - Suzanne Somers, American actress
1947 - Terry Griffiths, Welsh snooker player
1947 - Bob Weir, American musician (Grateful Dead)
1947 - David Zucker, American film director
1948 - Leo Mazzone, American baseball coach
1952 - Boogie Mosson, American musician (P Funk)
1952 - Ron Taylor, American actor (d. 2002)
1953 - Paulo Roberto Falcão, Brazilian footballer
1953 - Tony Carey, American-born rock keyboardist, producer (Rainbow, Planet P Project)
1954 - Stephen Mellor, American actor
1956 - Johnny Chavis, American football coach
1958 - Tim Robbins, American actor, director, and writer
1958 - Eleftheria Arvanitaki, Greek singer
1959 - Gary Kemp, British musician and actor
1959 - Erkki-Sven Tüür, Estonian composer
1959 - Brian Harper, baseball player
1960 - Bob Mould, American musician
1961 - Randy Vasquez, American actor
1961 - Marc Levy, French novelist
1962 - Flea, Australian musician (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
1962 - Manute Bol, Sudanese-born basketball player for the NBA
1962 - Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Russian baritone
1965 - Steve Lamacq, British journalist and disc jockey
1967 - Davina McCall, British television presenter
1967 - Tom Monaghan, founder of Dominos pizza
1968 - Randall Batinkoff, American actor
1968 - Elsa Zylberstein, French actress
1969 - Wendy Wilson, American pop singer (Wilson Phillips)
1969 - Roy Hargrove, American jazz trumpeter.
1970 - Mehmet Scholl, German footballer
1970 - Kazuyuki Fujita, Japanese professional wrestler and mixed martial arts fighter
1972 - Tomas Lindberg, Swedish musician (At the Gates)
1972 - Darius Kasparaitis, National Hockey League player
1973 - Chad Gray, American singer (Mudvayne)
1973 - Peter Polaco, American professional wrestler
1973 - David Unsworth, English professional footballer
1974 - Paul Kariya, Canadian hockey player
1974 - Deo Grech, Maltese television presenter, songwriter
1975 - Kellie Martin, American actress
1975 - Brynjar Gunnarsson, Icelandic footballer
1975 - Jacques Kallis, South African cricketer
1976 - Ryan Fitzgerald, Australian football (AFL) player and media personality
1977 - John Mayer, American musician
1977 - Jon Heder, American actor and filmmaker
1979 - Erin Brown, B-movie actress, model, filmmaker, former softcore erotic actress, and musician
1980 - Sue Bird, American basketball player
1980 - Timana Tahu, Australian Rugby League player
1981 - Anthony Reyes, starting pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals
1982 - Vincy Chan, Hong Kong singer
1982 - Frédéric Michalak, French rugby player
1984 - Melissa Lauren, French pornographic actress
1984 - Shayne Ward, UK singer, winner of The X Factor, series 2005
1985 - Casey Stoner, Australian motorcycle racer
1988 - Zoltán Stieber, Hungarian footballer
1355 - Louis, King of Sicily, felled by the Black Death
1553 - Lucas Cranach the Elder, German painter (b. 1472)
1555 - Hugh Latimer, English Protestant (martyred)
1555 - Nicholas Ridley, English Protestant (martyred)
1591 - Pope Gregory XIV (b. 1535)
1594 - William Cardinal Allen, English Catholic cardinal (b. 1532)
1621 - Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, Dutch composer (b. 1562)
1628 - François de Malherbe, French poet and critic (b. 1555)
1649 - Isaac van Ostade, Dutch painter (b. 1621)
1655 - Joseph Solomon Delmedigo, Italian physician, mathematician, and music theorist (b. 1591)
1680 - Raimondo Montecuccoli, Italian-Austrian general (b. 1608 or 1609)
1750 - Sylvius Leopold Weiss, German composer and lutenist (b. 1687)
1755 - Saint Gerard Majella, Catholic saint (b. 1725)
1781 - Edward Hawke, 1st Baron Hawke, British naval officer (b. 1705)
1791 - Grigori Alexandrovich Potemkin, Russian general and statesman (b. 1739)
1793 - Marie Antoinette, Queen of France (executed) (b. 1755)
1796 - Victor Amadeus III of Savoy (b. 1726)
1810 - Nachman of Breslov, founder of Breslov Hasidut (b. 1772)
1865 - Andrés Bello, Venezuelan poet, lawmaker, philosopher, and sociologist (b. 1781)
1877 - Theodore Barrière, French dramatist (b. 1823)
1888 - John Wentworth, Mayor of Chicago (b. 1815)
1893 - Patrice MacMahon, duc de Magenta, President of France (b. 1808)
1909 - Jakub Bart-Ćišinski, Sorbian writer (b. 1856)
1937 - Jean de Brunhoff, French writer (b. 1899)
1946 - Nuremberg trial executions
Hans Frank, German war criminal (b. 1900)
Wilhelm Frick, German war criminal (b. 1877)
Alfred Jodl, German military officer (b. 1890)
Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Austrian SS officer (b. 1903)
Wilhelm Keitel, German military officer (b. 1882)
Joachim von Ribbentrop, German politician (b. 1893)
Alfred Rosenberg, Nazi ideologist (b. 1893)
Fritz Sauckel, German war criminal (b. 1894)
Arthur Seyss-Inquart, Austrian Nazi leader (b. 1892)
Julius Streicher, German propagandist (b. 1887)
1956 - Jules Rimet, president of FIFA (b. 1873)
1959 - George Marshall, United States Secretary of State, Nobel laureate (b. 1880)
1962 - Gaston Bachelard, French philosopher and poet (b. 1884)
1966 - George O'Hara, American actor (b. 1899)
1968 - Ellis Kinder, baseball player (b. 1914)
1972 - Hale Boggs, U.S. Congressman from Louisiana (b. 1914)
1972 - Leo G. Carroll, English actor (b. 1892)
1973 - Gene Krupa, American musician (b. 1909)
1974 - Chembai Vaidyanatha Bhagavatar, noted Carnatic musician (b. 1895)
1978 - Dan Dailey, American actor (b. 1913)
1979 - Johan Borgen, Norwegian author (b. 1903)
1981 - Moshe Dayan, Israeli general (b. 1915)
1982 - Mario del Monaco, Italian tenor (b. 1915)
1983 - Jakov Gotovac, Croatian composer (b. 1895)
1983 - Kelso, American racehorse (b. 1957)
1986 - Arthur Grumiaux, Belgian violinist (b. 1921)
1989 - Cornel Wilde, American actor (b. 1915)
1990 - Jorge Bolet, Cuban-American classical pianist (b. 1914)
1990 - Art Blakey, American jazz drummer (b. 1919)
1992 - Shirley Booth, American actress (b. 1898)
1996 - Eric Malpass, English novelist (b. 1910)
1996 - Jason Bernard, American actor (b. 1938)
1997 - James Michener, American writer (b. 1907)
1997 - Audra Lindley, American actress (b. 1918)
1998 - Jon Postel, American Internet pioneer (b. 1943)
1999 - Jean Shepherd, American writer and actor (b. 1921)
2000 - Mel Carnahan, American politician (b. 1934)
2002 - Angela Dawson, American murder victim
2003 - Avni Arbas, Turkish artist (b. 1919)
2003 - Stu Hart, Canadian professional wrestler (b. 1915)
2003 - László Papp, Hungarian boxer (b. 1926)
2004 - Pierre Salinger, John F. Kennedy's White House Press Secretary (b. 1925)
2005 - "Len" Dresslar, American singer and voice actor (b. 1925)
2005 - David Reilly, American singer (God Lives Underwater) (b. 1971)
2006 - Valentín Paniagua Corazao, Ex President of Peru (b. 1936)
2006 - Ross Davidson, British actor (b. 1949)
2006 - Tommy Johnson, American tubist (b. 1935)
2006 - Lister Sinclair, Canadian broadcaster and playwright (b. 1921)
Andrzej Munk
Repetition (Kierkegaard)
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PACIFIC LIFE OPEN
Justine Henin
INDIAN WELLS, CALIFORNIA
MODERATOR: Questions for Justine.
Q. That wasn't one of your better matches.
JUSTINE HENIN: No, for sure. I mean, I didn't play good match. She played so well. I was I think too nervous at the beginning of the match. She was strong. I couldn't develop my game because I was too nervous. I practiced her some days ago, I could feel she was playing well. Maybe I was a little bit afraid of this match. But, I mean, I'm a little bit frustrated because I couldn't play my game and I couldn't play. So that's a little bit sad.
Q. Why would you be nervous? You're a Wimbledon finalist. Why would you be nervous against a player that's younger and has less experience?
JUSTINE HENIN: That's the problem. I mean, for sure. But I'm young also. I still have many things to learn. I mean, everybody can beat everybody on tour, for sure. I don't have the experience of the Williams or Davenport or Capriati or Hingis, for sure in the Top 10. I just tried to do my best. Today it didn't work. She's a young player. She has nothing to lose. She was the outsider, like I was last year. So, I mean, that's the difference.
Q. Are you done practicing with her?
JUSTINE HENIN: I don't think about this now.
Q. Can you talk about your serve?
JUSTINE HENIN: I will talk generally. I couldn't play my game. That's it. For sure when it's like this, I can't serve very well. I think it's for everybody the same. When you're not ready emotionally, I mean, it's hard to develop your game. So, I mean, my serve for sure sometimes was good and sometimes I did some double-faults. I mean, that was the match.
Q. Last year you served well. Now it looks like you're making a fairly major change in your motion, your service motion. Why the change?
JUSTINE HENIN: I change the movement because, I mean, I wasn't regular enough. I said that, I worked very hard on. I said that it's going to take maybe some more tournaments, maybe some months to fix it definitely. For sure, I still have to work on. I think when I'm well in my head and when I'm playing well, my serve is fine. So that's not the problem.
Q. So you haven't thought about going back to how you used to serve?
JUSTINE HENIN: No, not at all.
Q. And is it for more power or consistency that you're doing it?
JUSTINE HENIN: For more power maybe, but to be more regular, for sure, also. Physically, I think it's easier for me to serve like this. But, I mean, I lost a lot of matches with my serve last year, so we decided to change it. In a lot of matches, it's going a lot better. But, I mean, today was a little bit worst.
Q. You played her earlier this year, correct?
JUSTINE HENIN: I played her my first match of the year at Gold Coast.
Q. What's the difference between her then and now, the way she's playing?
JUSTINE HENIN: I played in Gold Coast. Today it was hard for me to play. I mean, I lost the first set there already, but I did difference after because I stayed calm and I wanted the victory. I fighted a lot. She didn't play so well like she did today. She's in confidence I think also. That's the difference.
Q. What do you think she does well on court?
JUSTINE HENIN: I mean, I don't think that she's asking in her head a lot of questions. She just goes, try to hit on everything. She can be strong. I mean, for sure, she's a young player. Like I said, for me it was different last year also because I was an outsider, and now I'm in the Top 10. It's a different situation. But she's serving very well also, and she's an aggressive player. So, I mean, probably in the next year, she will be in the top.
Q. Are you saying when you're an outsider, it was easier, so do you not like being a Top 5 player? Is there too much pressure there?
JUSTINE HENIN: No. It's just a time to have an adaptation. Sometimes it takes some months, no, to accept this situation. I did well in Australia and Belgium, in the last tournament. I can accept this situation. But sometimes for sure it's a lot of pressure. I have to work on and to live with it.
Q. It's hard to predict, but how good do you think she could be? You say the top. Top 10, Top 5?
JUSTINE HENIN: Everybody can beat the Top 5, Top 10. All the players in the Top 10 lost against a player like Hantuchova. She will be for sure in the top in the next year. It's not the big problem.
End of FastScripts….
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We kick things off with the usual bio/background information on Micah A. Hanks and we find out how he got interested in the esoteric. We move on to talk about some of the "famous" esoteric names that Micah has worked with and befriended over the years and how they've shaped his research. He also details some of his work with Joshua Warren's LEMUR team.
Looking at some of the topics that Micah has explored at the Gralien Report, we first cover his interest and research into the Human-Ape Hybridization rumours and theories that have abounded over the last century or so. Micah talks about some of the early, and bizarre, experiments by Russian scientists to interbreed humans and chimpanzees. He also discusses how the concept of a "humanzee" captures mankind's underlying fears of a "protohuman" (a phenomenon that can also be seen in robots). This segues into some discussion on "Oliver," a chimp featured on Monster Quest, which walked on his hind legs, vaguely resembling a archetypical "humanzee," and Micah details what he's learned about Oliver via his contacts.
Next we delve into Micah's interest in stories of subterranean monsters and races and how he finds these tales particularly chilling. This leads to Micah telling us about the "Shaver Mystery," a subject he has explored at the Gralien Report. Micah also details how this meme was featured in the book / film The Descent. We get Micah to speculate on whether the idea of a race of people living underground is merely part of the human memory (like the great flood) or if there may be races of people literally still underground. This leads to some discussion on the "Mole People" of New York City and, ostensibly, other major cities.
Following that, we talk about Micah's article for Fate Magazine, titled "Ghostly Receptors," which explored the uncanny trend of people seeming to be "receptors" to paranormal phenomena such as ghosts and UFOs. Micah explains how his interest in Tulpas led him to writing the article. He also muses about how communities, or even couples, seem to develop a veritable psychic connection amongst themselves. Micah also talks about the conundrum that is the UFO phenomenon and how the perception and shapes of UFOs have changed over the years.
We look at the Travis Walton case and Micah puts forth some alternative explanations for what may have happened to Walton, if he wasn't truly abducted by aliens. He details how some of the elements surrounding the Walton case suggest potential plasma or electrical phenomena at work. Micah gives some first hand perspective on a research trip he'd made where he met someone who was severly affected by electrical waves in the air and goes on to detail how studies have been done on what happens to people exposed to large amounts of such electromagnetic energy. He explains why it is important to put forward these alternative possibilities for what happened, even when the evidence seems to clearly suggest an abduction is what happened.
We get Micah's recollections and thoughts on his participation in an interview with former Apollo astronaut Edgar Mitchell, on Joshua Warren's program Speaking of Strange. He shares the most memorable quote from Mitchell and how it affected him. This leads to some discussion about how the private space industry may be one of the key factors in getting UFO disclosure, simply because it will be harder than ever to cover-up in-space UFO sightings.
Micah then gives us his perspective on the Bigfoot Body Hoax of 2008, in light of his friendship with the infamous Tom Biscardi. He reflects on how he met Biscardi and talks about what Biscardi told him regarding the well-known "captured Bigfoot" incident from Coast to Coast AM in the Summer of 2005. Micah also shares details about his conversations with Biscardi during the Bigfoot Body Hoax period of the Summer of 2008. He also draws parallels from this story to the Minnesota Iceman story of the 1960's.
Looking at the UFO phenomenon, we discuss Micah's blog post which observed that it seems like UFOs generated much more interest in the mainstream up until around the 1970's and, in contemporary times, the proverbial "buzz" around UFOs in the mainstream has been greatly diminished. Micah puts forth the idea that the vastly different landscape of the media has resulted in UFOs being marginalized along with just about everything else and we then discuss what binnall sees as the public relations problem surrounding UFOs and we get Micah's take on that as well.
This part of the conversation segues into a discussion on exopolitics, Micah's take on that "movement" and branch of Ufology, and his thoughts on how much the Presidents really know about UFOs. Micah goes through a litany of UFO-related events that have touched the political career of previous presidents. He also opines on the overwhelming buzz, in Ufology circles, that Obama will be the one to disclose UFO reality.
Wrapping up our esoteric discussion, we talk about the "bloop" mystery of the deep sea, another topic which has intrigued Micah for quite a while. Micah details the discovery of the "bloop" sound and how it ties into the stories of H.P. Lovecraft. He tells us what scientists say could have made the "bloop" sound and, also, how it has emerged in various pop culture mediums.
Closing out the show, we find out what's next for Micah A. Hanks in 2009 and beyond, including a "2012 cruise."
Micah A. Hanks has researched all things strange since a very young age, beginning while he was still in grade school. Since that tender age of discovery, he has grown to work toward documenting the world's bizarre mysteries, having contributed articles and stories to FATE Magazine, Fortean Times, Mysteries Magazine, UFO Magazine, and others. He has also had the pleasure of working with the Travel Channel for their Weird Travels television program, as well as the History Channel's Guts and Bolts during investigations as an investigator with the L.E.M.U.R. Paranormal Research Team.
His adventures have taken him to all kinds of amazing places; from snow-capped mountaintops in the middle of July hiking through the Rockies of Montana in search of Bigfoot, to a haunted 19th century jail in historic Charleston, South Carolina. He's studied Martial Artists in Chicago who perform the ancient art of the "Death Touch," and while he was there he also visited Resurrection Cemetery, famous location of “Resurrection Mary”, one of America's most enduring hauntings. He's trudged through the mountains of Cherokee, North Carolina in search of "Boojums" and what Cherokee natives described to him as "The Woolly Ones," stomped through the foothills of Tennessee in search of the southern Skunk Ape, and struck the hills in the heart of Amish country in search of Ohio's Grass Man.
His website is gralienreport.com
www.gralienreport.com
Micah A. Hanks
The recurring stories and legends of human/ape hybridization
Subterranean monsters
The Shaver Mystery
The UFO/ghost connection
Alternative explanations for the Travis Walton abduction
The Bigfoot body hoax of 2008
Ufology's public relations problem
Presidents and disclosure
The bizarre "bloop" mystery of the deep sea
and much much more
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Top 10 best things to do
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Visit Hotham Park and its 20 acre green space that includes a miniature railway, 18 hole adventure golf and café
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A glorious nature reserve, one of the few undeveloped stretches of the Sussex coast
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History of Bognor Regis
Bognor Regis is a seaside coastal resort located within West Sussex in the South of England and one of the oldest recorded Saxon place names in Sussex. In a document of 680AD it is referred to as Bucgan ora meaning Bucge's (a female Saxon name) shore, or landing place. In more recent times it was know as just ''Bognor'' and up until the 18th century, was just a fishing village and was also used by smugglers.
Sir Richard Hotham original founder of Bognor as a seaside resort
In the summer of 1784, a London Hatter, Sir Richard Hotham - (MP for Southwark at the time) decided to try the re-cuperative qualities of sea air and headed for this part of Sussex. It was Sir Richard Hotham (1722-1799) an English 18th century property developer who turned Bognor into a seaside resort.
Sir Richard Hotham found that the climate of the south coast had many benefits. He was so taken with the area that having retired from politics he decided to build his own mansion here, named ''Bognor Lodge'' (now Hotham Park House) and dreamed of building a new fashionable seaside resort.
Over time he bought up around 1600 acres of land and started to build large terraced houses to attract the wealthier visitor to his ''new'' seaside resort, and his ultimate goal was to attract the then King and/or Prince of Wales. Sir Richard Hotham died in Bognor in March 1799 and is buried at St. Mary Magdalene Church in South Bersted. Over the next hundred years or so, Bognor grew and tourism came to the town.
The Duke and Duchess of York visited the town in 1900 to open two convalescent homes in Clarence road. They returned in 1929 as King George V and Queen Mary, as Bognor was chosen as the favoured place for King George V to convalesce. He and the Queen stayed at Craigwell House (the private home of Sir Arthur du Cros) in Aldwick for four months. With the Kings health restored, his reign continued for a further seven years. The Royal Convalescence attracted the worlds press. A long line of Royal visitors came to Bognor - including the Kings three year old granddaughter, Princess Elizabeth. The greatest accolade came in June 1929 when the King approved the suffix "Regis", and as a result, Bognor became known as ''Bognor Regis''. Bognor Regis has seen many changes during its history. Many of these changes were in the 1970’s when many old original buildings were demolished. It has to be said though, that in the early days of Bognor Regis (after the Kings visits) tourism really took off. As a seaside resort it had the sun, the sea, the sand and, one of the best stretches of coastal sands around at that, as well as wonderful Victorian architecture adorning the seafront, culminating with the pier which once was the landing place for paddle steamers.
Billy Butlin opened his Recreation Shelter in the town, on the corner of Lennox Street and the Esplanade. The following year he added a sea front zoo, then a fairground to his empire. Billy Butlin negotiated with the town council, and subsequently was able to move from his site in Lennox Street to a much larger site at the eastern end of the Esplanade, where Butlins Holiday Resort (Bognor Regis) opened on the 2nd July 1960 and soon after was receiving 3,000 weekly campers. Bognor Regis is growing as it has always done. Butlins has always been one of the main investors in the town. In 2005 Butlins opened the ''Shoreline Hotel''. In August 2009 a further new hotel to be called the ''Spa Hotel'' opened. For more information about the history of Bognor Regis and Sir Richard Hotham, visit the Bognor Regis Heritage Website. When visiting Bognor Regis, the beach is probably going to be one of your choices to visit, after all Bognor Regis is well known for its sunshine records and has one if not THE best sunshine records in the UK. The coastline of Bognor Regis is very varied and unique. At low tide there are vast areas of open flat sands, making it ideal for families to while away the day. This stretch of coastline is also home to many species of sea birds and wildlife and also unique and rare plants in certain areas found at the shore end within the shingle. Bognor Regis is situated just nicely between the glorious South Downs and the Sea and has excellent travel links.
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Amber Lawrence
Amber Lawrence is an award-winning singer-songwriter and winner of the 2015 ‘Female Artist of the Year’ award at the Australian CMAA Golden Guitar awards.
Amber’s recent success follows the launch of her fourth album Superheroes, which debuted at number three on the ARIA Country Charts. The album included hit singles ‘Superhero’ and ‘The Lifesaver’ (which won Contemporary Lyric of the Year at the 2015 Bush Laureate Awards).
In 2012, Amber launched '3' her third album, loved by fans and critics alike, to a sold out Tamworth Capitol Theatre Audience. The second single, ‘The Man across the Street’ was the story of a Vietnam Veteran who lived across the street and saved Amber when as a toddler, she wandered onto the street. This album lead to Amber being invited to perform for Australia’s Defence Force personnel in the Middle East and at the ANZAC Day Football Match.
Amber has released 15 singles over the course of her career that have either reached #1 or Top 5 on the Country Music Radio Chart and the CMC Video charts. She has received 12 country music awards, eight Golden Guitar nominations and two APRA nominations.
"I'm honoured to have been asked to help shine a light on the great work RSL DefenceCare does for our returned and injured Defence Force Personnel. I have toured overseas twice to sing for our troops, and this has given me a heightened awareness of the risk our men and women place themselves in, and the toll that may take on themselves and their family."
“My job is easy – I sing songs – but I value the amazing job our Defence Force does for us, and anything I can do to help those who may be struggling as a result of the amazing job they do for all of us Australians, is a privilege.”
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Genesis of the Daleks
Tom Baker (Doctor Who), Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Ian Marter (Harry Sullivan)
Michael Wisher (Davros), Peter Miles (Nyder), Dennis Chinnery (Gharman) [1-2, 4-6], Guy Siner (Ravon) [1, 3], John Franklin-Robbins (Time Lord) [1], Richard Reeves (Kaled Leader) [1-3], John Scott Martin, Cy Town [3-6], Keith Ashley [3-6] (Dalek Operators), Stephen Yardley (Sevrin) [2-6], James Garbutt (Ronson) [2-4], Drew Wood (Tane) [2], Jeremy Chandler (Gerrill) [2], Pat Gorman [2], Hilary Minster [3] (Thal Soldiers), Tom Georgeson (Kavell) [3-5], Ivor Roberts (Mogran) [3], Michael Lynch (Thal Politician) [3-4], Max Faulkner (Thal Guard) [3], Roy Skelton (Dalek Voice) [3-6], Harriet Philpin (Bettan) [4-6], Peter Mantle (Kaled Guard) [5], Andrew Johns (Kravos) [6], John Gleeson (Thal Soldier) [6].
Directed by David Maloney
Produced by Philip Hinchcliffe
“Part One” 24:30 8 March 1975 10.7m
“Part Two” 24:51 15 March 1975 10.5m
“Part Three” 22:38 22 March 1975 8.5m
“Part Four” 23:38 29 March 1975 8.8m
“Part Five” 23:27 5 April 1975 9.8m
“Part Six” 23:30 12 April 1975 9.1m
The Time Lords intercept The Doctor, Sarah and Harry as they transmat back to Nerva, and send them to Skaro in the distant past in order to prevent the creation of the Daleks. There they discover the planet’s two native races, the Kaleds and the Thals, are nearing the climax of the Thousand Year War. As the conflict reaches its terrible conclusion, Sarah discovers that a disfigured Kaled scientist named Davros has already accomplished what the time travellers were sent to stop: the genesis of the Daleks.
Working titles for this story included Genesis of Terror and Daleks: Genesis of Terror.
The freeze-frame cliffhanger at the end of part two represents the series’ first use of this technique.
Some of the Thal guns were previously used by the Drahvins in Galaxy 4.
Part of an Ice Warrior costume is seen in one shot, representing one of the mutant creatures produced by Davros in his experiments.
The opening scene was rewritten by David Maloney. Terry Nation felt the rewritten scene was too violent for young children, Mary Whitehouse concurred after the story’s first broadcast.
Genesis of the Daleks is the most-repeated Doctor Who story on BBC Television’s analogue services, having been re-shown in ed form in 1975 and 1982 (on BBC1) and again in its full form in 1993 and 2000 (both on BBC2). It has also been regularly transmitted on satellite television station UK Gold. In a 1998 poll of readers by Doctor Who Magazine,over 2500 voters placed it top of a poll to find the greatest Doctor Who stories of all time, and it has regularly featured in the top-tens of other similar polls down the years.
The Dalek defeats that the Fourth Doctor mentions in his interrogation include an invasion in the year 2000 when the Daleks tried to mine the magnetic core of the Earth (presumably a reference to The Dalek Invasion of Earth, although that took place in the 22nd century, he could be referencing an unchronicled invasion separate from the earlier story or giving misinformation). The Doctor also mentions a Dalek invasion of Mars (later also noted in the Virgin New Adventuresnovel GodEngine by Craig Hinton) and an invasion of Venus that was halted in the “Space Year 17, 000” by a fleet of ships from the planet Hyperion.
The Evil of the Daleks (novel) by John Peel suggests that the Dalek that exterminates Davrosat the end of this story eventually becomes the Dalek Emperor seen in Evil. John Peel’s later novel War of the Daleksalso states this.
The Daleks and the Time Lords are later involved in a destructive Time War, alluded to in the 2005 series. Executive producer Russell T Davies commented in an episode of Doctor Who Confidential that the origins of the Time War date back to this story, where the Time Lords struck first. Davies also made reference to this attempted genocide as a root of the Time War in a text piece in The Doctor Who Annual 2006. The 2013 comic strip Hunters of the Burning Stone recreates a scene from this story, and the Eleventh Doctor explicitly describes it as him firing “the first shot” in the Time War.
In some discussions it is argued that The Doctor was more successful in his mission than he realised. In addition to entombing the Daleks for what he believed to be a thousand years, his intervention may have contributed to Davros surviving the betrayal of his creations. When Davroswas later revived, his presence created a schism within the Daleks‘ ranks and made them less effective as conquerors.
This serial marks the final on-screen appearance of the Thals (they would later feature in War of the Daleks, however).
The TARDIS does not appear in this story, an occurrence that would not happen again until Midnight in 2008. The only other televised stories in which it does not appear are Mission to the Unknown, Doctor Who and the Silurians, The Sea Devils and The Sontaran Experiment.
A Dalek ray is used for its weapon for the first time, though the entire screen is still in negative when it fires.
This story marks the only on-screen appearance of Kaleds other than Davros.
The date of the story remains unknown and is subject tospeculation. Lance Parkin dated it to 4000 BC in AHistory of the Universe and the first edition of aHistory, but changed it to 760 in the second edition. Doctor Who: The Dalek Handbook dates it to circa 1500 CE. It also remains speculative as to whetherthe Fourth Doctor did or did not change Dalek history as seen in previous stories.
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A Sendoff for Chekov
Actor Anton Yelchin died last year in a freak accident, a great tragedy for him and his family and loved ones. Having just seen Green Room, in which Yelchin delivers a fantastic performance, I feel even more badly that he's lost the opportunity to share even more of his talent with the world.
As Ensign Chekov in the rebooted Star Trek films, Yelchin didn't have much screen time, but he infused every moment with humour, personality, and grace. Chekov has always been one of my favourite Star Trek characters, and Yelchin's contributions to the three reboot movies helped me accept the films as "real" Star Trek, as well as confirming my love of the character himself.
If there's a fourth film in this particular series of Star Trek movies, I hope the producers of that film find a way to acknowledge Yelchin's role in their success. It seems to me they have three ways they can approach the loss of the actor:
1) Ignore it. Chekov simply fails to appear in the film, with no explanation, in much the same way that other characters vanished without a trace. .
2) Give the character a happy ending. In a scene at the beginning of the film, have the surviving characters discuss Chekov's promotion to science officer of another ship, while noting how young he is for such a post, a reflection of the character's already established status as a prodigy. This is a comforting option, and I'd be content with it.
3) Have Kirk and Spock, near the beginning of the film, commiserate about losing Chekov to another ship; from Kirk's point of view, he's lost a line officer with great potential, while Spock loses the officer he was mentoring. Then go about the adventure of the film, which comes to a successful conclusion, of course, and the characters celebrate with perhaps a bit too much smugness. But in the film's coda, Kirk and Spock receive the news that in an unrelated incident, Chekov has been lost in action. The surviving characters are reminded that space isn't just a lighthearted romp, that exploration is and always will be dangerous, and that the good and the young will die before their time. Ideally, the screenwriters, will be able to tie this revelation to the major theme of the film, so that it doesn't seem tacked on.
I think this last option, while painful, pays the most respect to Anton Yelchin and to the character he played. There is a counter-argument to be made - would the producers be exploiting the grief of the Yelchin family by doing this? Possibly, because we are talking about a tentpole movie, one meant to make hundreds of millions of dollars for Paramount. There's something to be said for letting characters and, more importantly, the people who portray them, rest in peace without further ballyhoo.
Whatever the producers choose to do, I hope they consult Yelchin's loved ones before they decide how to address the actor's absence.
Labels: Anton Yelchin, Film, popular culture, Star Trek, Star Trek Beyond
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CRS to Honor Randy Travis
COUNTRY RADIO SEMINAR (CRS) will present RANDY TRAVIS with its 2016 Artist Career Achievement Award, and CAROLE BOWEN will be honored as this year’s President’s Award recipient. Both will be recognized at the COUNTRY RADIO HALL OF FAME Dinner and Awards Ceremony on WEDNESDAY, JUNE 22nd in NASHVILLE.
The Artist Career Achievement recognition is bestowed upon an artist who has made a significant contribution to the development and promotion of Country music and Country radio. TRAVIS is a 2016 COUNTRY MUSIC HALL OF FAME inductee who is a multi-platinum album seller with 50 charted songs and 16 #1 singles. TRAVIS is also a multiple CMA, ACM, GRAMMY and AMERICAN MUSIC AWARD winner.
Said TRAVIS: "To be chosen by the COUNTRY RADIO BROADCASTERS for a Career Achievement Award is an honor quite unlike any other. The artist’s and the broadcaster’s relationship is one of unspoken respect. I appreciate so much the kindness I have been shown over the years by radio … You have each become a part of my success and allowed my fans an opportunity to know me better—as an artist and as a person. Thank you for believing in me…and in my body of work. It is YOU which I take my hat off to.“ MCA NASHVILLE artist JOSH TURNER will perform a musical tribute to TRAVIS during the Hall of Fame dinner.
The CRS President’s Award is presented to an individual who has made a significant contribution to the marketing, production, growth, and development of COUNTRY RADIO SEMINAR. BOWEN recently completed more than 15 years of service on the CRB Board of Directors. During that time, she was a member of the CRS Executive Committee, holding an Officer position as longtime secretary for the organization. BOWEN’s more than 30 years of successful radio and sales experience at WKIS/MIAMI played a key role in shaping the success of CRS.
Commenting on her honor, BOWEN said, "I am deeply honored and humbled to be this year’s recipient of the CRB President’s Award. This organization has had a tremendous impact on me both professionally and personally. Serving within this organization has enabled me to learn from the brightest minds in Country Radio and Country Music. It has always been a labor of love and I am very proud to have contributed to the success of Country Radio Seminars and CRB.”
The 2016 COUNTRY RADIO HALL OF FAME inductees will also be honored during the Country Radio Hall of Fame dinner and awards ceremony. This year’s inductees are BLAIR GARNER, MIKE & DANA SCHUFF, and LISA DENT in the On-Air category, and MICK ANSELMO, KERBY CONFER, JACK RENO, TIM ROBERTS, and JIM SLONE in the Radio category.
- See more at: http://www.allaccess.com/net-news/archive/story/154094/crs-to-honor-randy-travis-carole-bowen?ref=mail_bulletin#sthash.vsVqyjMK.dpuf
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Home › 2020 elections › Narrative and Anecdote
Narrative and Anecdote
November 24, 2019 — No Comments ↓
Posted in 2020 elections, US politics Tagged with: Mary Morgan, Michael Kimmelman, The World in the Model
There was a time when New York City had the gateway it deserved.
Demolished more than half a century ago, the former Pennsylvania Station by McKim, Mead & White was hardly the first great building in town to face the wrecking ball. The Lenox Library by Richard Morris Hunt and the old Waldorf-Astoria by Henry Hardenbergh on Fifth Avenue also came down. For generations, New Yorkers embraced the mantra of change, assuming that what replaced a beloved building would probably be as good or better.
The Frick mansion, by Carrère and Hastings, replaced the Lenox Library. The Empire State Building replaced the old Waldorf.
Then, a lot of bad Modern architecture, amid other signs of postwar decline, flipped the optimistic narrative.
Penn Station Was an Exhalted Gateway. Here’s How It Became a Reviled Rat’s Maze., by Michael Kimmelman, The New York Times. April 29, 2019
You hear a lot these days about narrative. I don’t know anyone better on the topic, at least in the world of economics that I follow, than Mary Morgan, of the Department of Economic History at the London School of Economics
Morgan is an expert because she is an accomplished practitioner. The World in the Model: How Economists Work and Think (Cambridge, 2012), is based on eight scrupulous case studies of how mathematical models gradually supplanted words in workaday technical economics. The philosophical examination established Morgan among the world’s leading historians of economic thought.
A related group research project on the nature of evidence produced an edited volume of essays, How Well Do Facts Travel? The Dissemination of Reliable Knowledge (Cambridge, 2011). Since 2016, she has led a scholarly European Commission research project on “Narrative in Science.” Elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2012, she served four years as its vice president for publications.
From Morgan’s introduction to a special issue of Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, “Narrative knowing is most immediately relevant when the scientific phenomena involve complexity, variety, and contingency….”
From her essay in the same issue, “What narratives do above all else is create a productive order amongst materials with the purpose to answer why and how questions.” Their power is illustrated in novels, she writes; their question-answering and problem-solving capabilities are most evident in detective stories.
I’ve been reading Morgan in connection with an economics story. But I thought of her in connection with events these last two weeks in Washington, D.C.
I had no time to listen to the impeachment hearings this week. I gathered from the news reports I read that the testimony was damning.
Republicans seem to believe that the attempted extortion of the government of Ukraine was, as Wall Street Journal editorial columnist Daniel Henninger put it, nothing more than Donald Trump’s “umpteenth ‘norms’ violation.” The Ukraine caper wasn’t a constitutional crisis. But is clearly was a crime. The fake Ukraine election-interference story was even more shocking.
Therefore it seems right to bring the case. Still, it doesn’t seem sufficient reason to remove the president from office at a time when an election is at hand, especially since a significant minority of voters seem not to think the president did anything out of the ordinary. Impeachment forces Republicans candidates to clarify their views – and to go on clarifying them for years to come.
The thing to do is to take it to the electorate. The attempted extortion was an anecdote –a short, grimly entertaining account of something that Trump did, an illustration of a good tradition torn down. But it is only one anecdote of many.
Next year’s election is the key event. The order of American presidents is among the most fundamental narratives of the history of the United States. Let the House leaders draft the impeachment articles, the membership pass quickly them, and the Senate debate. Move on to the Democratic Party primaries.
The Moynihan-conceived plan to convert the Farley Postal Building across the street across the street from Penn Station (also designed by McKim, Mead & White, into a new train hall is going forward. But only Donald Trump’s defeat next year can begin to flip the pessimistic narrative of the nation.
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Home › Posts tagged Nathan Rosenberg
December 27, 2015 — No Comments ↓
Posted in Contemporary economics Tagged with: Douglass North, Herbert Scarf, Nathan Rosenberg
Should auld acquaintance be forgot? Economic Principals ordinarily leaves death to the obituary pages. Three unusually creative economists passed from the scene this year who were especially influential. Nathan Rosenberg, Herbert Scarf and Douglass North were not just remarkable in their own rights; they were leaders of large and vibrant communities. Rosenberg was remembered to good effect by Joel Mokyr, Joshua Gans, and Richard Langlois; Scarf, by Timthy Taylor, Barkley Rosser, and Sam Roberts in The New York Times; and North, by Margaret Levi and Barry Weingast, Robert D. Hershey Jr. in the Times, and by Gardner Brown and Dean…
Economics Roundtable
Geonomica Brief
Vox EU
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The Activist Investor
Money and Government: The Past and Future of Economics, by Robert Skidelsky (Yale, 2018; Penguin, 2019)
Living in Different Cultures, by Tamar Frankel (Fathom, 2019)
The Human Factor: Gorbachev, Reagan, and Thatcher, and the End of the Cold War, by Archie Brown (Oxford, 2020)
The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution, by Gregory Zuckerman (Penguin),
Under the Influence: Putting Peer Pressure to Work, by Robert H. Frank (Princeton, January 2020)
How Charts Lie: Getting Smarter about Visual Information, by Alberto Cairo (Norton)
Capital and Ideology, by Thomas Piketty (Harvard, March 2020)
The Marginal Revolutionaries: How Austrian Economists Fought the War of Ideas, by Janek Wasserman (Yale)
Transaction Man: The Rise of the Deal and the Decline of the American Dream, by Nicholas Lemann (Farrar, Straus)
Free Enterprise: An American History, by Lawrence Glickman (Yale)
Rethinking the Theory of Money. Credit, and Macroeconomics: A New Statement for the Twenty-First Century, by John Smithin (Lexington Books)
Crying the News: A History of America’s Newsboys, by Vincent DiGirolamo (Oxford)
The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies, and the Fate of Liberty, by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson (Random House, 2019)
The Triumph of Injustice: How the Rich Dodge Taxes and How to Make Them Pay, by Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman (Norton, 2019)
Fault Lines: A History of the United States since 1974, by Kevin Kruse and Julian Zelitzer (Norton, 2019)
Putin’s World: Russia against the West and with the Rest, by Angela Stent (Twelve, 2019)
China’s Crisis of Success, by William Overholt (Cambridge, 2017)
Bagehot: The Life and Times of the Greatest Victorian, by James Grant (Norton, 2019)
Why Information Grows: The Evolution of Order, from Atoms to Economies, by César Hidalgo (Basic, 2015)
Starving the Beast: Ronald Reagan and the Tax Cut Revolution, by Monica Prasad (Russell Sage, 2018)
Where Economics Went Wrong: Chicago’s Abandonment of Classical Liberalism, by David Colander and Craig Freedman (Princeton, 2019)
The Knowledge Economy, by Roberto Mangabeira Unger (Verso, 2019)
Losing Earth: A Recent History, by Nathaniel Rich (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2019)
A Crisis Wasted: Barack Obama’s Defining Decisions, by Reed Hundt (Rosetta, 2019)
Narrative Economics: How Stories Go Viral & Drive Major Economic Events, by Robert Shiller (Princeton, 2019)
The Economists’ Hour: False Prophets, Free Markets, and the Fracture of Society, by Binyamin Appelbaum (Little Brown, 2019)
Facing Up to Low Productivity Growth, Adam Pozen and Jeromin Zettlemeyer, editors (Peterson Institute for International Economics, 2019)
Our Great Purpose: Adam Smith on Living a Better Life, by Ryan Patrick Hanley (Princeton, 2019)
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The End of Alchemy: Money, Banking, and the Future of the Global Economy (Norton, 2016), by Mervyn King
America's War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History (Random House, 2016), by Andrew Bacevich
Ronald Reagan: The Fortieth President (Times Books, 2016), by Jacob Weisberg
Concrete Economics: The Hamilton Approach to Economic Growth and Policy (Basic Books, 2016), by Stephen Cohen and Bradford DeLong
Why Only Us: Language and Evolution (MIT, 2016) by Robert Berwick and Noam Chomsky
The Power and Independence of the Federal Reserve (Princeton, 2016), by Peter Conti-Brown
The System Worked: How the World Stopped another Great Depression (Oxford, 2014), by Daniel Drezner
What Is Landscape? (MIT, 2015), by John Stillgoe
Bourgeois Equality: How Ideas, Not Capital or Institutions, Enriched the World (Chicago, 2016), by Deirdre McCloskey
Better Living Through Criticism: How to Think about Art, Pleasure, Beauty, and Truth (Penguin, 2016), by A.O. Scott
The Money Problem: Rethinking Financial Regulation (Chicago, 2016), by Morgan Ricks
China under Mao: A Revolution Derailed (Harvard, 2015), by Andrew Walder
Superpower Illusions: How Myths and False Ideologies Led America Astray – and How to Return to Reality (Yale, 2010), by Jack Matlock
Hayek on Mill: The Mill-Taylor Friendship and Related Writings (Chicago, 2015), edited by Sandra Peart
Why Minsky Matters: An Introduction to the Work of a Maverick Economist (Princeton, 2016), by L. Randall Wray
Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World (Norton, 2015), by Bruce Schneider
The Great Surge: The Ascent of the Developing World (Simon & Schuster, 2015), by Steven Radelet
Legislating Instability: Adam Smith, Free Banking, and the Financial Crisis of 1772 (Harvard, 2016), by Tyler Goodspeed
The Silo Effect: The Peril of Expertise and the Promise of Breaking Down Barriers (Simon & Schuster, 2015), by Gillian Tett
The Only Game in Town: Central Banks, Instability, and Avoiding the Next Collapse (Random House, 2016) by Mohamed El-Erian
The Promise of Party in a Polarized Age (Harvard, 2014), by Russell Muirhead
Money Changes Everything: How Finance Made Civilization Possible (Princeton, 2016), by William Goetzmann
From Silk to Silicon: The Story of Globalization Through Ten Extraordinary Lives (Harper, 2016), by Jeffrey Garten
When All Else Fails: Government as the Ultimate Risk Manager (Harvard, 2002), by David Moss
How the Internet Became Commercial: Innovation, Privatization, and the Birth of a New Network (Princeton, 2015), by Shane Greenstein
Financial Risk Management for Dummies (Wiley, 2015), by Aaron Brown,
The Prize: Who's In Charge of America's Schools (Houghton Mifflin,2015), by Dale Russelhof
A History of Macroeconomics: From Keynes to Lucas and Beyond (Cambridge University Press, 2015), by Michel De Vroey
Economics Rules: The Rights and Wrongs of the Dismal Science (Norton, 2015), by Dani Rodrik
Learning By Doing: The Real Connection between Innovation, Wages and Wealth (Yale, 2015), by James Bessen
Let Me Heal: The Opportunity to Preserve Excellence in American Medicine (Oxford, 2015), by Kenneth Ludmerer
My Soul is Among Lions: Pages from the Breast Casncer Archives (Amazon, 2013), by Ellen Leopold
The Last Warrior: Andrew Marshall and the Shaping of American Defense Strategy (Basic, 2015), by Andrew Krepinevich and Barry Watts
The Promise of Party in a Polarized World (Harvard, 2014), by Russell Muirhead
Genealogy of American Finance (Columbia, 2015), by Robert E. Wright and Richard Sylla
The Maze of Banking (Oxford, 2015), by Gary B. Gorton
Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics (Norton, 2015), by Richard Thaler
When the Facts Change: Essays 1995-2010 (Penguin, 2015), by Tony Judt
American Crucifixion: The Murder of Joseph Smith and the Fate of the Mormon Church (Public Affairs, 2014), by Alex Beam
Currency Politics: The Political Economy of Exchange Rate Policy (Princeton, 2015), by Jeffrey Frieden
The Mystery of the Invisible Hand: A Henry Spearman Mystery (Princeton, 2014), by Marshall Jevons
The New Geography of Jobs (Houghton Mifflin, 2012) by Enrico Moretti
Age of Fracture (Harvard, 2011), by Daniel Rodgers
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Siemens onboard the WFH bandwagon
on Thursday, July 23, 2020 at 12:08:29 am
Reuters has reported that Germany’s Siemens is the first large German company to make permanent changes to how their staff will work. This is a new model that will apply to over 140,000 employees at 125 locations across 43 countries, and it is a model that is permanent.
This work-from-home approach is something that notably tech companies like Twitter and Facebook have said they would adopt. There are opinions that this move is due to companies seeking to cut cost, provide convenience to employees, or both.
“The aim is to enable employees worldwide to work on a mobile basis for an average of two or three days a week, whenever reasonable and feasible,” Siemens said in a statement.
“These changes will also be associated with a different leadership style, one that focuses on outcomes rather than on time spent at the office,” said incoming Chief Executive Roland Busch.
But Reuters said it themselves when they described Siemens as a Munich-based maker of trains to industrial software. The company can allow employees to work wherever they wish for at least 2 days in a week. But the same does not seem to apply to workers in their production plants.
Their website at https://new.siemens.com, had this to say:
“We’re doing everything we can to maintain operations at our production plants as well as our service to continue to support our customers and partners as far as possible. This is particularly important in areas in which, together with customers, we provide products and services for vital infrastructure. As we do this, the health and safety of our employees and our partners are always a top priority. And we are, of course, cooperating closely with the relevant public authorities, works councils and representatives of people with disabilities.
Siemens has established processes for ensuring the continuity of manufacturing operations to the greatest possible extent. To ensure that our employees are protected, we’re working together with our works councils and the representatives of people with disabilities to do everything we can to implement the recommendations made by national and international authorities.”
Getting onboard the automation bandwagon
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manufacturingSiemens
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ByteDance's Tik Tok Dance
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Euro-Underdog Comes Through
Hungry for some sort of financial news now, at the beginning of a brand-new year, that’s actually good, that reflects things flawlessly going ahead according to plan? How about this: As of 1 JAN 2009 Slovakia adopted the euro as its currency, just as the European Central Bank (ECB) and various other responsible Euro-authorities had authorized it to do last May. That’s right: Slovakia – I mean, who even knows where that place is? It was only a separate country as of 1 JAN 1993, yet it has beaten out (among others) its former big-brother state, the Czech Republic (which could be said to date back to Greater Moravia of 833 AD if you’re willing to stretch the affiliations a little bit), and Poland (dating from 966 AD) to the safe-haven of the euro. And make no mistake: these days the euro-zone is definitely the sort of currency safe-haven that all sorts of countries still standing outside it (e.g. Poland, Denmark, Iceland) wish that they were within, given the demonstrated weakness of numerous small-state-currency regimes.
Against this background, it’s amusing to take a look at comments from the Czech press. (more…)
Posted in Czech Republic | No Comments »
After Beslan: A Czech View
It’s been a full week now since the bloodbath at Middle School #1 in Beslan, and what effects has that incident had so far? OK, there have been some firings of officials in charge of security in North Ossetia, and indeed of the entire North Ossetian regional government save the top guy, President Alexander Dzasokhov. (Here’s a good summary of those developments – from Australia no less!) And after first refusing any public inquiry into the affair, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday relented, so that the Russian Senate will start its investigation later on this month.
Still, deeper questions remain, which even those Senators might be hesitant to broach. Like: What can Russia do to prevent such massacres happening again? What connection does it all have to the ongoing violence in Chechenya, and what implications does it have for that struggle? Josef Pazderka comes up with some interesting observations about this incident’s aftermath in his piece (What Changes After Breslan) in the Czech opinion-weekly Respekt. (more…)
Yield to Miss Lucie
Grizzled EuroSavant veterans might recall the entry of earlier this year describing the dismay in Poland over the tight US regime for obtaining visas to visit the States, which included a first-person account – “Ally Out in the Cold” – of one Pole’s ordeal in visiting the US embassy in Warsaw to try to obtain his own visa.
That experience, as the article’s title suggests, featured quite a bit of excruciating waiting outside the embassy in the Polish January cold. For a change-of-pace – but, it turns out, of the most minor sort – we now have Miroslav Zajíicek’s account of what he had to go through for his visa in July’s summer heat at the American embassy in Prague (The Americans Give Lucie Priority), in the latest issue of the Czech opinion weekly Respekt. (more…)
Something Rotten in Czech Football
We go today to the Czech press, and specifically to the commentary weekly Respekt, for news about a shocking development there that I somehow missed. Apparently, the Czech national football league (that’s “soccer” to some of you) has been revealed as deeply corrupt. Of the sixteen teams that make up the Czech first division, fourteen were implicated, in investigative articles published late last week, in the practice of bribing referees to influence the results of games. As Respekt’s article (Czech Football: End of the Illusion) details, these payments didn’t even feature the twisted elegance of being made to secret accounts in Switzerland or the Caribbean; they were made in cash, “from hand to hand behind the gas pump or in underground garages.” As a result, in that paper’s opinion, “after May, 2004, no one can believe anymore in the cleanness [cistota] of Czech football.” (more…)
A New Churchill Needed for Europe?
Monday, March 22nd, 2004
The tide has now largely turned on the Madrid bombings of two weeks ago. Fewer commentators are willing to assert that the Spanish electorate, in voting out the conservative Aznar government in contradiction to what opinion polls had previously indicated would happen, capitulated to terrorist threats to inflict more of the same on their country in the hope that they would instead be left alone. Instead, most now ascribe Aznar’s loss to his government’s alleged attempt after the attacks, but before the election, to point the blame for them to what for him would be the more politically-advantageous culprit, the Basque terrorist organization ETA.
This is not the case in the Czech opinion-weekly Respekt, though, where in his cover-story commentary Before Terror Annihilates Us Teodor Marjanovic declares that “Europe today needs its own Winston Churchill” in response to the terrorist threat. Are Czech editorial writers merely lagging behind their counterparts further west? I’ll let you judge that in what follows; in any case, Marjanovic raises some good points ordinarily overlooked by many, and does so rather pungently. (more…)
WMD Rogues Back into the Fold?
As 2003 has turned into 2004, there has been a lot of movement world-wide in the area of – brace yourself for this all-too-familiar, overused bureaucratic term – “weapons of mass destruction” (call ’em WMD) and the “rogue states” that, to various degrees, have pursued their acquisition in the past. Most prominent was Libya’s renunciation of such weapons and agreement to adhere to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) standards, even before actually signing any written accord to do so. But North Korea also recently allowed a team of US observers visit its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon. For its part, back in October Iran signed agreements granting the IAEA more scope for inspection of its nuclear facilities, and even Syria started to speak publicly last week about its stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons. Zbynek Petracek, in the most-recent issue of the Czech commentary weekly Respekt, surveys these developments in an article he entitles So That You Don’t End Up Like Saddam. But is all this breaking of the nuclear ice attributable to the downfall of the Iraqi dictator?
If it were, Petracek notes, that would be somewhat ironic, given that the WMD justification for the invasion of Iraq hasn’t panned out at all; last week also marked what was attempted as the “quiet” pull-out from Iraq of the main American team of 400 WMD-searchers (but the media are always watching, especially these guys). But actually there’s precious little connection; indeed, and unfortunately, there has been less progress in fighting the spread of WMD even after the fall of Saddam, even after he was caught in his spider-hole, than you would hope. (more…)
“Good-Bye, Lenin” – Hello, Communism?
Today we return after a long absence to the Czech press and, once again, the timing is propitious. For yesterday was the last day of a three-day weekend in the Czech Republic, since each year 17 November is celebrated as the day, in 1989, of the brutally-suppressed student demonstration against the Czechoslovak Communist regime that set off the “Velvet Revolution.” This would topple that regime in short order, and replace it with a new government, most of whose key functionaries (including foreign minister – Jiri Dienstbier, formerly your friendly neighborhood window-washer – but of course topped of by President Václav Havel) were plucked either from jail or demeaning manual occupations.
(Actually, 17 November was an important day of commemoration even before 1989. That was the day in 1939 when the Nazi occupiers moved against university student agitators by executing nine of them, sending a further 1,200 to concentration camps, and closing down all Czech universities. The students of 1989 therefore had for 17 November a ready-made, “50th anniversary” pretext to gain from the Communist authorities license to hold demonstrations – except that it soon turned out that they were against the then-government, and the riot police moved in.)
The thing is, this year 17 November has for many a sad and ironic tinge to it, and that is because that same Communist Party is now the second most-popular political party in national opinion polls, and is openly planning its path into government again by means of elections that have to occur by 2006. But is it really “that same Communist Party”? That’s the Kc 64,000 question. For now, let it suffice to say that the KSCM (Czech initials for the “Communist Party of the Czech Lands and Moravia”) has never renounced the policies or the behavior of its totalitarian predecessor, the KSC (“Communist Party of Czechoslovakia”), beyond some grudging admissions that “it’s true certain mistakes were made.” This sets it apart from almost all of what used to be its “fraternal socialist” ruling-party counterparts elsewhere in the East Bloc – with the exception, of course, of the Russian Communist Party. (There’s also a similarly-unreformed Communist Party of Slovakia.) On the other hand, the Communist parties in Poland and Hungary, to cite but two prominent examples, have gone down another path since 1989: they have transformed themselves into true social democratic parties and are in fact both currently the party of government in their respective countries! (Not that either is having a very easy time of it, but that’s another story . . .)
It’s no surprise, then, that although the growing political power of the KSCM should be something of note regardless of the time of year, the November 17 holiday, a holiday of liberation from Communism, naturally helps to focus public attention on the issue. (That should probably also have been true of a recent incident in which the new memorial to the victims of Communism in Prague – dedicated only last year – was vandalized, but I didn’t pick up any mention of this in the articles that follow.)
