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Sex Discrimination Lawsuit Against UN Dismissed
By Tanya Roth, Esq. on March 03, 2010 1:10 PM
You can't sue the United Nations for sexual discrimination. And, you can't sue diplomatic officials in sex discrimination lawsuits, or in any other civil lawsuits.
At least not according to the New York Court of Appeals, which upheld a 2007 District Court decision. The 2007 decision stated that the United Nations had immunity under the 1946 Convention on Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations.
Essentially, what the New York court said on appeal was that certain officials of the United Nations and, of course, the United Nations as a whole, had diplomatic immunity from lawsuits.
U.S. citizen Cynthia Brzak worked for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva. She accused the former head of the refugee organization, Ruud Lubbers, of touching her inappropriately. As a result, Ms. Brzak claimed that her career had suffered, as had the career of a Mr. Nasr Ishak, who had urged her to come forward. Her allegations of sexual harassment are part of a larger suit for sex discrimination. Generally, sexual harassment claims are made as part of a sex discrimination lawsuit.
Under the doctrine of diplomatic immunity, a foreign diplomat would be protected from legal action in the country where he or she works. As a result of this doctrine, the appeals court in New York found that Mr. Lubbers was immune from such a lawsuit.
In the past, many diplomatic officials have escaped civil and even criminal prosecution because of diplomatic immunity. In 1983, there was the infamous case of the New York City Police Department allowing the son of a diplomat to leave, despite the fact that the son was suspected of 15 different rapes. Indeed, diplomatic immunity can be a privilege for foreign diplomats and their families. But it can also be cause for abuse.
The sex discrimination lawsuit also named the United Nations, Lubbers' former deputy and Kofi Annan, the former Secretary General of the United Nations.
Harassment suit against United Nations tossed out (Reuters)
U.S. Court Rejects Sexual Discrimination Lawsuit (NY Times)
Diplomatic Immunity (LawBrain)
Discrimination & Harassment (FindLaw)
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'Loving' Tells the Subtle, Personal Side of Supreme Court History
By Casey C. Sullivan, Esq. on December 06, 2016 5:57 AM
If you're looking for a break this week, might we recommend 'Loving,' the new-ish film written and directed by Jeff Nichols? The film tells the story of Richard and Mildred Loving, the interracial couple whose relationship led to the Supreme Court's landmark Loving v. Virginia decision invalidating anti-miscegenation laws and declaring marriage a fundamental civil right -- a decision which continues to reverberate today.
'Loving' isn't a courtroom drama. You won't see great legal oration or be regaled by high-minded judicial arguments. (The legal battles take place largely off screen.) What you will see, however, is a masterful telling of a pivotal moment in American history, played out in the small and intimate details of the Lovings' relationship.
From Love to Exile to the Supreme Court
'Loving' is a fictional retelling of the Lovings' early life together, from their marriage in 1958 to their triumph in the Supreme Court nearly a decade later.
The film opens with Mildred Jeter (played by Ruth Negga) telling her future husband, Richard Loving (played by Joel Edgerton), that she's pregnant. "Good," he says. "That's real good."
But she is black and he is white and in Caroline County, Virginia, in 1958, the state didn't view their relationship as "good." To marry, they are forced to travel to Washington, D.C., with only Mildred's father by their side.
They return home and begin planning their life. Richard has bought an acre of land. He's designing their new house. Their marriage license is framed and hung on the wall.
Soon, however, the local police are kicking in their bedroom door, dragging the sleeping couple off to jail. They're eventually banned from entering Virginia together for 25 years and exiled to Washington, D.C. Mildred's endless homesickness and a letter to Robert Kennedy eventually combine to create a muted form of activism, a reluctant willingness to challenge Virginia's racist laws, if not out of political righteousness then an slow and strong burning desire for love and family. The ACLU becomes involved and the rest, as they say, is Con Law 101.
The Subtle Loving Behind 'Loving'
Actually, Con Law 101 might be a bad comparison. Most legal professionals will remember the Lovings' case from law school, but the film provides a very different perspective. Nick Kroll (of 'The Kroll Show,') gives a great performance as the young civil rights lawyer Bernie Cohen, but it's clear that the Lovings have only a vague understanding of the significance of their case. Their battle is, as with so many litigants, much more personal.
It's the story of a couple trying to make sense of their predicament, and it's told on an incredibly human scale, slow and measured, through small touches and long stares as much as through dialogue. It's history being made with a caress in the supermarket and laughter on the couch, rather than political speeches and constitutional precedent.
It's a history told well by the subtle, inward-facing, fantastic acting of Negga and Edgerton, which will hopefully be remembered come awards season.
The film was released in limited markets in November, but has since made it to theaters across the country, where you still have a chance to catch it.
Loving Review: Jeff Nichols' Version of History Is as Quiet as the Real Thing (The Verge)
A Marriage Story, In Black, White, and Color (FindLaw's Law and Daily Life)
Top 5 Movies All Law School Students Should Watch (FindLaw's Greedy Associates)
5 Movies That Make Lawyers Look Great (FindLaw's Greedy Associates)
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Your Company's Data Breach May Be the Least of Its Problems
By Gabriella Khorasanee, JD on April 14, 2014 12:57 PM
We've been hearing a lot of security data breaches lately -- some would say too much. From the Target and Neiman Marcus debacle to last week's Heartbleed bug, we now know why cybersecurity is on the minds of general counsel not just in the U.S., but worldwide.
Based on a recent district court decision, the data breach itself may be the least of a company's problem. What may be worse is not only the media and consumer fallout, but the possibility of FTC enforcement actions, and private litigation.
Please pass the Advil.
Federal Trade Commission v. Wyndham Worldwide Corporation, et al.
In FTC v. Wyndham, the FTC sued Wyndham because between 2008 and 2010, hackers gained access to Wyndham's computer network and stole Wyndham customer' payment information. The FTC claimed alleged that the data breach "violated Section 5(a)'s prohibition of 'acts or practices in or affecting commerce' that are 'unfair' or 'deceptive.'" Normally companies settle with the FTC, but here, Wyndham decided to fight back, challenging the FTC's authority to bring such an action, reports Corporate Counsel. That's where the trouble started.
FTC's Authority
Last week, Judge Salas, of the District Court for the District of New Jersey found that the FTC does indeed have authority under Section 5(a) of the Federal Trade Commission Act, stating "the FTC's unfairness authority over data security can coexist with the existing data-security regulatory scheme." The court did not get to the merits of the case, but merely refused to dismiss the case on the pleadings. Whether Wyndham will settle, or risk trial is yet to be determined.
Reasonableness Standard
Although Wyndham argued that there was no precise guidance from the FTC and this lack of guidance violated fair notice principles, the court did not agree. It seemed persuaded by FTC that in "the data-security context, 'reasonableness is the touchstone' and that 'unreasonable data security practices are unfair,'" leaving the door open for claims like this to be decided on a case by case basis.
How to Protect Your Company
Some attorneys have analyzed the impact of the Wyndham case and argue that as a result, "Companies should look to the patchwork of FTC views expressed in consent orders, speeches by FTC leadership, and public workshops, as well as industry publications, to identify prudent security measures." Furthermore, they caution that "companies should take care to ensure that general promises to use 'industry standard' or 'commercially reasonable' protective measures reflect specific investments in data security technologies."
Of course, this case is on the district court level, so we don't know if courts in other circuits will agree, or how aggressively the FTC will prosecute security data breaches as unfair and deceptive business practices, or whether there will be an avalanche of private litigation. But we do know that all of these are definite possibilities, and as in-house counsel you must prepare and protect your company.
Enjoy the latest legal news from our blogs? Keep up with the latest legal docs on Scribd.
National Cyber Security Awareness Month: Resources and Tips (FindLaw's In House Blog)
5 Ways In-House Counsel Can Improve Vendor Cybersecurity (FindLaw's In House Blog)
Are Hackers Silently Listening in on Your Videoconferences? (FindLaw's In House Blog)
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Pediatric Blood & Marrow Transplantation Center
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"We dare to suggest we can transform the practice of medicine...because we've done it before...many times."
—John Wagner, MD, Director, University of Minnesota Pediatric Blood and Marrow Transplant program
Our physicians at University of Minnesota Masonic Children's Hospital are always questioning the status quo. What causes illness; how can we cure devastating diseases and minimize complications; and how do we ensure the highest quality of life? When "standard of care" is not good enough, clinical trials are one way to discover cures and transform the way we care for children with life-threatening diseases.
In a clinical trial, patients partner with doctors to answer specific scientific and medical questions and to identify better prevention, diagnosis or treatment of diseases. Patients cured today are the beneficiaries of patients who participated in past clinical trials.
By participating in clinical trials, patients play a more active role in their own health care, gain access to new treatments before they are widely available, and help others by contributing to medical research.
Our program offers a large number of clinical protocols, which provide leading-edge treatment options to our patients and allow for collection of clinical data necessary to prove the new treatment option is superior to the old. Patients and their families are informed about clinical trials at the very beginning of the treatment process. Participation in clinical trials is entirely optional.
We know that some patients and families like to learn about potential clinical trial options in advance of their arrival here, so we have provided two links below that will allow you to search for clinical trials that we have open at our center.
Masonic Cancer Center clinical trials - find clinical trials at the University of Minnesota searching by disease, doctor, drug, or type of treatment.
Clinicaltrials.gov - clinicaltrials.gov is a registry of federally and privately supported clinical trials conducted in the United States and around the world. ClinicalTrials.gov gives you information about a trial's purpose, who may participate, locations, and phone numbers for more details. This information should be used in conjunction with advice from health care professionals.
We have been providing innovative care to children in need of a blood and bone marrow transplant for over 50 years. Call us, we're here to help.
"One of the main things that brought us here [was] the research. We really loved the research options....It’s not research that makes your child a lab rat its research to really help the problem and make her better."
Journey Clinic - Pediatric Blood and Marrow Transplantation Center
612-365-1000 TTY: 612-672-7300
For information about the Adult Blood and Marrow Transplantation program, click here:
© 2011–2014 Regents of the University of Minnesota. All rights reserved.
Information current as of February 6, 2014
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Living Well, Despite what Life Throws at You
Tesfaye told me he was really worried about losing his job. It turned out he didn’t actually have a teaching degree, he had taken a course and a test right out of high school to become a guide.
“Now they have changed the requirement to a college degree,” he said pensively. “My hope is to become a taxi driver.”
His hope? It must have seemed hopeless to him to earn a degree. Why wouldn’t the government pay for someone like him, who was obviously smart and experienced, to get a degree? Or why not grandfather him in? Was it some scheme to make sure all the jobs went to cronies of government officials? As often happens when you travel, there are questions to which you’ll never have answers.
He showed me some of the earliest paintings, and others that were created by the Portuguese. The difference was stark, both in the brightness of the colors and the features of the Madonnas. I wasn’t sure why the Portuguese Madonna’s face was so white. I mean, I’m sure they wanted to impress on the Ethiopians that the Virgin Mary was white, for God’s sake!—but this white?
“The Portuguese tried to convert us, and a lot of Americans come today to do the same.”
Oh ick. “What religions are they?” I asked.
“Many different ones. There was one old preacher who was following our girls, so we made him leave.” That was a nice way to say that they ran the guy out of town. “We have heard that the Eritrean women prostitute themselves,” he said abruptly. “Is that true?”
I had told him I worked for an NGO that was operational in the Eritrean refugee camps in the north. “Uh … I don’t know,” I stammered. “I haven’t heard of such a thing, but sometimes when there’s no other way to make money, people do things they wouldn’t normally do.”
He looked at me and nodded. “Would you like to have a glass of honey wine with me after we are done?”
Again, uh …awkward. Coming on the heels of the comments about lechers and prostitutes, was he coming on to me? He was probably younger than my son. I’m sure he was lonely, with his wife gone, but. Maybe it didn’t mean anything.
“I have to do some work after this,” I said, trying to sound light. “But thanks for the invitation.”
Tesfaye shrugged and walked on.
“Ethiopian Christians are supposed to make a pilgrimage to Lalibela or Jerusalem in their lifetimes.” Tesfaye said. “They are especially supposed to visit Lalibela at Christmas.” I had seen some pilgrims wrapped in white gauzy robes. The thought of thousands of people in white floating around Lalibela during the Christmas season sounded lovely.
Tesfaye talked about the Italians. The Ethiopians had fended them off in 1895. Humiliated that an African country had beaten them, the Italians came back and won in 1935. “But we were only a colony for five years,” he said proudly.
We walked back to Tukul Village and I paid Tesfaye the agreed upon 600 Birr, which amounted to about $25 for the four hours we had spent together. I wondered if I should invite him for a beer in the restaurant, or tip him, but I was tired and just bade him farewell.
The huts had Internet, so I gleefully spent several hours online. There’s a myth that “There’s Internet everywhere,” and that “everybody has a smart phone” and is on social media. At the office, I couldn’t even get an Internet connection using a cable. Maki gave me some kind of Chinese dongle that was supposed to work but didn’t. I couldn’t get a 3G signal in the hotel. When I did get online, the connection was excruciatingly slow.
I was grateful to have a signal. I was grateful to learn that I could lose five pounds with one simple trick, to see that my son’s friend had installed a new faucet in her kitchen, and to watch a video about Albinism Awareness Week in Australia.
This entry was posted in Adventure, Budget travel, Culture shock, International Development, Living abroad, Travel and tagged Ethiopia, Technology, travel on July 26, 2017 by Breaking Free.
← Solomon and Ras Tafari Bye Bye, Lalibela →
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© Anne Maertz and Breaking Free, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to [Your Name] and [Your Blog Name] with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
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Netflix Teams Up With Partner Communications In Israel
Today, Partner Communications, one of the leading Israeli communications operators, confirmed they had formed a partnership with Netflix. The partnership will make Netflix’s streaming service available to subscribers of Partner’s new television service, which is expected launch in the next few weeks. This will effectively make Partner the first telecommunications company in Israel to offer Netflix on a set-top box. The setup will provide users with a best-in-class experience, fast load time, and the convenience of having a Netflix button on the Partner’s remote control.
Partner customers that have a subscription with Netflix will have instant access to a wide selection of Netflix original content and international TV series. Simultaneously, they’ll be able to watch movies, documentaries and even some Ultra HD 4K content without any advertisements. Netflix’s Vice President of Business Development, Maria Ferreras, confirmed that Israeli customers have been quick to adopt the Netflix system, since it was launched in the country a year ago.
She also spoke about the company’s future content saying “With more than 1,000 hours of new original Netflix content slated for 2017, we are delighted to work with Partner to offer a fantastic new way through which Netflix customers can seamlessly access and enjoy our service.” CEO of Partner, Isaac Benbenisti, spoke highly of the new partnership saying, “We are proud to be selected as the first Israeli partner of Netflix, the world’ leading entertainment network.”
Both companies plan to announce more details about the partnership later this summer.
Tags: netflixpartners communicationPTNR
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Mnangagwa is a worse devil than Mugabe
by Frazer Muzondo
Mnangagwa took over the presidency of Zanu PF and Zimbabwe in the background of a November 2017 coup that toppled long serving president Robert Mugabe. The people of Zimbabwe and the international community celebrated the demise of Mugabe because of the tyranny that he was. Mugabe was a self proclaimed Hitler of Africa and Mugabe was happy for people to label him exactly that. And he behaved exactly like that both at home and internationally. The people of Zimbabwe had suffered enough through Mugabe's regime so they had every reason to celebrate because they never thought it could get any worse than it was during Mugabe's era. The people of Zimbabwe including opposition members welcomed Mnangagwa to take over and finish Mugabe's term of office. What the people of Zimbabwe didn't realise was that they were celebrating coming from a hot plate stove into a boiling frying pan. They celebrated a new breed of dictators.
When Mnangagwa took over, he sold the term "new dispensation" and "Zimbabwe is open for business" mantra. But in actual fact there was nothing new in the dispensation. It was a case of continuation of the old regime. Only faces had changed but the system remained. The open for business mantra was just a term used to sell the country but there is nothing open in Zimbabwe, it is still the same old way of doing things. Mugabeism is still very much intact only new enforcers and drivers. The bus is still the same, Zanu Pf regime, just the driver is new Mnangagwa. He is not even new because it's the assistant driver who has just taken over the reigns of power. The assistant, Mnangagwa in my opinion is proving to be a worse driver than Mugabe. Mnangagwa is actually a very dangerous driver because he indicates right and turn left. What he says in public and what he does in the dead of the night are two parallel lines that will never meet. He preaches peace and democracy to the world when he is busy murdering his own people.
Mugabe was smarter than Mnangagwa because Mugabe was intelligent but Emmerson is so dull and he just doesn't have a clue on how to take Zimbabwe out of its comatose state both politically and economically. Emmerson Mnangagwa called an election in July 2018, which he knew he wasn't going to win. He knew that he was going to force himself into office by rigging the election as they had been used to doing during Mugabe era. He called and allowed international observers to come and observe the elections. He blatantly stole the election under the watchful eye of international observer. He thought they would be so daft not to see his shenanigans he was going to use to steal the election.
The EU and Commonwealth observers missions both concluded that the election results were neither credible, transparent and the playing field wasn't fair. Results were unverifiable and untraceable which means that the results just came from somewhere. Not verifiable, in short the international community said ZEC cooked the results in favour of Mnangagwa. Mnangagwa was given the presidency by ZEC and the constitutional court. The people of Zimbabwe clearly rejected Mnangagwa on the ballot box. But Mnangagwa being the enforcer as he has always been, he became president by hook and crook. He forced himself onto the people. As soon as he was endorsed by the constitutional court, he started stamping his authority and suppressing any form of dissent by brutal force by using the army instead of the police to enforce law and order.
Mnangagwa is clearly using his tactics he got from Mugabe during Gukurahundi, Murambatsvina and the 2008 operation wavhotera papi. Mnangagwa is clearly proving to be the brains behind all these murderous operations that happened during Mugabe's role because of the way he is using the army to crackdown any form of dissent by Zimbabwean citizens. He is clearly leading a military government. So far he has willingly killed 23 innocent civilians using the army to carry out duties which could've been carried out by the police force. At this rate of murdering people, only God knows how many people he would have killed by the end of his five year term. He has proven to be bloodthirsty of innocent civilians.
Mnangagwa has also shown his love for luxury and inability to stop corruption within government. None of the criminals targeted that we were made to believe surrounded Mugabe is in prison. He is only targeting G40 members who are his enemies. He has also targeted opposition MDC members including elected Members of Parliament. He has so far charged more people with treason including women than were charged during Mugabe's era. He has done absolutely nothing to weed out corruption within government departments.
His love for luxury is also seen by the number of foreign trips he has embarked on since he has taken over the presidency. The trips so far hasn't been of any economic benefit to the country. No investment deals he has reportedly signed has yielded any positive results. Infact, so far to close to fifty companies have closed in Zimbabwe since Mnangagwa became president. So is Zimbabwe open for business or it is actually closing for business. In all these foreign trips he has been on, Mnangagwa through Mary Chiwenga company has hired very expensive and very luxurious private jets to take him and his entourage on useless globetrotting. Mugabe was even better because he was chattering the national airline and if he was paying I think he was Air Zimbabwe's number one customer. But at least Mugabe wasn't wasting the scarce foreign currency that Zimbabwe desperately needs.
With the way things are right now in Zimbabwe both socially and economically, most Zimbabweans are in a worse position than they were during Mugabe's era. Cost of living has escalated and prices are going up daily and looks like there is no-one in charge. It therefore looks like Zimbabweans were fooled into celebrating a worse devil than the one they were used to for the past thirty seven years.
The scenes of November 2017 therefore reminds me of the Shona saying which says "Kupururidzira N'anga neinobata mai" and the English saying which says "it's better to keep the devil you know than the one you don't". Mnangagwa is actually not as soft as wool which is what he wants the world to believe. Mnangagwa is actually a crocodile as his nickname (Garwe) says, that is very thirsty for human blood. Mnangagwa is actually taken Zimbabwe into the road to nowhere.
Frazer Muzondo
ROHR ZIM/MDC UK.
Source - Frazer Muzondo
More on: #Mnangagwa, #Mugabe, #Mugabeism, #Commonwealth
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burrunjorsramblesandbabbles
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Top 10 Vampires →
Does Moffat era Doctor Who take place in a different canon to previous era’s?
Posted by Burrunjor
I have recently developed a theory about Doctor Who canon. Now I am aware that a lot of people including Steven Moffat believe that Doctor Who does not have a canon, but I disagree. If Doctor Who did not have a canon then it would be like the surrealist British comedy Mighty Boosh anything could happen.
In the Mighty Boosh main characters die and then re emerge completely fine then next week with no explanation, others back stories change without explanation. Both of these things have happened to the Hitcher one of the main villains of the series who was pressured into getting a large thumb one week by his family, and was then an orphan the next, and who was melted into a puddle in one episode and then re appeared fine the next. With Doctor Who however it isn’t like that.
Adric dies and that’s that he doesn’t show up completely fine the next week he is gone and his death has a significant effect on the main characters, Rose leaves the Doctor and that remains unchanged and once again has a significant effect on the main character unlike the Hitchers death. However I do agree that Who has a more flexible canon than other series as it involves time travel and certain events not fixed points but certain events can be re written such as the events of the ninth Doctor story “Dalek” that must have been erased by The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End as Dalek shows nobody being aware of Daleks or aliens in 2012 whilst “The Stolen Earth” shows the Daleks stealing and invading the earth in 2009. Thus whilst I wouldn’t say Who has no canon I do agree that its canon can be changed a lot more easily than other series.
Which leads me on to my next point that the bulk of Steven Moffat era Doctor Who, from “The Big Bang” onwards takes place in a different universe to all of the previous seasons of Doctor Who.
Now I have many reasons for thinking this. First of all in series 5 of the new Doctor Who the Time Fields begin to rip apart the universe despite the Alliances best efforts to stop them until eventually all of creation except for the earth is reduced to nothing. The Doctor however is able to bring the universe back by flying the Pandorica which contains particles of the original universe in it into the exploding TARDIS which is still exploding at every point in history and in doing so rebuilds the universe as it was.
However the only thing is the universe isn’t as it was. The Earth Invasions from the Russell T Davies era such as the Daleks stealing the Earth, Cybermen invading every major city, Slitheen crashing into Big Ben for instance now never happened. Mankind no longer knows about aliens in the early 21st Century despite it being “when everything changes” also the rule regarding “fixed points” in time is vastly different in the Davies and the Moffat era as is the ending of the Time War. In the Davies era fixed points in time are merely events that the Time Lords have decided are too important and must always happen hence why the 10th Doctor is able to break one in “the Waters of Mars” without reality collapsing. In the Moffat era fixed points however must always happen because if they don’t the universe will be destroyed as seen in “The Wedding of River Song” when River breaks one and all of time is threatened. These numerous discrepancies have lead many Whovians to believe that the Doctor didn’t restore everything as it was when he rebooted the universe in “The Big Bang”, some events were left out such as the Daleks stealing the earth and also Rory’s death at the hands of the Silurian Restac.
However I am going to go one step further and say that the Doctor created a new universe at the end of the Big Bang one that was similar to the old one but ultimately different in a number of ways. This is backed up by what the Doctor says in the episode itself. When explaining to River how he is going to bring back the universe the Doctor compares it to cloning a human being from a cell. Thing is when you clone someone you don’t bring the original back to life you create a copy of the original so the fact that the Doctor compares rebooting the universe to cloning suggests to me at least that that is what he did he created a new universe from what was left of the old one and all adventures in the Big Bang from this point on take place in this new universe which is similar to the old one sure but is also different in a number of ways. The Doctor, Rory, River and Amy meanwhile are all that is left from the old universe. They are integrated into the new one and its timeline and they have memories of the old one yes, but they are now part of the new universe whilst everyone else is merely a new Universe clone.
This is how I look at it.
Old Doctor Who Universe (1963-2010)
This is the universe where every story from “An Unearthly Child” to “The Big Bang” takes place.
In this universe the rules regarding fixed points in time where different. They were merely moments the Time Lords had decided could never be changed. They could actually be changed however if one were so bold as to go against the laws of the Time Lords which the Doctor does after the Time Lords are gone in “The Waters of Mars”. Thus in this reality time can be rewritten a lot more easily which is how the Daleks have two different origins as seen in “The Mutants” and “Genesis of the Daleks”, and the Earth is destroyed in two different ways in “The Ark” and “The End of the World” and how Henry Van Statten doesn’t know what a Dalek is despite them stealing the earth three years earlier. All 3 cases were of time being re written.
In this reality aside from the Time Lords there are also creatures called Reapers that appear whenever time is changed.
Time Lords in this reality could not change gender. This explained why it was never even hinted at in Classic Who and why we saw whole Time Lords burn out regeneration cycles and not change gender.
In this reality the Doctor also never became the War Doctor it was the 8th Doctor who fought in the war. There were only 11 Doctors at this universes end.
The Master was perhaps the Doctors brother explaining the Ainley Master’s comments “wont you even show mercy to your own” in “The Planet of Fire”.
The Master was also killed when he went back into the Time War, when he blasted Rassilon in order to save the Doctor in “The End of Time”.
In this reality the Time War went differently too. The High Council were in more control and tried to destroy all of creation leading to the 8th Doctor burning them all alongside the Daleks, also the Time War was perhaps a much more drawn out brutal affair and by its end it became the “hell” the Doctor described with creatures like “The Nightmare Child” and the “Skaro Degradations” all running about, rather than just Daleks and Time Lords.
The Zygons home planet was destroyed by a solar flare.
The Rift existed in this reality a portal between Cardiff and numerous other time periods and dimensions and planets.
In this reality the new Dalek race created in Victory of the Daleks destroyed the old Daleks and became the only Dalek race in existence.
In this reality Earth was invaded by Daleks, Cybermen, Slitheen, Sontarans and Sycrocrax in the early 21st Century leading to mankind becoming aware of aliens in the 21st Century hence Jacks comments of 21st Century is “when everything changes”.
In this reality mankind first ventured out into the stars when Adeliade having been inspired by the sight of a Dalek during their 2009 invasion went to Mars and sacrificed herself for the good of mankind. This lead to her children and her children’s children travelling into space and forging a legacy that would lead to mankind enduring to the end of time.
The 7th Doctor destroyed Skaro prior to the Time War using the Hand of Omega.
The Great Intelligence is a cold and logical being in this reality hence his comments in “the Web of Fear” that “revenge is a petty human emotion”.
Rory Williams was shot dead by the Silurian Restac.
This universe ultimately is destroyed when the time fields merge and erase it all except for the earth. The 11th Doctor however using the Pandorica is able to create a new Universe from the “DNA” of the old one. He River, Rory and Amy the last survivors of the old universe are integrated into the new universe and their histories are rewritten accordingly, however they still have the memories of the old one. For instance Amy remembers travelling with the Doctor and growing up with her parents even though the two things never happened at the same time. Her life with her parents was in this reality in the original she had no parents when she travelled with the Doctor. This new universe has a similar history to the old, but ultimately it is different in a lot of places and has different rules.
New Doctor Who Universe (2010-present)
This is the universe that was created at the end of “The Big Bang” and every story since has taken place in this one. It has many differences to the original Whoniverse.
In this reality fixed points are moments that cannot be changed because if they are then the universe and time itself come undone. Thus time is harder to change in this reality as it is not just merely a case of answering to the Time Lords its a case of destroying the universe if you change a particular event.
The Reapers do not exist as there is no need for them due to the laws surrounding fixed points.
The War Doctor existed in this reality which perhaps changed the course of the war.
The Master was clearly NOT the Doctors brother in this universe.
The Zygons home planet was destroyed much later in the Time War.
The Time War ended differently. Here the War Council in the later years where able to gain more control over Gallifrey and prevent the High Council from carrying out its plans to eradicate all of time itself. Though the Doctor still tried to use the moment the fact that Gallifrey was not so corrupt caused him to eventually spare them. In the original universe because it was Rassilon and the High Council perhaps not even the Moment itself wished to spare them and allowed the Doctor to use it. Here however the Doctors saved Gallifrey and thus it did not perish in this reality.
The Time War also ended differently in that towards the end it only involved the Daleks and the Time Lords which explains why we never saw the Nightmare Child or any of those other monsters 10 talked about in “The End of Time”. In “The Day of the Doctor” the end of the time war just looked like a standard space battle rather than “hell”.
In this reality Time Lords are gender fluid and change gender all of the time when they regenerate such as the Corsair and Missy.
Perhaps the 4th Doctor did not die during the events of “Logopolis”, but instead lived to being a ripe old age explaining the mysterious Curator we see in “Day of the Doctor”. However the Curators comments at the same time imply that he is a future regeneration who has assumed the face of the 4th Doctor, so 4 may have still met his end this way.
The battle of Canary Wharf still happened, but the Daleks stealing and invading the Earth didn’t which explains how the Valiant is still around in “Dark Water/ Death in Heaven”.
Earth was also never invaded by the Slitheen, the Sycrocrax and the Sontarans, and the Battle of Canary Wharf was covered up by the government. Thus mankind in the early 21st Century remained blissfully unaware of aliens.
The 7th Doctor did not destroy Skaro it survived even the Time War itself and was later occupied by the new race of Daleks which explains how Skaro is still around in “Asylum of the Daleks” despite being destroyed in “Rememberance of the Daleks” as Rememberance took place in the old universe.
Also as the Doctor didn’t use the Moment to destroy the Daleks this is how the Dalek Asylum survived to. In the original universe the Doctor used the moment to burn them all with only two Daleks the Emperor and the Metaltron surviving (as well as the Cult who were in the nothingness between universes)
The new race of Daleks who were created in “Victory of the Daleks” did not destroy the old Daleks who had created them but instead kept them as a servant race. This explains why in “Asylum of the Daleks” which is after “The Big Bang” there are the old Daleks alongside the new ones who are their masters. Here the old Daleks were not destroyed just made into the servants of the new Dalek race. Perhaps the Cult of Skaro emergency temporal shifted to where the progenator device in “Victory of the Daleks” was instead of Manhatten, and used it instead to create the new race of Daleks. Thus Caan never went back and rescued Davros, as the cult did the Ironside trick instead and created the new paradigm Daleks who as I mentioned enslaved the cult rather than destroy them and created a servant race of Daleks from the cults DNA. This would explain why we saw a black Dalek resembling Sec in the Dalek Asylum. That’s where he ended up here rather than dying in Manhatten.
Daleks in this reality considered it offensive to destroy other Daleks as they hated destroying such divine hatred, unlike the Daleks of the original universe who as evidenced by the numerous Dalek civil wars had not problem with killing one another. This explains why the new Proginator Daleks didn’t kill the original Daleks who made them.
As there were no 21st century alien invasions Adeliade was not inspired by the Dalek to go into space. However mankind would still endure until the end of time after being inspired by a totally different event. The Moon hatching into a Space Dragon is what inspired them to explore space rather than Adeliade’s sacrifice. Presumably the Space Dragon did not exist in the original universe.
The Rift also did not exist in this reality.
The Great Intelligence in this reality was a more emotional creature who faced the Doctor many times rather than just twice in the Second Doctors era. This would explain why in “The Name of the Doctor” he claims the Doctor thwarted him at every turn and why he is willing to kill himself just to get revenge on the Doctor.
Rory Williams was not shot by Restac,
This to me seems the most likely explanation for all of the continuity errors between the Moffat era and Davies’s time. A good comparison to my theory would be DC Comics which had a similar reboot in their story “Crisis on Infinite Earth’s” “Crisis on Infinite Earth’s” saw all the universes that previous DC Comic had taken place in become destroyed and a new one take its place with a similar but ultimately different history to the old ones.
That to me is what the season 5 finale “The Pandorica Opens/ The Big Bang” is its the Doctor Who version of “Crisis on Infinite Earths” the big story whose job is to sort out the franchises messed up continuity.
Of course I am sure many of you out there will disagree with me, but still let me know what you think of my little theory in the comments below.
Tagged Doctor Who
7 thoughts on “Does Moffat era Doctor Who take place in a different canon to previous era’s?”
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Great post! That’s an interesting theory! I assumed the events of “The Day of The Doctor,” where The War Doctor, The Tenth Doctor and The Eleventh Doctor saved Gallifrey always happened, The War Doctor just forgot about them when he regenerated into The Ninth Doctor. The Eleventh Doctor did reboot the universe in “The Big Bang,” creating a new universe, where presumably a lot of events were either prevented or altered, so you may be onto something there! I try not to think about the continuity of Doctor Who, it hurts my head too much haha.
Burrunjor
Yeah I suppose the events of Day could always have happened bt that’s the great thing about Who continuity its so vague everyone can have their own mad theory and this is mine. Thanks for the feedback.
I agree completely and no prob!
ilanalydia
Very observant theory. I like it. I’m extremely impressed that you were able to find a logical reason for the differences in the Earth’s timeline that works within the framework of the show, not just because of the switch of show runners. Why do you suppose the new universe doesn’t have its own Doctor, Rory, Amy, and River, independently of the ones from the old universe?
I reckon as they were at the eye of the storm it merely integrated them into its timeline with their history’s altered accordingly. Also perhaps as they come from the original universe some events from the original universe still had an effect on them which is why handy still counts in The Time of the Doctor despite Handy being wiped from canon as the Dalek Invasion of Earth was wiped from canon.
Blessedtwinz
Wow, that was an amazing read 🙂
It’s my unofficial head-canon now 🙂 🙂 🙂
Patrick Degan
Oh yes it was hinted at in Classic Who: as early as 1975’s “The Hand Of Fear”. When the Doctor and Sarah doubted the male Eldrad was the same as the previously female Kastrian they knew even after his claim that he had regained his “true form”, Eldrad replied: “Come, Doctor, you’re beginning to sound like Professor Watson! As a Time Lord, you should be well-acquainted with the process of regeneration.” That alone implies that it was possible and that Eldrad knew Time Lord regeneration could involve gender-swapping in the formation of a new body.
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TEFAF comes to New York this spring
events | Feb 27, 2017 |
For the TEFAF New York Spring Fair, 92 top galleries and dealers will exhibit their art and antiques from May 4 to 8 at the Park Avenue Armory. TEFAF, which hails from The Netherlands and is renowned for its high-level art, antiques and decor, had its New York debut last fall. This is its first springtime show stateside.
From left: René Magritte, "L'Explication," 1962, courtesy C. Herscovici / Artists Rights Society (ARS); Auguste Rodin, “The Thinker,” Bowman Sculpture; Nicolas de Staël, "Grande composition bleue," Applicat-Prazan
An opening-night preview will be hosted by The Society of Memorial Sloan Kettering on May 3, and will benefit the patient care, research, and education programs at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in addition to cultural programs at the Armory.
“The thinking behind bringing TEFAF to New York, is that this fair that is renowned for offering the highest quality and broadest range of art and design in the world should have a strong presence in the marketplace with the highest concentration of art collectors in the world,” shares Michael Plummer, co-director of TEFAF New York. “While Maastricht has always attracted a large contingent of North and South American curators and collectors, it is still not the same as holding such an art event in their own backyard. It is not merely a matter of convenience, but it also shows a degree of appreciation and respect for the important role that New York, and the Americas at large, play in the international art market.”
Plummer says the U.S. fair stands apart from the Netherlands one. “The TEFAF New York Spring Fair is different from Maastricht in several key ways: It is a third the size, and it is in a historic building in the heart of Manhattan,” he explains. “Exhibitor stands are smaller due to the limited space, so it is a highly edited fair, and the Spring Fair focuses on 20th-century art and design, a uniquely keen passion of American collectors, which will give the event a significantly different emphasis than Maastricht.”
Abstract designs take centerstage in exhibit at The Rug Company
Makers form lineup at NY NOW summer market
Las Vegas Market partners with contemporary art fair
BOLD Summit returns with Barclay Butera, Jamie Drake and Pamela Babey headlining
1stdibs Gallery reveals RISD MFA textiles
Summer textile camp launches in Italy next month
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New swine flu found in China has pandemic potential, researchers say
Named G4, virus is genetically descended from H1N1 strain behind 2009 outbreak. Tests show 10.4 per cent of swine workers and up to 4.4 per cent of general population may have been exposed
Researchers in China have discovered a new type of swine flu that is capable of triggering a pandemic, according to a study published on Monday in the US science journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Named G4, it is genetically descended from the H1N1 strain that caused a pandemic in 2009.
It possesses “all the essential hallmarks of being highly adapted to infect humans”, say the authors, scientists at Chinese universities and the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention.
From 2011 to 2018, researchers took 30,000 nasal swabs from pigs in slaughterhouses in 10 Chinese provinces and in a veterinary hospital, allowing them to isolate 179 swine flu viruses.
Most were of a new kind that has been dominant among pigs since 2016.
The researchers then carried out various experiments including on ferrets, which are widely used in flu studies because they experience similar symptoms to humans – mainly fever, coughing and sneezing.
G4 was observed to be highly infectious, replicating in human cells and causing more serious symptoms in ferrets than other viruses.
Tests also showed that any immunity humans gained from exposure to seasonal flu did not provide protection from G4.
According to blood tests that showed up antibodies created by exposure to the virus, 10.4 per cent of swine workers had already been infected.
The tests showed that as many as 4.4 per cent of the general population also appeared to have been exposed.
The virus has therefore already passed from animals to humans, but there is no evidence yet that it can be passed from human to human – the scientists’ main worry.
“It is of concern that human infection of G4 virus will further human adaptation and increase the risk of a human pandemic,” the researchers wrote.
The authors called for urgent measures to monitor people working with pigs.
“The work comes as a salutary reminder that we are constantly at risk of new emergence of zoonotic pathogens and that farmed animals, with which humans have greater contact than with wildlife, may act as the source for important pandemic viruses,” said James Wood, head of the department of veterinary medicine at Cambridge University.
A zoonotic infection is caused by a pathogen that has jumped from a non-human animal into a human.
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Supreme Court seems skeptical of Trump's census plan
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court sounded skeptical Monday that President Donald Trump could categorically exclude people living in the country illegally from the population count used to allot seats among the states in the House of Representatives.
But it also appeared possible that the justices could avoid a final ruling on the issue until they know how broadly the Trump administration acts in its final days in office and whether the division of House seats is affected.
No president has tried to do what Trump outlined in a memo in July — remove millions of noncitizens from the once-a-decade head count of the U.S. population that determines how many seats each state gets in the House of Representatives, as well as the allocation of some federal funding.
The court, meeting by telephone because of the coronavirus pandemic, heard arguments in its second case in two years related to the 2020 census and immigrants.
The census already is facing novel questions over deadlines, data quality and politics, including whether the incoming Biden administration would do anything to try to reverse decisions made under Trump.
One possibility outlined by acting Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall, Trump's top Supreme Court lawyer, is that Trump might try to leave out of the count people who are in immigration detention or those who have been ordered to leave the country.
But under questioning from Justice Elena Kagan, Wall would not rule out larger categories of immigrants, including those who have protection from deportation under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals programs.
“We can’t be certain at this point, and we don’t know what the president will decide to do with respect to that,” Wall said.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett was among several members of the court who said the administration's argument for broad discretion in deciding whom to exclude is troublesome because “a lot of the historical evidence and long-standing practice really cuts against your position.”
The court decided to hear the case on a fast track, based on the administration's plea for a decision by early January, when Trump is required by law to transmit census numbers to Congress. The Census Bureau is supposed to send the data to Trump by Dec. 31.
But Wall told the court Monday, “We are not currently on pace to send the report to the president by the year-end statutory deadline.” He said census officials told him they hope some data is available in January.
A delay of even three weeks would mean the Census Bureau would be turning in the numbers to a new president. President-elect Joe Biden takes office on Jan. 20.
Several conservative justices suggested that the better course for the court would be to avoid ruling immediately on lawsuits filed by New York and other Democratic-led states as well as immigration advocates because Trump's intentions are speculative at this point.
“Mr. Ho, if the additional information would be beneficial in a few weeks, wouldn’t it be beneficial to actually resolving this case? As the questioning seems to suggest, there’s some difficulty in assessing exactly what information will be available and what that information will be," Justice Clarence Thomas said to Dale Ho, the American Civil Liberties Union lawyer representing immigration groups.
The court could simply sit on the case in front of it to see what happens, or dismiss it as premature. The second option would allow Trump to move forward with his plan and lead inevitably to a new lawsuit.
Trump has a mixed record at the high court on immigration. The justices upheld his ban on travel to the U.S. by residents of some largely Muslim countries. But the court shot down his attempt to end the DACA program and blocked his bid to add a citizenship question to the census for the first time in 70 years.
DENVER — Reserve Jordan Clarkson scored 23 points, Donovan Mitchell added 18 and the Utah Jazz beat the Nuggets 109-105 Sunday night in a rematch of their thrilling first-round playoff series last season that Denver captured in seven games. Rudy Gobert finished with 15 points and 13 rebounds in a game in which Mitchell struggled with his shot, going 7 of 20 from the field. But Mitchell hit a clutch fadeaway with 1:01 remaining and with Denver staging a late rally. Mitchell also had seven assists as the Jazz won their fifth straight game. Nikola Jokic had 35 points, 14 rebounds and nine assists, while Jamal Murray chipped in 30 for the Nuggets. Murray averaged 31.6 points in the playoff series inside the NBA bubble to help the Nuggets overcome a 3-1 deficit to knock off the Jazz. The Jazz took the lead for good late in the third quarter when Mike Conley stole the ball from Jokic and dished it over to Clarkson, who hit a 3-pointer. But the Nuggets hung around until end. Murray drained a 3-pointer with about seven seconds remaining to bring the Nuggets to within 107-105. Gobert sealed the win with a dunk. The 2020 first-round series between the two teams inside the NBA bubble turned into the Mitchell & Murray Show, with both guards turning in electric performances. Mitchell averaged 36.3 points during the series and Murray countered with a pair of 50-point games. “I really feel that first-round matchup will go down as one of the better playoff series played,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone said. “You had all the drama going on — we got down 3-1 and we come back and win. Within that, you have two young dynamic players, Murray and Mitchell, that put on an incredible show game after game after game.” This matchup had an entirely different look. The Nuggets no longer have Jerami Grant, Torrey Craig or Mason Plumlee. The Jazz had back Bojan Bogdanovic, who missed the playoffs due to wrist surgery. He was the X-factor in this contest, hitting five 3-pointers and scoring 17. “It's still the Jazz and the Nuggets. Whether you need to reference (the series) or not, your players remember," Jazz coach Quin Snyder said. "Given the fact that it is the first time we have played them since then, I don’t know if it’s in the front of your mind, but it is certainly something you have thought about.” Jokic and Murray combined to score 40 to help the Nuggets take a 58-53 lead at halftime. TIP-INS Jazz: Utah went 15 of 37 from the 3-point line. ... Conley finished with 14 points and eight assists. Nuggets: F Michael Porter Jr. missed a ninth straight game due to the league’s health and safety protocols. ... Gary Harris had eight points. BUFFS SHOUTOUT Malone applauded the upset win by the Colorado women’s team over top-ranked Stanford down the road in Boulder on Sunday. The Buffaloes won 77-72 in overtime for the women’s first victory over a No. 1 team in program history. “Great win,” Malone said. “Keep it going.” UP NEXT Jazz: Host New Orleans on Tuesday and again on Thursday. Nuggets: Close out a three-game homestand by hosting Oklahoma City on Tuesday night. ___ More AP NBA: https://apnews.com/NBA and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports Pat Graham, The Associated Press
UAE and Ireland agree to complete coronavirus-hit ODI series after two matches were called off
UAE and Ireland will play a second one-day international in Abu Dhabi on Monday after two matches of the scheduled four-game series were called off due to COVID-19 concerns, officials said.
Facundo Campazzo with a 2-pointer vs the Utah Jazz
Facundo Campazzo (Denver Nuggets) with a 2-pointer vs the Utah Jazz, 01/17/2021
Jordan Clarkson with an and one vs the Denver Nuggets
Jordan Clarkson (Utah Jazz) with an and one vs the Denver Nuggets, 01/17/2021
Royce O'Neale with a deep 3 vs the Denver Nuggets
Royce O'Neale (Utah Jazz) with a deep 3 vs the Denver Nuggets, 01/17/2021
Rudy Gobert with a dunk vs the Denver Nuggets
Rudy Gobert (Utah Jazz) with a dunk vs the Denver Nuggets, 01/17/2021
PJ Dozier with a buzzer beater vs the Utah Jazz
PJ Dozier (Denver Nuggets) with a buzzer beater vs the Utah Jazz, 01/17/2021
Bojan Bogdanovic with a deep 3 vs the Denver Nuggets
Bojan Bogdanovic (Utah Jazz) with a deep 3 vs the Denver Nuggets, 01/17/2021
Will Barton with a 2-pointer vs the Utah Jazz
Will Barton (Denver Nuggets) with a 2-pointer vs the Utah Jazz, 01/17/2021
Nikola Jokic with a dunk vs the Utah Jazz
Nikola Jokic (Denver Nuggets) with a dunk vs the Utah Jazz, 01/17/2021
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2020 was one of the warmest years in history and indicates mounting risks of climate change
Jonathan Shieber
It's official. 2020 was one of the warmest years on record, either edging out or coming in just behind 2016 for the warmest year in recorded history according to data from U.S. government agencies (The National Aeronautics and Space Administration had the year just tied with 2016, while the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration put the figure just behind 2016's totals).
No matter the ranking, the big picture for the climate isn't pretty, according to scientists from NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York and the Washington, DC-based NOAA.
“The last seven years have been the warmest seven years on record, typifying the ongoing and dramatic warming trend,” said GISS Director Gavin Schmidt, in a statement. “Whether one year is a record or not is not really that important – the important things are long-term trends. With these trends, and as the human impact on the climate increases, we have to expect that records will continue to be broken.”
Bill Gates just released a plan for US leadership on climate change, including $35B in funding
That's a dire message for the nation considering the cost of last year's record-breaking 22 weather and climate disasters. At least 262 people died and scores more were injured by climate-related disasters, according to the NOAA.
And the combination of wildfires, droughts, heatwaves, tornados, tropical cyclones and severe weather events like hail storms in Texas and the derecho that wrecked the Midwest cost the nation $95 billion.
Homes are engulfed in flames in Vacaville, California during the LNU Lightning Complex fire on August 19, 2020.
Homes are engulfed in flames in Vacaville, California during the LNU Lightning Complex fire on August 19, 2020. As of the late hours of August 18, 2020 the Hennessey fire has merged with at least 7 fires and is now called the LNU Lightning Complex fires. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin. (Photo by JOSH EDELSON/AFP via Getty Images)
Both organizations track temperature trends to get some sort of picture of the impact that human activities -- specifically greenhouse gas emissions -- have on the planet. The image that comes into focus is that human activity has already contributed to increasing Earth's average temperature by more than 2 degrees Fahrenheit since the industrial age took hold in the late 19th century.
Most troubling to scientists is that this year's near record-setting temperatures happened without a boost from the climatic weather phenomenon known as El Niño, which is a large-scale ocean-atmosphere climate interaction linked to a periodic warming.
“The previous record warm year, 2016, received a significant boost from a strong El Niño. The lack of a similar assist from El Niño this year is evidence that the background climate continues to warm due to greenhouse gases,” Schmidt said, in a statement.
The warming trends the word is experiencing are most pronounced in the Arctic, according to NASA. There, temperatures have warmed three times as a fast as the rest of the globe over the past 30 years, Schmidt said. The loss of Arctic sea ice -- whose annual minimum area is declining by about 13% per decade -- makes the region less reflective, which means more sunlight is being absorbed by oceans, causing temperatures to climb even more.
These accelerating effects of climate change could be perilous for the world at large, Katharine Hayhoe, a professor at Texas Tech University wrote in an email to The Washington Post.
"What keeps us climate scientists up in the dead of night is wondering what we don’t know about the self-reinforcing or vicious cycles in the Earth’s climate system," Hayhoe wrote. "The further and faster we push it beyond anything experienced in the history of human civilization on this planet, the greater the risk of serious and even dangerous consequences. And this year, we’ve seen that in spades... It’s no longer a question of when the impacts of climate change will manifest themselves: They are already here and now. The only question remaining is how much worse it will get."
Carbon dioxide emissions are set to hit a record high this year (it’s not fine, but not hopeless)
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I tried to play 'Unsung Story' and fell for 'Mario Party' instead
Kris Naudus
·Buyer's Guide Editor
Six years ago I bought into the hype and backed Unsung Story, then touted as a spiritual sequel to Final Fantasy Tactics. I loved the latter title for its gameplay, music and character designs — especially Agrias, as I have a thing for women in plate armor — and I hope that maybe this might capture some of those old feelings. With people like Jason Schreier hyping it up, I felt like it wasn’t a bad place to throw my $20 at the time.
How wrong I was. The anticipated release date slipped rather quickly, but that didn’t bother me much — after all, the same happened with Broken Age, which ultimately turned out fine. Where things started to go sideways was when then-developer Playdek attempted to pivot the title into a PvP battle arena game, a far cry from what I and many others had backed. It was ultimately a relief when Playdek announced they were out of money, though upsetting that I and many other backers may never see a return on our pledges.
The project was eventually picked up by a developer Little Orbit in 2017, who were upfront about the fact that the money was gone, as were many assets from the Playdek years. The company started mostly from scratch, but attempted to fulfill the original vision for the game, drawing from the original design documents from FFT designer Yasumi Matsuno.
After playing the game’s recent build for backers though, it is… not what I expected. Little Orbit went for a glum Western art style instead of the anime aesthetic that was so charming in Final Fantasy Tactics. However, I figured, since I hadn’t bothered to keep up with the project and besides, this is better than the big fat nothing I previously had. I started up a new game and went through the character creator, annoyed that this early version only allowed male-bodied avatars. It still seemed fairly robust in terms of skin tones and hair, and I poked at it for a few minutes before realizing I really didn’t care what I looked like in the game, I just wanted to know how it played.
Honestly, I still don’t know. After the character creator, the game just crashed on me. I reopened the program, hit continue and got to watch a narratively-dense cutscene that my machine struggled to render before failing once again. And so it has been every time I’ve loaded the game — even when I skip the intro scene, the game crashes. I’ll just have to keep waiting for a build my laptop can handle.
Mario Party on Switch
So, let’s talk about Mario Party instead.
Yes, Mario Party. I hear you groaning from here. I’m not a huge fan but, when someone says “hey let’s spend the next hour playing this incredibly capricious and nonsensical board game,” I don’t object. I just pick my character — usually a princess, which is probably one of the few times I’d pick an overtly girly avatar — and just let it happen. Because after all, the points don’t matter in Mario Party. Dead last? Here, have a star!
I probably haven’t played a Mario Party title in close to a decade, skipping the Wii U installment entirely — but it hasn’t really changed much with 2018’s Super Mario Party for the Switch. Or at least, not in concept. There are plenty of bells and whistles added, and it’s certainly a nicer-looking game now. But the core of “here’s a bunch of weird mini games and maybe if you’re lucky with your dice rolls you’ll get a star” is still there. I was a bit drunk when I played (safely) with friends, and checked out rather quickly, to the tune of “I’m going to land on the bad luck space on purpose.” I lost a bunch of coins and I didn’t care. I was just in it for the camaraderie.
The games we played were a mix of familiar and new — there was one where I had to draw shapes in cooperation with another player using a piece of string on a peg board, and another where I was piloting a pod that the other players shot darts at. But the last we played was the best, and I’m seriously wishing it was an entire separate game: Slaparazzi.
In this mini game, all of the players are inside a ring surrounded by small stools upon which Koopas will randomly climb up on to snap a photo. Your objective is to be the subject of these pics, by getting as up front and center as you can, slapping the other players out of the way in the process. The game will show you each photo as it is taken and score you on your placement in the frame.
The photos are hilarious. They’re never good by conventional standards, with characters blocked off or blurry or caught at awkward angles. But it’s those awkward angles, the players caught mid-slap or being slapped, that make the entire thing a delight to behold. It’s just wonderfully trashy in the way that reality shows and tabloids can be, and it turns out I am very, very good at knocking people out of the way to vamp for the camera. It was the only mini game I won the entire time my friends and I played.
I’ve always loved the photography mode in games like Spider-Man and Final Fantasy XV, so of course I loved Slaparazzi. And as you can imagine, the reboot of Pokémon Snap for the Switch can’t come soon enough for me.
Except of course, this is the year where I learned to wait. I can wait for a new Snap, and for Unsung Story to get out of alphas and betas into something more finished, for the right mini game in Super Mario Party, for Cyberpunk 2077 to work out its issues and for spring to come around again in Animal Crossing to catch the fish I’m missing. Earlier this week I wrote about how 2020 was the year of the casual gamer, and these two titles — Unsung Story and Super Mario Party — have shown me it’s not just the games that are casual, but me as well.
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Genesis P-Orridge: Musician and performance artist dedicated to confrontation
Garth Cartwright
March 29, 2020, 8:49 a.m. ·4 min read
Genesis P-Orridge was a confrontational British musician and artist regarded by enthusiasts as a genuine avant-garde pioneer while dismissed by detractors as a talentless narcissist obsessed with gaining attention and power over more vulnerable individuals.
With the experimental music acts Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV, P-Orridge, who has died of leukaemia aged 70, found a cult following in the 1970s and 1980s that their visual art never commanded.
Neil Andrew Megson was born in Manchester to Roland and Muriel Megson, and grew up in Essex, Cheshire then Warwickshire as the family shifted around due to their father’s job as a travelling salesman. Megson attended the private Solihull School between 1964 and 1968, developing an interest in art, occultism and the avant-garde.
As a teenager Megson and schoolmates were publishing an underground magazine and forming rock bands that looked to London’s psychedelic scene and confrontational New York bands like The Fugs. Briefly studying social administration and philosophy at the University of Hull, Megson dropped out in 1969, shifting to London where s/he joined a commune.
By 1970 Megson had returned to the family home in Shrewsbury, working for their father before shifting to Hull to form COUM Transmissions, an avant-garde artistic and musical troupe, with John Shapeero. Joined by Christine Newby – who changed her name to Cosey Fanni Tutti – the trio attempted to form a band before evolving into performance art.
In 1971 Megson changed name by deed poll to Genesis P-Orridge. COUM’s performances won them the attention of local newspapers and then the police who, judging them obscene, regularly shut COUM events down.
The trio shifted to London in 1973, basing themselves in Hackney. Their performances found Peter Christopherson joining COUM (so being nicknamed Sleazy) and, in 1974, the Arts Council awarded them a grant of £1,500. Their Prostitution show at London’s ICA in 1976 included displays of Tutti modelling in pornographic magazines (and stripping in Soho clubs) alongside used tampons. The media outrage generated saw COUM denounced in the House Of Commons as “wreckers of civilisation” by the Scottish Conservative MP Sir Nicholas Fairbairn.
P-Orridge, Tutti and Sleazy formed Throbbing Gristle, an experimental noise band who coined the genre “industrial music”. The rock music press began taking a cautious interest in Throbbing Gristle and, in 1979, their mockingly titled album 20 Jazz Funk Classics won them an audience beyond the performance art niche they had previously operated in.
After Throbbing Gristle split in 1981, P-Orridge formed Psychic TV, a collective band and occult commune whose music stuck to a more conventional rock format. Psychic TV’s recordings including a series of live albums – one recorded in a different nation each month across 14 months – but it was P-Orridge’s championing of the late occultist Aleister Crowley and Anton LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan, along with their enthusiasm for the likes of Charles Manson and serial killers, that lent them notoriety: in 1992, Channel 4’s Dispatches broadcast a documentary alleging communal child abuse in Satanic rituals. P-Orridge’s home was raided by police while s/he was in the US, remaining there until all charges were dropped. (Channel 4 later retracted its initial accusations.)
Based in New York, P-Orridge and their new wife Lady Jaye (nee Jacqueline Breyer, a New York dominatrix) would spend $200,000 on body modification so to resemble one another. From then on P-Orridge asked to be addressed as “s/he”. In June 1998 the couple won a $1.5m lawsuit against record producer Rick Rubin for injuries sustained while trying to escape a fire at Rubin’s home in April 1995.
Across this time P-Orridge hosted an event at London’s Royal Festival Hall in 1999 while Throbbing Gristle reformed to play London’s Astoria in 2003, their first performance in 23 years. In 2007 Lady Jaye Breyer P-Orridge died of a heart condition.
Age did not mellow P-Orridge and s/he made headlines by criticising Caitlyn Jenner’s self-description as a “spokesperson” for the transgender community, and then as a model unlike any other for a campaign by the fashion designer Marc Jacobs.
P-Orridge was diagnosed with chronic leukaemia in October 2017. That same year Cosey Fanni Tutti, their former lover and partner in COUM and Throbbing Gristle, published her autobiography Art Sex Music. In it she accused P-Orridge of extreme sexual abuse. S/he denied the accusations and performed a farewell concert at London’s Heaven nightclub in November 2018.
S/he is survived by two adult daughters from their first marriage.
Genesis P-Orridge (Neil Andrew Megson), musician and performance artist, born 22 February 1950, died 14 March 2020
Pop Smoke: US rapper who introduced the UK drill sound to New York
Beverly Pepper: Sculptor famed for her bold metal monuments
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How one library's 3D printer is helping doctors prepare for COVID-19 patients
April 7, 2020, 5:00 a.m. ·3 min read
An ER doctor and a library on Nova Scotia's South Shore have teamed up to create a special training tool as doctors across the province prepare to treat more sick COVID-19 patients who may need mechanical ventilators to breathe.
The Lunenburg branch of the South Shore Public Libraries has used its 3D printer to make three hard plastic models of a human airway for a doctor who works in town at Fishermen's Memorial Hospital.
"Emergency physicians around the world are in the same boat, which is trying to be as prepared as possible for whatever comes," said Dr. Thomas Dietz.
Dietz was recently researching ways to brush up his skills at intubating a patient who needs a ventilator. Intubation is often done through the mouth and down the throat, but sometimes that is not possible.
In those cases, doctors must cut into the area below the Adam's apple to insert a breathing tube. According to Dietz, doctors may have only "one, maybe two" chances at getting the procedure correct with the sickest patients.
"This is a procedure emergency room physicians are trained to do, but don't do frequently. And I think the informal statistics are once in your career," he said.
Dietz said he has not performed the procedure for roughly eight or 10 years, so he was anxious to practise. During research, he found a design for a 3D-printed model of a human airway on a website for emergency room doctors, and reached out to his local library for help.
Steve Lawrence/CBC
"We've printed all sorts of things over the years that we've had a 3D printer, but this ranks right up there," said Christina Pottie, the South Shore Public Libraries' community engagement co-ordinator.
Dietz sent Pottie the publicly available file of the airway and she got to work printing it off.
The South Shore library branches are closed to the public, but a skeleton staff are still working to fulfil requests from the public and Pottie was able to drop the model off to Dietz the same evening.
"It feels remarkably similar to a real human neck in terms of trying to find the landmarks, the lumps and bumps that guide you to where you need to make your incision," Dietz said.
The model is tube shaped and has a hole at the correct insertion point. During practice, the doctor wraps the model in gauze to represent soft tissue, then wraps the whole thing in a plastic bag. The doctor can use a scalpel to cut into the right spot.
Dietz took the model to Fishermen's Memorial, where he left it at the ER doctors' station for his colleagues to practise on. He dropped off another to South Shore Regional Hospital in nearby Bridgewater.
Submitted by Christina Pottie
"The general consensus seems to be that it's a really cool thing," he said. "It's really easy to use, it's really easy to visualize what you're doing after you've looked at this model."
Dietz said he thinks often about the risk to himself, his colleagues, and his family, but being able to practise made him feel more prepared for what is coming.
"The first time I used this model, it just helped a great deal with the stress of, what if I have to do this," he said.
Pottie is willing to print more models if other doctors want them, and she's proud the library was able to help.
"It was really exciting, just to know that in some little way we could help. And to know that right here, locally in Lunenburg on the South Shore," Pottie said.
"You didn't have to go to a university, to an engineering department to ask, 'Hey, could you print this for us?' Just right here in our public library we could do this for him."
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Michael Spalt Guitars: The Man Behind the ART Revolution…
by David Peterson | Apr 27, 2020 | Creative Guitars, Education, function meets art, Guitar Art, Guitars, Museum Guitars, Spalt Guitars, Uncategorized, Vintage Guitars | 0 comments
Meet the genius behind some of the world’s greatest masterpieces in the music industry…Michael Spalt, founder and creator of Spalt Instruments.
I had the pleasure of spending some time with Michael in LA a few months ago and we got into some of the details, inspirations and artforms that all ‘come together’ to make incredible music. Form, art and function strike an uncompromising balance that delivers an intimate guitar experience. His love for iconic vintage guitars set the table for that special feel and sound…his love and talent with art and form brings these worlds together.
We will do a three part series with transcripts from our discussions and some behind the scenes shots of the studio and guitars:
The Early Years: how the journey began
Inspirations: art meets functionality
Materials and Form: woods, pickups and tone
Michael Spalt came to the US in 1978 from Vienna, Austria to study at the Art Institute in San Francisco. The city was vibrant in his words… filled with music, open spaces and diversity. The pure joy of music had an impact on Michael while studying in the Bay Area. He soon found his way to L.A. and felt the more ‘mainstream vibe’ and industry based side of music and instruments…but with San Francisco still running through his veins, Michael began developing his craft…primarily bass guitars at first. By the late 1990’s, he was fully entrenched in the guitar manufacturing business.
“Michael, when did you first come to the United States, and where did you begin here…”
Michael’s reply…”1978. I came to San Francisco to study at the Art Institute. Quite a culture shock. Interesting times – Jim Jones, Harvey Milk, the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, turbulent and traumatic. But I loved the city and the open spaces just over the bridge in Marin – there was a vibrant music scene, and the city held a lot of diversity. The Bay Area still feels more like home than LA, even though it has changed so much, too much money and too crowded. It has lost a lot of what made it so special back then. We returned often to visit family and to do the Marin guitar shows. Event though I was based in LA, I had more customers for my guitars in the Bay Area. LA is very industry oriented, mainstream. I got the feeling that people in the Bay Area generally were into music for the joy of it, rather than just as a career – I remember my second workshop in LA, it was situated in a rehearsal complex, with Brian Wilson’s band next door and Morelli had a space there also along with a lot of other bands. In the evening they came out, after their day jobs, and I could overhear the conversations outside my open garage door. It revolved mainly around contracts and career opportunities…
“Fralin played a big part in your early years. How did you meet and did you work with him in Virginia…”
Reply…”Actually, the first few years I mostly used vintage pickups – P-90’s, T-tops, Mini humbuckers, Tele pickups, early DiMarzio’s – they were cheap – at the time people were only looking for PAF’s, so there were a lot of other old pickups floating around. I discovered the sound of 50’s P-90’s and loved them. The one problem was that sometimes you got good ones and sometimes not-so-good ones. I found I needed a more consistent quality. I had used some Seymour Duncan’s, and then eventually settled on using mainly Fralin’s – ended up using a lot of Tele and P-90 pickups by him. ”
“Describe the current relationship with Fralin. You guitars are far more than art meets music. How does Fralin play a role in the process of pickup manufacturing and voicing.”
Reply…”Our personal relationship started when I was working on the Nouvau Series and wanted special pickups that would match the uniqueness and quality of those guitars. I figured that getting into winding, magnets and all the finer points of pickup making required a learning curve I wasn’t able to fit into my schedule. So I called Lindy and asked if he would be willing to try if my ideas would work. I made the bobbins, sent them to him and we went through some magnet and winding variations, but they were pretty spectacular right out of the gate. These became the BoneTops I use on almost all of my guitars. I would make a batch of bobbins and send them to Lindy and he would wind them – by now many hundreds of them. He used to complain a bit about the inconsistencies – they were all handmade, so one had to be careful while winding them. A few years ago we finally met, he came with his wife Jenny to the Holy Grail Guitar Show in Berlin to do a workshop about pickups along with Jason Lollar, Tom Jones and Harry Häussel (one of the main German pickup makers) and we got to be friends – they came to visit us in Vienna. I hope to finally make it to Virginia one day and visit him and see where the magic happens. These days I have my BoneTops wound by Harry Häussel. Sending the bobbins back and forth between Europe and the US, with customs issues etc., became prohibitive. I sent Harry some of the originals and he replicated them. I still use Lindys standard pickups quite a lot. He’s still one of my favorite makers.”
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Lieberman, William S. & Art Gallery of New South Wales. & National Gallery of Victoria. & Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.). (1975). Modern masters, Manet to Matisse. New York : Museum of Modern Art
Lieberman, William S. and Art Gallery of New South Wales. and National Gallery of Victoria. and Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.). Modern masters, Manet to Matisse / the Museum of Modern Art, New York ; edited by William S. Lieberman Museum of Modern Art New York 1975
Lieberman, William S. & Art Gallery of New South Wales. & National Gallery of Victoria. & Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.). 1975, Modern masters, Manet to Matisse / the Museum of Modern Art, New York ; edited by William S. Lieberman Museum of Modern Art New York
| title=Modern masters, Manet to Matisse / the Museum of Modern Art, New York ; edited by William S. Lieberman
| author1=Lieberman, William S. (William Slattery), 1924-
| author2=Art Gallery of New South Wales
| author3=National Gallery of Victoria
| author4=Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.)
| publisher=Museum of Modern Art
Modern masters, Manet to Matisse / the Museum of Modern Art, New York ; edited by William S. Lieberman
New York : Museum of Modern Art, [1975?]
271 p. : ill. (some col.) ; 19 x 21 cm.
"Schedule of the exhibition: Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, April 10-May 11, 1975; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, May 28-June 22, 1975; the Museum of Modern Art, New York, August 4-September 1, 1975."
Painting, Modern -- 19th century -- Exhibitions. | Painting, Modern -- 20th century -- Exhibitions.
Lieberman, William S. (William Slattery), 1924- | Art Gallery of New South Wales | National Gallery of Victoria | Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.)
759.06074 L716 Main Reading Room - Held offsite
Treasures revealed : modern Australian art
Modern Australian paintings
Modern Australian painting : 1920s-1980s
Peinture modern polonaise : sources et recherches : Musee Galliera, Paris, 1969
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A Lion Called Christian – Documentary
August 16, 2014 Cayo Buay
In 1969 Ace Bourke and John Rendall were two young Australian travellers who had just arrived in London when they bought a lion cub from Harrods department store. It was an impractical “impulse” buy, but while he was a cub they felt they could look after him as well as anyone, and do their best to secure his future. They called him Christian.
Ace and John lived with Christian on the King’s Road, Chelsea and when Christian grew too big they moved to the country until it was arranged for Christian to be returned to the wild in Kenya.
Two documentaries entitled The Lion from World’s End, and Christian the Lion were made about his life in London, his return to Africa, George Adamson assembling a “man-made” pride around Christian, and his rehabilitation back into the African wild. Ace and John also wrote A Lion Called Christian (1971) which was re-published in 2009 with superb photographs by Derek Cattani who documented Christian’s early life.
Forty years later the YouTube clip featuring Christian’s unforgettable reunion with Ace and John, a year after his return to Africa, introduced a new world audience who are intrigued and enchanted by Christian’s extraordinary story. With the mutual love and trust he shared with Ace and John, he has become a symbol of the potential of human-animal relationships and the importance and urgency of animal and wildlife conservation.
Tagged Ace Bourke, Africa, Australian, Christian the Lion, Documentary, George Adamson, John Rendall, Kenya, London, The Lion from World's End
Published by Cayo Buay
I was born in Belize City, Belize on Sept. 01, 1975 and raised in the beautiful town of San Ignacio, Cayo; both places in the Central American Country of Belize. Hence the name Cayo Buay, it is Kriol for Boy from Cayo. Raised in a single mother home with 8 children, I learnt from a tender age that you can't always have what you want and you always have to work hard for what you get. As a young lad I remember going to my Granddad's farm to help as we could. CB has been working since Std 6 (8th Grade). I worked in the Architecture and Construction field while I lived in Belize and worked on many projects ranging from residential to Commercial with the most notable being the extension to the PGIA. I know about hard life and how to make a lot out of a little. But that was then, today I am a happily married man and father of a wonderful son who I am doing my utmost best to raise the right way. I've worked in Architecture and Construction, owned my own company, did some remodeling and some call center work both as a rep and as a manager, worked as a Helpdesk Admin, System Administrator and now an ESM (Enterprise System Monitor) Engineer, essentially a walking NSA. View all posts by Cayo Buay
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Home Actresses Claudia Sampedro Married, Baby Daddy, Wiki, Bio, Measurements
Claudia Sampedro Married, Baby Daddy, Wiki, Bio, Measurements
It has long been agreed that Claudia Sampedro is the doppelganger of Kim Kardashian, her Cuban twin sister. Like Kim, people followed Sampedro. This is evident in the number of followers she has gathered for herself on social platforms.
Claudia Sampedro has more than one million (1 million) happy followers on Instagram. As an enthusiastic self-taught person, his good humor and regular photo uploads have brought people to his social media pages. She can boast of having more than 165,000 fans on Twitter and 170,000 others on Facebook.
ALSO READ: Carly Aquilino Wiki, Dating, Boyfriend, Career, Net Worth, Family
The Cuban model has become an Internet sensation for its extraordinary similarity to Kim Kardashian. With her dark brown hair, tanned skin and curved silhouette, she reminds everyone of the personality of American reality television.
As a model and actress, Claudia Sampedro is determined to inspire women to take up their challenges and take responsibility for everything that life imposes on them. While she wants women to be motivated enough to push their limits, her ultimate goal is to link her lifestyle, aspirations, and success to an authentic and positive message for women around the world.
The feeling behind Sampedro’s goal is that “some women are lost in the fire” while others”… are built from it”.
Claudia Sampedro Wiki/Bio
In addition to being a model of glamour and fitness, Claudia Sampedro is an actress. Originally from Cuba, she settled in Miami. Claudia’s mother is of Moroccan origin, but her father’s root has been found in Spain.
Born on October 27, 1989, in Havana, Cuba, Claudia Sampedro was only 6 years old when her family decided to move from Havana to Miami, Florida.
It is believed that her modeling career began at the age of 16 and that she worked for model agents. She later studied cosmetology, but her passion for modeling has long since determined her career path. Claudia is famous for her many appearances on the cover of magazines. But, many would easily identify it from the reality series of E! – WAGS Miami.
Claudia Sampedro worked for several plastic surgeons in Miami before becoming a glamorous model sponsored by Nutri Sups.
Claudia Sampedro Married/baby Dad
From the above, you already know that Claudia Sampedro is a popular model. What you probably didn’t know is that she has a relationship with Julius Peppers, an American football defender for the Carolina Panthers of the National Football League (NFL).
Before Claudia and Julius became lovers, the first one was dating another American footballer, Reggie Bush. Sampedro’s appearance is not the only thing she has in common with Kim. We know that Claudia Sampedro and Reggie Bush started dating after Bush broke up with Kim Kardashian.
Claudia Sampedro’s baby’s father surprised everyone when he announced that he was going to break up with his then-girlfriend, Lia Ames. Ames was pregnant and people did not understand why Julius was leaving the woman who was soon to become the mother of his child.
Claudia and Julius started dating in 2014 after Julius separated from Ames. A few months ago, Claudia revealed that she was happy with Julius.
“I just love the chemistry we have … We really just motivate each other. He makes me a better person and I really love him.”
She said she built a unique family with Julius. “…both of them having merged our families from old relationships…all the children get along very well…things are going very well, I’m very happy.”
Claudia and Julius have three children. Two of them are from previous relationships and the other is the one-year-old son they had together.
ALSO READ: Michaela Conlin Married, Partner, Husband, Body Measurements
Claudia Sampedro Body measurements
Details on Claudia Sampedro’s body measurements are of interest to her fans. Often they refer to her work with plastic surgeons and wonder if she has improved her appearance.
It is said that Sampedro’s breasts have been highlighted. No one knows if any other improvements have been made. Her body measurements for breasts, waist, and hips are 34, 25, and 36 inches respectively.
Claudia Sampedro’s dress size is “2”. Other details about her body measurement areas listed below.
Bra size – 34DD Cup size
Height – 5 ft 5 in (1.67m)
Shoe size – 6.5(US) 4.0(UK) and 37(Euro)
Weight – 119 lb (54 kg)
Quick Facts About Claudia Sampedro
$ 1 million
Face Color
Affair with
Julius Peppers
Elijah Peppers
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Last updated July 25, 2020 by C.E. News on July 25, 2020
Legal Marijuana Market Size Could Now Exceed $70 Billion by 2027 as Demand Rises
Legal Newswire POWERED BY LAW.COM
The global market for legal cannabis has been consistently rising the past couple of years and is expected to continue for the next several years according to industry market reports. The global legal marijuana market size is expected to reach USD $73.6 billion by 2027, according to a new report published by Grand View Research, Inc. It is anticipated to expand at a CAGR of 18.1% during the forecast period. Increasing legalization of cannabis for medical as well as adult-use is expected to promote growth. The report said: “On the basis of type, the medical segment held the leading revenue share of 71.0% in 2019, owing to the growing adoption of cannabis as a pharmaceutical product for treating severe medical conditions, such as cancer, arthritis, and Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease among other neurological conditions. Moreover, increasing need for pain management therapies along with growing disease burden of chronic pain among elders is expected to boost the product demand.” Active cannabis companies in the industry making moves include: Cannabis Global, Inc., Aphria Inc., Cronos Group Inc., Kaya Holdings, Inc., Neptune Wellness Solutions Inc..