The leading Czech business newspaper Hospodarske noviny was on top of all this as early as last Friday with a series of articles on the Czech Communists. (more…)
Posted in Czech Republic, United Kingdom | No Comments »
Evaluating John Paul II’s Papacy: A Czech View
The time is drawing near (16 October) which will mark precisely the 25th anniversary of the election by the College of Cardinals of Karel Wojtyla to the papacy. Not that we need too much more motivation these days to take a look back at what that papacy has meant to the world; there was the recent awarding of the Noble Peace Prize, which did not go to the Pope but which many felt should have. And there is his ever-worsening health, which made more fervent the urgings of those who felt he deserved the Prize (Nobel prizes cannot be awarded posthumously) and, in any case, prompts looks backward in time as a sort of dress-rehearsal for the obituaries which are supposedly to be published soon.
The Polish on-line press is filled with treatments of the history of this papacy – essays, vast collections of pictures (check out this collection of thirty), even a chance to chat on-line with the Krakow priest Mieczyslaw Malinski, who has known Karol Wojtyla for years (but he probably only “chats” in Polish). But you realize that any Polish assessment of Pope John Paul II is not going to be very unbiased. Me, I prefer a more level-headed treatment, if still from the same general area of the world. What better resource to go to for that than the Czech Republic (one of the most non-religious nations in the world), and especially the maverick commentary weekly Respekt? I refer to their current article, An Old Man Changes Clothes, by Jiri Hanus, who is a historian and editor of the magazine Teologie & spolecnost, or “Theology & Society.” (more…)
Posted in Czech Republic, Poland | No Comments »
The Freeze Came from Within
Friday, August 22nd, 2003
Yesterday, 21 August, was the 35th anniversary of the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 that put an end to the “Prague Spring,” and here in Prague that story is getting big play in the media. This is even though it’s all about the past, specifically a quite unpleasant incident from the past which presumably nearly every Czech knows about (whether s/he experienced it directly or not) and which perhaps s/he would just rather forget. Respekt is probably the leading Czech journal of commentary, with a quite impressive battle-record of offending (and being threatened by) post-1989 governments, and in its current issue it approaches the event from a different angle. It was not the case that the Red Army invaded the country (accompanied by symbolic contingents from Warsaw Pact “allies”) and that was that: end of the “Prague Spring.” Rather, the Communist tightening-down of the country back to the pre-1968 level of repression (or, in some respects, an even worse state) actually proceeded over the course of a year-and-a-half, into 1970. In other words, not that much changed in Czech society right after the invasion; the oppressive changes came later, gradually, in the face of a Czechoslovak populace which could see what was happening but did little about it. It was this same populace which had been enthusiastic for its new freedoms in the first part of 1968, prior to the invasion, introduced by the then-government led by Aleksander Dubcek. So how could the re-introduction of a Communist dictatorship happen? What are the lessons for today? These sorts of questions are intelligently explored by Tomas Nemecek in his article entitled Mráz prišel zevnitr, or “The Freeze Came from Within.” (more…)
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FAO Subregional Office for North Africa
Deputy Regional Representative
Celebrating 40 years of country representations
Subregional Coordinator for North Africa and FAO Representative to Tunisia : Mr Philippe Ankers
In January 2019, the Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations appointed Philippe Ankers to serve as the Coordinator of the FAO Sub-Regional Office in North Africa, which is based in Tunis and covers five Maghreb countries: Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania, Libya and Tunisia.
In April, 2019, the Secretary of State of Tunisia accredited Mr. Ankers as the FAO Representative to Tunisia, in addition to his role as sub-Regional Coordinator, and welcomed the long-standing and excellent relations of cooperation between FAO and Tunisia. He emphasized the important and strategic place of the agricultural sector in the national economy and for the food security of the country.
For his part, Mr. Ankers thanked the Tunisian Government for the trust granted to him. He renewed the commitment of FAO to the program of cooperation with Tunisia which touches on important topics including water management, transformation of the agricultural sector, support to the olive-growing and artisanal fishing sectors, and the reduction of losses and waste of agricultural products.
Mr. Ankers is of Swiss nationality and holds an advanced degree and PhD in Veterinary Medicine from the University of Bern, Switzerland, and a graduate degree in Development and Environment from the University of London, UK.
His career began in October 1991 as a researcher and project coordinator at the International Trypanotolerance Center in The Gambia. From September 1997 to December 2000 he worked as a veterinary surgeon in Switzerland. From January 2001 to August 2004, he served as Regional Coordinator for Vétérinaires Sans Frontières-Switzerland in Nairobi, then as Director of this same NGO in Bern from September 2004 to January 2008.
In February 2008, Mr. Ankers joined the FAO in Rome as an animal production officer, before managing the Livestock Production Systems Branch (AGAS) within the Animal Production and Health Division (AGA), from October 2011 to October 2015.
From November 2015 and until his appointment in Tunisia, Mr. Ankers was a member of the senior management team of FAO's Global Program for Rural Poverty Reduction.
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32F ~ 43F Qingdao Weather
In order to promote the development of the tourism industry in the United States, Victoria again issues tourist vouchers
Launched on December 11, a total of 40,000 coupons will be issued on a first-come, first-served basis.
According to the Australian Net compilation report, a new round of travel coupons in Victoria, Australia, will be launched on Friday (11th), and a total of 40,000 coupons will be issued on a first-come, first-served basis.
"Herald Sun" reported on the 10th that in order to start Victoria's tourism industry, Victoria began to introduce regional travel vouchers on the 12th, and the second round of applications opened at 10 am on the 11th. Each consumer voucher is worth 200 Australian dollars, and people can redeem for rewards before January 22, 2021, and can also use consumer vouchers for holiday trips booked in advance. The second round of consumption coupons will be used from January 27 to April 1, 2021.
Victoria Tourism Commissioner Martin Pakula said: "In the first round of consumer vouchers, I expect demand may exceed supply. That's why we issued a total of 120,000 consumer vouchers. If anyone misses the first round They are obviously still able to grab consumer coupons in the second and third rounds."
The President of the Victorian Tourism Council, Felicia Mariani, welcomed the move, saying that the distribution of consumer vouchers in batches will continue to stimulate tourism in the off-peak season when it is most needed. She said: "This is exactly when Victoria needs to take such stimulus measures. In addition, it is also a great thing to expand beyond the accommodation sector to attractions and tours, because this is another part that is missing from other plans. . Consumer vouchers can be spread more widely on the Internet, thus encouraging more spending."
People can use this voucher if they spend AUD 400 or more on accommodation or travel.
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Address: No.26 Middle Xianggang Road
Copyright © 2012 Grand Madison Qingdao Harbour-view Central (Former Qingdao Farglory Hotel), All rights reserved.
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Home » Current Affairs , Important Act. , Important Bills , India GK » National Judicial Appointments Commission Bill, 2014
National Judicial Appointments Commission Bill, 2014 was passed by voice vote along with one official amendment. A landmark bill to overturn the collegium system was today a step short of becoming the law with the Lok Sabha approving it amid government's assertion that the measure was aimed at ensuring that only meritorious people are selected as judges to the higher courts. Along with it, the 99th Constitution Amendment Bill, which will give Constitutional status to the proposed Commission, was passed by 367 in favour and nil against. Replying to the debate on the bills, Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said the proposed law does not impact upon the independence of the judiciary. He said the new law will provide for wider consultations for appointment of judges to the Supreme Court and High Courts. Under the new law where a Commission will decide appointment of judges to Supreme Court and High Courts, seniority along with "ability" and "merit" will be considered for elevation, Prasad said.
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Wayne Hattaway, First Game - 28
Originally published March 7, 2016
It took Wayne Hattaway a while, but he finally got to see a major league game in 1985.
After 30 years in baseball in some form or another, the Orlando Twins equipment manager got a brief call to Minnesota for the 1985 All-Star Game, according to The Orlando Sentinel.
"The closest I got to seeing a major-league game was in 1969,'' Hattaway told The Sentinel that July. ''We Minnesota won the West Division championship that year and played Baltimore in the playoffs. George Brophy, Minnesota's farm director, called me and said I would be going to Minnesota for the World Series if we beat Baltimore in the playoffs.''
It took Hattaway a few more years, but he would eventually get to see major league games on a regular basis as a clubhouse assistant in Minnesota.
Hattaway's long career in baseball began as a youth in Mobile, Ala., serving as his hometown team's bat boy.
His professional career then consisted of serving as an equipment manager or trainer in the minors. By 1990, he'd served in Orlando as equipment manager and trainer for 15 years. He served his first 10 years with the club as trainer, according to his Best card.
He then stayed in the minors until 2002, when an old manager of his won the major league managing job with the Twins, Ron Gardenhire. Gardenhire brought Hattaway to Minnesota because he could keep clubhouses loose, according to Yahoo.com.
"He's not here to make you feel good," Gardenhire told Yahoo in 2009. "He's here to keep all of us honest. And laughing."
Hattaway, who earned the nickname "Big Fella," continued with the Twins in 2013, when he had a health scare before returning to work, according to The St. Paul Pioneer Press. He also took a moment to look back at his career, then 62 years strong.
"That's a long time," Hattaway told The Pioneer Press. "You’re not going to find too many people in this game since they were 12."
Orlando Sentinel, July 16, 1985: Hattaway To See A Dream Game
Yahoo.com, Oct. 11, 2009: Minnesota's clubhouse comedian
St. Paul Pioneer Press, June 29, 2013: Minnesota Twins' 'Big Fella,' long-term clubhouse presence, returns
Topps Cards That Should Have Been: The Pat Neshek Chronicles
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Title: History of Gibraltar
Subject: Requests for arbitration/Gibraltarian, Demographics of Gibraltar, Languages of Gibraltar, Timeline of the history of Gibraltar, Culture of Gibraltar
Collection: History of Gibraltar, History of Spain
North View of Gibraltar from Spanish Lines by John Mace (1782)
Location of Gibraltar in the far south of the Iberian Peninsula
The history of Gibraltar, a small peninsula on the southern Iberian coast near the entrance of the Mediterranean Sea, spans over 2,900 years. The peninsula has evolved from a place of reverence in ancient times into "one of the most densely fortified and fought-over places in Europe",[1] as one historian has put it. Gibraltar's location has given it an outsized significance in the history of Europe and its fortified town, established in medieval times, has hosted garrisons that sustained numerous sieges and battles over the centuries.
Gibraltar was first inhabited over 50,000 years ago by Neanderthals and may have been one of their last places of habitation before they died out around 24,000 years ago. Gibraltar's recorded history began around 950 BC with the Phoenicians, who lived nearby. The Carthaginians and Romans later worshipped Hercules in shrines said to have been built on the Rock of Gibraltar, which they called Mons Calpe, the "Hollow Mountain", and which they regarded as one of the twin Pillars of Hercules.
Gibraltar became part of the Visigothic Kingdom of Hispania following the collapse of the Roman Empire and came under Muslim Moorish rule in 711 AD. It was permanently settled for the first time by the Moors and was renamed Jebel Tariq – the Mount of Tariq, later corrupted into Gibraltar. The Christian Kingdom of Castile annexed it in 1309, lost it again to the Moors in 1333 and finally regained it in 1462. Gibraltar became part of the unified Kingdom of Spain and remained under Spanish rule until 1704. It was captured during the War of the Spanish Succession by an Anglo-Dutch fleet in the name of Charles VI of Austria, the Habsburg contender to the Spanish throne. At the war's end, Spain ceded the territory to Britain under the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713.
Spain tried to regain control of Gibraltar, which Britain had declared a Crown colony, through military, diplomatic and economic pressure. Gibraltar was besieged and heavily bombarded during three wars between Britain and Spain but the attacks were repulsed on each occasion. By the end of the last siege, in the late 18th century, Gibraltar had faced fourteen sieges in 500 years. In the years after Trafalgar, Gibraltar became a major base in the Peninsular War. The colony grew rapidly during the 19th and early 20th centuries, becoming one of Britain's most important possessions in the Mediterranean. It was a key stopping point for vessels en route to India via the Suez Canal. A large British naval base was constructed there at great expense at the end of the 19th century and became the backbone of Gibraltar's economy.
British control of Gibraltar enabled the Allies to control the entrance to the Mediterranean during the Second World War. It was attacked on several occasions by German, Italian and Vichy French forces, though without causing much damage. The Spanish dictator General Francisco Franco declined to join a Nazi plan to occupy Gibraltar but revived Spain's claim to the territory after the war. As the territorial dispute intensified, Spain closed its border with Gibraltar between 1969 and 1985 and communications links were severed. Spain's position was supported by Latin American countries but was rejected by Britain and the Gibraltarians themselves, who vigorously asserted their right to self-determination. Discussions of Gibraltar's status have continued between Britain and Spain but have not reached any conclusion.
Since 1985, Gibraltar has undergone major changes as a result of reductions in Britain's overseas defence commitments. Most British forces have left the territory, which is no longer seen as a place of major military importance. Its economy is now based on tourism, financial services, shipping and Internet gambling. Gibraltar is largely self-governed, with its own parliament and government, though the UK maintains responsibility for defence and foreign policy. Its economic success has made it one of the wealthiest areas of the European Union.
Geographical background 1
Prehistory and ancient history 2
Muslim rule (711–1309, 1333–1462) 3
Castilian and Spanish rule (1462–1704) 4
Barbary pirate raids and wars with other European powers 4.1
War of the Spanish Succession (1701–14) 4.2
British rule (1713–present) 5
Consolidation and sieges 5.1
Gibraltar as a colony 5.2
Gibraltar at war and peace 5.3
Second World War 5.4
Post-war Gibraltar 5.5
Modern Gibraltar 5.6
Geographical background
Annotated satellite view of the Strait of Gibraltar
The history of Gibraltar has been driven by its strategic position near the entrance of the Mediterranean Sea. It is a narrow peninsula at the eastern side of the Bay of Gibraltar, 6 kilometres (4 mi) from the city of Algeciras. Gibraltar is on the far south coast of Spain at one of the narrowest points in the Mediterranean, only 24 kilometres (15 mi) from the coast of Morocco in North Africa. Its position on the bay makes it an advantageous natural anchorage for ships.[2] As one writer has put it, "whoever controls Gibraltar also controls the movement of ships into and out of the Mediterranean. In terms of military and naval power, few places have a more strategic location than Gibraltar."[3]
The territory's area measures only 6.7 square kilometres (2.6 sq mi). Most of the land area is occupied by the steeply sloping Rock of Gibraltar which reaches a height of 426 metres (1,398 ft). The town of Gibraltar lies at the base of the Rock on the west side of the peninsula. A narrow, low-lying isthmus connects the peninsula to the Spanish mainland. The North Face of the Rock is a nearly vertical cliff 396 metres (1,299 ft) high overlooking the isthmus; the only land access to the town is via a coastal strip about 350 metres (1,150 ft) wide, which was considerably narrower before the reclamation of land from the sea during the 20th century.[2]
Gibraltar's geography has thus given it considerable natural defensive advantages. It is virtually impossible to scale the eastern or northern sides of the Rock, which are either vertical or nearly so. To the south, the relatively flat area around Europa Point is surrounded by cliffs which are up to 30 metres (98 ft) high. The western side is the only practicable area for a landing, but even here the steep slopes on which the town is built work to the advantage of a defender. These factors have given it an enormous military significance over the centuries.[2]
Prehistory and ancient history
"Gibraltar Woman" – a Neanderthal who lived in Gibraltar some 50,000 years ago
Part of a series on the
Prehistoric Iberia
Neanderthals of Gibraltar
Umayyad conquest of Hispania
Moorish Gibraltar
First Siege of Gibraltar
Second Siege of Gibraltar
Third Siege of Gibraltar
Fourth Siege of Gibraltar
Fifth Siege of Gibraltar
Sixth Siege of Gibraltar
Seventh Siege of Gibraltar
Eighth Siege of Gibraltar
Ninth Siege of Gibraltar
Tenth Siege of Gibraltar
Catholic Monarchs
Marquisate of Gibraltar
War of the Spanish Succession
Capture of Gibraltar
Twelfth Siege of Gibraltar
Treaty of Utrecht
Thirteenth Siege of Gibraltar
Great Siege of Gibraltar
Royal Calpe Hunt
Military history of Gibraltar during World War II
Evacuation of the Gibraltarian civilian population during World War II
Operation Felix
First sovereignty referendum
First constitution
Operation Flavius/Death on the Rock
Modern Gibraltar
Second sovereignty referendum
Cordoba Agreement, 2006
Second constitution
History of nationality in Gibraltar
Political development in modern Gibraltar
Fortifications of Gibraltar
Gibraltar portal
Gibraltar's appearance in prehistory was very different. Whereas today it is surrounded by sea, the water level was much lower in prehistoric times, when the polar ice caps were larger. The current peninsula was surrounded by a fertile coastal plain, with marshes and sand dunes supporting an abundant variety of animals and plants.[4]
Neanderthals are known to have lived in caves around the Rock of Gibraltar; in 1848 the first known adult Neanderthal skull, and only the second Neanderthal fossil ever found, was excavated at Forbes' Quarry on the north face of the Rock.[5] Had the skull been recognised for what it was, the species might have been named Gibraltarians rather than Neanderthals.[6] The date of the skull is unclear but it has been attributed to around the start of the last glacial period about 50,000 years ago.[7]
More Neanderthal remains have been found elsewhere on the Rock at Devil's Tower and in Ibex, Vanguard and Gorham's Caves on the east side of Gibraltar.[8] Excavations in Gorham's Cave have found evidence of Neanderthal occupation dated as recently as 28,000–24,000 years ago, well after they were believed to have died out elsewhere in Europe.[4] The caves of Gibraltar continued to be used by Homo sapiens after the final extinction of the Neanderthals. Stone tools, ancient hearths and animal bones dating from around 40,000 years ago to about 5,000 years ago have been found in deposits left in Gorham's Cave.[9] Numerous potsherds dating from the Neolithic period have been found in Gibraltar's caves, mostly of types typical of the Almerian culture found elsewhere in Andalusia, especially around the town of Almería, from which it takes its name.[10] There is little evidence of habitation in the Bronze Age, when people had largely abandoned the tradition of living in caves.[11]
The Pillars of Hercules depicted erroneously as an island on the Tabula Peutingeriana, an ancient Roman map
During ancient times, Gibraltar was regarded by the peoples of the Mediterranean as a place of religious and symbolic importance. The Phoenicians were present for several centuries, apparently using Gorham's Cave as a shrine to the genius loci of the place,[12] as did the Carthaginians and Romans after them. Excavations in the cave have shown that pottery, jewellery and Egyptian scarabs were left as offerings to the gods, probably in the hope of securing safe passage through the dangerous waters of the Strait of Gibraltar.[9]
The Rock was revered by the Greeks and Romans as one of the two Pillars of Hercules, created by the demigod during his tenth labour when he smashed through a mountain separating the Atlantic and the Mediterranean.[13] According to a Phocaean Greek traveller who visited in the sixth century BC, there were temples and altars to Hercules on the Rock where passing travellers made sacrifices.[14] The Spanish later symbolised the importance of the Pillars of Hercules with a heraldic device consisting of a pair of columns with a scroll wrapped around them – a symbol that became the $ sign and the related Portuguese cifrão ( ).[1]
To the Ancient Romans, Gibraltar was known as Mons Calpe, a name perhaps derived from the Phoenician word kalph, "hollowed out", presumably in reference to the many limestone caves in the Rock.[15] It was well-known to ancient geographers,[16] but there is no known archaeological evidence of permanent settlements from the ancient period.[17] According to the Roman writer Avienus, the ancient Greek traveller Euctemon recorded that
thirty stadia separate [the Pillars of Hercules]; [Euctemon] says that they bristle with woods all over and are always unwelcoming to seamen. Indeed he says that on those are both temples and altars to Hercules. He says that strangers sail there by boat to make offerings to the gods and depart hot foot thinking it wrong to linger ...[18]
There were more mundane reasons not to settle, as Gibraltar had many disadvantages that were to hinder later settlers. It lacked easily accessible fresh water, fertile soil or a safe natural anchorage on the shoreline. Avienus cited the "shallow draft and dense mud of the shore" as reasons not to land there. Its geographical location, which later became its key strategic asset, was not a significant factor during the Classical period as the entrance to the Mediterranean was not contested by the states of the day.[18][19]
For these reasons the ancients instead settled at the head of the bay in what is today known as the Campo (hinterland) of Gibraltar.[19] The town of Carteia, near the location of the modern Spanish town of San Roque, was founded by the Phoenicians around 950 BC on the site of an early settlement of the native Turdetani people.[20] The Carthaginians took control of the town by 228 BC and it was captured by the Romans in 206 BC.[21] It subsequently became Pompey's western base in his campaign of 67 BC against the pirates that menaced the Mediterranean Sea at the time.[22] Carteia appears to have been abandoned after the Vandals sacked it in 409 AD during their march through Roman Hispania to Africa.[23] The region subsequently fell under the rule of the Christianised Visigoths.[24]
Muslim rule (711–1309, 1333–1462)
The 14th-century Tower of Homage, the largest surviving fragment of Gibraltar's Moorish Castle
By 681 the armies of the Umayyad Caliphate had expanded from their original homeland of Arabia to conquer North Africa, the Middle East and large parts of West Asia, bringing Islam in their wake and converting local peoples to the new religion. The Berbers of North Africa, called Moors by the Christians, thereby became Muslims. The Strait of Gibraltar became the frontier between Muslim North Africa and Christian Hispania and thus gained a new strategic significance. Hispania descended into civil war in the 8th century as rival Visigothic factions fought for control of the throne. This gave the Moors the opportunity to invade Hispania and pursue a course of dividing-and-conquering the Christian factions.[25][26]
Following a raid in 710, a predominately Berber army under the command of Tariq ibn Ziyad crossed from North Africa in April 711 and landed somewhere in the vicinity of Gibraltar (though most likely not in the bay or at the Rock itself).[25][26] Although Tariq's expedition was an outstanding success and led to the Islamic conquest of most of the Iberian peninsula, he ended his career in disgrace after falling out with the Arab general Musa bin Nusayr.[27] His conquest nonetheless left a long-lasting legacy for Gibraltar: Mons Calpe was renamed Jebel Tariq, the Mount of Tariq, subsequently corrupted into Gibraltar.[15]
Gibraltar was fortified for the first time in 1160 by the Almohad Sultan Abd al-Mu'min in response to the coastal threat posed by the Christian kings of Aragon and Castile. Gibraltar was renamed Jebel al-Fath (the Mount of Victory), though this name did not persist,[15] and a fortified town named Medinat al-Fath (the City of Victory) was laid out on the upper slopes of the Rock. It is unclear how much of Medinat al-Fath was actually built, as the surviving archaeological remains are scanty.[28]
In the late thirteen and early fourteenth centuries Castile fought with the Marinids of Morocco and the Nasrids of Granada for control of the Strait of Gibraltar. This conflict (Spanish: la Cuestión del Estrecho) is a major chapter in the history of the Christian reconquest of Spain. Although no documentary account of Gibraltar is available for the period following the creation of Madinat al-Fath, there are reasons to believe that a small fortified town existed in Gibraltar, and that its existence was the direct consequence of the fall of Tarifa in 1292. After the capture of the city, it was expected that the Castilian king Sancho IV would lay siege to Algeciras (though in the event, he did not do so) in order to hinder the Marinids' communications with the Iberian peninsula. The threatening presence of a Christian stronghold to the west would have made it necessary to set up a garrison to the east of Algeciras. That way, Gibraltar would protect the rearguard of Algeciras and provided a fallback position if the town fell. At the same time, the heights of the Rock of Gibraltar provided an excellent vantage point for monitoring the activities of the Christian fleets in the Straits.[29]
It was not until 1309 when Gibraltar's defences were put to the test for the first time in the First Siege of Gibraltar. That year Ferdinand IV of Castile and James II of Aragon joined forces to attack the Muslim Emirate of Granada, targeting Almería in the east and Algeciras, across the bay from Gibraltar, in the west.[30] In July 1309 the Castilians laid siege to both Algeciras and Gibraltar. By this time the latter had a modest population of around 1,200 people, a castle and rudimentary fortifications. They proved unequal to the task of keeping out the Castilians and Gibraltar's Nasrid defenders surrendered after a month.[31] Ferdinand gave up the siege of Algeciras the following February but held on to Gibraltar, expelling the Moors and repopulating it with Christians. A keep and dockyard were built on his orders to secure Castile's hold on the peninsula.[32] Ferdinand also issued a letter patent granting privileges to the inhabitants to encourage people to settle, as it was initially not regarded as a particularly hospitable place to live.[33]
Gibraltar's Moorish Baths, now incorporated into the Gibraltar Museum
In 1315 the Nasrid Moors of Granada attempted to recapture Gibraltar but abandoned a brief siege when a Castilian relief force appeared. Eighteen years later, the Nasrid Sultan of Granada, Muhammed and the Marinid Sultan of Fez, Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn Othman, united to besiege Gibraltar with a large army and naval force.[34] This time the king of Castile, Alfonso XI, was unable to raise a relief force for several months because of the threat of rebellions within his kingdom. The relief force eventually arrived in June 1333 but found that the starving inhabitants of Gibraltar had already surrendered to the Moors of Fez.[35] The Castilians now found themselves having to besiege an entrenched enemy, but they were unable to break through the Moorish defences and, faced with a stalemate, the two sides agreed to disengage in exchange for mutual concessions and a four-year truce.[36]
Abu al-Hasan refortified Gibraltar with what the Arab chroniclers called "strong walls as a halo surrounds a crescent moon" in anticipation of renewed war, which duly broke out in 1339.[37] However, his forces suffered a disastrous defeat at the Battle of Río Salado in October 1340 and fell back to Algeciras.[38] The Castilians besieged the city for two years and eventually forced its surrender, though Gibraltar remained in Moorish hands.[39] The peninsula's defences had been greatly improved by Abu al-Hasan's construction of new walls, towers, magazines and a citadel, making its capture a much more difficult endeavour.[40] Alfonso XI once again laid siege in 1349 following the death of Abu al-Hasan but was thwarted by the arrival of the Black Death in 1350, which killed many of his soldiers and claimed his own life.[41]
Gibraltar remained in Moorish hands until 1462 but was disputed between the Nasrids of Granada and Marinids of Fez. In 1374 the latter handed the peninsula to the former, apparently in payment for Granadan military support in suppressing rebellions in Morocco.[42] Gibraltar's garrison rebelled against the Nasrids in 1410 but a Granadan army retook the place the following year after a brief siege. Gibraltar was subsequently used by the Granadans as the base for raids into Christian territory, prompting Enrique de Guzmán, second Count of Niebla, to lay siege in 1436. The attempt ended in disaster; the attack was repelled with heavy casualties and Enrique himself was drowned while trying to escape by sea. His body was recovered by the Moors, decapitated and hung on the walls of Gibraltar for the next twenty-two years.[43]
Moorish rule over Gibraltar came to an end in August 1462 when a small Castilian force under the command of Alonso de Arcos, the governor of Tarifa, launched a surprise attack. The Castilians mounted their attack while Gibraltar's senior commanders and townspeople were away paying homage to the new sultan of Granada. After a short assault which inflicted heavy losses on the defenders, the garrison surrendered to Enrique de Guzmán's son Juan Alonso, now the first Duke of Medina Sidonia. The Moorish inhabitants were once again expelled en masse, to be replaced by Christians.[44]
Castilian and Spanish rule (1462–1704)
The arms granted to the city of Gibraltar by a Royal Warrant passed in Toledo on 10 July 1502 by Isabella I of Castile
Shortly after Gibraltar's recapture, King Henry IV of Castile declared it Crown property and reinstituted the special privileges which his predecessor had granted during the previous period of Christian rule.[45] Four years after visiting Gibraltar in 1463, he was overthrown by the Spanish nobility and clergy. His half-brother Alfonso was declared king and rewarded Medina Sidonia for his support with the lordship of Gibraltar.[46] The existing governor, a loyalist of the deposed Henry IV, refused to surrender Gibraltar to Medina Sidonia. After a fifteen-month siege from April 1466 to July 1467, Medina Sidonia took control of the town. He died the following year but his son Enrique was confirmed as lord of Gibraltar by the reinstated Henry IV in 1469.[46] In 1474 the new Duke of Medina Sidonia sold Gibraltar to a group of Jewish conversos from Cordova and Seville led by Pedro de Herrera in exchange for maintaining the garrison of the town for two years, after which time the 4,350 conversos were expelled by the Duke.[47][48] His status was further enhanced by Isabella I of Castile in 1478 with the granting of the Marquisate of Gibraltar.[49]
On 2 January 1492, after five years of war, the Moorish emirate in Spain came to an end with the Catholic Monarchs' capture of Granada.[50] The Jews of Gibraltar were, like those elsewhere in the kingdom, expelled from Spain by order of the monarchs in March that year. Gibraltar was used by Medina Sidonia as a base for the Spanish capture of Melilla in North Africa in 1497. Two years later the remaining Moors of Granada were ordered to convert to Christianity or be expelled. Although some did convert, most left for North Africa, many of them travelling via Gibraltar.[51]
Gibraltar became Crown property again in 1501 at the order of Isabella and the following year it received a new set of royal arms, which is still used by modern Gibraltar, replacing those of Medina Sidonia. In the Royal Warrant accompanying the arms, Isabella highlighted Gibraltar's importance as "the key between these our kingdoms in the Eastern and Western Seas [the Mediterranean and Atlantic]". The metaphor was represented on the royal arms by a golden key hanging from the front gate of a battlemented fortress. The warrant charged all future Spanish monarchs to "hold and retain the said City for themselves and in their own possession; and that no alienation of it, nor any part of it, nor its jurisdiction ... shall ever be made from the Crown of Castile."[52]
At this point in history, "Gibraltar" meant not just the peninsula but the entire surrounding area including the land on which the towns of La Línea de la Concepción, San Roque, Los Barrios and Algeciras now stand. To the east, Gibraltar was bounded by the Guadiaro River, and its northern boundaries lay in the vicinity of Castellar de la Frontera, Jimena de la Frontera, Alcalá de los Gazules, Medina-Sidonia and Tarifa. From the 16th century, the modern meaning of the name came to be adopted – specifically referring only to the town of Gibraltar and the peninsula on which it stands.[53]
Under Spanish Crown rule, the town of Gibraltar fell into severe decline. The end of Muslim rule in Spain and the Christian capture of the southern ports considerably decreased the peninsula's strategic value. It derived some minor economic value from tuna-fishing and wine-producing industries but its usefulness as a fortress was now limited. It was effectively reduced to the status of an unremarkable stronghold on a rocky promontory and Marbella replaced it as the principal Spanish port in the region.[54]
Gibraltar's inhospitable terrain made it an unpopular place to live. To boost the population, convicts from the kingdom of Granada were offered the possibility of serving their sentence in the Gibraltar garrison as an alternative to prison.[55] Despite its apparent unattractiveness, Juan Alfonso de Guzmán, third Duke of Medina Sidonia, nonetheless sought to regain control of the town. In September 1506, following Isabella's death, he laid siege in the expectation that the gates would quickly be opened to his forces. This did not happen, and after a fruitless four-month blockade he gave up the attempt. Gibraltar received the title of "Most Loyal" from the Spanish crown in recognition of its faithfulness.[56]
Barbary pirate raids and wars with other European powers
Charles V Wall, built by the Spanish to control access to the south side of Gibraltar after the pirate raid of September 1540
Despite continuing external threats Gibraltar was neglected by the Spanish crown and its fortifications fell into disrepair. Barbary pirates from North Africa took advantage of the weak defences in September 1540 by mounting a major raid in which hundreds of Gibraltar's residents were taken as hostages or slaves. The Shrine of Our Lady of Europe was sacked and all its valuables were stolen. Many of the captives were subsequently released when a Spanish fleet commanded by Bernardino de Mendoza intercepted the pirate ships near Alborán as they were bringing ransomed hostages back to Gibraltar. The Spanish crown belatedly responded to Gibraltar's vulnerability by building the Charles V Wall to control the southern flank of the Rock and commissioning the Italian engineer Giovanni Battista Calvi to strengthen other parts of the fortifications.[57]
The seas around Gibraltar continued to be dangerous for decades to come as Barbary pirate raids continued; although a small squadron of Spanish galleys was based at the port to counter pirate raids, it proved to be of limited effectiveness and many inhabitants were abducted and sold into slavery by the pirates. The problem worsened significantly after 1606, when Spain expelled its entire population of 600,000 Moriscos – Moors who had converted to Christianity. Many of the expellees were evacuated to North Africa via Gibraltar but ended up joining the pirate fleets, either as Christian slaves or reconverted Muslims, and raided as far afield as Cornwall.[58]
The Explosion of the Spanish Flagship during the Battle of Gibraltar by Cornelis Claesz van Wieringen
The threat of the Barbary pirates was soon joined by that of Spain's enemies in northern Europe. On 5 May 1607, during the Eighty Years' War, a Dutch fleet under Admiral Jacob van Heemskerk ambushed a Spanish fleet at anchor in the Bay of Gibraltar. The Dutch won an overwhelming victory in the Battle of Gibraltar (1607), losing no ships and very few men while the entire Spanish fleet was destroyed with the loss of 3,000 men.[59] The Spanish and Dutch declared a temporary truce in 1609 (the Twelve Years' Truce) and resumed hostilities in 1621, when a joint Dutch and Danish fleet arrived in the Strait to attack Spanish shipping. This time the Spanish succeeded in capturing and sinking a number of the attackers' ships in the Battle of Gibraltar (1621), driving away the rest.[60]
An English military presence was briefly established at Gibraltar for the first time in 1620. The Spanish granted permission for the English fleet to use Gibraltar's port as a base for operations against the Barbary pirates, who were raiding the British and Irish coasts. Some in England had ambitions to turn the fleet against Spain rather than the Barbary coast. However, James I successfully resisted Parliamentary pressure to declare war on Spain and the fleet returned to England.[60] After Charles I ascended the throne in 1625, a second English fleet was sent to the region with instructions to "take or spoil a town" on the Spanish coast. Gibraltar was one of the proposed targets on the basis that it was small, could easily be garrisoned, supplied and defended, and was in a highly strategic location. The English fleet instead attacked Cadiz in the belief that its sacking would be more immediately profitable, but the raid turned into a fiasco. The landing force looted the town's wine stores and was evacuated after four days of mass drunkenness without anything useful having been achieved.[61]
The presence of Spain's enemies in the Straits prompted the Spanish king Philip IV to order Gibraltar's defences to be strengthened. A new mole and gun platforms were built, though the latter's usefulness was limited due to a lack of gunners. The town was an unsanitary, crowded place, which probably contributed to the outbreak in 1649 of an epidemic – reportedly plague but possibly typhoid – which killed a quarter of the population.[62] English fleets returned to Gibraltar in 1651–52 and again in 1654–55 as temporary allies of the Spanish against French and Dutch shipping in the Straits.[63]
In 1654, Battle of Lagos Bay. Eleven years later, Rooke was to return to Gibraltar to capture it.[53]
War of the Spanish Succession (1701–14)
Sir conquered Gibraltar in the name of Archduke Charles of Austria
In November 1700, Charles II of Spain died childless. The dispute over who should succeed him – the Bourbon Prince Philip of Anjou, grandson of Louis XIV of France, or the Habsburg Archduke Charles of Austria – soon plunged Europe into a major war. Louis XIV supported Philip. England, the Netherlands, Austria, Portugal, Savoy and some of the German states supported Charles, fearing that Philip's accession would result in French domination of Europe and the Americas. In accordance with Charles II's will, Philip was proclaimed king as Philip V of Spain and allied his new kingdom with France. The following February, the War of the Spanish Succession broke out when French forces arrived in the Spanish Netherlands and expelled the Dutch from the barrier towns. In May 1702, England's Queen Anne formally declared war on France.[65]
Spain thus became a target for the Anglo-Dutch-Austrian alliance.[66] The confederates' campaign was pursued by land and by sea. The main land offensive was pursued in the Bavarian allies in the Danube basin while Rooke carried out a diversionary naval offensive in the Mediterranean.[67] Rooke was instructed to attack French or Spanish coastal towns, though the choice of target was left to his discretion.[68]
When Rooke arrived in the region several targets were considered. An attempt to incite the inhabitants of Barcelona to revolt against Philip V failed, and a plan to assault the French naval base at Toulon was abandoned, and an earlier attempt to take Cadiz had failed. Casting around for an easier target, Rooke decided to attack Gibraltar for three principal reasons: it was poorly garrisoned and fortified, it would be of major strategic value to the war effort, and its capture might encourage the inhabitants of southern Spain to reject Philip.[69]
Edward Whitaker of HMS Dorsetshire.[70] After a heavy naval bombardment on 2 August, the marines launched a pincer attack on the town, advancing south from the isthmus and north from Europa Point.[71] Gibraltar's defenders were well stocked with food and ammunition but were heavily outnumbered and outgunned. The Spanish position was untenable and on the morning of 4 August, the governor, Diego de Salinas, agreed to surrender.[72]
The terms of surrender made it clear that Gibraltar had been taken in the name of Charles III of Spain, described in the terms as "legitimate Lord and King". The inhabitants and garrison of Gibraltar were promised freedom of religion and the maintenance of existing rights if they wished to stay, on condition that they swore an oath of loyalty to Charles as King of Spain. As had happened two years previously in the raid on Cadiz, the discipline of the landing forces soon broke down. There were numerous incidents of rape, all Catholic churches but one (the Parish Church of St. Mary the Crowned, now the Cathedral) were desecrated or converted into military storehouses, and religious symbols such as the statue of Our Lady of Europe were damaged and destroyed. Angry Spanish inhabitants took violent reprisals against the occupiers. English and Dutch soldiers and sailors were attacked and killed, and their bodies were thrown into wells and cesspits.[73]
When the Spanish garrison marched out on 7 August almost all of the inhabitants, some 4,000 people in total, evacuated the town. They had reason to believe that their exile would not last long, as fortresses and towns changed hands frequently at the time. Many settled nearby in the ruins of Algeciras or around an old hermitage at the head of the bay in the expectation of a prompt return. They took with them the records of the city council including Gibraltar's banner and royal warrant. In time the refugee settlement at the hermitage developed into the town of San Roque. It was regarded by the Spanish, as Philip V put it in 1706, as being the "City of Gibraltar resident in its Campo". A small population of around seventy neutral Genoese people stayed behind in Gibraltar.[74]
The Grand Alliance's control of Gibraltar was challenged on 24 August when a French fleet entered the Straits. In the subsequent Battle of Vélez-Málaga, both sides sustained heavy crew casualties but lost no ships, enabling each side to claim the engagement as a victory. The French withdrew to Toulon without attempting to assault Gibraltar.[75] In early September a Franco-Spanish army arrived outside Gibraltar and prepared for a siege which they commenced on 9 October. Around 7,000 French and Spanish soldiers, aided by refugees from Gibraltar, were pitted against a force of 2,000 defenders consisting of English and Dutch marines and Spanish soldiers and miquelets loyal to Charles.[76]
Veüe du d'Estroit de Gibraltar et des Environs, avec les tranchées du Siège mis en 1704, by Louis Boudan (1704)
The defenders were aided from late October by a naval squadron under Admiral Sir John Leake. A further 2,200 English and Dutch reinforcements arrived by sea with fresh supplies of food and ammunition in December 1704.[77] With morale falling in the Franco-Spanish camp amid desertions and sickness, Louis XIV despatched Marshal de Tessé to take command in February 1705.[78] A Franco-Spanish assault was beaten back with heavy casualties and on 31 March, de Tessé gave up the siege, complaining of a "want of method and planning".[79]
During the War of Spanish Succession, Gibraltar was governed by the British commandant as a possession of Duke Charles of Austria as Charles III of Spain. The British commandant, Major General John Shrimpton, was appointed by Charles as Gibraltar's governor in 1705 on the advice of Queen Anne.[80] The Queen subsequently declared Gibraltar a free port at the insistence of the Sultan of Morocco, though she had no formal authority to do so. Shrimpton was replaced in 1707 by Colonel Roger Elliott, who was replaced in turn by Brigadier Thomas Stanwix in 1711; this time the appointments were made directly by London with no claim of authority from Charles. Stanwix was ordered to expel all foreign troops from Gibraltar to secure its status as an exclusively British possession but failed to evict the Dutch, apparently not considering them "foreign".[81]
The War of the Spanish Succession was finally settled in 1713 by a series of treaties and agreements. Under the Treaty of Utrecht, which was signed on 13 July 1713 and brought together a number of sub-treaties and agreements, Philip V was accepted by Britain and Austria as King of Spain in exchange for guarantees that the crowns of France and Spain would not be unified. Various territorial exchanges were agreed: although Philip V retained the Spanish overseas empire, he ceded the Southern Netherlands, Naples, Milan, and Sardinia to Austria; Sicily and some Milanese lands to Savoy; and Gibraltar and Minorca to Great Britain. In addition he granted the British the exclusive right to non-Spanish slave trading in Spanish America for thirty years, the so-called asiento. With regard to Gibraltar (Article X), the town, fortifications and port (but not the hinterland) were ceded to Britain "for ever, without any exception or impediment whatsoever." The treaty also stipulated that if Britain was ever to dispose of Gibraltar it would first have to offer the territory to Spain.[82][83]
British rule (1713–present)
Consolidation and sieges
Despite its later importance to Britain, Gibraltar was initially seen by the British Government as more of a bargaining counter than a strategic asset. Its defences continued to be neglected,[84] its garrisoning was an unwelcome expense,[85] and Spanish pressure threatened Britain's vital overseas trade.[86] On seven separate occasions between 1713 and 1728 the British Government proposed to exchange Gibraltar for concessions from Spain, but on each occasion the proposals were vetoed by the British Parliament following public protests.[87]
Spain's loss of Gibraltar and other Spanish territories in the Mediterranean was resented by the Spanish public and monarchy alike.[87] In 1717 Spanish forces retook Sardinia[84] and in 1718 Sicily,[85] both of which had been ceded to Austria under the Treaty of Utrecht. The effective Spanish repudiation of the treaty prompted the British initially to propose handing back Gibraltar in exchange for a peace agreement and, when that failed, to declare war on Spain.[85] The Spanish gains were quickly reversed, a Spanish expedition to Scotland in 1719 supporting the Jacobites was defeated[86] and peace was eventually restored by the Treaty of The Hague (1720).[88]
In January 1727, Spain declared the nullification of the Treaty of Utrecht's provisions relating to Gibraltar on the grounds that Britain had violated its terms by extending Gibraltar's fortifications beyond the permitted limits, allowing Jews and Moors to live there, failing to protect Catholics and harming Spain's revenues by allowing smuggling.[89] Spanish forces began a siege and bombardment of Gibraltar the following month, causing severe damage through intensive cannon fire.[90] The defenders withstood the threat and were reinforced and resupplied by a British naval force. Bad weather and supply problems caused the Spanish to call off the siege at the end of June.[91]
A map of Gibraltar and its fortifications, drawn in 1799 by Jean-Denis Barbié du Bocage
Britain's hold on Gibraltar was reconfirmed in 1729 by the Treaty of Seville, which satisfied neither side; the Spanish had wanted Gibraltar returned, while the British disliked the continuation of the restrictions imposed by the Treaty of Utrecht. Spain responded the following year by constructing a line of fortifications across the upper end of the peninsula, cutting off Gibraltar from its hinterland. The fortifications, known to the British as the Spanish Lines, and to Spain as La Línea de Contravalación (the Lines of Contravallation), were later to give their name to the modern town of La Línea de la Concepción.[92] Gibraltar was effectively blockaded by land but was able to rely on trade with Morocco for food and other supplies.[93]
Gibraltar's civilian population increased steadily through the century to form a disparate mixture of Britons, Genoese, Jews, Spaniards and Portuguese. By 1754 there were 1,733 civilians in addition to 3,000 garrison soldiers and their 1,426 family members, bringing the total population to 6,159.[94] The civilian population increased to 3,201 by 1777, including 519 Britons, 1,819 Roman Catholics (meaning Spanish, Portuguese, Genoese etc.) and 863 Jews.[95] Each group had its own distinctive niche in the fortress. The Spanish historian López de Alaya, writing in 1782, characterised their roles thus:
The richest mercantile houses are English ... The Jews, for the most part, are shop keepers and brokers ... They have a synagogue and openly practice the ceremonies of their religion, notwithstanding the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht ... The Genoese are traders, but the greater part of them are fishermen, traders and gardeners.[96]
Life for the ordinary soldiers of the garrison was tedious and harsh, with corporal punishment administered for even the most trivial offences. Suicide and desertions were common due to boredom, shortages of food and the poor living conditions. At Middle Hill Battery, guards had to be posted to prevent soldiers from deserting by lowering themselves on ropes down the cliff face.[97]
The Sortie made by the Garrison of Gibraltar in the Morning of the 27 of November 1781 by John Trumbull, depicting a British attack that occurred during the Great Siege of Gibraltar
The fortifications of Gibraltar were modernised and upgraded in the 1770s with the construction of new batteries, bastions and curtain walls. The driving force behind this programme was the highly experienced Colonel (later Major General)
CS1 Spanish-language sources (es)
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^ a b Rose, p. 95
^ a b c Dennis, pp. 7–8
^ Krieger, p. 8
^ a b Rincon, Paul (13 September 2006). "'"Neanderthals' 'last rock refuge. BBC News. Retrieved 16 February 2013.
^ Dunsworth, p. 8
^ Walter
^ Bruner & Manzi, p. 31
^ Finlayson, J. C.; Barton, R. N. E.; Stringer, C. B. (2001). "The Gibraltar Neanderthals and their Extinction". Les Premiers Hommes Modernes de la Peninsule Iberique. Actes du Colloque de la Commission VIII de l'UISPP. Lisbon: Instituto Português de Arqueologia. pp. 117–122.
^ a b Stringer, p. 48
^ Devenish, p. 49
^ Padró i Parcerisa, p. 128
^ Jackson, p. 20
^ Hills, p. 14
^ a b c Hills, p. 13
^ a b Devenish, p. 72
^ a b Jackson, p. 22
^ Shields, p. ix
^ Collins, p. 106
^ Truver, p. 161
^ Alexander, p. 14
^ a b Hills, p. 30
^ a b Jackson, pp. 21–25
^ Jackson, pp. 34–35
^ Harvey, p. 35
^ Hills, p. 49–50
^ Jackson, pp. 40–1
^ Jackson, p. 57-8
^ Lamelas Oladán, p.25
^ a b Devenish, p. 120
^ Fa, Finlayson, p. 17
^ Hills, p. 104
^ Jackson, p. 85–86
^ Jackson, p. 101
^ Jackson, p. 113, 333–34
^ Abulafia, p. 47.
^ a b Jackson, p. 118
^ a b c Jackson, p. 119
^ Ayala, p. 171–75
^ Cornwell, p. 4
^ Jackson, pp. 147–49
^ Bradford, Ernle Dusgate Selby (1972). Gibraltar: the history of a fortress. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. p. 101. Retrieved 16 April 2011. To the citizen of the 20th Century, accustomed or the civilian casualties in war, and dulled to the annihilation of whole cities (or even nations), the horrified reaction of Gibraltar's garrison to the shelling of the town and its inhabitants may seem a trifle naive. But it must be remembered that in those days there was still a code of conduct in warfare, and some elementary humanity in those who waged it.
^ Monti p. 140
^ a b Monti p. 138
^ Montero p. 356
^ 35,000 allied troops camped outside, Chartrand pg. 76
^ Montero pp. 365-366
^ Bajas españolas de las baterías flotantes del ataque a Gibraltar el 13 de septiembre de 1782. Gaceta de Madrid. Encontrado por Todo a Babor. Retrieved on 2010-03-11
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^ Syrett p.104-05
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^ Gold, p. 8
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^ "Spain 'obsessed' with Gibraltar". BBC News. 2 August 2004.