The report continued: “Based on product type, the legal marijuana buds segment accounted for the largest market share in terms of revenue and was valued at USD 9.1 billion in 2019… owing to the easy availability of buds than other products. Buds are primary plant products and are readily available without any processing, which makes them relatively affordable for low-income patients. Moreover, the rapid onset of action of smoking buds compared to other types is anticipated to further fuel the segment growth. Based on medical applications, the chronic pain segment dominated the legal marijuana market in 2019 owing to presence of a large patient pool. On the other hand, mental disorder application is expected to witness the fastest growth over the forecast period owing to the growing number of patients suffering from mental disorders, such as anxiety disorder, depressions, and Alzheimer’s disease.”
Cannabis Global, Inc. BREAKING NEWS : Cannabis Global Closes on Definitive Agreement with Los Angeles-based Brand Whisper Weed Entering the Estimated $10B Regulated Cannabis Market – Cannabis Global, Inc. (“Cannabis Global” or the “Company”), a cannabinoid and hemp extract science-forward company developing infusion and delivery technologies, announces the closing of a definitive agreement to enter the fast-growing California cannabis delivery market. Via the executed agreement, Whisper Weed, Inc. and Cannabis Global, have created a new California Corporation to be named CGI Whisper W, Inc., which will provide management services for the delivery entity. CGI Whisper W, Inc, will receive 51% of the profits from the new entity, which will be recognized as income by Cannabis Global, Inc.
“The delivery sector is the hottest area of the California cannabis business and we are very pleased to have a seat at the table,” commented Arman Tabatabaei. “We not only will be able to grow our revenue base relative to direct delivery, but we also see Whisper Weed as a perfect platform to launch our infusion technologies in the regulated marketplace. With the deal closing, we are already in the process of adding other delivery platforms and other businesses to our overall portfolio.”
Cannabis Global views this agreement as an important step toward the verticalization of its IP-driven focus. Many of the technologies developed for CBD and non-THC marketplaces can be directly applied to the regulated California cannabis marketplace, including the Company’s newly developed tetrahydrocannabivarin (THC-V) and Cannabinol( CBN) delivery technologies.
Whisper Weed Inc operates its website at www.WhisperWeedDelivery.com. Consumers are able to browse products in the flower, pre-roll, cartridge, edibles, and concentrate categories. Consumers simply sign up on the website and order products with a delivery typically within a few hours. The operation headquartered in Downtown Los Angeles delivers to the Los Angeles metro area. Cannabis Global believes the trend toward home delivery for cannabis is robust with further growth expected over the coming year. Read this full release and more news for MCTC at: https://www.financialnewsmedia.com/news-mctc/
Additional industry related developments from around the markets:
Cronos Group Inc. recently announced that it will hold its 2020 Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call on Thursday, August 6, 2020 at 8:30 a.m. EDT. Cronos Group’s senior management team will discuss the Company’s financial results and will be available for questions from the investment community after prepared remarks. A live audio webcast of the earnings call will be available on the Company’s website. The webcast of the call will be archived for replay on the Company’s website.
Cronos also recently disclosed the departure of the CBD company CEO and co-founder, Robert Rosenheck, in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, less than a year after the big tobacco-backed Cronos Group closed its $300 million acquisition of the Calif.-based cannabidiol brand Lord Jones, the CEO of that business has departed.
Aphria Inc., a leading global cannabis company, recently announced that it will release financial results for its fourth quarter and twelve months ended May 31, 2020 on July 29, 2020. Aphria executives will host a conference call to discuss these results at 9:00 am Eastern Time. A telephone replay will be available approximately two hours after the call concludes through August 29, 2020.
Kaya Holdings, Inc. the first U.S. publicly traded company to vertically integrate cannabis retail, cultivation and processing, recently announced that it has formed a strategic partnership with Day Three Labs (“DTL”), a cannabis innovation and development lab headquartered in Denver, CO with scientific research operations in Ra’anana, outside of Tel Aviv, Israel.
The parties will focus their first cooperative endeavor on sourcing and developing select CBD supplements for pets, to be distributed in Europe by Kaya Kannabis, KAYS’ joint venture in Greece. Additionally, both Joshua Rubin and Rafi Cohen, DTL’s principals, will serve on the Advisory Board of Kaya Shalvah, KAYS’ cultivation and processing project targeted for construction in Israel.
Neptune Wellness Solutions Inc., a diversified and fully integrated health and wellness company, recently announced that it has been authorized by Health Canada to sell cannabis products to provinces and territories. This sales license includes edibles, vapes, extracts, and topicals, including beverage products to name a few. This authorization adds to previously held processing license and will expand Neptune’s cannabis operations to include proprietary branded products. Additionally, the authorization enhances the capabilities of the Company’s white label offerings, providing incremental value and service offerings to its B2B customers.
In addition to the sales license, Neptune’s cold storage and added operating space have been approved for operation. The enlarged cold storage and approved space in the Sherbooke facility provide greater capacity to process larger volumes of product and store at low temperature to protect product. The increased storage adds significantly to Neptune’s logistic capabilities and provides incremental solutions to the Company’s clients.
email: editor@financialnewsmedia.com
http://financialnewsmedia.com
Tags: Wire, Legal Newswire, United States, English
ACB: Cannabis Stock Weekly Recap
The CEO of the largest marijuana company says a blue wave could trigger legalization ‘very quickly’
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Excerpt Politics
The Erosion of Civic Space in South Asia
The South Asia Collective
Across South Asia, the legal environment for the functioning of civil society has become increasingly hostile, despite the presence of constitutional guarantees of the right to association.
The South Asia Collective, a group of human-rights activists and organisations, recently published “The South Asia State of Minorities Report 2020: Minorities and Shrinking Civic Space” by the South Asia Collective. The report examines minority rights and the narrowing of space for human-rights defenders in light of increasing majoritarianism across the region. Its chapters, on Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, conclude that three basic freedoms—the constitutional rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly, have been increasingly curtailed across South Asia by legislation brought in by respective governments over the last ten years. This excerpt from its introduction summarises the report’s key findings, and looks at the threats to civic space for religious minorities, activists, non-governmental organisations and journalists.
Civic Space in South Asia: Key Findings
Democratic development has historically been limited in South Asia. India and Sri Lanka have enjoyed electoral democracy since their emergence as sovereign nations—although punctuated by prolonged civil wars, creating “zones of exceptions.” Citizens of other South Asian countries have experienced constitutional monarchies, military dictatorships, and civil wars, along with spells of popular governments. This has resulted in civil society being historically constrained across much of the region.
All South Asian countries have since the turn of the century seen developments that served as major turning points in the course of their civic space trajectories: In Afghanistan, the collapse of the Taliban regime in 2001 and the enactment of the constitution of 2004 created the space for the emergence of civil society. However, the assumption of power by the Ashraf Ghani-led National Unity Government and the disbanding of the International Security Assistance Force, both in 2014, have been followed by the imposition of severe restrictions on civic space. In Bhutan, a monarchy, the enactment of a modern constitution in 2008 created for the first time an opening for civic space and guaranteed civil liberties to its citizens. But the space for civic action—particularly regarding political and religious freedoms—has continued to be heavily constrained. Bangladesh saw the return of electoral democracy in 2009 after a brief period of military interference. The concentration of power with the Awami League after the 2014 elections—boycotted by the country’s principal opposition parties—has, however, resulted in a steady deterioration of civil and political rights. The most alarming recent example of democratic backsliding has been in India, where the rise to power of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party after general elections in 2014 has led to the hardening of authoritarian tendencies and a historically vibrant civil society has come under sustained attack, with grave implications for its minorities. The re-election of the BJP in 2019 has intensified this trend, most notably in the highly militarised Indian-administered Kashmir, where civic space has now been almost completely erased after the revocation of the region’s limited autonomy in August 2019. In Nepal, civil society played a critical role in the dismantling of the Hindu monarchy and the establishment of a democratic republic in 2008. But since around 2010, there have been sustained efforts to curtail civic space. In Pakistan, despite an unprecedented two successive peaceful transfers of power in 2013 and 2018, the military continues to wield influence in key civilian matters, limiting the scope for civic action. In Sri Lanka, where civic space has been precarious due to its history of violent ethnic conflict that ended in 2009, two recent events have narrowed the scope for civic action: the Easter Sunday terror attacks and the resultant declaration of emergency, and the assumption of power by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, both in 2019.
The South Asia Collective is a group of human-rights activists and organisations
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Rolls-Royce is widely recognized as a coachbuilder of ultraluxurious rides for ultrawealthy folks, and its entry-level model, the Ghost, only bolsters that reputation. The model's styling has evolved for the 2021 model year, but it still looks quite handsome. Unlike the last generation, which shared its underpinnings with the more mainstream BMW 7-series, the new Ghost rolls on the same Architecture of Luxury that's used in the Phantom sedan and Cullinan SUV. Power-operated doors provide access to the cabin—a retreat lined with some of the finest materials in autodom. The interior also offers generous space for both front- and rear-seat passengers to relax in comfort.
The 2021 Ghost is new from the ground up and comes packed with fancier appointments and more modern technology than before.
Ghost: $315,000 (est.)
Despite being the entry-level model, the Ghost will still be out of reach of most new-car buyers. The list of standard and optional equipment will certainly be long, but we'll have to wait until closer to the Ghost's on-sale date to determine how we'd spec it. We expect the sedan to offer a similar level of personalization options as the rest of the Rolls-Royce lineup, though; the only question is how much you're willing to spend.
Engine, Transmission, and Performance
Despite its massive overhaul for 2021, the Ghost is powered by a familiar engine. Under the sedan's long hood is a 563-hp 6.7-liter V-12 that is shared with the Cullinan SUV. An eight-speed automatic handles shifting duties, and all-wheel drive is standard. According to Rolls-Royce, the 2021 Ghost is capable of hitting 60 mph in just 4.6 seconds, and we're looking forward to verifying that claim at our test track. Rolls-Royce also boasts that the new Ghost offers a sharper driving demeanor than the last model, pointing to the all-wheel-steering system and 50/50 weight distribution as evidence that driving satisfaction played a significant role in the car's development. We expect the Ghost will continue to provide a peerless ride, particularly given its standard adaptive suspension that employs a road-scanning camera to help the vehicle anticipate and compensate for potholes.
Fuel Economy and Real-World MPG
The EPA hasn't released fuel-economy estimates for the 2021 model yet, but if the 2020 Ghost is anything to go by, this won't be much of a fuel sipper. Once we get a chance, we'll put the Ghost through our 200-mile highway fuel-economy test and update this story with results.
Interior, Comfort, and Cargo
Like the cabin of any Rolls-Royce, the new Ghost is opulent inside, with every surface, knob, switch, and lever crafted from quality materials. Trying to stand out from competitors like the Bentley Flying Spur and the Mercedes-Benz S-class, Rolls-Royce has pulled out all the stops. Think thick carpet, finely grained leather, real wood and metal accents, and even an available headliner with tiny integrated LEDs to simulate a starlit sky. An illuminated dashboard inlay glows when the driver turns on the Ghost, adding to the starry-night ambiance. The best seat in the house will be the rear, where passengers are treated to such luxuries as massaging seats, an entertainment system, and acres of legroom.
Infotainment and Connectivity
Along with providing a Wi-Fi hotspot, the Ghost features a large infotainment touchscreen with in-dash navigation. Though not confirmed, we expect it will also include both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto interfaces. A dual-screen rear-seat entertainment system allows passengers to adjust the radio, input destinations into the nav, and more. Rolls-Royce also supplies an 18-speaker Bespoke stereo system with 1300 watts of power and magnesium-ceramic speaker cones.
Safety and Driver-Assistance Features
While the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) are unlikely to perform crash tests on such a low-volume high-dollar ride, Rolls-Royce has stepped up its driver-assistance game with the 2021 Ghost. The outgoing model offered few such features, but the new one has made leaps and bounds in this category. Key safety features include:
Standard automated emergency braking with pedestrian detection
Standard lane-departure warning with lane-keeping assist
Standard adaptive cruise control with a semi-autonomous driving mode
Warranty and Maintenance Coverage
Like the rest of the Rolls-Royce lineup, the new Ghost will come with a four-year warranty and maintenance package, which doesn't expire at a certain mileage limit.
Limited warranty covers four years or unlimited miles
Powertrain warranty covers four years or unlimited miles
Complimentary maintenance is covered for four years or unlimited miles
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Energy Smart New York
New York is Investing in A Green, Clean-Energy Future, Powered by SUNY
By Tiffanie Li
Climate change is a growing concern across the country. Stronger storms, changing weather patterns, and more extreme results from seasonal temperature swings are having an effect on many factors of life, and especially so on industries. To help remediate the impacts of global warming, many organizations, companies, and state governments are looking toward clean and renewable energy as a way into the cutting-edge technologies in fields such as solar, wind, water, nuclear, geothermal, and bio-energy are coming forward each month. But for clean energy to truly advance and become a part of everyday life for all, a skilled workforce that can meet the needs of the clean energy revolution is needed. To meet these needs, a new $15 million investment was allocated for SUNY to take on two initiatives: funding the clean-energy workforce and also developing training programs on our campuses.
This continues the great work across @SUNY to provide the clean energy workforce that today’s economy & environment need, via @newsday. Awesome visit to @FarmingdaleSC w/ @LtGovHochulNY yesterday! https://t.co/QtJQV9RPy5
— Kristina M. Johnson (@SUNYChancellor) September 5, 2018
“As the federal government moves further away from responsible energy policy and clean energy production, New York is committed to fighting climate change and protecting our environment,” said Governor Andrew M. Cuomo. “We will continue to take bold action to promote clean energy across the state and support job growth in cutting-edge, renewable industries.”
Nearly $6 million was awarded to our campuses to train workers in the clean-energy sector, as well as $9 million through a partnership with the Department of Labor, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, Empire State Development, and Industrial Development Agencies to develop programs throughout SUNY system. With applied learning experience, the programs give students many opportunities varying from the ability to go to Clean Energy Certification programs which give students credits that they may need for their degrees to expanding research opportunities that identity short and long term needs of the environment.
The following list outlines what campuses were awarded funding and how they plan to use the funds:
Binghamton University will establish a Clean Energy Undergraduate Research Program within its Freshman Research Immersion program. The new clean energy program will provide a summer component, including research fellowships for under-represented minority students and internships with clean energy companies.
Buffalo State College will develop clean energy certificate programs in partnership with the New York Power Authority. Students will also be able to earn credits toward an associate’s or bachelor’s degree through the certificate programs.
University at Buffalo will develop a Western New York Clean Energy Workforce Development program, featuring certification and micro-credentialing options, which may take the form of digital badges or other micro-awards. Both options will help today’s workforce meet business and industry expectations, as well as motivate and prepare well-rounded students with highly marketable skills.
SUNY Canton will enhance its Solar Ready Vets program on site at Fort Drum. The training provides a micro-credential program in renewable energy specifically for veterans transitioning to civilian life.
Erie Community College will examine its non-credit continuing education units for architects and engineers, as well as building and code inspectors, by including electrical/photovoltaic solar updates for curricula design.
Farmingdale State College will develop certificate and fast track training programs within its Renewable Energy and Sustainability Center to meet emerging needs of the clean energy industry. The Renewable Energy and Sustainability Center will partner with local industry to identify short- and long-term needs.
SUNY Maritime College will receive funding for two programs. The first, through its Offshore Energy Center, will develop a wind operations technician training program, as well as dynamic positioning training and certification courses for offshore vessel operators. The second will create a certification in partnership with the liquid natural gas industry. Coursework from the program will also be incorporated into licensing programs for licensed mariners.
Nassau Community College will develop new curriculum to include Energy Industry Fundamentals certificates.
SUNY Oswego will develop and enhance the campus’ energy laboratories to support the curriculum of multiple departments. The campus will also expand research and applied learning opportunities and strengthen collaboration and student transfer pathways between SUNY Oswego and Onondaga Community College.
SUNY Polytechnic Institute will partner with SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry and SUNY Oneonta to offer experiential learning opportunities for students to apply green building principles through Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certifying SUNY campus buildings. LEED Accredited Professionals will engage undergraduate students in the LEED Existing Buildings Operations and Maintenance certification process and the LEED for Building Design and Construction via experiential learning projects tied to new courses.
A collective approach to clean energy
While the above list of campuses, programs, and initiatives are a great start, these efforts are just the beginning as many of our other schools will soon follow. All of these new developments fit in line with the work that has been taking place across SUNY for quite some time. With our 64 campuses, and around 600,000 students, SUNY has pledged to be actively involved in building a cleaner future.
In Chancellor Johnson’s 2018 State of the University System address, she shared plans to have SUNY utilize zero-net-carbon energy sources as soon as possible. We’ve also been at work on a pledge to improve energy efficiency performance by 20 percent by 2020 from 1990 levels and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent by 2020 and by 40 percent by 2030, compared to 2015 baseline levels as part of Governor Cuomo’s executive orders.
Moreover, the efforts at increasing clean energy use and development need to be scaled to succeed. To bring together colleges and community, SUNY has paired with 15 leading universities as part of the University Climate Change Coalition (UC3). The UC3 will follow a model that is meant to help local and regional communities achieve their goals towards a low-carbon future. These schools will set an example in pledging to reduce their institutional carbon footprints. The UC3 will also be working with Second Nature’s Climate Leadership Network, a group comprised of hundreds of colleges and universities who have committed to take action on climate and prepare students through research and education to find solutions to 21st-century issues.
As the largest comprehensive system of higher education in the United States, SUNY is dedicated to actively lead, create, and pave the way towards a greener future, and through our collective knowledge, talents, and hard work can make a difference. As best stated by Chancellor Johnson, “SUNY is proud to provide high-quality, hands-on, and the most up-to-date clean energy education and training to our students, building a diverse, preeminent talent pipeline for today and tomorrow’s clean energy industry in New York State.”
Across the whole SUNY system, there is a growing sense of pride in bringing along the solutions that will help bring us a more sustainable future.
Written by Tiffanie Li
Tiffanie is a Social Media Assistant Intern at SUNY System Administration. She is a senior at SUNY Albany double-majoring in Psychology and Communications.
Tags: applied learning, Governor Cuomo, renewable energy, sustainability
Recognizing A Cleaner, Greener, More Sustainable SUNY on Earth Day
New Partnerships Show A Renewed Focus on Renewable Energy
Advancing Clean Energy All Across New York
Bringing Broad Expertise To the Efforts Behind A Low-Carbon Future
Rachel Smith says:
As critical political players and decision makers continue to ignore the devastating effects of climate change, it is up to the future generations to invest and innovate in renewables. This is indeed a positive development.
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Wales: History of a Nation, David Ross
Posted on 15 March 2015 by katenich 2 Comments
Well, this book does exactly what it says on the tin. It is a workmanlike job, but for me it lacks the enthusiasm I look for in a great history book. There is little joy here in the interesting quirks and tidbits of life that make history so interesting, and consequently, it was a bit of a drag to get through it. So, dear reader, to save you having to persevere, I have summarised the history of Wales below.
Celtic Life
The first Celts came from continental Europe and brought with them the mysteries of iron working and the Brittonic language which was later to develop into Welsh and become such a point of pride in the Welsh nationalist movement. Fundamentally we don’t know very much about early Celtic society in Wales, and it is only when Ceasar arrives with the Roman army that records really begin.
The Romans evidently had a rough time in Wales and it took several invasion attempts before they in any way felt secure. It is significant that they had to subdue the tribes by force; there was no introduction of the Pax Romana here. And, even once the Romans had built forts all over Wales and filled the country with their legions, there were still constant smaller uprisings. . As soon as the Romans left, the Roman roads, forts and social structures fell apart and the old tribal systems reasserted themselves. The main Roman legacy was the impact of Latin on the old Welsh Brittonic language. Another thing that the Romans left behind was embryonic Christianity which would come to rival the old druidic religion and spread like topsy during the Dark Ages.
In the new, post-Roman order, it took a while for power structures to adjust and recalibrate. Eventually new Kingdoms, such as Gwynedd and Dyfed, appeared as warring families gained supremacy. Christianity spread with the help of Irish missionaries stirred up by the likes of St Patrick and bishops and abbots began to take over the role traditionally held by druids and bards. Interestingly, Welsh Bishops did not view themselves as subservient to Rome and practiced Christianity in the way that seemed most appropriate to them – often this involved adapting to previous pagan celebrations and rituals. This upset many people, including the Venerable Bede.
Arguably, one of the key moments that helped to create the idea of Wales as a nation in its own right was the creation of Offa’s Dyke, essentially a manmade barrier creating a line between the Welsh tribes and the settled lands of Anglo-Saxon Mercia. It is only from this time that we hear the Welsh use of the word ‘Cymry’ or ‘comrades’ to describe themselves. In return, the Anglo-Saxons called them ‘Wallas’ meaning ‘foreigners’ from where we get the word ‘Welsh’. For years, Wales was formed of several smaller Kingdoms until the either brilliant or brutal (depending on who you ask) Gruffudd ap Llewelyn briefly managed to unite all of Wales into one Kingdom.
The Norman King William had a drastic approach to Wales. He set up castles all along the border with hardened Norman Barons in charge. These fierce ‘Marcher Lords’ were different from other barons because the Westward boundaries of their lands were undefined – essentially they could have whatever they could hold on to. One of these original Marcher lords was called Hugh the Fat, which I mention only because it is mildly humorous and humour had been notably lacking through the book thus far.
Over the coming centuries, despite a dogged resistance, the power of the Welsh princes was gradually eroded and the supremacy of the English King gradually conceded. King Edward followed the approach of the Romans and built EVEN MORE castles. I can only imagine that by this point there were very few hills in Wales that didn’t have a castle on them.
The Last Prince
The 15th century saw the final attempt by a Welshman to be Price of Wales. Owain Glyndwr was proclaimed a Prince of Wales on 16th September 1400. Henry IV responded brutally and, as well as putting down the revolt, imposed a series of punitive legislative measures. Welshmen were forbidden to own property or office, public gatherings were banned and he ordered that the bards be hunted down and restrained. Wales erupted and Glyndwr began building his empire. In 1404, he concluded an alliance against Henry with the French King, although this ultimately bore little fruit. Glyndwr had plans to create universities and turn Wales into a modern Kingdom, but, alas, his string of military victories came to an end and his territorial gains were reversed until he vanished in 1415.
Towards Union
The country Owain Glyndwr left was in a sorry state, and even though Henry V was magnanimous in victory the country suffered from the destruction of its infrastructure during the wars. Then subsequent Henrys began to remove some of the most excessive anti-Welsh legislation then Henry VIII went a step further clarifying that Wales was an equal part of his Kingdom and inviting representatives from they newly formed Shires into his Parliament. From here it was but a step to the Acts of Union which brought relative peace to Wales.
The sixteenth century
The reformation and advent of the printing press brought an end to the bardic tradition with the tradition of the eisteddfod dwindling away with the last one held in 1568. Interestingly there was still respect for the Welsh language and literary tradition, with several books being published in Welsh including the prayer book and eventually the Bible – even if it wasn’t permitted to use Welsh in formal situations or schooling.
Elizabethan Wales
Nothing interesting happened.
Cromwell wasn’t that popular in Wales. Most Welsh nobles had been on the losing side of the civil war. Gradually though, some puritan sects did take hold and these enclaves remained after the Restoration when otherwise many things reverted to their pre-Cromwellian state.
18th and 19th Centuries
The 18th century saw increasing Anglicisation and consequently also a growing antiquarian interest in the Welsh language, culture and history. It also saw the beginnings of industrialisation and the growth of religious dissent.
Mining and iron working flourished. During this period towns like Cardiff grew from hosting 4000 people to 60,000 people. People streamed to the new towns and had to understand how this new urban economy worked. Steam trains began to traverse Welsh soil, but social legislation couldn’t keep up. There was no health and safety legislation passed or enforced in the mines and little attention paid to public health so illness was common and severe. But many people got rich and these new families began raising their own pleasure castles on the few un-castled hills left in Wales.
Religious and political dissent grew following the American War of Independence and as a new culture developed in the newly formed towns, Wales became a hotbed of radicalism, Chartism and nascent trade unionism. The book describes several interesting industrial revolts including the Scotch Cattle movement, an uprising in Merthyr Tydfil and, finally the Children of Rebecca who dressed up as women with blackened faces and tore down the newly created tollgates on the roads, attacked cruel landlords and tried to destroy the unpopular workhouses. Once again, after years of calm, Wales was being viewed as one of the more turbulent areas of Great Britain.
At this time concerted efforts we being made to increase literacy and numeracy among the general population. Largely led by religious groups, the education of the young became a battleground for their religious affiliation. But, sadly, there was a general acceptance that children should be taught in English.
Slowly, in the 20th century, the energy that had driven the Chartist movements and trade union development transferred over into the newly formed Labour Party, cracking the previous dominance of the Liberal Party who were too closely aligned with the social and industrial elite.
Then came Lloyd George who brought through a range of measures designed to improve life in Wales, for instance the creation of the Welsh Council of Agriculture, a Central Welsh School Board to oversee education and, crucially, the disestablishment of the Church of England in Wales. These and a host of other measures all served to emphasise the distinct identity of Wales and to foster a sense of nationalism.
There was widespread support for the war in Wales and a disproportionately large number of Welshmen fought in comparison to English or Scottish men. Following the war, Wales slid into depression as first the coal and then the steel industries collapsed in the face of international competition. There was no investment or help for the beleaguered country and so the Welsh nationalist movement began to grow again with the formation of Plaid Cymru in 1925. Of chief importance to this movement was the preservation of the Welsh language, but soon nationalist rhetoric began to creep in.
The Second World War
The introduction of the welfare state after the war went some way to bringing Wales back to its feet. In 1967 Welsh language act introduced – setting Welsh and English on an equal footing but by this stage only 20% of the population actually spoke Welsh. Through the 1970s and 1980s prosperity increased, the level of education rose and health improved. The nationalist cause was wobbly – at times Plaid began winning in the polls, but then in the 1979 referendum on a Welsh Assembly, the Welsh population strongly voted against. In 1997, by the slimmest of majorities, they voted ‘yes’ and the Welsh assembly was created.
It is there that the book ends though, of course, Wales carries on.
Tags: bards, book, book review, books, castles, History, Wales, War, Welsh. Bookmark the permalink.
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2 thoughts on “Wales: History of a Nation, David Ross”
I just have to mention that the Romans never managed to subdue the Scots! *waves Saltire over her head, paints face blue and yells ‘Freedom!!!!’*
katenich says:
And they built you a lovely wall along the bottom of the country.
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Supreme Court: The Death Sentence of Mumia Abu-Jamal May Stand
By Kamika Dunlap on January 19, 2010 2:05 PM
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday reversed an appeals court ruling that would have given Mumia Abu-Jamal a chance to dodge the death penalty.
According to CNN, the Supreme Court ruling tossed out a lower court ruling that would have invalidated the death sentence of black political activist Mumia Abu-Jamal for the 1981 murder of a Philadelphia police officer.
The Third Circuit Court of Appeals had previously ruled that Abu-Jamal was entitled to a new sentencing hearing. Now, the appeals court must revisit that decision, with an increased likelihood that it will uphold his original death sentence.
As a result, the Supreme Court ruling likely brings Abu-Jamal significantly closer to execution. The Supreme Court made its ruling after a case in Ohio last week which turned on a similar legal issue relating to jury instructions about mitigating factors in capital sentencing decisions.
Abu-Jamal claims there were procedural errors during his capital sentencing, and that too few blacks were on the jury. Also, the appeals court had ruled that Abu-Jamal, 55, deserved a new sentencing hearing because of flawed jury instructions.
At issue was whether jurors might have thought that they had to unanimously agree on each piece of mitigating evidence being weighed against the aggravating circumstances justifying a death sentence. But there is no unanimity requirement for jurors considering mitigating circumstances (though there is a unanimity requirement regarding aggravating circumstances).
In general, mitigating evidence is any information or evidence presented to the court regarding the defendant or the circumstances of the crime that might result in reduced charges or a lesser sentence.
Under the law, a jury must be given the opportunity to consider all mitigating evidence before determining the sentence in an attempt to make the death sentence less arbitrary.
Last year, a Supreme Court ruling denied Abu-Jamal's separate petition for a new trial.
Abu-Jamal has been incarcerated for nearly three decades and an active critic of the criminal justice system.
The appeals court can now reimpose the death sentence or order new trial to hear addition claims of injustice made by Abu-Jamal.
Court reverse for Black Panther (BBC)
Supreme Court to decide Mumia Abu-Jamal's fate | Raw Story (Reuters)
Former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal's Appeal Rejected by Supreme Court (FindLaw)
Constitutional Protections for Defendants (provided by The Law Offices of Thomas J. Mallon)
Do Longer Sentences Mean Less Crime? (provided by The Umansky Law Firm)
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Chess Classics – Learn from Capablanca Meeting Amateurs
One of the best ways to get better at chess is to learn from the best players. In this article, I would like to show you a few interesting games of one of the most impressive players of the past, Jose Raul Capablanca.
The third World Champion Jose Raul Capablanca is considered to be a genius of the intuitive play, his style was very clear and simple but yet very difficult to imitate. He had a brilliant technique and so he had no need to go into wild complications. Instead, he could make the right exchanges and win the game in a slightly better endgame without any nerves.
There are really a lot of things that we could learn from him and recently some of his games caught my attention. The reason was that Capablanca’s opponents were some unknown amateurs and it seemed like a good sign to me. When a strong opponent meets another strong opponent they usually don’t allow each other to implement their plans and it becomes difficult to learn from such games. But if nobody stops a strong player’s ideas then we can get very instructive examples.
So here’s the first game I wanted you to see. I suggest that you, at first, go through it yourself and only then read my annotations. Try to guess White’s moves and see if you can understand the ideas behind them.
Hopefully, you liked the game and now let’s try to learn from it. White got some advantage from the opening because Black didn’t try to take control over the center with pawns. But we can also notice that Capablanca considered having pawns e4 and d4 to be enough. No f2-f4 or c2-c4 – just quick development and castling! After 8 moves he developed all the minor pieces so he started finding active places for his major pieces – Qh5 and Rad1.
Can you guess what would be next? I am sure that would be f2-f4-f5 so the rook on f1 could participate in the game even without moving and White would get a dangerous attack. Black was afraid of this plan and decided to play e6-e5 to prevent f4-push. But it weakened a lot of squares in the center so Capablanca started getting control over them with moves like Bc4, Rd6 and Rfd1. Now all of his pieces were very active and he first provoked a weakness in Black’s position with 16.Bg5 and then sacrificed a queen to checkmate in a very beautiful way.
I find this game very interesting and instructive. And Capablanca’s brave queen sacrifice was quite impressive. But actually Black could defend a way better and get even a winning position! You can challenge yourself and find an improvement for Black. I’m sure that careful analysis of the arising variation could help you improve your calculation.
Now let’s take a look at the game that was played 8 years ago. After move 12 you can stop for a while and think how you would place your pieces.
Here Capablanca’s opponent made the same mistake at the beginning of the game – he gave up the center. And you can see that all of Black’s pieces were very passive because of that. I would like you to pay attention to the 14th move of Capablanca. Firstly, he wanted to activate all of his pieces so a1-rook had to enter the game. Secondly, even though Black’s king’s shelter seemed pretty shaky, the Cuban decided to focus on the queenside weaknesses.
It’s easy to imagine a situation when Black’s pieces are tied down to the defense of the c6-pawn and then White quickly switches to the kingside thanks to the space advantage. But in this game, Black didn’t manage even to save the c6-pawn. So Capablanca won the game more or less easily. He occupied the center, found very nice squares for all of his pieces and outplayed his less-experienced opponent.
Actually, such a mistake is very common among amateurs. They opt for a passive strategy aiming to risk less but it just gives free hands to their opponents. Black could try 5…c5, trying to challenge White’s center and so the knight could be developed on c6 and the c8-bishop wouldn’t get stuck behind the c6-pawn. And now we can see why Capablanca played 7.a3 and 8.b4 – he wanted to prevent Black’s activity!
Now let’s try to learn from the third game. It was played the same day as the first one, but the seems like knowing Black’s mistake from the previous game (played 8 years ago) could help to Capablanca’s opponent this time.
Here we see that Black fought for the center with pawns at the beginning but then the move 7…Nc6 left them with no counter play. It was necessary to play 7…c5! to challenge White’s center and open the position so Black’s pair of bishops could get some fresh air. Capablanca made use of that mistake and immediately closed the center and started active actions with the move 9.h4. Greek gift sacrifice was coming so Black prevented it with the move 9…g6 but gave White to open the h-file for the rook and start a strong attack.
Of course, exchanging White’s light-squared bishop reduced White’s attacking potential to some extent but on the other hand, Black’s queenside was left undeveloped, and as you could see the World Champion sacrificed his queen on g6 twice in a day. Black didn’t take it though and he gave it up for the rook on g7 creating unavoidable threats. So Black had to give it back and end up in a losing endgame.
So these were three very different games but they had something in common and I hope you learned enough out of them.
attackcalculationgamegamesplanplanningpreparationstrategytacticstrainingworld champion
The Strategy of Outposts Part-2
The Strategy of Outposts
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Home Business China’s white-collar workers earned less in first quarter of 2019 despite signs of economic recovery, survey finds
China’s white-collar workers earned less in first quarter of 2019 despite signs of economic recovery, survey finds
Posted By: Editoron: April 30, 2019 In: Business, Economy, NewsNo Comments
The per capita income of urban residents rose 7.9 per cent from a year earlier to 11,633 yuan combined for the first three months of the year, according to official data. Photo: EPA
The average salary for white-collar workers in China fell in the first quarter of 2019 despite an economic recovery, according to a report by a major Chinese job website on Tuesday.
In the first three months of 2019 the average monthly salary dropped to 8,050 yuan (US$1,195) from 8,096 yuan in the fourth quarter of 2018 due to increased competition for vacancies, according to Zhaopin.com after a survey of job data on its platform covering 37 cities.
The results of the survey offer far less positive view of the employment situation compared to China’s official figures, which showed the per capita income of urban residents rose 7.9 per cent from a year earlier to 11,633 yuan combined for the first three months of the year, an average of 3,878 yuan per month.
According to figures released by China’s National Bureau of Statistics, the per capita nationwide wage income rose 8.7 per cent to 4,838 yuan combined in the first quarter, or 1,613 yuan a month, from a year earlier.
The Zhaopin report, despite showing a healthy salary level for China’s urban white-collar workers, adds fresh evidence to a worrying trend that China’s young and well-educated workforce employed in the private sector are bearing the brunt of the economic slowdown.
The plight of China’s information technology engineers and programmers surfaced in a heated debate over the so-called 996 working culture, which equates to working from 9am to 9pm, six days a week.
Li Xunlei, the chief economist of the brokerage form Zhongtai Securities, said earlier this month that stagnant income for China’s middle income groups, which account for 60 per cent of population, is a “worrying” sign as it means weak consumer spending in the future which could impede the country’s plan to shift from an investment-led growth model.
According to Li, the income of China’s middle-income groups rose by just 4.4 per cent in 2018, much lower than the growth rate of nominal gross domestic product of 9.7 per cent.
Wendy Liu, a white-collar worker in Shenzhen, said she received a 3 per cent pay rise for last year but said it is barely enough to cover the real inflation in her living expenses.
“A normal lunch in the central business district in Shenzhen costs 50 (US$7.4) to 60 yuan, and it is almost 20 per cent higher than last year,” Liu said.
She cited the fact that the price of her favourite fruit, a type of imported white grape, has risen to 78 yuan per kilogram this year from about 58 yuan a year ago as an example of decreased spending power.
“I used to have meal with my colleagues at a high-end restaurant twice a week, now we cut it to once a week”, added Liu.
Hu Jing, a human resources manager at a chemical and engineering company in Guangzhou, said the average pay rise has fallen from 10 per cent in 2015, 8 per cent in 2016, 6 per cent in 2017 to about 5 per cent in 2018 and 2019.
“The annual package for a senior sales engineer with four years of experiences is set at about 180,000 yuan (US$26,700), and that’s almost the same as last year,” she said.
The Zhaopin report also showed that Beijing offers the highest salary for white-collar workers with an average of 10,970 yuan per month, followed by Shanghai and Shenzhen.
In China’s
released on Tuesday, the employment sub-index was 47.2 in April, a fall of 0.4 from last month, showing “less demand for labour at manufacturers.”
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Bernie Sanders slams Joe Biden for downplaying China’s economic threat to the US
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The Top 50 Smart Cities In The World 2019
The IESE Business School in Barcelona has released the data and rankings for the world’s smartest cities for 2019. The IESE Cities in Motion Index (CIMI) is now on its sixth year and the research is led by IESE professors Pascual Berrone and Joan Enric Ricart. This year’s index covered a total of 174 cities (79 of them capitals) representing 80 countries.
London tops the list this year, scoring greatly on areas of Human Capital, International Outreach and Mobility and Transportation while New York follows at the second place propelled with high scores on areas of Economy, Human Capital and Urban Planning.
European Hegemony
European cities scored the most points and 7 out of the top ten 10 cities in the ranking are all from Europe namely (3) Amsterdam, (4) Paris, (5) Reykjavík, (8) Copenhagen, (9) Berlin, and (10) Vienna. Their quality of life and sustainability provisions earned these cities a high score. Despite Brexit, London manages to top the ranking with New York on the second spot while (6) Tokyo and (7) Singapore are the only Asian cities to make it to top 10.
On the top 50 positions, Europe still dominates with 28 cities on the list. This is followed by North America with 13 cities, Asia with five cities and Oceania with four.
For 2019 edition, the ranking metrics are based on the following nine dimensions which are deemed crucial to a city’s progress :
LEARN MORE Smart Cities Could Give The Visually Impaired A New Outlook On Urban Life
This year, new variables were added in these metrics to include the hourly wages, purchasing power, mortgage as a percentage of income, and whether a city is a favourable environment for the development of women. This edition also has wider geographical coverage with a total of 174 cities analysed.
This year’s biggest gains can be seen in Dallas which rose to 11 places to land at the 45th place, Hong Kong gaining 8 positions to land at 11th place and San Diego also gaining 8 positions to land at 49th place. San Francisco fell 10 places to land at 21st place and Brussels slid to seven places to land at 48th.
Although megacities like London, New York and Tokyo are present in the top 10 list, medium and small-sized cities like Reykjavík, Amsterdam, and Vienna also showed that they can be at par as well.
The research shows that while these cities are among the best, there are not perfect ones. While some may score greatly on one aspect, they may lack on other aspects. For example, New York may score perfectly when it comes to Economy but fails when it comes to Social Cohesion. The authors also stressed in their study that no matter how good the city’s strategy is, without the active collaboration of the public sector, private companies, civic organisations, academic institutions, and government, nothing will be possible and it will be destined for failure.
Cities In Motion Index 2019 ranking with index value. The performance of the cities is rated as follows: high (H) if they have an index greater than 90; relatively high (RH) if the city is between 60 and 90; medium (M) if it is in the range between 45 and 60; low (L) if it is between 45 and 15; and very low (VL) if it is below 15
Download the full study here.
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BREAKING: Michael Flynn Charged With Making False Statements To The FBI
Chuck Ross Investigative Reporter
December 01, 2017 9:31 AM ET
Former national security adviser Michael Flynn has been charged with making false statements to the FBI, Special Counsel Robert Mueller revealed in court documents filed on Friday.
Flynn, a retired lieutenant general, pleaded guilty to the charges at a plea hearing in Washington, D.C. on Friday morning.
According to the charging document against Flynn, he “willfully and knowingly” lied to FBI agents during a Jan. 24 interview in which he was asked about his conversations with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn arrives for a plea hearing at U.S. District Court, where he is expected to plead guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia’s ambassador to the United States, in Washington, December 1, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
Prosecutors say that Flynn lied when he said that during a Dec. 29, 2016 conversation with Kislyak, he did not ask the Russian diplomat “to refrain from escalating the situation in response to sanctions that the United States had imposed against Russia that same day.”
The Obama administration had that day issued a new round of sanctions against Russia for hacking into Democrats’ emails during the presidential campaign.
Flynn also falsely claimed that he did not recall that Kislyak told him that Russia “had chosen to moderate its response to those sanctions as a result of his request.”
Flynn also misrepresented a conversation he had with Kislyak on Dec. 22, 2016 about a vote on a United Nations Security Council resolution, Mueller charges. Flynn initially told FBI agents that he did not ask Kislyak to delay a vote on a resolution, and that Kislyak did not describe the Russian government’s response to the request.
REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
The resolution in question sought to condemn Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Russian diplomats did attempt to delay a vote on the resolution but eventually supported it. The U.S. controversially abstained from the vote instead of siding against it.
The New York Times reported on Friday that Mueller’s team has emails showing that Flynn agreed to kill the vote on the UN resolution. According to The Times, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lobbied the Trump transition team for help quashing the vote.
WATCH: CNN’S JIM ACOSTA PREDICT MUELLER WILL BE THE TIME PERSON OF THE YEAR
Flynn was fired by President Trump on Feb. 13, purportedly because he made false statements to Vice President Mike Pence about his interactions with Kislyak.
Flynn acknowledged in a statement issued through his attorney on Friday that he is cooperating with Mueller’s prosecutors.
“I recognize that the actions I acknowledged in court today were wrong, and, through my faith in God, I am working to set things right. My guilty plea and agreement to cooperate with the Special Counsel’s Office reflect a decision I made in the best interests of my family and of our country,” he said.
Ty Cobb, the White House special counsel, downplayed Flynn’s plea agreement, noting that Flynn was ousted by the Trump administration over his claims about his conversations with Kislyak.
“The false statements involved mirror the false statements to White House officials which resulted in his resignation in February of this year,” said Cobb, who slyly noted that Flynn served in the Obama administration.
“Nothing about the guilty plea or the charge implicates anyone other than Mr. Flynn. The conclusion of this phase of the Special Counsel’s work demonstrates again that the Special Counsel is moving with all deliberate speed and clears the way for a prompt and reasonable conclusion.”
It is not clear whether Flynn will face any other charges from Mueller.
Mueller’s team of investigators has been looking into Flynn’s consulting work, including for the Turkish government. Mueller’s investigators have interviewed numerous witnesses with knowledge of Flynn’s consulting work for a Turkish businessman with ties to Ankara. Grand jury proceedings in that investigation were recently delayed, sparking speculation that Flynn was working on a deal with Mueller.
It has long been known that Flynn misled the FBI about his interactions with Kislyak. In February, just after he was fired as national security adviser, CNN reported that Flynn changed his story about his conversations with Kislyak but that the FBI did not plan to pursue charges in the case.
REUTERS/Jim Bourg/File Photo
CNN’s government sources said that it was not believed that Flynn intentionally misled the FBI.
Mueller’s decision to reverse course on the Flynn case shows how aggressively he is handling the investigation.
George Papadopoulos, a former Trump campaign adviser, accepted a plea deal in October for lying to the FBI about his interactions with Russians during the campaign. Papadopoulos lied to FBI agents in an interview conducted on Jan. 26, two days after FBI agents met with Flynn. He was arrested in July and pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in October. As part of the deal he has been cooperating with the FBI and Mueller.
Mueller has also issued indictments against former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his associate, Rick Gates. The pair are accused of laundering money during their work for a Ukrainian political party with ties to the Russian government.
Judge Rudolph Contreras, an Obama appointee, will oversee Flynn’s plea hearing. The Mueller prosecutors handling the case are Brandon Van Grack and Zainab Ahmad. Van Grack is on loan to Mueller’s team from the Justice Department’s national security division. Ahmad typically handles terrorism cases.
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Tags : donald trump michael flynn robert mueller
Chuck Ross
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By Byron King
Oil Addiction: Read My Lips...No New Energy Strategy
Byron King discusses President George W. Bush’s 2006 State of the Union Address — first in general terms, and then getting down to what the President said about America’s Oil Addiction.
WHAT DID I THINK of President Bush’s State of the Union address? Of course, as I am sure any of you who have followed my articles could have predicted, I was (ahem) mesmerized. I soaked in every image of the great and historic chamber of the House of Representatives in the U.S. Capitol building. Probably not unlike many of you, dear readers, I hung onto every word that fell from the lips of the Nation’s chief magistrate.
I must start by saying that I was riveted by the broadcast images of this nation’s unique species of “politico norteamericano.” There they were, this assemblage of selfless public servants, resplendent in their ruby red neckties and sky blue scarves, collectively getting their aerobic exercise as they loudly applauded Mr. Bush while hopping up and down like a room full of Jack La Lannes. The 43rd chief executive may or may not be remembered by history as the “education president.” But he sure is headed toward becoming the “workout president.”
Not a senator or representative could engage in a bit of body language, and I was reaching for my copy of the Berlitz Body Language Phrase Book. The television camera would, on occasion, point to famous faces. Was that a smile or a smirk on the mug of Hillary Clinton? Was Ted Kennedy sound asleep, or merely in deep contemplation of some important issue? There was my old Harvard classmate, John Roberts, sitting in the front row and thinking to himself (I will wager), “It’s good to be the chief justice of the United States.” And how can some of those Republican guys smile so hard without breaking their faces? Why do the Democrats frown so much? Bad Botox?
Like the legendary, but now deceased, Pittsburgh bookie Tony Grosso, I took a few notes as I listened to the speech. I was making some hunches, handicapping the chances for new government programs and pondering the odds and fates of old ones. I spent the hour sitting at the edge of my chair. Didn’t you?
Oil Addiction: “Information of the State of the Union”
The State of the Union address, delivered to the nation by a sitting president of the United States, is, as you may know, a mandate of the U.S. Constitution, Article II, Section 3. The wording of the Constitution is precise and elegant in a manner that is, to my way of thinking, almost lost to our current culture. The president…
“shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.”
Originally, and for all of the 19th century, the “Information of the State of the Union” was summarized annually in a written document that the president would send to Congress. Starting in the early 20th century, about coincident with the advent of a national mass media, the president’s presentation became a yearly address delivered before a joint session of Congress. Under current practice, the presidential address not only reports on the condition of the nation, but also allows the man who holds the Constitution’s “executive power” to outline his legislative agenda and national priorities to Congress.
Few things in this world are more highly scripted than a State of the Union address. By comparison, the Academy Awards are just a bunch of little old ladies at a bingo call down at the fire station.
It takes months of background work to prepare the speech. When it comes to the State of the Union, the entire resources of the U.S. federal government are at the disposal of the Office of the President. What the Man wants, the Man gets. At the same time, there is utterly fierce fighting within the federal bureaucracy to secure a favorable nod, let alone a passing positive mention, of a particular agency or its pet programs. The point papers flow back and forth, eventually being sharpened to such a degree that one could use them like a scalpel to perform brain surgery.
At many federal offices during the run-up to the State of the Union address, you can cut the suspense with a knife. Suppose “Program X” is competing for funding with its arch-rival, “Program Y.” If the president says something good about “Program X,” then the next day there are small armies of federal employees and additional divisions of private industry contractors, “X” men all, laying out PowerPoint presentations to highlight the president’s recognition of the many superior virtues of “X.”
And if the president refers positively to “Program Y” in the State of the Union address, then, as the expression goes, “The Ys have it.” (Sorry, I couldn’t resist.) The next day, the “Y” people will also muster their own small armies of federal employees, and their own divisions of private industry contractors to lay out PowerPoint presentations that highlight the many superior virtues of “Y.”
The result? The “X” Men and “Y” People will each send their respective legislative liaisons up to Capitol Hill to brief the congresspersons. And Congress will probably keep both programs, “X” and “Y,” going for another year. “Funding,” as they say, “is life.” And after all, if Congress terminates a program, there will be layoffs down at the plant in somebody’s congressional district. We can’t have that, can we?
Oil Addiction: “Addicted to Oil”
According to an account in The Washington Post, the State of the Union speech went through more than 30 drafts before Mr. Bush delivered it. At the end of such an elaborate process, it is more than significant that President Bush devoted a few words (very few) to discussing what passes for a long-term energy strategy in this country. The man from Midland, Texas, said “America is addicted to oil.”
“Addicted?” The president did not say “America uses lots of oil” and illustrate the point that this nation with about 5% of the world’s population uses about 26% of the world’s oil production every day. That would have been a good starting point for the education president, although this one comparative statistic should not control the rest of the discussion. The key point in the comparative statistic is that current patterns of U.S oil use are a product of the unique history of the nation’s industrial and social history, and the country’s economy and culture. The president could have discussed in front of Congress and American people how the world is changing, and that with these changes, patterns of energy availability and use are going to change, as well. It is surely a discussion that the nation is going to have sooner or later, under one set of circumstances or another. Why not now?
It would have been hoping for too much to expect the president to mention that it has served the U.S. national interest that, for many decades, the U.S. dollar has been the so-called “reserve currency” of the world. In the past, if the U.S. economy needed dollars with which to purchase oil, the U.S. government always had at its disposal, to use the words of a certain newly installed Federal Reserve chairman, “a technology, called a printing press.” But I digress. Back to the speech.
Nor did the president say “America uses too much oil,” and call people’s attention to the obvious point that many of the nation’s citizens spend hours every day in their vehicles, which translates into weeks and months each year sitting in traffic. That is something that most people can understand. The education president could, for example, have continued along with this theme and used the occasion as a “teachable moment.” He could have explained that the nation uses over 250 barrels of oil per second and compared it with the average U.S. stripper well, which produces an average of about five barrels of oil per day. He could have paid homage to the obvious, that the nation’s daily use of imported oil has controlled a good deal of U.S. foreign and military policy over the decades. The president could have told the American people that the medium- and long-term trends in the nation’s use of oil are completely unsustainable. Some of you may scoff at this notion that Mr. Bush would say something like this. I happen to believe that Mr. Bush is a pretty smart and informed man (albeit horribly ill advised by many of his court jesters), and I think that he knows this is the case.
But after 30 drafts of his speech, Mr. Bush actually used the “A” word. The phrase “addicted to oil” is hardly original, having been a staple of energy commentary for several decades. But this turn of a phrase from the mouth of a sitting president is powerful, and hits with a lot of psychological momentum.
Oil Addiction: Addiction is Bad for You
I believe that most Americans have some idea what addiction means, because most Americans know at least a few people who are “addicted” to things like smoking, drinking, or drugs. I also believe that most Americans have at least an intuitive understanding that addiction is bad for you. That is, doing something that is “addictive” over the long term will degrade your quality of life, if not just plain kill you. My hunch is that most Americans are generally in favor of “addicted” people getting some sort of treatment for their issues and, as the saying goes, “getting well.” And helping people to get well is a fundamental tenet of Christianity, which is part of Mr. Bush’s own personal background and journey.
So for President Bush to characterize the nation as being “addicted to oil” is quite the philosophical opposite of the underlying premise of former President George H.W. Bush’s famous comment that “the American way of life is nonnegotiable.” Either that or Congress should review the mandatory sentencing guidelines for people convicted of most drug-related crimes. (Memo to George W. Bush: This is probably a good idea in any event.)
Oil Addiction: The 75% Solution
In the same sentence as the comment about being “addicted to oil,” the president set a “goal” of replacing “more than 75% of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025.” Mr. Bush talked about replacing that 75% of the nation’s oil imports with ethanol and other so-called “renewable” energy sources.
Replace 75% of U.S. oil imports from the Middle East by 2025? Viewed in another way, this is not a “goal”; it is a prophesy. There is no way that the United States will be importing as much oil from the Middle East in 2025 as it imports today. And there is no way that the nations of the Middle East will be exporting as much oil in 2025 as they are exporting now.
Whether or not the Bush statement is a “goal,” in 2025, the United States will not be importing much in the way of petroleum from anyplace. The oil just will not be there for one side to export or for the other side to import. Welcome to the future. As I said above, this could have been a “teachable moment” for the nation.
As I have noted in other articles, Kuwait has announced that its principal oil field, the super giant Burgan, has entered the phase of irreversible decline. At current depletion and decline rates, by 2025, Kuwait will be exporting negligible amounts of oil, and at prices that most nations of the world will be unable to afford. (This is another discussion for another time.)
Saudi’s super giant Ghawar oil field is close to being in irreversible decline. The Saudis are only managing to maintain current oil production volumes by virtue of a massive seawater injection program that pumps more than 7 million barrels of saltwater per day into its oil fields. This pumping helps to maintain production pressures in the oil reservoirs, but is also the source of formation damage due to the presence of oxygen and bacteria in the seawater. By 2025, Saudi Arabia will still export oil, but far less oil than now and each tanker will be of such value as to require its own armed escort. (See note above.)
Iran is not quite at its production peak, but within 20 years, even the most optimistic estimates forecast that Iran will cease to be a net oil exporter. This may also have something to do with Iran’s desire to develop a nuclear program for both domestic power production and military uses. Again, here was another “teachable moment” for the nation.
Oil Addiction: Conservation, Efficiency and Strategy
Two simple words that were missing from the State of the Union speech were (a) “conservation,” and (b) “efficiency.” Mr. Bush must know that U.S. oil production peaked in 1970. And the president cannot be unaware that, despite nominal price increases over the years, additional government incentives for drilling, and advances in technology for exploration and drilling, U.S. oil production has continued to decline. The only fundamental thing about oil that has increased in the past 35 years is America’s tendencies to consume the depleting substance and to obtain it from more-and-more unstable regions of the world. How much longer can this continue?
Would it have been so difficult for Mr. Bush to use his speech as an opportunity to raise the topics of conservation and efficiency to the American people? After all, Vice President Cheney once referred to conservation as a “personal virtue.” (Although in the next sentence he made the unfortunate comment that conservation is not something on which a nation can base its energy policy. Oh yeah? Wait and see, Mr. Veep.)
After the energy price spikes caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita this past fall, I suspect that the American people are ready to listen to some intelligent discussion of the virtues of conservation. And after watching what has happened to the major U.S. automakers in the past few years, I suspect that the American people are ready to listen to some intelligent discussion of the virtue of efficiency. The American people are ready for some “reachable moments” on this subject.
Another important phrase missing from the State of the Union speech was “energy plan.” What is the president’s plan for the long term? Mr. Bush spent many months of 2005 trumpeting his plan for the future of Social Security. He sponsored a plan to reform Medicare. So what is his plan for U.S. energy security in the coming years? After all, as the saying goes, “Plans are nothing; planning is everything.” This is a famous quote from Gen. Eisenhower that is usually found painted on the wall of every staff college of the U.S. military.
Strategic planning is critical. It is not as if things will exactly follow plan. But it is important that you have at least planned something and thought things through with respect to whatever you hope to accomplish. You have identified your challenge. You have considered your desired end state and determined which pathways might get you there. There are many roads from which to choose, so you have to make choices. What are you going to do? You need to marry up your resources to your action plan. What do you need in order to accomplish your mission and how you are going to get it? And have you considered the alternatives along the way?
Strategic planning requires that you think in terms of “What if this?” and “What if that?” And then you act, starting tomorrow morning, knowing full well that the next day some darn thing will occur to screw you all up. But at least you have a plan for this as well. And whoever has the better plan, the United States or China or Russia or the European Union or the Bolivians or the Venezuelans…they are going to be left standing at the end of the day.
For example, and to put it in terms that some of Mr. Bush’s principal advisers can understand, the U.S. Navy has a 50-year plan. Why? Because the Navy builds big ships, some of which have a useful life of 50 years. What will the world look like in 50 years? Beats me, and I am sure that it beats any admiral in the Pentagon. But I will bet that if you are around in 50 years, you will see U.S. Navy nuclear-powered aircraft carriers floating on the waters of the world. The Navy is inventing its own future, Congress permitting and appropriating.
So what is the U.S. energy strategy for the next 50 years? Are we to place our trust in the so-called “free market” to come up with better forms of ethanol from such noted energy storage media as switch grass? Is the Republican president who wanted to restructure Social Security and Medicare afraid of laying out a comprehensive plan for the nation’s energy strategy? Apparently so. And without a well-thought-out energy strategy, this nation had better have a workable military strategy. On that note, I will end for now.
Byron W. King
Saudi Arabia and Oil's Future
By Marc Faber Posted February 2, 2016
Saudi Arabia isn’t as strapped for cash as one may think, but if oil prices remain low for another three years the country’s basically bankrupt. Will the entirety of the Middle East have to go back to the deserts? And how will this impact oil reserves? Marc Faber reports…
About Byron King:
Byron King is a Senior Geologist at Rickards’ Gold Speculator. He is a Harvard-trained geologist who has traveled to every U.S. state and territory and six of the seven continents. He has been interviewed by dozens of major print and broadcast media outlets including The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Washington Post, MSN Money, MarketWatch, Fox Business News, and PBS Newshour.
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Tarrytown, Sleepy Hollow Residents Honor Veterans
TARRYTOWN, N.Y. Veterans Day isn't about sales or another three-day weekend, Sleepy Hollow Mayor Ken Wray noted Friday at Patriot's Park.
We as a nation do not reflect nearly enough about what war means or about the sacrifices that our veterans have made, he said.
Local officials spoke out in support of veterans on Friday, reminding Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow residents to never forget the sacrifices that they have made and the freedoms they have defended.
"We gather here today to remember and to thank the veterans that are here who aren't here and to thank them for what they had to risk, what they gave up and in many cases many gave their lives, Tarrytown Mayor Drew Fixell said. It's something that's difficult to ever express the appreciation that you have but we need to do it.
Veterans from several wars gathered to lead the joint Tarrytown-Sleepy Hollow Veterans Day Ceremony and participate in the annual flag ceremony. During the ceremony, one veteran represented each war since the Civil War. Veterans would salute each other and then solemnly place a flag in front of the war memorials at the corner of the park.
Local officials said a few words of acknowledgment to veterans. Some used the opportunity to remind government officials that veterans need additional support when they return home.
Veterans have earned the right to decent housing, employment and health care, Wray said. Our national policymakers need to keep veterans at the forefront of their attention. To all of you who have served our country so bravely, thank you.
In a written statement, Congresswoman Nita Lowey expressed her gratitude and appreciation to veterans and the military families who selflessly serve and honor their country. Lowey encouraged residents to remember the sacrifices that have been made.
Never forget the many brave men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice to ensure freedom for all people and once again fully support those who are overseas and make our nation proud, she wrote.
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Why is the foundation called Cowrie?
This is one of the first questions that we get here at the foundation- why did you decide to call it cowrie? The foundation was named after the cowrie shell, one of the most successful and universal forms of currency in the world.
Cowrie is the common name for a group of sea snails, in the family Cypraeidae. The shells are generally seen on the rocky parts of the seabed and are most abundant in the Indian Ocean specifically from the Maldives.
Cowrie shells as currency
Cowrie shells were adopted as currency as they were easy to carry due to being lightweight yet hard to break. They also have distinctive patterns and markings making them hard to forge. On top of this, they are easy to count. Cowrie shells were often threaded into bracelets, long strings, or packed into pouches to form greater quantities. For large payments, the shells would also be put into baskets and weighed to determine their value.
– 40 cowries made 1 string
– 50 strings made 1 head (2,000 cowries total)
– 10 heads made 1 bag (20,000 cowries total)
Cowrie shells in West Africa:
Caravans of Arab traders are thought to have introduced cowrie shells into West Africa as early as the 8th century, but it wasn’t until the 15th century that the shells circulated as money. The Portuguese, French, British and Dutch encouraged the formation of shells as the main currency by trading them with enslaved people, gold, and other goods.
Cowrie currency co-existed with other forms of currency across West Africa such as silver coins, salt bars, copper rods, cloth currencies and beads. The cowrie became the main currency along the trade routes of West Africa by the 18th century. Cowrie currency then remained as a means of payment until the 20th century.
Demonetising cowrie shells:
Despite their many benefits, cowrie shells were difficult to use for large payments. On top of this, Europeans including Portuguese, Dutch, French, German, and English bought large quantities of cowrie shells over between the 15th and 19th centuries which benefitted the palm oil and Atlantic slave trade. This eventually destroyed the local economies and money systems. Although cowrie is not used as a currency they are still used for ritual payments and are sometimes given as alms to the poor.
Legacy of cowrie shells:
In Ghana the unit of currency is known as the Ghanaian cedi. The word cedi is the Akan (principle native language of the Akan people of Ghana) word for cowrie.
The West African central bank has its headquarters in Benin and the building is decorated in cowrie shells.
In Togo, Benin, and Ghana a widely found cloth design called bceao is imprinted with cowrie shells.
Further reading recommendations
If you have found this brief history interesting and would like to read more about the history of cowrie shells we would recommend:
– A Fistful of Shells: West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution by Toby Green
https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/213/213365/a-fistful-of-shells/9780141977669.html
– Black and British: A Forgotten History by David Olusoga
https://www.waterstones.com/book/black-and-british/david-olusoga/9781447299769
– Economic and Sociocultural Aspects of Cowrie Currency of the Dagaaba of Northwestern Ghana Aspects journal article by Emmanuel
– Golden cowrie shells by National Geographic
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/invertebrates/g/golden-cowrie/
Mia Sogoba. (May 2018). https://www.culturesofwestafrica.com/cowrie-shell-monetary-symbolic-value/
The British Museum. https://britishmuseum.withgoogle.com/object/cowrie-shells
Toby Green. (2019). A Fistful of Shells: West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution. Penguin.
Yang, B. (2011). The rise and fall of Cowrie shells: the Asian story. Journal of World History, 22, 1-25. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23011676
News about Cowrie Scholarships
New University Partnership – King’s College London
Liverpool Responds Talk: Enabling Diversity, Equality and Inclusion
Cowrie Scholarship Talk with Social Impact Lab
Cowrie Scholarship Biz Talk with CirQulate
New University Partnerships
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Tag: Rajai Davis
Alumni Uncategorized
Former Crawdads on Opening-Day MLB Rosters
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The 2018 Major League Baseball season has begun and across the landscape former Hickory Crawdads dot the big-league rosters. Thirty-two former players are on 16 different teams, including 11 with the Texas Rangers, the parent club of the Crawdads.
Below is an overview of where former Hickory players will start the 2018 season:
Texas Rangers:
Alex Claudio: The 2013 Crawdads reliever will bring his changeup to the Rangers for his fifth season at Arlington. Claudio posted 11 saves and a 2.50 ERA over 70 games (8th in the AL) last year. He again is expected to be a key member of the Rangers bullpen.
Joey Gallo: The Crawdads single-season home run record holder joins the Rangers for his fourth season in the majors. A third baseman for the 2013 team, Gallo will start at first for Texas. He is coming off a season in which he hit 41 homers (third in the AL) and slugged .537 (9th).
Keone Kela: Another Crawdads reliever from the 2013 club returns to the Rangers for his fourth big-league season. Kela is expected to be the closer for the Texas, one season after posting a 2.79 ERA and struck out 51 in 38.2 innings (39 games).
Jose Leclerc: A third reliever off the 2013 Crawdads squad will be in his third season with the Rangers, but his first on the opening-day roster. He appeared in 47 games out of the Texas bullpen in 2017 and put up a 3.94 ERA. Opposing hitters hit just .145 against Leclerc, who struck out 60 in 45.2 innings.
Nomar Mazara: The Crawdads right fielder in 2013 and 2014 will be in his third season with Texas to start the season. Mazara posted a .253/.323/.422 slash in 2017 with 20 homers and 101 RBI (9th in the AL). He opens the season as the Rangers starting right fielder.
Rougned Odor: The Crawdads 2012 second baseman suits up for Texas in his fifth season as the club’s starter at the same position. Though he hit 30 or more homers for his second straight season, Odor struggled at the plate with a .204/.252/.397 slash.
Martin Perez: The 2009 Crawdads starting pitcher will begin the season on the disabled list (right elbow) but is expected to make his first start for the Rangers on April 5. Now in his seventh season, Perez went 13-12 in 32 starts in 2017. He’s looking to improve on a 4.82 ERA and a .301 opponents batting avg.
Jurickson Profar: The 2011 Crawdads shortstop is now in his fifth season with the Rangers after spending much of last year at AAA Round Rock. Profar hit .172/.294/.207 in 22 major league games in 2017. He will play a utility role for Texas.
Drew Robinson: The 2012 Crawdads third baseman is in his second season with the Rangers after making his debut with the club last April. Sent down to AAA Round Rock shortly after his debut, Robinson returned mid-season and hit .224/.314/.439 in 48 games with Texas. He starts the season as a utilityman.
Ricardo Rodriguez: The 2014-2015 pitcher for the Crawdads will start the 2018 season on the disabled list with biceps tendinitis. Rodriguez made his big-league debut with the Rangers last August. In 16 relief appearances, he had a 6.15 ERA in 13 innings.
Ryan Rua: The 2013 Crawdads second baseman is in his fifth major league season with the Rangers and is the team’s starting left fielder. Rua split last season with Texas and AAA Round Rock. With the Rangers, he had a .217/.294/.333 slash with nine extra-base hits in 144 plate appearances.
Baltimore Orioles:
Richard Bleier: A starting pitcher at the beginning of the 2009 season, the lefty is in his third major league season, the second with the Orioles. Bleier was called up to stay with the Orioles in May 2017 and became a key part of the team’s bullpen. In 57 games covering 63.1 innings, Bleier went 2-1 with a 1.99 ERA to go with an opponents batting average of .257 and a 1.18 WHIP.
Chicago White Sox:
Leury Garcia: The Crawdads shortstop from 2009-2010 is in his sixth major league season with 215 his 240 big-league games coming with the White Sox. Garcia hit for a MLB career high .270 in 87 games with nine homers and 33 RBI. He will play a utility role, mostly as a fourth outfielder.
Cleveland Indians:
Rajai Davis: The Crawdads 2003 center fielder – he also played a handful of games with the team in 2002 – begins his 13th big-league season by rejoining the Indians. Signed by Cleveland to a minor league contract in the offseason, Davis had a strong spring to make the team. Davis stole 43 bases for Cleveland in 134 games in 2016 and his eighth-inning, three-run homer against Aroldis Chapman in game seven of the 2016 World Series tied the game at the time. He played in 100 games with Oakland last season before going to the Boston Red Sox in a late-season trade. Davis posted a .235/.293/.348 slash and stole 29 bases last year. He will be a fourth outfielder this year for the Indians.
Kansas City Royals:
Justin Grimm: A 2011 starting pitcher for Hickory is now in his seventh major league season, the first with Kansas City. The Royals signed him after the Chicago Cubs released him in spring training. Grimm went 1-2 with a 5.53 ERA in 50 relief appearances last year with the Cubs.
Minnesota Twins:
Zach Duke: A starting pitcher for the Crawdads in 2003, Duke is now in his 14th season in the major leagues and will begin his tenure with the Twins this season out of the bullpen. Coming off 2016 “Tommy John” surgery, Duke made 27 relief appearances for the St. Louis Cardinals in 2017 with a 3.93 ERA and a .197 OBA in 18.1 innings. He’s expected to be a left-handed specialist for Minnesota.
New York Yankees:
Neil Walker: The 2005 Crawdads catcher is in his 10th major league season, his first with the Yankees after signing a free-agent contract with the club in March. After seven seasons as the starting second baseman for the Pittsburgh Pirates and New York Mets, Walker moved around the diamond in 2017, first with the Mets and then with the Milwaukee Brewers after a midseason trade. At the plate, Walker posted a .265/.362/.439 slash with 14 homers and 49 RBI. He is expected to play first and second with the Yankees.
Toronto Blue Jays:
Steve Pearce: The 2007 Crawdads first baseman is in his 12th major league season, the second with the Blue Jays. Last year, Pearce was the right-handed part of the Blue Jays platoon in leftfield and is expected to play in the same role in 2018. He hit .252/.319/.438 with 13 homers and 37 RBI in 92 games last year.
Chicago Cubs:
Carl Edwards, Jr.: A member of the Crawdads starting rotation in 2013, Edwards is now in his fourth season as a reliever with the Cubs. In 73 games last season, Edwards had a 2.98 ERA with an opponents batting average of .134 on 66.1 innings. His 25 holds last year was second in the National League. He is expected again to be a key member of the Cubs bullpen.
Cincinnati Reds:
Jared Hughes: A starting pitcher for the Crawdads in 2006 and 2007, Hughes enters his eighth season in the big leagues, his first with the Reds after signing a two-year contract in the offseason. Last season with the Milwaukee Brewers, Hughes with 5-3 with a 3.02 ERA and one save. Hughes will pitch out of the bullpen for the Reds.
Los Angeles Dodgers:
Wilmer Font: A starting pitcher for the Crawdads in 2009 and 2010, Font is in his fourth major league season, the second with the Dodgers. Font spent much of 2017 at AAA Oklahoma City where he put together a strong season that led to his selection as the Pacific Coast League pitcher of the year. Font pitched in three games with the Dodgers after rosters expanded in September and gave up seven runs in 3.2 Innings. He’ll pitch out of the bullpen for the Dodgers.
Miami Marlins:
Lewis Brinson: The Crawdads starting center fielder in 2013 and 2014, Brinson has a full-fledged opportunity for the same role in the majors after Brinson was traded to the Marlins in the offseason. Brinson made his big-league debut last summer with the Brewers and went 5-for-47 in 21 games.
Tomas Telis: The Crawdads catcher from 2011 is in his fifth major league season, the fourth with the Marlins. He spent much of 2017 at AAA New Orleans but posted a .240/.279/.367 slash in 48 big-league games. Telis will be the starting catcher for the Marlins due to an injury to J.T. Realmuto
Philadelphia Phillies:
Jorge Alfaro: The Crawdads catcher from 2012 and 2013 will be on his first opening-day roster after parts of two seasons with the Phillies. A midseason all-star at AAA Lehigh Valley, Alfaro hit .314/.360/.514 in 29 games at Philadelphia. He will split time with Andrew Knapp behind the plate.
Jerad Eickhoff: The Crawdads starting pitcher in 2012 is in his fourth season with the Phillies, though he starts the season on the disabled list with a strained right lat. In 24 starts last season, Eickhoff went 4-8 with a 4.71 ERA.
Odubel Herrera: The starting second baseman for Hickory in 2011, Herrera is now cemented as the Phillies center fielder for the fourth straight season. In 138 games in 2017, he hit .281/.325/.452 with 42 doubles – the third most in the NL – 14 homers and 56 RBI.
Nick Williams: The 2013 starting left fielder for Hickory is in his second season with the Phillies after he made his major league debut for the team last June. Williams went on to hit .288/.338/.473 with 12 homers and 55 RBI in 83 games with the Phillies. He is the starting right fielder.
Pittsburgh Pirates:
Jordy Mercer: The starting shortstop the second half of the 2008 season with the Crawdads is the final member remaining with Pittsburgh from the former Hickory affiliation with the Pirates that ended in 2008. Now in his seventh season – the sixth as the Bucs shortstop – he is likely on the move in what is his final contract year with Pittsburgh. With the Pirates in 2017, Mercer hit .255/.326/.406 with 14 homers and 58 RBI in 145 games.
San Diego Padres:
Robbie Erlin: The 2010 South Atlantic League’s ERA champ while with Hickory is now in his fifth season with the Padres. Tommy John surgery cost the left-hander much of the 2016 and all of the 2017 season. Erlin will likely be in the San Diego rotation.
Christian Villanueva: The 2011 Crawdads third baseman made his big-league debut with San Diego last September in grand style after hitting four homers and going 11-for-32 in 12 games. Villanueva returns to the Padres as a utility infielder after he made his first opening-day roster.
San Francisco Giants:
Andrew McCutchen: The 2006 Crawdads center fielder is in his tenth major league season, but after an offseason trade, he’ll suit up for another club other than the Pittsburgh Pirates for the first time. The 2013 National League MVP now patrols right field for the Giants after nine seasons as the Pirates center fielder. In 156 games last season, McCutchen hit .279/.363/.486 with 28 homers and 88 RBI.
Tony Watson: A starter in his brief stint with the Crawdads in 2007, the left-hander is now in his seventh major league season as one of the game’s best left-handed setup relievers. After five full seasons with the Pirates, he was dealt in a midseason trade to the Los Angeles Dodgers, with whom he made his first World Series appearance. In 71 games last season, he was 7-4 with ten saves and a 3.38 ERA in 66.2 innings. Watson signed a two-year contract with the Giants in the offseason.
Tags Alex Claudio, Alumni, Andrew McCutchen, Carl Edwards, Christian Villanueva, Drew Robinson, Jared Hughes, Jerad Eickhoff, Joey Gallo, Jordy Mercer, Jorge Alfaro, Jose Lecler, Jurickson Profar, Justin Grimm, Keone Kela, Leury Garcia, Lewis Brinson, Martin Perez, Neil Walker, Nick Williams, Nomar Mazara, Odubel Herrera, Rajai Davis, Ricardo Rodriguez, Richard Bleier, Robbie Erlin, Rougned Odor, Ryan Rua, Steven Pearce, Tomas Telis, Tony Watson, Wilmer Font, Zack Duke
Crawdads Alum Crawdads to the Majors Uncategorized
Former Crawdads Scattered throughout MLB Opening Day Rosters
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As the 2017 season begins, 29 former Hickory Crawdads will dot major league rosters. That is up from 25 to start the 2016 campaign.
Ten of those are on the Crawdads parent club, the Texas Rangers. Among American League clubs, only Toronto has two former Hickory players. Thirteen former Crawdads are on National League teams, including three on the Pittsburgh Pirates, left over from the days of their affiliation with Hickory. The Chicago Cubs, Philadelphia Phillies and San Diego Padres each have two.
Three players on MLB rosters will start the year on the disabled list: Hanser Alberto (Texas), Robbie Erlin (San Diego) and Zach Duke (St. Louis).
Here is a synopsis of each player in the majors:
Hanser Alberto (’12): The infielder will begin the season on the disabled. He has played the last two seasons with Texas, posting a .194/ .204 /.226 slash over 76 combined games.