History of the United Kingdom
The tercentenary of the capture of Gibraltar was celebrated in the territory in August 2004 but attracted criticism from some in Spain.[205] In September 2006, tripartite talks between Spain, Gibraltar and the UK resulted in a deal (known as the Cordoba Agreement) to make it easier to cross the border and to improve transport and communications links between Spain and Gibraltar. Among the changes was an agreement to lift restrictions on Gibraltar's airport to enable airlines operating from Spain to land there and to facilitate use of the airport by Spanish residents.[206] It did not address the vexed issue of sovereignty, but this time the government of Gibraltar supported it. A new Constitution Order was promulgated in the same year, which was approved by a majority of 60.24% in a referendum held in November 2006.[207]
Gibraltar's relationship with Spain continued to be a sensitive subject. By 2002, Britain and Spain had proposed an agreement to share sovereignty over Gibraltar. However, it was opposed by the government of Gibraltar, which put it to a referendum in November 2002. The agreement was rejected by 17,000 votes to 187 – a majority of 98.97%. Although both governments dismissed the outcome as having no legal weight,[203] the outcome of the referendum caused the talks to stall and the British government accepted that it would be unrealistic to try to reach an agreement without the support of the people of Gibraltar.[204]
Key locations in modern Gibraltar
Grand Casemates Square, renovated and pedestrianised in the late 1990s
Ocean Village Marina, a luxury marina resort with premier berths for yachts
The new terminal of Gibraltar International Airport, opened in 2012, with the Rock of Gibraltar behind
The government also encouraged the development of new industries such as financial services, duty-free shopping, casinos and Internet gambling. Branches of major British chains such as Marks & Spencer were opened in Gibraltar to encourage visits from British expatriates on the nearby Costa del Sol. To facilitate the territory's economic expansion, a major programme of land reclamation was carried out; a tenth of Gibraltar's present-day land area was reclaimed from the sea. These initiatives proved enormously successful. By 2007, Chief Minister Peter Caruana was able to boast that Gibraltar's economic success had made it "one of the most affluent communities in the entire world."[195] As of 2013, Gibraltar is ranked as the second most prosperous territory within the European Union and the 18th most prosperous worldwide in terms of gross domestic product by purchasing power parity per capita (the United Kingdom, for comparison, is 33rd worldwide and Spain is 44th).[201] Today, Gibraltar has one Big Four accounting firm office per 10,000 people, the second highest in the world after the British Virgin Islands, and a bank per 1,700 people, the fifth most banks per capita in the world.[202]
The military cutbacks inevitably had major implications for Gibraltar's economy, which had up to that point depended largely on defence expenditure.[194] It prompted the territory's government to shift its economic orientation and place a much greater emphasis on encouraging tourism and establishing self-sufficiency.[196] Tourism in Gibraltar was encouraged through refurbishing and pedestrianising key areas of the city, building a new passenger terminal to welcome cruise ship visitors and opening new marinas and leisure facilities.[197] By 2011, Gibraltar was attracting over 10 million visitors a year[198] compared to a population of 29,752,[199] giving it one of the highest tourist-to-resident ratios in the world.[200]
After the border reopened, the British government reduced the military presence in Gibraltar by closing the naval dockyard.[194] The RAF presence was also downgraded; although the airport officially remains an RAF base, military aircraft are no longer permanently stationed there. The British garrison, which had been present since 1704, was withdrawn in 1990 following defence cutbacks at the end of the Cold War. A number of military units continue to be stationed in Gibraltar under the auspices of British Forces Gibraltar; the garrison was replaced with locally recruited units of the Royal Gibraltar Regiment, while a Royal Navy presence is continued through the Gibraltar Squadron, responsible for overseeing the security of Gibraltar's territorial waters.[195] In March 1988 a British military operation against members of the Provisional IRA (PIRA) planning a car bomb attack in Gibraltar ended in controversy when the Special Air Service shot and killed all three PIRA members.[194]
Aerial view of Gibraltar as seen in 2011
Franco's death in 1975 led to the beginnings of diplomatic movement between Britain and Spain on the Gibraltar issue, though not immediately. Spain applied to join the European Economic Community (EEC) and NATO, for which it needed British support.[189] In 1980, talks between British and Spanish ministers led to the Lisbon Agreement, a statement on cooperation between the two countries which committed them to starting negotiations on Gibraltar's future and lifting the Spanish restrictions on communications with Gibraltar. Although Britain promised to "honour the freely and democratically expressed wishes of the people of Gibraltar",[190] Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher indicated in the House of Commons that sovereignty would be on the table, in a change from the previous policy. However, the border was not reopened due to "technical issues" – code for unresolved issues between the two governments – and the agreement was strongly opposed by many Gibraltarians, who did not wish their sovereignty to be under discussion and objected to the lack of Gibraltarian representatives at the talks.[191] The outbreak of the Falklands War in 1982 caused a further delay.[192] Argentina carried out an unsuccessful sabotage operation, kept secret at the time, that was intended to sink a Royal Navy frigate in Gibraltar's harbour; the saboteurs were captured by the Spanish police in Algeciras before they could carry out their attack.[193] A further agreement was reached in Brussels in 1984 which clarified the Lisbon Agreement and required that Britain allow Spaniards to live and work in Gibraltar, which they would have the right to do anyway as EEC citizens. The border was finally fully reopened on 4–5 February 1985.[192]
The saddest sight was seeing people behind the wire fences on both sides of the land frontier yelling at the top of their voices across the wide dividing space to enquire about the state of relatives, as telephone communications had been cut by the Spaniards. Local housewives with Spanish relatives in the Campo area kept their radios tuned to the nearby Spanish stations for news of family members who were gravely ill. In critical cases the parties concerned would rush to Spain via Tangiers but unfortunately sometimes the patient was dead and buried by the time they arrived. The Spanish authorities would not allow access across the land frontier even on compassionate grounds.[188]
The Spanish decision had major consequences not only for the political relationship between Spain and the United Kingdom, but for the people of Gibraltar, many of whom had relatives or homes in Spain. As one of the Gibraltarians that suffered the closure of the frontier explains:
The dispute initially took the form of symbolic protests and a campaign by Spanish diplomats and the state-controlled media. From 1954, Spain imposed increasingly stringent restrictions on trade and the movements of vehicles and people across the border with Gibraltar.[185] Further restrictions were imposed in 1964,[186] and in 1966 the frontier was closed to vehicles. In 1969, after the passing of the Gibraltar Constitution Order, to which Spain strongly objected, the frontier was closed completely and Gibraltar's telecommunications links through Spain were cut.[187]
Spain's push to regain sovereignty over Gibraltar was fuelled by the a referendum in September 1967 in which 12,138 voters opted to remain with Britain and only 44 supported union with Spain.[178] Spain dismissed the outcome of the referendum, calling the city's inhabitants "pseudo-Gibraltarians"[184] and stating that the "real" Gibraltarians were the descendants of the Spanish inhabitants who had resettled elsewhere in the region over 250 years earlier.[177]
The closed gates at the border between Gibraltar and Spain, 1977
Gibraltar's post-war relationship with Spain was marred by an intensification of the long-running dispute over the territory's sovereignty. Although Spain had not attempted to use military force to regain Gibraltar since 1783, the question of sovereignty was still present. Disputes over smuggling and the sea frontier between Gibraltar and Spain had repeatedly caused diplomatic tensions during the 19th century.[179] The neutral zone between Spain and Gibraltar had also been a cause of disputes during the 19th and 20th centuries. This originally had been an undemarcated strip of sand on the isthmus between the British and Spanish lines of fortifications, about 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) wide – the distance of a cannon shot in 1704. Over the years, however, Britain took control of most of the neutral zone, much of which is now occupied by Gibraltar's airport. This expansion provoked repeated protests from Spain.[180]
In the war's aftermath, Gibraltar took decisive steps towards implementing civilian self-governance over most issues of public policy. The Association for the Advancement of Civil Rights (AACR), led by Gibraltarian lawyer Joshua Hassan, won all of the seats in the first post-war City Council elections in 1945. Women were given the right to vote in 1947, and in 1950 a Legislative Council was established.[175] A two-party system had emerged by 1955 with the creation of the Commonwealth Party as a rival to the AACR. That same year Hassan became the first Mayor of Gibraltar.[176] The Governor still retained overall authority and could overrule the Legislative Council. This inevitably caused tension and controversy if the Governor and Legislative Council disagreed, but in 1964 the British Government agreed to confine the powers of the Governor to matters of defence, security and foreign relations.[177] A new constitution was decided on in 1968 and promulgated in 1969, merging the City Council and Legislative Council into a single House of Assembly (known as the Gibraltar Parliament since 2006) with 15 elected members, two non-elected officials and a speaker. The old title of "Colony of Gibraltar" was dropped and the territory was renamed as the City of Gibraltar.[178]
Although Gibraltar's civilian inhabitants had started to return as early as April 1944, the last evacuees did not arrive back home until as late as February 1951. The immediate problem after VJ Day was a lack of shipping, as all available vessels were needed to bring troops home, but the longer-term problem was a lack of civilian housing. The garrison was relocated to the southern end of the peninsula to free up space and military accommodation was temporarily reused to house the returning civilians. A programme to build housing projects was implemented, though progress was slow due to shortages of building materials. By 1969, over 2,500 flats had either been built or were under construction.[174]
The Gibraltar House of Assembly (now the Gibraltar Parliament), established in 1969
Post-war Gibraltar
German and Italian spies kept a constant watch on Gibraltar and sought to carry out sabotage operations, sometimes successfully. The Italians repeatedly carried out raids on Gibraltar's harbour using human torpedoes and divers operating from the Spanish shore, damaging a number of merchant ships and sinking one.[173] Three Spaniards being run as spies and saboteurs by the German Abwehr were caught in Gibraltar in 1942–43 and hanged.[164] The threat to Gibraltar was greatly reduced after the collapse of Italy in September 1943.[164]
Gibraltar was directly attacked, both overtly and covertly, on several occasions during the war. Vichy French aircraft carried out bombing attacks in 1940 and there were sporadic raids from Italian and German long-range aircraft, though the damage caused was not significant.[169] Franco's position changed subtly from one of neutrality to "non-belligerence",[170] which in practice meant allowing the Axis powers to operate covertly against Gibraltar from Spanish territory. Despite Franco's willingness to overlook German and Italian activities in and around the Bay of Gibraltar, he decided not to join Hitler's planned Operation Felix to seize the territory.[171] A major factor influencing his decision was the vulnerability of Spain's food supplies, as the country was unable to feed itself after the destruction of the Civil War. It relied on grain imports from the Americas, which would certainly have been cut off had Franco gone to war with the Allies.[172] Hitler eventually abandoned Felix to pursue other priorities such as the invasions of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union.[171]
During the Battle of the Atlantic, Gibraltar played a key role. The Ocean Convoy System adopted by Britain after the fall of France in June 1940 ran on two routes – an east–west route between the UK and North America, and a north–south route between the UK, Gibraltar and Freetown in British-ruled Sierra Leone.[165] Even before the war, Gibraltar had been designated as one of the main assembly points for convoys heading inbound to Europe.[166] From late 1942, Gibraltar was the destination of the Central Atlantic convoy route between the United States and the Mediterranean in support of Allied operations in North Africa, Sicily, Italy and elsewhere in the region.[167] A huge number of Allied troops and ships travelled this route; between November 1942 and August 1945, 11,119 ships travelled in 189 convoys between Gibraltar and the United States and vice versa, and between December 1942 and March 1945, 536,134 troops were transported from the United States to Gibraltar.[168]
The outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939 did not initially cause much disruption in Gibraltar, as Spain and Italy were neutral at the time. The situation changed drastically after April 1940 when Germany invaded France, with Italy joining the invasion in June 1940. The British Government feared that Spain would also enter the war and it was decided to evacuate the entire civilian population of Gibraltar in May 1940.[161] Most went to the United Kingdom and others to Madeira and Jamaica, while some made their own way to Tangier and Spain. An intensive programme of tunnelling and refortification was undertaken; over 50 kilometres (30 mi) of tunnels were dug in the Rock, and anti-aircraft batteries were installed in numerous locations in the territory. A new and powerful naval group called Force H was established at Gibraltar to control the entrance to the Mediterranean and support Allied forces in North Africa, the Mediterranean and the Atlantic.[162] The airfield, which was now designated RAF North Front, was also extended using spoil from the tunnelling works so that it could accommodate bomber aircraft being ferried to North Africa.[163] The garrison was greatly expanded, reaching a peak of 17,000 in 1943 with another 20,000 sailors and airmen accommodated in Gibraltar at the same time.[164]
Searchlights on the Rock of Gibraltar during an air raid practice on 20 November 1942
The outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in July 1936 presented Gibraltar with major security concerns, as it was initially on the front lines of the conflict. The ultimately successful rebellion led by General Francisco Franco broke out across the Strait in Morocco, and the Spanish Republican government sought on several occasions to regain control of the Nationalist-controlled area around Algeciras. Although Gibraltar was not directly affected by the fighting, the war caused significant disruption. An undetermined number of Spanish refugees, perhaps as many as 10,000 persons, fled to Gibraltar, resulting in severe overcrowding.[158][159] A Non-Intervention Patrol was mounted by the Royal Navy, operating from Gibraltar, to prevent foreign military aid reaching the belligerents in Spain. In May 1937, one of the ships involved in the patrol, the destroyer HMS Hunter, hit a Nationalist mine and had to be towed back to Gibraltar with eight of her crew dead.[159] The Spanish Civil War had a deep impact on Gibraltarian society. On one hand, the British authorities, the Anglican and Catholic churches and the Gibraltarian moneyed class supported the Nationalists in the War, while the working class sided with the Republicans.[160] With Europe sliding towards a general war, the British Government decided to strengthen Gibraltar's defences and upgrade the naval base to accommodate the latest generation of battleships and aircraft carriers. A Gibraltar Defence Force (now the Royal Gibraltar Regiment) was established in March 1939 to assist with home defence.[161]
The restoration of peace inevitably meant a reduction in military expenditure, but this was more than offset by a large increase in liner and cruise ship traffic to Gibraltar. British liners travelling to and from India and South Africa customarily stopped there, as did French, Italian and Greek liners travelling to and from America. Oil bunkering became a major industry alongside coaling. An airfield was established in 1933 on the isthmus linking Gibraltar to Spain. Civil society was reformed as well; in 1921 an Executive Council and an elected City Council were established to advise the governor, in the first step towards self-government of the territory.[157]
The value of the naval base was soon apparent when the First World War broke out in August 1914. Only a few minutes after the declaration of war went into effect at midnight on 3/4 August, a German liner was captured by a torpedo boat from Gibraltar, followed by three more enemy ships the following day.[154] Although Gibraltar was well away from the main battlefields of the war – Spain remained neutral and the Mediterranean was not contested as it was in the Second World War – it played an important role in the Allied fight against the German U-boat campaign. The naval base was heavily used by Allied warships for resupplying and repairs. The Bay of Gibraltar was also used as a forming-up point for Allied convoys, while German U-boats stalked the Strait looking for targets. On two occasions, Gibraltar's guns unsuccessfully fired on two U-boats travelling through the Strait.[155] Anti-submarine warfare was in its infancy and it proved impossible to prevent U-boats operating through the Strait. Only two days before the end of the war, on 9 November 1918, SM UB-50 torpedoed and sank the British battleship HMS Britannia off Cape Trafalgar to the west of Gibraltar.[156]
A Spanish proposal to swap Gibraltar for Ceuta on the other side of the Strait was considered but was eventually rejected. It was ultimately decided that Gibraltar's strategic position as a naval base outweighed its potential vulnerability from the landward side. From 1889, the Royal Navy was greatly expanded and both Gibraltar and Malta were equipped with new, torpedo-proof harbours and expanded, modernised dockyards.[149] The works at Gibraltar were carried out by some 2,200 men at the huge cost of £5 million (£485,968,723 in 2013 prices).[151] Under the reforming leadership of First Sea Lord Admiral John "Jacky" Fisher, Gibraltar became the base for the Atlantic Fleet.[152] In the British public's imagination, Gibraltar was seen as "a symbol of British naval power [and] a symbol of the empire which has been built and, more than the British lion or even John Bull himself, has come to represent Britain's power and prestige across the world."[153]
By the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th, Gibraltar's future as a British colony was in serious doubt. Its economic value was diminishing, as a new generation of steamships with a much longer range no longer needed to stop there to refuel en route to more distant ports. Its military value was also increasingly in question due to advances in military technology. New long-range guns firing high-explosive shells could easily reach Gibraltar from across the bay or in the Spanish hinterland, while the development of torpedoes meant that ships at anchor in the bay were also vulnerable.[149] The garrison could hold out for a long time, but if the Spanish coast was held by an enemy, Gibraltar could not be resupplied in the fashion that had saved it in the Great Siege 120 years earlier.[150]
The United States' Great White Fleet visiting Gibraltar harbour in February 1909
Gibraltar at war and peace
By the end of the 19th century, the "Gibraltarians" were given an official identity for the first time.[147] It was only in the 1830s that Gibraltar-born residents began to outnumber foreign-born, but by 1891 nearly 75% of the population of 19,011 people were Gibraltar-born. The emergence of the Gibraltarians as a distinct group owed much to the pressure on housing in the territory and the need to control the numbers of the civilian population, as Gibraltar was still first and foremost a military fortress. Two Orders in Council of 1873 and 1885 stipulated that no child of alien parent could be born in Gibraltar, no foreigners could claim a right of residence and that only Gibraltar-born inhabitants were entitled to reside there; everyone else needed permits, unless they were employees of the British Crown. In addition to the 14,244 Gibraltarians, there were also 711 British people, 695 Maltese and 960 from other British dominions.[147] There were 1,869 Spaniards (of whom 1,341 were female) with smaller numbers of Portuguese, Italians, French and Moroccans.[148]
The problem was eventually reduced by imposing duties on imported goods, which made them much less attractive to smugglers and raised funds to make much-needed improvements to sanitation.[141] Despite the improvements made earlier in the century, living conditions in Gibraltar were still dire. A Colonel Sayer, who was garrisoned at Gibraltar in the 1860s, described the town as "composed of small and crowded dwellings, ill ventilated, badly drained and crammed with human beings. Upwards of 15,000 persons are confined within a space covering a square mile [2.5 km2]."[142] Although there were sewers, a lack of water made them virtually useless in summer and the poorer inhabitants were sometimes unable to afford enough water even to wash themselves. One doctor commented that "the open street is much more desirable than many of the lodgings of the lower orders of Gibraltar."[143] The establishment of a Board of Sanitary Commissioners in 1865 and work on new drainage, sewerage and water supply systems prevented further major epidemics.[144] A system of underground reservoirs capable of containing 5 million gallons (22.7 million litres) of water was constructed within the Rock of Gibraltar.[145] Other municipal services arrived as well – a gas works in 1857, a telegraph link by 1870 and electricity by 1897.[144] Gibraltar also developed a high-quality school system, with as many as 42 schools by 1860.[146]
View across Gibraltar looking north, by Frederick William J. Shore (1883)
From the first early opening of the gates there is to be seen a stream of Spanish men, women and children, horses and a few caleches, passing into the town where they remain moving about from shop to shop until about noon. The human beings enter the Garrison in their natural sizes, but quit it swathed and swelled out with our cotton manufactures, and padded with tobacco, while the carriages and beasts, which come light and springy into the place, quit it scarcely able to drag or bear their burdens. The Spanish authorities bear part in this traffic, by receiving a bribe from every individual passing the Lines, their persons and their purposes being thoroughly known to them. Some of these people take hardware goods, as well as cotton and tobacco, into Spain.[140]
Relations with Spain during the 19th century were generally amicable.[136] Regular British soldiers were forbidden to cross the border but officers could cross freely into Spain, as could the inhabitants of Gibraltar, some of whom had second houses in the town of San Roque about 10 kilometres (6 mi) away.[137] The garrison introduced the very British activity of fox hunting in the form of the Royal Calpe Hunt, started in 1812, which saw British officers and local Spanish gentry pursuing foxes across the Campo de Gibraltar.[138] A major bone of contention during this period was the issue of smuggling across the border. The problem arose after Spain imposed tariffs on foreign manufactured goods in a bid to protect Spain's own fledgling industrial enterprises. Tobacco was also heavily taxed, providing one of the government's principal sources of revenue. The inevitable result was that Gibraltar, where cheap tobacco and goods were readily available, became a centre of intensive smuggling activity.[139] The depressed state of the economy caused smuggling to become a mainstay of Gibraltar's trade;[133] the mid-19th-century Irish traveller Martin Haverty described Gibraltar as "the grand smuggling depot for Spain".[137] General Sir Robert Gardiner, who served as Governor between 1848 and 1855, described the daily scene in a letter to British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston:
Visiting Gibraltar in the mid-19th century, the English writer Richard Ford wrote in his Handbook for Travellers in Spain that "the differences of nations and costumes are very curious: a motley masquerade is held in this halfway house between Europe, Asia, and Africa, where every man appears in his own dress and speaks his own language. Civilization and barbarism clash here indeed ... or the Rock, like Algeria, is a refuge for destitute scamps, and is the asylum for people of all nations who expatriate themselves for their country's good." He described the town's Main Street as "the antithesis of a Spanish town", lined with "innumerable pot–houses" which made it a "den of gin and intemperance; every thing and body is in motion; there is no quiet, no repose; all is hurry and scurry, for time is money and Mammon is the god of Gib, as the name is vulgarized ... The entire commerce of the Peninsula seems condensed into this microcosmus, where all creeds and nations meet, and most of them adepts at the one grand game of beggar my neighbour."[135]
Castle Street, Gibraltar, by Frederick Leeds Edridge, 1833
The economic importance of Gibraltar changed following the invention of steamships; the first one to reach Gibraltar's harbour arrived there in 1823.[132] The advent of steamships caused a major shift in trade patterns in the Mediterranean. Transshipment, which had previously been Gibraltar's principal economic mainstay, was largely replaced by the much less lucrative work of servicing visiting steamships through coaling, victualling and ferrying of goods. Although Gibraltar became a key coaling station where British steamships refuelled on the way to Alexandria or Cape Horn, the economic changes resulted in a prolonged depression that lasted until near the end of the century.[133] The demand for labour for coaling was such that Gibraltar instituted the practice of relying on large numbers of imported Spanish workers. A shanty town sprang up on the site of the old Spanish fortifications just across the border, which became the workers' town of La Línea de la Concepción. The poor economy meant that Gibraltar's population barely changed between 1830 and 1880, but it was still relatively more prosperous than the severely impoverished south of Spain. As a consequence, La Línea's population doubled over the same period and then doubled again in the following 20 years.[134]
After peace returned, Gibraltar underwent major changes during the reformist governorship of General Sir St Bernard's Hospital to serve the civilian population and initiating the construction of the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity to serve Gibraltar's Protestant civilians.[128] For the first time, civilians began to have a say in the running of Gibraltar. An Exchange and Commercial Library was founded in 1817, with the Exchange Committee initially focused on furthering the interests of merchants based in the fortress. The Committee evolved into a local civilian voice in government, although it had no real powers.[129] A City Council was established in 1821, and in 1830 Gibraltar became a Crown colony. In the same year, the Gibraltar Police Force was established, modelled on London's pioneering Metropolitan Police Service,[130] and a Supreme Court was set up to try civil, criminal and mixed cases.[131]
In the years after Trafalgar, Gibraltar became a major supply base for supporting the Spanish uprising against Napoleon.[125] The French invasion of Spain in 1808 prompted Gibraltar's British garrison to cross the border and destroy the ring of Spanish fortresses around the bay, as well as the old Spanish fortified lines on the isthmus, to deny the French the ability to besiege Gibraltar or control the bay from shore batteries. French forces reached as far as San Roque, just north of Gibraltar, but did not attempt to target Gibraltar itself as they believed that it was impregnable.[126] The French besieged Tarifa, further down the coast, in 1811–12 but gave up after a month. Gibraltar faced no further military threat for a century.[127]
During the wars against Napoleonic France, Gibraltar served first as a Royal Navy base from which blockades of the ports of Cadiz, Cartagena and Toulon were mounted, then as a gateway for British forces and supplies in the Peninsular War between 1807 and 1814. In July 1801 a French and Spanish naval force fought the two Battles of Algeciras off Gibraltar, which ended in disaster for the Spanish when two of their largest warships each mistook the other for the enemy, engaged each other, collided, caught fire and exploded, killing nearly 2,000 Spanish sailors.[119] Two years later Gibraltar served as a base for Lord Nelson in his efforts to bring the French Admiral Pierre-Charles Villeneuve to battle, which culminated in the Battle of Trafalgar in which Nelson was killed and Villeneuve captured.[120] Nelson sailed to Gibraltar in June 1803 to launch the Trafalgar Campaign and oversee the blockades against France and Spain, though he spent little time ashore.[121] On 28 October 1805, a week after the Battle of Trafalgar, the badly damaged HMS Victory returned to Gibraltar with Nelson's body aboard;[122] Admiral Collingwood's dispatch to General Fox, announcing the victory and Nelson's death, was printed in the pages of the Gibraltar Chronicle. It thus became the first newspaper in the world to report the victory at Trafalgar, two weeks ahead of The Times.[123][124]
The First Battle of Algeciras (6 July 1801) off Gibraltar, portrayed in Algéciras, 6 Juillet 1801 by Antoine Léon Morel-Fatio
Gibraltar was an unhealthy place to live due to its poor sanitation and living conditions. It was repeatedly ravaged by epidemics of yellow fever and cholera, which killed thousands of the inhabitants and members of the garrison.[114] An epidemic in the second half of 1804 killed more than a third of the entire population, civilian and military.[117] Lord Nelson wrote the following March that he hoped that Gibraltar "will escape the dreadful scourge of last autumn, and I hope that General Fox has burnt down all the small houses at the back of the Town; and perhaps if half the Town went with them, it would be better for the Rock."[118]
The high handed hauteur of his majesty's officer, as he lounges at a corner in utter scorn of the busy crew of bargainers; the supple cit[izen] who bows breast low to him in hope of a node of condescension ... ; a roughknot skipper, accustomed to bang and bully, a little king upon his own quarter deck; the sullen demeanour of the turbaned Moor, who sits crosslegged at a shady corner ... ; the filthy, slip-shod, abject Jew, who wallows anywhere in the dirt, selling slippers or oranges, or with a bag over his head or a rope round his neck, ready to serve officers, merchants, sailors, or Moors, as a beast of burden ...[116]
Following the Great Siege, the civilian population of Gibraltar – which had fallen to under a thousand – expanded rapidly as the territory became both a place of economic opportunity and a refuge from the Napoleonic Wars. Britain's loss of North American colonies in 1776 led to much of her trade being redirected to new markets in India and the East Indies. The favoured route to the east was via Egypt, even before the Suez Canal had been built, and Gibraltar was the first British port reached by ships heading there. The new maritime traffic gave Gibraltar a greatly increased role as a trading port. At the same time, it was a haven in the western Mediterranean from the disruption of the Napoleonic Wars. Many of the new immigrants were Genoese people who had fled Napoleon's annexation of the old Republic of Genoa.[114] By 1813 nearly a third of the population consisted of Genoese and Italians. Portuguese made up another 20 per cent, Spaniards 16.5 per cent, Jews 15.5 per cent, British 13 per cent and Minorcans 4 per cent. The young Benjamin Disraeli described the inhabitants of Gibraltar as a mixture of "Moors with costumes as radiant as a rainbow or Eastern melodrama, Jews with gaberdines and skull-caps, Genoese, Highlanders and Spanish."[115] The inhabitants had a clear pecking order, with British officers at the top and Jews at the bottom. The American naval officer Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, writing in 1829, described the market traders and shoppers in what is now John Mackintosh Square:
Gibraltar as a colony
The siege was continued for some months longer, but in the spring of 1783 a preliminary peace agreement brought the cessation of hostilities. Finally, in February 1783 the siege was lifted. The outcome of the Great Siege made it politically impossible for the British government to again consider trading away Gibraltar, even though King [111] The British public acquired "an emotional, albeit irrational, attachment to the place."[112] The reputed impregnability of Gibraltar gave rise to the expression, which is still current today, of something being as "strong as the Rock of Gibraltar".[113]
In Britain the Admiralty considered plans for a major relief of Gibraltar, opting to send a larger, but slower fleet, rather than a smaller faster one.[108] In September 1782 a large fleet left Spithead under Richard Howe, arriving off Cape St. Vincent on 9 October. The following evening a gale blew up, scattering the Spanish and French fleet allowing Howe to sail unopposed into Gibraltar. A total of 34 ships of the line escorted 31 transport ships which delivered supplies, food, and ammunition. The fleet also brought the 25th, 59th, and 97th regiments of foot bringing the total number of the garrison to over 7,000[109][110] Howe then sailed out and fought an indecisive battle with the combined allied fleet before withdrawing to Britain in line with his orders.
On 13 September 1782 the Bourbon allies launched their great attack; 5190 fighting men, both French and Spanish, aboard ten of the newly engineered 'floating batteries' with 138[101] heavy guns, as well as 18 ships of the line, 40 Spanish gunboats and 20 bomb-vessels[102] with a total of 30,000 sailors and marines. They were supported by 86 land guns[102] and 35,000 Spanish and French troops (7,000[103]–8,000[104] French) on land intending to assault the fortifications once they had been demolished.[105] The 138 guns opened fire from floating batteries in the Bay and the 86 guns on the land side, directed on the fortifications after weeks of preparatory artillery fire. But the garrison replied with red-hot shot to set fire to and sink the attacker's floating batteries and warships in the Bay. The British destroyed three of the floating batteries,[106] which blew up as the 'red-hot shot' did its job. The other seven batteries were scuttled by the Spanish. In addition 719 men on board the ships (many of whom drowned) were casualties.[107]
routing the besieging infantry in their trenches and postponed the grand assault on The Rock for some time. sortie Deliberate targeting of civilians was unprecedented at the time and was to continue for 2 years obliterating any architectural heritage from the Spanish period. Unable to starve the garrison out the French and Spanish attempted further attacks by land and sea, the night before the Grand Attack on 27 November 1781, the British garrison filed silently out of their defence works and made a surprise [100] The British defenders continued to resist every attempt to capture Gibraltar by assault but supplies again began to run low. On 12 April 1781 Vice Admiral
The Spanish convoy off Cape Finesterre and defeated a Spanish fleet at the Battle of Cape St. Vincent, delivering reinforcements of 1,052 men and an abundance of supplies.
Britain's successes in the Seven Years' War had left it with expensive commitments in the Americas that had to be paid for and had catalysed the formation of an anti-British coalition in Europe. The British Government's attempt to levy new taxes on the Thirteen Colonies of British America led to the outbreak of the American War of Independence in 1776. Seeing an opportunity to reverse their own territorial losses, France and Spain declared war on Britain and allied with the American revolutionaries.[99]
United Kingdom, Spain, Morocco, British Overseas Territories, European Union
Delhi, India, Rajasthan, Pakistan, Maharashtra
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Gibraltar, History of Gibraltar, English language, Culture of Gibraltar, Football in Gibraltar
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Jewish World Review July 27, 2005 / 20 Tammuz, 5765
Beware of strange men with rocket launchers
By Michelle Malkin
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | This week, New Jersey Transit officials joined the New York Police Department in performing hapless random searches of Granny's knitting bag and Junior's Thomas the Tank backpack to prevent the next al Qaeda attack.
But not everyone is fighting the War on Terror blind. Some U.S. military personnel have been given a very clear and un-p.c. mission:
Be on the lookout for Middle Easterners carrying rocket launchers.
Yup, that's right. Many readers have e-mailed me about a recent report floating on the Internet that reveals military concerns about a suspicious trio of Middle Eastern men who apparently pointed a rocket launcher at low-flying aircraft near Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma earlier this month. It's authentic. Battle Staff Directive #41, categorized as "For Official Use Only," was issued at Hill Air Force Base in Utah last week to raise a red flag about the incident at Tinker AFB:
"On 14 Jul 05, three individuals were observed outside of the perimeter of Tinker AFB, OK. They were looking through binoculars, taking pictures and one appeared to be holding a large weapon at chest level. The weapon appeared to be aimed towards a low flying aircraft. The three individuals were described as being of Middle Eastern decent and left the area when approached. The weapon was later identified as a rocket launcher (MANPAD) and the low flying aircraft to be a B-1 Bomber. FBI in Oklahoma City and AFOSI [Air Force Office of Special Investigations] determined the threat to be credible."
Someone leaked the directive to a website called Soldiers For The Truth (sftt.org) and it was picked up by another site, the Northeast Intelligence Network (homelandsecurityus.com). Tinker AFB staff and FBI officials remain tight-lipped about the incident. But Capt. Sean Carter, a public affairs officer at Hill AFB, verified the directive for me.
In a phone interview, Capt. Carter told me the memo was issued to let base personnel know that "there's a threat out there somewhere" and to inform them of what to look for to guard against possible terrorist activity. Hill AFB participates in the "Eagle Eyes" program, an anti-terrorism initiative launched by the Air Force Office of Special Investigations that "enlists the eyes and ears of Air Force members and citizens in the war on terror."
The threat of an al Qaeda attack using shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles has been of increasing concern to homeland security officials. Last year, the FBI arrested two imams in Albany, N.Y., in connection with a sting operation involving laundered funds that the defendants were led to believe were proceeds from the sale of a missile launcher to be used in a New York City terrorist plot. Federal prosecutors noted during the trial of convicted al Qaeda bomb plotter Wadih El-Hage that his role entailed "conveying military orders from Bin Laden including . . . seeking weapons including Stinger missiles for al Qaeda members." In 2002, al Qaeda terrorists used two Russian-made Strela missiles to try and bring down an Israeli-chartered airliner departing from Mombasa, Kenya.
That effort failed, but the terrorists will no doubt try, try again. Hundreds of Stinger missiles have gone missing since the first Persian Gulf War, according to the General Accounting Office. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) noted last year that "there are an estimated 300,000 to one million shoulder-fired missiles in the world today — thousands are thought to be in the hands of terrorist and other non-state entities." Thomas B. Hunter of Jane's Intelligence Review reported: "Al-Qaeda reportedly possesses a number of MANPADs, including SA-7s and Stingers�It is logical to assume that Al-Qaeda is in possession of additional MANPADs. If this is true, then Al-Qaeda represents the most significant threat to international civil aviation."
Washington has been squabbling over whether and how much money to spend on retrofitting all 6,000 planes in the American commercial fleet with electronic countermeasures to combat the threat. In the meantime, common-sense vigilance is the best defense.
Thankfully, military watchdogs on guard against Islamist terrorists with rocket launchers know better than to stop Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan look-a-likes with Louis Vuitton pet carriers strapped around their shoulders.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
JWR contributor Michelle Malkin is the author of, most recently, "In Defense of Internment: The Case for Racial Profiling in World War II and the War on Terror". (Click HERE to purchase. Sales help fund JWR.)
To comment, please click here.
Michelle Malkin Archives
© 2005, Creators Syndicate
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HEAR THIS: Das Racist Says "Relax"
See me at a poetry slamming like '97
Singing classic numbers by Otis Redding
Totally shredding
Hoping you get it, yeah
Relax...Relax...Relax...
-"Relax", Das Racist
It's not everyday you'll see me give props to the rap community -- mostly because it's not the type of music I actively seek out. But there's something about the slightly-left-of-center rap trio that is Das Racist (yeah, it's pronounced how it's spelled) that kind of intrigues me. This despite the fact that Rolling Stone is dubbing them one's to watch (these days, that kind of moniker tends to scare me off -- I am of the believe that I am no longer of Rolling Stone's target audience...just saying). I blame the utterly omniscient Spotify ads promoting their album that made me want to take a second look. Still, I'm glad I did.
It's not the type of music that is for everyone. They are one part dubstep, one part hip hop, one part poetry, one part party, one part ridiculous. Their often thread-bare production harkens back toward hip hop of a different era, and their often non-sequiter lyrics are at times jarring. But if you're sick of rhymes about how rich you are and how many chicks you've got, and dig the gleefully weird sounds of Beastie Boys or the Gorillaz, they might be worth checking out, if only for the novelty.
Their most recent, and most commercially accessible, album, also titled Relax, is at times too out-of-body even for me (including the Diplo-produced "Happy Rappy"), but the title cut has a kind of laid-back, summery feel that I can't help but dig.
by: Mel at: Sunday, September 18, 2011
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Burial Hordes – ΘΑΝΑΤΟΣ ΑΙΩΝΙΟΣ (The Termination Thesis) Review
Rutger - 7. September 2018 10. March 2019
Band: Burial Hordes
Album: ΘΑΝΑΤΟΣ ΑΙΩΝΙΟΣ (The Termination Thesis)
Label: Folter Records
Genre: Black/Death metal
Release Date: 14 September, 2018
If there’s one thing we learned from bands like Septic Flesh and Rotting Christ, it’s that the Greek definitely know their way in death and black metal. However, whereas these two bands each have their own energetic and intense sound, Burial Hordes is something completely different from their fellow countrymen. With their new album, they’ve created a sinister, distressful, and misanthropic masterpiece that, without a doubt, deserves a place on the big stage.
One of the first things that stands out when listening to the album is the sound, which is intensely ominous, sinister and evil, achieved by dissonance in the music, a lot of variation in the drums and a deep, guttural voice. Not only in the drums, but also in the other instruments there’s a lot of variation over the course of the whole album, changing the feel of the music. Even so, it’s all very coherent, making it an experience that’s hard to forget.
Like mentioned before, the vocals consist of deep, raw, guttural grunts. It really reinforces the negativity and ferocity of an album whose title is Greek for “Eternal Death”. In Erkenntnis, for example, the parts where Cthonos (Burial Hordes’ singer) joins in with his powerful grunts show quite some resemblance with the intensity of Behemoth’s later works. Talking about intensity, the drums are able to build up and sustain the tension very well. Nuctemeron (the band’s drummer) doesn’t just use fast drum beats to support the intensity of the music, but there are also parts where he plays a slower drum ‘base’ which he fills with hi-hats and cymbals, making it seem more relaxed. For instance in Death is Omnipotent, overall a very intense song, he starts with a kind of slow drum beat, but builds up to a faster, more black metal-like beat.
The album starts off with Human Condition, a complex and diverse song, expressing the general nihilistic and negative feel of the album and setting the tone for the rest of it. It’s divided into three parts: isolation, meaninglessness and mortality. What connects them is the shrill guitar riff that’s alternating between two adjacent notes, creating dissonance and uneasiness throughout the whole song. Isolation consists of a heavy riff, a powerful drum beat and Cthonos’ deep vocals. About halfway through the song, when Meaninglessness starts, another riff is introduced that, for its part, creates friction with the continuous riff. In Mortality, the only thing that’s left from the previous riff is the bass guitar, leaving relatively large silences between notes, really emphasizing the hopelessness of mortality.
After an awesome black/death metal experience full of intensity and variety, the album ends with a 16 minute long song (From Synthesis to Aposynthesis) which is, like the first one, also divided into three parts. Synthesis, the first part, starts with two guitar riffs, creating quite some dissonance. When Cthonos starts grunting, it turns into a full-fledged black metal song, full of energy. After around four minutes, it’s time for the second part: Destruktion of Alethia. It’s quite a sudden change because whereas the first part ends with a relaxed drum beat, the second part immediately starts with the drums and guitars pounding at a high speed, making it really sound like Alethia (a Greek philosophical concept that’s roughly translated to ‘disclosure’ or ‘truth’) is being destroyed. The transition into the third part, Aposynthesis, is as sudden as the first one, but in reverse. From the powerful and aggressive ‘Destruktion’, it suddenly becomes more relaxed, with just the guitar playing some arpeggio’s. However, the music gets back its power soon enough, when the rest of the instruments join in. The tension keeps rising, until, all of the sudden, the song seems to decompose. All instruments stop playing, and after a few moments of (relatively) relaxed music, there’s just the drums with the guitars playing at the first beat, slowing down more and more, until the aposynthesis is complete.
In conclusion, ΘΑΝΑΤΟΣ ΑΙΩΝΙΟΣ is a tremendous album that’s diverse, yet coherent and keeps the listener hooked until the very end. Listening to the album is an experience that won’t be forgotten quickly, and the more often one puts it on, the more riffs, beats and (dis)harmonies can be discovered. While the band’s impressum is “Destroying hope since 2001”, they keep destroying hope in 2018!
1. Human Condition
2. Thrownness and Fallenness of Being
3. Lurk In The Shadows
4. Erkenntnis
5. Death Is Omnipotent
6. From Synthesis to Aposynthesis
Anomalie - Integra Review
Bednja - Doline Su Ostale Iza Nas
Graveshadow - Ambition's Price Review
Demonic Death Judge - The Trail Review
Rutger
Rutger is a student from the Netherlands who, apart from his passion for the Spanish language, literature & culture, loves playing black metal and classical music.
Tagged Black Metal, Death Metal
Malthusian – Across Deaths Review
Xalpen – Wowk Otrr Review
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Contact Kathryn's Report
SpiceJet phases out expats on falling rupee
NEW DELHI: The falling rupee has made airlines act in an area where they have dragged their feet for years - phasing out expat pilots. Low cost carrier SpiceJet has brought down its number of expat pilots, all of whom are commanders, from over 100 a year ago to just 25 now. With an expat commander getting almost three times more than the average Indian commander's monthly pay of Rs 5 lakh, the airline is looking at saving Rs 90 crore per annum.
Even the remaining 25 expat commanders are set to be eased out by the end of this calendar year. Airline sources said the expats are now only for the Bombardier Q-400 aircraft, as being a new plane in India, there are not enough desi pilots for it. "The Boeing 737 fleet is being operated fully by Indian pilots for the past three months. We are now the only airline in India whose mainstay fleet is operated only by Indian pilots," said the source. Airlines spend more on expat pilots for mainly three reasons: They have to be paid in dollars apart from being provided with accommodation here and free return ticket to their home countries every few months. "We were trying to phase out expats as per the aviation regulator's guidelines but the rupee's fall made us expedite the process. We did that by speeding up the training process of our pilots," said sources.
All Indian airlines have a significant number of expat pilots despite the fact that thousands of commercial pilot license holders remain without a job even after spending up to Rs 30 lakh for training.
Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com
Timestamp 7/16/2013 07:54:00 PM 0 comments
Labels: Airlines, Bombardier, Pilots
Airline in a holding pattern
Brindabella Airlines has ceased its service between Orange and Sydney for the next six and a half weeks while its pilots are trained to fly larger planes.
Customers only found out about the suspension yesterday when they attempted to book tickets for flights and were told the airline was off air until September 1.
When the airline restarts in Orange it will continue to offer three flights per day, but all flights will be in larger 30-seater Jetstream 4100 planes.
One businessman, who declined to be named, said he was shocked by the announcement but said the airline needed to lift its game if it was to return.
“I’ve been trying to support them,” he said.
“Rex (Regional Express) have been more reliable, Brindabella have cancelled services and I’ve missed meetings... it affects people who have planned their whole day.”
“If they’re going to come back in September they’ve got to be fair dinkum... even if it’s next year... they’ve got to do it properly.”
Brindabella’s chief commercial officer James Blake played down the suspension saying it was “a softer period for bookings” but would not elaborate on the cause of the downturn.
He said the larger planes would allow cabin crew to serve passengers snacks and refreshments enroute to Sydney.
“Brindabella Airlines will continue its flight crew training program, which will result in the majority of its pilots being trained to operate the airline’s Jetstream 4100 aircraft,” he said.
The businessman said he flew to Sydney at least once a fortnight, but was often forced to catch the earlier Rex flight in the morning to get to Sydney in time for meetings.
“I hope they come back at an earlier time,” he said.
“The later departure doesn’t suit because you can’t do a full day of business.”
Aerodrome Committee chair Cr Chris Gryllis said the decision to cease the service was up to Brindabella, but he hoped the airline returned.
“The management have very enthusiastically promised us they want to stick around,” he said.
But the businessman said there was little point having two airlines if one was not viable or reliable.
Passengers who had flights booked during the suspension have been contacted by Brindabella to discuss their options, Mr Blake said.
Source: http://www.centralwesterndaily.com.au
Labels: Airlines
Air India risking flight safety by altering operating norms for A320: Pilots
Mumbai: Indian Commercial Pilots Association (ICPA) today accused Air India of arbitrarily changing the flight operating procedures for narrow-body A320 aircraft, affecting flight safety.
Air India has denied the allegations saying that the changed norms fully comply with all operating standards and do not in any way compromise air safety.
“Without any detailed study and without ensuring adequacy of power, any alteration of the certification process is a gross violation of original certification of airworthiness and serious flight safety violation,” said ICPA, the apex body of erstwhile Indian Airlines pilots.
“We would like to inform that even the manufacturer (Airbus) specifies that if the company decides to set all engines acceleration altitude to 800 ft and select a higher one-engine inoperative acceleration altitude, a detailed study needs to be performed by company’s flight operations engineer,” the ICPA said.
The body alleged that Air India neither conducted any such study nor has it consulted any other department like flight safety and training prior to modifying the standard operating system.
“Air India has also not notified the Director General of Civil Aviation on the modified procedure and has not received any approval for the same,” the ICPA said.
Meanwhile, rebutting the ICPA allegations, Air India said that safety of the aircraft, passengers and operations is paramount for the carrier.
“Air India would like to reiterate with emphasis that safety of aircraft, passenger and operations is paramount at Air India. And the changes in flight operation procedures, notified by the airline recently, fully comply with all operating standards and do not in any way compromise air safety,” the statement issued by Air India said.
Source: http://www.firstpost.com
Labels: Airbus, Airlines, Pilots
Company gets go-ahead for aerial photography with remote-control helicopters: Bermuda
Remote-controlled helicopters will soon be photographing the Island from above.
The Department of Civil Aviation announced yesterday it has given the go ahead to a Bermudian company to carry out this kind of aerial photography.
Bermuda Aerial Media has been granted an Aerial Work Certificate (AWC) to conduct operations with their remote controlled helicopters for filming aerial photography.
Bermuda Aerial Media are the first, and at present only, company permitted to conduct such operations in Bermuda, Government said.
Dr Grant Gibbons, Minister of Economic Development, congratulated the owners of Bermuda Aerial Media, Connor Burns and EJ Burrows, for their proactive approach to gain this certification.
“By achieving this distinction, they have demonstrated to the Civil Aviation technical staff, their ability to develop safe and comprehensive operating procedures,” he said.
“They have also demonstrated, by a series of flight tests, their ability to handle their aircraft in a variety of emergency situations.”
Dr Gibbons added, “This is an open market for young entrepreneurs, photographers and videographers. It should be noted that the Department of Civil Aviation is willing to work with any individuals to assist with getting the aerial work certification. It is vitally important to maintain safety standards and strict regulations regarding the operation of small unmanned aircraft in a congested island such as Bermuda.”
The Department noted approximately one third of the airspace above the island lies within the airfield Air Traffic Control zone and flying these unmanned aircraft or drones in such airspace could pose a hazard to conventional air traffic.
“It is essential that comprehensive procedures are established, which are acceptable to the Department of Civil Aviation and Air Traffic Control,” a statement said. “Use of these vehicles for commercial gain, for example aerial photography, is only permitted when approval has been granted in the form of an Aerial Work Certificate.
“In today’s marketplace, these remote controlled vehicles are freely available from specialist suppliers and are affordably priced, from a few hundred dollars for a simple machine to $15,000 and up for a complex model.
“The Department of Civil Aviation, strongly advises individuals who wish to become involved in the use of these aircraft either for pleasure or financial gain to contact the Department for guidance before they commit themselves to a purchase.”
In addition, the Department would also like to take this opportunity to advise the public that all forms of aerial activity are subject to regulatory control and restrictions.
Story and Photo: http://www.royalgazette.com
Labels: Aircraft Technology
Ryanair to run Winter sun flights from south coast
RYANAIR will run a winter timetable from the south coast this winter - three years after they halted the off-season operations.
The low-cost operator, which has been flying from Bournemouth Airport since May 1996, said they would be running six routes out of the airport to winter sun destinations as a result of high demand from Bournemouth this summer.
These include Lanzarote, Gran Canaria, Tenerife, Malaga, Alicante and Barcelona-Girona.
In total there will be nine weekly outbound flights and 3,400 weekly seats flying in and out of the airport, said Ryanair's Lesley Kane.
Back in 2010 the airline stopped flying from Bournemouth Airport over the winter months, citing the government's air passenger duty tax as the problem.
They insisted, after announcing the move nearly three years ago, that the measure was not long-term.
But this year, their winter break was longer than usual, with flights beginning again on March 14 - later than in previous years when they started in February.
The airline blamed the oil prices for the delay in beginning their spring/summer schedule and said they predicted demand for Bournemouth Airport to pick-up around mid-March.
Ms Kane, head of marketing, said: “Since we launched the spring/summer timetable back in March we have seen an increase and a strong demand for the flights.
“We have 16 routes this summer and we have seen a really strong positive demand which gives us a positive outlook for the winter.”
She could not give any long-term commitment to the measure beyond this winter, saying they needed to make sure it was successful for this year first.
“Hopefully it will be (successful) and we will be back on a year-long basis”, she added.
“We enable people to save money. They are moving away from package deals and doing them themselves now.
“Back in 2001 we flew 85,000 passengers in and out of Bournemouth and this year we will fly 466,000-470,000 passengers.
“We want to carry on growing. We have a great relationship with the owners of Bournemouth airport - Manchester Airports Group - and we are looking to work with them to grow passengers.”
Source: http://www.dailyecho.co.uk
Air China touts new Frankfurt-to-Chengdu nonstops
PRC flag carrier Air China said that its newly opened Frankfurt Chengdu nonstop flights make Chengdu the closest inland Chinese city to Europe.
According to the carrier, it takes European travelers just 10 hours to fly from the heart of Europe to China´s “Land of Plenty” imbued with oriental charms.
While Beijing is the seat of many dynastic governments and Shanghai the heart of Chinese commercialism, Chengdu, tucked away in southwest China, is the birthplace of Shujin, or Sichuan Brocade, a silk fabric of unique workmanship that traces its origins to the Warring States period of over 2,000 years ago.
Chengdu´s history as a tea trading centre provides visitors with a cross section of authentic Chinese tea culture, the carrier said. It´s also the hometown of the famous Giant Panda; the city is the world´s only habitat for both pandas in captivity and in the wild.
The city, which has played host to China-EU Fair seven times, is western China´s important manufacturing and export base, and also a western China´s city with the largest number of Fortune 500 companies operating.
Air China debuted its Frankfurt – Chengdu route on May 19, the first nonstop route ever opened between western China and Europe by a Chinese carrier. With Air China´s network with Chengdu as a regional hub, European travelers can transfer quickly and easily to other parts of China.
Find out more at www.airchina.com.
Minister of State for Finance Michael Halkitis: New aviation tax is reasonable
Minister of State for Finance Michael Halkitis said he is a "bit surprised" at the reaction to the government's decision to implement a processing fee for private aircraft flying into The Bahamas. In fact, he feels it is "reasonable". "We think that's eminently reasonable.
We don't think that it is unreasonable to ask private aircraft flying into The Bahamas to contribute to the cost of processing that entry," he told reporters outside of the House of Assembly yesterday.
"In fact, I'm a bit surprised at the reaction to it. We believe it's a modest fee that's being placed on each aircraft."
Effective July 1, The Bahamas announced another customs tax on small private planes of $50.
While Halkitis said it's "regrettable" that some people may be offended because "they didn't get notice", he stressed the need for the financial burden to be shared when taking into account the country's current economic climate.
"We introduced a processing fee of $50 per aircraft. For example, for someone who is flying in a private aircraft, they will pay customs a $50 fee to process their entry into The Bahamas. That's per aircraft," he said.
"In The Bahamas, we not only have to provide for the Lynden Pindling International Airport (LPIA) but we have to provide for airports in at least 21 islands.
There are multiple airports on these islands." "We have to make sure that they are safe, manned by competent personnel, are clean and that customs and immigration are there. We believe that if we asked for a modest fee of $50 per aircraft, that's reasonable.
"Overall, our message in this budget has been that the country is growing. We have to provide a lot of services. If we are going to do that, we are going to have the share the cost of doing it because we want it to be done in a reasonable manner," he added.
This recent decision has not been sitting well with some aviation industry insiders.
Jim Parker, president of Caribbean Flying Adventures, a leading online pilot's guide for The Bahamas and the Caribbean, warned that The Bahamas stands to lose anywhere from $16-20 million in revenue annually if the government does not revisit the latest taxes being imposed on that sector.
"It will hurt the tourism sector and reduce tax revenues as well. The bottom line is that government revenues from private aviation tourism will decline rather than increase as a result of this ill-advised action," he told Guardian Business this week.
"Any trained economist will confirm that the extra $50 is going to be more than offset by a loss of revenue to the tourism industry and the government taxes on those revenues as pilots stop flying to The Bahamas. I think any economist that is looking at this situation holistically would have told the policymakers that this decision would be shooting themselves in the foot. For the sake of $2 million, conservatively they are going to lose $16-20 million in the tourism sector. It's a bad decision that needs to be reviewed."
There are approximately 40,000 private flights a year from the United States to The Bahamas that spend an average of $4,000 to $5,000 per visit, resulting in anywhere from $160 million to $200 million in annual revenue.
Halkitis remains confident that the fee is necessary and the country's tourism sector will not experience a major fallout as a result.
Click here to read more at The Nassau Guardian
Labels: Airplanes, Airports
Wizz Air to fly Poland to Israel
The Budapest-based airline will be initially making three flights a week from Poland to Israel, plus new routes from Tel Aviv to Vilnius and Cluj-Napoca in Romania.
“The low fares that Wizz Air offers will make these very popular destinations for Israelis flying to Europe. We are confident that Tel Aviv will benefit from tourist inflows throughout the year," says a statement by the airline.
The Katowice to Tel Aviv flights will be the first low-cost route from Poland to Israel. (pg)
Source: http://www.thenews.pl
Timestamp 7/16/2013 11:52:00 AM 0 comments
Emergency Transmitter Probed in 787 Fire: British Investigators Say It Is One of 'Several Components Being Looked at in Detail'
Britain's Air Accidents Investigation Branch confirmed it is examining the emergency locator transmitter on a Boeing Co. 787 Dreamliner as one of "several components being looked at in detail" in the probe of Friday's fire on the jet at London's Heathrow Airport.
In a brief statement Tuesday, the AAIB, which is leading the investigation of the incident on the Ethiopian Airlines jet, gave no information about what may have triggered the fire. It said it is still "premature to speculate on the causes of the incident at this stage."
The AAIB statement confirmed that the emergency transmitter's maker, Honeywell International Inc. has been invited to join the investigation.
Honeywell said Monday that it had sent technical experts to Heathrow to assist in the probe, at the invitation of British investigators, and would work closely with Boeing and the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, which is also assisting the investigation.
Honeywell said the transmitters were certified in 2005 and "we've not seen nor experienced a single reported issue on this product line." The company said it is awaiting "analysis and output of the investigation before drawing any conclusions."
The one-paragraph AAIB statement Tuesday said, "The traveling public can be sure we are investigating all possible causes and following up all leads."
Skylon space plane 'will transform high-speed aviation'
Alan Bond, chief engineer at Reaction Engines, says the ability of the Skylon plane to transform into a rocket will open up space travel for the human race.
The Skylon can take off from a standard runway before accelerating to speeds of 19,000 miles per hour taking people to Earth’s stratosphere in just 15 minutes.
Alan Bond, chief designer of the Skylon said the breakthrough on creating a device that can cool the air entering an engine allowing it to operate normally at speeds of Mach 5 will transform high-speed aviation.
"It enables an airplane, very much a fast airplane, but an airplane nonetheless, to take off, accelerate at up to five times the speed of sound, turn itself subtly into a rocket, fly into orbit, do a job and come back again.
"The second thing it enables, is a very high speed terrestrial aircraft. For example an aircraft carrying 300 passengers could go from Europe to Australia in about four hours."
He said: "We are looking at a revolution in transportation equivalent to the jet engine.
Story, Video, Comments/Reaction: http://www.telegraph.co.uk
Timestamp 7/16/2013 08:25:00 AM
Emirates A380 to serve Barcelona
Following its successful launch in July 2012, Emirates has announced it will commence a daily A380 service to Barcelona from February 1 2014.
Increasing overall capacity by almost 44 percent, Emirates’ new 517 seat A380 service will be the first permanent A380 service to operate into Barcelona El Prat Airport, replacing the route’s existing Boeing 777-300ER service and offering 2198 additional seats per week between the two cities.
“Barcelona has been one of the most successful new destinations of 2012,” said Hubert Frach, Emirates divisional senior vice president commercial operations — west.
“In line with this steady growth we feel that the time is ripe to announce the launch of our A380 service, which will continue to connect customers in Spain with Dubai as well as key destinations in Australasia, the Indian Subcontinent and the Far East.”
The new upgraded capacity will also offer strengthened support for popular markets from Barcelona, with the Emirates A380 servicing 12 destinations in Australia and the Far and Middle East, enabling customers to enjoy a seamless A380 experience.
In February this year, Emirates’ popular A380 aircraft was welcomed into Barcelona El Prat Airport by hundreds of onlookers as the airline operated two ad-hoc A380 services to meet the destination’s burgeoning demand.
“The A380 has been a part of our fleet for almost five years and continues to peak customer interest wherever it flies. Introducing the A380 to Barcelona permanently will not only increase our capacity but will also further highlight our commitment to the city,” added Frach.
The 517-seat Emirates A380 offers 14 Private First Class Suites, 76 lie-flat beds in Business Class and 427 spacious seats in Economy Class.
The Emirates A380 currently serves a total of 21 destinations with a further four destinations to launch in the next six months including Brisbane on October 1, Los Angeles on December 2, Mauritius on December 16 and Zurich on January 1.
Source: http://www.arabnews.com
Labels: Airbus, Airlines, Boeing
Passengers stranded at Palawan airport due to runway light problems; no night takeoffs, landings until July 31
Until July 31, there will be no takeoffs or landings at night at the Puerto Princesa International Airport, due to a problem with the runway lights there.
The Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines announced this so technicians can fix the lighting system, radio dzBB's Palawan affiliate James Viernes reported.
While the policy is in effect, flights can land or take off from the airport only before 6 p.m., the report said.
The dzBB report said this may affect up to six evening landings and takeoffs a day.
While the ban on night flight operations is in effect, the airport expects the first flight to arrive at 7 a.m., and the last flight to leave at 5:45 p.m.
On Monday, several passengers were stranded as flights could not land or take off at night due to the problem with the runway lights.
The lack of working runway lights prevented takeoffs and landings at the airport, radio dzBB's Palawan affiliate James Viernes reported Tuesday.
At least two planes of Philippine Airlines Express and Zest Air could not land at the airport Monday night, the report said.
On Tuesday morning, the passengers were still waiting for their replacement flights, it added.
However, the report said that while there could be no takeoffs or landings at the airport at night due to the runway light problem, flights can resume in the daytime.
Source: http://www.gmanetwork.com
Labels: Airlines, Airports, Runways
Chamber head: Caribbean Airlines not serious about Tobago
State airline Caribbean Airlines (CAL) is not serious about working with Tobago, head of the island’s arm of the Chamber of Industry and Commerce Diane Hadad lamented yesterday.
Hadad was one of the presenters at the Chamber’s third pre-Budget breakfast meeting at its Westmoorings headquarters.
She said the Chamber and CAL were among the groups that met recently to discuss the island’s needs, including the Ministry of Finance and the Tobago House of Assembly.
“I was very disappointed with the national airline’s presentation. Nothing in it said they were serious about Tobago. It was really disheartening because they said their directive was to be financially viable,” she said.
She compared the air bridge between the islands to the Public Transport Service Corporation (PTSC).
“The air bridge is our PTSC. We have to go to Trinidad for almost everything...it is indispensable,” she said.