Hanser Alberto, shown in a 2012 game at Kannapolis, went on to win a minor league “Gold Glove” award in 2014. (Tracy Proffitt)
Jose Bautista (’02): The right-handed hitter will be in his 14th major league season, the ninth with the Toronto Blue Jays. Battling injuries in 2016, Bautista hit 22 homers in 116 and posted a .234/.366/.452 slash. He signed a one-year contract with Toronto during the off-season to remain with the club.
Alex Claudio (’13): The soft-tossing, lefty reliever will be in his fourth major league season with the Texas Rangers. In 39 games in 2016, he put up a 2.79 ERA over 51.2 innings with 34 Ks and 10 walks.
Alex Claudio (’13) now a middle reliever for the Texas Rangers (Tracy Proffitt)
Rajai Davis (’02-’03): The speedy outfielder will be in his 12th major league season, his first with the Oakland A’s after signing a free agent contract in the off-season. The right-handed hitter posted a .249/.306/.388 slash with Cleveland in 2016 and led the American League with 43 stolen bases. He is expected to start in centerfield for the Athletics, with whom he played for from 2008-2010.
Joey Gallo (’13): The left-handed hitter will be in his third major league season with the Texas Rangers. He has played in 53 games the previous two years, putting up a .173/ .281/.368 slash. Gallo will start at third in place of the injured Adrian Beltre.
Joey Gallo will be the opening-day third baseman for Texas (Tracy Proffitt)
Leury Garcia (’09-’10): The switch-hitter will be in his fifth major league season, most of those with the Chicago Cubs. Out of minor-league options, Garcia was kept on the big league club and will fill a utility role. He spent much of last year at AAA Charlotte.
Leury Garcia is expected to come off the bench for the White Sox (John M. Setzler, Jr.)
Jose Leclerc (’13): The right-handed reliever will be on his first opening-day roster after he made 12 relief appearances for the Texas Rangers in his debut season last year. He put up a 1.80 ERA in 15 innings with 15 Ks and 13 BBs. He split last year at AA Frisco and AAA Round Rock.
Jose Leclerc is on his first major league, opening-day roster spot with the Rangers.
Nomar Mazara (’13-’14): The left-handed hitting outfielder will be in his second major league season with the Texas Rangers after playing in 145 games during his debut season. He posted a .266/.320/.419 slash with 20 homers and 64 RBI. Mazara will start the season in right.
Nomar Mazara will start in RF for the Rangers (Tracy Proffitt)
Rougned Odor (’12): The left-handed second baseman will be in his fourth season with the Texas Rangers and recently signed a six-year extension with the club. Last year, Odor hit 33 homers and collected 88 RBI in 150 games. His posted a .271/.296 /.502 slash.
Rougned Odor recently signed a six-year extension with the Rangers (Tracy Proffitt)
Steve Pearce (’07): The right-handed hitter will be in his 11th major league season, the first with the Toronto Blue Jays after signing a two-year deal during the off-season. Pearce split last year between Tampa Bay and Baltimore, posting a .288/.374/.492 slash over 110 games. He his expected to start in left.
Steve Pearce signed with the Blue Jays during the offseason (John M. Setzler, Jr.)
Martin Perez (’09): The left-handed pitcher will be in his sixth major league season with the Texas Rangers. Perez went 10-11 with a 4.39 ERA over 33 starts in 2016. He is expected to be the No. 3 starter for the Rangers.
Martin Perez will be the No. 3 starter for the Rangers this season (John M. Setzler, Jr.)
Jurickson Profar (’12, ’15): The switch-hitter will be in his fourth major league season with the Texas Rangers, but is on his first opening-day roster. Profar had a .239/.321/.338 slash over 90 games in 2016. He is expected to play a utility role for the Rangers this year.
Jurickson Profar looks to put his potential to use with the Rangers this season. (John M. Setzler, Jr.)
Drew Robinson (’12): The left-handed hitter will make his major league debut with the Texas Rangers this season after spending last year at AAA Round Rock. Robinson will play a utility role with Texas.
3B Drew Robinson will make his MLB debut for the Rangers this season. (Tracy Proffitt)
Robbie Ross (’10): The left-handed reliever will be in his sixth major league season, the third with the Boston Red Sox. Ross posted a 3.25 ERA in 2016 and fanned 56 over 55.1 innings.
Robbie Ross looks to provide solid middle relief for Boston this year (John M. Setzler, Jr.)
Ryan Rua (’13): The right-handed hitter will be in his fourth major league season with the Texas Rangers. Rua posted a .258//331/.400 slash over 99 games last year. He is expected to split time in left and at first.
Ryan Rua with split time in LF for Texas this season (Tracy Proffitt)
Chris Young (’01-’02): The right-handed pitcher will be in his 13th major league season, the third with the Kansas City Royals. Young went 3-9 in 34 games (13 starts) in 2016 with a 6.19 ERA. He lost out in a battle for the No. 5 spot in the rotation and will be a long-man out of the bullpen.
Zach Duke (’03): The left-handed reliever will miss the 2017 season after undergoing Tommy John surgery. He is currently with the St. Louis Cardinals after the team acquired him from the Chicago White Sox in a 2016 trade.
Carl Edwards, Jr. (’13): The right-handed reliever will be in his third major league season with the Chicago Cubs. This will be his first opening-day in the majors. In 36 games last year, Edwards posted a 3.75 ERA with 52 Ks and 14 BBs over 36 innings. The National League hit just .123 against Edwards.
Carl Edwards, Jr. looks to a bigger role in the Chicago Cubs bullpen in 2017 (Tracy Proffitt)
Jerad Eickhoff (’12): The right-handed starting pitcher will be in his third major league season with the Philadelphia Phillies after he completed his first full year with the club in 2016. He went 11-14 with a 3.65 ERA over 33 starts, striking out 167 and walking 42 over 197.1 innings. Eickhoff will be the No. 2 starter for the Phillies.
Jerad Eickhoff looks to take another step forward in the Phillies rotation this season (Tracy Proffitt)
Robbie Erlin (’10): The left-handed pitcher will begin this season on the disabled list with the San Diego Padres while he continues his recovery from Tommy John surgery in 2016. He hopes to return to the club this midseason for what would be his fifth major league season.
Justin Grimm (’11): The right-handed reliever will be in his sixth major league season, the fifth with the Chicago Cubs. In 68 appearances in 2016, Grimm went 2-1 with a 4.10 ERA and fanned 65 to just 23 walks over 52.2 IP. Grimm will pitch in middle relief.
Justin Grimm continues to pitch in middle relief this season for the Cubs (Tracy Proffitt)
Odubel Herrera (’11): The left-handed hitter will be in his third major league season with the Philadelphia Phillies after he took a big step as one of the National League’s best young centerfielders in 2016. During a season in which he represented the Phillies on the National League All-Star Team, Herrera posted a .286/.361/.420 slash and stole 25 bases in 159 games.
Odubel Herrera hopes to build on his 2016 all-star season (Tracy Proffitt)
Jared Hughes (’07-’08): The right-handed reliever will be in his seventh major league season and recently just signed with the Milwaukee Brewers after the Pittsburgh Pirates released him last week. Hughes went 1-1 with a 3.03 ERA over 67 appearances in 2016. He will pitch in middle relief for the Brewers.
Jared Hughes signed with Milwaukee to start the 2017 season (John M. Setzler, Jr.)
Andrew McCutchen (’06): The right-handed hitter will be in his ninth major league season with the Pittsburgh Pirates. McCutchen struggled over 153 games last year and posted his career-worst slash (.256/.336/.430). He hit 24 homers, but stole just six bases in 13 attempts. After manning center his entire career, McCutchen will shift to right this year.
Andrew McCutchen looks to rebound with the Pirates after a tough 2016 season (John M. Setzler, Jr.)
Jordy Mercer (’08): The right-handed shortstop will be in his sixth major league season with the Pittsburgh Pirates. He played in 149 games last year and posted a .256/.313/.377 with 11 homers and 59 RBI.
Jordy Mercer returns to the Pirates lineup at shortstop (John M. Setzler, Jr.)
Neil Ramirez (’09-’10): The right-handed pitcher will be in his fourth major league season, the first with the San Francisco Giants. Ramirez signed a minor-league contract with the club during the offseason and made the club out of spring training. Ramirez made 18 relief appearances with three clubs (Cubs, Milwaukee, Minnesota) and struggled to a 6.00 ERA over 24 innings. He did strike out 24, but walked 18 and had a 1.67 WHIP. He will come out of the bullpen for the Giants.
Neil Ramirez joins the San Francisco Giants after a strong spring. (John M. Setzler, Jr.)
Luis Sardinas (’12): The switch-hitter will be in his fourth major league season, the second with the San Diego Padres after the team acquired him from Seattle during the 2016 season. Sardinas played in 66 combined games last year with a .244/.295/.356 slash. He will play some shortstop, but will start the season in a utility role.
Luis Sardinas will be in a utility role with San Diego (Tracy Proffitt)
Neil Walker (’05): The switch-hitting second baseman will be in his ninth major league season, the second with the New York Mets after resigning in the offseason. Despite battling a back injury, Walker still posted a .282/.347/.476 over 113 games with the Mets and blasted 23 homers.
Neil Walker returns to the Mets for a second season as the starting 2B.
Tony Watson (’07): The left-handed reliever will be in his seventh major league season with the Pittsburgh Pirates. After the midseason trade of Mark Melancon, Watson took on the job of the Pirates closer in 2016 and will serve in the same role this year. He went 2-5 with 15 saves last year over 70 games with a 3.06 ERA. Watson struck out 58 and walked 20 over 67.2 IP.
Tags Alex Claudio, Andrew McCutchen, Carl Edwards, Chris Young, Drew Robinson, Hanser Alberto, Jared Hughes, Jerad Eickhoff, Joey Gallo, Jordy Mercer, Jose Bautista, Jose Leclerc, Jurickson Profar, Justin Grimm, Leury Garcia, Luis Sardinas, Martin Perez, Neil Ramirez, Neil Walker, Nomar Mazara, Odubel Herrera, Rajai Davis, Robbie Erlin, Robbie Ross, Rougned Odor, Ryan Rua, Steve Pearce, Tony Watson, Zach Duke
Alumni Report Uncategorized
Crawdads Alumni Report March 27
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HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY:
Rajai Davis (’02-’03, OF/ Cleveland) doubled twice and scored a run during the Indians 14-7 win over Cincinnati.
BIRTHDAYS:
Kevin Ciarrachi (’01, C) turns 38.
CRAWDADS ALUM IN THE NEWS:
Brew Crew Ball writes about Alex Presley’s (’07, OF) battle to make the Milwaukee Brewers opening-day roster.
MLB.com’s Greg Johns writes Luis Sardinas (’12, SS) is making a strong case for a utility role with the Mariners
Texas 6 Colorado 8: Hanser Alberto (’12, 3B- SS/ Texas) 1-3, BB, 2 R, RBI, SB; Preston Beck (’13, 1B/ Texas) 0-1; Jose Cardona (’15, OF/ Texas) 0-1; Edwin Garcia (’10-’12, ’15, 2B-SS/ Texas) 0-1; Luis Marte (’13-’14, SS/ Texas) defensive appearance; Drew Robinson (’12, 3B/ Texas) 1-3, RBI, K; Ryan Rua (’13, 2B/ Texas) 2-3, BB, R, K; Martin Perez (’09, P/ Texas) 5 IP, 7 H, 4 ER, 6 K, 1 HR; Neil Martinez (’12, P/ Texas) 3 IP, 4 H, 4 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, loss (0-3)
CACTUS LEAGUE:
Arizona 7 Milwaukee 7: Alex Presley (’06, OF/ Milwaukee) 2-4, 3B, R, RBI.
Chicago White Sox 4 Los Angeles Dodgers 5: Leury Garcia (’09-’10, SS/ Chicago) 0-4, K.
Cincinnati 9 Chicago White Sox 7: Zach Duke (’03, P/ Chicago) 1.1 IP, 2 H..
Los Angeles Dodgers 6 Seattle 7: Matt West (’09-’10, 3B/ LA Dodgers) 1 IP, 4 H, 3 ER, 1 HR, loss (0-1).
San Diego 1 Houston 11: Robbie Erlin (’10, P/ San Diego) 5 IP, 2 H, 2 ER, 2 BB, 5 K, 2 HR, loss (1-2).
GRAPEFRUIT LEAGUE:
Boston 8 Baltimore 16: Robbie Ross (’10, P/ Boston) 2 IP, 1 K.
Detroit 6 Philadelphia 5: Odubel Herrera (’11/ 2B/ Philadelphia) 2-5, 2B, R, RBI, K
New York Yankees 4 Toronto 3: Jose Bautista (’02, OF/ Toronto) 0-3, K.
Tampa Bay 3 Pittsburgh 1: Steve Pearce (’06, 1B/ Tampa Bay) 1-3, BB, K / Andrew McCutchen (’06, OF/ Pittsburgh) 0-3, 2 K; Jordy Mercer (’08, SS/ Pittsburgh) 0-3, K.
Washington 7 St. Louis 0: Sean Burnett (’01, P/ Washington) 1 IP, 1 H.
Cal State Los Angeles 3 (6-22, 5-12 CCAA) San Francisco St 4: Chris Hernandez (’04, P/ Pitching Coach, CSULA)
Catholic 4 Elizabethtown (PA) 1 (Game 1) / Catholic 1 Elizabethtown (PA) 3 (10-10, 3-3 Landmark) (Game 2): Cliff Smith (’05, P/ Head Coach, EC)
George Washington 0 (8-16) Houston 14: Gregg Ritchie (’98, Hitting Coach/ Head Coach, GWU)
Indiana-Purdue-Ft. Wayne 2 Oral Roberts (OK) 5 (Game1) / IPFW 0 Oral Roberts (OK) 15 (13-10, 4-2 Summit) (Game 2): Massachusetts-Lowell 5 Maryland-Baltimore County 10 (Game 1) / Massachusetts-Lowell 0 Maryland-Baltimore County 1 (9-10, 3-1 American East) (Game 2): Bob Mumma (’93-’93, C-1B/ Head Coach, UMBC)
Mid-American Christian 0 Oklahoma City 18 (26-9, 8-1 Sooner): Bobby Spain (’08, 3B/ Asst. Coach/ OCU)
Morningside (IA) 12 SW Assemblies of God (MO) 0 (Game 1) / Morningside (IA) 16 (21-5) SW Assemblies of God (MO) 7 (Game 2): Brian Drent (’95, OF/ Head Coach MU)
Oakland (MI) 6 Northern Kentucky 1 (Game 1) / Oakland (MI) 12 (10-11, 4-2 Horizon) Northern Kentucky 4 (Game 2): John Musachio (’97, P/ Head Coach OU)
St. Joseph’s 5 Richmond 6 (13-11, 1-2 Atlantic 10): Tracy Woodson (’99. Manager/ Head Coach/ UR)
Wright St. 2 Valparaiso (IN) 3 (Game 1) / Wright St. 7 Valparaiso (IN) 3 (8-13, 4-2 Horizon) (Game 2): Brian Schmack (’96, P/ Head Coach, Valpo)
JUNIOR COLLEGES:
Moraine Valley 1 Oakton CC (IL) 11 (Game 1) / Moraine Valley 1 Oakton CC (IL) 11 (7-5, 2-0 Region 4) (Game 2): Michael Scala (’02, OF/ Asst. Coach, OCC)
San Joaquin Delta 1 Sacramento City 9 (19-3, 7-0 Nor-Cal Big 8): Pete Pryor (’96, 1B/ Asst. Coach, SCC)
HIGH SCHOOLS:
El Reno (OK) 7 Guthrie 8/ El Reno (OK) 7 (6-4) Chandler 8: Keanon Simon (’08, OF/ Head Coach, ERHS)
Hillcrest 2 (7-6) Villa Park 9 (Anaheim Lions Tournament): Scott Vollmer (’94, C/ Head Coach, HHS)
Lee’s Summit West (MO) 6 Madison 5/ Lee’s Summit West 5 (4-1) McCracken Co. (KY) 2 (Union City, TN Tournament): Jay Meyer (’94, P/ Head Coach, LSW)
Selah 16 Prosser (WA) 2 (Game 1) / Selah 3 (1-5, 1-3) 3 Prosser (WA) 2 (Central Wash.) (Game 2): Steve Schorzman (’98, P/ Head Coach, PHS)
Tags Alex Presley, Luis Sardinas, Rajai Davis
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The Best Animated Sequels in History
Josh Spiegel
Warner Bros/DreamWorks/Pixar
The early months of the year aren’t known for great movies. But this February offered a strange coincidence at the box office: Two major animated films that are sequels to well-liked films. Early this month, there was The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part, the latest extension of the ever-expanding Lego film franchise. February closes with How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, a conclusion to the well-liked trilogy from DreamWorks. Animation sequels are extremely common these days (as is the case with film in general), but the good ones are harder to spot. Let’s look at the 15 best theatrically released animated sequels.
The Best Disney Villains Ever
Source: The Best Animated Sequels in History
Filed Under: How to Train Your Dragon 3, The LEGO Movie 2
Categories: Lists, Newsletter
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Players’ Skewed Maps complicate Eurasia’s 21st Century Great Game
in World — by Dr James M Dorsey — January 24, 2019
The United States and China are playing Eurasia’s 21st century Great Game from different but equally skewed maps. While the US map appears to be outdated, the Chinese map portrays a reality that is imagined.
If the skewed realities of both China and the United States have one thing in common, it is in strategist Parag Khanna’s mind the fact that neither realizes that the Great Game’s prize, a new world order, has already been determined.
“We are living – for the first time ever — in a truly multipolar and multicivilizational order in which North America, Europe and Asia each represents a major share of power,” Mr. Khanna says in his just published book, The Future is Asian.
While the United States sees the Great Game as an as yet open-ended battle for influence in Europe and Asia and looks at Russia as a European rather than a Eurasian power, China overestimates what its future position, aided by its US$1 trillion infrastructure and energy-driven Belt and Road initiative, is likely to be.
The skewed perceptions of both the United States and China create spaces for multiple other powers like Russia and various Middle Eastern states to carve out positions of their own.
China, nonetheless, alongside Russia has one advantage. In contrast, to the United States, it adopts the notion put forward by former Portuguese Europe minister Bruno Macias that the number of the world’s continents is shrinking from seven to six. Increasingly, Europe and Asia no longer see their common landmass as two separate continents and are gravitating towards what Mr. Macias calls a “supercontinent.”
Mr. Khanna implicitly acknowledges Mr. Macias’ notion by concluding that contrary to perceived Chinese expectations “ultimately, China’s position will be not of an Asian or global hegemon but rather of the eastern anchor of the Asian – and Eurasian – mega-system.”
China’s perceived other advantage, its economic and financial muscle, in the juggling for position on the new supercontinent is also proving to be its Achilles Heel.
The belief that the driver of the Belt and Road is geopolitics rather than economics is bolstered by predictions that none of China’s Indian Ocean port projects have much hope of financial success.
A Financial Times study last year concluded that 78 countries targeted by China for project development are among the world’s most risky economies. On a scale of one to seven, the highest level of country risk, Belt and Road countries ranked 5.2, a significantly higher risk than the 3.5 average for emerging markets. They had a median rating by Moody’s, the credit rating agency, that was the equivalent of non-investment junk investment grade.
The risk was reflected on the balance sheets of major Chinese state-owned companies that build, operate and invest in many Belt and Road projects. The study reported that China’s top internationally active construction and engineering contractors were almost four times more highly leveraged than their non-Chinese competitors.
In a bid to avert a financial crisis, the government has ordered state-owned companies to reduce their debt burden, in part by attributing greater importance to the viability of overseas projects.
The risk to China is not purely economic. It is also geopolitical and reputational. Increasingly, China is forced to focus short term less on the Great Game itself and more on countering the negative effect of a growing perception that China’s projection of the Belt and Road as a mutually beneficial proposition is more fantasy than fact.
A growing number of countries, like Pakistan, Malaysia, Myanmar and Nepal, question the benefits of Belt and Road projects and are resisting China’s often onerous commercial and funding terms.
Ironically, China’s immediate rivals in efforts to maintain its status and ensure that it does not lose hard-won ground are not the United States, India or Japan but its newly assertive, geopolitically ambitious friends in the Gulf, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as well as Iran.
That is nowhere truer than in Pakistan, a Belt and Road crown jewel, where Saudi Arabia and the UAE have exploited to their advantage Chinese irritation with Pakistani demands to shift the emphasis of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) from infrastructure and energy to agriculture, job creation and the enabling of third-party investment, primarily from countries in the Gulf.
Chinese chagrin has been evident in China’s hesitancy to respond to Pakistani requests for help in averting a financial crisis.
Filling the gap, massive Saudi and UAE aid and investment to the tune of US$30 billion in balance of payment support, deferred oil import payments and investment in the troubled Pakistani province of Balochistan that borders Iran has helped the government of Imran Khan avoid asking the International Monetary Fund (IMF) cap in hand to bail it out.
China fears that Pakistan’s mounting dependence on Saudi Arabia and the UAE coupled with a US campaign intended to curb Iran’s regional projection potentially complicates the security of its massive US$45 billion plus investment that to a large extent targets Balochistan.
The United States and Saudi Arabia see Balochistan as a possible launching pad for possible efforts to destabilize the Islamic republic by stirring unrest among its Baloch population and other ethnic minorities.
Increased Saudi and UAE influence in Balochistan could, moreover, suck China into the escalating maelstrom of the two countries’ rivalry with Iran.
Ironically, Saudi and UAE investment has at the same time shielded China from potentially embarrassing disclosure of the financial terms of CPEC-related projects that the IMF was demanding as part of any bailout. Media reports said that Pakistan had informally told the IMF that it would be paying China US$40 billion over 20 years for US$26.5 billion in Chinese funding of CPEC-related projects.
The impact of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, like much of the rest of the Middle East, goes far beyond Balochistan. It also puts its mark elsewhere on the Eurasian supercontinent. In the words of analyst Galip Dalay, the Middle East or West Asia will, for better or for worse, shape each other.
“The contemporary Middle East is no longer the geopolitically US-centric space that the Europeans once knew. Europe can respond in several ways: proceed with its largely ad-hoc, incoherent and crisis-driven policies of recent years; continue to be incorporated into someone else’s game plan, as with the French-German involvement in the Russian-led Astana (peace) process for Syria; or craft a more coherent policy towards the region, with a strong emphasis on democratisation, reform, good governance, inclusion and reconciliation… If Europe doesn’t engage and invest in the transformation of the Middle East, regional developments will dramatically transform it, whether through radicalism, refugees, terrorism, xenophobia or populism. Interactions between Europe and the Middle East will be transformative, for better or for worse.,” Mr. Dalay said.
The Middle East is similarly crucial to the success of China’s Belt and Road with Iran and Turkey representing key nodes that further the rise of Eurasia through Chinese-funded rails that link the Atlantic coast of Europe to the People’s Republic.
The Middle East’s impact is one facet of a bigger game in which world and regional powers are competing for position in Mr. Khanna’s multipolar and multicivilizational order.
Robert Malley, a former Obama National Security Council official and head of the International Crisis Group argues that autocratic and authoritarian leaders are testing the limits of the Great Game as the power of Western nations erodes and embattled concepts of multilateralism no longer serve to constrain them.
“As the era of largely uncontested U.S. primacy fades, the international order has been thrown into turmoil. More leaders are tempted more often to test limits, jostle for power, and seek to bolster their influence—or diminish that of their rivals—by meddling in foreign conflicts… Having annexed parts of Georgia and Crimea and stoked separatist violence in Ukraine’s Donbass region, Russia is now throwing its weight around in the Sea of Azov, poisoning dissidents in the United Kingdom, and subverting Western democracies with cyberwarfare. China obstructs freedom of navigation in the South China Sea and arbitrarily detains Canadian citizens… Saudi Arabia has pushed the envelope with the war in Yemen, the kidnapping of a Lebanese prime minister, and the gruesome murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in its consulate in Istanbul. Iran plots attacks against dissidents on European soil. Israel feels emboldened to undermine ever more systematically the foundations of a possible two-state solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Mr. Malley said.
By implication, Mr. Malley was suggesting that efforts to push the envelope were enabled by the US’ failure to recognize that Europe and Asia were becoming one supercontinent.
That failure was mirrored in the U.S. National Security Strategy published in 2017 by the White House and a study by Rand Corporation in 2018 designed to conceptualize current geopolitics as an era of intensifying international competition.
Rather than recognizing an increasingly evident divergence of interests between the United States and Europe, the study suggested that the US would continue to have the opportunity, if it chooses, to lead a predominant coalition of value-sharing democracies and other largely status quo states to help preserve stability.”
The study appeared to downplay any divergence by reducing differences to “identity-fuelled nationalism” that aims to recapture (countries’) “rightful place” in world politics,” a reference to Russia, China, Iran and North Korea as well as European nations grappling with the rise of nationalist, populist and far-right forces and a Middle East that is shaping Europe through highly emotive issues such as migration, political violence and religious identity.
The US focus on Russia as a European rather than a regional power with global ambitions also means that it underestimates Moscow’s play in the Middle East despite its military intervention in Syria.
Russia national security scholar Stephen Blank argues that President Vladimir Putin’s strategy in the region is rooted in the thinking of Yevgeny Primakov, a Middle East expert and linguist and former spymaster, foreign minister and deputy prime minister, who like Mr. Khanna envisioned the emergence of a multi-polar, multi-civilizational world with Eurasia at its centre.
Mr. Primakov saw the Middle East as a key arena for countering the United States that would enable Russia, weakened by the demise of the Soviet Union and a subsequent economic crisis, to regain its status as a global and regional power and ensure that it would be one pole in a multi-polar world.
By identifying the region as a preferred battleground, Russia benefitted in the words of historian Niall Ferguson from the fact that its significant oil reserves made it “the only power that has no vested interest in stability in the Middle East.”
Mr. Blank argued that “in order to reassert Russia’s greatness, Primakov and Putin aimed ultimately at strategic denial, denying Washington sole possession of a dominant role in the Middle East from where US influence could expand to the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS),” a regional grouping of post-Soviet nations.
They believed that if Russia succeeded it would force the United States to concede multi-polarity and grant Russia the recognition it deserves. That, in turn, would allow Mr. Putin to demonstrate to the Russian elite his ability to restore Russia to great power status.
Syria offered Russia the opportunity to display its military prowess without the United States challenging the move. At the same time, Russia leveraged its political and economic clout to forge an alliance with Turkey and partner with Iran. The approach constituted an effort to defang Turkish and Iranian influence in the Caucasus and Central Asia.
Similarly, Russia after brutally repressing religiously inspired Chechen rebels in the 1990s, was proving to be far defter than either China or the United States at promoting politically pacifist or apolitical Islam in a complex game of playing all sides against the middle.
Russian engagement runs the gamut from engaging with militants to cooperating with Muslim autocrats to encouraging condemnation of the kind of Islam adopted by partners such as Saudi Arabia.
Said Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center and a former Russian military officer: “Russia is not the Soviet Union. It does not see the Middle East as a region that it can dominate. Displacing the United States from the leading position in the Middle East is way above Russia’s capacity, and keeping the region in its sphere of influence is way above Russia’s resources. Russia has certainly benefited from waning U.S. interest in the Middle East as, absent an active America, Russia can act with more confidence and ease.”
Describing Russia as “a lonely power,” Mr. Trenin went on to say that the difference between Russia and the Soviet Union was that the “Soviet Union was heavily engaged around the Middle East in spending money on an ideological and geopolitical project, the Russian Federation is active in the region trying to make money. The Soviet Union was about an idea. Russia’s idea is about Russia itself.”
In the Great Game’s jostling for position, Mr. Trump’s America First approach mirrors Mr. Trenin’s portrayal of Russian policy. That leaves China tied up in the contradictions of a policy that is packaged in assertions of lofty ideals but like the United States and Russia is in effect first and foremost about the pursuit of Chinese interests.
Dr. James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and co-host of the New Books in Middle Eastern Studies podcast. James is the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog, a book with the same title and a co-authored volume, Comparative Political Transitions between Southeast Asia and the Middle East and North Africa as well as Shifting Sands, Essays on Sports and Politics in the Middle East and North Africa and recently published China and the Middle East: Venturing into the Maelstrom
Author: Dr James M Dorsey
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Home » MacMurrough Kavanagh, Brian
MacMurrough Kavanagh, Brian
by Emmett O'Byrne
MacMurrough Kavanagh, Brian (c.1530–1578), third son of Cathaoir MacMurrough Kavanagh (qv) (d. 1554) became after 1560 the principal leader of the Sliocht Diarmada Laimhdeirg and the most powerful of all the MacMurroughs. Brian first appears in the historical record on 19 August 1549 in the pardon of his father and his followers. From 1548 onwards Cathaoir mac Airt and his sons were in intermittent conflict with Richard Butler (qv) (d. 1571), 1st Viscount Mountgarret. The feud centred around persistent attempts by Butler to extend his authority over the lands of Brian's father. In March 1550 Cathaoir mac Airt seized Ferns castle from Butler, throwing the whole region into chaos. In October 1550 Sir James Croft (qv) (d. 1590) brought his forces to bear upon Cathaoir mac Airt and his sons, devastating their lands. On 4 November before a great council at Dublin, Cathaoir mac Airt acknowledged his offence and publicly renounced the title of MacMurrough. While his possessions were considerably reduced, he obtained permission to make his explanations to Edward VI (d. 1553). In addition Cathaoir mac Airt obtained a pardon dated 6 November for his kinsmen, including Brian and his brothers. Shortly before his death, Cathaoir mac Airt's prominence was further acknowledged when he was created baron of Ballyanne on 8 February 1554 – a privilege that allowed him to sit in the Irish house of lords. A second title was that of captain of his country, which ostensibly was a replacement for the abandonment of his Irish title. Cathaoir mac Airt died some time after February 1554, and he was succeeded by Murchadh MacMurrough (qv) (d. 1557), baron of Coolnaleen. The government, though, took care to balance this by making Brian's elder brother Diarmait Kavanagh (d. p.1570) tanaiste.
Diarmait and Brian in May 1556 joined the formerly loyal Fiach O'Toole (qv) of Castlekevin and Fartry (d. 1578) and Feilim O'Toole (qv) of Powerscourt and Fercullen (d. 1603) in a raid on the Pale. The raiders were driven back to Powerscourt, where they prepared the castle to resist a besieging force led by Sir George Stanley, the marshal of the army. They were persuaded to surrender when Stanley threatened to bombard the castle, and to lay down their arms. All the prisoners, including Brian and Diarmait, were brought to Dublin. There seventy-four of their men were executed publicly, but their high birth saved them and they gained their pardon on 8 June.
This close shave seems to have persuaded Brian to try to live on good terms with neighbouring English officials. Although officially at peace, Brian also developed relations with the powerful O'Byrnes of Crioch Raghnuill. At some point, probably in the early 1560s, he married Elizabeth O'Byrne (d. p.1609), the daughter of Aodh O'Byrne (qv) (d. 1579) and sister to Fiach O'Byrne (qv) (d. 1597). His marriage to Elizabeth would indicate that he had already superseded his brother Diarmait to become the most powerful of the Sliocht Diarmada Laimhdeirg. Brian was also shrewd enough to cultivate his links with the English, obtaining a grant of liberty on 26 August 1565 and later sending some of his children to an English school.
That said, towards the close of the 1560s he was being increasingly drawn into conflict with government forces. On 6 June 1566 he and several kinsmen were pardoned for unspecified offences, but the real challenge was posed by Sir Peter Carew (qv). On 21 October 1568 Carew, through an old claim of his family, petitioned the Dublin council for a grant of the barony of Idrone, Co. Carlow. This was ominous for the Kavanaghs, for a considerable portion of their lands lay in the east of Idrone. On 17 December 1568 Idrone was granted to Carew, and this was given legal effect by Lord Deputy Henry Sidney (qv) at Newcastle McKynegan in east Wicklow five days later. Any defence the Kavanaghs raised was dismissed as spurious and ill founded. The lands, in the west of Idrone, of Sir Edmund Butler (qv) of Cloghgrenan (d. 1602), the brother of Thomas Butler (qv) (d. 1614), 10th earl of Ormond, were also affected.
In June 1569 Sir Edmund rose up and was joined by the Kavanaghs, led by Brian and his son-in-law Muircheartach Óg MacMurrough (qv) (d. 1586). They linked up with the Munster revolt led by James fitz Maurice Fitzgerald (qv) (d. 1579), as well as with some of the O'Mores of Laois. Although Sir Edmund disturbed much of East Leinster, his campaign petered out after the fall of Cloghgrenan castle and the failed siege of Kilkenny. After suffering defeat at Kilmocar, Sir Edmund submitted on 1 September to Ormond and was imprisoned in Dublin castle, but the war dragged on into 1570. The resistance of Muircheartach Óg and Brian mac Cathaoir lasted until January 1570, but it was worth it as they preserved most of their lands. Indeed, Carew was now moved to compromise, to ensure the peace by dealing diplomatically with the Kavanaghs. His new approach yielded fruit, as many of them decided to hold their lands from him, as long as their tenure was not disturbed. For his activities Brian was pardoned on 25 June 1570 and was fined £20, but Sidney now sought further to stabilise the region by placating Brian. In March 1571 Brian was again pardoned, and was regranted the lands that his father had held. In return he promised to observe English law and to contribute troops to government expeditions.
In spite of this new protection, Brian was soon in trouble. Along with his brother-in-law Fiach O'Byrne, and the Furlongs of Horetown, Co. Wexford, Brian was charged with the killing of Robert Browne of Mulrankan, Co. Wexford, a prominent government supporter, on 21 April 1572. Relations between Browne and Brian's family were intimate, as his brother was married to Browne's sister. According to some sources it was Brian who killed Browne (although others say Fiach). These attacks into Wexford by Brian and Fiach were paralleled by the burnings of Rory O'More (qv) (d. 1578) in Laois during May. On hearing of Browne's death, Sir Nicholas White (qv) (d. 1593), his father-in-law and seneschal of Wexford, went to London; in early August 1572, armed with the support of Queen Elizabeth, he returned to Ireland, thirsting for revenge. The previous month Sir Francis Agard (d. 1577), seneschal of the countries of the O'Byrnes and the O'Tooles, had successfully attacked the followers of Fiach, killing his brother. Within days of his return from England, White attacked Brian and Fiach but failed to bring them to book. His assault undermined attempts being made by Gerald Fitzgerald (qv) (d. 1585), 11th earl of Kildare, and Agard to make a deal with Brian and Fiach. The latter two, it would seem, had agreed to betray the Furlongs in return for immunity from prosecution. Brian and Fiach responded to White's assault by ravaging Wexford, defeating the Wexford freeholders in August and September 1572; however, they came to peace in December 1572. As the price of their pardon, they had deserted Matthew and Robert Furlong of Horetown who were later executed. Brian's pardon, which included his wife, Elizabeth, was granted on 16 April 1573.
The turmoil caused by their disturbances seems to have further improved Brian's fortunes. Earlier, in 1566, Anthony Colclough (qv) (d. 1584) had obtained a grant of the lands of Tintern Abbey, Co. Wexford, but on 16 May 1571 he also claimed that the barony of St Mullins was included in the grant of 1566. The case was decided in Colclough's favour in August 1572. This affected Brian directly, as many of his lands were located in St Mullins. Although Brian in 1574 did not object to Colclough's victory and put in his pledges, he refused cleverly to take responsibility for any acts of his followers by refusing to give pledges for them. Lord Deputy William Fitzwilliam (qv) (d. 1599) and Sir Peter Carew were clearly concerned by the developing situation and encouraged Colclough to surrender his claim to St Mullins. This done, Brian was persuaded to hold St Mullins direct from the queen for an annual rent of £46, strengthening his hold on his lands. In spite of this, Brian remained close to the O'Byrnes of Crioch Raghnuill. With his father-in-law, Aodh O'Byrne, Brian was to parley with Ormond on 14 July 1574. He proved himself yet again adept at playing both sides, as the government entrusted him with a commission of martial law over St Mullins. However, he was instructed to use it only upon his own people and not on the settlers. The last mention of Brian was his submission on 1 October 1578 at Leighlinbridge. This remarkably able and completely ruthless man died shortly afterwards towards the end of the year, leaving at least twelve children.
National Archives (Kew) (PRO), SP 63/36/16, SP 63/37/13, SP 63/37/37, SP 63/37/44, SP 63/37/59; CSPI, 1509–73, no. 13, p. 477, no. 41, p. 481, no. 51, p. 490; Cal. Carew MSS, 1575–88, no. 109, pp 140–41; K. W. Nicholls, ‘The Kavanaghs 1400–1700’, Ir. Geneal., v, no. 4 (Nov. 1977), 444–5; D. Moore, English action, Irish reaction, Maynooth Historical Series, no. 4 (1987), 5–19
third son
Emmett O'Byrne
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Like the Gothic, dystopian fiction serves several functions in this proposed genre studies elective. First, the current popularity of dystopian fiction amongst teenagers, evidenced by The Hunger Games franchise’s three best-selling novels and four blockbuster films, will help recruit students to study literature. To help students dig deeper into the contexts with which they are already at least somewhat familiar, I buttress an already present enthusiasm with a course structure that allows for guided engagement with the genre’s seminal texts. Second, dystopian fiction, although distinct from its Gothic cousin, similarly serves as a lens through which readers may critically assess the world at large and come to a more comprehensive understanding of it. As such, students of The Dark Days of Future Past will explore the various implications of dystopian fiction, specifically its critique of present conditions and its directing towards future possibilities.