She also said the island needed a new airport, not just a refurbished one. It also needed more direct flights. She said suggestions were made to the Ministry (of Finance) to consider the fuel subsidy as one of the ways to make the island more attractive to foreign airlines.
Procedures to move transit passengers from Trinidad to Tobago, currently “quite a nightmare”, was also something that needed serious consideration, she said.
The port facilities and processing speeds in Tobago also need an upgrade she said.
“When you have to deal without port facilities just to bring in things from Trinidad is a challenge. We have unreliable shipment times. I want us to understand how we do business...it is very costly and hard. Our ports need to be addressed if we want to encourage manufacturing. We can’t say we want to move from tourism and into manufacturing if we don’t have proper infrastructure in place,” she said.
Tobago was also suffering from a labor shortage, she said, because workers preferred working for the Tobago House of Assembly (THA) rather than the private sector.
She said the daily rate of absenteeism was 25 percent and very frequently people gave no notice and just left their jobs to go to work for the THA.
Source: http://www.trinidadexpress.com
Cebu Pacific Air readies expansion plans to EU, Asia
Cebu Pacific Air re-scheduled its presentation to the European Union (EU) Air Safety Commission later this year to better prepare for its expansion in the region.
In a statement, Candice Iyog, Cebu Pacific vice president for marketing and distribution said they chose not to attend the June 26 EU Air Safety Commission meeting last June 26 in Brussels.
The EU partially lifted a ban on the entry of Philippine carriers after authorities showed progress in addressing safety concerns.
This allowed the national flag carrier Philippine Airlines to resume flights to Europe.
Iyog said Cebu Pacific took steps to comply with EU regulations but a recent incident in which one of their aircraft overshot a runway in the Davao International Airport showed that they still need to make more improvements.
Cebu Pacific previously announced long-haul expansion plans to Dubai and is looking at other regions like the Middle East, Australia, parts of Europe and the US.
Tourism Secretary Ramon Jimenez, Jr. lauded the lifting of the EU ban saying it will help achieve the country’s target of 10 million foreign tourists by 2016.
“The (lifting of the EU ban bodes well for) the Philippine aviation industry as this means that the EU now recognizes the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) as a competent agency that qualifies airlines in the Philippines,” he said.
Jimenez identified the United Kingdom, Germany and France among the key European markets with stable tourist arrivals in the country
European tourists numbered 213,598 visitors from January to May this year, an 8.5 percent increase from the 196,794 in the same period last year. “We expect a significant increase from these markets, to include those from adjacent countries, once the PAL flights are made available,” he said.
Source: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net
Saudi Arabian Airlines reportedly refuses Israeli passport holders to purchase tickets
Saudi Arabian Airlines reportedly is discriminating against Israeli citizens by refusing to let them fly from U.S. airports.
The New York Post reported that for customers booking on online, the airline’s website has no drop-down menu options for anyone holding an Israeli passport, even though, as the Post pointed out, there is a drop-down menu option for Antarctica citizens. The airline appears to prevent passengers simply looking to transfer in Saudi Arabia to another country, as well.
“No city in the world has closer ties to Israel than we do, and yet Israeli citizens are being discriminated against right here at JFK. It’s not only illegal; it’s an affront to who we are,” said public advocate, and mayoral candidate, Bill de Blasio, who conducted a recent telephone sting on the Mideast nation’s airline.
When a member of de Blasio called the airline --trying to book a ticket from JFK to Mumbai, India -- identifying themselves as an Israeli passport holder, the caller was told by an agent that they would not be able to fly.
“Since you have Israeli nationality, you will not be allowed to go on Saudi Airlines,” the agent said, after consulting a supervisor.
Federal law says an “air carrier or foreign air carrier may not subject a person in air transportation to discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex or ancestry.”
FoxNews.com has reached out to Saudi Arabian Airlines seeking comment and has not gotten a response.
Source: http://www.foxnews.com
Good Times for Air Travelers
Air transport passengers in Nigeria will now start getting compensations for delayed, cancelled or overbooked flights from this week, writes Adeola Akinremi
If you've ever arrived at the Murtala Mohammed International Airports in Lagos or any of the nation’s airports after a long hour travel without your luggage arriving with you, it can be a nightmare trying to figure out why the luggage is left behind in the country where you embarked on the journey. In most cases, passengers are left in such difficult situation without help from the carrier. Perhaps more worrisome to passengers these days is cancellations and delays of some local and international flights without prior notice. In all of those cases, the airline owes you for your trouble. Sometimes it's good customer service, and other times it's the law.
From this week, erring airlines will no longer go scot- free as passengers flying from Nigeria will be able to enforce their rights through the law. The Federal Government, through the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) will this Friday begin the implementation of the passengers’ Bill of Rights, which seeks massive compensations for passengers whose rights are unnecessarily trampled upon by the airlines especially the domestic operators.
For instance, if you're bumped from a flight involuntarily, or you arrive at your destination and your luggage is delayed, you're entitled to a refund, not just vouchers or a discount on a future flight often offer by airlines.
The Bill of Rights says: “If you are involuntarily denied boarding, the airline must explain your rights in a written document, which must state how the airline decides who gets to stay on an oversold flight. You may keep your ticket and use it on another flight. If you choose to make alternative arrangements, you can request an “involuntary refund” for the ticket. You have a right to choose between quiet and entertainment in-flight.”
The Director-General, Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, Dr. Fola Akinkuotu, insists it was high time airline operators stopped maltreating their passengers, adding that the implementation of the bill of rights would help put an end to unfair practices by airlines.
“It is not good for passengers to get raw deals from the airlines. What is sauce for the geese is also sauce for the gander. We have a responsibility to ensure that the bill of rights works.
“We need to make sure passengers get good deals and value for their money. We need to let them know that air transport is the best way to go, and that they will get good deals and value for money.”
According to NCAA the new set of rights would apply to passengers departing from an airport located within the Nigerian territory to another airport within the country; passengers departing from an airport located in another country to an airport situated within Nigeria; and to foreign air transportation with respect to non-stop flight segments originating at a point within the country.
However those passengers travelling free-of-charge or at reduced fares not available directly or indirectly to the general public will not benefit from the rule.
For flight delays, the Bill of Rights adds: “Flight delays are a usual occurrence in air travel. When they occur, they come with inconveniences to passengers. That is why the new NCAA Bill of Rights provides that whenever an airline anticipates a delay of its flight beyond its scheduled time affected passengers are entitled to the following rights, if domestic flight: For a delay beyond 1 hour, carrier shall provide refreshment, telephone call, SMS or e-mail; in the case of a delay for 2hrs and beyond, carrier shall reimburse passengers the full value of their tickets. For a delay between 10pm and 4am, carrier shall provide hotel accommodation, refreshment, meal, 2 free calls, SMS, E-mail and transport to and from the airport.”
When an international flight delays between two and four hours passenger shall be entitled to refreshment and two telephone calls, SMS or E-mail. A delay of four hours or more shall entitle a passenger to a meal, two telephone calls, SMS or E-mail and when the reasonably expected time of departure is at least six hours after the time of departure previously announced, a passenger shall be entitled to hotel accommodation and transportation between the airport and place of accommodation.
Unlike before, now if your suitcase arrives smashed or torn, the airline will usually pay for its repairs. If it cannot be repaired, they will negotiate a settlement with you to pay its depreciated value. The same applies for clothing packed inside according to the Bill of Rights. So passengers are encouraged to report external damage and/or pilferage of content before they leave the airport by filling out a Passenger Irregularity Report (PIR) form.
In some instance the bill says airlines may decline to pay for damage of fragile items when there is no damage to the suitcase. They are however, liable for fragile merchandise packaged in its original factory sealed carton, or other container designed for shipping.
As regards upgrading of ticket, If any airline on its own places a passenger in a higher class than the class of the ticket he is booked (such as from economy to business class), it may not request additional make-up payment from the passenger.
But If a passenger is placed in a class lower than that for which he/she purchased his/her ticket, the airline shall immediately reimburse the passenger the difference in accordance with the mode of payment and in addition, pay 30 per cent of the price of ticket for all the domestic flights immediately in cash and 50 per cent of price of the ticket if an international flight within 14 days either by cash, electronic transfer, bank checks, or other mode of payment available in the country.
Also, apart from the airlines, passengers too have some responsibilities to the airlines, among which is the prompt arrival to the airline’s counter despite the purchase of ticket.
“Even if you have already checked in for your flight, an airline can cancel your reservation if you are not at the departure gate on time. If you do not check your baggage in sufficient time for it to be loaded on your flight, the airline will not be responsible for any delay in the delivery of your baggage to your destination.
“Passengers have a duty to be courteous to staff and agents of airlines. All adults are required to present photo identification upon check-in and at boarding”, the Bill stipulated.
The Bill, which seeks to put power in the hands of the passengers whenever their rights are unnecessarily violated by the airlines, will ensure that passengers get adequate compensations when they are maltreated by the airlines.
But analysts say as good as the passengers’ bill of rights appears, efforts must be made to ensure airlines respect the rules.
An Aviation expert, Mercel Okoro believes it’s a new dawn in the aviation industry, where passengers will become king.
“I think this is laudable. It will take away the pains and fears people have when arriving at our airports, because it is painful to arrive without your luggage or sit forever at the airport because of cancellation without help from anywhere. It will also improve customer service,” he says.
The bill of rights was first introduced to stakeholders early last year in Lagos.
Source: http://www.thisdaylive.com
Private Jet Pick-Up Indicated by Air Partner, Hangar8 Earnings
Air Partner Plc, a U.K. broker of business-jet charters, said increased demand for private planes means full-year earnings will beat forecasts. Hangar8 Plc, which has a fleet of about 50 aircraft for hire, also reported gains.
Air Partner’s pretax profit for the year ending July 31 will be higher than 2012’s 3.2 million pounds ($4.8 million), the provider of planes spanning Cessna light jets to Boeing Co. 777’s said today. Analysts predict a 3.75 million-pound profit, based on the median of two estimates in a Bloomberg survey.
The private-jet market has been sluggish since 2008, when the economic slump hurt demand from businesses and individuals. Improving growth prospects in the U.S. and an easing of the European debt crisis have raised prospects for a rebound.
“Business has further improved” since a June 4 update that detailed gains in both private-aircraft and jetliner charters, with trading “stronger than expected” over the last eight weeks, Crawley, England-based Air Partner said in a statement.
The stock rose as much as 7.4 percent and was trading 5.7 higher at 364 pence as of 10 a.m. in London, taking gains this year to 19 percent and valuing the company at 37 million pounds.
Air Partner said business has also been buoyed by new deals to serve the oil and gas market and from tour operators.
Oxford, England-based Hangar8, which offers planes from Embraer SA Phenom 100 light jets to the Brazilian manufacturer’s Lineage 1000 VIP model featuring a dining room and double bedroom, reported a “material uplift” in pretax profit for the year ended June 30 which it said was in line with forecasts.
Growth was aided by the November purchase of International Jet Club Ltd., which added two long-range Bombardier Inc. (BBD/B) Global Express aircraft, and there is cash for further expansion, Hangar8 said.
Source: http://www.bloomberg.com
Labels: Jets
Airport damage blamed on fence
Pangnirtung airport is in dire need of a new fence, said Ron Mongeau, the hamlet's senior administrative officer, following two incidents in which aircraft were damaged.
A small plane was broken into on July 9 and a variety of equipment, including a GPS and safety flares, were stolen.
Mongeau said he's been asking for a new fence for a long time.
"We have been pointing this out to the government of Nunavut for years," he said. "It's one of many problems with the airport, the others being its location in the middle of town and the issues with landing because of wind conditions. There is totally inadequate fencing that is falling down and falling apart and I've indicated on many occasions, in writing, that we need a new fence."
Mongeau said the fence has numerous areas where people can get in and the hamlet doesn't have the proper funds to build a new, expensive fence. He estimates the cost at approximately $250,000.
"We need support from the government on this," he said. "We're looking at a fairly expensive proposition here and we need them to pitch in."
The hamlet is also considering security cameras, Mongeau added. Although cameras could allow them to catch culprits, it may not deter them from breaking in.
People aren't the only concern. Dogs have also been known to go through the fence as they please. It happened a month ago when a dog wandered onto the runway 20 minutes before an aircraft was scheduled to land.
"This goes beyond vandalism," Mongeau said.
"We can talk about this issue until we're blue in the face. We need an air strip where we can keep people and animals out of, and a fence that is secure, that will do the job it is designed to do."
On June 28, a 35-year-old man who was believed to have been intoxicated was charged with several offences after more than $5,000 worth of damage was done to a helicopter's window at the Pangnirtung Airport. The aircraft, which was set to bring scientists to Auyuittuq National Park, was out of service for several days.
Source: http://nnsl.com
Labels: Airports
Whistler Health Care Centre helipad to stay operational over summer
A short-term compromise has been reached that will allow the Whistler Health Centre's helipad to remain open until the fall.
The centre's clerical aides and other staff, plus RCMP, BC Ambulance staff and Whistler Fire Rescue, will share duties in keeping traffic and pedestrians a safe distance from landing or departing helicopters, said Clay Adams of Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH).
VCH has submitted a proposal to Transport Canada that "will get physical bodies onto the streets," and this temporary measure had been approved by the stakeholders involved, including the Resort Municipality of Whistler, said Adams.
"We got approval for a short-term plan from Transport Canada which will allow us to keep the helipad in operation until September," Adams said.
In mid-May, Transport Canada inspectors were in Whistler to carry out an audit of the helipad's operations and observed people not obeying traffic signals at Blackcomb Way and Lorimer Road that are activated when a helicopter is about to land or depart.
Adams did not anticipated added costs to implement the plan.
"Whistler Health Care Centre staff will take on the traffic management roles within their existing shifts (meaning they will be at work at the time of a landing/takeoff and not asked to come into work for the specific role). The contribution of our partners from the RCMP and BCAS has been arranged on a volunteer basis," he said, adding that everyone understood that this was untenable in the long term.
The decision came following an audit the federal department made of the helipad's operations in mid-May. At that time, Vancouver Coastal Health, which ultimately has responsibility for the helipad, was given until July 2 to come up with a plan to address the issue by mid-August or risk the helipad being issued a notice of suspension.
Adams said the Resort Municipality of Whistler (RMOW) did not like the idea of barriers, as supported by Transport Canada, and suggested that there was a lack of interest, along with a lack of funding, to make it happen.
"It has been frustrating to get everyone together to find a solution that is workable... We're in the health care business, not traffic management," he said.
Added Adams of the decision to bring in help from emergency responders and the health centre's staff: "This points back to something that is short term vs. long term. I can't see anyone want to commit to this ad inifinitum."
Whistler Mayor Nancy Wilhelm-Morden said she hopes the temporary remedy will work.
"Certainly it will be a challenge if a helicopter is arriving or departing at the same time as some other emergency call because it looks like Vancouver Coastal Health will be relying on a certain extent on the availability of first responders. We'll have a couple of months to see if this does work," she said.
Wilhelm-Morden said no other meetings on the subject were currently arranged but anticipated them.
"There was some discussion about fencing around the helipad and we're not really thrilled about that, but then it can't be very high because that would interfere with the flight path and if you don't have a high fence then it's not going to be very effective. That didn't seem to be a very good solution," she said.
"We did have a discussion about barriers but not very detailed at all."
The mayor said considerable uncertainty remained.
"What I hope would happen is that people pay attention to the darned lights," Wilhelm-Morden said.
"If they would, that's the solution. So maybe it's just a case of better education of members of the public. The lights haven't been up there for that long, and I have to say personally I find them confusing sometimes when I am driving. One light is green and another is red."
Source: http://www.piquenewsmagazine.com
Labels: Helicopters
Aviation experts propose new hangar for testing: Minister Karmenu Vella says research and development is the ideal way to invest in the future
Local aviation experts are proposing a new building at the Safi Aviation Park that would include lecture rooms, offices, and also a hangar for unmanned aircraft testing.
This was proposed in a conference organized this morning in which the Government announced its intention to invest heavily in Research & Development, in particular in the aviation sector.
"In the past we have failed in Research and development; we have invested very little. This government recognizes the importance of R&D and is aware that much more investment is needed in the near future," the Minister for Tourism, Karmenu Vella said.
Kenneth Chircop, David Zammit-Mangion and Andrew Sammut, who all lecture avionics at the University of Malta, presented a list of projects done. These include a flight trajectory optimization for reduction of noise and emissions,'FlySafe' aircraft safety system and 'Odicis' - a touch screen interactive cockpit technology.
They were also awarded research contracts with Airbus, leading manufactures of aviation technology and foreign universities.
"The government's initiative is to promote further research, but we should also capitalize on what is already there, and Malta's aviation sector is one of the leading in this industry" Zammit-Mangion said.
David Zammit-Mangion concluded that support to local industry is needed in order to attract further foreign investment to Malta.
Last April, Minister Karmenu Vella said the Government was preparing a national aviation policy in order to address the problems this sector faces, saying this was a priority sector for the Government.
Source: http://www.maltatoday.com
Labels: Hangars
Caribbean Airlines crash court case will be heard in New York: Boeing 737-800, Trinidad & Tobago registration 9Y-PBM, Accident occurred July 30, 2011 in Georgetown, Guyana
NTSB Identification: DCA11RA092
Accident occurred Saturday, July 30, 2011 in Georgetown, Guyana
Aircraft: BOEING 737, registration:
Injuries: 1 Serious,161 Uninjured.
This is preliminary information, subject to change, and may contain errors. The foreign authority was the source of this information.
On July 30, 2011, at 1:25 am local time (0525 UTC), a Boeing 737-800, Trinidad & Tobago registration 9Y-PBM, operated by Caribbean Airlines as flight 523, overran the runway upon landing at Cheddi Jagan International Airport, Georgetown, Guyana. Of the 156 passengers and six crew on board, there was reportedly one serious and multiple minor injuries. Weather was reported as raining at the time of the accident. Preliminary details from local authorities indicate that the airplane fractured in two pieces as a result of the overrun. The flight was a scheduled passenger flight from Piarco International Airport, Port of Spain, Trinidad & Tobago.
The accident is being investigated by the Guyana Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). The NTSB has designated a U.S. Accredited Representative as the state of manufacture. All inquiries should be directed to the Guyana CAA at:
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Party in the Pasture
Jimi Nelson Band
Growing up in Moline, Illinois, Jimi was introduced to some of country's greatest artist with his parents playing the music of Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, Waylon Jennings and early Elvis Presley. So its not surprising he started early after getting his first guitar at age 12. Jimi brings his original blend with classic and modern country musical influences of Merle Haggard, Dwight Yoakum and Buck Owens, Jason Aldean, Billy Currington and Keith Urban as well as original music written by Jimi himself. Jimi has toured the United States and has been in bands with Frankie Avalon Jr, Tony Avalon, Sons of Frankie Avalon and Eden Everly son of Don Everly before pursuing his own original musical journey. Jimi is currently touring in support of his new CD "Hangovers & Heartaches" this tour will take him through the South and Midwestern United States and onto Europe.
Website: http://www.jiminelsonband.com/
Reverbnation: www.reverbnation.com/jiminelsonband
Facebook: http://www.jimi.nelson1/
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I don't know what took me so long to buy it.. well, actually I do. I was waiting for the price to come down (which it didn't) and also, I was thinking the songs would be subject to new arrangements or theatrics or things to be cute. But finally after reading the reviews and looking at the set list, I purchased Elton John's 60th birthday concert at Madison Square Garden, on Blu Ray.
Better late than never! What a great concert! The video and audio quality are superb, too. It's like sitting just a few rows back from the stage right in the middle; they got the acoustics just right.
Most of the songs are from his earlier albums, which matches my interest, which tailed off after Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, and after he and Bernie Taupin split up. The old songs are the best, and his arrangements don't stray very far from the originals, either. John's voice is lower; what I missed was the high notes in his vocals to punctuate certain parts of his songs, but that's okay, the melodies were there and untampered with. Cute stuff like letting the audience sing was at a bare minimum, thankfully. That's one thing I hate about concerts: when the audience is invited to participate and sing the lyrics in place of the performer. I don't want to hear some drunken fool or tone-deaf admirer in place of the person I paid money to see.
I know this came out nearly three years ago and I'm behind the times but I was so happy I wanted to write about it. I sat there smiling and of course even though he was in bytes and pieces on the disc, I wanted to give him a big thank you for being around so long and being so talented. Everything about the concert was superb.
Like the Carol King / James Taylor reunion concert at the Troubadour, this was another part of the soundtrack from my life. I was wowed.
philosophizing
I'm still standing
This time it's different
What are they thinking?
On the Road - 5
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The First Patient
A film by Chip Duncan
A Medical School Documentary on Death & Discovery
A dramatic expedition into an unknown world, The First Patient challenges audiences to embrace their curiosity and courage as they follow first year medical students through gross anatomy – the dissection of the human body. The Mayo Clinic School of Medicine granted unprecedented access to veteran filmmaker Chip Duncan and The Duncan Entertainment Group team to explore a world long considered taboo. The documentary proves both entertaining and emotional as the camera follows a diverse group of students, faculty and body donors on this life-affirming journey inside the human body. The First Patient provides dynamic insights into medical science, teamwork, death, and spirituality as students discover what it means to be a doctor ... and what it means to be a human being.
"As teachers we are so immersed in the sound of our own voices that too often we miss those of our students, but this film captures the essence of what we do with untouched reality and an authenticity that will resonate with all anatomy teachers and students as well as the general public.” - Nirusha Lachman, Mayo Clinic
"This is one of the finest portrayals of a diversity of intelligent, ambitious young women on screen that I have seen in over twenty years of distributing films.” - Annie Roney, ro*co films
"For any health care professional or a person in the general public, this film will trigger reflection on what it means to be a great doctor.” - Wocjiech Pawlina, Mayo Clinic
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Cultural Resource Survey Program (CRSP)
About CRSP
Victoria Schmitt
CRSP Architectural Historian
victoria.schmitt@nysed.gov
Lynch, A., Schmitt, V.A., 2012. Cultural Resources Reconnaissance Survey Report for PIN 9806.09.101, Route 28 over Knapp Brook, Town of Franklin, Delaware County, New York. Albany, New York.
Xinakes, L.J., Rieth, C.B., Schmitt, V.A., 2011. Cultural Resources Reconnaissance Survey Report of PIN 1357.13.121, Addendum to CR (Birchwood Drive) and BIN 1070650 over I-88, Town of Princetown, Schenectady County, New York. New York State Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration, Albany, New York.
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Xinakes, L.J., Rieth, C.B., Schmitt, V.A., 2011. Cultural Resources Reconnaissance Survey Report of PIN 1357.13.121, Addendum to CR (Birchwood Drive) and BIN 1070650 over I-88, Town of Princetown, Schenectady County, New York. Albany, New York.
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Polímeros
versão impressa ISSN 0104-1428versão On-line ISSN 1678-5169
Polímeros vol.25 no.6 São Carlos nov./dez. 2015 Epub 04-Dez-2015
https://doi.org/10.1590/0104-1428.2158
Seção Técnica
Molecular weight and tacticity effect on morphological and mechanical properties of Ziegler–Natta catalyzed isotactic polypropylenes
Ismael Amer1 2 *
Albert van Reenen1
Touhami Mokrani2
1Department of Chemistry and Polymer Science, University of Stellenbosch, Stellenbosch, South Africa
2Department of Civil and Chemical Engineering, College of Science, Engineering and Technology, University of South Africa – UNISA, Johannesburg, South Africa
The morphological and mechanical properties of Ziegler–Natta catalyzed isotactic polypropylenes as influenced by the molecular weight and tacticity was investigated. Polypropylene samples were injection moulded into standard disks with a HAAKE MiniJet II injection moulder at 190 °C and 200 bar for morphological and mechanical tests. The morphological and mechanical properties of specimens were investigated by means of optical microscope (OM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), microhardness (MH) and dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA). The samples exhibited a typical α-modification spherulite structure of isotactic polypropylenes crystallized from the melt. It was found that the most important factor affecting the structure and properties of these polymers is the isotacticity content. A clear molecular weight effect was also found for samples with low molecular weights. The microhardness and storage modulus values increased as crystallinity did. Accordingly, isotacticity degree is considered as the main parameter affecting the crystallinity of samples.
Key words: mechanical property; molecular weight; morphological property; polypropylene; tacticity
Polypropylene is one of the most common polymers in use today. Its good mechanical properties and relatively low price result in the continuous growth of its production and the expansion of its market. Its continuously increasing application accelerates research in all related fields, including the preparation of isotactic polypropylene based composites and blends[1]. The mechanical and physical properties of polypropylene are influenced by a number of factors. The mechanical properties of the majority of polypropylene homopolymers are, apart from processing conditions, influenced by their rheological and crystallization behaviour. The degree of crystallinity is considered to be the most influential property affecting the physical and mechanical properties of a polypropylene sample[2-4]. An increase in crystallinity is often related to an increase in properties such as the stiffness or storage modulus of a sample, while other factors such as the impact strength generally decrease with increasing crystallinity. The storage modulus can be defined as the ratio of stress to strain under vibratory conditions which can be calculated from data obtained from either free or forced vibration tests, in shear, compression, or elongation. The Stiffness can be defined as the rigidity of the material to which it resists deformation in response to an applied force. An increase in crystallinity can lead to an increase in the lamellar thickness which leads to higher storage modulus and stiffiness values[2-4]. The effects of molecular weight[5-8], molecular weight distribution[9] and tacticity[10-13] on the crystallization have been investigated by several authors. Cheng et al.[6] showed that the linear growth rate of crystals decreases with the increase of molecular weight, but the overall crystallization rate might increase because an increasing number of intramolecular folded-chain nuclei could result in a higher nucleation density[7]. For samples with similar molecular weights and different tacticities the linear crystal growth rate might increase by three orders of magnitude when the isotacticity (mmmm %) of isotactic polypropylene increases from 78.7 to 98.8%[11,14]. The degree of crystallinity of isotactic polypropylene is commonly in the range of 40 to 70%[1]. Atactic polypropylene, on the other hand, is considered uncrystallizable, since the chain structure lacks regularity. Isotactic polypropylene can crystallize in three different crystal forms as was described by Bruckner et al.[15], depending on the polymer structure and the crystallization conditions: the α-form with a monoclinic, the γ-form with an orthorhombic and the β-form with a hexagonal unit cell[15].
The molecular weight has also been shown to influence the glass transition temperature (Tg) of polymers, with higher molecular weight samples having a higher Tg[16]. This in turn influences the mobility of chains at room temperature, and since polypropylene has a Tg range in the region of 0 °C, variations in the Tg temperature range can have an effect on the ability of the material to displace energy at low temperatures.
The aim of the current study is to explore narrowly the structure–property relationships of polypropylene. The morphological and mechanical properties of different samples were investigated by means of optical microscope (OM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), microhardness (MH) and dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) to demonstrate the effect of isotacticity and molecular weight on the properties of polypropylene samples. To the best of our knowledge the investigation of how the molecular weight affect the thermal, morphological and mechanical properties of isotactic polypropylene has not been done yet to polymer studies which has previously been overlooked.
2. Experimental Section
Polypropylene polymers and fractions used in this study were selected from our previous study as shown in Amer and van Reenen[17] and Table 1. These polymers were prepared using a commercial Ziegler-Natta catalyst with 2.78 wt% Ti content purchased from Star Chemicals & Catalysts Co. (China) and labeled as P3−P17. P4(120), P5(120), P8(120) and P9(110) refer to polypropylene TREF fractions eluted at 120 and 110 °C, respectively.
Table 1 Characterization data of the polypropylenes and fractions.
Mwa(g/mol)
Mw/Mn
mmmmb(%)
Tmc(°C)
Tcc(°C)
ΔHmc(J/g)
Xc (%)
P3 184 759 6.1 93.0 161.2 124.2 104.5 50.0
P14 215 397 5.9 86.0 157.5 119.8 90.5 43.0
P17 65 498 8.2 93.0 156.5 120.8 100.5 48.0
P4(120) 195 693 4.3 98.0 160.0 116.0 119.7 57.0
P9 (110) 110 387 3.4 98.0 158.7 118.4 110.7 53.0
adetermined by GPC.
bdetermined by NMR.
cmeasured by DSC.
2.2 Polymerization procedure
All polymerization reactions were carried out under an inert gas atmosphere. The polymerization reactions were carried out in a 350-mL stainless steel Parr autoclave with a gas inlet and pressure gauge. Typically the reactor was charged with the catalyst (43 mg, Ti content 2.78 wt%) and triethylaluminium (2 mmol, Al/Ti mole ratio 80) in toluene (25 mL). The catalyst solution was stirred for 5 min and then the propylene was added. The reactor was pressurized with hydrogen and the contents stirred for 1 h at room temperature. The reaction was then quenched by the addition of 100 ml 10% HCl/MeOH. The resulting polymer was filtered off, washed several times with methanol, and subsequently dried under vacuum at 80 °C for 15 h, to yield about 3-5 g of polypropylene as a white powder.
2.3 Sample preparation for mechanical tests
Test specimens were injection moulded into standard disks for morphological and mechanical tests with a HAAKE MiniJet II injection moulder. The injection moulding temperature was 190 °C and the injection pressure was 200 bar. The dimensions of the standard disks are 20.0 mm in diameter and 1.5 mm in thickness.
2.4 Preparation of etching reagent
Permanganic etching of polyolefins was used to prepare samples for the study of the morphology. This technique has been used in several studies involving polyolefins[18-21]. Potassium permanganate (1 g) (obtained from Sigma-Aldrich) was dissolved in 100 mL of a concentrated solution of 33 vol % phosphoric acid and 67 vol % sulphuric acid (Sigma-Aldrich). The solution was prepared by adding potassium permanganate very slowly to the beaker containing both acids, with rapid agitation. After adding all the potassium permanganate, the beaker was closed and the content stirred until all the potassium permanganate was dissolved (a dark green purple solution formed). All polypropylene samples were etched at room temperature.
2.5 Etching procedure
Specimens from each polymer, with approximate dimensions of length 10 mm, width 5 mm and thickness 1.5 mm, were cut from the disks prepared by injection moulding. Each sample was immersed in about 10 mL of the etching reagent in a beaker for a period of 60 minutes. This permanganic acid solution preferentially etches the amorphous part of the polymer in the spherulites in such a way that the lamellae then appear clearly. Subsequently, the specimens were carefully washed with hydrogen peroxide, distilled water and acetone, in order to avoid any artefacts caused by pollution effects. Samples were finally dried in a vacuum oven at 45 °C for 5 hr.
2.6 Polymer characterization
A Zeiss Axiolab OM, (magnification × 50-100 μm) with a high resolution camera CCD-IRIS (Sony) was used to examine the etched piece, to investigate the crystal structure.
SEM analysis of etched piece was performed using a Leo® 1430VP scanning electron microscope operated at 15 kV of acceleration voltage at room temperature. All the surfaces to be studied were coated with gold under vacuum in order to eliminate any undesirable charge effects during the SEM observations.
Samples for compressive DMA were analyzed using a Perkin Elmer DMA 7e calibrated according to standard procedures. The samples were first melted at 180 °C for 8 minutes and then melt pressed at 5 MPa and same temperature. The samples were analyzed using a 5 °C/min heating ramp with an applied force oscillating at a frequency of 1 Hz. The static force was kept constant at 110% of the dynamic force. The temperature range analyzed was between –40 °C and 230 °C.
MH measurements were conducted on a UHL microhardness tester equipped with a Vickers indenter. Measurements were obtained using an indentation speed of 25 μm/s and a dwell time of 15 s. Samples were analyzed at indentation loads of 10 gf. Ten measurements were recorded for each sample analyzed.
3. Results and Discussions
3.1 Morphological properties
Table 1 summarizes the polypropylene polymers and fractions used in this study.
3.1.1 Optical Microscopy analysis
First, the effect that the molecular weight has on the crystal structure of different polypropylene samples was studied. Figure 1a-c shows OM micrographs of polypropylene fractions P5(120), P4(120) and P9(110) respectively, which differ in molecular weight (see Table 1). They exhibit a typical α-modification spherulite structure of isotactic polypropylenes crystallized from the melt. These micrographs show that all the isotactic polypropylene fractions have well-defined and large α-spherulitic morphology. The spherulites grew, impinged on each other, and formed particular polygonal spherulites with clear boundaries. Indications are that, since all the observed spherulites grew at the same rate and their observed size can be considered uniform, the nuclei are formed immediately after cooling to the crystallization temperature and their number remains constant thereafter.
Figure 1 Optical micrographs of isotactic polypropylene fractions: (a) P5(120) (Mw = 207823 g/mol), (b) P4(120) (Mw = 195693 g/mol) and (c) P9(110) (Mw =110387 g/mol) (500x magnification).
The only effect of the molecular weight that can be noticed in Figure 1 is the slight morphological differences in the sign of birefringence, magnitude of the birefringence and spherulite texture. Second, the effect of tacticity on the crystal structure of different isotactic polypropylenes was studied. Figure 2a-c show OM micrographs of polypropylenes P5, P4 and P14, which differ in their tacticities (Table 1). The graphs show that, under similar crystallization conditions, the dimensions of the crystal structures of these different isotactic polypropylene samples decrease in size with tacticity. This effect can be explained by the restriction of movement of polymer chains caused by chain defects in low tacticity polymers during the crystallization process, resulting in slower crystallization and hence the formation of smaller spherulites. Similar results were obtained in other studies[22-24].
Figure 2 Optical micrographs of isotactic polypropylene polymers: (a) P5 (mmmm = 96%), (b) P4 (mmmm = 94%) and (c) P14 (mmmm = 86%) (500x magnification).
3.1.2 Scanning Electron Microscopy analysis
Figure 3a-c shows SEM micrographs of the typical crystallization morphologies of the isotactic polypropylene fractions P5(120), P4(120) and P9(110) respectively, which differ in molecular weight. All these isotactic polypropylenes revealed well-defined and large spherulitic morphology, comprising a mixture of α1 (disordered) and α2 (ordered) crystal form structures. The spherulites grew, impinged on each other, and formed particular polygonal spherulites with clear boundaries. Moreover, one can clearly see the individual lamellae and lamellar branching structure in the SEM micrographs in Figure 3. The samples consist of crosshatch-type lamellar branching structures, which is the typical characteristic of the α crystal form of isotactic polypropylenes[25,26]. In contrast to OM results, clear differences can be distinguished between the three different isotactic polypropylene samples shown in Figure 3. These differences exist in the variety of spherulite sizes and spherulite types classified by their appearance, including the sign and nature of birefringence and crystal lattice. The average diameter of P5(120) spherulites is about 5-15 μm (Figure 3a). Smaller dominant α spherulites (about 5-10 μm) are observed for P4(120) and P9(110) (Figure 3b, c respectively).
Figure 3 SEM micrographs of isotactic polypropylene fractions: (a) P5(120) (Mw = 207823 g/mol), (b) P4(120) (Mw = 195693 g/mol) and (c) P9(110) (Mw =110387 g/mol) (3000x magnification).
Figure 4a-c illustrates SEM micrographs of polypropylenes (P5, P4 and P14) that differ in their tacticities (Table 1). Similar to those results obtained from OM above, SEM also shows in Figure 4, that the sizes of the spherulites were decreased drastically with decreasing tacticity. In addition, with decreasing tacticity, the spherulites showed less perfection and the sharp spherulite boundaries became more diffuse (Figure 4c).
Figure 4 SEM micrographs of isotactic polypropylene polymers: (a) P5 (mmmm = 96%), (b) P4 (mmmm = 94%) and (c) P14 (mmmm = 86%) (3000× magnification).
The sample P5 with 96.0% tacticity has the biggest spherulite sizes (15-25 μm) while samples P4 and P14 with 94.0% and 86.0% tacticities have spherulite sizes about 5-15 and 1-3 μm respectively. SEM micrographs (Figure 4a, b) also show small dimples on the etched surface of samples P5 and P4 may grow to craters and holes. This is due to the extractions of the rubbery materials by the etchant solution[19,20,27,28].
3.2 Mechanical properties
In order to correlate the structure of the polypropylene polymers with the mechanical properties, the samples were analyzed using microhardness and DMA.
3.2.1 Microhardness
According to literature[29-33], all the parameters that lead to an increase of crystallinity and crystallite sizes (lamellar thickness) will also lead to higher MH values. Hence, the higher the isotacticity, the greater the MH values obtained. The effect of the molecular weight and molecular weight distribution on the crystallinity of the polypropylene samples P3, P4, P5, P8, P17, P4(120) and P8(120) was investigated and results are illustrated in Figure 5. The samples of low molecular weight generally have a broader molecular weight distribution, and vice versa. The molecular weight distribution has an effect on the crystallinity: the samples with a higher degree of crystallinity have a lower molecular weight distribution, and samples with lower degree of crystallinity have a higher molecular weight distribution. On the other hand, there is a slight increase in the crystallinity of the samples with an increase in the molecular weight.
Figure 5 The effect of molecular weight and molecular weight distribution on the crystallinity of the isotactic polypropylene polymers P3, P4, P5, P8, P17, P4(120) and P8(120).
Figure 6 shows the combined effect of the molecular weight and isotacticity on the degree of crystallinity of the polypropylene samples P3, P4, P5, P8, P17, P4(120), P8(120) and P9(110). There is a remarkable increase in crystallinity as the isotacticity is increased, from about 93% to 98%. In general, the samples with high molecular weight have high isotacticity, as expected, since the more stereospecific sites have a higher propagation constant rate (Kp). This is in agreement with the results obtained by Sakurai et al.[34] with regards to the relationship between isotacticity and molecular weight. Moreover, Figures 5 and 6 show that the crystallinity of the samples was largely affected by the isotacticity, which clearly dominates over other effects such as molecular weight and molecular weight distributions. Nevertheless, when the isotacticity values from the polymer samples are similar, the molecular weight and molecular weight distributions exert significant influence on crystallinity.
Figure 6 The combined effect of molecular weight and isotacticity on the crystallinity of the isotactic polypropylene polymers P3, P4, P5, P8, P17, P4(120), P8(120) and P9(110).
Looking at the combined effect of the molecular weight and crystallinity on the microhardness of the samples P3, P4, P5, P8, P17, P4(120), P8(120) and P9(110), as shown in Figure 7, generally one can see that there is a major increase in the MH with increasing molecular weight and crystallinity of the samples. Since that the most important factor affecting the crystallinity of these polypropylene polymers is the isotacticity content, the combined effect of the molecular weight and isotacticity on the MH of the samples P3, P4, P5, P8, P17, P4(120), P8(120) and P9(110) is illustrated in Figure 8. It appears that there is a significant increase in the MH with increasing isotacticities of the samples. Hence, it can be said that the higher the isotacticity the greater the MH. This means that the most important factors affecting the MH of these polypropylene polymers are those that lead to an increase in crystallinity. In addition, the main parameter which affects the crystallinity can be considered to be the degree of isotacticity of the samples.
Figure 7 The combined effect of molecular weight and crystallinity on the microhardness of the isotactic polypropylene polymers P3, P4, P5, P8, P17, P4(120), P8(120) and P9(110).
Figure 8 The combined effect of molecular weight and isotacticity on the microhardness of the isotactic polypropylene polymers P3, P4, P5, P8, P17, P4(120), P8(120) and P9(110).
It is reasonable that the higher isotacticity content allows easier recrystallization upon the application of an external force to the sample, thus improving the hardness of the sample upon indentation. The magnitude of the effect of the tacticity of the polypropylenes on the properties of the polymer has also been discussed by De Rosa et al.[35].
3.2.2 Dynamic Mechanical analysis
3.2.2.1 Effect of molecular weight
Figure 9 shows the storage modulus of different isotactic polypropylene samples with different molecular weights, as a function in temperature. The storage modulus values increase with increasing molecular weight in the temperature range measured for the different samples. This is in agreement with the results obtained above from the microhardness test. Similar behaviour has been observed by other researchers[8]. The reason for the increase in the storage modulus values with increasing molecular weight is due to the higher degree of crystallinity and the presence of a larger number of molecular weight entanglements per chain for the higher molecular weight polymers. Furthermore, an increase in the lamellar thickness as the molecular weight increases also leads to higher storage modulus values[8].
Figure 9 Storage modulus curves as a function of temperature for isotactic polypropylene samples with various molecular weights.
The detailed plot of loss tangent (tan δ) of these isotactic polypropylene samples, as a function of the temperature, ranging from –40 to 80 °C is presented in Figure 10. The tan δ curves represent the ratio of the ability of the material to store and lose energy, which is sometimes referred to as the clamping ability of a material. It can also be taken as a measurement of the impact properties of the material. It is apparent from Figure 10 that β-transition, corresponding to the Tg of isotactic polypropylenes, which occurs over the temperature range 10-20 °C, is slightly shifted to a higher temperature as the molecular weight increases (from 16 °C for P3 sample with Mw 184 759 g/mol to 20 °C for P5 sample with Mw 312 580 g/mol). The samples with lower molecular weights are less crystalline and therefore contain more amorphous material. The explanation is that the chains have far greater mobility in the amorphous phase in the lower molecular weight samples compared to the samples with higher molecular weights. We do, however, also have to take into consideration the change in the molecular packing in the amorphous phase. Denser packing of the molecular chains leads to a reduction in the molecular motion. The areas of the β-transitions of the samples, after subtraction of a linear baseline, are given in Figure 11.
Figure 10 Tan δ curves as a function of temperature for isotactic polypropylene samples with various molecular weights.
Figure 11 The magnitude of the area of the β-transition for isotactic polypropylene samples with various molecular weights.
Figure 11 shows that the magnitude of the β-transition increases with increasing molecular weight. Similar results were obtained by Stern et al.[8], who found that the higher molecular weight polymers are generally characterized by larger β-transition. In fact, a decrease in the mechanical transition of the β process is associated with a reduction in the mobility of the polymer chains in the amorphous phase[8,36,37].
3.2.2.2 Effect of isotacticity
Figure 12 shows the difference in the storage modulus curves, as a function of temperature, for isotactic polypropylene samples with various isotacticities. Compared to the results obtained from varying the molecular weight, isotactity of isotactic polypropylene samples has further effect on the overall viscoelastic response as shown in Figure 12. The storage modulus is greater in the higher isotactic polypropylene samples than in those with lower tacticity, over the whole temperature range studied (1.51 × 108 Pa for P4(120) with 98 mmmm % vs 0.84 × 108 Pa for P14 with 86 mmmm %) as shown in Figure 12. Moreover, this effect is also observed in the location and intensity of the β-transition temperature, as shown in Figure 13.
Figure 12 Storage modulus curves as a function of temperature for isotactic polypropylene samples with various isotacticities.
Figure 13 Tan δ curves as a function of temperature of isotactic polypropylene samples with various isotacticities.
As the isotactic content increases, the location of the β-transition temperature is considerably shifted to higher temperatures, but its intensity decreases significantly in the higher isotactic polypropylene fractions P5(120) and P4(120), as can be seen in Figure 14, which shows the areas of the β-transitions of the different samples. All of these features can be associated with the higher degree of crystallinity that more regular chains can be reached, i.e. as isotacticity is increased in the isotactic polypropylene macromolecules. Therefore, the lowest content of amorphous regions is in the P4(120) sample, because its higher crystallinity (Xc = 57%, Table 1) leads to its higher storage modulus, a decrease in magnitude of the β-transition and the displacement of its location to higher temperatures due to the higher hindrance of motions within the crystalline phase.
Figure 14 The magnitude of the area of the β-transition of isotactic polypropylene samples with various isotacticities.
The relationship between structure and properties was established for different polypropylene samples through their morphological and mechanical characterizations. The effect of isotacticity and molecular weight on the properties of polypropylene samples was investigated. The most important factors affecting the structure and properties of these polypropylene samples are those that lead to an increase of crystallinity. Consequently, the main parameter is the degree of isotacticity, followed by molecular weight. OM and SEM results showed that all isotactic polypropylene samples had well-defined α-spherulitic morphology. OM and SEM also showed that tacticity had a greater effect on the morphological structure of the isotactic polypropylenes than molecular weight. A decrease in isotacticity leads to a clear decrease in the dimensions of the crystal structures for the different isotactic polypropylene samples. Results of the MH and DMA showed that all the parameters that lead to an increase in crystallinity and crystallite sizes (lamellar thickness) will provide higher MH, storage modulus and β-transition temperature values. The crystallinity of the samples was shown to be affected by the molecular weight and molecular weight distribution, as well as by the isotacticity of the samples.
The authors would like to thank 1) the International Centre of Macromolecules and Materials Science (Libya) for financial support for Ismael Amer and 2) Mrs Sonja Brandt for the English editing.
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18 Olley, R. H., Hodge, A. M., & Bassett, D. C. (1979). A permanganic etchant for polyolefines. Journal of Polymer Science. Part B, Polymer Physics, 17(4), 627-643. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/pol.1979.180170406. [ Links ]
19 Freedman, A. M., Bassett, D. C., Vaughan, A. S., & Olley, R. H. (1986). On quantitative permanganic etching. Polymer, 27(8), 1163-1169. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0032-3861(86)90003-0. [ Links ]
20 Olley, R. H., & Bassett, D. C. (1982). An improved permanganic etchant for polyolefines. Polymer, 23(12), 1707-1710. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0032-3861(82)90110-0. [ Links ]
21 Aboulfaraj, M., Ulrich, B., Dahoun, A., & G’Sell, C. (1993). Spherulitic morphology of isotactic polypropylene investigated by scanning electron microscopy. Polymer, 34(23), 4817-4825. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0032-3861(93)90003-S. [ Links ]
22 Lotz, B., Wittmann, J. C., & Lovinger, A. J. (1996). Structure and morphology of poly(propylenes): a molecular analysis. Polymer, 37(22), 4979-4992. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0032-3861(96)00370-9. [ Links ]
23 Morrow, D. R., & Newman, B. A. (1968). Crystallization of low-molecular-weight polypropylene fractions. Journal of Applied Physics, 39(11), 4944-4950. http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.1655891. [ Links ]
24 van der Burgt, F. (2002). Crystallization of isotactic polypropylene: the influence of stereo-defects (Masters thesis). Technical University of Eindhoven, Eindhoven. [ Links ]
25 Park, J., Eom, K., Kwon, O., & Woo, S. (2001). Chemical etching technique for the investigation of melt-crystallized isotactic polypropylene spherulite and lamellar morphology by scanning electron microscopy. Microscopy and Microanalysis, 7(3), 276-286. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1431927601010285. PMid:12597818. [ Links ]
26 Wang, J., & Dou, Q. (2008). Crystallization behaviors and optical properties of isotactic polypropylene: comparative study of a trisamide and a rosin-type nucleating agent. Colloid & Polymer Science, 286(6-7), 699-705. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00396-007-1821-7. [ Links ]
27 Olley, R. H., & Bassett, D. C. (1989). On the development of polypropylene spherulites. Polymer, 30(3), 399-409. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0032-3861(89)90004-9. [ Links ]
28 Rybnikář, F. (1985). Selective etching of polyolefines. I. Isotactic polypropylene. Journal of Applied Polymer Science, 30(5), 1949-1961. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/app.1985.070300513. [ Links ]
29 Seidler, S., & Koch. T. (2002). Determination of local mechanical properties of α- and β- PP by means of microhardness measurements. Journal of Macromolecular Science, Part B: Physics, 41(4-6), 851-861. http://dx.doi.org/10.1081/MB-120013069. [ Links ]
30 Arranz-Andrés, J., Peña, B., Benavente, R., Pérez, E., & Cerrada, M. L. (2007). Influence of isotacticity and molecular weight on the properties of metallocenic isotactic polypropylene. European Polymer Journal, 43(6), 2357-2370. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.eurpolymj.2007.03.034. [ Links ]
31 Koch, T., Seidler, S., Halwax, E., & Bernstorff, S. (2007). Microhardness of quenched and annealed isotactic polypropylene. Journal of Materials Science, 42(14), 5318-5326. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10853-006-0960-4. [ Links ]
32 Flores, A., Aurrekoetxea, J., Gensler, R., Kausch, H. H., & Calleja, F. J. B. (1998). Microhardness structure correlation of iPP/EPR blends: influence of molecular weight and EPR particle content. Colloid & Polymer Science, 276(9), 786-793. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s003960050311. [ Links ]
33 Harding, G. W., & van Reenen, A. J. (2011). Polymerisation and structure–property relationships of Ziegler–Natta catalysed isotactic polypropylenes. European Polymer Journal, 47(1), 70-77. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.eurpolymj.2010.10.019. [ Links ]
34 Sakurai, T., Nozue, Y., Kasahara, T., Mizunuma, K., Yamaguchi, N., Tashiro, K., & Amemiya, Y. (2005). Structural deformation behavior of isotactic polypropylene with different molecular characteristics during hot drawing process. Polymer, 46(20), 8846-8858. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.polymer.2005.01.106. [ Links ]
35 De Rosa, C., Auriemma, F., Di Capua, A., Resconi, L., Guidotti, S., Camuratie, I., Nifant’ev, I., & Laishevtsev, I. (2004). Structure−property correlations in polypropylene from metallocene catalysts: stereodefective, regioregular isotactic polypropylene. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 126(51), 17040-17049. http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/ja045684f. PMid:15612743. [ Links ]
36 Jourdan, C., Cavaille, J. Y., & Perez, J. (1989). Mechanical relaxations in polypropylene: a new experimental and theoretical approach. Journal of Polymer Science. Part B, Polymer Physics, 27(11), 2361-2384. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/polb.1989.090271115. [ Links ]
37 Pluta, M., Bartczak, Z., & Galeski, A. (2000). Changes in the morphology and orientation of bulk spherulitic polypropylene due to plane-strain compression. Polymer, 41(6), 2271-2288. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0032-3861(99)00364-X. [ Links ]
Received: March 20, 2015; Revised: June 03, 2015; Accepted: July 15, 2015
* ismaelamer77@yahoo.co.za
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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Falcons Blast Bucs on Thursday Night
Just four days removed from a tough loss in Cincinnati, Steven Jackson and the Atlanta Falcons made the most of a quick turnaround and dominated in primetime.
Thursday night, the fast-paced Atlanta offense overwhelmed the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in all facets of the game, and the Falcons rolled to a 56-14 victory. No. 39 was thrilled at the performance of its team in the crucial division win.
“We were very fortunate to get this win – it was a collective effort,” SJax said. “The defense created a lot of turnovers and as an offense, we found ways to score points. I think we had great momentum, throughout the game. I think guys played hard in all three phases of the game.”
After falling on the road at Cincinnati last week, the Falcons were glad to be back home in the comfort of a packed Georgia Dome. SJ39 feed off the atmosphere, as he had he had his strongest outing of the season, adding a touchdown while amassing a game-high 54 yards on the ground.
The Buccaneers won the coin toss and elected to defer, giving No. 39 and the Falcon offense the game’s first possession.
Atlanta used SJax to set the tempo early on, giving him two carries for 12 yards. Quarterback Matt Ryan notched three long completions on the drive, all off play action fakes involving Steven.
Once in the redzone, SJax barrelled ahead for an eight-yard gain, allowing Ryan to find Harry Douglas for a three-yard score—the first of many on the night.
“I thought it was great execution,” Smith stated when asked about the opening drive. “Great plan in terms of what we were facing and what we’d thought we would face. There was lots of discussion when you put your opening drive together. I thought we set the tempo well, and it was very efficient taking the ball down the field. I think we were really efficient in most drives in the first half.”
The Falcons defense was then tasked with trying to contain the Buccaneers. Atlanta, which allowed 472 yards in each of its first two games, held strong early, forcing a punt and two turnovers on the two first Tampa drives.
After the first stop, Atlanta got the ball at their own 25-yard line, still up 7-0. On the seventh play of the subsequent drive, Ryan passed short to Levine Toilolo who scampered 13 yards then fumbled the ball. After recovering the ball, Bucs safety Mark Barron ran 8 yards the other direction before Devin Hester poked it out once again and recovered the loose ball.
The Falcons made the most of the opportunity with a touchdown pass to Julio Jones that staked the lead to 14-0.
As the Buccaneers looked to respond, Josh McCown’s pass intended for Vincent Jackson was intercepted by Kamel Ishmael at the Tampa Bay 23-yard line. Ishmael returned the ball for 23 yards for the score, making it 21-0 in favor of Atlanta, still in the first quarter.
Up by three possessions for the first time all season, the Falcons continued to work, and on the opening play of the second frame, Hester took a 20-yard carry to paydirt, giving his squad a commanding 28-point lead. Shortly after, Hester added another score, displaying his elite return skills with a 62-yard punt return touchdown to send the Falcons ahead 35-0 at halftime.
“I’m very pleased the way that we came off a short week,” Smith said about the win and the fast start. “We wanted to be as fresh as we could possibly be, and I though the guys responded extremely well in all three phases of the game: offense, defense, and special teams. We played smart, solid football for the most part.”
But Atlanta was far from finished, and in a display of the Falcon’s offense, Ryan and Jackson combined to engineer a quick five play, 82 yard drive. It was capped with a 40-yard touchdown pass from Ryan to Jones with more than eight minutes left in the third quarter.
The next Tampa drive lasted just one play, as a fumble—one of five turnovers for the Bucs on the night—gave Atlanta the ball just two yards away from the end zone.
Like the Tampa drive before it, Atlanta’s next drive lasted just one play. The Falcons gave to the powerful No. 39, who burst his way into the end zone for a touchdown, to make it 49-0 in favor of the home team, taking the last wisp of air out of the Bucs’ sails.
The Falcons added one more touchdown in the third, and the called off the dogs before cruising to a 56-14 win. In the press conference following, Smith was a bit speechless with the performance of his team, both offensively and defensively.
“I’ve never experienced that type of lead in the National Football League. We did some really good things. Again, I want to say it, it’s going to have barring on what happens when we get on that plane and go play in Minnesota. We’ll take it.”
After taking a few extra days to rest, SJ39 and the Falcons will turn their attention to another opponent, the Minnesota Vikings.