For many, the appeal of dystopian fiction is that it contemplates what the future may look like if things go terribly awry – oppressive governments reign supreme, suffering is the status quo, and humanity is either on the brink of annihilation or struggling to survive in a post-apocalyptic condition. On this front, dystopian fiction is revealed as a set of cautionary tales, narratives presenting potential futures that should be avoided at all costs. However, there is a case to be made that dashing utopian dreams upon the rocks actually operates as a critique of contemporary society, a means of looking at where society currently stands.
Warren Ellis, the writer and futurist best known for his cyberpunk comics series Transmetropolitan, argues that science fiction (the umbrella genre under which the dystopian falls) “was never supposed to be about predicting the future.” Instead, the function of any dystopian tale is to extrapolate a novum, “a new thing, from the present-day condition…The novum isn’t a prediction. It’s a possibility, an invention suggested by the sciences or the humanities, informed by the weather of the time” (Ellis). With this perspective in mind, The Dark Days of Future Past will require students to read dystopian works while asking more complex questions than just “What if this actually happened?” or “What could lead to this scenario?” Instead, students will be pointed towards drawing parallels that address a more unsettling but fruitful question: “In what ways are we already living in the proverbial dystopia?” After all, every dystopian work “is always about the time it’s written in. 1984 was always about 1948. Science fiction is social fiction” (Ellis).
In addition to critiquing present conditions, students enrolled in The Dark Days of Future Past will also be tasked with using the “What if?” scenarios presented by dystopian texts as springboards for considering solutions to today’s problems. In fact, by channeling readers’ attention towards the hyperbole and exaggerated levels of despair found in dystopian fiction, there exists the chance to evoke solutions of reciprocal value. Ray Bradbury, the science fiction master best known for the dystopian Fahrenheit 451, takes a moment in his collection Zen in the Art of Writing to make this very point. To achieve this end, Bradbury frames the speculative nature of science fiction as being part of a problem-solving tradition as old as mankind itself:
Pondering those problems and possible sciences, the first cavemen and women drew science-fiction dreams on the cave walls. Scribbles in soot blueprinting possible strategies. Illustrations of mammoths, tigers, fires: how to solve? How to turn science-fiction (problem solving) into science-fact (problem solved)… the entire history of mankind is problem solving, or science fiction swallowing ideas, digesting them, and excreting formulas for survival….No fantasy, no reality. No studies concerning loss, no gain. No imagination, no will. No impossible dreams: No possible solutions. (101-2)
Students will hypothesize how the oppressive forces presented in dystopian texts could actually be the consequences of the political developments, scientific discoveries, and technological advancements of our own world. The Bradbury excerpt provided above will serve as a sort of credo, reminding students to research all possible solutions when faced with the challenge of diagnosing society’s ailments. As such, The Dark Days of Future Past will be a venue for student explorations of the very real pitfalls and possibilities they have in front of them. Additionally, course assignments will require students to not only identify potentially disastrous elements of our society but also research possible solutions.
This sentiment is echoed by Wilkinson’s “Teaching Dystopian Literature to a Consumer Class,” which argues that dystopian fiction helps students break free of the myopia of their own contexts to gain access to more critical lenses. More specifically, Wilkinson believes that the genre can lead students to realize the dangers of unthinking, compulsive behavior (exemplified, in this article, as the detrimental consequences of rampant consumerism). As declared in the article, the visions embedded in dystopian literature “can help students deconstruct their contexts…Unrestrained, the worst of the ‘consumer class’ habits devastate the environment, deter critical thinking, disable language…As educators, we should help students question and challenge the social forces that are informing their habits, decisions, and personalities” (25). After all, a premise of many dystopian texts is that average citizens are not only blind to the fact that they are being oppressed, but actually derive enjoyment from the mechanisms of their oppression.
For instance, the citizens of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 do not have time to think because they are constantly distracted, watching the “parlor walls” and listening to the “seashell radios” without reprieve. Although the novel was published more than sixty years ago, these technologies bear uncanny resemblances to the screens (television, monitor, phone) and ear buds used today. When students realize that their proclivities for consuming entertainment strongly parallel those of the oppressed citizens of Bradbury’s imagination, they begin to question why they have adopted these behaviors and what the implications may be. As a result, they embark upon the journey outlined by Wilkinson, with a newfound appreciation of contextual deconstruction and self-reflection in tow.
[next up: addressing the audiences]
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Do you Care on Carers Rights Day
The theme for Carers Rights Day 2020 today is ‘Know Your Rights’. Sheffield Young Carers and Sheffield Carers Centre have made a series of campaign videos to mark Carers Rights Day. They want carers to understand they are not alone and that every carer has rights which can help to make their lives easier.
Call for Videos for Carers Rights Day
The theme for Carers Rights Day 2020 on Thursday 26 November is ‘Know Your Rights. Sheffield Young Carers and Sheffield Carers Centre are working together to make a series of campaign videos to mark Carers Rights Day. They want carers to understand they are not alone and that every carer has rights which can help to make their lives easier. They’d love your help so are asking carers to make a short video and send it to them by Friday 6th November.
Call to Remove the Coronavirus Act Easements
Disability Sheffield has added our name to a growing list of signatories calling for the rights of disabled people to be restored. A group of over 60 organisations including Disability Rights UK, Inclusion London, Liberty and Mind have signed an open statement asking the government to withdraw the sections of the Coronavirus Act relating to disabled people, as the House of Commons prepares to review the Coronavirus Act on 30 September. You can sign the statement and contact your MP using a template letter.
Cancer and Coronavirus - Know your Rights
Macmillan Cancer Support have published a ‘Cancer and Coronavirus – Know your rights ( in England ) Guide ‘explaining the care you should expect and what to do if you think you are not receiving the right care. “ We know it’s a difficult time for healthcare professionals but we also know that there are millions of people living with cancer who still need the right care, treatment and support. it’s vital that cancer diagnosis and treatment continues as much as possible”.
Open Letter To NHS On Disabled People’s Human Rights Gains Nearly 2,000 Signatories
Nearly 2,000 people have signed an open letter to NHS England, stating the need for the rights of disabled people to be upheld during the Coronavirus crisis. The letter reminds those in authority how the NHS is built on the principle that we are each equal in dignity and how it has a commitment to protect rights to life and to health, no matter who we are.
New Survey Into Impact of Austerity
A new survey about the impact of austerity on disabled people hopes to publish its results before the General Election takes place on December 12th and will be used as the basis for a look into the future of disability rights in Britain and a call for improvements. The Public Interest Research Centre and Disabled People Against Cuts are hoping for a quick response to the survey.
Lack Of Action On Rights Disappoints EHRC
The Equality and Human Rights Commission has said it is ‘disappointed’ by the UK Government’s failure to improve disability rights following damning assessments from the United Nations. A report by the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities gave details of the Government’s failures to protect disabled people’s rights across many areas of life in the UK in August 2017. They were asked to report back on progress on a number of areas one year on.
Global Disability Summit held in London
The UK Government has hosted its first ever Global Disability Summit, with more than 700 people taking part. Those involved were asked to sign a Charter For Change to help improve disabled people’s rights worldwide.
National Disabled People’s Summit
As part of a campaign to co-ordinate resistance against Government austerity policies this national summit will take place at the NUT headquarters, Hamilton House, Mabledon Place, Kings Cross, London WC1H 9BD on Saturday November 4 from 11am-4.30pm.
The Way Out : The Disabled Avant-Garde
Can art and irony achieve what mainstream politics never has and give the disability movement its own revolution?
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173.17 History History: 1997 a. 192.
173.19 173.19 Animals considered unclaimed.
173.19(1)(1) Except as provided in sub. (1m), a political subdivision or person contracting under s. 173.15 (1) may treat any animal taken into custody under s. 173.13 (1) (a) 1. as an unclaimed animal subject to s. 173.23 (1m) if, within 4 days after custody is taken of the animal, it is not claimed by and returned to its owner under s. 173.23 (1).
173.19(1m) (1m) Notwithstanding sub. (1), a political subdivision or person contracting under s. 173.15 (1) may not euthanize the animal taken into custody under s. 173.13 (1) (a) 1. before 7 days have elapsed after custody is taken, except to alleviate physical suffering or to protect the safety of shelter staff, volunteers, or the public.
173.19(2) (2) Except as provided in sub. (3), a political subdivision or person contracting under s. 173.15 (1) may treat any animal taken into custody under s. 173.13 (1) (a) 3., 4., or 9. as an unclaimed animal subject to s. 173.23 (1m) if, within 7 days after custody is taken of the animal, it is not claimed by and returned to its owner under s. 173.23 (1), except that an animal taken into custody under s. 173.13 (1) (a) 3. or 4. may not be treated as unclaimed if its owner files a petition under s. 173.22 (1) within 7 days after custody is taken.
173.19(3) (3) If an animal is taken into custody under s. 173.13 (1) (a) 3., 4., or 9. and also taken into custody under s. 173.13 (1) (a) 1., only sub. (1) applies to that animal.
173.21 173.21 Holding animals for cause.
173.21(1)(1) Grounds. A political subdivision may withhold, or direct a person contracting under s. 173.15 (1) to withhold, an animal in custody from an owner who makes an otherwise adequate claim for the animal under s. 173.23 (1) on any of the following grounds:
173.21(1)(a) (a) There are reasonable grounds to believe that the owner has used the animal in a crime under s. 944.18 or ch. 951 or that the animal constitutes evidence of a crime under s. 944.18 or ch. 951.
173.21(1)(b) (b) There are reasonable grounds to believe that the animal poses a significant threat to public health, safety or welfare.
173.21(1)(d) (d) A court has ordered the animal withheld for any reason.
173.21(2) (2) Examination permitted. If an animal is withheld under sub. (1), upon request by the owner, a veterinarian retained by the owner may examine the animal.
173.21(3) (3) Costs. The owner of an animal withheld under sub. (1) is not liable for any costs of custody, care or treatment except as provided by court order.
173.21(4) (4) Return. Except with respect to an animal taken into custody under s. 173.13 (1) (a) 8., a political subdivision or person contracting under s. 173.15 (1) having custody of an animal withheld under sub. (1) shall release the animal to the owner at the direction of the humane officer or law enforcement officer that took custody of the animal if the requirements of s. 173.23 (1) (a) to (c) are satisfied.
173.21 History History: 1997 a. 192; 2015 a. 233; 2019 a. 162.
173.22 173.22 Review of seizure or withholding.
173.22(1)(1) Petition. A person claiming that an animal that he or she owns was improperly taken into custody under s. 173.13 (1) (a) 3., 4., 5., or 6. or is wrongfully withheld under s. 173.21 (1) (b) or (d) may seek return of the animal by petitioning for an order from the circuit court for the county in which the animal was taken into custody or in which it is held.
173.22(2) (2) Notice and hearing. The court shall provide notice of a petition under sub. (1) to the humane officer or law enforcement officer who took the animal into custody or to the political subdivision that withheld the animal and shall hold a hearing on the issue of whether the animal was improperly taken into custody or is wrongfully withheld.
173.22(3) (3) Order.
173.22(3)(a) (a) If the animal is withheld under s. 173.21 (1) (b) or (d), the court shall order the animal returned to the owner unless it determines that one of the following conditions is satisfied:
173.22(3)(a)2. 2. There are reasonable grounds to believe that the animal poses a significant threat to public health, safety or welfare.
173.22(3)(a)4. 4. A court has ordered the animal withheld for any reason.
173.22(3)(b) (b) If the animal was taken into custody under s. 173.13 (1) (a) 3., the court shall order the animal returned to its owner if the court determines that the animal was tagged or was not required to be tagged under ch. 174.
173.22(3)(c) (c) If the animal was taken into custody under s. 173.13 (1) (a) 4., the court shall order the animal returned to its owner if the court determines that the animal was licensed or was not required to be licensed.
173.22(3)(d) (d) If the animal was taken into custody under s. 173.13 (1) (a) 5., the court shall order the animal returned to its owner if the court determines that the animal was not subject to a quarantine order or was confined as required by a quarantine order.
173.22(3)(e) (e) If the animal was taken into custody under s. 173.13 (1) (a) 6., the court shall order the animal returned to its owner if the court determines that the animal did not cause damage to persons or property.
173.22(4) (4) Holding an animal involved in a crime.
173.22(4)(a)(a) An owner of an animal taken into custody under s. 173.13 (1) (a) 8. or withheld under s. 173.21 (1) (a) may apply for the animal's return to the circuit court for the county in which the animal was taken into custody. No application under this paragraph may be made more than 30 days after the animal was seized. The court shall order such notice as it considers adequate to be given the district attorney, the political subdivision or person contracting under s. 173.15 (1) with custody of the animal, and all persons who have or may have an interest in the animal. The court shall hold a hearing to hear all claims to the animal's ownership within 20 days after a timely application is filed, and the hearing shall be given preference.
173.22(4)(b) (b) In the hearing under par. (a), the court shall determine if the animal is needed as evidence or if there is reason to believe that the animal was involved in any crime under s. 944.18 or ch. 951. If the court determines that the animal is needed as evidence or that there is reason to believe that the animal was involved in any crime under s. 944.18 or ch. 951, the court shall order the animal to be retained in custody. If the court determines that the animal is not needed as evidence and that there is not reason to believe that the animal was involved in a crime under s. 944.18 or ch. 951, the court shall order the animal returned to the owner.
173.22(4)(c) (c) If the owner files a timely application under par. (a) and the court orders the animal to be retained in custody under par. (b), no payment is due under par. (f) until 30 days after the court order. If the court orders an animal to be returned to its owner under par. (b), no payment is due under par. (f).
173.22(4)(d) (d) If an animal that was taken into custody under s. 173.13 (1) (a) 8. or is withheld under s. 173.21 (1) (a) is in custody and its owner is charged with a crime under s. 944.18 or ch. 951, one of the following applies:
173.22(4)(d)1. 1. If all of the charges are dismissed or the owner is found not guilty of all charges, the political subdivision or person contracting under s. 173.15 (1) with custody of the animal shall return the animal to the owner unless the owner is subject to the restrictions under s. 944.18 (3) (c) 1. or 951.08 (2m) or the animal has been treated as unclaimed or is otherwise subject to a disposition under s. 173.23.
173.22(4)(d)2. 2. If the owner is convicted of a crime under s. 944.18 or ch. 951, the animal shall be treated as unclaimed under s. 173.23 (1m), except that the charges under s. 173.23 (1m) (a) 4. do not apply if the court assesses the charges as expenses under s. 173.24.
173.22(4)(e) (e) If an animal that was taken into custody under s. 173.13 (1) (a) 8. or is withheld under s. 173.21 (1) (a) is in custody and the district attorney or the department of justice notifies the political subdivision or person contracting under s. 173.15 (1) with custody of the animal that the animal's owner will not be charged with a crime under s. 944.18 or ch. 951, the political subdivision or person contracting under s. 173.15 (1) with custody of the animal shall return the animal to its owner unless the owner is subject to the restrictions under s. 944.18 (3) (c) 1. or 951.08 (2m) or the animal has been treated as unclaimed or is otherwise subject to a disposition under s. 173.23.
173.22(4)(f) (f) Subject to par. (g), the owner of an animal taken into custody under s. 173.13 (1) (a) 8. or withheld under s. 173.21 (1) (a) is personally liable to the political subdivision or person contracting under s. 173.15 (1) with custody of the animal for the cost of the custody, care, and treatment of the animal. The political subdivision or person contracting under s. 173.15 (1) shall notify the owner in writing that he or she must pay for the outstanding costs of custody, care, or treatment of the animal upon demand. The political subdivision or person contracting under s. 173.15 (1) may demand such payment no more frequently than every 14 days and shall do so by 1st class mail to the owner's last-known address. If the amount demanded is received within 30 days of the mailing of the demand, the political subdivision or person contracting under s. 173.15 (1) shall keep the animal in custody. Except as provided in par. (c), if the amount demanded is not received within 30 days of the mailing of the demand, the political subdivision or person contracting under s. 173.15 (1) shall treat the animal as unclaimed under s. 173.23 (1m), except that the charges under s. 173.23 (1m) (a) 4. do not apply if the court assesses the charges as expenses under s. 173.24. The owner of the animal may challenge the reasonableness of the amount demanded under this paragraph by filing a petition with the court within 20 days after the date the demand is mailed. The owner may not file a petition challenging the reasonableness of the amount demanded more than 20 days after the date the demand is mailed.
173.22(4)(g) (g) The costs for which a person may be liable under par. (f) may include no more than $30 per day in boarding costs for each animal in custody.
173.23 173.23 Disposition of animals.
173.23(1)(1) Claim and return. Except as provided in sub. (4) or s. 173.21 (1), a political subdivision or person contracting under s. 173.15 (1) shall return an animal described in s. 173.13 (1) (a) 1., 3., 4., 6., 8. or 9. to its owner upon the happening of all of the following:
173.23(1)(a) (a) The owner claims the animal and provides reasonable evidence of ownership.
173.23(1)(b) (b) If licensure is required by statute or ordinance, the animal is licensed or assurance of licensure by prepayment is given.
173.23(1)(c) (c) If vaccination is required by statute or ordinance, the animal is vaccinated or assurance of vaccination by prepayment is given.
173.23(1)(d) (d) All charges for custody, care, vaccination and treatment are paid.
173.23(1m) (1m) Unclaimed animals. A political subdivision or a person contracting under s. 173.15 (1) that has custody of an animal considered unclaimed under sub. (3) (a) 3., (5) (c), or (6) or s. 173.13 (3) (c), 173.19, or 173.22 (4) (d) 2. or (f) or an unwanted animal may do any of the following:
173.23(1m)(a) (a) Release the animal to any person other than the owner if all of the following apply:
173.23(1m)(a)1. 1. The person provides his or her name and address.
173.23(1m)(a)2. 2. If licensure is required by statute or ordinance, the animal is licensed or assurance of licensure is given by evidence of prepayment.
173.23(1m)(a)3. 3. If vaccination is required by statute or ordinance, the animal is vaccinated or assurance of vaccination is given by evidence of prepayment.
173.23(1m)(a)4. 4. Any charges imposed by the political subdivision or person contracting under s. 173.15 (1) for custody, care, vaccination and treatment are paid or waived.
173.23(1m)(b) (b) If the animal is not a dog or cat, sell the animal at public auction, including sale at a licensed animal market.
173.23(1m)(c) (c) Euthanize the animal.
173.23(1m)(d) (d) If the animal is a stray or abandoned dog, release the dog under s. 174.13.
173.23(1s) (1s) Proceeds of sale. If the owner of an animal sold under sub. (1m) (b) files a claim and provides proof of ownership within 30 days after the sale, the sale proceeds, less the cost of custody, care, treatment and sale, shall be returned to the owner.
173.23(2) (2) Animals not returned to owner. If an animal in the custody of a political subdivision, other than an animal to which sub. (1m) applies, is not returned to the owner under sub. (1) or (5) (b) or s. 173.21 (4) or 173.22 or disposed of under sub. (4) or (5) (a), it shall be disposed of under a court order under sub. (3) or s. 951.18 (4).
173.23(3) (3) Court order.
173.23(3)(a) (a) A political subdivision or person contracting under s. 173.15 (1) may petition the circuit court for an order doing any of the following with respect to an animal taken into custody by a law enforcement officer or a humane officer or withheld under s. 173.21 (1):
173.23(3)(a)1. 1. Providing for payment for the custody, care or treatment of the animal.
173.23(3)(a)2. 2. Requiring the owner of the animal to post bond for the costs of custody, care or treatment of the animal pending the outcome of any other proceeding.
173.23(3)(a)3. 3. Authorizing the sale, destruction, treatment as unclaimed under sub. (1m), or other disposal of the animal.
173.23(3)(b) (b) The petition shall set forth the basis for the petitioned-for relief.
173.23(3)(c) (c) The political subdivision shall serve a copy of the petition, in the manner provided in s. 801.11, upon the owner of the animal, if known.
173.23(3)(d) (d) The court shall conduct a hearing on the petition. The petitioner and any person upon whom a copy of the petition was served may appear as a party.
173.23(3)(e) (e) The court shall issue its order after hearing and may grant, modify and grant, or deny the petitioned-for relief after considering the interests of the animal, the owner of the animal, the political subdivision, and the public. The court may not consider the impact of any payments made under s. 173.22 (4) (f) on these interests.
173.23(4) (4) Injured or dangerous animals. A political subdivision or person contracting under s. 173.15 (1) who has custody of an animal may have the animal euthanized if there are reasonable grounds to believe that any of the following applies:
173.23(4)(a) (a) The animal is hopelessly injured beyond any reasonable chance of recovery.
173.23(4)(b) (b) The animal poses an imminent threat to public health or safety.
173.23(4)(c) (c) The animal poses an imminent threat to the health or safety of itself or its custodian.
173.23(5) (5) Animal not confined as required by quarantine order.
173.23(5)(a)(a) A political subdivision or person contracting under s. 173.15 (1) that has custody of an animal that was not confined as required by a quarantine order issued under any statute, rule or ordinance relating to the control of any animal disease shall confine the animal for the duration of the quarantine or shall euthanize the animal with the written permission of the owner or, if the animal is determined to be diseased, at the direction of the person issuing the quarantine order.
173.23(5)(b) (b) Unless the person issuing the quarantine order directs that the animal be euthanized because it is diseased, at the end of the quarantine period the political subdivision or person contracting under s. 173.15 (1) shall return the animal to its owner if the owner complies with sub. (1) (a) to (d) no later than the 7th day after the day on which the political subdivision or person contracting under s. 173.15 (1) demands that the owner claim the animal and pay for its custody, care and treatment.
173.23(5)(c) (c) If an owner does not comply with sub. (1) (a) to (d) within the time provided in par. (b), the animal is considered an unclaimed animal under sub. (1m).
173.23(5)(d) (d) Before euthanizing an animal that is in custody because it was not confined as required by a quarantine order, the person with custody of the animal shall notify the person who issued the order. If the person who issued the order determines that testing of specimens is necessary to determine the disease status of the animal, the person with custody shall collect the specimens.
173.23(6) (6) Noncompliance by owner. If an owner is ordered under sub. (3) to pay, or post bond for the payment of, costs of custody, care or treatment of an animal, and refuses to do so upon demand, the animal shall be treated as an unclaimed animal subject to sub. (1m).
173.23 History History: 1997 a. 192; 2001 a. 56; 2005 a. 253; 2015 a. 233.
173.24 173.24 Reimbursement for expenses.
173.24(1)(1) A court shall assess the expenses under this section, minus any amounts paid under s. 173.22 (4) (f), in any case in which there has been a search authorized under s. 173.10 or in which an animal has been seized because it is alleged that the animal has been used in or constitutes evidence of any crime under s. 944.18 or ch. 951.
173.24(2) (2) Expenses covered under this section include:
173.24(2)(a) (a) Investigative expenses of any search under s. 173.10 or any seizure under this chapter.
173.24(2)(b) (b) Any fees of a doctor of veterinary medicine.
173.24(2)(c) (c) Expenses of taking any animal into custody under this chapter, including expenses reasonably incident to taking the animal into custody.
173.24(2)(d) (d) Expenses of keeping or disposing of any animal taken into custody.
173.24(3) (3) If the person alleged to have violated s. 944.18 or ch. 951 is found guilty of the violation, the person shall be assessed the expenses under subs. (1) and (2). If the person is not found guilty, the county treasurer shall pay the expenses from the general fund of the county.
173.24 History History: 1973 c. 314; 1983 a. 95; 1987 a. 332 ss. 54, 64; Stats. 1987 s. 951.17; 1997 a. 192 s. 30; Stats. 1997 s. 173.24; 2015 a. 233; 2019 a. 162.
173.24 Annotation A court may only assess reasonable expenses for maintenance of seized animals. State v. Berndt, 161 Wis. 2d 116, 467 N.W.2d 205 (Ct. App. 1991).
173.25 173.25 Immunity for euthanizing animals. A political subdivision, a person contracting under s. 173.15 (1), a humane officer or a law enforcement officer who has reasonable grounds to believe that s. 173.23 (1m) (c), (4) or (5) or a court order issued under s. 173.23 (3) authorize an animal to be euthanized is not liable for damages for the loss of the animal resulting from euthanizing the animal.
173.27 173.27 Duties of the department. The department shall do all of the following:
173.27(1) (1) Rules.
/statutes/statutes/173 true statutes /statutes/statutes/173/22/4/b Chs. 164-177, Police Regulations statutes/173.22(4)(b) statutes/173.22(4)(b) section true
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Visit ESI's Smart City Solutions for a Riskier World microsite for the latest updates on our global study - Access microsite
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The Convergence of History, Geography, and Economics in Northeastern Pennsylvania
Historic Economic Connectivity
Equidistant from Broad Street in Philadelphia and Central Park in New York City, Northeastern Pennsylvania is approximately 125 miles from both of these major American metropolitan regions. With almost 1 million residents, the Northeastern Pennsylvania region, which includes the counties of Carbon (Jim Thorpe), Lackawanna (Scranton), Luzerne (Wilkes-Barre/Hazleton), Monroe (Stroudsburg), Schuylkill (Pottsville), Pike (Milford) and Wayne (Honesdale) represent nearly 12% of the Commonwealth’s population.
Since the birth of American commerce, the geography of Northeastern Pennsylvania has had historic connectivity to the largest pocket of humanity in North America. Blessed by nature’s beauty, rich, natural resources, and an enviable transportation network, the very social and economic fabric has been intertwined with the commercial development in the northeast corridor. These elements have resonated throughout the evolution of the American economy.
From the early days of canal systems such as the Delaware & Lehigh, to a thriving rail industry in the late 1800s, to today’s interstate network, this geographically central region has positioned itself as a leader in the movement of commerce, goods, and similarly, as a vacation playground. This region lies within 300 miles of 40% of the US and Canadian population and nearly 100 million people can be reached within 12 hours.
Source: Pocono Mountains
Beginning in the early 1800s, a series of canals and rail lines began linking the region’s raw materials with the markets to the east and south. Ninety percent of the world’s Anthracite Coal lies under the six-county region, which was used to fuel the Industrial Revolution beginning the mid-19th century. The region’s extensive river network was used by early pioneers to establish one of the most integrated series of locks, rail, and inclined planes. In the 1840s, Philadelphia Quaker Josiah White developed what is considered to this day to be one of engineering’s marvels, an innovative system of inclined freight cable railroad known as Ashley Planes. White Haven Borough, located in the Poconos, is not only named after him but was the launching point for shipments of millions of tons of Anthracite Coal destined for the Philadelphia market. Not only Anthracite, but also textiles from the hundreds of textile mills, ice from the Pocono ice houses, and even ammunition during wartime was shipped using the extensive rail system from Northeast Pennsylvania into the economic centers of the United States.
Today, an extensive interstate system connects the region to other markets, including Interstates 78, 80, 81, 380, and 476 (PA Turnpike). And, in operation for only a few short years, the nearly $80 million Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport terminal is the region’s air travel centerpiece and continues to set passenger records.
Source: College Magazine
Nearly 20 colleges and university campuses (including Pennsylvania’s newest medical college, in Scranton) dot the region. With over 125,000 students enrolled in higher education and nearly 45,000 undergraduate, graduate and doctoral degrees are granted annually, the region is an incubator of talent, energy, and ideas.
This education provides vast potential for corporations looking to capture talent, stimulate partnerships, and engage new talent with a variety of higher educational institutions from community colleges to world-class universities.
Steady Population Growth
According to the US Census Bureau, three of the region’s counties are poised to experience above State average population growth over the next two decades (Lackawanna, 8.1%; Luzerne 4.4% and Monroe 4.1%) while two counties (Pike and Wayne) were in the top 3 growth counties during the last two decades. Northeastern Pennsylvania’s rich ethnic diversity continues to be enriched by Eastern European and Central American immigrants. The region also attracts folks seeking to retire while remaining near the metropolitan areas of Philadelphia and New York who desire to live in an area with a considerably lower cost of living, and without the traffic congestion.
Regarding traffic, the average worker commutes less than 10 miles each day with 25% commuting less than 25 miles daily. The region has a total labor force of 500,000 with a diversity of workforce participation in educational, professional, medical, manufacturing, logistics and a nearly 10% growth in technology employment in recent years.
Thriving Arts and Entertainment Scene
Source: Mohegan Sun Arena
Annually the region is home to thousands of arts, religious, and ethnic events. An unparalleled offering of venues is available in the region including the 10,500-seat Mohegan Sun Arena, FM Kirby Center, Scranton Cultural Center, Sherman Theatre, Penn’s Peak, and the Mauch Chunk Opera House. All are venues that attract international performers in the arts, comedy, music, and theater.
Additionally, the region’s diverse arts program offerings include the Northeastern Pennsylvania Philharmonic, hundreds of productions at dozens of local theater houses, community art murals, and an amazing assortment of events such as the Wally Lake Fest at Lake Wallenpaupack, Wilkes-Barre’s Multi-Cultural Festival, La Festa Italiana in Scranton, and hundreds of community fairs that highlight the region’s ethnic and religious diversity. These year-round events are a hallmark of making the region a mosaic of arts, culture, and entertainment.
Recreational Opportunities
Source: Kalahari Resorts
Since the late 1800s, the region’s natural beauty has attracted vacationers from the New York/New Jersey and Philadelphia regions. Proudly serving as “The playground of the Northeast,” the region is home to some of the finest skiing areas in the United States, the Pocono International Raceway, and over 500,000 sq. ft. of indoor water resorts including nationally recognized parks such as Kalahari, Great Wolf, and Aqua Topia. The region is also rapidly becoming a destination for conventions and national meetings.
Fact is, the region has nearly 28 million visitors a year coming to experience the natural beauty and charm blended with history, architecture, and recreation. Ample biking, hiking, kayaking, fishing, and boating are all part of the “NEPA Experience.”
Professional sports franchises continue to play a central role too, with Minor League Baseball’s Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Railriders (affiliates of the New York Yankees AAA) and the American Hockey League’s Wilkes-Barre Scranton Penguins (affiliates of the Pittsburgh Penguins). Two casinos with exceptional nightlife add a unique flavor, as well as nearly 80 golf and country clubs ranging from local municipal courses to world-class championship courses.
Vibrant Urban Centers
Population increases are happening with a sense of repurposing and repositioning of the downtowns of Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Pittston, and Hazleton, as well as quaint villages such as historic Jim Thorpe known as “The Switzerland of America” and Stroudsburg’s Main Street.
Culturally and religiously diverse organizations such as the Polish National Catholic Church are headquartered in Scranton. In fact, according to the US Census Bureau, the population of cities like Scranton and Hazleton is now on the rise after decades of decline. With a cost of living below the national average, the median home value also remains well below the national average. The new vibrancy continues to raise home values by about 5% annually, still below the national average of 7%.
Northeastern Pennsylvania: The Right Blend at the Right Time
Location. Location. Location. Today, the geography, proximity, and natural beauty are allowing this centrally located region to bring a new experience fueling an economic engine.
With a two-century-long tradition of economic connectivity, geographic beauty, rich diversity with evolving demographics, Northeast Pennsylvania’s location is an ideal spot for commerce, recreation, education with an enviable quality of life right in the backyard of over 40 Million Americans.
John J. Jablowski, Jr. MPA, serves as a Senior Advisor to Econsult Solutions. He has served in a variety of capacities to manage over $2 billion in community and economic development initiatives including currently serving as Manager of Tobyhanna Township in the Poconos.
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MusicNostalgiaTV
Do You Remember The Diamonds and This 1957 Hit?
The Diamonds had a Top Ten hit in 1957 with “The Stroll,” a song written for them especially and inspired by Dick Clark. The song (and dance) had their fair share of time in the spotlight and were a pretty original offering. But, for the most part, this doo wop group covered the hits that other groups had already sung, while still maintaining their charming and unique sound.
Maurice Williams, of the African American group Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs, had written and recorded “Little Darlin'” in 1956 (under the name The Gladiolas as they were known back then). But, “Little Darlin'” had failed to really wow white audiences despite reaching #11 on the R & B charts that year. Covered by The Diamonds just one year later, however, the tune was a huge hit and charted well. Have a listen to The Diamonds performing this song on The Saturday Night Beech-Nut Show in early 1959.
Maria von Trapp Teaches Julie Andrews to Yodel Properly
In Memoriam: The McGuire Sisters
The Rise and Fall of Laura Ashley
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What are the odds aliens exist?
Posted by Brian Koberlein in Science Wire | Space | February 3, 2016
The star KIC 8462852 continues to display strange behavior, baffling astronomers and prompting speculation – and these musings – about advanced aliens.
Our sun is located about two-thirds of the way out from the center of the Milky Way galaxy. There are 100 billion suns in our Milky Way. Illustration via Caltech.
Recently the star KIC 8462852 (aka Tabby’s Star) has made news again because of its strange behavior. Possible explanations for its varying brightness (such as comets) don’t seem to fit the observational data, which has some speculating that the star’s behavior could be explained by the presence of an alien civilization. While many astronomers admit that is a possibility, they don’t think aliens are the likely cause. For one, mysterious behavior is not enough to conclude the cause is aliens. For another, the likelihood that an alien civilization actually exists is still a matter of some debate.
The odds of an alien civilization coexisting with humans is often calculated by the Drake equation. It was first proposed by Frank Drake in 1961. Simply take the rate at which stars form in our galaxy and multiply it by the fraction of stars with planets, the average number of planets per star that could support life, the fraction of those that actually develop life, the fraction of life bearing planets that develop civilization, the fraction of civilizations that have detectible signals, and finally the length of time a civilization might last. Crunch the numbers and you have the number of civilizations in our galaxy capable of communicating with us.
When Drake first proposed the equation, the values for each term were largely unknown, but we now have good estimates for many of them. We know that most stars have planets, and the odds of a potentially habitable planet is actually quite high, possibly as high as 100 billion in our galaxy alone.
Unfortunately the really important factors of the Drake equation are still completely unknown. On how many potentially habitable planets does life actually arise? How many of those give rise to civilizations? How long does a typical civilization last? No idea. Depending on the answer to those questions the number of civilizations in our galaxy could range from hundreds of thousands to only one.
The equation was never intended to give an absolute number, though it is often used that way. There are also alternatives such as the Sara Seager’s equation, which focuses on our ability to detect civilizations indirectly rather than requiring active communication. Just because an alien civilization is quiet, that doesn’t mean we can’t see evidence for them. Seager’s approach is to focus on stable red dwarf stars with known potentially habitable worlds. Since red dwarf stars are by far the most common, the odds that we’d find alien life near such a star is higher. She then focuses on planets that transit their home star from our vantage point and are near enough that we have a chance of observing the effects of the planet’s atmosphere on the star’s light. She estimates that there might be two inhabited worlds might be detectable in the next ten years.
Of course this presumes that life forms readily on a habitable planet and survives billions of years, which might not be the case.
The famous Drake equation, formulated by Frank Drake in the 1960s. It brings together key factors to consider when estimating the number of active, communicative extraterrestrial civilizations in our Milky Way galaxy.
What make’s Tabby’s Star particularly interesting is that it hints at being evidence of an artificial structure the size of a solar system, such as a Dyson sphere, which is something only highly advanced civilizations could create. Of course the big underlying assumption here is that the more advanced a civilization is, the more likely it will build such a structure. The idea was first presented by Nikolai Kardashev in 1964, who proposed a classification of civilizations based upon their energy use. Type I civilizations harness the resources of their home planet, such as humans today. Type II harness almost the full energy of their home star, possibly through technology such as Dyson spheres. Species within the Star Trek universe would typically be Type II. Type III are civilizations that can harness the energy of an entire galaxy, such as the Asgard of the Stargate universe.
Carl Sagan later generalized the Kardashev scale to a logarithmic function of energy use, and estimated that we were at about 0.7.
The Kardashev scale presumes that more advanced civilizations will necessarily demand more energy. Humans have so far lent credence to this idea, since our modern global civilization consumes much more energy than earlier agrarian civilizations. If our human population and demands for technological convenience grows, we will likely expand out into the solar system with a continued rise in energy consumption.
But such a future is not guaranteed. It’s also possible that we will instead reach a stable and sustainable population level, and combined with increasing energy efficiency our energy consumption may flatten. Technological civilizations may stabilize at type I rather than continuing up the scale.
That’s the real challenge with calculating the odds.
Everything we’ve pinned down so far point to a good chance that life forms on planets across the universe … but there’s still too many unknowns.