SJax has compiled 366 yards and three touchdowns in four career meetings with Minnesota.
The game will take place at TCF Bank Stadium in Minneapolis next Sunday at 4:25 EDT and will be broadcast on Fox.
What They Said: Falcons vs. Bucs (AtlantaFalcons.com, Sept. 18, 2014)
Transcripts: Smith, Ryan Press Conferences (AtlantaFalcons.com, Sept 18, 2014)
By SJ39.com Staff|2017-01-18T21:45:45-08:00September 19th, 2014|News|Comments Off on Falcons Blast Bucs on Thursday Night
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LOCAL AMENITIES AND ATTRACTIONS
A short walk from The Cove is the seaside town of Hornsea. Hornsea boasts a beautiful sandy beach which plays host to a variety of water sports, cafes and even beach hut hire. The Hornsea museum teaches visitors about the unique history of the town, has a Victorian classroom and even a working model railway. The town of Hornsea itself has a range of shops, restaurants and bars to cater to a range of tastes. It is also close to Hornsea Freeport, a large outlet retail park. In July, Hornsea is home to Yorkshire’s largest free Carnival, but there are plenty of activities to keep the family entertained all year-round. Children, for example, love visiting Honeysuckle Farm which provides a great day out for the whole family. For those that love the outdoors, Hornsea Mere is idyllic. As the largest freshwater lake in Yorkshire, Hornsea Mere is full of wonderful wildlife and is a designated site of special scientific interest, making it a bird watchers paradise. It also has rowing boats, sailing activities and fishing facilities.
Only a 30-minute drive from Hornsea is the market-town of Beverley. Voted one of the best places to live in the UK, this town has a range of high-end shops, popular restaurants, quaint British pubs and bars. Beverley’s cobbled streets are popular with tourists who wish to examine the town’s two medieval churches or take in the countryside charm.
Beverley is also home to a racecourse which is popular with both residents and visitors. Its “Ladies Day” is one of the highlights of East Yorkshires calendar.
Bempton Cliffs are a 40 minute drive from Hornsea and are home to an RSPB reserve.
The chalk cliffs are home to around half a million seabirds including puffins and gannets.
Many people love visiting the much loved puffins as they nest. You can even take a boat ride from Bridlington to see the cliffs and their inhabitants from the sea.
The Cove is a short drive away from Withernsea. Charming and more than a little defiantly eccentric – where else but Withernsea would you find a defunct town centre lighthouse housing a museum dedicated to one of England’s most glamorous movie stars?
Kay Kendall, star of the London-to-Brighton ‘road movie’ Genevieve was born in Withernsea, and the town still pays tribute to her in the lighthouse, one of the few in this country built inland.
You can also climb the 144 stairs to the top for breath taking views of the surrounding countryside. And if you want more examples of Withernsea’s offbeat charm, look no further than the remarkable castellated entrance to the family-friendly beach, or take a tour of RAF Holmpton, a former Cold War era nuclear bunker just three miles outside the town.
The heartbeat of the Wolds, Driffield, is also its cultural ‘capital’ and an ideal place to take a break from city life.
Spend an unhurried afternoon exploring All Saint’s Church and nearby Burton Agnes Hall, unearth ghostly stories, shop for antiques in the market or simply stroll on the idyllic Riverhead.
Driffield, also known as Great Driffield, is a market town and civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire. The civil parish is formed by the town of Driffield and the village of Little Driffield.
40 minutes away from Hornsea is Hull, the UK’s City of Culture for 2017. Hull is home to a great selection of restaurants, bars and clubs. It also has a great history which is celebrated in the cities range of museums. With two theatres, art galleries and various music venues you’re sure to find something of interest in Hull.
The Deep, is a must visit for all that come to Hull. From penguins and turtles to sharks, this Aquarium has a range of species and is a favourite for all age groups.
Hull’s fruit market is home to a number of independent bars, restaurants and shops, which has given it a reputation for being Hull’s creative quarter. With vintage retailers and art galleries this area is hugely popular, it even has its own vintage market on the 3rd Sunday of each month.
Visitors can take in the city centre whilst riding a land train or open-top bus and don’t forget to visit other landmarks like the Humber Bridge while you’re in the area.
In October, Hull is home to one of Europe’s largest travelling fun fairs for a week. With rides for the daring and for the little ones, this fair is an annual highlight for Hull’s residents and visitors.
York is a historic walled city and should be a must visit for anyone coming to Yorkshire. It is an hour and 20-minute drive from Hornsea with easy bus and train links.
With its Gothic 13th-Century Cathedral, medieval buildings and array of museums, York has plenty to keep you entertained. The Jorvik Centre explores the cities Viking past and is a favourite among families and history lovers, while The York Dungeon tells the more gruesome side of the city’s story. For those of you that aren’t interested in history, learn to be a chocolatier at York’s Chocolate Story or visit the acclaimed National Railway Museum.
York is also great for shopping, with all of the major highstreets shops and a lot of quirky independents. It’s home to the oldest shopping street in England, The Shambles, which even has its own Harry Potter shop.
Bars and restaurants are in abundance in this city, alongside well-known establishments sit traditional, historic pubs and quirky, artisan restaurants.
The Cove Hornsea
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1993 Censored
Foreign Policy News Stories
Why Are We Really In Somalia?
SYNOPSIS: Investigative authors Rory Cox, in Propaganda Review, and Jim Naureckas, in EXTRA!, wondered whether the decision to send U.S. troops to Somalia was based more on potential oil reserves there than on the tragic images of starving Somalis that dominated major media out lets in late 1992 and 1993.
The U.S./UN military involvement in Somalia began in mid-November 1992, but it wasn't until January 18, 1993, two days before George Bush left office, that a major media outlet, the Los Angeles Times, published an article that revealed America's oil connection with Somalia.
Times staff writer Mark Fineman started his Mogadishu-datelined article with, "Far beneath the surface of the tragic drama of Somalia, four major U.S. oil companies are quietly sitting on a prospective fortune in exclusive concessions to explore and exploit tens of millions of acres of the Somali countryside. That land, in the opinion of geologists and industry sources, could yield significant amounts of oil and natural gas if the U.S. led military mission can restore peace to the impoverished East African nation."
According to Fineman, nearly two-thirds of Somalia was allocated to the American oil giants Conoco, Amoco, Chevron, and Phillips before Somalia's pro-U.S. President Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown. The U.S. oil companies are "well positioned to pursue Somalia's most promising potential oil reserves the moment the nation is pacified."
Oil industry spokesmen, along with Bush/Clinton Administration spokespersons, deny these allegations as "absurd" and "nonsense." However, Thomas E. O'Connor, the principal petroleum engineer for the World Bank, who headed an in-depth three-year study of oil prospects off Somalia's northern coast, said, "There's no doubt there's oil there...It's got high (commercial) potential...once the Somalis get their act together."
UPDATE: Somalia has been torn apart by clan fighting since 1991 when dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown. In mid-November 1992, the United States launched Operation Restore Hope with the avowed purpose to find and expel faction leader Mohamed Farah Aidid, in an effort to bring peace to the nation. Instead, in a media-sensationalized night invasion, U.S. Marines went ashore in Somalia on February 28,1995, to protect final withdrawal of U.N. forces after the failed mission which cost $2 billion and the lives of 140 American and U.N. peacekeepers. Aidid died shortly after a gun battle in late July 1996 and two of his archrivals announced unilateral cease-fires (Associated Press,8/3/96). The cease-fire lasted until September 16, when one of the faction leaders called an end to the agreement and fighting resumed (Orange County Register, 9117196). Jane's Intelligence Review (10/1/96) concluded: "Peace will not come to Somalia until a leadership emerges that is perceivably working for all Somalis from whatever clan." And so the oil companies bide their time until the "Somalis get their act together," as one oil company spokesman said above.
Haiti Drugs, Thugs, and the CIA
SYNOPSIS: More than 4,000 civilians in Haiti have been killed since the 1991 bloody military coup that ousted duly-elected President Jean Bertrand Aristide. But few Americans are aware of our secret involvement in Haitian politics.
Some of the high military officials involved in the coup have been on the CIA's payroll from "the mid-1980s at least until the 1991 coup." Further, the CIA "tried to intervene in Haiti's election with a covert action program that would have undercut the political strength" of Aristide. The aborted attempt to influence the 1988 election was authorized by then-President Ronald Reagan and the National Security Council. The program was blocked by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in a rare move.
Next, a confidential Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) report revealed that Haiti is "a major transshipment point for cocaine traffickers" who are funneling drugs from Colombia and the Dominican Republic into the United States .
According to Patrick Elie, who was Aristide's anti-drug czar, Haitian police chief Lt. Col. Michel Francois is at the center of the drug trade. Francois' "attaches" reportedly have been responsible for a large number of murders and violence since the coup. Elie said he was constantly rebuffed by the CIA when he tried to alert it to the military's drug trafficking. Elie also reported how the CIA-created Haitian National Intelligence Service (NIS)- supposedly created to combat drugs-was actually involved with narcotics trafficking, and "functioned as a political intimidation and assassination squad."
UPDATE: On October 17, 1994, Time magazine revealed that Emmanuel "Toto" Constant, head of the FRAPH, a brutal gang of Haitian thugs known for murder, torture, and beatings, was on the payroll of both the CIA and the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency. The New York Times reported (12/3/95) that Constant himself had confirmed he was a paid agent of the CIA. An American force of 20,000 threw out the Haitian military junta in September 1994 and paved the way for the return of Aristide in October. While the American force is long gone, U.N. peacekeepers, paid for by the United States, remain in Haiti (Christian Science Monitor, 9/4/96). Ironically, investigative reporter Allan Nairn revealed the "U.S. military intelligence and the CIA are still, to this day, continuing their secret work with the repressive paramilitary organization known as FRAPH" (The Nation, 1/8/96).
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A to Z Sections
Bourgogne Franche Comte
Paris – Ile De France
Pays de la Loire Section
St Maur de Glanfeuil Abbey - Loire Valley
[wce_code id=1]
St Maur de Glanfeuil Abbey
St. Maur, a disciple of St-Benedict of Nursia, founded St Maur de Glanfeuil Abbey in the 6th century.
He chose the site of an ancient Roman villa and its temple which stood on the river bank, in a small forest of oak trees. The name Glanfeuil indeed originates from the words gland meaning acorn and feuil meaning leaf.
St. Maur replaced the temple by a church, however, re-used its columns in the foundations. The bases of these columns are still visible inside the church.
The temple was built during the 4th century AD and dedicated to the Roman Goddess of Water. Modern excavations conducted in the church courtyard uncovered more vestiges.
The monks of St Maur of Glanfeuil Abbey fled the Norman invasions of the 9th century.
They took with them the relics of St. Maur and founded a new monastery in Saint-Maur-des-Fossés in central France.
They returned and revived St Maur de Glanfeuil Abbey (and rebuilt the church) in the late 9th century, however, left the relics in Auvergne. This coincided with the visit of Pope Urban II in 1096.
However, deprived of St. Maur's relics, the abbey never regained its former wealth and influence.
St Maur de Glanfeuil Abbey seen from La Ménitré
Abbey church of St Maur de Glanfeuil
The English sacked and razed the abbey during the Hundred Years War.
Rebuilt and partly fortified, the abbey was again sacked during the Wars of Religion because of its proximity to Saumur, a major Protestant stronghold.
The monks of the Order of St. Maur rebuilt it during the 17th century, but it was reformed shortly after. They were expelled during the French Revolution and the property dispersed.
The monks of the Abbey of Solesmes revived Glanfeuil during the 19th century. They restored and converted the abbey into a prestigious religious school (from 1901 to 1915.)
The current chapel was built in 1955 and encompasses the former Chapelle Saint-Michel and the 11th century Romanesque church whose western facade is adorned with a Carolingian cross or Cross of Saint-Maur.
The department of Maine-et-Loire acquired St Maur de Glanfeuil Abbey and converted into a ecumenical centre from 1968 to 1994.
Port Ménitré village, on the opposite bank, boasts a magnificent view of the former abbey (good spot for a photo!)
Department of Maine-et-Loire - Le Thoureil
Coordinates St Maur de Glanfeuil Abbey: Lat 47.391202 - Long -0.283506
Pays de la Loire - Latest content
Apremont castle, Vendée’s first Renaissance Chateau
The castle of Apremont, today mainly in ruins, was built by a childhood friend of Francois I and was thus the first Renaissance castle of Vendée
Poitevin Marsh, the Green Venice
Poitevin Marsh, the second largest wetland in France, is known as Green Venice, a lush green marsh you discover by punts that gently glide on man-made waterways nestled under the tree canopies
Chateau de Commequiers, demolished by order of King Louis XIII
Chateau de Commequiers, the fortress of the Protestant lords of La Tremoille was demolished by king Louis XIII at the end of the Wars of Religion
Moulin de Rairé, a windmill in constant use since 1555
Moulin de Raire in Sallertaine, a windmill that has constantly turned and been exclusively powered by the force of the wind since its construction in 1555
Filed under: Pays de la Loire
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Traditions – General Info
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Elijah Kane, the head of a Special Investigation Unit, and his skilled four-member team track a network of drug dealers and killers led by Russian mastermind, Nikoli Putin, in the dangerous outskirts of Seattle. These intense undercover Seattle cops are led by Kane, a mysterious ex-military and karate influenced leader, who doesn't have time for the paper work or the political headaches that surround a uniformed job. With his edgy tight-knit team, he tackles these murderous characters by making and playing by his own rules and getting the job done.
Dirty Harry (1971)
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Bon cop, bad cop (2006)
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The Enforcer (1976)
Dirty Harry Callahan returns again, this time saddled with a rookie female partner. Together, they must stop a terrorist group consisting of angry Vietnam veterans.
New Police Story (2004)
Sent into a drunken tailspin when his entire unit is killed by a gang of thrill-seeking punks, disgraced Hong Kong police inspector Wing (Jackie Chan) needs help from his new rookie partner, with a troubled past of his own, to climb out of the bottle and track down the gang and its ruthless leader.
Direct Action (2004)
Frank Gannon, a veteran cop, is being hunted by his fellow police officers after they learned he has betrayed the brotherhood and exposed to the feds wide scale corruption of the LAPD. He has one day left to prove his case and survive.
Police inspector and excellent hostage negotiator Ho Sheung-Sang finds himself in over his head when he is pulled into a 72 hour game by a cancer suffering criminal out for vengeance on Hong Kong's organized crime syndicates.
An attorney is terrorized by the criminal he put away years ago when he was a cop.
Chief Inspector Jacques Clouseau is dead. At least that is what the world (and Charles Dreyfus) believe when a dead body is discovered in Clouseau's car after being shot off the road. Naturally, Jacques Clouseau knows differently, and taking advantage of not being alive, sets out to discover why an attempt was made on his life.
The Exterminator (1980)
A man's best friend is killed on the streets of New York. The man (Robert Ginty) then transforms into a violent killer, turning New York into a great war zone and Christopher George is the only one to stop him.
The Street with No Name (1948)
After two gang-related killings in "Center City," a suspect (who was framed) is arrested, released on bail...and murdered. Inspector Briggs of the FBI recruits a young agent, Gene Cordell, to go undercover in the shadowy Skid Row area (alias George Manly) as a potential victim of the same racket. Soon, Gene meets Alec Stiles, neurotic mastermind who's "building an organization along scientific lines." Stiles recruits Cordell, whose job becomes a lot more dangerous
He dwells in a world of external night, but the blackness is filled with sounds and scents, tastes and textures that most cannot perceive. Although attorney Matt Murdock is blind, his other four senses function with superhuman sharpness. By day, Murdock represents the downtrodden. At night he is Daredevil, a masked vigilante stalking the dark streets of the city, a relentless avenger of justice.
Nightfall (2012)
Two of HK's leading actors, and Nick Cheung, face off in a battle of wits. Inspector Lam (Simon Yam) investigates the brutal murder of Tsui, a famous musician. Wong (Nick Cheung), the designated suspect, just spent 20 years in jail for the murder of Tsui's daughter but has always claimed is innocence.
Yesterday (2002)
1990. A number of children suddenly disappear. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Defense selects an elite group of scientists for a top-secret mission. Then, 30 years later ... The year is 2020 on a reunified Korean Peninsula. A string of murders is committed against retired scientists. The Special Investigations (SI) unit staffed by a crack team from the former North and South Koreas and outfitted with the latest technology is brought in to investigate. The killer, however, far from being deterred, taunts them with a signature pendant at every murder scene. In an act of devilish boldness he even kidnaps the son of the investigation team's leader, Seok
Rush Hour 3 (2007)
After an attempted assassination on Ambassador Han, Inspector Lee and Detective Carter are back in action as they head to Paris to protect a French woman with knowledge of the Triads' secret leaders. Lee also holds secret meetings with a United Nations authority, but his personal struggles with a Chinese criminal mastermind named Kenji, which reveals that it's Lee's long-lost...brother.
New York City factory worker Eddie Marino (Robert Forster, Oscar nominee for JACKIE BROWN) is a solid citizen and regular guy, until the day a sadistic street gang brutally assaults his wife and murders his child. But when a corrupt judge sets the thugs free, Eddie goes berserk and vows revenge.
Lethal Weapon 2 (1989)
In the opening chase, Martin Riggs and Roger Murtaugh stumble across a trunk full of Krugerrands. They follow the trail to a South African diplomat who's using his immunity to conceal a smuggling operation. When he plants a bomb under Murtaugh's toilet, the action explodes!
Death Wish 5: The Face of Death (1994)
Paul Kersey is back at working vigilante justice when when his fiancée, Olivia, has her business threatened by mobsters
Off Limits (1988)
McGriff and Albaby are probably doing the worst law enforcement job in the world - they are plain clothes U.S. military policemen on duty in war-time Saigon. However, their job becomes even harder when they start investigating the serial killings of local prostitutes. Their prime suspect is high ranking U.S. Army officer which brings their lives in danger.
Deep Cover (1992)
The black policeman Russell Stevens applies for a special anti-drug squad which targets the highest boss of cocaine delivery to LA: the Columbian foreign minister's nephew. Russell works his way up from the bottom undercover, until he reaches the boss. First step is to get the lawyer and hobby dealer David Jason to trust him.
Johan Falk: Spelets regler (2012)
It's been two years since John Falk and Frank Wagner broke their cooperation and Frank started working undercover with the police. Frank's search for Kevin crosses Johan's investigation and opens up a new collaboration between them - with the big difference being that this time it's personal for Frank.
Foxy Brown (1974)
A voluptuous black woman takes a job as a high-class prostitute in order to get revenge on the mobsters who murdered her boyfriend.
Taken 3 (2015)
Ex-government operative Bryan Mills finds his life is shattered when he's falsely accused of a murder that hits close to home. As he's pursued by a savvy police inspector, Mills employs his particular set of skills to track the real killer and exact his unique brand of justice.
A DEA agent investigates the disappearance of a legendary Army ranger drill sergeant and several of his cadets during a training exercise gone severely awry.
Police Story 2013 (2013)
A man looking for the release of a long-time prisoner takes a police officer, his daughter, and a group of strangers hostage.
Romeo Is Bleeding (1993)
A corrupt cop gets in over his head when he tries to assassinate a beautiful Russian hit-woman.
The Missing Gun (2002)
In this tense thriller, Ma Shan (Wen Jiang) is a Chinese police detective who awakes one morning after a night of heavy drinking at his sister's wedding reception to discover that his gun has been stolen. Since only police officers are allowed to carry firearms, Ma Shan is alarmed about the deadly possibilities of the theft, and he sets out to find his weapon; however, the memories of Ma Shan's friends are as hazy as his own regarding the wedding, and no one can tell who drove him home. The situation comes to a head when Ma Shan's former girlfriend arrives in town for a visit and is soon found shot dead with the bullets matching those used in his gun.
Navy Lt. Tom Farrell meets a young woman, Susan Atwell , and they share a passionate fling. Farrell then finds out that his superior, Defense Secretary David Brice, is also romantically involved with Atwell. When the young woman turns up dead, Farrell is put in charge of the murder investigation. He begins to uncover shocking clues about the case, but when details of his encounter with Susan surface, he becomes a suspect as well.
Malevolent (2002)
Troubled police detective Jack Lucas is falsely accused of a series of murders and must prove his innocence by catching the real serial killer.
Thiruda Thiruda (1993)
Portly CBI Inspector Laxminarayan is assigned to track down 1000 Crore Rupees worth of stolen currency from the Government Security Press in Nasik. His assignment will lead him to Ashok Tejani, and then to two burglars in Tamil Nadu, Shankar and Anand, who are on the run from the Police along with a suicidal village belle, Kajri. Laxminarayan's efforts will be frustrated even more after Ashok is killed and his gun-toting Goa-based girlfriend, Chandralekha, is absconding; and the entry of an international drug dealer, simply known as Vikram, who will stop at nothing to get his hands on the loot.
Running Out of Time 2 (2001)
Ho Sheung Sang finds himself wrapped up in another cat-and-mouse game, this time against a tricky magician.
The Negotiator (1998)
The police try to arrest expert hostage negotiator Danny Roman, who insists he's being framed for his partner's murder in what he believes is an elaborate conspiracy. Thinking there's evidence in the Internal Affairs offices that might clear him, he takes everyone in the office hostage and demands that another well-known negotiator be brought in to handle the situation and secretly investigate the conspiracy.
A police officer's partner has died during Hurricane Katrina, but he later discovers that his partner may have been murdered. An investigation follows, taking the officer and his new partner into the depths of the criminal underworld.
Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950)
Tough NYC police detective Dixon misses out on a promotion because of his record of roughing up suspects. When accidentally kills a suspect in a murder case he plants clues to absolve himself. But when the father of a woman he recently fell in love is accused of the crime his plan looks like back firing.
The mysterious murder of a US senator bearing the distinctive trademark of the legendary Soviet assassin "Cassius," forces Paul Shepherdson (Richard Gere), a retired CIA operative, to team with rookie FBI agent, Ben Geary (Topher Grace), to solve the crime. Having spent his career chasing Cassius, Shepherdson is convinced his nemesis is long dead, but is pushed to take on the case by his former supervisor, Tom Highland (Martin Sheen). Meanwhile, Agent Geary, who wrote his Master's thesis on Shepherdson's pursuit of the Soviet killer, is certain that Cassius has resurfaced. As Shepherdson and Geary work their way through crimes both past and present, they discover that Cassius may not be the person they always thought him to be, forcing both to re-examine everything and everyone around them.
A fireman takes an unexpected course of action when a man whom he's been ordered to testify against, after being held up at a local convenience store, threatens him.
Mission: Impossible III (2006)
Retired from active duty to train new IMF agents, Ethan Hunt is called back into action to confront sadistic arms dealer Owen Davian. Hunt must try to protect his girlfriend while working with his new team to complete the mission.
Formosa Betrayed (2010)
In the early 1980s, an FBI Agent is assigned to investigate the murder of a respected professor. Through his investigation, he unearths a spider web of international secrets that has been thriving within college campuses across America for decades. His investigation takes him across the Pacific to the island nation of Taiwan, where with the help of the outspoken widow and an unlikely spy, he learns that the Professor's killing was not a random act, but a desperate move by a scandalous government intent on keeping its nefarious activities under wraps. Our detective soon finds himself on a collision course against the U.S. State Department, the Chinese Mafia, and the Nationalist Chinese Government - in a land where the truth is not what it seems and the only people he can trust, cannot be trusted at all. Inspired by actual events.
Down (2001)
After the elevators at a New York City skyscraper begin inexplicably malfunctioning, putting its passengers at risk, mechanic Mark Newman (James Marshall) and reporter Jennifer Evans (Naomi Watts) begin separate investigations. Newman gets resistance from superiors at his company, which manufactured the elevator, while additional elevator incidents cause several gruesome deaths. The police get involved and suspect that terrorists are responsible, but a far stranger explanation looms.
Big Jim McLain (1952)
House Un-American Activities Committee investigators Jim McLain and Mal Baxter come to Hawaii to track Communist Party activities. They are interested in everything from insurance fraud to the sabotage of a U.S. naval vessel.
While flying a routine reconnaissance mission over Bosnia, fighter pilot Chris Burnett photographs something he wasn't supposed to see and gets shot down behind enemy lines, where he must outrun an army led by a ruthless Serbian general. With time running out and a deadly tracker on his trail, Burnett's commanding officer decides to risk his career and launch a renegade rescue mission to save his life.
The Paper Will Be Blue (2006)
Out of enthusiasm, a Militia soldier abandons his platoon and decides to fight for the cause of the Revolution. His Lieutenant and the rest of the crew look for him during the confused night of 22-23 December 1989.
A cop Angel Almaraz saves the life of a local crime boss who, in return, offers him a job as part of his security. Almaraz accepts but soon has doubts.
End Game (2006)
A Secret Service agent and an investigative reporter try to find out who assassinated the US President. The film was originally intended for cinema, but ended up going directly to DVD.
The Objective (2008)
In the supernatural thriller The Objective, writer-director Daniel Myrick locates the action in a remote mountain region on Afghanistan, where a team of US Special Ops forces is dispatched with the ostensible orders of locating an influential Muslim cleric. While on the mission they find themselves lost in a Middle Eastern 'Bermuda Triangle' of ancient evil and faced with an enemy that none of them could have imagined.
Juncture (2007)
When Anna Carter (Kristine Blackport) is diagnosed with a terminal illness, she sees her final three months as an opportunity to enact some vigilante justice. Racing her deteriorating health and trying to stay one step ahead of the police, Carter furiously tracks down vicious criminals whom she feels unjustly eluded jail time.
When an ambulatory TV news unit live broadcasts the embarrassing defeat of a police battalion by five bank robbers in a ballistic showdown, the credibility of the police force drops to a nadir. While on a separate investigation in a run-down building, detective Cheung discovers the hideout of the robbers. Cheung and his men have also entered the building, getting ready to take their foes out any minute. Meanwhile, in order to beat the media at its own game, Inspector Rebecca decides to turn the stakeout into a breaking news show.
Fire of Conscience (2010)
Fire of Conscience is an 2010 Hong Kong action/thriller film directed by Dante Lam and starring Leon Lai and Richie Ren. The Chinese name is derived in one of the action scenes where Lai has to chase Ren through a street of dragon dance.
The head of an elite Hong Kong surveillance unit (Simon Yam) keeps one eye on his rookie apprentice (Kate Tsui) and the other on a notorious criminal (Tony Leung Ka Fai) he suspects of masterminding a recent jewel heist in this tense thriller from filmmaking duo Johnnie To and Nai-Hoi Yau. Of course, the criminal knows all along he's being watched. But that doesn't stop him from trying to pull off the biggest score of his career.
Department (2012)
A suspended cop joins hands with inspector Mahadev Bhonsle to free the city from underworld.
Set in a futuristic world where humans live in isolation and interact through surrogate robots, a cop (Willis) is forced to leave his home for the first time in years in order to investigate the murders of others' surrogates.
Mankatha (2011)
Mankatha is a racy and adrenaline-rushing story of a Maharashtra police officer Vinayak Mahadevan (Ajith) who is suspended for helping a smuggler to escape from police encounter. He starts leading life in his own way. He falls for Sanjana (Trisha), daughter of an influential local goon Arumuga Chettiyar (Jayaprakash) in Mumbai. A tough cop Prithvi (Arjun) takes charge to end betting scandal in IPL cricket in Mumbai. Arumuga uses his links with dons in Mumbai tries to route through his old theatre, a cash of over Rs 500 crore to be used in betting. Sumanth (Vaibhav), a goon working for Arumuga Chettiyarplans to take away the booty with the help of his friends Ganesh (Ashwin), Mahanth (Mahanth), who owns a bar in Mumbai and Prem (Premji), a IIT graduate. Trouble starts when two of the team betrays them.
King of the Avenue (2010)
A drug dealer sells his soul to the devil to become the top drug dealer on the block.
Replicant (2001)
Scientists create a genetic clone of a serial killer in order to help catch the killer, teaming up with two cops.
The Devil's Tomb (2009)
Captain Mack leads an elite military unit on a search for a missing scientist, and comes face-to-face with an an ancient evil lying beneath the Middle Eastern desert. Evil that is not of this world. Evil that should never be unearthed.
Little Nikita (1988)
Roy Parmenter is an FBI agent in San Diego; 20 years ago his partner was killed by a Soviet spy, nicknamed Scuba, still at large. Scuba is now trying to extort the Soviets; to prove he's serious, he's killing their agents one by one, including "sleepers," agents under deep cover awaiting orders. Roy interviews a high school lad, Jeff Grant, an applicant to the Air Force Academy. In a routine background check, Roy discovers that Jeff's parents are sleepers. He must see if Jeff is also a spy, confront the parents yet protect them, and catch his nemesis. Meanwhile, the Soviets have sent their own spy-catcher, the loner Karpov, to reel in Scuba. Alliances shift; it's cat and mouse.
Hell and High Water (1954)
A privately-financed scientist and his colleagues hire an ex-Navy officer to conduct an Alaskan submarine expedition in order to prevent a Red Chinese anti-American plot that may lead to World War III. Mixes deviously plotted schoolboy fiction with submarine spectacle and cold war heroics.
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The Last Page
An Alien Backstory
Author Melanie Lee (CS’02) shares how a daydream about a blue alien became instrumental in bringing up her adopted son.
by Goh Jia Ling
Author Melanie Lee of award-winning book series ‘’Squirky the Alien’’ shares that she brings Squirky the plush toy to all her book events. PHOTO: GOH JIA LING
While writing the Squirky series, Melanie said she grew to discover the importance of representation in books for children. PHOTO: GOH JIA LING
The Squirky series, which has six books, details the protagonist’s journey in discovering his identity. PHOTO COURTESY OF: MELANIE LEE
When she was pursuing her postgraduate studies in Australia in 2005, Melanie Lee had an idea of writing a children’s book about a pointy-haired alien. But it was not until years later that the 38-year-old author revisited her alien friend.
In 2012, Lee adopted her son, Christian. As the Wee Kim Wee School of Communications and Information alumna sought ways to talk to him about his adoption story, Lee found existing books to be sorely lacking in terms of representation.
“When I borrowed books from the library on adoption, I found that they were quite limited. The range was always about an angmoh (Western) family or about adopting a kid from a third-world country,” said Lee.
"If kids don’t see themselves in stories, they can’t really see their place in the world.”
Melanie Lee
As such, she turned to that pointy haired alien from her student days for help. It all gelled together when her friend, David Liew, casually pitched to her the idea of writing a book about her titular alien.
That was how her award-winning series on adoption, dubbed “Squirky the Alien” was born, and Liew hopped on as the illustrator for the books.
Lee went on to write six books in the series, many of which have received numerous accolades. Her third book – “Who is the Red Commander?” – was presented the Crystal Kite Award, which is given to outstanding children's’ books published around the world by the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. The fourth book in the series – “Where is my Mama?” – won the 2nd prize for the Samsung KidsTime Author’s Award.
In the series, Squirky, a blue pointy-haired alien realises he is adopted from another planet and goes on a search for his biological parents.
“I thought it’d be good to have something a little more universal, so I talked about this alien orphan character, and I wanted to include things that my son liked as well,” said Lee. “It was very much for him: a story about his own adoption.”
VIDEO: TAN HENG NING
The “Squirky the Alien” series was instrumental in helping Lee and her husband talk to Christian about his adoption story when he was three years old. She shared that Squirky helped Christian cope with the news and whenever he encountered something, Christian would often turn to Squirky as a frame of reference. Oftentimes, Christian would quip, “that happened to Squirky too!”
Lee also intended the book as a guide for her son if he ever wanted to search for his biological parents in the future, as the book details how she and her husband would support him.
“He sees (the series) as his own stories. I told him ‘I wrote it for you’ and he sees it as his,” she added.
Lee’s time in WKWSCI also helped her hone her skill in writing. One of her favourite modules as an undergraduate was photojournalism.
“That’s where I got the storytelling bit of journalism,” she said. “Photojournalism was good because with the visual element, the storytelling element gets switched on. To capture certain moments or emotions in photos which can translate to your writing, I think that was very powerful.”
Lee said that other journalism courses she took also helped sharpen her craft as a writer. This came in especially handy in the Squirky series, where she had to write simply and succinctly as her audience was mainly children.
Although Lee did not initially have lofty dreams for the Squirky series, she has found great joy in knowing that people around the world love her books. She often receives emails from parents across the globe telling her how Squirky helped their adopted children understand their situation.
And alongside Squirky’s growth in the series, Lee eventually started to think about a bigger idea beyond just writing for her son.
“(As much as) it is a personal project, there was a bigger idea at the back of my head – that the idea of representation was very important,” Lee said, referring to how some existing books on adoption lacked representation of Asian children.
She added: “It made me all the more think if kids don’t see themselves in stories, they can’t really see their place in the world.”
Snapshots Of The Past
Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information
Nanyang Technological University Singapore
www.facebook.com/WKWSchool
contact@wkwscialumnimagazine.com
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THE TEN SECOND KISS
Few days back (to be exact, 31-May-2008), Usain Bolt, an athlete from Jamaica set a new world record in men's 100 metres race with an incredible figure of 9.72 seconds at New York Reebok Grand Prix. This is really big compared to the current women's world record of 10.49 seconds set by Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988.
The men's record is rewritten often in recent past but that of women's remains unaltered for almost 20 years. There was a long term big dream of reaching 100m in less than 10 seconds in women's division. In 1980s, Tamil writer Sujatha wrote a novel - "Paththu second muththam" [meaning "Ten second kiss"] in which a teenage girl from a remote village of Tamil Nadu targets on 10 second margin. It's yet unattained.
The reason is hidden in the cultural and social history of human race [Even my wife, an athlete in her school days, later, sacrificed her interests for various reasons]. But this globalised economy of today doesn't need reasons but results. Hope that kiss of ten second will happen soon.
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A New Video Shows Ed Sheeran Auditioning For Reality Show
Ed Sheeran is seen showing off his dance moves while auditioning for a reality show:
He is one of the most successful recording artists of all time, selling more than 150 million records worldwide and amassing a £200 million fortune.
But Ed Sheeran was served a hard dose of reality back in 2008 when the-then aspiring teenage performer was snubbed by Arlene Phillips at the auditions for teen series Britannia High.
Years before breaking onto the music scene with his debut album +, a 16-year-old Ed was filmed for a behind-the-scenes documentary as he auditioned for the ITV musical series alongside fellow future stars Pixie Lott and Zizi Strallen.
I think the judge groaning about his dance moves is my absolute favorite. Lol. Watch below!
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What is Tu Bishvat Anyway?
Every winter, just as we start to think about spring, a minor holiday comes along. Minor enough that not all of us know what it means or how it came to be.
Tu Bishvat first appeared in the Mishnah, as one of four new years in the Jewish calendar:
The four new years are:
On the first of Nisan, the new year for the kings and for the festivals;
On the first of Elul, the new year for the tithing of animals;
Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Shimon say, in the first of Tishrei
On the first of Tishrei, the new year for years, for the Sabbatical years and for the Jubilee years and for the planting and for the vegetables
On the first of Shevat, the new year for the trees, these are the words of the House of Shammai;
The House of Hillel says, on the fifteenth thereof. (Rosh Hashanah 1a)
Hillel won this argument and, since then, on the fifteenth of Shevat, we have had the new year of the trees. (The number 15 in Hebrew is “tu;” the name of the holiday literally means the “15th of Shevat.”) So what’s the big deal? Why is it that this new year pales in comparison to the first of Tishrei (Rosh Hashanah)?
For starters, having a date by which to calculate a new agricultural year isn’t as catchy, in our post-tilling-the-land society, as a new year. This could be compared to the secular calendar where we find most countries celebrate the New Year, but only a few still celebrate the harvest (Thanksgiving or otherwise).
At the time of the Mishnah, almost 2000 years ago, the new year for the trees really was used as a tax deadline. Any trees planted before Tu Bishvat were considered to have been “born” the previous year. Those planted after Tu Bishvat was “born” the next year and considered part of that next year’s crop. As the amount of fruit required as tithing from each tree was determined by its age, the date of its “birth” was important. Additionally, there was a biblical prohibition from eating new fruit, fruit from trees that were not yet three years old (Leviticus 19:23). Using Tu Bishvat as the birthday or new year of the trees made it easier to remember how old each tree was.
Fast forward many centuries and most of us weren’t farmers anymore. It didn’t really matter to the average person when a tree was planted. But there was still this “new year” on the calendar.
Kabbalists in the Middle Ages revived Tu Bishvat, lifting it up to be a joyous holiday. As a new year, they felt it deserved a new year’s feast. With that, they created a seder. The most common seder is the meal we share on Passover, but seder just means “order” in Hebrew; any meal with a set lineup or procedure can be a seder.
Drawing on the imagery of the Tree of Life, a Kabbalist map of the path of God, and of the New Year of the Trees, Rabbi Yitzchak Luria of Safed is said to have created the seder with his disciples. They gave special significance and meaning to the fruits and trees of Israel. During their seder, eating ten specific fruits and drinking four cups of wine in a specified order, while reciting the appropriate blessings, would bring human beings, and the world, closer to spiritual perfection.
Many Jewish communities today celebrate Tu Bishvat with seders, even as the Kabbalistic meaning behind them has been shed.
It wasn’t long before an increasing number of Jews returned to Israel, and, with the Zionist waves, returned to agriculture as they tried to turn the desert and swamps into viable land. In the late-19th century, a prominent rabbi in Israel took his students to plant trees on Tu Bishvat. Within a few years, the custom had spread in Israel, reviving the practice outlined in the Mishnah. By the start of the 20th century, the Jewish National Fund had made Tu Bishvat into a national tree-planting day.
As the idea of Tu Bishvat being a tree-planting holiday gained in popularity during the second half of the 20th century, the holiday became more widely known as the birthday of the trees again. And as the environmental and ecological movements in the 20th century grew and started influencing our behaviors, so too did Tu Bishvat. Many people now consider it to be the Jewish equivalent of Arbor Day, a day on which to reconnect to the earth and celebrate nature (and maybe make more of an effort to reduce, reuse and recycle).
So what is Tu Bishvat? Today, just as it has been for millennia, it is many things to many people. Borrow an idea from the past, or create your own way to connect with the new year of the trees on Tu bishvat 2021.
What’s a Tu Bishvat Seder?
6 Activities for Tu Bishvat with Kids
Most Important Jewish Holidays Cheat Sheet
Tu Bishvat: Interfaith Friendly, Jewish in Nature
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Rent $2.99 Buy $5.99 View in iTunes. Eight hundred years ago, Francis of Assisi and the Sultan of Egypt met on the bloody battlefields of the Crusades. I also did not know much about Francis's life. There's a funny story behind my decision to read this book, so bear with me here. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the life of St. Francis; and to anyone interested in the ongoing conflicts today in the Middle East. I also found the book to be an illuminating story as it helps to explain the difficulties that have continued to exist between the west and the Islamic world, especially with regards to living in peace with each other. Such was the case during “The Sultan and the Saint: The Spiritual Journey of Transformative Encounter,” a conference that discussed the 800th anniversary of a famous meeting between St. Francis of Assisi and Sultan Malik Al-Kamil. One of the best stories about Francis of Assisi. We’d love your help. The Sultan and the Saint docudrama was screened during the Fourth Seminar of the Forum For South Asian Jesuit Theologians that was held at Ashirwad, Bangalore from 29 April to 1 May. The story of "The Sultan and the Saint" itself began 30 years ago, when Kronemer, during a trip to Assisi, Italy, encountered a Giotto fresco depicting the meeting between Francis and al-Kamil. While there are many people who agree that religious dialogue is important, they often miss the nuance of how to make it effective. Excellent read - learned much about the 5th Crusade, St. Francis and Sheikh Khamil. In 1219, as the Fifth Crusade was being fought, Francis crossed enemy lines to gain an audience with Malik al-Kamil, the Sultan of Egypt. This was quite an intriguing introduction to a person who I'm going to have to read more about, though. More a morality tale than a narrative history. Absolutely loved this book. Please try again later. Trailer Ratings and Reviews. The Saint and the Sultan captures the lives of St. Francis and Sultan al-Kamil and illuminates the political intrigue and religious fervor of their time. Start by marking “The Saint and the Sultan: The Crusades, Islam, and Francis of Assisi's Mission of Peace” as Want to Read: Error rating book. The book establishes the background of St. Francis's mission; the attempts of the Catholic Church of the 13th century to downplay the faith and zeal of St. Francis; and how his mission still resonates today. In The Saint and the Sultan, Paul Moses recovers Francis’ s message of peace through the largely forgotten story of his daring mission to end the crusades. I can’t stand to read about battles, of which there are many here, yet the author deftly balances the warring with other history and learned opinions including his own to make the story very readable. Paul Moses reminds us that the true agents of dialogue and constructive encounter must be courageous enough to talk as well as to listen, even opposing their own people, in the name of justice, dignity and love. Throughout his lifetime Francis played the role of conscience to the Institutional Catholic Church. The ruler of Egypt Sultan Al-Kamil had been well educated and raised in a spirit of tolerance. If you only ever read one book about Francis of Assisi, read "The Saint and the Sultan." Not Rated | 58min | Documentary, History, War | November 2016 (USA) Two men of faith, one a traveling Christian preacher, the other the ruler of a Muslim Empire, bucked a century of war, distrust, and insidious propaganda in a search for mutual respect and ... See full summary ». This excellent book deals with the life of Saint Francis of Assisi and how in the midst of the fifth crusades he put his faith into practice by preaching to Sultan Malik al-Kamil of Egypt. This book breathes life into the encounter between Saint Francis and Sultan Malik al-Kamil in the midst of the inglorious Fifth Crusade. I did not know of the story. In 1219, as the Fifth Crusade was being fought, Francis crossed enemy lines to gain an audience with Malik al-Kamil, the Sultan of Egypt. Set in a past period of East-West conflict, it speaks with urgency to our present. Beautifully researched and written book about two remarkable men, St. Francis of Assisi and the Islamic leader Sultan Malik Al-Kamil who managed to come together in peace while the Christian side was advancing its Crusades and the opposing Muslims were warring against Christians, Mongols and others. Buy, Sep 29, 2009 More than simply a dramatic adventure, though it does not lack for colorful saints and sinners, loyalty and betrayal, and thrilling Crusade narrative, The Saint and the Sultan brings to life an episode of deep relevance for all who seek to find peace between the West and the Islamic world.Winner of the 2010 Catholic Press Association Book Award for History, Paul Moses, former Newsday city editor and senior religion writer, is a professor of journalism at Brooklyn College and the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism. It recounts the meeting between Francis of Assisi and the Sultan of Egypt, Malik al-Kamil. The Sultan and the Saint review – the Crusades' real-life bromance In an unlikely battleground meeting, Francis of Assisi talked war and peace with Ayyubid, sultan … I was even more fascinated with the humanity Kamil showed the flooded Crusaders when he could have killed them all. As did the sixth, and more afterward, as well as repeated attempts to enlist all of Europe in some sort of Holy League to repel the infidel Turk for the next 470 years, through the siege of Vienna in 1683. If Francis had succeeded in his quest for peace in the Middle East, who knows if we would be facing the world we now have of fear and hatred between the various religions on the area. I think the author's information on Francis was excellent. This was at the beginning of the Fifth Crusade, but Francis and his brothers did not make this trip as part of the battle to regain the Holy Land. The Sultan and The Saint The Sultan and the Saint tells one of the great, lost stories from history. by Doubleday Religion. “The Sultan and the Saint” contains realistic yet nongraphic war scenes, depictions of religious persecution and hunger, but nothing objectionable. Most delightful are the accounts in Part III about the long shadow of historical revisionism that buried fact in favor of propaganda for too long. This is one of those books where I wish I could take the message, story and lessons learned and somehow have it ingrained in my colleagues and counterparts. Paul Moses peels back centuries of dust and obfuscation to take a fresh look at a wartime meeting between the sultan of Egypt and St. Francis of Assisi. In the process, he also delivers a terrific story about a Christian saint everyone thought they knew — Francis of Assisi — and a Muslim world that few realize existed.” — David Gibson, author of The Coming Catholic Church and The Rule of Benedict“The Saint and the Sultan is an important and timely book. For new customers we sometimes need processing time from 1 to 24 hours to complete the order. Sultan al-Kamil, the nephew of Saladin, seem to believe what the Qur’an said about respecting People of Book if they are “righteous.” This set the stage for what appears to be a friendly interfaith discussion between a devout Roman Catholic and a devout Sunni Muslim. 3 Ratings. I know, I know, we need more of these stories. “The leader of the Christian army—Cardinal Pelagius himself—had warned the friar from Assisi that it would be folly to traverse the battlefield between the two armies to seek out this Sultan Malik al-Kamil.”, Readers' Most Anticipated Books of December. Love , compassion, mercifulness,kindness and generosity is everything. In The Saint and the Sultan, Paul Moses recovers Francis' s message of peace through the largely forgotten story of his daring mission to end the crusades. Why did Francis of Assisi meet the Sultan of Egypt in September 1219? 5. Moses sets up the saint and the sultan as the exemplars of how we really all can "just get along." What happened next changed world history. Buy, An intriguing examination of the extraordinary–and little known meeting between St. Francis of Assisi and Islamic leader Sultan Malik Al-Kamil that has strong resonance in today’s divided world.For many of us, St. Francis of Assisi is known as a poor monk and a lover of animals. The two individuals met and discussed many things. The uneven, but likably earnest, show debuts on PBS stations Tuesday, Dec. 26, 8-9 p.m. EST (check local listings). It will surely serve to bring the message of peace that is exhibited in the encounter between Francis and the Sultan to a world desperately in need of recalling such possibilities … This is a book that belongs int he personal libraries of all Franciscans and all who strive to encounter the other in a loving, Christian and respectful manner.” – Daniel P. Horan, O.F.M.“Moses’s realistic and powerful book gives readers an informed idea of how difficult it was to follow Francis in an age of papal power and the broad acceptance of violence.” – Joseph Cunneen, History News Network“An important book … The Saint and the Sultan is fascinating reading that will change the reader’s concept of who St. Francis of Assisi was … It’s sure to stir a lot of conversation in religious circles.” – Ed Wilkinson, editor-in-chief of The Tablet“Moses’ lively account of a little-known but significant chapter in the life of the popular saint of Assisi deserves a wide readership, resonating as it does with world events of our own time.” – America Magazine “Paul Moses’ fascinating account of St. Francis of Assisi’s meeting with Sultan Malik al-Kamil in the midst of the Fifth Crusade not only details the historical record, puts it into context, and tries to strip it of centuries of tendentious distortions, it also documents how its true significance has recently come to blossom and bear fruit in Christian-Muslim relations. An article idea hyperinflated into a book. After reading this book, I have a better understanding of how and why this saint ended up living the life of a peacemaker. The Saint and the Sultan shows that faith leads to action, and that true holiness can lead to actions that provoke, astonish and even baffle the world.” — James Martin, Author of My Life with the Saints“The Saint and the Sultan is a MUST read, supremely relevant today in relations between the Muslim world and the West . In the process, it reveals a startlingly timely story of interfaith conflict, war, and the search for peace. Some suggest that Francis was seeking martyrdom, though the prevailing thought takes the saint at his word: he wanted to end the wars and felt that converting the Muslims to Christianity was better than trying to kill them all. eBay > DVDs & Movies > DVDs & Blu-ray Discs; Share - The Sultan and the Saint (DVD, 2017) The Sultan and the Saint (DVD, 2017) 1 product rating. Entertaining and informative. Refresh and try again. I can’t stand to read about battles, of which there are many here, yet the author deftly balances the warring with other history and learned opinions including his own to make the story very readable. Around 15 participants including the eminent theologians Frs Michael Amaladoss and Sebastian Painadath. I will be the first to admit that, before reading this book, I knew nothing about Francis of Assisi. Based on new research and scholarship about that fateful meeting, The Sultan and The Saint tells one of the great, lost stories from history as two men of faith fought against a century of war and distrust in a search for mutual respect and common ground. Such religious voices are very much needed today, to help us follow the demanding path of peace while avoiding the traps of undignified wars.” — Tariq Ramadan, Oxford University Professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies, and author of In the Footsteps of the Prophet “Paul Moses’ fascinating book throws new light on St. Francis’ exemplary ministry of reconciliation. In the midst of widespread ignorance and war the efforts of St. Francis to build trust and overcome mutual antipathy speak powerfully to us today, when misunderstanding and conflict between Christians and Muslims threaten all who share our planet.” — Charles Kimball, author of When Religion Becomes Evil“The Saint and the Sultan sheds new light on spiritual vision’ s power to transcend conflict. Set in a past period of East-West conflict, it speaks with urgency to our present. Excellent historical and inspirational call to Christian-Muslim dialogue through a study of the life of St. Francis. While the author does a great job of telling the story of St. Francis's interreligious dialogue with Sultan Malik al-Kamil, which is fascinating, he effectively portrays the most important aspects, which is how he did it. Moses also does a good job of showing how the story of The Saint and The Sultan was changed and to suit the politics of Roman Catholic Church of the time and how the story was embraced by Pope Saint John Paul II as an example of “interreligious dialogue.”. Note: You can download after payment. The book by Paul Moses (who is one of the commentators) is “The Saint and the Sultan.” The movie is “The Sultan and the Saint.” Subtle, but it shows where it’s coming from. Brings a famous 13th century event into the modern day through solid research laid out as a story well told. While there are many people who agree that religious dialogue is important, they often miss the nuance of how to make it. What I liked about this book is that it was easy to understand and follow. No background is given at all. It recounts the meeting between Francis of Assisi and the Sultan of Egypt, Malik al-Kamil. Francis hoped to prevent a battle that would take many lives. Sometimes it is through examining history that we can gain a new understanding of our modern world. Two men of faith, one an itinerant Christian preacher, the other the ruler of a Muslim Empire, bucked a century of war, distrust, and insidious propaganda in a search for mutual respect and common ground. “We consulted with Paul a great deal,” said Daniel Tutt, to present “a nice background story summary of the encounter. Welcome back. The book establishes the background of St. Francis's mission; the attempts of the Catholic Church of the 13th century to downplay the faith and zeal of St. Francis; and how his mission still resonates today. Is it possible to give a book negative five stars because. The author presents a message of peace in the face of unimaginable brutality, showing the way that two cultures can come together and hold a reasoned, friendly discussion about issues that deeply affect everyday life.. While the author does a great job of telling the story of St. Francis's interreligious dialogue with Sultan Malik al-Kamil, which is fascinating, he effectively portrays the most important aspects, which is how he did it. Francis went to Egypt on a mission of peace and met with the sultan as his forces were preparing to fight the crusaders. Moses believes that one of the main … The former senior religion journalist Paul Moses book, The Saint and Sultan is a dual biography of Saint Francis of Assisi and Sultan Malik al-Kamil of Egypt. Yeah, sure, I'd seen the name places, but I'd never read anything about him. A system-wide email went out about receiving a free book (this one) to read in preparation for a book discussion. Basically, the future St. Francis went to the sultan of Egypt and preached to, or spoke with, or disputed, or discussed religion with him in the middle of the fifth crusade. This book is probably more fiction than fact. What really happened during this most unusual encounter? Very interesting book filled with information about St. Francis of Assisi and his effort to meet with the Sultan to end the Crusades. Saint Francis and Sultan al-Kamil met in 1219, during the Fifth Crusade. However, these images are sadly incomplete, because they ignore an equally important and … | ISBN 9780385523707 Moses believes that one of the main points of Francis’s ministry was the idea of “blessed are the peacemakers” from the Gospel of Saint Matthew 5:9. Join Our Holiday House Virtual Event Featuring Author Demos, Book Recommendations, and More! The Sultan was a type of Muslim monarch. Set during the terrible time of the Crusades, it speaks with urgency to our present. In his thoroughly researched and engaging book Moses uncovers and retells the true story of the Christian saint’s audience with the Muslim ruler. 5.0 out of 5. He wanted to keep the sacred sites of Christianity safe and free access to those who traveled to the Holy Land for pilgrimages. . Moses believes that the peaceful interfaith meeting between The Saint and The Sultan was one of the important events in Saint Francis’s life. We begin with Alexius, the Byzantine emperor, writing to the pope asking for mercenaries. Not really a book. Sep 29, 2009 I know, I know, we need more of these stories. and b) we're major book nerds. Trailers See All. It is well researched and I highly recommend it to anyone looking for more information about the roots of our Franciscan charism as peacemakers. A simple Christian friar and a mighty Muslim leader met on a bloody battlefield during the crusades 800 years ago. The author presents a message of peace in the face of unimaginable brutality, showing the way that two cultures can come together and hold a reasoned, friendly discussion about issues that deeply affect everyday life...without killing each other! . Full of historical facts that are enlightening. We read this book for Adult Sunday School. By clicking SIGN UP, I acknowledge that I have read and agree to Penguin Random House’s, Editor's Picks: Science Fiction & Fantasy, Stories Read By Your Favorite Celebrities, The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople, A Concise History of the Catholic Church (Revised Edition), Discover Book Picks from the CEO of Penguin Random House US. The two met outside Damietta in Egypt during the Fifth Crusade. In 1219, St. Francis traveled to what is now northern Egypt and paid a visit to the Muslim Sultan al-Malek al-Kamil. i wish the author hadn't spent so much time talking about the Siege of Damietta; all the talk about war instruments and battles, while relevant to setting up the meeting of the two, could have been shortened. September 29th 2009 Main author: Moses, Paul. Moses does an interesting job of showing how Francis seemed to admire parts of the Islamic faith after his interaction with al-Kamil. I have recommended this book to my class in Catholicism. The two individuals met and discussed many things. He was the lead writer on a Newsday team that won… More about Paul Moses, “The story of these two men—Francis and the sultan—is told engagingly in this well-researched, timely and fascinating book by Paul Moses … dramatically narrated … I highly recommend this book for readers interested in St. Francis, the Crusades, Islam and how the story of Francis and al-Kamil offers us a Franciscan approach to the interfaith challenges we face today.” – Murray Bodo, O.F.M., St. Anthony Messenger.“…this is a wonderfully written, well researched and timely book. We thought it was a book discussion that would occur on campus at some point, not realizing that this offer was coming from the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh directly, and that by receiving the book we were invited to join the program in the basement of their mosque to discuss the book. We don't really know what they said or how they said it, and the crusade continued anyway. Saint Francis and Sultan al-Kamil met in 1219, during the Fifth Crusade. The two met outside Damietta in Egypt during the Fifth Crusade. I was fascinated with the story of Francis of Assisi traveling with the 5th Crusade and meeting Kamil. Although al-Kamil listened to Francis, the saint was unable to convert the sultan nor was he able to prevent the armies on both sides from fighting. | ISBN 9780307589514 I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the life of St. Francis; and to anyone interested. Yeah, sure, I'd seen the name places, but I'd never read anything about him. That’s Malala Yousafzai, Pakistani human rights... To see what your friends thought of this book, The Saint and the Sultan: The Crusades, Islam, and Francis of Assisi's Mission of Peace, There's a funny story behind my decision to read this book, so bear with me here. For many of us, St. Francis of Assisi is known as a poor monk and a lover of animals. They were two charismatic men of different faiths … An article idea hyperinflated into a book. It is well researched and well-written, and is a very timely work in this post 9-11 world. A system-wide email went out about receiving a free book (this one) to read in preparation for a book discussion. This is a real page turner and it's a wonderful book that highlights the encounter between St. Francis and the Sultan. This was quite an intriguing introduction to a person who I'm going to have to read more about, though. We thought it was a. The book tells the story of a little known part of 13th century history. We immediately signed up because a) free book! As did the sixth, and more afterward, as well as repeated attempts to enlist all of Europe in some sort of Holy League to repel the infidel Turk. View cart for details. Moses believes that the peaceful interfaith meeting between The Saint and The Sultan was one of the important events in Saint Francis’s life. An Imaginative and Action-Packed Adventure, Tieghan Gerard's Guide to a Small but Special Meal at Home. and b) we're major book nerds. The Sultan and the Saint SYNOPSIS The Sultan and the Saint tells one of the great, forgotten stories of history between two men of faith: St. Francis of Assisi, a traveling Christian preacher, and Sultan Malek al-Kamil, ruler of a Muslim Empire. Basically, the future St. Francis went to the sultan of Egypt and preached to, or spoke with, or disputed, or discussed religion with him in the middle of the fifth crusade. Francis' story and example feel especially relevant today, but it is the author's clean writing and sense of story that drive The Saint and the Sultan. About The Saint and the Sultan. Loading... Something went wrong. Two men of faith, one an itinerant Christian preacher, the other the ruler of a Muslim Empire, bucked a century of war, distrust, and insidious propaganda in a search for mutual respect and common ground. Moses believes that the peaceful interfaith meeting between The Saint and The Sultan was one of the important events in Saint Francis’s life. – Meinrad Scherer-Emunds, Executive Editor, U.S. Catholic“The care and – there is no other word for it – love with which Moses has drawn the scene for us is really a prayer for … peace.” – Melinda Henneberger, editor-in-chief, PoliticsDaily“The Saint and the Sultan is a provocative, in-depth examination of that little-known but powerful meeting between St. Francis and the 13th century Islamic leader Sultan Malik al-Kamil…Moses … shows how the encounter between them is of great relevance to our divided world today.” – Brooklyn Daily Eagle“In this sprightly and smart book, Paul Moses rediscovers an ancient moment in time that, in his telling, has timeless resonance.” — Jon Meacham, Author of American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House“This brilliant retelling of a largely forgotten chapter in the life of the most beloved of saints comes just when we need it most. This book brings to life a whole cast of interesting characters - popes, cardinals, kings, imams, and religious men - who bring their own political and personal intrigues into this story. This book reminds people that Francis, the man, did a lot more courageous and important things than stand in some hippy's flower garden holding a decorative birdbath. We immediately signed up because a) free book! Format: Book Edition: 1st ed. Francis hoped to prevent a battle that would take many lives. Francis’ intention was to preach the love of Christ, thus winning the hearts of those … This is another book I would give a 4.5 rating to, if possible. Expand Cart. The story itself, the meeting of Francis and Sultan al-Kamil is very interesting, and the story about how the story got twisted throughout the years is fascinating. Beautifully researched and written book about two remarkable men, St. Francis of Assisi and the Islamic leader Sultan Malik Al-Kamil who managed to come together in peace while the Christian side was advancing its Crusades and the opposing Muslims were warring against Christians, Mongols and others. However, these images are sadly incomplete, because they ignore an equally important and more challenging aspect of his life — his unwavering commitment to seeking peace. The Who's Who and timeline in the back of the book I are very helpful. I've worked in my current job for about five months now, and someone else in my department started working there a couple weeks after I did so we're pretty good work-friends as we learn the ropes together. Through their interaction, we see that interfaith dialogue can work to Just a moment while we sign you in to your Goodreads account. “Let us remember: One book, one pen, one child, and one teacher can change the world.” In The Saint and the Sultan, Paul Moses recovers Francis' s message of peace through the largely forgotten story of his daring mission to end the crusades. Robert Bauval, who has recently visited the town of Assisi in Umbria, Italy, investigates this strange and little-known Based on new research and scholarship about that fateful meeting, The Sultan and The Saint tells one of the great, lost stories from history as two men of faith fought against a century of war and distrust in a search for mutual respect and common ground. Worth the read. The former senior religion journalist Paul Moses book, The Saint and Sultan is a dual biography of Saint Francis of Assisi and Sultan Malik al-Kamil of Egypt. Fr Amalados described the film as "an excellent movie." A good story, though. The show is, accordingly, suitable viewing for adults and teens. Two men of faith, one a traveling Christian preacher, the other the ruler of a Muslim Empire, bucked a century of war, distrust, and insidious propaganda in a search for mutual respect and common ground. An intriguing examination of the extraordinary–and little known meeting between St. Francis of Assisi and Islamic leader Sultan Malik Al-Kamil that has strong resonance in today’s divided world. Although al-Kamil listened to Francis. I believe from what I know of Francis’s life that Moses’s idea of Francis wanting the Franciscans to be “peacemakers” makes sense. The Sultan and the Saint ( 2016) The Sultan and the Saint. This is one of those books where I wish I could take the message, story and lessons learned and somehow have it ingrained in my colleagues and counterparts. This excellent book deals with the life of Saint Francis of Assisi and how in the midst of the fifth crusades he put his faith into practice by preaching to Sultan Malik al-Kamil of Egypt. For many of us, St. Francis of Assisi is known as a poor monk and a lover of animals. We are experiencing technical difficulties. Through this book we learn not only about a remarkable set of events of medieval history, but also a lesson in peace making that is of the greatest importance for both those Westerners and Muslims who seek to create better understanding of each other across religious and cultural frontiers rather than simply vilifying one another.” — Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Professor of Islamic Studies at George Washington University, and author of The Heart of Islam, Sign up for news about books, authors, and more from Penguin Random House, Visit other sites in the Penguin Random House Network. The author successfully bridged 800 years and made the stories accessible and relevant. The meeting of Francis and Sultan al-Kamil amidst the insane violence of the Crusades still has much to teach us about dialogue with those with whom we disagree. In The Saint and the Sultan, Paul Moses recovers Francis' s message of peace through the largely forgotten story of his daring mission to end the crusades. This book is definitely worth the read. So we have this brief moment of hope, which made no real difference at the time, and which takes up approximately 4pp of a 240-page book.
the saint and the sultan summary
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the saint and the sultan summary 2020
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Christian boarding schools in Union, New Jersey — Agapé Boarding School May be the Best Choice. – boarding high schools and homes for boys.