Even NASA has toyed with the idea of large space habitats. This is a painting of what one might look like on the inside, by space artist Don Davis.
Bottom line: The star KIC 8462852 continues to display strange behavior, baffling astronomers and causing speculation about advanced aliens. However, now – as in 1961, when Frank Drake formulated his famous Drake equation – the fact is that there are many unknowns, and we don’t know if our galaxy has numerous advanced civilizations … or one.
Brian Koberlein is an astrophysicist and physics professor at Rochester Institute of Technology. In addition to appearing at EarthSky, he also provides clear and current explanations of new discoveries in astronomy and astrophysics at his blog "One Universe at a Time," as well as on Google+. You can follow him on Twitter @BrianKoberlein
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The Military Face of “Militant Russia”
№1 2016 January/March
Julian Cooper
Professor of the Centre for Russian and East European Studies, University of Birmingham, UK. He is also Associate Fellow at Chatham House, London.
A Return to Greatpoweredness: For the Long Haul?
There is no dispute that present-day Russia is a more assertive power than it was a few years ago. This assertiveness and willingness to stand firm in the face of Western criticism and sanctions has become especially evident since the onset of the crisis and conflict over Ukraine. However, it could be argued that this turn to a more assertive, indeed militant, stance began before 2014. Perhaps the Ukraine crisis simply served to accentuate a trend of development that was already present. Here we explore this issue by looking in some detail at the military face of what can be termed ‘militant Russia.’
That Russia is back as a stronger military power has been shown in many ways but perhaps most prominently for the outside world by the quite frequent sight of Russian military aircraft and naval vessels far beyond the country’s boundaries. While normal in Soviet times, for almost twenty-five years this was a rare occurrence. Now there are concerns that this patrolling near continental Europe and the United States could lead to dangerous incidents, with proposals emerging for new international rules to minimize risks. There is also awareness that Russia for the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union possesses new advanced weapons. The 9th of May military parade made a big impression, in particular the Armata tank, the Kurganets and Bumerang armored vehicles, the S-400 air defense system, and the Yars ICBM. The Russian armed forces have been undertaking frequent exercises, some on a very large scale, often at very short notice. In the West this level of military activity tends to be linked directly to the Ukraine conflict and reactions to it in NATO and European Union member countries. However, a closer look suggests that this may be an oversimplified interpretation.
Russian Military Priority and Expenditure Over Time
It is first necessary to examine trends over time. As is well known, the resource commitment of the USSR to the military was extremely large and the country maintained sizeable armed forces and a vast defense industry. In the late 1980s approximately 15 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) was devoted to the military, and the defense industry in Russia alone employed more than six million people. With the collapse of communist rule the situation changed rapidly. Military spending shrank dramatically and the defense industry, starved of orders and funding, contracted sharply. By 1997 defense spending was just over 4 percent of a greatly reduced GDP and employment in arms production was 2.8 million and would have been less if not for some export contracts. The armed forces received hardly any new armaments, morale declined and the leadership’s sense of insecurity mounted as the conventional military capability steadily eroded, leaving the country increasingly dependent on nuclear weapons as the only sure means of defense. For a proud nation that only a decade before had been considered a superpower this state of affairs was a humiliation.
In the 2000s the situation began to change. With Vladimir Putin as President, rising prices of hydrocarbons, some pro-market reforms and greater political stability allowed the economy to revive strongly leading to a strengthening of state finances. Defense expenditure began to increase but not to an extent that enabled any meaningful re-equipment of the armed forces. With the economy growing at an annual average rate of almost 7 percent, spending on the MOD forces, the budget chapter “national defense” was held at approximately 2.5 percent of GDP. With a keen sense of military weakness, resentment of the weakened standing of Russia in global affairs mounted and found expression in Putin’s tough speech at the Munich Security Conference in February 2007, a harbinger of “militant Russia.”
Russia Rearms
It was the brief war with Georgia in the following year that finally convinced Russia’s political and military leaders that reform and re-equipment of the armed forces could no longer be delayed. The new defense minister, Anatoly Serdyukov, pushed through a far-reaching, much needed, but controversial, set of reforms. As the global financial-economic crisis took hold, the government approved a ten-year forecast envisaging an average rate of growth of 6 percent. It was on this basis that a highly ambitious state program of armament to 2020 was drawn up and signed into action by President Medvedev on the last day of 2010. It called for funding of 20.7 trillion rubles ($680 billion at the exchange rate of the day) on new and modernized weapons and other military hardware, plus research and development for their creation.
Since 2011, notwithstanding many difficulties, the implementation of this program has been granted the highest priority. Driven by increased spending on the procurement of new armaments, military expenditure has grown rapidly. By 2014 the share of national defense in GDP had reached almost 3.5 percent. But there is military spending (according to the standard NATO and SIPRI definition) in other chapters of the budget. Total expenditure on the military reached 4.5 percent of GDP in 2014 and in 2015 will probably approach 5.5 percent, making Russia one of approximately ten countries of the world devoting more than 5 percent of GDP to defense. This is against the background of a troubled economy with a declining rate of growth.
While the implementation of the armaments program has encountered difficulties, there is no doubt that it has served to enhance Russia’s military capability to a quite significant degree. A key target of the armaments program is the achievement of a 30 percent share of modern weapons by the end of 2014; this will be exceeded to a modest degree, although the definition of ‘modern’ is highly opaque.
Enhancing Readiness and Effectiveness
The authorities have been anxious not only to modernize the hardware of the armed forces but also to enhance their readiness for combat and the effectiveness of their management. This has been symbolized by the rapid building and equipping of a high-technology National Defense Management Center in Moscow and equivalents in each military district and in territorial units within them. This has clearly been a very high priority project at a very large, but unrevealed, cost. The aim is to give the possibility of coordinating in real time the activities of not only the MOD, but of all agencies involved in the country’s defense, and to improve decision-making by the use of supercomputers and advanced communications. This network of new management centers has been involved in enhancing the readiness of the forces though a series of military exercises, many at short notice. Some have been on a very large scale, such as Vostok-2014 and, as this is being written, Tsentr-2015, but most on a more modest regional and local scale.
Improved funding has also made possible a much more active training program for the troops and more extensive outreach beyond Russia’s boundaries, to an extent that has prompted concerns in the West, especially when strategic bombers have been involved. This activity would probably have increased regardless of the Ukraine crisis, but that crisis, plus the NATO response to it, has probably ratchetted up the scale and frequency of Russian demonstrations of a capable military presence, now clearly a manifestation of “militant Russia.”
There has been a less obvious dimension to this concern with improving Russia’s readiness to face military conflict. Behind the scenes there have been efforts to improve the country’s highly classified system of mobilization preparation, measures to ensure that, in the event of need, adaptation could be made to government and the economy to meet the challenge of a threatening international situation or actual war. In 2010 a new concept of improving mobilization preparation of the economy was adopted and this was followed by the elaboration of a new Mobilization Plan for 2014, an updating process undertaken every five years, as it was in the Soviet Union. Mobilization preparation is also part of the Plan for Defense, the first of which was adopted in 2013. The Plan sets out the tasks of 52 federal agencies in the field of the country’s defense in both peacetime and war. In a highly fluid and in Moscow’s eyes threatening international environment these activities indicate a determination to be well prepared for any eventuality.
The Impact of the Ukraine Crisis
The developments discussed were all underway before the onset of the Ukraine crisis. There is no doubt though that recent events have served to accentuate and accelerate processes already in train. Two aspects will be considered here, firstly the drive for greater self-sufficiency and reduced dependence on the USA, the European Union and other countries that have adopted sanctions against Russia; secondly, the “pivot to the East,” which has come to the fore as a central focus of “militant Russia.”
In response to Russian actions in Ukraine, the United States and other NATO member countries, plus the EU, imposed sanctions designed to strike at Russia’s current and future military capability. In addition to sanctions against named defense industry corporations, access to dual use technologies was restricted. But the Ukraine crisis also impacted on Russia’s defense sector from another direction: in June 2014 Kiev announced the cessation of all military-related deliveries to its eastern neighbor. These developments obliged Russia to find an appropriate policy response, which took the form of programs promoting import substitution, replacing inputs hitherto supplied by sanctioning countries and Ukraine by domestically manufactured alternatives or imports from friendlier powers, in particular Belarus and Asian economies. It is likely that import substitution for Ukrainian items will be largely complete by 2018.
With respect to Western sanctions, the situation is less clear cut. Apart from the high profile Mistral, before the Ukraine crisis Russia had only modest dependence on Western supplied armaments. More sensitive is access to dual use technologies, especially machine tools and other production equipment, and electronic components. In both fields Russia is highly depended on imports, in particular for the most modern, advanced, technologies, available mainly from leading Western economies. In this case import substitution represents a much larger challenge and will not be cheap. However, given the rapid advance of China and other Asian countries in recent years it should be possible to obtain from them a quite significant volume of electronic components and also some production equipment.
Turning to the East and the North
This brings us to the pivot to the East. This is an issue that goes far beyond the military dimension considered here. In recent years Russia has been cautious about supplying its latest modern armaments to China, not least because of a not ungrounded fear that they will be copied, in breach of intellectual copyright. However, prior to the Ukraine crisis talks began on the possible sale to China of two of Russia’s more advanced systems, the Su-35 fighter and the S-400 air defense system. It now looks likely that a contract will be concluded soon for the delivery of 24 of the former. Sale of the S-400 may be more difficult as there are capacity constraints limiting the volume of production and first priority will clearly be granted to meeting domestic needs under the armaments program. The new closeness of Russian-Chinese military relations was symbolized in May when President Xi Jinping was a guest of honor at the military parade marking the 70th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany, followed in September by Putin’s attendance at China’s equivalent event. There have also been joint naval exercises, first in the Mediterranean, later in the Far East. A full military alliance is not a serious possibility, but a pragmatic military partnership is already taking shape.
The turn is not only to the East, for some time it has also been towards the North. The Arctic has increasingly become a focus of efforts to enhance Russia’s military capability. This is evidently a long-term commitment. As global warming makes the northern route increasingly navigable and hydrocarbons extraction moves northward, Russia seems determined to defend its perceived territorial interests in the expectation that national rivalries in the region will become more acute. A new Sever northern joint command has been established, air bases are being built or upgraded, air defense capabilities enhanced, and the Arctic figures prominently in Russia’s recently updated maritime doctrine.
Economic Constraints Being Felt
Strengthening and revitalizing Russia’s military capability is not a cheap policy option, especially at a time when the country’s economic performance is faltering. Under the impact of declining prices for oil and gas, a depreciating currency, inflation, high interest rates, a declining rate of investment and underlying structural problems, not adequately addressed by the government over a number of years, GDP is declining and may do so for another two-three years before a recovery begins. The economy has also been experiencing difficulties arising from Western sanctions and the counter-sanctions banning agricultural imports from sanctioning countries. Budget revenues have been squeezed and expenditure cuts have become unavoidable. At the time of writing budget plans for 2016 were still unclear, but the preliminary indications from the Ministry of Finance are that military spending will be pegged or even reduced, leading to a reduced GDP share of expenditure on national defense, perhaps back to the 3.5 percent of 2014, compared with a peak of 4.3 percent in 2015. Of course, it cannot be ruled out that the military and defense industry will lobby successfully for more money. However, there is another consideration. It was originally the intention to approve a new armaments program to the year 2025 before the end of 2015. Uncertain economic prospects have led to a decision to postpone its start from 2016 to 2018. This probably means that over the next two years efforts will focus on urgent matters unresolved in the first five years of the program to 2020. These tasks require more time, not necessarily increased funding. Once completed, the fundamental re-equipment of the country’s armed forces will be on track for its successful completion.
And the Public View?
A central feature of “militant Russia” is the unity of views on basic issues of the country’s leadership and a sizeable proportion of the population. This certainly appears to be the case with respect to military and security policy. According to a July 2015 poll by the Levada Center, 53 percent of those surveyed agreed with the statement, “We must spend more on defense even if it causes some problems for our economic development,” compared with 34 percent who disagreed. In May 1998 the balance of opinion was the reverse: 53 percent opposed, 35 percent agreed. Is there a perception that the country now has stronger, more capable, armed forces? A VTsIOM poll, also in July 2015, asked whether it was believed that Russia’s military would be capable of defending the country in the event of military threats from other countries. No less than 86 percent said “yes”, only 10 percent “no.” This compares with 67/27 percent in 2007 and 60/33 percent in 2005. There is more opinion poll evidence of a similar nature, leaving little doubt that there is broad public support for the policy of strengthening the armed forces and the government’s commitment to increased military spending. Indeed, that Russia is once again increasingly viewed as a Great Power is widely regarded as one of the most significant achievements of Putin’s presidency.
There are clearly longer-term processes in play that help explain enhanced defense and security concerns in Russia from at least the mid-2000s. A perception in leadership circles that the country was being sidelined and contained by the United States and other Western powers steadily gained ground, leading to the evolution of “militant Russia.” However, the Ukraine crisis has served to accelerate and intensify the processes already underway. After a dramatic weakening of Russia’s economic and military might over 10-15 years from the collapse of communism and the USSR, and a consequential diminution of the former superpower’s role in world affairs, the country is back on track to becoming once again not only a strong regional power, but also a weighty actor on the global stage. With greater economic and military strength Russia’s leadership now feels able to be more assertive, but not necessarily more aggressive, expecting other major powers to acknowledge and respect the country’s interests and concerns.
The eventual settlement of the Ukraine crisis may cool the rhetoric and permit a rebuilding of relationships. But there can be no return to the status quo ante. “Militant Russia” is here to stay. The U.S., EU and other powers, including the UK, will have little choice, regardless of current attitudes towards Putin and the regime, but to work towards a new modus vivendi with a stronger, more self-assured and demanding Russia.
#armors #army #China #European Union #Georgia #history #NATO #navy #Putin #Russia #Russia's foreign policy #sanction #UK #Ukraine #Ukraine's Crysis #USA
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Главная ⇒ 💡Articles ⇒ The economist: cancer drugs:big pharma’s gripes about the fda
The economist: cancer drugs:big pharma’s gripes about the fda
TALK to anyone in the pharmaceutical industry – a private-equity investor, a drug executive, a scientist – and within three minutes Mr Pharma will start griping about the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The agency is incredibly powerful. Its judgment of a drug’s safety and efficacy is the single biggest “X Factor” in America’s enormous pharmaceutical market. In recent years, Mr Pharma will complain, the FDA’s approval process has become slower, its decisions more erratic. A few expletives will follow.
This tension was on dramatic display this week in Washington, DC. The FDA held a two-day hearing on Avastin, a cancer drug that last year generated more than $7 billion in global sales for Genentech, a biotech firm in California, and its parent company, Roche. Avastin treats a variety of cancers, including those of the lung and kidney. In 2008 the FDA gave accelerated approval for Avastin to be used in breast cancer patients. Final approval would depend on further studies that proved Avastin’s beneficial effect.
But the glowing studies never materialised. What is more, some patients experienced severe side-effects, such as haemorrhages and holes in their gastrointestinal tracts. Last year an FDA panel decided that Avastin’s risks to breast cancer patients outweighed its benefits. Uproar followed. Genentech challenged the FDA on its decision, a remarkable move. Even more surprising, the FDA agreed to hold this week’s hearings.
But the panel upheld the earlier decision. Patients will still be able to obtain Avastin, as the drug is approved for other uses. However it is less clear that insurers will continue to cover the drug, which costs about $88,000 a year. Genentech is appealing to Margaret Hamburg, the FDA’s commissioner, who will make a final decision.
The FDA has its flaws. Big Pharma’s complaints about the agency are often justified. But in its evaluation of Avastin,
the FDA has served a legitimate role. However Avastin is only the first chapter in a larger fight. The debate over oncology drugs is one of the thorniest in American health care. Americans’ spending on cancer may rise from $125 billion last year to up to $207 billion by 2020, according to Medco, a pharmacy-benefit manger. Some of the new cancer drugs hold immense promise, but others have limited efficacy and are exorbitant.
Nevertheless, a rational debate is elusive. The FDA does not consider drugs’ costs (beware talk of “rationing”). Cancer arouses intense emotion. Patients and their doctors desperately try treatments that have little chance of working. At the Avastin hearing, one patient sobbed and others booed the panelists. Regulators and politicians have a tough job. They must protect patients’ safety, encourage innovation and – soon – have a serious conversation about how much society should pay for a small extension of life. The fight over Avastin has been bitter. Much more is to come.
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BREAKING: Keith Olbermann Proved Liberal
By James Poniewozik Nov. 05, 2010
Follow @TIMECulture
This just in: MSNBC host Keith Olbermann supports Democrats. According to a report in Politico this morning, Olbermann made the maximum legal donations to three Democratic candidates last month, one of them immediately after he appeared on Olbermann’s show.
This is potentially a problem for Olbermann, because it looks as though he violated an NBC News policy prohibiting its staff from making political contributions. Which is an issue for NBC management and their human resources department. (Update: MSNBC has suspended him indefinitely for the donations.) But for the rest of us, how exactly does it change the perception of a partisan opinion host and commentator when we find that he makes political contributions that support the political opinions he regularly gives on air?
As you know if you’ve read me regularly, I’m far more libertarian than most of my colleagues in journalism about political activity by journalists: I think journalists should be free to be politically active, to contribute and to disclose their votes, as long as it’s done with transparency.
If there’s an issue here, I suppose it’s that Olbermann (to my knowledge) did not publicly announce the contributions. But on the other hand, come on; this makes Olbermann look not one bit more or less opinionated or objective (or not) than he already did. Even from the “perception of objectivity” standpoint this doesn’t much make sense, as a policy or controversy, for a professional opinionator. And yes—though this should go without saying—this goes for conservatives, libertarians, Whigs, Free-Silverites or anyone else as well.
If Olbermann were using his show to fundraise for candidates, that would seem to implicate MSNBC at large, but that’s an entirely different issue from making legal donations as an individual. I’ve certainly been willing to criticize Olbermann before, and the blatantly partisan midterm-night coverage of he and his fellow MSNBC stars on Tuesday night does not exactly make him look like a neutral broker, if anyone thought that in the first place. But that all has to do with his on-air actions, which are far more relevant to his value as a journalist than whether he—or any on-air personality—puts his money where his mouth is.
Update: By the way, I don’t want to ignore the hypocrisy issue here; Olbermann has been critical of the donations by Fox News’ parent company, News Corp., to groups trying to defeat Democrats. I don’t think it’s 100% analogous: Olbermann’s donations reflect on his political interests—which again are pretty obvious—whereas an entire corporation’s donations reflect on that entire corporation’s political interests. (If Olbermann had criticized, say, Bill O’Reilly for a political contribution, he would be a total hypocrite; if he has, I’ll gladly note it, but I haven’t yet seen an example.) But regardless, the News Corp contributions don’t bother me, either: I’d rather have Rupert Murdoch’s political bias documented in financial records than have it hidden.
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The Norman Kings
On Christmas Day 1066 Duke William of Normandy was acclaimed king of England in Westminster Abbey. It was an electrifying moment. The shouts of acclamation – in English as well as in French – alarmed the Norman guards stationed outside the abbey. Believing that inside the church something had gone horribly wrong, they set fire to the neighbouring houses. Half a century later, a Norman monk recalled the chaos of that day. ‘As the fire spread rapidly, the people in the church were thrown into confusion and crowds of them rushed outside, some to fight the flames, others to take the chance to go looting. Only the monks, the bishops and a few clergy remained before the altar. Though they were terrified, they managed to carry on and complete the consecration of the king who was trembling violently.’
Despite his victory at Hastings, despite the surrender of London and Winchester, William’s position was still a precarious one and he had good reason to tremble. It was to take at least another five years before he could feel fairly confident that the conquest had been completed. There were risings against Norman rule in every year from 1067 to 1070: in Kent, in the south-west, in the Welsh marches, in the Fenland, and in the north. The Normans had to live like an army of occupation, living, eating, and sleeping together in operational units. They had to build castles – strong points from which a few men could dominate a subject population. There may well have been no more than 10,000 Normans living in the midst of a hostile population of one or two million. This is not to say that every single Englishman actively opposed the Normans. Unquestionably there were many who co-operated with them; it was this which made possible the successful Norman take-over of so many Anglo-Saxon institutions. But there is plenty of evidence to show that the English resented becoming an oppressed majority in their own country. The years of insecurity were to have a profound effect on subsequent history. They meant that England received not just a new royal family but also a new ruling class, a new culture and language. Probably no other conquest in European history has had such disastrous consequences for the defeated.
1. Aerial photograph of Old Sarum: a graphic illustration of the problems facing the first post-Conquest generation. The Norman cathedral huddles close to the castle, itself built to defend a group of men too small to need the full extent of the prehistoric ramparts
Almost certainly this had not been William’s original intention. In the early days many Englishmen were able to offer their submission and retain their lands. Yet by 1086 something had clearly changed. Domesday Book is a record of a land deeply marked by the scars of conquest. In 1086 there were only four surviving English lords of any account. More than 4,000 thegns had lost their lands and been replaced by a group of less than 200 barons. A few of the new landlords were Bretons and men from Flanders and Lorraine but most were Normans. In the case of the Church we can put a date to William’s anti-English policy. In 1070 he had some English bishops deposed and thereafter appointed no Englishman to either bishopric or abbey. In military matters, the harrying of the north during the winter of 1069–70 also suggests ruthlessness on a new scale at about this time. In Yorkshire this meant that between 1066 and 1086 land values fell by as much as two-thirds. But whenever and however it occurred, it is certain that by 1086 the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy was no more and its place had been taken by a new Norman elite. Naturally this new elite retained its old lands on the Continent; the result was that England and Normandy, once two separate states, now became a single cross-Channel political community, sharing not only a ruling dynasty, but also a single Anglo-Norman aristocracy. Given the advantages of water transport, the Channel no more divided England from Normandy than the Thames divided Middlesex from Surrey. From now on, until 1204, the histories of England and Normandy were inextricably interwoven.
Since Normandy was a principality ruled by a duke who owed homage to the king of France this also meant that from now on ‘English’ politics became part of French politics. But the French connection went deeper still. The Normans, being Frenchmen, brought with them to England the French language and French culture. Moreover, we are not dealing with a single massive input of ‘Frenchness’ in the generation after 1066 followed by a gradual reassertion of ‘Englishness’. The Norman Conquest of 1066 was followed by an Angevin conquest of 1153–4; although this did not involve the settlement of a Loire Valley aristocracy in England, the effect of the arrival of the court of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine was to reinforce the dominance of French culture.
Whereas in 1066 less than 30 per cent of Winchester property owners had non-English names, by 1207 the proportion had risen to over 80 per cent, mostly French names like William, Robert, and Richard. This receptiveness to Continental influence means that at this time it is the foreignness of English art that is most striking. In ecclesiastical architecture, for example, the European terms ‘Romanesque’ and ‘Gothic’ describe the fashionable styles much better than ‘Norman’ and ‘Early English’. Although churches built in England, like manuscripts illuminated in England, often contain some recognizably English elements, the designs which the architects and artists were adapting came from abroad, sometimes from the Mediterranean world (Italy, Sicily, or even Byzantium), usually from France. It was a French architect, William of Sens, who was called in to rebuild the choir of Canterbury Cathedral after the fire of 1174. Similarly Henry III’s rebuilding of Westminster Abbey was heavily influenced by French models. Indeed so great was the pre-eminence of France in the fields of music, literature, and architecture, that French became a truly international rather than just a national language, a language spoken – and written – by anyone who wanted to consider himself civilized. Thus, in thirteenth-century England, French became, if anything, even more important than it had been before. From the twelfth to the fourteenth century a well-educated Englishman was trilingual. English would be his mother tongue; he would have some knowledge of Latin, and he would speak fluent French. In this cosmopolitan society French was vital. It was the practical language of law and estate management as well as the language of song and verse, of chanson and romance. The Norman Conquest, in other words, ushered in a period during which England, like the kingdom of Jerusalem, can fairly be described as a part of France overseas, Outremer; in political terms, it was a French colony (though not, of course, one that belonged to the French king) until the early thirteenth century and a cultural colony thereafter.
In western and northern Britain, beyond the borders of conquered England, lay peoples and kingdoms that retained their native identities for much longer. As independent peoples living in what were, by and large, the poorer parts of the island, they remained true to their old ways of life. Only gradually, during the course of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, did the Welsh and the Scots come to share in this French-led Europe-wide process of cultural homogenization. The time lag was to have profound consequences. By the 1120s French-speaking English intellectuals such as the historian William of Malmesbury were beginning to describe their Celtic neighbours as barbarians, to look upon them as lawless and immoral savages, pastoral peoples who lived in primitive fashion beyond the pale of civilized society but who occasionally launched horrifyingly violent raids across the borders. A new condescending stereotype was created, one which was to become deeply entrenched in English assumptions.
One of the ways in which English – and to a lesser extent Welsh and Scottish – society changed in this period creates special problems for the historian. This is the tremendous proliferation of written records which occurred during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Many more documents than ever before were written and many more were preserved. Whereas from the whole of the Anglo-Saxon period about 2,000 writs and charters survive, from the thirteenth century alone there are uncounted tens of thousands. Of course the 2,000 Anglo-Saxon documents were only the tip of the iceberg; many more did not survive. But this is true also of the thirteenth century. It has, for example, been estimated that as many as 8 million charters could have been produced for thirteenth-century smallholders and peasants alone. Even if this were to be a rather generous estimate, it would still be true that whole classes of the population, serfs for example, were now concerned with documents in ways that previously they had not been. Whereas in the reign of Edward the Confessor only the king is known to have possessed a seal, in Edward I’s reign even serfs were required by statute to have them. At the centre of this development, and to some extent its motor, lay the king’s government. The king possessed permanently organized writing offices, the chancery, and then the exchequer too: they were becoming busier and busier. In Henry III’s reign, we can measure the amount of sealing wax which the chancery used. In the late 1220s it was getting through 3.63 lb per week; by the late 1260s the amount had gone up to 31.9 lb per week. Not only was the government issuing more documents than ever before; it was also systematically making copies and keeping them. Here the key date is 1199. In that year the chancery clerks began to keep copies, on rolls of parchment, of most of the letters – and certainly of all the important ones – sent out under the great seal. The survival of the chancery enrolments means that from 1199 historians know a great deal more about the routine of government than ever before.
These are developments of fundamental importance. The proliferation of records involved a shift from habitually memorizing things to writing them down. It meant that the whole population was now, in a sense, ‘participating in literacy’; even if they could not themselves read they became accustomed to seeing day-to-day business transacted through the medium of writing. Clearly this development of a literate mentality is closely linked with the cultural movement commonly known as the twelfth-century Renaissance. At first the power-houses of the new learning all lay abroad in the towns and cathedrals of Italy and France; but by the late twelfth century there were some schools of higher learning in England and by the 1220s two universities, first at Oxford and then at Cambridge, had been established. At Oxford there were schools where men could learn severely practical subjects such as conveyancing, administration, and elementary legal procedure. And throughout England the signs point to an increasing number of schools at all levels.
But are these profound developments associated with revolutionary changes in other aspects of social organization? Clearly, the production of all these written records means that society is becoming more bureaucratic, but does this mean that the relationships between classes are being conserved or being altered? Is the economic system changing? Is the political system changing? Or are both merely being more elaborately recorded?
2. Indenture with seals. This indenture records an agreement made in the 1220s between a lord and the men of Freiston and Butterwick (Lincs.). The fifty or so villagers whose seals are attached clearly lived in a society which was already thoroughly accustomed to using written legal documents
These are not questions which it is easy to answer. The cumulative nature of the evidence tends to deceive. For example, a particular form of relationship between men may first be clearly documented in the thirteenth century. But does this mean that the relationship itself originated in that century? Or that these types of relationship were first fixed in writing then? Or only that this is the earliest period from which the relevant documents happen to have survived? A case in point is the fact that the earliest known examples of a type of document known as the ‘indenture of retainer’ date from the thirteenth century. The indenture records the terms on which a man was engaged to serve his lord; it would normally specify his wages and, if it was a long-service contract, his retaining fee. On the basis of these documents, historians have decided that the ‘indentured retainer’ and the ‘contract army’ both came into existence towards the end of the thirteenth century, and that they were characteristic of the later Middle Ages, the period of ‘bastard feudalism’. Yet there is clear, though indirect, evidence that both contract armies and retainers receiving fee and wages were in existence at least as early as 1100. One further complication. Because the proliferation of documents occurred earlier and on a much greater scale in England than in Wales and Scotland, it is very much easier to write an institutional history of government, law, church, and economy for England than for the other parts of Britain. But it should also be borne in mind that throughout this period by far the greater part of the island’s population lived in England. Before going any further, it will be useful to give a brief outline of the main events, concentrating on those that were of greatest concern to the kings of England.
William I (1066–87)
After 1071, William’s hold on England was fairly secure. The Welsh and the Scots gave him little trouble. Scandinavian rulers continued to look upon England with acquisitive eyes but the ever-present threat of another Viking invasion never quite materialized. From 1071 to the end of his reign most of William’s attention was taken up by war and diplomacy on the Continent. Normandy was his homeland and far more vulnerable to sudden attack than was his island kingdom. Several of William’s neighbours were alarmed by his new power and took every opportunity to diminish it. At their head were King Philip of France, and Count Fulk le Rechin of Anjou. Their best opportunities were provided by William’s eldest son Robert (b. 1054). Recognized as the heir to Normandy as long ago as 1066, he had never been allowed to enjoy either money or power, and from 1078 onwards he became involved in a series of intrigues against his father. In quarrels between the king of France and the duke of Normandy the natural battlefield was the Vexin, a disputed territory lying on the north bank of the Seine between Rouen and Paris. The county of Maine, which William had conquered in 1063, played a similar role in the hostilities between Normandy and Anjou. Maine was to remain a bone of contention for the next two generations; the Vexin for much longer still (until 1203). Thus already in William’s reign it is possible to see the political pattern which was to dominate the next century: the intermingling of family dissension and frontier dispute. In this context the circumstances of William’s death are revealing. The garrison of the French fortress of Mantes made a raid into Normandy. William retaliated and while his troops sacked Mantes (July 1087) he received the injury from which he died. Robert was in rebellion at the time and chose to remain at the court of King Philip, while his younger brother William dutifully, and pointedly, was to be found in attendance at his father’s bedside. On 9 September 1087, William I died. His body was carried to his great church of St Stephen at Caen. Towards the end of his life he had grown very fat and when the attendants tried to force the body into the stone sarcophagus, it burst, filling the church with a foul smell. It was an unfortunate ending to the career of an unusually fortunate and competent king.
William II (1087–1100)
Whatever William’s last wishes may have been, there was a strong presumption that the eldest son should have his father’s patrimony, that is those lands which the father himself had inherited. Thus, despite his rebellion, Robert succeeded to Normandy. But a man’s acquisition, the land he himself had obtained whether by purchase, marriage, or conquest, could more easily be used to provide for other members of his family. Thus England, the Conqueror’s vast acquisition, was used to provide for his younger son, William. Naturally, Robert objected to this and perhaps, if it had not been for his rebellion, he would have succeeded to England as well.
What is clear is that the customs governing the succession to the throne were still flexible; they could – should – be bent in order to take account of political realities, for example the characters of the rival candidates. Thus those influential men, Archbishop Lanfranc of Canterbury among them, who decided to accept William Rufus as king of England, may well have judged that he would make a better ruler than his elder brother. In view of Robert’s record both before and after 1087 this would have been a reasonable judgement, yet within a few months of his accession Rufus found himself opposed by a powerful coalition of great barons, the magnates. According to the Anglo-Norman chronicler Orderic Vitalls, the rebels’ objective was to reunite England and Normandy, not for the sake of some principle of constitutional law but in order to ease their own political problems. Their dilemma was summed up in the words which Orderic placed in the mouth of the greatest of them, Odo of Bayeux. ‘How can we give proper service to two distant and mutually hostile lords? If we serve Duke Robert well we shall offend his brother William and he will deprive us of our revenues and honours in England. On the other hand if we obey King William, Duke Robert will deprive us of our patrimonies in Normandy.’ This was an argument which appealed to powerful vested interests and could very easily have unseated Rufus. If there were to be just one ruler of the joint Anglo-Norman realm then the elder brother’s claim was difficult to deny. Fortunately for Rufus, his brother’s case went almost by default: Robert stayed in Normandy, leaving his supporters in the lurch. Nonetheless the 1088 revolt, despite its swift collapse, does reveal just how precarious was the position of a king of England who was not also duke of Normandy.
Taking the 48 years (1087–1135) of the reigns of William II and Henry I as a whole, it can be seen that in England the rebellions (1088, 1095, 1101, 1102) cluster in the two periods (some 15 years in all) when the king was not duke, that is 1087–96 and 1100–6. Obviously, it was not in the king’s interest that England and Normandy should be under separate rulers. But neither was it in the interest of the aristocracy. As Odo of Bayeux’s speech makes plain, they had too much at risk to welcome instability. Whenever the cross-Channel kingdom did break up into its constituent parts, this ushered in a period of conflict which was only settled when one ruler ousted the other. Thus the primary concern of a king of England was to win and hold Normandy.
In 1089 Rufus laid claim to the duchy. With English silver he was able to buy support and he campaigned there with some success. But his hold on England still remained insecure; he faced a conspiracy in 1095. Next year the tension was resolved, at any rate temporarily, in a totally unforeseeable manner. The astonishing success of Pope Urban II’s preaching tour created a climate of opinion in which thousands decided to join an expedition aimed at recovering Jerusalem from the Muslims. For Robert Curthose this offered an honourable and exciting way out of his increasingly difficult domestic political position. In order to equip himself and his retinue for the long march, he pawned Normandy to William for 10,000 marks.
The new duke’s next task was to recover Maine and the Vexin, lost during Robert’s slack rule. By 1099, this had been successfully accomplished. Rufus had restored his father’s kingdom to its former frontiers; indeed in Scotland, by installing Edgar on the throne in 1097, he intervened more effectively than even his father had done.
One early twelfth-century author, Geoffrey Gaimar, looked upon William as a model ruler. But Gaimar wrote in French. Unfortunately for William’s reputation, it was history written by churchmen and in Latin which was to carry the greater weight. Serious-minded ecclesiastics, accustomed to the conventional piety and sober discretion of his father’s court, were appalled by Rufus’s, by its ostentatious extravagance, by its gaiety, and by the new fashions – long hair for example – which seemed to them to be both effeminate and licentious. Rufus never married. According to the Welsh Chronicle of Princes, ‘he used concubines and because of that died without an heir’. He may have been sceptical of the claims of religion; undoubtedly he treated the Church as a rich corporation which needed soaking. He was rarely in a hurry to appoint bishops and abbots, for during vacancies he could help himself to the Church’s revenues. In carrying out these profitable policies Rufus relied on the ingenious aid of a quick-witted and worldly clerk, Ranulf Flambard, whom he eventually made bishop of Durham.
Above all Rufus’s reputation has suffered because in 1093, when he thought he was dying, he appointed a saintly scholar Anselm of Bec as archbishop of Canterbury (after having kept the see vacant for four years). What made this appointment so disastrous from William’s point of view was the fact that it occurred at a time when a European movement for Church reform – the Gregorian reform – had created a controversial atmosphere in which holy men were only too likely to become political radicals. In 1095 William called a council at Rockingham to deal with the matters in dispute between him and Anselm. To the consternation of all, Archbishop Anselm appealed to Rome, arguing that as archbishop of Canterbury he could not be judged in a secular court. The rise of the Papacy in the second half of the eleventh century, with its claim to the first loyalty of prelates, had brought a new and disturbing element on to the political stage. If churchmen were to believe that their obligations to God, as defined by the vicar of St Peter, were to override their duty to the king, then the customary structure of the world would have been turned upside down.
Anselm’s case in favour of an autonomous spiritual hierarchy was a wellreasoned one; on his own premises he had the better of the argument. But Rufus had a good case too; not only that, he had power – pitted against the material resources available to a masterful king, a scholarly archbishop of Canterbury was in a very weak position indeed. William continued to harass the archbishop, and never showed any sympathy for his attempts to reform the Church. Eventually Anselm could bear it no longer. In 1097 he sailed from Dover, leaving the estates of Canterbury to be taken into the king’s hand. In the short run the king had gained from the quarrel. In 1100 he enjoyed the revenues of three bishoprics and 12 abbeys. Nor was there as yet any sign that the arguments had undermined men’s belief in the awesome powers of an anointed king. Even Eadmer, the Canterbury monk who wrote a Life of Anselm, remarked of Rufus that ‘the wind and the sea seemed to obey him’. Indeed, Eadmer went on, ‘in war and in the acquisition of territory he enjoyed such success that you would think the whole world smiling upon him’. Whether, in reality, William II’s position in 1100 was quite so strong is another matter; it suited moralistic chroniclers to portray him as a self-confident, boastful king who was struck down just when he seemed to be at the very pinnacle of success. During the summer of 1100 everyone must have known that the peaceful interlude of Duke Robert’s absence was about to end. The crusader was on his way home, accompanied by a rich wife and basking in the prestige due to a man who had fought his way into the Holy City. When Curthose reclaimed his inheritance, who could tell what would happen or what line the Anglo-Norman magnates would take? As it happened, on 2 August 1100 a hunting accident in the New Forest brought the life of this forceful and much-maligned king to an abrupt end. Also, as it happened, William’s younger brother was in the New Forest on the day the king died.