Christian Boarding Schools in Union, New Jersey
Home » Christian Boarding Schools in Union, New Jersey
Looking for a Christian Boarding School in Union, New Jersey for Your Boy?
When looking for a Christian boarding school in Union, New Jersey for your teenage son, would you also look at a program in a different place that is affordable, and has helped struggling boys to change the course of their lives for more than 21 years?
Conveniently situated in the center of the country, Agapé Boarding School accepts at-risk boys from all over America. We are also certified to enroll international students. A number of boys typically come to our Christian boarding school from the West Coast, Texas, New England, Illinois and Florida, and even Union, New Jersey.
A Christian Boarding School that Welcomes and Works with Teenage Boys Who are Struggling with Behavior Issues or Falling Grades
Most of the boys who come to Agapé are burdened with behavior problems including rebelliousness, lying, lack of motivation in school, hanging with the wrong peer group, anger, ADHD, trying out drugs or alcohol, or otherwise following the wrong path in life that could lead to serious problems if it were to continue.
Inexpensive Alternative to Boarding Schools in Union, New Jersey
While our main focus is on dealing with inappropriate behavior and mentoring these boys, as a Christian boarding school, we also provide an accredited education, competitive sports and an assortment of daily activities — all at a very cost-effective price. Agapé helps teenage boys become respectful, disciplined and educated young men. Real change comes from our emphasis on the power of God to change lives. And our structured environment separate from their peers, helps the boys learn positive new patterns and habits for living.
Boys who attend the Agapé Christian boarding school receive an opportunity to catch up and finish their high school coursework and prepare for college. Boys follow an accredited course of study to earn high school diplomas. Boys also receive training in a variety of vocational skills at Agapé, including automotive repair, painting, electrical, tiling, laying carpet, cement work, construction, landscaping, welding, and more. Residents are well-prepared for college or entry into initial jobs in the workforce, having learned these skills, as well as the self-discipline that will benefit them all their lives.
Boys also enjoy daily activities and athletic programs. The campus includes a full-size gymnasium and well-equipped indoor recreation center; baseball, football, and soccer fields and a volleyball court and boxing arena; a fishing pond and a small lake; horse barns with an outdoor riding arena; and an in-ground swimming pool, among other facilities. The ranch also is home to an abundance of exotic animals, from alpacas to zebras.
While not in Union, New Jersey, Agapé Christian Boarding School Enrolls and Helps Boys from Around the Country, Including Union, New Jersey.
Numerous teen boys from Union, New Jersey have turned their lives around with the help of Agapé Boarding School and look forward to a promising future.
Please consider looking beyond Union, New Jersey to this effective and reasonably priced Christian boarding school for boys with behavioral and academic problems.
To learn more, we invite you to explore the rest of our website, then use our inquiry form or call us today to learn more.
More about Christian boarding schools in or near Union, New Jersey:
Union Township is a Township in Hunterdon County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the township population was 5,908. The southwest half of the township lies on what is known as the Hunterdon Plateau, the northwest corner consists of the Musconetcong Ridge and the northeast section is part of the lower-lying Newark Basin around Spruce Run Reservoir.
Union Township was incorporated as a township by an Act of the New Jersey Legislature on February 17, 1853, from portions of Bethlehem Township. Clinton Town was formed on April 5, 1865, within portions of the township, and became an independent municipality in 1895.
Union Township was formed from the southern part of Bethlehem Township in 1853. It was named for Union Furnace which was producing iron as early as 1700. Union Furnace and its forge produced cannon balls for the Revolutionary War and shoes for horses and oxen, as well as farm implements. Forests gave way to farm fields as trees were cut down to stoke the furnace. A farm community then developed along with the accompanying industries of basket making and tanning.
New Jersey Monthly magazine ranked Union Township as its 21st best place to live in its 2008 rankings of the “Best Places To Live” in New Jersey.
Excerpt about Christian boarding schools in Union, New Jersey, used with permission from Wikipedia.Christian Boarding Schools in New Jersey
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Should you need help finding disciplinary schools near me, behavioral boarding schools, boarding schools or therapeutic boys homes, please let us know. If you are searching for troubled teen homes, troubled teen schools or troubled teen boarding schools, this is a Christian one. Boys homes don’t typically offer teen counseling and therapy, but we do. Other troubled teen schools and residential treatment programs for teens are often quite costly, but this one of few residential treatment centers and residential schools for teens that is affordable. This boarding school for boys can help your boy who is defiant or misbehaving. Among Low Cost Christian Boarding Schools, Agape helps at-risk troubled teen boys. Agape’s therapeutic residential school helps rebellious boys who are defiant or out of control. Designed for troubled teenage boys Agape helps solve behavioral disorders like boys with ADHD, boys with ODD – Oppositional Defiant Disorder, kids with Attention Deficit Disorder, those who have Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) and
Christian boarding schools in Union, New Jersey — Agapé Boarding School May be the Best Choice.
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Princeton’s Angus Deaton wins 2015 Nobel Prize in economics
NIA Director Richard Hodes says of Angus Deaton, who won the 2015 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences: “The National Institute on Aging is proud to have supported Dr. Deaton’s work for more than 20 years. His work has examined how circumstances including income inequality and early childhood nutrition influence health and subjective well-being across the life course in the United States and around the world.” Deaton is the Dwight D. Eisenhower Professor of Economics and International Affairs at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School.
More information on the award
Angus Deaton, Princeton
Coordinating Center for the Centers on the Demography and Economics of Aging and Alzheimer’s Disease and Alzheimer’s Related Dementias
The Coordinating Center is funded by the National Institute on Aging (R24AG066588) and is located in the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research
Amanda Sonnega, PhD, Director
426 Thompson St.
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106, USA
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Islamic Emirate: The division of Syria and aggression of invaders
Posted on November 19, 2015 by Carol Anne Grayson
(Post via Islamic Emirate)
The invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq by America and European allies had nothing to do with Osama bin Ladin or Weapons of Mass Destruction rather it was part of American strategy for the implementation of a new Sykes-Picot map hatched by Bernard Lewis, Samuel Huntington and other Jewish American politicians and intellectuals to further divide the Islamic world.
The British born Jewish American Bernard Lewis, who completed his PHD in Islamic History and was a history teacher at a college in London, moved to America and served as an advisor to the US secretary of defense specializing in Middle-East affairs. He was a special advisor to the Bush family (father and son) and had proposed a plan to the American government for the division of Islamic countries during the Presidency of Jimmy Carter, a proposal which was approved by the Congress in 1983 during a closed-door meeting and adopted as part of the new American political strategy.
After the defeat of the Soviets and end of Cold War, America as the sole remaining super power was presented with a golden chance of controlling the world by implementing its Pax Americana project and declaring a New World Order. To consolidate her control over oil and other reserves of the Islamic World especially of the Middle East and keeping it under perpetual occupation, she began putting into motion the plan of dividing the Islamic countries. Since military action was a prerequisite for the implementation of this plan therefore she launched the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq followed by stoking religious, sectarian, regional and ethnic rivalries. Robert Fisk, the famous experienced British journalist says that goal of America of ‘turning Sunni and Shia into avid enemies’ was achieved fairly quickly.
After the breakout of simultaneous revolutions or Arab Spring in the Middle East, in the uprising and success of which America played a key role, she was once again presented with an opportunity to begin taking swift steps towards implementing her plan. America employed her satanic stratagem by openly and covertly piting rival groups against each other and began using these indebted factions against Islamic movements, turning the entire Middle East into a battleground.
Syria unfortunately has suffered most of the brunt. America again adopted the same strategy in Syria, backing the Kurds, Bashar al-Assad and some rebel factions all at the same time, prolonging the war for 4.5 years with seemingly no end in sight. This war has taken the lives of nearly 300000 Syrians, over half a million have been wounded and nearly half the population has been either internally displaced or forced to migrate to other lands. The pathway for the division of Syria has been set and Imperialist nations have been provided a prime chance to occupy this land and build military bases.
As Russia has seemingly recovered somewhat after the dispersion of the Soviet Union hence it is looking to increase its influence in the Middle East. Russia sent its war planes and soldiers to Syria at the beginning of the previous month, in complete understanding with the USA and at the request of the Assad regime, in order to delay the fall of the regime and help the Alawites establish their reign from Damascus to Tartus and all the way up to Latakia. The Russian efforts of establishing an Alawite regime have been launched in complete cooperation and understanding with the US however America showed discomfort only after the Russians moved in advanced air defense, missile interception systems, heavy weaponry and 4000 troops for a protracted invasion.
Barely a month had passed since the Russian intervention when America also declared a troop mission to Syria. American officials said that 50 troops will be deployed to Kurdish controlled lands in north and north-east Syria and only last week the secretary of defense indicated towards increasing troop levels in Syria. Sending US Special Forces to Kurdish controlled areas is to directly help the Kurds create the nation of Kurdistan, a plan which was drawn up during the ‘Sevres’ treaty in 1920.
Russia and the US under a joint plan also want to create a Sunni political group and empower it with a new government which will be based Syria’s north-west with Aleppo as its capital. And at the same time plans for a separate Sunni governorate in the south and south-west have also been created however since there are many factions involved in the fighting therefore creating two sphere of Sunni influence seems difficult.
Israel also has a keen interest in getting involved in the Syrian interventionism. Israel and Russia signed a military cooperation pact last month and created a joint operations room inside Syria. Similarly Russia, US and Israel carried out joint military exercises to coordinate their aircrafts and avoid any mishaps. And after signing cooperation agreement with Russia, Israeli military officials declared that they wish to give a legal status to their involvement in Syria.
Israel has for decades had close relations with the minority ‘Druze’ based in southern Syria on the borders with Israel. The Druze community living in Israel hold important government positions and are gifted every right available therefore Israel considers it her moral obligation to protect the Druze living in Syria. A security analyst and Israeli Journalist Yossi Melman declared that if the Druze of Syria were to face any threat, Israel would not remain silent. Israeli newspapers also say that the Druze community and its leaders have called on the Israeli government to intervene in Syria while the Druze in Syria have requested arms and those living in Israel have asked for permission to fight on behalf of the brethren in Syria.
Looking at these statements and strategic movements, one can safely assume that Israel will soon begin attacks on Syria under the cover of support for the Druze, establish military bases in Suwayda governorate where most of the Druze are based and pave the way for the creation of a Druze government with its capital being As-Suwayda.
Carol Anne Grayson is an independent writer/researcher on global health/human rights/WOT and is Executive Producer of the Oscar nominated, Incident in New Baghdad. She is a Registered Mental Nurse with a Masters in Gender Culture and Development. Carol was awarded the ESRC, Michael Young Prize for Research 2009, and the COTT ‘Action = Life’ Human Rights Award’ for “upholding truth and justice”. She is also a survivor of US “collateral damage”.
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Hocking, Sidney Edwin (1859–1935)
by H. J. Gibbney
Sidney Edwin Hocking (1859-1935), newspaper proprietor, was born on 24 December 1859 at Nairne, South Australia, son of Nicholas Hocking, blacksmith, and his wife Sarah, née Shore. Educated at Prince Alfred College, he joined the Adelaide Advertiser in 1874 as a general reporter and became the paper's mining writer at the Teetulpa goldfield, Baker's Creek and Hillgrove. In 1889 he went to the new mining field at Broken Hill, New South Wales, as representative for a syndicate of evening papers in Melbourne and Sydney. Leaving Broken Hill in 1893, he arrived at Coolgardie, Western Australia, next year and sent articles to the Adelaide Advertiser and Register, the Melbourne Age and Argus and the West Australian. With James MacCallum Smith, and later joined by his brother Percy, he floated a company to publish the weekly Goldfields Courier, which he edited, and the daily Golden Age. He also ran a stationer's and newsagent's business and speculated in town lots.
When the new Kalgoorlie goldfield began to drain the life from Coolgardie, Hocking inspected the fabulous 'Golden Mile' and decided that its future was assured. He and his partners sold the Coolgardie company and in August 1895 Hocking bought the weekly Kalgoorlie Western Argus, founded by Mott Bros., the previous November. After buying an up-to-date plant, Hocking also launched the daily Kalgoorlie Miner. He temporarily employed (Sir) Hal Colebatch as editor and, in Adelaide, recruited (Sir) John Kirwan. In 1896 he launched Hocking & Co. Ltd with himself, Percy, another brother Ernest, Kirwan and their printer W. W. Willcock as shareholders. Hocking became mining editor, leaving the business management of the two papers and an associated stationery and job-printing house to Percy and the editorial management to Kirwan. When Percy died in 1900 Hocking took over the commercial side and Kirwan, when he became too deeply involved in politics, was replaced by Edward Hamilton Irving who managed the paper until his death in 1929.
Hocking shared a house with his sister Emma until his marriage on 15 August 1900 to 21-year-old Effie Fenn; they had eight children. For many years chairman of the Kalgoorlie Racing Club and president of the Kalgoorlie Chamber of Commerce, he was also almost permanent president of the Fresh Air League, which sent goldfields children for seaside holidays. He was an enthusiastic gardener, who is said to have planted the first of Kalgoorlie's many peppercorn trees, and in his later years he enjoyed golf. His reputation as a good boss was valuable in a town like Kalgoorlie, dominated by the democratic ethos; the accepted legend that he had never sacked a man was not true, but he was certainly remarkably lenient. In 1895, and from 1907, he served on the Kalgoorlie Municipal Council and was mayor in 1909-10. Modest and intensely domestic, however, he generally shunned the limelight. He left Kalgoorlie rarely and was only twice overseas, first in 1899, when he purchased modern newspaper plant, and in 1930 when he was a delegate to the Imperial Press Conference in London. In an endeavour to keep his newspapers unbiased he avoided political involvement.
Hocking died on 29 January 1935 during a heat wave and was buried in Kalgoorlie cemetery. His estate, valued for probate at £54,769 in Western Australia and Victoria, was left to his family, all of whom survived him. Three of his sons became directors of Hocking & Co. Ltd.
J. S. Battye (ed), Cyclopedia of Western Australia, vol 1 (Adel, 1912)
J. Kirwan, My Life's Adventure (Lond, 1936)
Critic (Adelaide), 11 June 1898
Western Australian Law Reports, 1909
Kalgoorlie Western Argus, 15 Mar 1900
Kalgoorlie Miner, 29 Jan 1935, 14 Sept 1945
J. Kirwan papers (State Library of Western Australia).
H. J. Gibbney, 'Hocking, Sidney Edwin (1859–1935)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/hocking-sidney-edwin-6692/text11543, published first in hardcopy 1983, accessed online 18 January 2021.
Nairne, South Australia, Australia
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Meet the DJI Zenmuse X5, World's First of It's Kind
Today DJI released the all new Zenmuse X5 Camera and Gimbal unit. The Zenmuse X5 is the first of its kind, stealing the show at the world's first mirrorless, compact Micro Four Thirds camera made to specifically to optimize aerial imaging and cinematography. We've all been using the standard Zenmuse X3 camera and gimbal on our Inspire 1 units for quite some time and we have been anxiously awaiting the release of a new camera for the Inspire 1. At the time of release, a major feature of the Inspire 1 was that the camera was modular, allowing for camera upgrades in the future. Our patience has paid off and that modular upgrade has finally arrived. The new Zenmuse X5 is fully compatible with the Inspire 1 along with full integration into the DJI Go app for your iPhone or Android device. The Zenmuse X5 is capable of shooting up to 4K video at 30 frames per second and captures still images at 16MP. One of the best features of the Zenmuse X5 is its interchangeable lens. The X5 can be purchased with or without a lens. The included lens is made by DJI and is a 15mm f/1.7 ASPH Prime Lens, equivalent to a 30mm with a field of view of 72 degrees. DJI has also announced that the X5 will be compatible with select Olympus and Panasonic lens. At this point, they have announced compatibility with the Olympus M.ZUIKO 12mm f/2.0 Lens as well as the Panasonic Lumix 15mm G Leica f/1.7 Lens. Full compatibility and integration into the DJI GO App for additional lenses will be coming in the near future.
Key features of the new DJI Zenmuse X5 Camera & Gimbal:
Micro Four Thirds Sensor with MFT Mount
4K Video Capture at up to 30fps
16MP Still Photos
Over 12 Stops of Dynamic Range
Burst and Interval Photos Modes
Records to microSD Cards
Fully compatible with the DJI Inspire 1 Quadcopter
DJI Zenmuse X5 Pricing & Availability
The DJI Zenmuse X5 can be purchased with our without the DJI 15mm Prime Lens. The Zenmuse X5 with the DJI 15mm Lens included starts at $2,199 while the "Lens Excluded" option is $1,699. If you choose that you would like to DJI 15mm Prime Lens at a later date, it can be purchased for $599. As always with being a DJI Tier 1 Authorized Dealer, Advexure will be receiving the first batch of shipments. This batch is already in transit and we estimate that first shipments will begin to leave our warehouse within the next week. This camera is an absolute game change for the professional film industry and it's guaranteed to be an extreme popular release.
CLICK HERE to place your Zenmuse X5 pre-order at Advexure!
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Toggle Search and Navigation Menu
Giving to the Department of Anthropology
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Each year, a limited number of teaching and research assistantships, fellowships, and scholarships are offered to incoming graduate students. These may include renewable half-time graduate assistantships, which include a monthly stipend, nine (9) credits of tuition per semester, health insurance, plus a waiver of the out-of-state portion of tuition.
Because of the uncertainty and limited extent of departmental funding, we also encourage students to apply for funding from other MSU sources, as well as from government funding agencies and foundations. In general, most students do find support and funding.
The Department tries to fund students for multiple years, generally for the first four years in the program, assuming progress in the program is satisfactory. All funding is, of course, dependent upon the availability of funds.
In addition to the support available in the department, the following programs are available:
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Visit: https://grad.msu.edu/funding
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Visit: https://grad.msu.edu/universityfellowships
This fellowship program provides financial support for outstanding students, based on demonstrated academic excellence and evidence of leadership potential. Students must be new to graduate study at MSU and plan to earn a doctoral (PhD) or MFA degree. Only US citizens or permanent residents are eligible. To be considered for the University Fellowship Program, students should indicate on the graduate application to MSU that they are interested in departmental funding. Those applications will be screened for suitability for a number of award opportunities, including the University Fellowship Programs.
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The US Department of Education’s FLAS Fellowships are awarded to MSU graduate students enrolled in programs that combine the study of a modern foreign language with advanced training in international development studies or in the international development aspects of professional or other fields of study. An applicant must be a US citizen or permanent resident. Fellowships are given for both the academic year and for summer intensive courses.
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The African Studies Center is one of a suite of highly respected international studies programs at MSU, whose purpose is to offer a truly global education while engaging in cutting edge research on the world’s most pressing challenges.
African Studies Center applications for student support: https://africa.isp.msu.edu/resources-funding/financial-support-applications/applications- students/
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The Asian Studies Center at Michigan State University directs one of the largest, most diverse programs of education about Asia in the Midwest. The Center provides support to both undergraduate and graduate students through scholarships and a paper competition with awards for their pursuit of Asian language training, area studies, international studies, or the international aspects of professional studies.
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Visit: https://muslimstudies.isp.msu.edu/
The Muslim Studies Program at Michigan State University supports teaching and research about Muslims around the globe from an interdisciplinary perspective.
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Call Anthropology: (517) 353-2950
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Peter Coyote Biography
Biography by Sammy Published on 02 Dec, 2020 Updated on 02 Dec, 2020
Facts of Peter Coyote
1941 , October-10
Robert Peter Cohon
Morris Cohon
Ruth Cohon
New York City, U.S.
Marilyn McCann (m. 1975; div. 1998) Stefanie Pleet (m. 1998; div. 2015)
View more / View Less Facts of Peter Coyote
Peter Coyote is an American actor, screenwriter, director, narrator, and author who is very famous for his work in the movies such as Jagged Edge, Dood Kill, Cross Creek, A Walk To Remember, and Patch Adams. As a narrator, he has worked in more than 50 films.
Short-Bio Of Peter Coyote
Peter Coyote was born on October 10, 1941, in New York City, New York, USA as Robert Peter Cohon. He is the son of Ruth and Morris Cohon(who worked as an investment banker). He is of American nationality and belongs to white ethnicity.
While talking about education, she completed her schooling at Dwight Morrow High School and later on joined Grinnell College. While he was in college he legally changed his name to Coyote from Cohon. Also, he joined San Francisco State University from where he received a degree in English literature.
Several Unsuccessful Relationship; Father of Two
The 79 years old, Peter Coyote currently seems to be single at the moment but previously he has faced several unsuccessful relationship. In 1965 he shared the wedding vows with Eileen Ewing but after seven years they separated in 1972.
CAPTION: Peter Coyote faced three unsuccessful marriage SOURCE: The Mercury News
After three yaers of divorce, he again got married to Marilyn McCann. Together they shared one kid but in 1998 they also took divorce. And in the same yaers, he tied the knot with Stefanie Pleet however in 2015 they also ended their marital relationship.
After this, he has not been linked with anyone. Maybe he is enjoying single life since then.
Her Career and Net Worth
Peter Coyote has a net worth of $10 million as of 2020 from his several careers in the entertainment industry for a very long time.
While talking about his career, he made his acting debut in yaers 1980 from his appearance in the movie named Die Laughing. In the same years, he was cast in the TV movie named Alcatraz: The Whole Shocking Story and Tell Me a Riddle.
After this, he has worked ins several movies and series and has more than 130 acting credits in his name. Some of his notable work includes Southern Comfort, Endangered Species, Slayground, Heartbreakers, The Blue Yonder, Outrageous Fortune, Unconquered, A Seduction in Travis County, Murder in My Mind, Patch Adams, A Murder on Shadow Mountain, The History of Sex, Frontier: The Decisive Battles, A Walk to Remember, A Time for Dancin, The Wonderful World of Disney, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, National Geographic Explorer, Intelligence, The Spoils Before Dying.
His recent appearance is in the TV mini-sereis, The Comey Rule.
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°1937, Omaha (US) – lives and works in Los Angeles (US)
One of the most important postwar artists, Ed Ruscha came into prominence during the 1960s pop art movement. Ruscha’s works function as alternatives to mass-media depictions of life in Los Angeles and on the West Coast.
His early interest in commercial art and work as a graphic designer and layout artist for an L.A. advertising agency, as well as his distrust and frustration with the traditional hierarchies of painting and sculpture led him to create works that challenged prevalent styles such as Abstract Expressionism. Resisting the labels of Pop or Conceptual artist, Ruscha nevertheless incorporates elements of both movements into his paintings and photographs, and his work influenced the development of later Conceptual art in the United States, serving as a forerunner to that of practitioners as varied as Bruce Nauman, Robert Smithson, and Lawrence Weiner.
Courtesy of the Guggenheim museum
Ed Ruscha’s work has been exhibited in all important museum and is part of the collection of The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Tate, London; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis – amongs others.
Ed Ruscha is represented by the following galleries;
click through to see more of his work.
Sprüth Magers, Berlin / London / Los Angeles
Gagosian, New York / London / …
You can discover more of Ed Ruscha’s work on the official website of the Edward Ruscha Catalogue Raisonné.
works by Ed Ruscha
Metro Mattress #4
'I still believe in miracles' celebrates thirty years of exhibitions at Inverleith House, Edinburgh
I still believe in miracles celebrates thirty years of the exhibitions programme at Inverleith House, originally launched on the 12 August, 1986. Since that time, over 120 artists have made ...
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Richard Dawkins during a Nightwish concert
My favourite quote from professor Richard Dawkins is not the one where he calls the God of the Old testament a “capriciously malevolent bully”, or any of those where he otherwise openly mocks religion.
It's one where he doesn't even mention religion at all, even though he's destroying its very foundations.
(Btw, the quote also got featured in The Greatest Song on Earth ️)
I first read it in his 1998 book “Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder”. It was a turning point of my journey towards abandoning the Catholic mythology. It removed the greatest obstacle on the road of rationalism: the fear of death.
Here's the quote:
We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Sahara. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here. We privileged few, who won the lottery of birth against all odds, how dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state from which the vast majority have never stirred?
Yes. How dare we? How dare we!?
I'm convinced that every major religion exists for just two main reasons:
people used to have no idea where did they come from and how the world works,
people are terrified of death.
Making up a story that (poorly) answers “the big questions”, while also giving you hope that death is not the end, is not a perfect idea, but I guess better than nothing.
Now we have science though! But while it helps with the first part tremendously, my mind was still struggling to give up religion because of the second part… Death is scary, it's unknown… Pretending that it's not real is so very soothing…
Religion's approach to death is to give promises that it can't deliver, while using your fear to make you behave the way they want you to (or else you'll burn in hell!). Priests are wolves in sheep's clothing – their fairy tales sound soothing, but really they just enslave your mind.
Dawkins doesn't try to be nice or soothing. Instead of making up a story that will make you feel better, he scolds you for demanding a story in the first place.
Death is just an end of something beautiful. Focus on the beautiful. Appreciate the beautiful. You won a fucking lottery of existence! So appreciate it, make the best out of it while you can. Just don't be so arrogant as to demand that it lasted forever. It won't. You'll have to deal with it. It's harsh, but it's true. And accepting it is liberating.
The quote might sound like it's about death, but for me it's more about life, actually. It puts life into a proper perspective. It makes you focus on the joy and gratitude instead of fear. On the process instead of its end.
Accepting that I'm going to die, inevitably, without any “afterlife” to look forward to, realising that things can be wonderful and amazing even if they don't last forever – that might have been the most liberating moment of my life.
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In Celebration of Tonight’s Full Moon…
Tonight we have yet another full moon. So, in celebration of this, I am publishing chapter 2 of my book ‘Eighteen Moons’ on my blog. The chapter is entitled’Preparing for Fatherhood’.
We stepped off the plane at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport into the sultry heat of an Indian night.
After queuing through customs, we got into a taxi and gave the driver the name of our hotel. As we wove our way through the streets, we could see why Mumbai is called the city that never sleeps. It was the middle of the night, but there were people thronging the streets and stalls selling food on every street corner. The noise of the rickshaw horns, voices calling and music playing was loud even with the taxi windows up. And the scent was almost overpowering; the air was thick with the aromas of spices, people, animals and traffic fumes. This was India’s biggest city, home to over 20 million people – and holder of all our hopes.
We were in a whole new world. I looked at John. Could this be happening – would this extraordinary place give us the children we longed for?
It was late October 2011 and it had been several months since my first conversation with Somya. Since then we had exchanged numerous emails, outlining all that would be involved and cementing our agreement. Finally, everything was in place and she told us to arrive at the clinic, where she would be waiting for us.
We’d got our tourist visas within a few days and booked our tickets the moment John could get a few days away from work. Remus and Gracie were safely settled in a boarding kennel and we were on our way.
The Rotunda Clinic was based in Bandra West, a middle-class suburb, so we’d chosen a hotel nearby. As we only had three days in India, we’d gone for five-star comfort and as we stepped out of our taxi outside the Taj Lands’ End Hotel, I was struck by the levels of security on show. There were at least eight guards on the door, every car was checked inside and underneath and all our things had to go through a security scanner. Not surprising, I guess, since this was only three years after the 2008 terror attacks which took place across the city over four days, killing 164 people and wounding 308. Hotels, cinemas, stations and other public buildings had been targeted. Now, clearly, our hotel – and as we later discovered, every other hotel and many public buildings – were not taking any chances.
Our room gave us a panoramic view across the southern Mumbai suburbs, beside the impressive Bandra-Worli sea link which stretched over the water towards the point known as Lands’ End and the famous Bandra Fort, a watchtower built by the Portuguese in 1640, when they occupied this part of India. Beyond it lay the Arabian Sea. All wonderfully romantic, but by then we were so tired that we simply fell into bed, exhausted.
The following day we took a rickshaw to the Rotunda Clinic. The route took us along the Bandstand Promenade which stretches for about a kilometre along the seafront. The Rickshaw driver spoke no English and our Hindi was non-existent, so I tracked the route on my phone and pointed to where we wanted to go. The only problem was, there were three different addresses on my Google map for the clinic. We picked one, hoping it would be right, and the driver dropped us off. But when we got inside, we were told – sorry, wrong place. Apparently, the main clinic was another 15 minutes’ walk away. It was a scorching 37 degrees and by this time we were hot and thirsty, but we walked slowly and, after going up and down the street a couple of times peering at the building numbers, we found it. No sign outside and no front door. We found a door at the back and a security guard pointed upwards.
‘Which floor?’ I asked. He nodded his head from side to side and smiled. We gave up and took the stairs.
The clinic was on the third level and Somya was there to greet us. It was nice to put a face to the name, after all the months of emailing. She was like an Indian version of actress CarolineQuentin; generously proportioned and friendly. She chatted to us for a bit, asking about our trip, and then we left her office and went to pay the fee for this stage of the process, the ‘drop off and cryo’ which basically meant freezing our sperm.
We sat in the waiting room until called to make our deposits. John went in first and emerged within five minutes holding a plastic beaker which was taken from him by a very short and unsmiling Indian nurse. He winked at me and sat down, after which the nurse indicated that it was my turn and handed me another plastic beaker.
Inside the small room I did a double take. All four walls were covered with posters and cut-outs of what can only be described as 1970’s Swedish porn. It was all big boobs and pouting blondes. So much for their gay customers! Come to think of it I’m fairly sure what was on offer wouldn’t have appealed much to many of their hetero customers, especially the Indian ones who might be there to begin the process of IVF with their wives.
All I could do was close my eyes, breathe deeply and think of – anything other than what was on the walls. Five minutes later I emerged with my beaker, which I handed to the nurse. Job done.
Somya assured us that we would be informed as soon as two suitable surrogates were found and that was it – we were free to go.
We had two more days in India and we spent them absorbing the myriad of colours, the scents, intoxicating and otherwise, and the vast panoply of life in Mumbai. We walked along the Bandstand, joining the crowds of lovers and families strolling along, taking the air and admiring the view. It was one of the city’s most popular hangout spots and all of Indian life was there. Smallstalls sold peanuts in paper horns or coconut water, beggars held out their hands, joggers passed us, groups were going through yoga routines and women in saris of every hue floated past.
We were very conscious of the dramatic contrast between rich and poor. Next to our luxurious hotel there was a shanty town, its tiny ramshackle shelters and narrow alleyways teeming with people, most of them children, dressed in rags.
It was the same everywhere we went; behind every glamorous building – and there were many of those – there was a desperately poor community struggling to survive. It made us feel uncomfortable, although later on during my time in India I became tougher and more immune to the constant pleas for money. Working it out as a Westerner is difficult, but there is no choice other than to toughen up.
Wherever we went the air was filled with a thousand scents; food cooking, bodies, animal dung, stagnant water, rotting vegetables; it was a sensory overload.
After three days we flew home knowing that, if all went well, we might soon be back. The dogs were hysterical with joy to see us and more hyper than ever.
We picked up the threads of our lives, aware that it might be a long wait for our surrogates. We had requested two at once, so that they could have parallel pregnancies. And to complicate things even further, we had stipulated that the surrogates could not be married women. Our research had taught us that our surrogate mothers needed to be single so that our children would be born with British Citizenship by descent. British law dictated that if the surrogate mother was married, her husband would be classed as the child’s father. The genetic father to the child was only recognised by the UK authorities if the surrogate mother was single. But while there were quite a few married women coming forward to be surrogates, very few unmarried girls would want to have a stranger’s child before marriage. That left young widows – a small pool – and divorcees, an even smaller pool, since in India marriage is generally for life. ‘It will not be easy to find what you are looking for,’ Somya had said, shaking her head from side to side. We could only wait and hope.
We had hoped to be treated as a couple, but despite the clinic’s supposed positive attitude to same-sex partners, we were told that we had to be treated as two single people, quite separate from one another. I felt let-down when Somya explained this, it was clear that in her early conversations with me she’d been telling porkies when she talked about us being treated by the clinic as a couple.
We agreed to let it go – as long as the pregnancies worked out, all would be fine. We just had to keep the end-goal in mind.
As we waited for news, we began making plans. We had decided that, in preparation for starting a family, we needed a country base. Or at least John decided, and I got on board because I remembered how happy I’d been in the Somerset house, The Laurels, where I’d lived as a child. We wanted the best possible childhood memories for our children and the peace and safety of village life seemed preferable to the London rat race.
We still planned to live in London, because of John’s job, but the flat, although it had three bedrooms, was fairly small and it had no garden. We pictured the children going to the small school around the corner from the flat and then piling them, with the dogs, into the car to go to the country for weekends and holidays.
At the same time, we decided to get married – or to enter a Civil Partnership, which was the closest thing available (full gay marriage was two years’ down the line). We had been common-law partners for 17 years by then, but John especially felt that to do things properly we should make our union formal. So, on June 1 2012, quietly and with no fuss, we got hitched in the Brydon Room in Chelsea Town Hall. The Brydon room is a large, stylish room with huge windows hung with elegant drapes. There to witness the ceremony were my mother, who came over from Australia for it, plus John’s family; his mother Hazel, stepfather Michael, sisters Sara and Judy, their husbands Gerry and Phelim and niece and nephews Georgia, James and Theo. We also invited around 20 of our good friends. The registrar was a wonderful, rather theatrical gentleman, whom everyone instantly adored.
A couple of weeks later we put down a deposit on our country home. Long River was a beautiful old house in Berkshire which had been converted into several separate homes. John had found it and he insisted I go to see it. We both loved it at first sight, with its dark panelled wood, impressive architecture and large garden.
The home we chose was spread over three storeys, with a majestic flight of stairs and an enormous living room looking out over the terrace to the large garden. We pictured our children running around it at the weekends. This was where we would give them a secure and happy life and wonderful childhood memories.
By this time, we had waited eight months for the clinic in India to find our surrogates, and there was still no news. We had to content ourselves with choosing an egg donor. We had agreed that we would like the same donor for both pregnancies. Donating eggs for a fee was a far easier process that carrying the child, so there were more candidates and the clinic sent us about 20 to choose from. For each we received a photograph, medical statistics and some information about the woman’s education. No names. Many were young women doing it to make extra money for their weddings.
We chose a woman we felt looked wise. She was in her mid–twenties, she’d had no medical problems and she seemed ideal.
Our children would be British citizens and British culturally, but they would be half Indian, so of course we planned to tell them about their Indian heritage too.
In late July, a few weeks after we had married and found Long River, Somya wrote to say that two surrogates, both in their mid–twenties, had been found. Both would have the fertilised eggs introduced at the same time. Eight eggs would be fertilised, four with John’s sperm and four with mine and four would then be implanted into each surrogate. This was more than would be allowed under British law and I presume the clinic did this in order to guarantee a better success rate.
We were told that the ‘conception’ date would be August 7. On day 5 of embryo creation, they would be transferred to each of the surrogates. After that they would let us know if there were signs of pregnancy. We already knew (by this time we knew so much about the whole process that either of us could have won Mastermind) that pregnancy hormones would be detectable after about ten days and the heart beat at six weeks. So, we wouldn’t have long to wait. We held our breath.
There was no email on the day of creation or the day of embryo transfer. And no word for the following few days. I walked the dogs for hours, cooked up a storm, scrubbed the flat – anything to help the time pass.
I was alone at Long River when the phone rang. I snatched it up.
‘Greetings Mr Andrew.’
‘Hello Doctor Somya, is there any news?’
‘There is good news. John’s surrogate, Rehanna, has tested positive for the pregnancy hormone and her levels are good. We will monitor her over the next few weeks and keep you posted.’
‘That is wonderful news. Thank you, but what about my surrogate?’ At this point I could barely breathe.
‘Sadly, you were not so lucky on this occasion Mr Andrew, I am sorry. The pregnancy has not continued.’ And with that she hung up.
I was stunned. I sat on the sofa, staring at the phone.
John was going to be a father. And I was not.
It felt impossible to take in.
I thought of my father’s words, ‘as long as you give me a couple of grandchildren’. Now it looked as though I couldn’t do that. I felt bereft. For a short while I just sat and wept. Then I pulled myself together and rang John with the news.
He was thrilled, but he realised I was gutted. ‘Let’s talk when I get home,’ he said.
That evening it was tough. I was happy for John and heartbroken for myself. He was euphoric but trying not to show it.
‘It will be our child, you know that, don’t you?’ he said.
I did know – we had agreed all along that we wouldn’t tell anyone which of us was the biological father of any children we might have. They would be ours, together, no matter what. That thought did comfort me. But it still hurt badly.
I called Somya back a few days later to ask if the egg donor would be willing to try again. She came back to me soon after to say that yes, another attempt would be possible. We would have to wait three months to harvest another lot of eggs and a new surrogate would need to be found, but they still had my semen frozen and it could be done. That knowledge cheered me.
Eight weeks later she called again.
‘Mr John is expecting twins,’ she announced. A twin pregnancy would be 35 weeks, she said, so the babies would be born in late March.
Wow. Of course, we’d known that there was a possibility of twins, but the reality was a real wake-up call. Time to get ready for fatherhood.
We kept the good news to family and a few close friends. Both our mothers were delighted. Having got their heads around their sons being gay, they hadn’t expected grandchildren from us. When she heard the news that we were, in fact, going to make her a grandmother, John’s mother, forthright as ever, said to him, ‘Are you sure you and Andi are capable of bringing up kids?’ ‘Why wouldn’t we be?’ he told her. ‘We’re responsible adults, and our children are wanted, unlike so many in this world.’
We spent the next few months driving down at weekends to work on Long River. It needed decorating throughout and we wanted to do it ourselves, as a labour of love, taking our time and choosing colours as we went along.
As Rehanna’s pregnancy progressed, we were sent regular updates and scans, although we weren’t told whether we were having boys or girls. In India parents are banned from learning the sex of their babies so that parents can’t choose to end pregnancies if they discover they are expecting girls. There is still a huge boy-bias there, since sons will care for parents and daughters will simply cost money to marry off.
We didn’t mind at all what sex the babies were. We loved the idea of a couple of girls. Or boys. Or one of each. We spent hours discussing names. We needed to have two boys’ names and two girls’ names ready, just in case.
For boys we chose Caleb and Oscar. Names that we bothliked. For a girl we agreed on Tara. I have always loved the name and it has an Irish connection (think Gone with the Wind) and the same meaning in Hindi and Gaelic – star, so that was a dead cert. The other name we chose was Amritsar. It’s the name of the Sikh holy city, where the famous Golden Temple is, but I just loved it as a name. I told John about it and he agreed that it was beautiful.
‘What are we going to be called,’ I asked. ‘Only one of us can be Daddy.’
We mulled it over and eventually agreed that John, as biological father, would be Daddy and I would be Dadda. Later he would tell me that he was jealous, because babies say Dadda long before they say Daddy.
That Christmas we invited all our neighbours over for drinks. They were mostly middle-aged and elderly and one jovial old chap said, ‘When we heard a gay couple was buying, we thought, oh good, no children!’
John and I looked at one another.
‘Er, well, actually…’ we both began.
As we explained that we did in fact plan to have children, and that actually we had a couple on the way, his face fell.
In the midst of mounting joy and excitement, there was more heartbreak for me. The second attempt, in early December, did result in the detection of the pregnancy hormone. But a week later Somya rang to say that the embryo had no heartbeat. To add to my anguish, she asked us for £1000 to carry out an assisted abortion. We were stunned, why would it cost so much? But we were in no position to argue so we transferred the money and I grieved once again. Pregnancies had failed with two different surrogates. Was I the problem? Or was it simply bad luck? There was no way to know. I asked Somya if I could try once more.
‘You may not know this Mr Andrew, but the government here in India has banned commercial surrogacy for all single people, including those who are gay. Only heterosexual couples married for a minimum of two years will be allowed to use the services of a surrogate. We are unable to proceed with any further attempts.’
For me it seemed that the journey to having my own biological child was over. John assured me we would try again, but I couldn’t see how. I had to find a way to put my sense of loss behind me and concentrate on our future. The twins’ birth date was just a few weeks away and we began collecting nursery furniture; cots and prams, blankets and baby grows, double of everything, for the flat and for Long River.
The birth would be on March 25. ‘If you are here on that day you can meet your babies straight away,’ Somya told us. ‘Then you can take them home with you.’
We knew it wouldn’t be as simple as she made it sound. It might take weeks, possibly even months before we would be allowed to bring the babies to England. They would need British passports before they could get exit visas. Two months earlier the UK Government website advising on international surrogacy had stated that the passport processing time in India was six weeks. A month later that had been altered to eight weeks and that had since changed to three months before settling for four months or more!
We greeted these announcements with increasing dismay. The change in surrogacy laws appeared to be affecting even the British end of things. Unless they were just being bloody minded, which we thought was entirely possible. We were going to have to be prepared for quite a wait.
Our plan was to travel out together and to spend two weeks getting to know the babies. Then John would go home to work, visiting when he could, and I would remain in India with them until we could all travel home together.
‘Mr John is the father so he will need a medical visa,’ Somya advised. ‘You Mr Andrew, not being related to the twins, may apply for a normal tourist visa.’ I winced. She certainly had a way with words.
John duly applied for his medical visa, while I got a tourist visa again. Then John was told by the Indian visa processing centre in Middlesex that they were unable to process his visa as the new surrogacy rules did not allow for anyone not heterosexually married for two years to travel on a medical visa in connection with surrogacy. They explained that he would have to resolve this directly with the Indian High Commission in London. This he attempted to do, but at every turn he was stalled. Vague promises were made that the visa would eventually be granted and meanwhile they would not allow John, while the medical visa was pending, to revert to a simple tourist visa. He appeared to be, in effect, banned from going to India for the birth of his children.
With the deadline for the birth drawing close and no sign of the visa, we became increasingly frantic. In an attempt to break the deadlock, John went to the Indian High Commission in London, where he waited for quite some time in a small, empty room. When eventually someone spoke to him it was to say, ‘We have no update on your visa application – it is still pending’.
John, even-tempered and calm in the face of most provocations, was reduced to shouting, ‘But my bloody children will be born in seven days, in India and I need to be there.’
The response? ‘We will notify you of any outcome in due course.’
When he came home and told me what had happened, we were both torn between dismay and disbelief. We sat slumped and despairing, wondering what on earth to do.
Eventually John, ever practical, took his head out of his hands.
‘There’s nothing else for it,’ he told me. ‘You’re going to have to go alone.’
Posted on September 2, 2020 September 2, 2020 Author diaryofagaydad.netCategories ChildrenTags author, Children, Diary, Diversity, Family, Family life, Food, Home Life, Lifestyle, moon, People, Relationships, truestory
7 thoughts on “In Celebration of Tonight’s Full Moon…”
What a gripping story, Andi. I felt your emotion from the highs and excitement to the lows. What a gift you have created for your kids as well to enjoy and to take it all in one day.
Thank you Ab. And sorry for d sad light delay in getting back to you. Hoping you are all well.
I will start fining you for late responses! 🤣 Just kidding. Enjoy the rest of your summer!!! It’s flying by way too quickly.
Haha… my predictive text is making typos galore at present! It thank you for seeing past that…
Welcome autumn! Though October now sees the leaf loss…
Goodbye to summer – the year has sped by……………
The process sounds nerve racking. Even knowing your girls are healthy and home with you now, my heart still aches for you and John as I read about your struggles. ((HUGS))
All this trouble with passports and visas really puts mine in perspective, Andi. Unfortunately, I spilled hand gel on my passport (don’t recommend storing these two items close together…) and it blurred the photo. So, I’ve had to apply for a new one but because of covid it took 4 weeks for my old passport to travel from Slovenia to UK, and it’s still being processed two months later. Good job I don’t need to go anywhere in a hurry…
Haha! Oh dear… hand gel and passports! Must remember that. And so sorry about the long processing time! And yes, you seem firmly planted now! That’s a good feeling 😊
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Stratford on Avon Wont Take Brum and Coventry Overpill
August 31, 2014 August 31, 2014 / andrew lainton / Leave a comment
Stratford Herald
THERE is currently no evidence to suggest that the Stratford district should take overspill housing from the cities of Birmingham or Coventry.
This is one of the conclusions of a report being presented to Stratford-on-Avon District Council’s ruling cabinet at its meeting on Monday 8th September.
The report forms part of the council’s response to public consultation on the “soundness” of the authority’s proposed core strategy that will be considered at a special full meeting of the council on 15th September.
The council is aiming for a target of 10,800 new homes in the district in the 20-year period from 2011 to 2031.
This figure is now being questioned by the Council to Protect Rural England (CPRE) which claims changed population forecasts mean the figure should be 6,000 at most. Some developers, however, claim the figure should be over 20,000.
The report states: “Immediately adjoining councils are all maintaining the position that their own plans will provide fully for the housing need arising in their areas.
“In contrast, Birmingham City Council has published a plan that fails to meet identified need within the city boundary. Coventry City Council is preparing to consult on plans to meet a housing need of at least 23,600, having to date been able to identify options to accommodate only 16,500 homes within the existing urban area.
“It is therefore considering further sites both within the administrative area of the city and in discussion with adjacent authorities.”
It says Birmingham is also working with a number of its neighbours to assess the capacity to meet need within the Greater Birmingham and Solihull area.
“Given these facts, suggestions that Stratford-on-Avon district will need to accommodate housing growth to meet need arising from either Birmingham or Coventry are conjecture,” say the council officials.
“It is not unreasonable to take the view that the need arising from each of these cities could be made without recourse to development in Stratford-on-Avon district.
“A commitment to accommodate additional development at this point would be premature. To delay this plan further and wait to see how matters elsewhere unfurl would be inappropriate.”
Brandon Lewis Celebrates Defeat of Bungalows Scheme
24 Dash – 6 bungalows causing traffic chaos – mmmm
New Housing and Planning Minister Brandon Lewis – who has used his first month in the role to promote the building of bungalows – has welcomed the news that plans for some affordable housing association bungalows have been kicked out by planners.
Writing in his latest newsletter, the MP called the decision to block Saffron Housing Trust’s plans to build eight affordable rent homes in his parliamentary constituency of Great Yarmouth a “success”.
Saffron hoped to develop six bungalows and two houses at a site on Salisbury Road.
This month, Lewis called for more bungalows to be built across the country, telling the Daily Telegraph that “we should be looking to love bungalows a little bit more”.
The minister wrote in his newsletter that the scheme was “set to cause traffic chaos” and singled out “out-of-touch” Labour councillors who “ignored strong local opposition for plans to force yet more housing on our community”.
Lewis said that residents were “horrified” to see councillors “defying the will of local people and voting in support of the plans”.
The MP added that all of Great Yarmouth Borough Council’s Conservative councillors “voted to reject this misguided scheme”.
Lewis has frequently called for new UK housing to be built since being made minister for housing and planning by David Cameron in July, and has particularly singled out the work of housing associations for praise.
Speaking during a tour of a £200m regeneration scheme in London earlier this month, the MP said that HAs were playing a “vital role” in delivering the “affordable homes that families need”.
And speaking at a special event by social landlord the Accord Group to build two homes in a day, Lewis reiterated that “we need to build more homes in this country”.
However, his apparent delight in Saffron’s failure to secure permission to build the new affordable bungalows in his own constituency seems at odds with his proclamations on development across the rest of the country.
In his interview with the Telegraph, Lewis said: “Representing Great Yarmouth we have got a few areas that have got quite large bungalows and some very, very nice bungalow properties.”
In a statement, Saffron said: “We can confirm that it was Saffron Housing Trust who had applied for planning permission to build homes on the site at Salisbury Road in Great Yarmouth. This was for eight properties: two houses and six bungalows.”
Saffron has not yet decided whether it will appeal the planning decision.
As Many as 40 Garden Cities Needed – Wolfson Prize Finalists
Final submissions for the £250,000 Wolfson Economics Prize published
Exhibition of entries to open on 4 September in London
As many as 40 new garden cities, each containing between 10,000 and 50,000 homes, should be built over the next 20 years if politicians are serious about solving Britain’s housing crisis, according to finalists for the 2014 Wolfson Economics Prize.
The new figures are revealed in the five final submissions being published today by the Prize secretariat, ahead of the announcement of the overall winner at next Wednesday 3rd September’s gala dinner at the Royal Institute of British Architects. Each finalist is hoping to win the £250,000 prize, the second biggest economics prize in the world after the Nobel Prize. All other finalists will receive a £10,000 prize.
The publication of the final five entries reveals that three of the five finalists independently suggest an ambitious programme of 30-40 new garden cities to meet future housing need. An extensive poll of over 6,000 people earlier in the year carried out by Populus showed widespread support for garden cities among the population, with 74% of those polled agreeing that garden cities are a good idea. Support was also strong among Conservative (80%) and UKIP (73%) voters. 68% of respondents also agreed that garden cities would protect more countryside from development than the alternatives.
The five finalists’ entries are summarised below:
Planning and design consultancy Barton Willmore, supported by financial modelling from EC Harris and inputs from Pinsent Mason, Propernomics and others, suggest four garden city ‘types’, including the ‘greening’ of existing new towns, to deliver up to 40 new garden cities. Each garden city would deliver 40-50,000 homes built over the next 25 years, as well as 40-50,000 jobs. A Royal Commission, and Garden City Mayors heading up local Garden City Commissions, would be appointed to champion garden cities and find specific locations for development in the broad regions mapped in the submission. 35% of new homes would be affordable housing for those on low incomes.
David Rudlin (in collaboration with Dr Nick Falk, Pete Redman and Jon Rowland) argues for the near-doubling of existing large towns in line with garden city principles, to provide 86,000 new homes for 150,000 people built over 30-35 years. The entry imagines a fictional town called Uxcester to develop the concept, and applies that concept to Oxford (2011 population: 150,000) as a case study, showing how Oxford could rival the strategy adopted by Cambridge for growth and expansion. David argues that there may be as many as 40 cities in England that could be doubled in size in this way, such as York, Norwich, Stafford and Cheltenham. 20% of new homes would be affordable housing.
Wei Yang & Partners and Peter Freeman (in collaboration with Buro Happold, Shared Intelligence and Gardiner & Theobald) argue that an ‘arc’ (stretching from Southampton to Oxford to Cambridge to Felixstowe) is the best location for a first round of new garden cities; and uses a model of 10,000 homes (25,000 people) and 10,000 jobs to test a strategy for perhaps 30-40 garden cities built over 10-15 years. 30% of new homes would be affordable housing. The entry invites Local Authorities to ask Government to establish a locally-controlled Garden City Development Corporation, with compulsory purchase powers, using the existing New Towns Act 1981. The Development Corporation would establish a joint venture with a Master Developer to secure delivery at no cost to the Treasury.
Chris Blundell argues that a garden city should be developed south-east of Maidstone (Kent) to accommodate around 15,000 homes (about the size of Letchworth Garden City), coupled with major improvements to the local transport network including a new HS1 station. Delivery should be led by a Garden City Development Corporation with long term management of the garden city being undertaken by a Community Council, which would receive a share of the surplus arising from development. 40% of new homes would be affordable housing. The design and character of development should be developed through extensive community engagement, and reflect local character and distinctiveness. The new garden city would contribute up to £400m annually to the local economy during its construction and support the development of a new engineered homes manufacturing sector.
Shelter, the leading housing and homelessness charity (in collaboration with architects PRP, with advice from KPMG LLP, Laing O’Rourke plc and Legal & General) proposes a new garden city on the Hoo Peninsula in Medway, Kent. Commencing with a settlement of 15,000 homes (36,000 people – about the size of Letchworth Garden City) built over 15 years, Stoke Harbour would eventually grow into a garden city of 60,000 homes (144,000 people – slightly smaller than Oxford). The entry proposes a new model designed to attract massive private investment into the provision of high quality homes, jobs, services and infrastructure. New polling for Shelter in the submission shows that 55% of people in Medway support a new garden city on the Hoo Peninsula compared to just 33% who oppose. 37.5% of new homes would be affordable housing.
Founder of the Prize, Lord (Simon) Wolfson of Aspley Guise, said:
“We urgently need to build more houses in Britain. I am delighted that this year’s Wolfson Economics Prize has generated so many powerful and creative proposals for new garden cities. Together these entries present an overwhelming argument in favour of a new approach to solving our housing crisis.”
Prize Director Miles Gibson added:
“Our expert finalists have produced a spectacular range of ideas in their final submissions. Their entries spurred us to create a fantastic exhibition about the Prize at The Building Centre. Trevor Osborne and his fellow judges now have the unenviable and difficult task of choosing an overall winner.”
Press enquiries about the Prize, including requests for media places at the 3 September dinner, can be directed to John Higginson at Westbourne Communications Ltd, 07920 701 693.
1. At £250,000 the Wolfson Economics Prize is the second-biggest cash economics prize in the world, after the Nobel Prize. This year the prize seeks to find the best answer to the following question: “How would you deliver a new Garden City which is visionary, economically viable, and popular?”
2. The 2014 Prize topic was announced on 14 November 2013 and the entry deadline was 3 March 2014. Entrants were asked to provide an essay (‘Primary Submission’) of 10,000 words (plus non-technical summary of 1,000 words) on the Prize Question. Five finalists (and a selection of smaller prize winners) were announced on 4 June 2014 and the finalists were given until 11 August to refine their submissions. The winner will be announced on 3 September 2014 at a gala dinner and awards ceremony.
3. The Wolfson Economics Prize will hold an exhibition about the Prize at The Building Centre, London, supported by The Building Centre Trust, the Royal Town Planning Institute and Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation. The exhibition will run from 4 September to 29 September 2014 and will then be available to other interested organisations in a touring format. The Building Centre is a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to advancing innovation in the built environment. Since 1932 it has delivered an internationally recognised programme of events and exhibitions that inspire, inform, educate and campaign across the construction professions, while also raising awareness and delivering information to the general public.
4. The five finalists for the 2014 Prize, and the highlights of their submissions, are:
Chris Blundell is Director of Development and Regeneration at Golding Homes, a major affordable housing provider in Kent, but has submitted his entry in a personal capacity. He has over 20 years’ experience at Director level working for housing associations in London and the South East. He is a Fellow of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) and the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH). He holds an MA in Housing Policy, plus an MSc (Property Development and Investment) and an MBA from City University of Hong Kong where he spent six years as a senior lecturer in Housing and Public Administration. He is currently studying for an MSc in building conservation. Chris is a Trustee of the RICS Research Trust and an External Examiner to housing degree courses for De Montfort University and City University of Hong Kong. He is a former Board member of Newlon, a major Housing Association in London, and is Chair of Outward, who provide care and support for over 1,100 vulnerable adults in North and East London.
Established in 1936, Barton Willmore is the UK’s largest independent planning-led town-planning and design consultancy with 11 offices. They are engaged in projects across the UK and abroad, from new harbour facilities in Aberdeen to unlocking major residential schemes in Ebbsfleet; and are behind the design and planning of several new cities in China and the Middle East. Barton Willmore has driven the development of new communities, including Bicester Eco-town, the French EcoCities Programme, and our own New Market Towns concept. They seek to bring innovation and realism to our projects, elements crystallised in their entry. Barton Willmore’s prize submission was led by James Gross, Masterplanning Director and urban designer with 20 years of development experience in the UK and internationally. A wider Barton Willmore team was supported by a multi-disciplinary ‘think-tank’ of developers, landowners, former Government officials and specialists in fields of taxation, planning law and design.
David Rudlin’s entry draws on the work of Dr Nicholas Falk who for many years has been exploring the application continental models of housing development to the UK. Both are associated with URBED (Urbanism Environment Design), an urban design and research practice, founded by Nicholas Falk in the mid-1970s in Covent Garden and now constituted as a cooperative, based in Manchester and headed by David Rudlin. The essay also draws on the advice from others within URBED with additional contributions from Jon Rowland, Pete Redman and Joe Ravetz. David Rudlin is a planner by training and has been responsible for a number of large masterplans across the UK as well as research reports for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the Urban Task Force and the Government. Nicholas Falk is an urban economist who has been one of the UK’s leading urban thinkers for 40 years. Together they co-authored the book ‘Sustainable Urban Neighbourhoods’ published by Routledge in 2009.
Shelter is England’s leading housing and homelessness charity. They help over three million people a year struggling with bad housing or homelessness, and campaign to prevent it in the first place. Whether they are offering expert advice to a family struggling to keep up with high rents, or hearing from frustrated young people losing hope of ever affording a stable home, the national housing shortage is the root cause of many of the issues we see every day. Shelter believe that they have developed a robust and workable policy programme for the next government that – with the necessary political will – can turn the tide on the housing shortage within a single parliament. As part of this programme of investment and reform to the land and house building markets, Shelter believe that developing new garden cities can help fill the gap between the homes we have and the homes we need. Toby Lloyd, Shelter’s Head of Policy, has used his years of experience designing house building strategies across the voluntary, public and private sectors, and the expertise of Shelter’s corporate partners, to create the charity’s vision for delivering a new garden city.
Wei Yang & Partners is a London-based practice with an international portfolio of master planning, town planning, urban design and architectural projects. The company was founded in response to the diverse challenges of sustainable development worldwide and is driven by a commitment to promote design excellence, truly sustainable environments and liveable cities. In addition to its work in the UK, Wei Yang & Partners is also promoting the garden city concept in China. Managing Director Dr Wei Yang has been seconded by the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office and UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) as the Principal Planning Expert to the Chinese Ministry of Housing & Urban-Rural Development. Patricia Willoughby, the principal author, brings 30 years’ experience of working with development corporations and planning large scale mixed use developments. Peter Freeman founded property developers Argent in 1981 with brother Michael and has remained part of the business ever since. Argent has a reputation for delivering some of the best known mixed-use projects in the UK, including the regeneration of King’s Cross in London. Lee Shostak of Shared Intelligence, former Director of Planning at Milton Keynes Development Corporation, also brings delivery and economic development expertise. Buro Happold and Gardiner & Theobald contributed sustainable engineering and cost planning advice respectively.
5. The Prize entry from Dr Susan Parham (University of Hertfordshire) and others has been published today on the Wolfson Prize website, in recognition of its ideas on how to intensively engage local communities on garden city proposals.
6. Other features of the competition’s first round (as announced on 4 June 2014) included:
A total of 279 entries to the competition.
20 entries from children under 16 years, including the youngest ever entrant to the Wolfson Economics Prize, Ewan Frearson, who is aged 6 and lives in Letchworth (Hertfordshire), the world’s first garden city. Along with Michael Fennell from London and Louis Upsall from Warminster (Wiltshire), both aged 12, Ewan receives a £50 prize. Louis wants to be an architect when he is older. Year 6 of St Anthony’s School, Hampstead, London, win a prize of £500 for their school for their entries. A selection of the school’s entries, plus Ewan, Michael and Louis’s entries, have been published on the Wolfson Economics Prize website. Photographs of these entrants are available from Westbourne Communications Ltd.
In keeping with the international profile of the Prize, entries were received from around the world, including Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore and the USA, as well as from all over the UK.
Entries were received from a wide variety of disciplines. Many entries were collaborative. We received entries from architects, designers, planners, house builders, land agents, promoters, surveyors, developers, economists, academics, students, ‘think tanks’, local authorities, children, retired civil servants, and ordinary members of the public.
132 entrants (47%) suggested a target population for their proposed new city. The median settlement size proposed was 50,000 people – slightly larger than Welwyn Garden City.
118 entrants (42%) of entrants illustratively identified a potential location for a new garden city.
7. Other prizes, known as ‘Light Bulb’ prizes, have been awarded to entrants whose entries address aspects of the Prize Question in particularly innovative, creative or otherwise outstanding ways. The fund for these Prizes is £10,000.
8. The full Rules for the competition, the entrants Information Booklet, and other material related to the Prize, is available atwww.wolfsonprize.org.uk. The Prize secretariat tweets from @WEP2014.
9. Details of the polling findings referred to were published in a separate press notice issued on Tuesday 3 June and are available on the Prize website at www.wolfsonprize.org.uk
10. The Wolfson Prize was founded in 2011 by Lord (Simon) Wolfson of Aspley Guise. There has been one previous competition, on the topic of the Eurozone. The winner of the 2012 Prize was Roger Bootle with Capital Economics. The prize is sponsored by the Charles Wolfson Charitable Trust, a family charity, and managed by Policy Exchange, the independent London-based think tank.
11. Simon Wolfson, the Founder of the Wolfson Economics Prize, has been Chief Executive of Next plc since 2001, a company he joined as a Sales Assistant in 1991. Since his appointment as Chief Executive Next profits have more than doubled with earnings per share compounding at 16% per annum. Simon was created a Tory Peer in 2010. Simon’s long standing interest in better housing, the social and economic benefits it can bring to the UK are born of years of experience trading the length and breadth of the UK.
12. Miles Gibson is Director of the Wolfson Economics Prize. He has taken a formal career break from the UK civil service to become the Prize Director for the Wolfson Economics Prize 2014. His civil service career spans more than a decade and includes senior roles in the Department for Communities and Local Government, HM Treasury, and the Cabinet Office. He has worked with and for most of the leading politicians of our generation in roles which have made him a recognised public policy expert in the areas of housing, land use, infrastructure and property taxation. He is a fully qualified town planner and also has a degree in architecture.
13. Trevor Osborne is Chair of the 2014 Wolfson Economics Prize judges and is one of Britain’s leading property developers. Through his current company, The Trevor Osborne Property Group Limited, he has built award-winning mixed-use, commercial, leisure and residential projects, often in historical buildings and often partnering with Councils and other public sector organisations. From 1991-92, Trevor was the President of the British Property Federation. From 1980-1982 he was the Leader of Wokingham District Council.
14. The four other Judges for the 2014 Prize are:
Professor Denise Bower is the Executive Director of the Major Projects Association (MPA) and the Director of the Engineering Project Academy (EPA) and Professor of Engineering Project Management at the University of Leeds. She is a member of Infrastructure UK’s Infrastructure Client Group and its Cost Review Steering Group, chair of the Institution of Civil Engineer’s (ICE) Capacity Building Panel, a member of the State of the Nation Infrastructure Scorecard steering group (also at the ICE), and an Associate Member of an All Party Parliamentary Group on Smart Cities. She was a member of Construction Industry Strategy Advisory Council which wrote Construction 2025 (the Government’s industrial strategy for the construction sector). Denise has published widely in academic journals and authored and co-authored key text books on the subject of engineering project management.
David Cowans is Group Chief Executive of Places for People and has 30 years’ extensive experience of housing, urban regeneration, mixed-use development, financial management, and of leading strategic change in both large and small organisations. He is a Chartered Director of the Institute of Directors, a Fellow of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, Chartered Member of the Institute of Housing, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a Member of The Institute of Residential Property Management.
Pascal Mittermaier is the Director of Sustainability EMEA and Project Director, Elephant & Castle Regeneration at Lend Lease. From 2002-2007 he was the President of Swiss healthcare company Roche, based in Montreal and from 2007-2010 CEO of Roche in Milan.
Tony Pidgley CBE is the Chairman of The Berkeley Group. He left school at 15 to form his own company in haulage and plant hire. At 21, he sold his business to Crest Homes and became a Building Director reporting to their Managing Director, Jim Farrer. In 1975, Tony and Jim left to form Berkeley Homes. The company enjoyed considerable growth over the following 10 years. It floated on the Unlisted Securities Market in 1984, and then gained a full listing in 1985 as The Berkeley Group plc.
Pro Union Businesses Fear Nat Planning Discrimination
More than a hundred Scottish business leaders wanted to sign a letter backing the Union but stayed silent because they feared “consequences” from the SNP Government, it has been claimed.
Gavin Hewitt, the former Scotch Whisky Association chairman who helped gather signatures, said around half the executives he approached agreed the business case for independence was not yet made but declined to go public amid worries of a Nationalist backlash.
More than half a dozen industry leaders feared planning applications would be stonewalled by SNP-run local authorities if they spoke out, Mr Hewitt alleged in an interview with The Telegraph.
He added that other business leaders worried Scottish Government grants and procurement contracts would dry up if they went public with concerns.
In one specific case, executives with worries about independence declined to speak out because they were involved in a merger between two spirits companies looking for Government support, according to Mr Hewitt.
Asked who was to blame for the fear of speaking out, Mr Hewitt said: “The SNP Government is entirely to blame because it is so tribal. Anyone who actually opposes the Government is in their sights, frankly.”
The worrying claims reignite allegations made earlier this year that the SNP has intimidated businesses and institutions to stay silent over the risks of independence. The Scottish Government has vehemently denied the allegations.
Alistair Carmichael, Scottish Secretary, demanded Alex Salmond “call off the dogs” and make clear businessmen can discuss independence without “fear” of consequences. A spokesman for the First Minister said Mr Hewitt’s claims about the SNP both at a national and local level are “simply untrue”, while an SNP spokesman called the allegations “patently wrong”.
The claims follow the publication of a letter on Wednesday signed by more than 120 industry leaders backing the Union and warning that the “business case for independence has not been made”.
Among the signatures was Keith Cochrane, Weir Group chief executive, Audrey Baxter, executive chairman of Baxters Food Group, Boyd Tunnock CBE and Ian Curle, the chief executive of Eddington, which owns the whisky brands The Macallan and The Famous Grouse.
In one of the most significant interventions by the business community in the referendum campaign, industries as diverse as publishing, banking, hairdressing, engineering and art dealing were represented among the signatories.
“Uncertainty surrounds a number of vital issues, including currency, regulation, tax, pensions, EU membership and support for our exports around the world – and uncertainty is bad for business,” the letter read.
“As job creators we have looked carefully at the arguments by both sides of the debate. Our conclusion is that the business case for independence has not been made.”
“We should be proud that Scotland is a great place to build businesses and create jobs – success that has been achieved as an integral part of the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom gives business the strong platform we must have to invest in jobs and industry. By all continuing to work together, we can keep Scotland flourishing.”
Organisers insisted the letter was signed in a personal capacity by the business leaders and was not affiliated to any political party or independence campaign.
However as the pronouncement begun to make headlines across the UK it was claimed scores more business leaders had refused to sign the letter despite agreeing with its content for fear of retribution.
Amanda Harvie, former chief executive of Scottish Financial Enterprise who helped gather signatures, said a “significant number” of old colleagues and contacts had declined to sign despite backing the letter’s message.
She told this newspaper business people were “fearful of the potential consequences of making their views known”, including employees at organisations that held Government contracts, wanted public grants or were submitting planning applications.
She also named professional services, construction and development, and financial services as industries where leaders had behaved in this way.
Asked what was meant by consequences, Ms Harvie said she was talking about what would happen if someone was “deemed to fall foul of the political view in the Scottish Government”.
“People are concerned that if they voice an opposing view, in other words against the prospects of independence, [then] grants, contracts, potential applications for planning may be threatened,” Ms Harvie said.
“Now the very fact that that perception exists, which is does, is deeply damaging and unhealthy for Scotland.”
Ms Harvie added she would be “very unhappy” if any Scottish Government minister or civil servants were to approach signatories about signing the letter.
Mr Hewitt, a former British diplomat for more than 30 years, estimated more than a hundred Scottish business leaders declined to publicly back the letter despite agreeing with its contents for fear of consequences from the SNP Government.
“I think we have seen right throughout the whole of this debate, and frankly in Government, that dissent is not permitted within the SNP ranks,” said Mr Hewitt, claiming that the party had been “pretty heavy handed” with business leaders who opposed independence.
It is understood the backlash against Barrhead Travel, Scotland’s largest independent travel company which faced boycott calls after its founder warned of the impact of independence, is believed to have put some leaders off speaking out.
Mr Carmichael said: “Alex Salmond now has to call off the dogs and make it clear that business people and anyone else can speak out without fear of unfair treatment in the future. This has got to come from the top.”
A spokesman for the First Minister said the claims were “simply untrue” and noted comments by the pro-independence group Business for Scotland dismissing the business letter. Tony Banks, chair of Business for Scotland, said its 2,500 members all believe “Scottish independence is in the best interests of Scotland and Scottish business”.
An SNP spokesperson: “These claims are patently wrong – for the No campaign to say that business is being stopped from speaking out on the very day they are saying business is speaking out is extremely foolish. The reality is that more business people back a Yes vote, as we will hear from over 150 Yes-supporting business people this week.”
Cherwell Buys MOD Land for UKs Largest Self Build Scheme
Cherwell DC has overseen the purchase of Ministry of Defence (MoD) land that could pave the way for the completion of 1,900 new homes making it the country’s first large-scale self-build community.
Following yesterday’s exchange of contracts between Cherwell and the Defence Infrastructure Organisation, the MoD agency responsible for property, plans are now afoot to develop not just new homes at the 187 hectare site at Graven Hill in Bicester, Oxfordshire.
In addition to the 1,900 new homes, the development will also include scope for one million square feet of commercial space and the creation of up to 2,000 new jobs and apprenticeships.
The self-build concept has been designed to flexibly meet the needs and budgets of future residents, with 30% of the new homes to be classed as affordable. Provision has been made for kit-homes ready bought from catalogues through to custom build projects – where the owner designs the property and employs contractors to build it.
Not only would properties vary in size, from detached, semi-detached to terraced homes, apartments and bungalows, but different ownership tenures would be available – including outright ownership, shared ownership and renting.
Cllr Barry Wood, leader of Cherwell DC said:The sale of this site is representative of several years’ work behind the scenes to secure this purchase and completes the first stage of our vision to deliver the UK’s largest self build community.
The next phase of this innovative project is to start undertaking the practical steps to prepare the site for the delivery of these new homes and jobs, Cllr Wood said.
Gobshite Alert Minister Says Unemployment Caused by Moaning About Unemployment
Unemployed young people are being put off even trying to find work because of the ‘morally reprehensible’ doom and gloom spread about the jobs market by Labour, the employment minister has said.
Esther McVey said there are ‘more than enough’ businesses willing to give young people a chance.
But she said jobless youths are giving up before they even start to look for work because of the ‘relentless negativity’ about their prospects.
Miss McVey, 46, who previously said young people should be prepared to take lowly jobs in coffee shops if they want to get on in life, said jobseekers should be more optimistic about their chances.
She told the Mail: ‘For too long now, young people have been subjected to relentless negativity about the state of the workplace that is waiting for them when they finish their study, training or apprenticeship.
‘I meet with thousands of young people a year and they all say the negative picture painted by opposition politicians about young people and their bleak future has a very negative effect on them.
‘It saps their confidence and energy before they even look for the job and crushes their spirit so much that it forces them to give up trying.
Leonora Rozee Slams Complications of Reformed Planning System
A damning indictment from Leonora Rozee on how complicated the reforms of the planning system has become on Linked-In
“We are rapidly reaching the stage where no-one will actually have any idea of what our English planning system is any more. (Have we already reached it?). The only sensible solution is a wholesale review from top to bottom of why we need a planning system and what it needs to comprise, with the result set out in a single Act supported by such regulations, policy and guidance as are necessary to enable all to understand it. We now have a complete mess as successive governments have fiddled and changed what is there without thinking through exactly what it is they are trying to achieve – other than the much expressed desire for a simpler system with increased community involvement! If this Government want to get rid of it completely, then be honest and do so – not death by a thousand statutes, regulations, policies and guides.”
How the London Plan Examination Might Play Out
The key issue will be the massive housing need shortfall and potential overspill outside London.
The Mayor has written to other authorities requesting they look at the implications of this but has not formally requested overspill or Green Belt reviews. The Mayor does not consider there needs to be a Green Belt review in London till 2025, conveniently just outside the 10 year housing requirements for borough local plans.
The SDS is pre 2004 act and localism act so no soundness or DTC requirements.
However the panel is very likely to conclude there is a housing shortfall and that it would be inequitable to suggest a Green Belt review outside London but not inside.
The panel cannot however conclude the plan is unsound, not DTC compliant or make binding recommendations. The Mayor can therefore ignore the recommendation unless the SoS intrvenes.
This will spark chaos as the paanel will likley find an overspill need without any allocation of it making local plans in ROSE grind to a halt whiulsst they are required to conduct additional Green Belt reviews.
The most likely scenario is that ROSE authorities challenge the FALP on EU SEA directive requirements as it was part of a wider ‘plan or programme’ for meeting Londons OAN in full biut did not consider a reasonable alternative, meeting the over spill in ful or part in London in whatever form. Of course the soundness test and DTX applies to individual Boroughs plans so objections when they submit from ROSE authorities is likely to bring their plan making to a halt.
A rational SOS and Mayor would forsee this and commission a strategic study for meeting London’s overspill need through new Garden Cities – but unlikely this side of the election.
Westminster plan to build on Playground – and put Kids underground
Ros Wyn Jones
“A few weeks ago I went to a public meeting at the heart of a sprawling 1950s council estate in central London. The community centre was packed and airless. Tempers were flaring.
“You say you’re regenerating the estate, but how come our kids are losing their playground?” one mother shouted. “Why should we believe a word that comes out of your mouths?”
Families in the meeting at Churchill Gardens showed me an architect’s drawing that had an old people’s home on top of a huge section of the local primary school’s playground.
A previous public meeting had been told the playground would move underground. Now, local Labour councillors have launched a petition to save it.
“You’ve never heard anything like it,” Emma Taylor, 43, a mother of five whose daughter attends Churchill Gardens Academy, told me. “An underground playground! Because our kids don’t deserve fresh air, do they? Or apparently daylight, since the three-storey height of the building will take the light from the classrooms.”
Churchill Gardens Academy supports many children with special needs.
“God knows how those children would cope with an underground playground,” Emma says.
Damien Hirst is Not Very good at Sketchup
Hi urban extension on land he owns south of Ilfracombe has been approved. But the sketch up drawings are very amateurish.
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Low-intensity investigations at three small sites along lake xaltocan in the northern Basin of Mexico
Christopher Morehart, Destiny L. Crider
CLAS-SS: Human Evolution and Social Change, School of (SHESC)
This report describes recent low-intensity archaeological investigations conducted at three small sites in the northern Basin of Mexico. The sites are represented by surface artifact scatters and are located on the former shoreline of the now-drained Lake Xaltocan, originally one of the principal lakes in this region. Fieldwork included mapping surface concentrations and site dimensions, conducting test excavations, and recovering surface collections. The analysis of surface artifacts focused on determining site function and chronology. Based on fieldwork and analysis, we propose that Michpilco likely was a habitation site with a substantial occupation during the Classic period. The smaller Non-Grid 5 site was occupied during the Epiclassic period, and site Non-Grid 6 was occupied during the Late Postclassic to colonial periods. These sites reflect occupations in a lacustrine landscape throughout different periods. They also exemplify the rapid disappearance and threat of destruction that looting, infrastructural development, and agriculture pose to archaeological sites in the region.
Latin American Antiquity
https://doi.org/10.7183/1045-6635.27.2.257
10.7183/1045-6635.27.2.257
Fingerprint Dive into the research topics of 'Low-intensity investigations at three small sites along lake xaltocan in the northern Basin of Mexico'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.
Xaltocan Arts & Humanities
artifact Social Sciences
occupation Social Sciences
agriculture Social Sciences
Field Work Arts & Humanities
Site Function Arts & Humanities
Morehart, C., & Crider, D. L. (2016). Low-intensity investigations at three small sites along lake xaltocan in the northern Basin of Mexico. Latin American Antiquity, 27(2), 257-263. https://doi.org/10.7183/1045-6635.27.2.257
Low-intensity investigations at three small sites along lake xaltocan in the northern Basin of Mexico. / Morehart, Christopher; Crider, Destiny L.
In: Latin American Antiquity, Vol. 27, No. 2, 2016, p. 257-263.
Morehart, C & Crider, DL 2016, 'Low-intensity investigations at three small sites along lake xaltocan in the northern Basin of Mexico', Latin American Antiquity, vol. 27, no. 2, pp. 257-263. https://doi.org/10.7183/1045-6635.27.2.257
Morehart C, Crider DL. Low-intensity investigations at three small sites along lake xaltocan in the northern Basin of Mexico. Latin American Antiquity. 2016;27(2):257-263. https://doi.org/10.7183/1045-6635.27.2.257
Morehart, Christopher ; Crider, Destiny L. / Low-intensity investigations at three small sites along lake xaltocan in the northern Basin of Mexico. In: Latin American Antiquity. 2016 ; Vol. 27, No. 2. pp. 257-263.
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AB - This report describes recent low-intensity archaeological investigations conducted at three small sites in the northern Basin of Mexico. The sites are represented by surface artifact scatters and are located on the former shoreline of the now-drained Lake Xaltocan, originally one of the principal lakes in this region. Fieldwork included mapping surface concentrations and site dimensions, conducting test excavations, and recovering surface collections. The analysis of surface artifacts focused on determining site function and chronology. Based on fieldwork and analysis, we propose that Michpilco likely was a habitation site with a substantial occupation during the Classic period. The smaller Non-Grid 5 site was occupied during the Epiclassic period, and site Non-Grid 6 was occupied during the Late Postclassic to colonial periods. These sites reflect occupations in a lacustrine landscape throughout different periods. They also exemplify the rapid disappearance and threat of destruction that looting, infrastructural development, and agriculture pose to archaeological sites in the region.
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Justin Moore’s Next Single Reflects How He’s Living During Pandemic
Justin Moore dropped his live album on Friday (Sept. 25), but he's got 30 songs ready to record and release, including his next radio single.
The "Why We Drink" singer says he had enough for another album at the time he cut his last, Late Nights and Longnecks (2019). He'll dive into that stash as he assembles his next studio album, release date TBD. A song called "We Didn't Have Much" is going to be the radio single, he says.
“It sounds like nothing I’ve ever recorded in my career,” he tells Taste of Country and select media during a conversation centered on Live at the Ryman. “It couldn’t be more country sounding, which I’m obviously happy with."
See Pictures From Justin Moore's Live at the Ryman Concert:
Delivering genuine country music with a traditional bite has been a goal of Moore's in recent years. He described Late Nights and Longnecks as an effort in making a '90s country record, but this new song sounds distinctly 2020. It's about simplifying our lives, he shares. Lyrically it's about a time when "we had it all but we didn't have much."
“Like I’m building a chicken coup right now," Moore says. "We’ll have our own fresh eggs. We planted a garden, which has been fun for the kids but has been lesson-teaching — you put work into something, you get something in return. Relying on your neighbors, I mean this is all cliche, cheesy-sounding stuff, but it’s true, and it’s kind of been our life over the last four or five months."
The singer didn't write the song, so it's a stretch to say it's coronavirus pandemic-inspired, but the vocal performance may be. In addition to writing on Zoom, Moore has been recording with help from the platform. An engineer came to his home and set up a vocal studio, which allowed him to record. All the vocals on his next album, he says, will be from his pool house in Poyen, Ark.
“It was strange, but this technology has allowed us to continue to work on new music and not be completely stopped," he says of Zoom. "It’s a blessing that we have it.”
Live at the Ryman is a 17-song live album recorded at the Ryman Auditorium in May 2018. It includes six of his Billboard Airplay No. 1 singles and rowdy covers of Hank Williams Jr. ("Country State of Mind," featuring Chris Janson), Waylon Jennings ("I Ain't Living Long Like This," featuring David Lee Murphy) and Ricky Skaggs ("Honey," featuring Skaggs and the Whites) songs. Moore says he recorded that night just in case it was a great show and decided to release the album to give fans missing live music something to snack on.
"It was like we went in and played some bar," he shares, speaking to his band's and the crowd's energy. "That was a little surprising."
Valory Music Co.
Country's Hottest Artist? Here's the Top 10 for 2020:
Source: Justin Moore’s Next Single Reflects How He’s Living During Pandemic
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Cannabinoid Receptors
Roger Guy Pertwee
The "Neuroscience Perspectives" series provides multidisciplinary reviews in one of the most diverse and rapidly advancing fields in the life sciences. The recent discovery of cannabinoid receptors and endogenous cannabinoid receptor ligands begins an exciting new phase of cannabinoid research. These studies will extend beyond the realms of pharmacology and molecular biology into the realms of physiology and pathophysiology. Research in this area will lead to a better understanding of how the body functions in both health and disease and will aid in developing new medicines. By bringing together the most recent research in this area and by focusing on possible future developments, this book aims to stimulate much needed input from a wide range of disciplines.
0125514603, 978-0125514606
Neuroscience Perspectives
Fingerprint Dive into the research topics of 'Cannabinoid Receptors'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.
Cannabinoid Receptors Medicine & Life Sciences
Biological Science Disciplines Medicine & Life Sciences
Cannabinoids Medicine & Life Sciences
Neurosciences Medicine & Life Sciences
Molecular Biology Medicine & Life Sciences
Ligands Medicine & Life Sciences
Health Medicine & Life Sciences
Pertwee, R. G. (1995). Cannabinoid Receptors. (Neuroscience Perspectives). Academic Press.
Cannabinoid Receptors. / Pertwee, Roger Guy.
London, United Kingdom : Academic Press, 1995. 264 p. (Neuroscience Perspectives).
Pertwee, RG 1995, Cannabinoid Receptors. Neuroscience Perspectives, Academic Press, London, United Kingdom.
Pertwee RG. Cannabinoid Receptors. London, United Kingdom: Academic Press, 1995. 264 p. (Neuroscience Perspectives).
Pertwee, Roger Guy. / Cannabinoid Receptors. London, United Kingdom : Academic Press, 1995. 264 p. (Neuroscience Perspectives).
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AB - The "Neuroscience Perspectives" series provides multidisciplinary reviews in one of the most diverse and rapidly advancing fields in the life sciences. The recent discovery of cannabinoid receptors and endogenous cannabinoid receptor ligands begins an exciting new phase of cannabinoid research. These studies will extend beyond the realms of pharmacology and molecular biology into the realms of physiology and pathophysiology. Research in this area will lead to a better understanding of how the body functions in both health and disease and will aid in developing new medicines. By bringing together the most recent research in this area and by focusing on possible future developments, this book aims to stimulate much needed input from a wide range of disciplines.
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At Uber’s Dallas Office, These Twentysomethings Are Recruiting Up to 30 New Co-workers a Week
Last Updated on February 3, 2020
The tech company has brought 150 employees on board so far with plans to expand the office to 3,000 by 2023.
On Wall Street, Uber Technologies is struggling to prove itself to investors. It’s gone through several rounds of layoffs as it matures into a company with annual revenue in excess of $11 billion.
But in Dallas, the company is in a markedly different stage: start-up mode. It’s hired the first 150 employees for its new Deep Ellum hub from about 1,000 applicants.
Uber’s two on-the-ground recruiters, Katie Gonzalez and Gianni Sesto, said no job candidates have asked about the company’s financial pressures. If they did, the recruiters said, they’d point to the nearby construction pit where Uber’s new 23-story tower is rising. Uber already leased and moved into a 16-story tower on the same site.
“We’ve made such a huge investment here, and it’s an exciting time,” Gonzalez said.
The San Francisco-based tech giant is ramping up its Dallas presence after announcing in August that it would open a major corporate office and breaking ground in November on a new tower. The hub is expected to grow to 3,000 employees by the end of 2023 and become Uber’s largest office outside of its headquarters.
So far, though, the company is running behind its hiring goals. Last fall, Uber officials said the company would have 400 employees in Dallas by the end of 2019. As of late January, it had about 150. Most new hires are from Dallas, but a handful are existing employees who wanted to transfer.
Uber spokesman Travis Considine acknowledged the company is behind schedule but said it’s unrelated to company finances. Uber reports its year-end results Thursday.
“We’re not at 400 yet, but that isn’t due to any change in strategy or expectations,” he said. “We clearly have no shortage of great candidates, but our recruiting process is a fair, deliberate process.”
The recruiters-in-chief
Gonzalez, 25, who’s based in Washington, D.C., and Sesto, 27, who’s based in San Francisco, moved to Dallas in early October. They’ll spend six months staffing up the new hub. They spend their days sorting through a virtual pile of résumés, screening candidates on the phone and searching LinkedIn for candidates for harder-to-fill positions, such as executive roles or ones that require rarer skills.
Both live in Deep Ellum, close to the company’s hub. For Sesto, Dallas is a familiar city. He lived here for two years when he worked for a finance and accounting company. To get to know the city and describe it to candidates, Gonzalez said she’s been “hitting a new grocery store every weekend.”
About 90% of Uber’s applicants already live in Dallas-Fort Worth, Sesto said. He said it’s a statistic that proves out Uber’s decision to plant its flag in the city.
“Dallas has the workforce to grow and scale an office of this size,” he said.
The other 10% tend to be from other parts of Texas and, in some cases, other parts of the country, he said.
Uber has 30 open jobs listed on its website for the Dallas office. They’re across business divisions from Uber Freight to Uber Eats and in different kinds of corporate roles. So far, most of the filled jobs in Dallas are in sales.
Along with sales, accounting and finance hires, the recruiters are looking for their own successors.
In recruiting calls, Sesto said they pitch the uniqueness of the Dallas experience: It’s a chance to join a giant global company with a “big reach,” but in an office with “a startup feel.”
“For a company the size of Uber, it’s pretty rare to be a part of building a second headquarters,” he said.
When they talk to candidates from outside of Dallas, the recruiters stress the city’s affordability and its cool neighborhoods. Sesto said cost of living is “the biggest selling point.”
Inside the Dallas hub
They also tout company perks: Four months of paid leave for new parents, unlimited paid time off, free catered lunches, a monthly Uber credit, a discount on all rides and food deliveries, and a monthly sum for wellness-related expenses such as massages or gym memberships.
If an applicant looks like a fit, Gonzalez or Sesto screen the candidate on the phone. For the ones who progress, a hiring manager sets up a video call. And if that goes well, Uber invites the candidate to the Deep Ellum office for an on-site interview and tour. The candidate typically does a case study, such as a mock sales pitch or financial model, to show how they work.
During the process, Gonzalez said Uber looks for clues to see whether the person is a cultural fit and has a strong background. To stand out, she said, candidates should “showcase what they’ve been able to accomplish in past roles” and ask their own questions.
“You’re interviewing us, too,” Gonzalez said.
Inside Uber’s office, employees work at long tables and can stop in the kitchen for free snacks. There’s a cereal bar, an espresso machine and typical vending machine fare like M&Ms and bags of chips. A fridge is stocked with hard-boiled eggs, fruit, soda, Topo Chico, Greek yogurt and more.
There are also some of the fixtures common to tech companes: white boards, a foosball table and cold-brew coffee on tap. Employees can work out at a free fitness center down the hall.
Along with filling jobs, the recruiters must help build the office’s culture. They’ve brainstormed Texas-themed names for conference rooms, such as Texas rivers and Texas icons. They started a new annual tradition by throwing a Friendsgiving celebration in November. And they have weekly happy hours and game nights with the office’s supply of free beer and wine.
Each day, there’s a free catered lunch — and that’s often where employees meet the 20 to 30 new colleagues starting each week, Gonzalez said.
Uber wants to expand the office quickly, but it also wants candidates who are the right fit. On a recent tour of the office, Sesto walked by empty desks and conference rooms.
“As you can see, we have a lot of hiring to do,” he said.
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Uber Loses Early Challenge to California Gig-Worker Law
Uber Technologies Inc. failed to persuade a judge to shield its drivers from California’s gig-worker protection law while the company challenges the landmark measure in court. A federal judge in Los Angles rejected a request by Uber and Postmates Inc. to temporarily block enforcement of Assembly Bill 5, which aims to convert gig-economy workers from independent contractors to employees with benefits. Uber and Postmates didn’t ask the judge to shield other companies from the law.
U.S. District Judge Dolly M. Gee had signaled during a Feb. 7 hearing that she would deny the preliminary injunction sought by Uber and Postmates.
Gee concluded in an order posted Monday that the public interest weighs “in favor of permitting the state to enforce this legislation,” while acknowledging the companies’ claim that it poses “irreparable harm” for them.
The status of drivers for the companies is critical to the companies’ business models, and is also of keen interest to potential investors. Postmates said last February that it had filed confidentially for an initial public offering. Since then, the company hasn’t moved ahead publicly with an IPO.
Uber’s $8.1 billion IPO in May was the largest of the year in the U.S. Its shares have sunk 11% since then. Lyft Inc., which raised $2.34 billion in March, has fallen 25% from its offer price.
In the next phase of the case the companies will try to convince Gee that A.B. 5 violates guarantees of equal protection under the federal and state constitutions. But the judge said in her ruling it’s unlikely that Uber and Postmates will prevail on the merits of their claims.California Attorney General Xavier Becerra argued the constitutional claims will fail because the state legislature has a prerogative to stop the gig economy’s exploitation of workers.
“State legislators had the opportunity to expand benefits for hundreds of thousands of independent workers in California, a step Uber has been advocating for and one that other states already have taken,” Uber said in a statement. “Instead, they passed A.B. 5 using a biased and overtly political process that ignored the voices of the workers most affected by the law and granted preferential treatment to an arbitrary group of industries.”
Postmates said the ruling is a disappointment for a pair of workers who joined the companies in filing the suit to “protect their flexibility and income.”
“As witnessed by truckers, freelance journalists, and countless other occupations, A.B. 5 is undercutting workers across the economy, and Postmates remains committed to the modernization of worker classification and worker protections,” the company said in an email.
Becerra’s office said it’s pleased with the ruling and “will continue to defend laws that are designed to protect workers and ensure fair labor and business practices.”
As multiple court battles play out, gig companies are working on other fronts to rein in the law. Uber, Lyft, Postmates, Instacart and DoorDash have pledged $110 million for a ballot measure to change A.B. 5.Signed by California Governor Gavin Newsom in September, A.B. 5 says workers can generally only be considered contractors if they perform duties outside the usual course of a company’s business. Uber filed its suit Dec. 30, two days before A.B. 5 took effect.The case is Olson v. State of California, 2:19-cv-10956, U.S. District Court, Central District of California (Los Angeles).
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howlin' wolf live album
The Howlin' Wolf Album is a 1969 album by Howlin' Wolf, with members of Rotary Connection as his backing band. Howlin' Wolf had a series of hits with songs written by Willie Dixon, who had been hired by the Chess brothers in 1950 as a songwriter, and during that period the competition between Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf was intense. We’ll just drop this stuff in all around you.’”, Wolf’s unease about the project prompted a bold marketing gamble by Marshall Chess, who addressed the issue on the album’s sleeve. Free shipping . His Best (1977) With somewhat subdued but nonetheless solid support from right hand man Hubert Sumlin on lead guitar, Sunnyland Slim on piano, Willie Dixon on upright bass, and Clifton James on drums, Wolf runs through a 45-minute set loaded with classics and presented with a positively genial charm. but if you are already a fan this cd is a great addition to your collection The Day I Found Blues (live at The Howlin' Wolf) 3. Keyboard Warrior (live at The Howlin' Wolf… Howlin' Wolf: Live 1975 (LP, Album, Ltd) Wolf Records (2) NR 120.000: Austria: 1988: Sell This Version This is a reissue of the November 6, 1964, Bremen concert that was previously available as Live in Europe 1964 on the Sundown label, with the same incorrect title references. What is first-rate is the sound, which is head-and-shoulders above most of the Howlin' Wolf live recordings of this period, undoubtedly because the show was part of the American Folk-Blues tour, large chunks of which were recorded professionally, and also the performance, which comes from a time when Wolf was still in very robust health. For licensing inquiries please contact Historic Films Archive (www.historicfilms.com / info@historicfilms.com) CUS OF SON HOUSE ROCKING OUT. In any discussion of Wolf's early success both live, over the airwaves, and on record, the importance of Willie Johnson cannot be overestimated. Of the myriad circulating live Wolf albums of dubious fidelity and legality, this is the best of the bunch, both from an audio standpoint and the pronouncement in the booklet that royalties were indeed being paid to Wolf's widow. [1] [ unreliable source? ] Howlin' Wolf chronology; Live and Cookin' (1972) The Back Door Wolf (1973) London Revisited (1974) The Back Door Wolf is the final studio album by blues musician Howlin' Wolf, released by Chess Records in 1973. This 1964 tour is the one that brought the real thing to locales where he had previously been only a name on a phonograph record, and the romantic notions projected into the sound that record gave off. And to top it off, it's mid-priced. “If I could only have one Howlin’ Wolf album, this would be the one I chose. {Questionable Notes}A2 ("Going Down Slow" The Rockin' Chair Album version [2]) F♯2 ("Tail Dragger" The Howlin' Wolf Album version [3]) D2 ("Back Door Man" The Howlin' Wolf Album version [3]) [1] marks yelps and short trills in high range or anacrusis and short dips in low range. Find album reviews, stream songs, credits and award information for Rockin' the Blues: Live in Germany 1964 - Howlin' Wolf on AllMusic - 2003 - This is a reissue of the November 6, 1964, Bremen… The London Sessions is essential blues.” 4. Find album reviews, stream songs, credits and award information for Live in Europe 1964 - Howlin' Wolf on AllMusic - 1964 - Of the myriad circulating live Wolf albums of… Customers who viewed this item also viewed. all and all a pretty good cd. Weekday Night (live at The Howlin' Wolf) 2. Howlin' Wolf's second compilation album, Howlin' Wolf (often called "the rocking chair album", from its cover illustration), was released in 1962. Howlin' Wolf Featuring Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Bill Wyman, Charlie Watts: Howlin' Wolf Featuring Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Bill Wyman, Charlie Watts - The London Howlin' Wolf Sessions (Album, Comp) 117 versões : Chess: CH-60008: US: 1971: Vender esta versão The lack of Wolf's regular rhythm section (although Dixon played bass on many of the records from this period) lends a different flavor to these versions. i love howlin wolf and would have liked to have heard a few more of his classics but i will take any live wolf i can get. Sweet. Find album reviews, stream songs, credits and award information for Live at Joe's 1973 - Howlin' Wolf & the Wolf Gang on AllMusic - 1995 - On this truly mediocre live disc, Wolf, well past… When Ronnie Wood reminded Classic Rock last year that the pioneers of American blues were “dangerous men”, he hardly needed to name the tyrant-in-chief. Howlin' Wolf (1962): Known (and eventually reissued) as The Rockin' Chair Album. The 1972 live album Live and Cookin' at Alice's Revisited is a great document of Wolf toward the end, still capable of bringing the heat and rocking the house down to the last brick. Just how essential this performance is to a Wolf collection would be in debate, but once you're under the spell, you want to hear it all, and this is a fine addition for someone who's in it for the long haul. WOLF, HOWLIN - Rockin Chair Album + 4 Bonus Tracks - Amazon.com Music ... Live At The Regal [Vinyl] by B.B. Live and Cookin', subtitled at Alice's Revisited, is a live album by blues musician Howlin' Wolf, released by Chess Records in 1972. Howlin' Wolf's self titled second album, which has come to be known as 'The Rockin' Chair Album', was originally released by Chess Records as a collection of 6 singles recorded between 1960 and 1962 and since then it has taken on a life of it's own and become arguably Howlin' Wolf's best known and best loved album. We know from contemporary reports, for example, that Norman Dayron had to hold lyric sheets up for him, and sometimes even whispered lines in his ear just before he sang because Wolf couldn’t remember his own lyrics. Live at The Howlin' Wolf by Gary Johnstone, released 30 July 2017 1. Of special note are the wild and wooly takes on "I Had a Dream," "I Didn't Know," and Muddy Waters' "Mean Mistreater." Pay the Bills (With This Guitar) (live at The Howlin' Wolf) 4. Find Howlin' Wolf … Everything is stretched to a nice, comfortable length here, as Wolf sets both mood and pace, with no tune clocking in at anything less than four minutes and "Goin' Down Slow" and "Forty-Four" reaching the six- and seven-minute mark. Howlin' Wolf strongly disliked the album, which is noted on the album's cover. The Wolf teamed up with a few Brit rockers and cut an album for the ages! In 1969 the songs "Shake for Me" and " Back Door Man " were used in the lyrics to the Led Zeppelin song " Whole Lotta Love ". This is Wolf's portion of the show as part of the traveling American Folk Blues entourage, the first festival type presentation of the whole blues spectrum to invade Europe. Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. ), but as this November 6th performance in Bremen, Germany unfolds, it becomes apparent that the odd titles come from Wolf's introductions. Find top songs and albums by Howlin' Wolf including Smokestack Lightnin', Smokestack Lightnin' and more. 11 on the Hot 100. It’s Howlin’ Wolf with an edge you don’t find on his other albums. In stock on November 23, 2020. This set, recorded live in a small club in 1966, is a treasure. Albums include Moanin' in the Moonlight, Howlin' Wolf, and The London Howlin' Wolf Sessions. The Howlin' Wolf Album is a 1969 album by Howlin' Wolf, with members of Rotary Connection as his backing band. Many of the selections seem mistitled here ("Tell Me What I've Done" is "I Didn't Mean To Hurt Your Feelings," "Shake For Me" is "Shake It For Me," "May I Have A Talk With You" is "Love Me," etc. By the 1960s, Wolf’s chart career was over, but his powerful influence, through his recordings and his live work, continued to be felt. Discover releases, reviews, track listings, recommendations, and more about Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, Howlin' Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson - Folk Festival Of The Blues at Discogs. Even though the drums and Sumlin's guitar are perhaps muted in the mix more than they should be, the overall sound shows just how well these blues veterans worked together. It mixed blues with psychedelic rock arrangements of several of Howlin' Wolf's classic songs. The album peaked at number 69 on Billboard magazine's Black Albums chart. if you love the wolf like i do you will not be dissapointed in this cd at all. More Real Folk Blues is a compilation album by blues musician Howlin' Wolf, released by Chess Records in 1967. [ citation needed ] It includes songs that were recorded in Memphis and Chicago between 1953 and 1956. Howlin Wolf's songs: Listen to songs by Howlin Wolf on Myspace, Stream Free Online Music by Howlin Wolf It's been said that if Muddy Waters had been born in Africa, he would have been a king; this show, which Chess Records could only wish they'd recorded, is a reminder that if Howlin' Wolf had been born in Africa, he'd have been a witch doctor or shaman; he's spellbinding in his performance, and the band backing him (a kind of star combo itself, with Willie Dixon and Sunnyland Slim playing alongside Hubert Sumlin) is tight, if a little restrained. He might have been born Chester Arthur Burnett in 1910, but the nom de guerre Howlin’ Wolf suited the Chicago bluesman better. An intimidating physical presence with a short fuse and zero reverence for the white-boy boomers who … This marriage lasts. In 1966 Cream recorded "Spoonful" on their debut album Fresh Cream, and included a live, 17-minute version on their 1968 album Wheels of Fire. During the blues revival in the 1950s and 1960s, black blues musicians found a new audience among white youths, and Howlin' Wolf … if you are just getting your wolf collection started maybe get a greatest hits. Complete your Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, Howlin' Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson collection. [2] marks notes of questionable identity that cannot be confirmed to the singer in question. Genres: Chicago Blues, Electric Blues, Blues. He tells his new bride, "I wish I'd had you the first day I ever howled." Order it now. King Vinyl $16.90. Howlin' Wolf discography and songs: Music profile for Howlin' Wolf, born 10 June 1910. May 1964. Find Howlin' Wolf discography, albums and singles on AllMusic. Howlin' Wolf (1962): Known (and eventually reissued) as The Rockin' Chair Album. A hypnotic, hugely significant song, Howlin’ Wolf’s recording of ‘Spoonful’ became a blues staple recorded by everyone from Etta James to Cream and beyond. Page 1 of 1 Start over Page 1 of 1 . Wolf ties the knot with his second wife Lillie. [unreliable source?] 1964: Another Wolf album Rocking The Blues - Live In … Few vocalists possess the power and passion of Howlin' Wolf, and he's in great form on "Live In Cambridge, MA 1966." Broke Man's Blues (live at The Howlin' Wolf) 5.
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howlin' wolf live album 2020
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AlumniNews
Pat Summitt (1952–2016)
by Cassandra Sproles October 7, 2016
Lady Vols Head Coach Emeritus Pat Summitt passed away at age 64 on June 28, 2016, after a battle with early-onset Alzheimer’s. She coached for 38 years, won eight NCAA national championships, 32 combined SEC titles, and is the winningest coach in NCAA Division I history. Summitt’s program had a 100 percent graduation rate—every single Lady Vol who completed her eligibility at UT earned a degree. Summitt earned a master’s degree in physical education from the College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences in 1976.
After she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, Summitt and her son, Tyler, started The Pat Summitt Foundation to help put an end to the disease. As the result of a partnership between the foundation and the UT Medical Center, the Pat Summitt Alzheimer’s Clinic will open its doors in December.
Watch videos, read comments, and see photos about the passing of Summitt at tiny.utk.edu/tributes.
Alzheimer'sPat Summitt
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DisneyNews
Toy Story Midway Mania closing at Disney’s Hollywood Studios (for one day)
By ErikFeb 21, 2016, 10:21 am
Say it ain’t so! Toy Story Mania is closing at Walt Disney World’s Hollywood Studios…for one day. The news came across this weekend that to finish up the huge expansion of the ride, it will need to close for a day to get things just right. This comes right before the busy Spring Break season, and in a time that the extra capacity is much needed on the ride that perennially has excruciatingly long wait times.
Toy Story Midway Mania is one of those rides that we’ve only been on once. It’s a great ride, but the wait is always over 90 minutes, with FastPass tickets gone within minutes of the park opening. The ride is so popular that the park is adding a third track to attraction, in hopes that it will make the lines a bit shorter.
So, it came as a shock that the ride will be closing on March 15th. Don’t panic though, it’s just for one day. It’s presumably to get the new track ready for opening. The ride will reopen the next day, though it’s not known if the new track will be part of that reopening. The new track will also not offer any new ride elements, but will just add more capacity.
The park also recently announced that they will be getting an all new Star Wars stage show, and fireworks spectacular later this year, which will make for some really big crowds.
Stay tuned for more from Disney, and be sure to get social with us on Facebook and follow along with us on Twitter @BehindThrills for the latest updates!
For more information about Star Wars at Walt Disney World, including tickets, visit the official website by clicking here!
TAG2016 Attractions Disney's Hollywood Studios Toy Story Mania Walt Disney World
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BREAKING: SeaWorld Orlando Gets Approval to Reopen June 11
Josh D’Amaro named Chairman of Disney Parks, Experiences and Products
Disney Springs to re-open May 20th
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Genesis Chapter 7
Mar 16, 2014 | A Study in Genesis, Studies
(Gen 7:1 NASB) Then the LORD said to Noah, “Enter the ark, you and all your household; for you alone I have seen to be righteous before Me in this time.
Gen 7:1: The ark was now constructed, the animals were assembled, and Grandpa Methuselah, who probably served Elohim longer than any man who had ever lived, was on his deathbed.
(Gen 7:2 NASB) “You shall take with you of every clean animal by sevens, a male and his female; and of the animals that are not clean two, a male and his female;
(Gen 7:3 NASB) also of the birds of the sky, by sevens, male and female, to keep offspring alive on the face of all the earth.
Gen 7:3: Most Christian theologians and scholars believe that man has not been told yet what constitutes a clean animal. Dr. Henry Morris supposes God may have told Noah which ones to specifically take seven of. He also adds that God may have let Noah pick out his favorite animals that he used for domestication and sacrifice. That is ridiculously silly.
There is no hint that this is special revelation to Noah. It is stated as an order which Noah obviously fully comprehended. The logical reason for Noah to have known which animals were clean and which were unclean is for Noah to already have knowledge of Elohim’s Torah.
As mentioned earlier, it makes more sense that Elohim’s Law predated Sinai. Just because the formal writing of the Covenant occurred at Sinai, that time does not mean it wasn’t revealed much earlier. How did Abraham know to follow Elohim’s commandments, statutes, and laws (Gen. 26:4-5)? How did Abraham know to teach his children to follow way of the Elohim as commanded in Torah (Gen. 18:19)? What is the “way of Yahweh?” How did Abraham know what it is? How is this blessing to Abraham almost identical to the one given to over 1000 years later in Psalm 128?
Abraham is given the blessing of many descendants for following Elohim’s statues and His ways. Others are given the same blessing for the same acts thousands of years later. It makes sense that Abraham was doing the same things that Elohim’s Law (Torah) calls for.
How did Joseph know that having relations with Potiphar’s wife was a sin against Elohim (Gen. 39:7-9)? As mentioned earlier, how did Abel know what was a proper sacrifice? To attribute these things to luck, intuition, or even special revelation is not called for by any of these texts. It is much more likely that Elohim’s Word, including His Torah, pre-existed man (John 1:1-2). It is obvious from these texts in Genesis, and others, that Torah was revealed to mankind long before Sinai. Especially since we know that Elohim was still in communication with man after sin came into the world. Elohim still talked with Cain, Abel, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and others.
(Gen 7:4 NASB) “For after seven more days, I will send rain on the earth forty days and forty nights; and I will blot out from the face of the land every living thing that I have made.”
Gen 7:4: This seven day countdown could have had several purposes. It gave Noah a chance for last minute preparations and to get the animals in their stalls. It was also one last warning to the people of that day. This may also have been the period of mourning for Grandpa Methuselah (See Joseph mourning for Jacob in Gen. 50:10).
(Gen 7:5 NASB) And Noah did according to all that the LORD had commanded him.
Gen 7:5: Noah was to do as Elohim had commanded and make a final break with the world around him. He was placing himself totally on Elohim’s mercy. Noah obeyed Elohim without hesitation.
(Gen 7:6 NASB) Now Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of water came upon the earth.
Gen 7:6: Noah has been working on the ark for what was most likely 100 years.
(Gen 7:7 NASB) Then Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him entered the ark because of the water of the flood.
(Gen 7:8 NASB) Of clean animals and animals that are not clean and birds and everything that creeps on the ground,
(Gen 7:9 NASB) there went into the ark to Noah by twos, male and female, as God had commanded Noah.
Gen 7:9: Each animal is represented by a male and a female. Once again, Noah did as he was commanded.
(Gen 7:10 NASB) And it came about after the seven days, that the water of the flood came upon the earth.
(Gen 7:11 NASB) In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the same day all the fountains of the great deep burst open and the floodgates of the sky were opened.
Gen 7:11: Why are we given such a precise date of the flood? We don’t know what calendar system this event is on, so we don’t know exactly when this took place. This date is probably given to further signify this as a definite historical event and is not to be taken lightly.
The description given here of the events is undoubtedly cataclysmic. It is interesting to determine precisely what the text is saying here.
We are told in the record of creation that the waters were separated above and below the “firmament” or atmosphere (Gen. 1:6-8). The “waters above the firmament” probably constituted a water vapor canopy that maintained a worldwide tropical climate in that day. The “waters below the firmament” are referred to as the “great deep” in this verse. Rivers existed in that day but they were not formed by rainfall runoff (Gen 2:5). They came from fountains or springs from within or below the earth’s crust (Gen. 2:6). The hydrologic process probably consisted of rivers and seas running into the depths of the earth crust, getting heated up by the earth’s heat implanted at creation, then there was pressurizing and steaming due to the heat, and springing from the ground as a fountain to once again eventually run into the rivers and oceans. We are not given details of this system, but as long as the heat endured and the underground conduits remained intact, this system would work indefinitely since it is hydraulically and thermodynamically sound.
However, the time had now come for these waters above and below the firmament to meet once again. The waters above the firmament were to condense and the waters below were burst forth.
The Scriptures do not say exactly what caused the underground waters to spring forth, but there is enough igneous and metamorphic rock in the earth’s crust to signify that severe volcanic activity was involved. Many of the world’s geologic features also show tremendous volcanic and hydraulic activity in the earth’s past. This volcanic activity could have caused a failure in the underground water system and set off a chain reaction. The volcanic dust, ash, and heat high in the atmosphere could have caused the collapse and condensation of the vapor canopy. This is somewhat reasonable, but still speculation due to the lack of details given.
(Gen 7:12 NASB) And the rain fell upon the earth for forty days and forty nights.
Gen 7:12: The rain continued for the length of time Elohim said it would in verse 4.
(Gen 7:13 NASB) On the very same day Noah and Shem and Ham and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons with them, entered the ark,
(Gen 7:14 NASB) they and every beast after its kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth after its kind, and every bird after its kind, all sorts of birds.
(Gen 7:15 NASB) So they went into the ark to Noah, by twos of all flesh in which was the breath of life.
(Gen 7:16 NASB) And those that entered, male and female of all flesh, entered as God had commanded him; and the LORD closed it behind him.
Gen 7:16: The authors are repeating what was said just a few verses ago to emphasize the historicity of this event. It was written in this manner in order to establish the matter (Deut. 19:15, John 8:17).
It says here that Elohim shut them in. This provided final assurance to the passengers that they were in the will of Elohim and under his protection.
(Gen 7:17 NASB) Then the flood came upon the earth for forty days; and the water increased and lifted up the ark, so that it rose above the earth.
(Gen 7:18 NASB) And the water prevailed and increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark floated on the surface of the water.
Gen 7:18: These verses and the remainder of chapter 7 tell us without a doubt that the flood was a worldwide event. Some examples of this are as follows:
1. The wording of the entire record is obviously an attempt to describe a worldwide flood. If it was a local flood, Elohim would have told Noah to merely migrate elsewhere instead of taking one hundred years to build an ark.
2. Expressions implying a universal flood occur more than thirty times in Genesis 6-9.
3. The Hebrew word used to describe the flood is exclusive to this event alone.
4. The ark was far too large to have been carried off by a local flood and was plenty big to hold two of every species, much less two of every “kind.”
5. There are more than 270 stories from different parts of the world that tell of a worldwide flood in earth’s history.
6. Yeshua Messiah and the Apostle Peter verified this was a worldwide flood (Matt. 24:37-39, 2 Peter 3:6).
(Gen 7:19 NASB) And the water prevailed more and more upon the earth, so that all the high mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered.
(Gen 7:20 NASB) The water prevailed fifteen cubits higher, and the mountains were covered.
Gen 7:20: This event is recorded as if it were an eyewitness account. Other evidences that indicate a worldwide flood are:
7. The waters covered all the mountains by 22 feet (presumably the submerged depth of the ark).
8. The elevation of Mount Ararat is 17,000 feet. Floodwaters at elevation 17,022 mean sea level is a lot more than a local flood. However, it is more likely that the mountain ranges as we know them today were created at this time.
9. It says that “all” the high mountains were covered under “all” the heavens. This was worldwide.
(Gen 7:21 NASB) And all flesh that moved on the earth perished, birds and cattle and beasts and every swarming thing that swarms upon the earth, and all mankind;
Gen 7:21: 10. “All flesh died that moved upon the earth….” If this was not a worldwide flood, then this is a false statement
11. “Every man” died which was the whole idea. Anthropologists do agree that the whole earth was once populated by man at a date earlier than 4000 years. A local flood would not have reached every man.
(Gen 7:22 NASB) of all that was on the dry land, all in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, died.
(Gen 7:23 NASB) Thus He blotted out every living thing that was upon the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky, and they were blotted out from the earth; and only Noah was left, together with those that were with him in the ark.
Gen 7:23: If one believes Scripture, there is a host of irrefutable evidence of this worldwide catastrophe:
12. The moose deer, a native of America, has been found buried in Ireland.
13. Elephant remains, native of Asia and Africa, have been discovered in the midst of England.
14. Crocodile remains, natives of the Nile, have been found in the heart of Germany.
15. Shell fish, never known in any but the American seas, along with the entire skeletons of whales, have been found in the most inland counties of England.
This passage says evil man was “blotted out from the earth.” It would appear that they were blotted out forever and judged accordingly (Psalm 9:5, 69:28).
(Gen 7:24 NASB) And the water prevailed upon the earth one hundred and fifty days.
Gen 7:24: 15. A local flood would not keep rising for 120 days.
16. The floodwaters did not recede enough to permit the occupants to leave the ark for over one year.
17. Dr. Henry Morris, in his book “The Genesis Record,” lists 100 Biblical and scientific reasons for believing the flood was worldwide.
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Category: adventures
An oldie, but a goodie
Last Friday, the Anarchist Guild Social Committee – a sketch comedy group of whom I was a member – celebrated their second birthday, and Nick, their leader, asked me if I’d come and contribute to the shenanigans. I said yes, he said he didn’t want a sketch, and after a while I settled on the idea of just doing a science demonstration. While I thought of a few candidates, I settled on that oldie-but-goodie, the egg in the bottle trick, made famous here in Australia by Julius Sumner Miller; you can find a collection of clips from his most famous series, Why Is It So?, on the ABC Science web site. (They’re well worth a watch, though it’s interesting to note that the kind of interaction he has with school students is probably not allowed these days, and there’s a noticeable lack of women and girls on the program – despite his inclusive welcome of “ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls”.)
Of course Why Is It So? is quite an old vintage as television programs go, besides which the egg in the bottle experiment doesn’t appear in any of those clips. Members of my generation (X, in case you were uncertain) probably know the demonstration better from a series of Cadbury chocolate commercials in which Julius appeared in the 1980s – a cunning move, and proof that he was ready to spread the word of science in any way possible! Perhaps I should be seeking that road to success?
Anyway, it’s a classic, and I was genuinely excited to peform it again; it formed a brief part of my first solo science show, Listen to the Man in the Lab Coat in 2004, and served as an encore to my Comedy Festival debut, Science-ology, in 2007. Not having performed it for three years made it just as much a treat for me as for (hopefully) the audience – and given that some of them had never seen it before, I think I picked just the right “science trick” for the crowd. I hope to get some video of my demonstration and put it up here in the near future, but in the mean time, here’s a basic run-down.
First, you need a bottle – it used to be easy to get glass milk bottle, but now they’re a bit of a rarity in Australia. So much so I brought one back from my trip to New York, from the Milk Thistle organic dairy farm. (I’m aware that recent articles say there’s no nutritional benefit to organic farming, overturning previous research, but there are still other advantages, not least the taste. But I digress.) You can find glass milk bottles locally, though, and I recommend you do; other bottles can do the trick, but milk bottles have the perfect sized opening.
Next, you need an egg. The egg should be too big to fit in the bottle, and the larger the better; I used “XL” size (free range) eggs, about 60g each. There are some misconceptions about the egg; I’ve had a number of people complain that they always thought the egg was raw, but it’s always been a hard-boiled, shelled egg for this experiment. (You could try a raw one, and probably get a cool result, but an exploding raw egg is much messier. Actually, now I really want to try that…)
Finally, you need some paper and matches. This is the dangerous bit, so allow me to put in an obligatory warning: don’t do this at home without adult supervision, kids.
Okay, so the egg is too big to go in the bottle, right? How to get it in without mashing it? Set fire to a small strip of paper, drop it in the bottle, then put the egg back on top. After a short time, the egg will be magically “sucked” in to the bottle with a very satisfying pop! How did this happen? Or rather: why is it so?
I have to explain, of course, because that’s the primary difference between a science trick and a magic trick: there’s no scientist’s circle making sure I never explain how it’s done, and in this case, it’s all done with pressure.
(Sometimes someone claims the explanation is “Bernoulli’s principle”, and technically that’s accurate in some sense, though Bernoulli’s principle is specifically about the relationship between a fluid’s speed of flow and its pressure; an aircraft wing is a better example of that.)
So what happens to the egg? First, the flame heats up the air inside the bottle; since this causes the air to expand, there is a greater volume of air than can fit inside, and some of the air escapes by pushing past the egg. (You can often see this if you put the egg on quickly after dropping in the flame; it bounces up and down making farting noises.) Once the flame goes out – not because it has “used up all the Oxygen”, by the way – the air begins to cool, and as it cools, it condenses, decreasing in volume. There’s now a lesser volume of air in the bottle than is needed to fill it, creating an area of low pressure. The higher pressure air outside the bottle exerts a force on the lower pressure air inside – not enough to break the bottle, of course, but enough to push the egg inside until the air can get in and equalise the pressure.
So that’s it! I use a big egg to get a good noise, which means it can’t be extracted easily, though you should be able to do the experiment in reverse by holding the bottle upside down with the egg near the opening and either heating the air inside (to make it expand) or blowing extra air into the bottle past the egg. My eggs are usually too big for this method to be reliable. If you want to get really fancy, you can soak the egg in vinegar without taking the shell off, which makes the shell soft; once you get the egg inside, it will eventually harden, and that’s pretty impressive. If you don’t want tell-tale signs of burnt paper inside the bottle, you can either heat up the air by immersing the bottle in really hot water, or directly reduce the pressure by immersing the bottle in really cold water, which are less reliable and less impressive, but still work.
So there you have it: the egg in the bottle. If you’d like to see me do it, along with all the witty banter I’ve developed, by all means get in touch – consider me available for weddings, parties…anything!
by Ben
Julius Sumner Miller
The Mystery of Dinosaur Island!
“Dinosaur Island” sounds like a cheap Jurassic Park rip-off, but it was a very accurate title for the presentation given last night by Professor Scott Sampson, one of the international guests for this year’s Science Week tour. Being in the upstairs function room at the Redback Brewery brought back fond memories of science activity; it’s been used as a venue by Science in the Pub, Science in Public and the Australian Science Communicators.
Scott covered a several angles of dinosaurology (you’ll be hearing more of this word from me soon), first offering a brief overview of dinosaur knowledge and how our picture of these animals has drastically changed. As you probably know dinosaurs were originally depicted as slow and dull – in both the mental and physical senses. In his words, though, dinosaurs became supercharged in a cultural nanosecond, and it’s all the raptor’s fault. That’s raptor in the “raptor-like dinosaur” sense, since he doesn’t blame Jurassic Park; rather it was the discovery of Deinonychus which originally led some palaeontologists to speculate a link between birds and dinosaurs, and when that become the majority opinion in the 1990s with the discovery of feathered dinosaurs, everything was turned on its head, graphically illustrated by the contrast between the old-school, dog-like dinosaurs in images by artists like Charles R. Knight and Heinrich Harder and those by recent dino illustrators like Greg Paul. Colour, movement, feathers…it’s all there.
From this beginning Scott made his way to his own research, mostly on dinosaurs of western North America. Around 75 million years ago what we know as North America was split into three or four pieces, and the westernmost part was a long, thin strip of coastal plains, separated from the eastern Americas by a narrow seaway – Dinosaur Island indeed! When plate tectonics allowed continental drift to be accepted by mainstream geology in the 1960s, it was no longer a mystery how dinosaurs had managed to spread across the whole, but in estern America the fossils presented a new mystery. The species found in Utah and New Mexico (in the south) were different to those in Alberta and Montana (in the north). Not only were there lots of different species, but there were lots of dinosaurs – in his sites in Utah, Scott revealed that you couldn’t walk for 15 minutes without spotting the telltale signs of dinosaur bones; he also regularly finds “bone beds” containing tens or even hundreds of specimens that died together, evidence of massive herding behaviour in herbivorous dinosaurs.
This is weird; as Scott says, there’s only one species of elephant in Africa, a much bigger area than Dinosaur Island. So how could this sliver of North America support so many individuals of so many species? Several ideas were put forth by the resident audience expert, who was of course a ten year old boy (and ginger too, which gave me a twinge of pride). Was there a huge abundance of food to support them? Did they have slower metabolisms, and require less food than modern animals? Was it easy when there weren’t human beings around to stuff things up? Or did they not really live all at the same time?
That’s what Scott set out to determine with his digs in the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument, and he shared lots of details about how the dig is run. His “rag-tag fugitive fleet” of volunteers and students were centre-stage; as in astronomy, Scott stressed that palaeontology would get nowhere fast without these mostly unpaid workers. Not only do they spend hours in the field looking for fossils and uncovering them, they get used as pack animals transporting them out of the inhospitable terrain – thought the biggest are airlifted by helicopter – but also spend up to two years preparing them for serious study. (He later revealed that his favourite scene in Jurassic Park is the scene at the start where they uncover a whole Velociraptor skeleton in a couple of minutes, which makes him laugh. Scott loves Jurassic Park, since it’s entertainment, but has a beef with Walking With Dinosaurs and its ilk, who present their conjecture about dinosaurs as fact.)
At Grand Staircase Scott’s team has found a huge variety of ceratopsian, duck billed, armoured and carnivorous dinosaurs. It seems these species really did co-exist, and that there was both more vegetation to support them, and perhaps they had slower metabolisms. Crocodiles, after all, can go without food for up to two months, but top mammalian predators can’t hope to do that. (Mammals, he joked, are the SUVs of the animal world, burning up as much energy as they can get their hands on, while reptiles are more like a Prius.) His own theory, which he admits is still contoversial, is that dinosaurs occupied a “Goldilocks” state – their bodies were not too cold-blooded nor too warm-bloodied, but just at the right metabolic rate in the middle, making them quite unlike anything alive today.
Scott wound up the prepared bit of his talk with his opinions of why dinosaurs are important to science. His basic point was that they’re a great hook to start conversations about immediately relevant topics like global warming. An understanding of climate changes brought about the asteroid which probably wiped them out (correctly identified as falling in the Gulf of Mexico by our audience expert) was also used as evidence for the destructive power of a nuclear winter, leading to the (relative) end of the cold war, so as Scott says, dinosaurs have saved the earth!
Scott left time for a question and answer session, and as you might expect, he knows his stuff. None of the questions phased him, and he answered them all directly. No doubt his upcoming book, Dinosaur Odyssey, will really live up to his claim: “it’s the first time a palaeontologist of my generation has really tried to set down the current state of knowledge about dinosaurs.”
Friday August 14 was a pretty busy day. I was at Freeplay all day, moderating a couple of panels and checking out some others; the highlight was without doubt the international keynote address by Crayon Physics Deluxe designer, Petri Purho, whose unconventional speech included a copious amount of gameplaying (mostly Spelunky, to which he is clearly addicted, but also Enviro-Bear 2000 and ROM Check Fail, all indie games) but more importantly some of the best artistic and creative advice I’ve received in years. The man’s a genius; watch out for his next game.
As soon as that was over, though, I rushed straight down to the BMW Edge theatre at Federation Square for HYPOTHESIS, a one-night-early launch event for Science Week in Victoria. It was a big line-up; as I arrived, Teacup Tumble were midway through their circus performance as labcoated scientists, recruiting children from the audience to help do some messy experiment or other. Polarized 3D glasses were being handed out so punters could see bits of our solar system in 3D, or perhaps join a simulated party to see the effect of various choices in drug and alcohol habits. The Australian Skeptics were on hand, and in a similar but more anarchic spirit, local arts collective Tape Projects were on hand with 100 Proofs the Earth is not a Globe. (I was later challenged to name three proofs that the Earth is a globe, and was happy to find I could do this, even if a couple weren’t entirely reliable and none from personal experience. My favourite is that when there’s a lunar eclipse, the Earth’s shadow on the moon is always round, no matter where on Earth you need to be to see the eclipse – something that could only happen if the Earth is a sphere.)
I was distracted from these at the beginning of the evening, though, as I was busy catching up with some old friends who were on the scene. By the time they left for dinner, the next main event was beginning – Speed Meet a Geek. This proved to be a bit of a highlight. It’s a speed-dating take on Science Week’s successful “Invite a Scientist to Dinner” scheme, and it involved several punters sitting at a table with a scientist, talking about whatever took our fancy. After a few minutes, there’d be an announcement and music, and the scientists would get up and move to another table. The time was, of course, all too brief, but the conversation was fascinating nonetheless; I could tell that my table mates Sue (a librarian from Albury) and Gina (who produces science shows for schools) agreed.
First up we met Steve, a young man with a similar taste to me in T-shirts, and who had studied both physics and philosophy. Fittingly he is now working in the history and philosophy of science programme at Melbourne University, where he recently has been thinking about a proposed plan to fly giant kites, equipped with turbines, 10 kilometres up in the sky, where the much faster and more constant winds would both keep them aloft and generate massive amounts of pollution free electricity. This plan was of course far too expensive to test with a prototype, so Steve built a computer simulation based on Bureau of Meterology data; the simulation sadly showed that the winds just weren’t consistently high enough to keep the kites in the air, so apart from the other practical considerations, the plan doesn’t seem feasible. It’s a shame; it’s such a beautiful idea. It makes me slightly prouder of our country that, even if we’re not really all that progressive in our ideas of power generation, we’re at least considering such things. I was left in the dark, however, about why such a plan was being tested by HPS academics, and not, say, engineers.
As if to prove that good things come in pairs, our next guests was also an HPS academic, and a very pleasant surprise for me: Neil Thomason, the man who introduced me to the history and philosophy of science through his courses at Melbourne University. I was sad to hear that Neil has retired, but not too much; after all, he now does much the same thing he used to do, just for no pay! As he himself put it, he used to ask why we should believe scientists; he now asks why we should believe statisticians. I think I made rather a hash of my attempt to answer the former, but of course the general answer is that we should believe scientists because they try to only make claims which they can back up with evidence, and use techniques to try and make sure their evidence is reliable. They’re still only human, after all…
Our next visitor was Justin, who works at the 3 Giga-electron-Volt Synchrotron located out in Clayton. More specifically, he works on one of the beamlines – streams of highly accelerated electrons fired out of the synchrotron at 14 different points – doing analysis on crystalline structures hit by the beams. His work has implications mainly for materials science – finding new types of material for construction, technology and other uses. He was the only scientist to bring gifts – big posters of the synchrotron! I keep meaning to visit the place, and now it’s further up the list. Sue made the excellent suggestion that it would get more media attention if the whole thing lit up, so you could see something happening; while this would be completely artificial, I’m not at all against the idea. People are used to seeing stuff happen thanks to sci-fi movies!
Jo Sumner came to visit us next. I’ve met met Jo before, in her capacity as Manager of Genetic Resources at Melbourne Museum; she was one of the scientists on last year’s Not the Nobel Prize, if I remember rightly. In any case, she is lovely company, and she regaled us with a story of her trip to Indonesia when her husband, also a biologist, was studying Komodo dragons. When she revealed they’d brought their very young daughter along, I was instantly reminded of Douglas Adams’ Last Chance to See…, in which he recounts stories of dragons eating small children. Jo said that when she took her daughter to see her husband catch and release a dragon, she grew bored and started making a lot of noise; when the dragon was released, instead of scuttling off, it hid in the long grass and to watch Jo’s daughter. Creepy stuff…
Our next few guests were all astrophysicists and, oddly enough, all Americans currently at Swinburne University. Lee, the first cab off the rank, is studying globular star clusters, formed in the early history of the universe, and thus able to teach us about the conditions in the first billion or two years. Charmingly he carries a photo of such a cluster in his wallet, which he brings out to show us. He uses data from one of the many optical telescopes in Hawaii, where the distance above sea level reduces the distortion caused by turbulent air currents – something that makes Australia unsuitable for optical astronomy. Asked by Sue if his research can be related to mankind, he replies “only in the sense that it gives us inspiration, and is humbling”; it’s a terribly satisfying answer.
Emily, originally from Conneticut, is working on WiggleZ, a project to map 200,000 galaxies using spectral analysis data gathered by the Anglo-Australian telescope in Coonabarabran. Emily was a stargazer as a child and clearly, deeply loves her job. Since astronomers don’t really look through telescopes any more, when Emily goes to Coonabaraban to man the ‘scope, she likes to go out on the gantry at night and look up at the Milky Way, clearly visible without the light pollution of a big city. She hasn’t been yet, but as Sue suggests, she’d love to head out to the red centre and see the stars from there, too.
Our astronomical trio is completed by Andy Green, a Colorado native, who talks less about his own work but is no less fascinating for it. We mention the light pollution survey going on as part of Science Week – 2009 being the International Year of Astronomy – and he mentions that New Zealand is currently trying to have the night sky in Tekapo Valley registered as a World Heritage Site, because there is so little light pollution there that it gives a near perfect view of the Milky Way.
Our next and final guest was Tom Rich, white haired Curator of Vertebrate Palaeontology at Musuem Victoria. He’s wearing a tie patterned with pterosaurs; when I compliment him on it, he replies that he’s only wearing a tie as he’d been to a wedding before coming to the event. I instantly liked him, and asked what kind of palaeontology he was interested in, since I know that, as awesome as they are, dinosaurs are not the obsession of every bone digger. He revealed that he was mainly interested in the mammals of the Mesozoic era, but that since he found so many dinosaurs while looking for the mammals, he’d ended up becoming “the world’s most minor authority on dinosaurs”. His background was both in physics and palaeontology, but he decided he could either be a third rate physicist or a second rate palaeontologist, and chose the latter. (Asked by Sue if he was humble or cynical, he replied: “Both.”) Another American, Tom is married to another palaeontologist, the “Queen of Slime” (she studies the Ediacaran fauna of the late pre-Cambrian), and accompanied her to Melbourne when she undertook some research here. He decided to learn about the country by reading an issue of The Australian from front to back, and promptly found the job he has now held for many years, commuting back and forth across the Atlantic until his wife took a job at Monash University.
Our time with the scientists over, the rest of the evening was given over to conversation with old friends, new friends, and entertainment, mainly in the form of another friend, Simon Pampena. He performed a truncated teaser version of his show Super Mega Maths Battle for Planet Earth, now touring for Science Week. I took a break after that for some food, returning for Science: fact or fiction?!, a sort of revamped version of Not the Nobel Prize. I wasn’t on the panel this year, but it was stacked with people I knew: local comedians Rob Lloyd, Tegan Higginbotham, Jason Geary and Xavier Michaelides, plus Melbourne Museum’s Rolf Schmidt, who I’d worked with on Not the Nobel Prize. I must confess I missed most of the panel as I was talking with some of the Science Week volunteers and the girls from Tape Projects, but I did enjoy Rolf’s introduction to the nigh-indestructable life forms known as tardigrades, or “water bears”, and Tegan’s subsequent impression of one.
Hypothesis was a big night, and a stirling kick off to the Victoria Science Week calendar. Let’s hope we see something similar next year!
history and philosphy of science
Simon Pampena
Speed Meet a Geek
Synchrotron
H. P. Lovecraft’s “Melbourne Aquarium”
May 22 is the International Day for Biological Diversity, and what better excuse could I have to tell you about my trip to Melbourne Aquarium?
The tickets were part of my birthday gift from my beloved, and we went together. I hadn’t been since they’d expanded the place and added the penguins, and if you haven’t seen them, go. These aren’t local penguins; these are Antarctic penguins, of two species, the King and the Gentoo.
King Penguins (Aptenodytes patagonicus) are, as you might guess from the name, like Emperor Penguins, but a bit smaller. They’re not truly an Antarctic species, living instead on sub-Antarctic islands. They’re no wusses when it comes to the cold, though; there are millions of them on the icier side of the Antarctic Polar Front, the circle around the continent where cold Antarctic waters meet the warmer ones of the sub-Anatarcic area. They certainly look right at home in the icy enclosure at the Aquarium. It’s not hard to see how they get their name: they have quite an impressive, regal bearing, with their distinctive yellow markings, patience (they never seem in a hurry), and towering stature compared to the smaller Gentoos. They’re in pretty good shape for a species – they have a “Least Concern” rating on the conservation “Red list” maintained by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The ones in the Aquarium, like the Gentoos, are from a breeding programme in New Zealand.
Gentoo Penguins (Pygoscelis papua) – the least populous species in Antarctica (though more populous in the Aquarium), and one rung worse (Near Threatened) on the IUCN list – are easily distinguished by the white marking on their heads, a band which runs from one eye to the other, almost suggesting a pair of flying goggles. They’re described on the informational plaques as “cheeky”. (Penguins are especially easy to anthropomorphise – it’s probably the way they walk upright, with flippers held out like arms.) The ones in the Aquarium certainly seem inquisitive; while we were there a staff member was cleaning the tank in diving gear, and the Gentoos were constantly biting and probing his wetsuit and breathing hose. They also seemed quite entranced by anything held up to the glass by visitors – programmes, watches, even just a finger. The pool for the penguins has glass on two sides, and two different Gentoo Penguins quite energetically followed my beloved’s finger as she traced patterns on the glass, never tiring of the game.
Next to the pool is where we spent most of our penguin watching time: penguins underwater are truly amazing. The Gentoos couldn’t get enough of it, shooting around the water like planes in a dogfight. Like seals, they’re almost comical on land, but sleek and perfect in the sea. Even the King Penguins, so much larger and more ponderous, were graceful in the water, if slower. (Let’s call it a kingly reserve.)
Those King Penguins are big, though, and I couldn’t help but recall the giant albino penguins of classic horror writer H.P. Lovecraft’s story At the Mountains of Madness (in which the remains of an ancient pre-human civilisation are discovered in Antarctica, to the horror of the protagonists). Antarctica is one of the few places on Earth that still holds some kind of mystery; it’s difficult to imagine unknown “things” hidden in most places on the planet, but the white centre of Antarctica (though by now thoroughly mapped) is still a popular place to find hidden aliens and monsters in fiction. Followers in Lovecraft’s shoes include The Thing (most famously John Carpenter’s 1982 film version), the Doctor Who story The Seeds of Doom, and even Aliens vs Predator (don’t watch it).
Indeed, the only other place it seems credible to find monsters is under the sea, another theme explored by Lovecraft. Several of his creatures dwell there, waiting in the impenetrable depths. His most famous creature, Cthulhu, lies waiting in his hidden city on the sea floor, and is usually depicted as a giant humanoid figure with an octopus for a head; alien eyes and a mass of tentacles where a mouth should be.
Which brings me to my other favourite things in the Aquarium. I love octopi and cuttlefish and squid…the cephalopods. The cuttlefish in the Aquarium, right at the start of the main circuit through the exhibits, change colour in real time to match their environment. This all involves five different kinds of cells, packed densely under the skin – around 200 per square millimetre!
The changes don’t rely on the cuttlefish’s eyesight – which, though excellent, doesn’t perceive colour! They can, however, sense polarisation of light, which gives them an excellent sense of contrast. I’m fascinated by cephalopod eyes, too – they’re among the most advanced in the animal kingdom, similar to our own but quite different (one of the best examples of convergent evolution). Cuttlefish have “W” shaped pupils and two foveae – areas richer in light receptors providing excellent vision, and of which humans have only one.
Cuttlefish share many things in common with [intlink id=”82″ type=”post”]squid[/intlink] and octopus – three hearts, copper-based oxygen-carrying molecules in their blood giving it a green colour, a doughnut shaped brain… They’re more alien than anything the Doctor Who production team has come up with in the last four years! (They seem limited to sticking animal heads and “hands” on human beings: Cat people, Rhino people and, most recently, Fly people. As I [intlink id=”349″ type=”post”]recently discussed[/intlink], this is dull and incredibly unrealistic.) Fittingly, for me, the last tank in the main round – it’s on the way out past the Sharks Alive exhibit – had an octopus.
A sign above the creature’s tank proclaimed that octopus are among the smartest creatures on Earth; that a logic puzzle that could confound a primate could be completed in six seconds by an octopus. I imagined for a second an octopus sitting on the tram completing an entire book of Sudoku puzzles while someone next to her struggled with the easy one in the mx, but it’s a much deeper statement than that. I found an excellent (if old) article from Discover magazine, Through the Eye of an Octopus, which goes into the research around octopus cognition. Research has suggested that they play, communicate, deceive, use tools, have personalities and even sleep in ways they are startlingly like so-called “higher vertebrates” like us. I’ve often thought I’d like to have an octopus for a friend, rather than as a pet, and I think I’ve just talked myself into giving up one of my favourite dishes – salt and pepper squid.
Significantly for me, octopus have very small brains – something which challenges a long held prejudice against dinosaurs, and my favourite dinosaur especially. Stegosaurus had a brain the size of a walnut, very small for its body size, and is generally regarded as among the stupidest of dinosaurs. But the common octopus brain is the same size; albeit a very different shape, and it evolved to its current state over a much longer period, but still, it brings me hope. Perhaps a Stegosaurus could have managed a Sudoku as well.
I feel the earth move…
The Earth is, of course, always moving, but sometimes bits of it move relative to the rest of it. That just happened right here in inner suburban Melbourne – an earth tremor, I’m guessing nor more than 1 or 2 on the Richter scale, which lasted for less than half a minute. Reports via web 2.0 – Twitter, Facebook status, that sort of thing – indicate it hit a reasonably wide area centred on the inner northern suburbs.
It’s not the first time Melbourne has felt such a thing; a tremor hit the eastern suburbs in October 2006, much further out of the city. I was hoping to read up on it and tell you all about the plate tectonics of Victoria, but unfortunately the Geoscience Australia web site isn’t responding (let’s hope it’s just because they’re busy analysing the new data!). I’ll update with more info when I can.
UPDATE: Well, my estimate was way off: turns out the quake was rated 4.6 (much lower and we’d have hardly noticed it), and occured 8 kilometres down near Korumburra. No, I didn’t know where that is either; turns out it’s in South Gippsland, near the Strzelecki Ranges. You can find the lattitude and longitude on the Geoscience Australia web site, in the list of recent earthquakes (we have a lot of them!). With thanks to the ever-reliable and always interesting Clem Bastow, who shared knowledge via Twitter. Hard to imagine not knowing more about this sort of thing instantly via the Internet, these days!
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The town mouse, however, declared she was best off. The town mouse, however, declared she was best off. "You may have luxuries and dainties that I have not," she said as she hurried away, "but I prefer my plain food and simple life in the country with the peace and security that go with it." The country mouse does not like the town, and when he invites the town mouse to come and stay with him in the country, the town mouse does not like the country. Some example stories that are fables are, "The Ant and the Grasshopper," and, "The City Mouse and the Country Mouse." Aesop’s fables always have character animals that tell the stories in the first person. Come with me and I will show you how to really live. Copyright © 2020 Moral Globe All Rights Reserved. Beans and bacon, cheese and bread, were all he had to offer, but he offered them freely. A country mouse invited a Town Mouse, an intimate friend, to pay him a visit and partake of his country fare. Both of them loved to live at their own homes. Once upon a time, there was The Country Mouse and The Town Mouse who were very good friends. Performance Scales/Learning Goals (Rubrics) for 2nd, 3rd grade, and 4th grade Graphic organizers to identify theme, lesson, central message, and/or moral of the story "My poor cousin," said the city mouse, "you hardly have anything to eat! The town mouse, wanting to show the country mouse how to live life, invites the country mouse back to his place and the country mouse accepts his invitation. Bedtime Stories for Children (http://www.BedtimeStory.TV) | Best Children Classics HDSubscribe! Then the town mouse invited the country mouse to enjoy the real food. “We would dine after the guests had taken their dinner”. 14. The Town Mouse And The Country Mouse: Once a town mouse visited his cousin a country mouse for lunch. Thus, within the next few hours, he bid farewell to his cousin and made his way back, now living his country life with a renewed sense of gratitude. Aesop wrote many, many fables. The town mouse, being used to gourmet cuisine, turned up his nose at this country fare. You can read the title of this story as “The country mouse and the Town Mouse Story” too. You can see nothing but forest, rivers, fields and mountains. He was served with simple and coarse food. The city mouse was so disappointed with the sparse meal which was nothing more than a few kernels of corn and a couple of dried berries. This Aesop tale in which the Town Mouse and the Country mouse both experience each others very different lives in the town and country. The Country Mouse had never seen anything like it and sat down to enjoy the luxuries his friend provided. The Town Mouse rather turned up his long nose at this country fare, and said: “I cannot understand, Cousin, how you can put up with such poor food as this, but of course you cannot expect anything better in the country; come you with me and I will show you how to live. After hearing this, the country mouse decides to return home, preferring security to opulence or, as the 13th-century preacher Odo of Cheriton phrased it, "I'd rather gnaw a bean than be gnawed by continual fear". Beans and bacon, cheese and bread were all he had to offer, but he offered them freely. Later on, the town mouse invited his country mouse friend. The Town Mouse rather turned up his long nose at this country fare, and said: “I cannot understand, Cousin, how you can put up with such poor food as this, but of course you cannot expect anything better in the country; come you with me and I will show you how to live. That was not fit for flies even. The Country Mouse stopped in the Town Mouse's den only long enough to pick up her carpet bag and umbrella. A town-mouse paid a visit to his friend who lived in the countryside. The Town Mouse And The Country Mouse: Once a town mouse visited his cousin a country mouse for lunch. The Country Mouse stopped in the Town Mouse’s den only long enough to pick up her carpet bag and umbrella. A country mouse invited his cousin who lived in the city to come visit him. Aesop’s fables always have character animals that tell the stories in the first person. ‘Thank you,’ says Country Mouse. "I cannot understand, Cousin, how you can put up with such poor food as this, but of course you cannot expect anything better in the country. The Town Mouse rather turned up his long nose at this country fare, and said: “I cannot understand, Cousin, how you can put up with such poor food as this, but of course you cannot expect anything better in the country; come you with me and I will show you how to live. And as they could not agree on this point they promised to visit one another at Christmas, then they could see for themselves which was really the most comfortable. “Is this how you live ?”, town-mouse asked.“Life in the country does not offer much.”, country-mouse replied. He was rough and ready, this cousin, but he loved his town friend and made him heartily welcome. The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse – a fable. The country-mouse was really surprised to see the things there. The Country Mouse one day invited his friend to come and see him at his home in the fields. The city mouse was so disappointed with the sparse meal which was nothing more than a few kernels of corn and a couple of dried berries. These were moral stories that featured animal characters. The Town Mouse came and they sat down to a dinner of barleycorns and roots the latter of which had a distinctly earthy flavour. They ate corn, nuts and fruits. Once upon a time, there was The Country Mouse and The Town Mouse who were very good friends. The country mouse now knew what he had wished for. The invitation was accepted in due form, and the country mouse, though plain and rough and somewhat frugal in his nature, opened his heart and store, in honor of hospitality and an old friend. the town mouse maintained that she was the better off, but the country mouse said that nowhere could one be so well off as in the woods and hills. Your email address will not be published. The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse originated as one of Aesop’s fables. The lesson of the story is that a way of life that is suitable for one person may not be suitable for another. A country mouse and town mouse became fast friends. Once upon a time, there lived two mice who were best of friends. Country Mouse felt very comfortable but Town Mouse couldn’t help but miss the comfort of her fine home and she went to sleep dreaming of a belly full of food. Aesop was a slave in Ancient Greece who worked as a clerk or secretary. Required fields are marked *, The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse Story in English with Moral. The country-mouse was happy to see his friend. As they were on the bare plowlands, eating there wheat-stocks and roots pulled up from the hedgerow, the Town Mouse said to his friend, “You live here the life of the ants, while in my house is the horn of plenty. Thus, he escaped to the country. The town-mouse looked at the fruit and the car of corn with hatred "Is this how you live ?" The country mouse goes to town to see all the lavish things the town mouse has described, but finds that it is a dangerous place, and goes home content. Students of different classes, especially Class 5, Class 6, Class 8 and Class 9 students can prepare this moral story as a course. His friend had some green peas, a piece of new cheese, a ripe and a red apple. The Town Mouse & the Country Mouse identify vocabulary and determine meanings. The Town Mouse rather turned up his long nose at this country fare, and said: I cannot understand, Cousin, how you can Moral … The town mouse with a lot of pride isn’t happy about what his country cousin has served him and asks how he can live in such poor and deprived conditions. Teach KS1 children all about the importance of being thankful and appreciative using one of Aesop's most famous fables, The Town Mouse and The Country Mouse. Soon the master and other guests arrived in the room and the mice ran into the hole. The town mouse, being used to gourmet cuisine, turned up his nose at this country fare. One day, The Town Mouse decided to surprise The Country Mouse by visiting him. So the next day when the Town Mouse asked the Country Mouse to go home with her to the city, she gladly said yes. Read the Aesop's fable of The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse from this famous book. The country mouse was deadly pale. the town mouse maintained that she was the better off, but the country mouse said that nowhere could one be so well off as in the woods and hills. So he prepared a fine feast for him in which country-mouse served him fruits and grains. These were moral stories that featured animal characters. A COUNTRY MOUSE invited a Town Mouse, an intimate friend, to pay him a visit, and partake of his country fare. Quizzes. You can see nothing but forest, rivers, fields and mountains. A fable features animals who act like humans in a short story that teaches a particular lesson or moral. "You may have luxuries and dainties that I have not," she said as she hurried away, "but I prefer my plain food and simple life in the country with the peace and security that go with it." Through wild and lonely places did she trudge, Once in the city, Country Mouse enjoys the fine surroundings and foods until a noisy party … A doctor specialist in skin diseases is called; (a) Cardiologist (b) Endocri... danish: please write down the qutation on this letter... rifaq bashir: please the hen that laid egg 1st year story... © Copyright 2020, All Rights Reserved | Powered by, Greedy Dog Story in English Written with Moral for Kids, A Friend in Need is a Friend Indeed Story, The Miller, His Son and Their Donkey Story with Moral, The Ant and The Cricket Story – Moral Story with Lesson, Greed is a Curse Story – As You Sow, So Shall You Reap Moral Story, Unity is Strength Story with Moral | Old Man and His Sons Story, All That Glitters is Not Gold Story with Moral – A Foolish Stage, Appearances are Often Deceptive Moral Story, A Stitch In Time Saves Nine Story with Moral in English, East or West Home is Best Story with Moral, The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse Lesson, Report from To The Point Book by Prof. Aftab Ahmed, Notes by Rana Attique M.A English & M.A TEFL, leave letter for attending marriage function. They both sat in the fields. A COUNTRY MOUSE invited a Town Mouse, an intimate friend, to pay him a visit, and partake of his country fare. He persuaded the country-mouse to accompany him to the town and see all the good things there. This is the town mouse and country mouse story for kids. So, dressing plain, like one of pilgrim kind, She left the town barefoot, with staff in hand, To seek her sister, up and down the land. One seeing the food to be served to him. He was so happy. After that, the mice sat for hours and told each other stories from their lives. 4. ‘You can have my bed tonight,’ he says. The city mouse was so disappointed with the sparse meal which was nothing more. Your email address will not be published. Short Story Town Mouse and the Country Mouse Moral Lesson. But Town Mouse’s bed is strange. ‘Come on!’ he says. 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The Country Mouse and the Town Mouse Once upon a time a country mouse, who had a friend in town, invited him, for old acquaintance sake, to pay him a visit in the country. The town mouse and the country mouse moral lesson is that it is better to live a peaceful life that has little and is secure than to live in a luxury that can end any moment in disaster. But before they had well begun, the door of the larder opened and some one came in. “You may have luxuries and dainties that I have not,” she said as she hurried away, “but I prefer my plain food and simple life in the country with the … Even though Aesop is believed to have been a Greek slave who lived between 620 and 560 BCE, his fables have been handed down from generation to generation as parents tried to teach their children right from wrong. “You may have luxuries and dainties that I have not,” she said as she hurried away, “but I prefer my plain food and simple life in the country with the peace and security that go with it.” Country Mouse felt very comfortable but Town Mouse couldn’t help but miss the comfort of her fine home and she went to sleep dreaming of a belly full of food. It is the master’s cat. Teaching resources, including reading comprehension activities, worksheets, display materials and story PPTs to cover the moral tale of The Town Mouse and The Country Mouse by Aesop. The Town Mouse came and they sat down to a dinner of barleycorns and roots the latter of which had a distinctly earthy flavour. The two mice in this poem are very opposite in their ways. The Town … The mouse from invited firstly his friend from town and treated him good. He was known for his wit and for the clever animal tales he used in the negotiation process. A Town Mouse and a Country Mouse were friends. After dinner, the mice came out and got ready to eat. A fable is a story that teaches you a moral or a lesson. He loved his cousin and made him heartily welcome. The country mouse was afraid that there was not enough food for two, so he just ate a little piece of corn. he asked, "life in the country does not offer much." A country mouse invited his cousin who lived in the city to come visit him. Asked the country mouse. This story is good as a bedtime story as well as for the students of class 6, class 7, class 8 and class 9. So, the country-mouse packed … On arrival, the country mouse saw sweet and delicious dishes placed on the table. But Town Mouse isn’t tired. The Country Mouse had never seen anything like it and sat down to enjoy the luxuries his friend provided. Once the country mouse invited the town mouse to dinner. So, the country-mouse packed all … In her sleep the Country Mouse dreamed she was a Town Mouse with all the luxuries and delights of city life that her friend had described for her. The Country Mouse and The Town Mouse Story PDF in English. "You may have luxuries and dainties that I have not," she said as she hurried away, "but I prefer my plain food and simple life in the country with the peace and security that go with it." The Town Mouse rather turned up his long nose at this country fare, and said: “I cannot understand, Cousin, how you can put up with such poor food as this, but of course you cannot expect anything better in the country; come you with me and I will show you how to live. Country Mouse invites her friend, City Mouse to visit her in the country. “You may have luxuries and dainties that I have not,” she said as she hurried away, “but I prefer my plain food and simple life in the country with the peace and security that go with it.” The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse Once upon a time, a Country Mouse had a visit from his cousin in the country. He can’t go to sleep. So he prepared a fine feast for him in which country-mouse served him fruits and grains. He was rough and ready, this cousin, but he loved his town friend and made him heartily welcome. The two mice in this poem are very opposite in their ways. The town-mouse looked at the fruit and the car of corn with hatred. “I am going,” cried the country-mouse, “I like my simple fare in safety than this grand feast in such a danger.”. He was known for his wit and for the clever animal tales he used in the negotiation process. Required fields are marked *. The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse – a fable. The moral is clear: Unadorned country living is good and the corruption and vice of the urban metropolis is bad. So when he returned to town he took the Country Mouse with him and showed him into a larder containing flour and oatmeal and figs and honey and dates. One seeing the food to be served to him. The Town-Mouse And The Country-Mouse , Moral Story A town-mouse paid a visit to his friend who lived in the countryside. The town-mouse looked at the fruit and grains with hatred. The country mouse now knew what he had wished for. List of Candidates selected in IBPS PO 2019 released and Steps to view the List, List of Candidates selected in IBPS clerk 2019 released and Steps to view the List, Steps to Download or Save Application form on computer and Print later, Application Form Reprint available for IBPS Clerk, PO and SO, IBPS Clerk 2019 Mains Cutoff Marks Statewise. The city mouse was so disappointed with the sparse meal which was nothing more. The Town Mouse and The Country Mouse. A fable features animals who act like humans in a short story that teaches a particular lesson or moral. Once there was a country mouse and a town mouse were friends. So he prepared a fine feast for him. The town-mouse looked at the fruit and grains with hatred. He was served with simple and coarse food. The Country Mouse stopped in the Town Mouse’s den only long enough to pick up her carpet bag and umbrella. A country mouse invited his cousin who lived in the city to come visit him. "You may have luxuries and dainties that I have not," she said as she hurried away, "but I prefer my plain food and simple life in the country with the peace and security that go with it." The Country Mouse stopped in the Town Mouse’s den only long enough to pick up her carpet bag and umbrella. he asked, "life in the country does not offer much." Beans and bacon, cheese and bread were all he had to offer, but he offered them freely. The Country Mouse stopped in the Town Mouse's den only long enough to pick up her carpet bag and umbrella. Here is The Town Mouse and The Country Mouse Story with Moral Lesson in English. The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse originated as one of Aesop’s fables. The invitation was accepted in due form, and the country mouse, though plain and rough and somewhat frugal in his nature, opened his heart and store, in honor of hospitality and an old friend. The Country Mouse and The Town Mouse Story PDF in English. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. The Country Mouse stopped in the Town Mouse's den only long enough to pick up her carpet bag and umbrella. After that, the mice sat for hours and told each other stories from their lives. One day, The Town Mouse decided to surprise The Country Mouse by visiting him. The Country Mouse invited a Town Mouse to pay him a visit and partake of his country fare. So when he returned to town he took the Country Mouse with him and showed him into a larder containing flour and oatmeal and figs and honey and dates. When the cat had gone away, the mice came out of their hole. But, unfortunately again there was a noise and the mice ran into the hole more. Your email address will not be published. The country mouse lived in a corn field and his friend was lived in the town inside a hole that was situated in railway track. He might have to live a hard life on the barn, yet he would trade away the glamour of this life for the safety he had in the past. “What was that”? The Town Mouse and The Country Mouse. The country-mouse was happy to see his friend. Thus, within the next few hours, he bid farewell to his cousin and made his way back, now living his country life with a renewed sense of gratitude. After the city mouse ate all the dinner, he said, “How can you live in the country, my friend? But before they had well begun, the door of the larder opened and some one came in. Once the country mouse invited the town mouse to dinner. The Town Mouse & the Country Mouse identify vocabulary and determine meanings. That quote is attributed to Odo of Cheriton, a 13th century preacher who explained the moral of Aesop's popular fable, The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse.
the town mouse and the country mouse moral
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the town mouse and the country mouse moral 2020
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Singer Sia finds parenting ‘painful and rewarding’
Bollywood Celebs News & Gossips
It’s hard. It’s been both painful and rewarding and all I can say really is that I just have to just keep reminding them that I’ll be here, I’m never going anywhere, and I love them.
Los Angeles: Singer Sia, who adopted two teenage boys a couple of years ago, says she finds parenting a task that is rewarding as well as painful.
“It’s hard. It’s been both painful and rewarding and all I can say really is that I just have to just keep reminding them that I’ll be here, I’m never going anywhere, and I love them. I think it’s just scary to have someone say ‘I’ll love you forever’ when you’ve been in 28 different homes your entire life,” Sia said on ‘The Project’, reports femalefirst.co.uk.
The singer had earlier described motherhood as the “best thing she’s ever done”.
“Motherhood is the best thing I’ve ever done. It’s one of the hardest, but I have obviously such an overflow of love that I could definitely see myself doing it again, but not for a while. The next thing I’m planning to do is foster actual infants. Maybe (their mother) is drug-addicted and then I could help look after them until, you know, their mum can get back on the wagon or an adoptive home is found. If I can do that then I think I’ll feel like I’m superhuman,” she said.
Sia is now a grandmother, as one of her sons welcomed a baby in 2020. She said that she is still learning to be a mother.
Talking about her responsibilities as a grandmother she said: “I’ve decided to stop talking about it. I made a bit of a boo-boo because they’re my new children.
“I’ve only had them for a year. I’m such an open book that I forget not everyone else is. While I didn’t get into trouble for blabbing about his (her son’s) children – I was peeing, which is where I have my best thoughts, and I realised that it was not my news to share with the world. I instantly realised I can’t talk about my children’s private lives. I’m just learning how to be a mother.”
Revisiting some gems by Musical Maestro
Esha Gupta looks drop-dead gorgeous in a monochrome pic
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