Henry I (1100–35)
As soon as he knew Rufus was dead, Henry moved fast. He rode to Winchester and took possession of the treasury. Then he went straight on to Westminster where he was crowned on 5 August. This speed of action has prompted speculation that Henry knew that his brother was going to die, that he had ‘arranged the accident’. But no contemporary makes the charge and if Henry had planned so cold-blooded a crime his timing is likely to have been different. The impending war between Rufus and Curthose could be expected to end with the defeat and perhaps the elimination of one of them. In other words a delayed assassination would have opened up to the assassin the prospect of obtaining both England and Normandy. As it was, Rufus’s death in August 1100 meant that Henry had to act with phenomenal speed merely to seize control of just one of the two parts of the Anglo-Norman realm. A man capable of waiting for so long before he struck would surely have waited a year or two longer.
A few weeks later, Robert arrived back in Normandy. Henry had to prepare to meet the inevitable invasion. His policy was to buy support by granting favours and wide-ranging concessions. This was a policy proclaimed on the day of his coronation, when he issued a charter of liberties denouncing his brother’s oppressive practices and promising good government. On the other hand the urgent need to organize his defences meant that Henry could not afford to cause too much confusion. This was a time for gestures and manifestos, but it was not the moment to overturn a whole regime. The reality of the situation was that his elder brother had left him a ready-made court and administration and Henry had little choice but to take them over.
When Duke Robert landed at Portsmouth in July 1101, many of the greatest barons in England, led by Robert of Bellme and his brothers, flocked to his side. But Rufus’s court circle, Robert of Meulan at their head, remained loyal to Henry; so also did the English Church. Both sides drew back and negotiated. Henry was to keep England and pay his brother a pension of £2,000 a year.
Having survived the crisis of 1101, Henry set about ensuring that it would not recur. The essential first step was the overthrow of the house of Montgomery (Bellême). In 1102 he captured Robert of Bellême’s chief strongholds in the Welsh marches and then banished him. Two years later he confiscated the lands of William of Mortain. But Earls Robert and William, like others in their position, possessed in their Norman properties a base from which to organize the recovery of their English lands. By perpetuating the separation of England and Normandy the treaty of 1101 had ensured the continuance of political instability. So in a rerun of the history of the previous reign we find a king of England, first on the defensive, then going over to the attack. At the battle of Tinchebray (1106) the issue was decided. Duke Robert himself was captured and spent the last 28 years of his life as his brother’s prisoner.
Although in the first years of his reign Henry was preoccupied with Norman affairs, he was not as free to concentrate on them as he would have liked. Traditional royal rights over the Church were threatened by the new ideas associated with the Gregorian reform movement. The reformers did not only wish to purify the moral and spiritual life of the clergy; in order to do this, they believed that it was also necessary to free the Church from secular control. The most hated symbol of this control was lay investiture, a ceremony in which a new abbot or bishop received the ring and staff of office from the hands of the secular prince who had appointed him. Although the first papal decree against lay investiture had been issued as long ago as 1059 and more prohibitions had been published since, no one in England seems to have been aware of their existence until Anselm returned in the autumn of 1100. While in exile he had learned of the papal attitude to lay investiture. Thus although he himself had been invested by Rufus in 1093, he now refused either to do homage to Henry or to consecrate those prelates whom Henry had invested. This placed the king in a difficult position. Bishops and abbots were great landowners and key figures in central and local administration; he needed their assistance and had to be sure of their loyalty. On the other hand, unlike Rufus, he was unwilling to provoke a quarrel, so for years he found it more convenient to postpone the problem rather than try to solve it. Not until 1107 was the matter settled.
Henry renounced lay investiture, but prelates were to continue to do homage for their fiefs. In practice, the king’s wishes continued to be the decisive factor in the making of bishops. To some extent, it can be said that Henry gave up the form but preserved the reality of control. When Anselm died in 1109 he kept the see of Canterbury vacant for five years. Yet he had lost something and he knew it. In the fierce war of propaganda which accompanied the ‘Investiture Contest’ the Gregorians had insisted that the king was a layman, nothing more, and as such he was inferior to all priests, for priests were concerned with the soul and the king only with the body. The Church could no longer tolerate the old idea that anointed kings were sacred deputies of God. In giving up lay investiture Henry was acknowledging the secular nature of his office. It was an important moment in the history of kingship.
Map 1. The Anglo-Norman realm 1066–1154
Once Normandy had been conquered and a compromise solution found to the investiture dispute, Henry’s main concern was to hold on to what he had. Although he promoted some ‘new men’, he knew that political stability depended on his cultivation of good relations with the aristocracy. In Orderic’s words, ‘he treated the magnates with honour and generosity, adding to their wealth and estates, and by placating them in this way, he won their loyalty.’ A direct threat to Henry’s position came from the claim of Curthose’s young son, William Clito (b. 1102) that he, not Henry, was the rightful duke of Normandy. This rival claim, coupled with Normandy’s long land frontier, meant that the duchy remained the most vulnerable part of his empire. After 1106 Henry spent more than half the rest of his reign there in opposition to the traditional enemies of the Norman dukes, notably Louis VI of France (king 1108–37), and Fulk V of Anjou (count 1109–28). He organized a protective ring of alliances – no less than eight of his illegitimate daughters were married to neighbouring princes, from Alexander of Scotland in the north to Rotrou count of Perche in the south. This diplomatic pattern lends some slight credibility to William of Malmesbury’s assertion that for Henry sex was a matter not of pleasure but of policy. The end result of all this activity was that Henry kept Normandy and for this reason, since it turned out to be a struggle which only maintained the status quo, historians have not been inclined to take it very seriously. But for Henry it was a very serious business indeed, a war for survival which at least once, in 1118–19, he came perilously close to losing.
The preoccupation with the defence of Normandy was a serious matter in England too, and not just for the great landowners who held estates on the Continent. Castles, garrisons, diplomacy, and war all cost a great deal of money. The connection is spelt out in theAnglo-Saxon Chronicle’s entry for 1118. ‘King Henry spent the whole of this year in Normandy on account of the war with the king of France, count of Anjou and count of Flanders … England paid dearly for this in numerous taxes from which there was no relief all year.’ The king’s long absences and his urgent need for money were the motors behind the increasing elaboration and sophistication of the machinery of government. While the king was away, England was administered by a vice-regal committee. Twice a year this committee met ‘at the exchequer’, that is, it met to audit the accounts of the sheriffs over the famous chequered cloth. Most of the routine administrative work, in particular the collection of revenue, was supervised by Roger of Salisbury, a man who, in contrast to the flamboyant Flambard, seems to have been the archetypal bureaucrat, competent and discreet.
The death of William, his only legitimate son, in 1120 in the wreck of the White Ship brought Henry’s whole carefully contrived edifice tumbling down. From then on, the succession problem dominated the politics of the reign. Less than three months after William’s death, Henry married a new wife but the heir so desperately hoped for was never born. So although Henry is said to have acknowledged more than twenty bastards, he was survived by only one legitimate child, his daughter Matilda. When her husband, Emperor Henry V of Germany, died in 1125, Henry recalled her to his court and made the barons swear to accept her as heir to the Anglo-Norman realm. Then in 1127 Henry received a fresh shock. William Clito was recognized as count of Flanders. If he were able to employ the wealth of Flanders in pursuit of his claim to Normandy, then the outlook for his uncle was black indeed. At this critical juncture Henry approached Fulk V of Anjou with a proposal for a marriage alliance between Matilda and Fulk’s son and heir, Geoffrey Plantagenet. In June 1128 Matilda, somewhat against her will, was married to the 14-year-old youth. Unquestionably, Count Fulk had scored a diplomatic triumph: the first vital step in the Angevin take-over of the Anglo-Norman realm.
By 1135 Henry I was quarrelling openly and violently with Geoffrey and Matilda. This had the effect of driving those magnates who were loyal to Henry into opposition to the Angevins. When the old king died, these magnates would inevitably find it difficult to come to terms with his designated heirs. In this sense it was Henry himself who provoked the succession dispute which followed his death. Even at the end of his life he still wanted his daughter and son-in-law to succeed, but he had been unable to bring himself to take the measures which would have enabled them to do so. Henry I had been an outstandingly able and successful king, the master politician of his age, but even he failed to cope with the tensions of the succession question. It was for this reason that Henry of Huntingdon portrayed Henry as a king in a permanent state of anxiety. ‘Each of his triumphs only made him worry lest he lose what he had gained; therefore though he seemed to be the most fortunate of kings, he was in truth the most miserable.’
Stephen (1135–54)
When the news came that Henry I lay dying, the old king’s chosen heirs were in their own dominions, either in Anjou or in Maine. But his nephew, Stephen of Blois, was in his county of Boulogne. From there, it was but a day-trip to the south-east of England. This accident of geography gave Stephen a head start. Having first secured the support of the Londoners, he then rode to Winchester, where his brother, Henry of Blois, was bishop. With Henry’s help he obtained both the treasury at Winchester, and Roger of Salisbury’s acceptance of his claim to be king. Then all that remained was to persuade the archbishop of Canterbury to anoint him. This was done by arguing that the oath to Matilda – which they had all sworn – was void because it had been exacted by force, and by spreading a fictitious story about the old king’s deathbed change of mind. On 22 December 1135, Stephen was crowned and anointed king at Westminster.
The political structure of the Anglo-Norman realm meant that once Stephen had been recognized as king in England, he was in a very strong position in Normandy as well. From then on, the Norman barons could give their allegiance to someone else only at the risk of losing their English estates. Above all, those with most to lose felt that they had to support Stephen. So, right from the start of their campaign to win their inheritance, Geoffrey and Matilda found themselves opposed by the most powerful magnates of the Anglo-Norman state.
In the west the news of Henry’s death precipitated a great revolt against those colonizers who had been turning Wales into what one contemporary called ‘a second England’, but in England itself the first two and a half years of Stephen’s reign passed peacefully enough: indeed they were rather more trouble-free than the opening years of both his predecessors’ reigns had been. The first serious blow came in the summer of 1138 when Robert of Gloucester decided to join his half-sister’s cause. Robert’s defection not only meant that Stephen lost control of some important strong points in Normandy, it was also a signal that the Angevins were on the point of carrying the struggle to England. As Stephen waited for the blow to fall he began to lose his grip on the situation, above all in the north where King David I of Scotland took over Northumbria.
He offended his brother Henry of Blois by not making him archbishop of Canterbury; he arrested three influential ‘civil service’ bishops, including Roger of Salisbury, and thus enabled Henry of Blois to claim that ecclesiastical liberties had been infringed. In the autumn of 1139, when the Empress – as Matilda was commonly known – landed at Arundel and seemed to be in Stephen’s grasp, he allowed her to go free to join Robert of Gloucester at Bristol. From now on there were two rival courts in England. Had he imprisoned her, the cause of her husband and sons would have gained yet more support. The fact that Matilda was a woman had given Stephen his opportunity, but it also, in a chivalrous age, presented him with insoluble problems.
In February 1141 Stephen rashly accepted battle at Lincoln, and fought on bravely when he might have escaped. As a result, he was captured and put in prison in Bristol. Henry of Blois, now acting as papal legate, openly went over to the Empress’s side and in the summer she was able to enter London. But she spurned the peace terms worked out by the legate and offended the Londoners by her tactless behaviour. When Stephen’s queen, Matilda of Boulogne, advanced towards the city, the Londoners took up arms and drove the Empress out. Thus, the planned coronation at Westminster never took place. Matilda never became queen of England. A few months later Robert of Gloucester was captured and since he was the mainstay of her party, Matilda had to agree to an exchange of prisoners: Stephen for Robert. The Empress had thrown away a won position; England remained a divided country.
In Normandy, events had taken a very different course. Geoffrey of Anjou stayed behind to maintain the pressure on the duchy and to look after his own interests in Anjou. A series of campaigns from 1141 to 1144 ended with the surrender of Rouen and Geoffrey’s formal investiture as duke. But the count of Anjou’s single-minded concentration on the conquest of Normandy led to him turning his back on England.
Here the civil war settled down into a kind of routine. Neither side could make much headway at a time when the art of war revolved around castles, and the defenders generally held the advantage. In October 1147 Robert of Gloucester died. Disheartened, the Empress left England early in 1148, never to return.
In 1150 Geoffrey of Anjou associated his son Henry with him in the rule of the duchy. Next year this arrangement was legitimized when Louis VII (king of France 1137–80), in return for concessions in the Vexin, decided to recognize Henry as duke. At this point, it must have looked as though the old link between England and Normandy had at last been broken. Yet neither side would give up its claims and though there seemed to be a stalemate in England, on the Continent the situation turned out to be remarkably fluid. Geoffrey of Anjou died, still under 40, leaving his eldest son in control of both Normandy and Anjou. In March 1152 Louis VII divorced his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine. Eight weeks later she married Henry, who in consequence could now add control of the vast duchy of Aquitaine to his other Continental possessions.
Henry’s marriage was a great coup – yet it also gave fresh hope to Stephen. Louis VII organized a grand coalition of all Henry’s rivals. As a result, the summer of 1152 saw Henry fighting on four fronts at once – in Aquitaine, in Normandy, against rebels in Anjou, and against Stephen in England. One well-informed Norman chronicler tells us that the betting was that Henry would not survive. At this juncture, his decision to sail to England and carry the fight to Stephen impressed contemporaries by its sheer audacity. Even so there was little Henry could do to break the stalemate in England and his whole position was still precariously overextended when the death of Stephen’s heir, Eustace, in August 1153 transformed everything. Stephen’s second son, William, had never expected to be king and so the way was opened for a negotiated settlement.
The barons on both sides had long been anxious for peace. Their landed estates made them too vulnerable to the ravages of war for them to be in favour of protracted hostilities. At times they had ignored the wishes of the chief protagonists and made local truces of their own. So there was a general sense of relief when Stephen and Henry bowed to the wishes of their advisers.
By the treaty of Westminster (December 1153) it was agreed that Stephen should hold the kingdom for life and that he should adopt Henry as his heir. William was to inherit all Stephen’s baronial lands. This, in essence, was a repeat of the peace terms proposed by Henry of Blois in 1141. Matilda’s inability to be magnanimous in victory had cost the country another 12 years of civil war. Now at last Stephen could rule unchallenged, but he was a tired man and did not live long to enjoy it. On 25 October 1154 he died and was buried by the side of his wife and elder son in the monastery they had founded at Faversham.
Stephen had been a competent army commander and a brave knight – but perhaps too gallant for his own good. He was a more attractive character than any of the Norman kings – but he lacked their masterfulness. Without it he was unable to dominate either his court or his kingdom. Moreover he spent very little time in Normandy; only one visit, in 1137, during his entire reign. This stands in marked contrast to the itineraries of his predecessors and, in view of the ‘cross-Channel structure’ of the Anglo-Norman aristocracy, was certainly a mistake. In this sense the ruler from the house of Blois can be said to have failed because he was too ‘English’ a king to realize that England was only a part of a greater whole.
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(-) Remove Outreach filter Outreach
Gunther von Hagens (1945- )
Gunther von Hagens invented a plastination technique and created Body Worlds, a traveling exhibit that has made anatomy part of the public domain. Von Hagens invented the plastination technique in 1977 while working at Heidelberg University in Heidelberg, Germany. Von Hagen's plastination technique preserves real bodies and tissues by the removal of the fluid and replacement with resin. Body Worlds features three-dimensional, plastinated human bodies.
Subject: People, Outreach, Reproduction
Julia Clifford Lathrop (1858–1932)
Julia Clifford Lathrop was an activist and social reformer in the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries and the first chief of the United States Children’s Bureau. In that capacity, she conducted demographic studies to identify links between socioeconomic factors and infant mortality rates. Lathrop mobilized the effort to increase birth registration and designed programs and publications to promote infant and maternal health throughout the US.
Subject: People, Outreach
Margaret Higgins Sanger (1879-1966)
Margaret Higgins Sanger advocated for birth control in the United States and Europe during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Although people used contraceptives prior to the twentieth century, in the US the 1873 Comstock Act made the distribution of information relating to the use of contraceptives illegal, and similar state-level Comstock laws also classified discussion and dissemination of contraceptives as illegal.
Subject: People, Reproductive Health Arizona, Reproduction, Outreach
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Reproduction (53) Apply Reproduction filter
Publications (35) Apply Publications filter
Technologies (20) Apply Technologies filter
Experiments (19) Apply Experiments filter
Theories (17) Apply Theories filter
Processes (16) Apply Processes filter
Outreach (15) Apply Outreach filter
Organizations (10) Apply Organizations filter
Disorders (9) Apply Disorders filter
Articles (179) Apply Articles filter
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Displaying 26 - 50 of 182 items.
"The Role of Maternal Mitochondria during Oogenesis, Fertilization and Embryogenesis" (2002), by James M. Cummins
James M Cummins published 'The Role of Maternal Mitochondria during Oogenesis, Fertilization and Embryogenesis' 30 January 2002 in Reproductive BioMedicine Online. In the article, Cummins examines the role of the energy producing cytoplasmic particles, or organelles called mitochondria. Humans inherit mitochondria from their mothers, and mechanisms have evolved to eliminate sperm mitochondria in early embryonic development. Mitochondria contain their own DNA (mtDNA) separate from nuclear DNA (nDNA).
Subject: Publications
The Baby Makers (2012)
In 2012, the production company Waddell Media Production released the documentary The Baby Makers. The four-part series, directed and produced by Edel O’Mahony, follows multiple couples in Northern Ireland struggling with infertility problems as they utilize different treatments such as in vitro fertilization, or IVF, egg donation, and egg freezing. IVF is a procedure in which a woman’s egg is fertilized by a sperm outside of her body. Once the sperm fertilizes the egg, a fertility doctor places the fertilized egg back into the woman’s uterus.
Subject: Outreach
William Thomas Astbury (1898–1961)
William Thomas Astbury studied the structures of fibrous materials, including fabrics, proteins, and deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, in England during the twentieth century. Astbury employed X-ray crystallography, a technique in which scientists use X-rays to learn about the molecular structures of materials. Astbury worked at a time when scientists had not yet identified DNA’s structure or function in genes, the genetic components responsible for how organisms develop and reproduce. He was one of the first scientists to use X-ray crystallography to study the structure of DNA.
Hermann Joseph Muller's Study of X-rays as a Mutagen, (1926-1927)
Hermann Joseph Muller conducted three experiments in 1926 and 1927 that demonstrated that exposure to x-rays, a form of high-energy radiation, can cause genetic mutations, changes to an organism's genome, particularly in egg and sperm cells. In his experiments, Muller exposed fruit flies (Drosophila) to x-rays, mated the flies, and observed the number of mutations in the offspring. In 1927, Muller described the results of his experiments in "Artificial Transmutation of the Gene" and "The Problem of Genic Modification".
Subject: Experiments
In vitro fertilization (IVF) is an assisted reproductive technology (ART) initially introduced by Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards in the 1970s to treat female infertility caused by damaged or blocked fallopian tubes. This major breakthrough in embryo research has provided large numbers of women the possibility of becoming pregnant, and subsequent advances have dramatically increased their chances. IVF is a laboratory procedure in which sperm and egg are fertilized outside the body; the term "in vitro" is Latin for "in glass."
Subject: Technologies, Reproduction
Studies in Spermatogenesis (1905), by Nettie Maria Stevens
Studies in Spermatogenesis is a two volume book written by Nettie Maria Stevens, and published by the Carnegie Institution of Washington in 1905 and 1906. In the books Stevens explains the research she conducted on chromosomal sex determination in the sperm and egg cells of insect species while at Bryn Mawr College, near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Studies in Spermatogenesis described early examples of chromosomal XY sex-determination.
Some of the Cells that Arise from Animal Gastrulas with Three Germ Layers
From a developing embryos three primary germ layers, ectoderm (green), mesoderm (pink) and endoderm (yellow), a variety of differentiated cell types and organ systems arise, far more than are shown here. The three primary germ layers are shown during the gastrula stage because they become distinct at the gastrula stage. The germ cells (blue) are pre- cursors to sperm and egg cells, and they are set aside early in development, and are thought to arise from the ectoderm.
Format: Graphics
Subject: Theories, Processes
"CRISPR /Cas9-mediated Gene Editing in Human Tripronuclear Zygotes" (2015), by Junjiu Huang et al.
In 2015, Junjiu Huang and his colleagues reported their attempt to enable CRISPR/cas 9-mediated gene editing in nonviable human zygotes for the first time at Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou, China. Their article, CRISPR /Cas9-mediated Gene Editing in Human Tripronuclear Zygotes, was published in Protein and Cell. Nonviable zygotes are sperm-fertilized eggs that cannot develop into a fetus. Researchers previously developed the CRISPR/cas 9 gene editing tool, which is a system that originated from bacteria as a defense mechanism against viruses.
Subject: Publications, Experiments
Theophilus Shickel Painter (1889-1969)
Theophilus Shickel Painter studied the structure and
function of chromosomes in the US during in the early to mid-twentieth century. Painter worked at
the University of Texas at Austin in Austin, Texas. In the 1920s
and 1930s, Painter studied the chromosomes of the salivary gland
giant chromosomes of the fruit fly (Drosophila
melanogaster), with Hermann J. Muller. Muller and Painter
studied the ability of X-rays to cause changes in the chromosomes
of fruit flies. Painter also studied chromosomes in mammals.
Angelman syndrome is a disorder in humans that causes neurological symptoms such as lack of speech, jerky movements, and insomnia. A human cell has two copies of twenty-three chromosomes for a total of forty-six-one copy from its mother and one from its father. But in the case of Angelman syndrome, the maternal chromosome numbered 15 has a mutation or deletion in its DNA and a gene on the paternal chromosome 15 is inactivated in some parts the brain. The result is the paternal gene is silenced during development of the sperm, which is called genetic imprinting.
Subject: Disorders
August Friedrich Leopold Weismann (1834-1914)
August Friedrich Leopold Weismann studied how the traits of organisms developed and evolved in a variety of organisms, mostly insects and aquatic animals, in Germany in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Weismann proposed the theory of the continuity of germ-plasm, a theory of heredity. Weismann postulated that germ-plasm was the hereditary material in cells, and parents transmitted to their offspring only the germ-plasm present in germ-cells (sperm and egg cells) rather than somatic or body cells.
Assisted reproductive technologies (ART) are a collection of different techniques designed to help those who are infertile achieve a successful pregnancy. The most popular technology currently in use is in vitro fertilization (IVF), but others include gamete intrafallopian transfer (GIFT), zygote intrafallopian transfer (ZIFT), intrauterine insemination (IUI), and intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI).
Robert Geoffrey Edwards's Study of Fertilization of Human Oocytes Matured in vitro, 1965 to 1969
Robert Geoffrey Edwards, a British developmental biologist at University of Cambridge, began exploring human in vitro fertilization (IVF) as a way to treat infertility in 1960. After successfully overcoming the problem of making mammalian oocytes mature in vitro in 1965, Edwards began to experiment with fertilizing matured eggs in vitro. Collaborating with other researchers, Edwards eventually fertilized a human egg in vitro in 1969. This was a huge step towards establishing human IVF as a viable fertility treatment.
Subject: Experiments, Reproduction
Artificial Parthenogenesis and Fertilization (1913), by Jacques Loeb
Jacques Loeb is best known for his embryological work investigating parthenogenesis in invertebrates. Artificial Parthenogenesis and Fertilization is a revised and English-translated work from his earlier book, Die chemische Entwicklungserregung des tierischen Eies (1900). Artificial Parthenogenesis describes Loeb's many and varied methodical experiments to initiate egg development without fertilization by sperm. As is true with much of science, some of Loeb's experiments were successful and many were not.
Hermann Joseph Muller (1890-1967)
Hermann Joseph Muller studied the effects of x-ray radiation on genetic material in the US during the twentieth century. At that time, scientists had yet to determine the dangers that x-rays presented. In 1927, Muller demonstrated that x-rays, a form of high-energy radiation, can mutate the structure of genetic material. Muller warned others of the dangers of radiation, advising radiologists to protect themselves and their patients from radiation. He also opposed the indiscriminate use of radiation in medical and industrial fields.
Test-Tube Baby
A test-tube baby is the product of a successful human reproduction that results from methods beyond sexual intercourse between a man and a woman and instead utilizes medical intervention that manipulates both the egg and sperm cells for successful fertilization. The term was originally used to refer to the babies born from the earliest applications of artificial insemination and has now been expanded to refer to children born through the use of in vitro fertilization, the practice of fertilizing an embryo outside of a woman's body.
Subject: Processes, Ethics, Reproduction
The Y-Chromosome in Animals
The Y-chromosome is one of a pair of chromosomes that determine the genetic sex of individuals in mammals, some insects, and some plants. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the development of new microscopic and molecular techniques, including DNA sequencing, enabled scientists to confirm the hypothesis that chromosomes determine the sex of developing organisms. In an adult organism, the genes on the Y-chromosome help produce the male gamete, the sperm cell. Beginning in the 1980s, many studies of human populations used the Y-chromosome gene sequences to trace paternal lineages.
Subject: Reproduction, Theories
Transvaginal Ultrasound-Guided Oocyte Retrieval
Transvaginal ultrasound-guided oocyte retrieval, also known as egg retrieval, is a surgical technique used by medical professionals to extract mature eggs directly from the women’s ovaries under the guidance of ultrasound imaging. In 1982, physicians Suzan Lenz and Jorgen Lauritsen at the University of Copenhagen in Copenhagen, Denmark, proposed the technology to improve the egg collection aspect of in vitro fertilization, or IVF. During IVF, a healthcare practitioner must remove mature eggs from a woman’s ovaries to fertilize them with sperm outside of the body.
In Davis v. Davis (1992), the Supreme Court of Tennessee decided a dispute over cryopreserved preembryos in favor of Junior Lewis Davis, who sought to have the preembryos destroyed over the objections of his former wife, Mary Sue Davis. The decision in Davis, although not binding in other states, suggested a framework for resolving similar disputes in the US. That framework established that courts should follow the wishes of those who contribute their sperm and egg cells, or gamete providers, to create preembryos.
Subject: Legal
The Miracle of Life (1983), by NOVA
The most-watched NOVA documentary ever made and a revolution in the understanding of human development, The Miracle of Life (abbreviated Life) employs the most current developments in endoscopic and microscopic technology to capture the intricacies of human development. Narrated by Anita Sangiolo and vividly illustrating the most minute and hard-to-reach parts and processes of living systems, this film truly flexes the muscles of the newest photographic technology of its time, with esteemed photographer Lennart Nilsson behind the camera.
Subject: Outreach, Reproduction
All cells that have a nucleus, including plant, animal, fungal cells, and most single-celled protists, also have mitochondria. Mitochondria are particles called organelles found outside the nucleus in a cell's cytoplasm. The main function of mitochondria is to supply energy to the cell, and therefore to the organism. The theory for how mitochondria evolved, proposed by Lynn Margulis in the twentieth century, is that they were once free-living organisms.
Subject: Organisms, Theories
Many difficulties can arise with a pregnancy even after the sperm successfully fertilizes the oocyte. A major problem occurs if the fertilized egg tries to implant before reaching its normal implantation site, the uterus. An ectopic pregnancy occurs when a fertilized egg implants anywhere other than in the uterus, most commonly in the fallopian tubes. Ectopic pregnancies cannot continue to term, so a physician must remove the developing embryo as early as possible.
Subject: Disorders, Processes, Reproduction
Gamete Intra-Fallopian Transfer (GIFT)
Various techniques constitute assisted reproduction, one of which is gamete intra-fallopian transfer (GIFT). The first example of GIFT involved primates during the 1970s; however, the technology was unsuccessful until 1984 when an effective GIFT method was invented by Ricardo Asch at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center and the procedure resulted in the first human pregnancy. The GIFT technique was created in hopes of generating an artificial insemination process that mimicked the physiological sequences of normal conception.
Zygote Intrafallopian Transfer
Zygote intrafallopian transfer (ZIFT) is an assisted reproductive technology (ART) first used in 1986 to help those who are infertile conceive a child. ZIFT is a hybrid technique derived from a combination of in vitro fertilization (IVF) and gamete intrafallopian transfer (GIFT) procedures. Despite a relatively high success rate close to that of IVF, it is not as common as its parent procedures due to its costs and more invasive techniques.
David Wildt's Domestic Cat and Cheetah Experiments (1978-1983)
David Wildt's cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) research from 1978-1983 became the foundation for the use of embryological techniques in endangered species breeding programs. The cheetah is a member of the cat family (Felidae), which includes thirty-seven species. According to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) all Felidae species are currently threatened or endangered, with the exception of the domestic cat (Felinus catus).
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Infobox_University
name = Ithaca College
motto = "Commitment to Excellence"
established = 1892
type = Private with 5 schools and the Division of Interdisciplinary and International Studies
endowment = US $238 million
president = Dr. Thomas Rochon
city = Ithaca
state = NY
country = USA
undergrad = 6,260
postgrad = 400
faculty = 673
staff = 989
campus = Urban area, 757 acres (3.0 km²)
mascot =
nickname = "Bombers"
free_label = Athletics
free = 23 Varsity Teams
website = [http://www.ithaca.edu www.ithaca.edu]
Ithaca College is a private institution of higher education located on the South Hill of Ithaca, New York. The school was founded by William Egbert in 1892 as a conservatory of music. Known internationally for its communications program, the college also offers a wide blend of liberal arts education. The college is at the center of a sophisticated cultural community, with a stunning backdrop of Cayuga Lake, Cornell University, and hundreds of waterfalls and gorges. The college is perhaps best known for its large list of alumni who play or have played substantial roles in the world of broadcasting.The college has been ranked among the top ten master's universities in the North by U.S. News & World Report every year since 1996. [ [http://www.ithaca.edu/news/release.php?id=1968 "U.S. News & World Report America's Best Colleges" Ranks Ithaca College in Top Ten - News Release - Ithaca College Office of Media Relations ] ] In 2008, the college was ranked 7 in this category. [ [http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/brief/t1univmas_n_brief.php USNews.com: America's Best Colleges 2008: Universities-Master's (North): Top Schools ] ]
Ithaca College was founded as the Ithaca Conservatory of Music in 1892 when a local violin teacher, William Grant Egbert, rented four rooms and arranged for the instruction of eight students. For nearly seven decades the institution flourished in the city of Ithaca, adding to its music curriculum the study of elocution, dance, physical education, speech correction, radio, business, and the liberal arts. In 1931 the conservatory was chartered as a private college.
By 1960, some 2,000 students were in attendance. A modern campus was built on South Hill in the sixties, and students were shuttled between the old and new during the construction. The hillside campus continued to grow in the ensuing 30 years to accommodate more than 6,000 students.
As the campus expanded, the college also began to expand its curriculum. By the 1990s, some 2,000 courses in more than 100 programs of study were available in the college's five schools.
The school attracts a multicultural student body with representatives from almost every state and more than 75 foreign countries, but only 7 percent of its student body is not Caucasian.
The college offers a curriculum with more than 100 degree programs in its five schools:
*Roy H. Park School of Communications
* School of Business
* School of Health Sciences & Human Performance
* School of Humanities & Sciences
* School of Music
* Division of Interdisciplinary and International Studies
* Division of Graduate Studies
atellite Campuses
Besides its Ithaca campus, Ithaca College also operates the following satellite campuses:
* Ithaca College London Center
* Ithaca College Washington Semester Program in Washington, D.C.
* Ithaca College Los Angeles Program, an extension of the Roy H. Park School of Communications at the James B. Pendleton Center
* Ithaca College Walkabout Down Under Program, which gives students the opportunity to experience several different regions of Australia in one semester. Students travel around the country for 20 weeks, studying at Murdoch University, University of Tasmania and La Trobe University. This program ended in spring 2008 due to financial reasons.
* Ithaca College Antigua Program, a semester program expected to launch in spring 2009.
The London, Washington and Los Angeles programs are primarily internship-based.
"The Ithacan"
"The Ithacan" is Ithaca College's official newspaper. The paper is written, edited and published by students. "The Ithacan" is available in print every Thursday morning and online. [http://www.ithaca.edu/ithacan] "The Ithacan" and its staff have won many major collegiate journalism awards, most notably, the Associated Collegiate Press' National Pacemaker Award for the 2004-2005 academic year. The Pacemaker has been widely considered the Pulitzer Prize of collegiate journalism.
"ICTV"
"See main entry Ithaca College Television"
"Imprint Magazine"
"Imprint Magazine: College Life’s Internet Magazine", published from Ithaca College, is published by college students, for college students, about college students. Imprint strives to inform its readers of national issues and give them the opportunity to voice their opinion and become involved in the discussion.
"Buzzsaw Magazine"
"Buzzsaw Magazine", formally Buzzsaw Haircut, was founded in 1997 and is the college's monthly alternative news magazine. It is available in print and online every month. [http://www.buzzsawhaircut.com/] The magazine is produced by the Ithaca College community and printed by Our Press of Binghamton, NY. It is funded by the Ithaca College Student Government Association, the Park School of Communication, local advertising, community support, and a grant from Campus Progress.
It has won a number of national awards, including the Campus Alternative Journalism Project's award for "Best Sense of Humor" in 2003 and the Independent Press Association's Campus Independent Journalism Awards for "Best Campus Publication with a Budget Under $10,000" and "Best Political Commentary" in 2005.
"Ithaca College Radio"
Ithaca College is also home to two student-operated radio stations.
92 WICB
92 WICB is an FCC-licensed station that operates at 7500 Watts at 91.7 on the FM band. The majority of its programming falls under the modern rock category. While broadcasting modern rock, the station is run similarly to a commercial modern rock station, with the inclusion of playlists planned by the programming and music departments that include leeway for listener requests and DJ choices.
Other programming ranges from mainstream hip-hop and R&B, to underground, downtempo, and other lesser-known genres of what is generally considered urban music. In addition to a lunchtime Jazz show, WICB broadcasts a number of other specialty shows throughout the week. These shows, which usually run 2-3 hours in length, come from genres such as blues, broadway, jam band music, and "homeless" music, that is not normally heard on the public airwaves.
VIC Radio
VIC Radio, once known as 106-VIC, is an Internet radio station broadcasting via Live 365 at www.vicradio.org [http://www.vicradio.org] . The majority of VIC's programming falls under the indie pop, alternapop, and power pop genres. The playlists are planned by the Programming Department, with leeway for on-air talent favorites and listener requests. The rest of its programming consists of specialty shows, programmed by student DJs, which are more representative of a typical college station.
The station also hosts an annual 50 Hour Marathon, where two DJs stay awake for fifty hours straight to raise money for a local charity. The marathon, which is simulcast on 92 WICB and ICTV 16, typically involves events such as concerts, scavenger hunts, and remote broadcasts around Ithaca.
"Journal of Race, Culture, Gender and Ethnicity"
Founded in 2004 by several Ithaca College students, the "Ithaca College Journal of Race, Culture, Gender and Ethnicity" is an academic journal that explores complexities of such topics and welcomes student contributions. The journal is available in print and online. [http://www.ithaca.edu/icjournal/]
The Ithaca athletics nickname "Bombers" is unique in NCAA athletics, and the mystery surrounding its origin is almost as rare. Ithaca College's sports teams were originally named the Cayugans, but the name was changed to the Bombers sometime in the 1930s. Several possibilities for the change have been posited. It may have made reference to the New York Yankees, who are known as the Bronx Bombers, or (less likely) boxer Joe Louis, known as the Brown Bomber. The most common explanation is that the school's baseball uniforms - white with navy blue pinstripes and an interlocking "IC" on the left chest - bear a striking resemblance to the distinctive home uniforms of the New York Yankees. It may also have referred to the Ithaca basketball team of that era and its propensity for half-court "bombs." Grumman Aircraft also manufactured airplanes including bombers in Ithaca for many years. The first “Bombers” reference on record was in the Dec. 17, 1938 issue of the Rochester Times-Union in a men’s basketball article. [http://www.ithaca.edu/ithacan/articles/0012/07/sports/LSstories_swir.htm December 07, 2000 - Stories swirl around about Mascots ] ]
The name has at times sparked controversy for its perceived martial connotations. It is an occasional source of umbrage from Ithaca's prominent pacifist community, but the athletics department has consistently stated it has no interest in changing the name. The athletics logo has in the past, but currently does not, incorporated World War II era fighter planes.
Ithaca is a member of the NCAA's Division III, the Empire Eight Conference, and the Eastern College Athletic Conference. Ithaca has one of Division III's strongest athletic programs.Fact|date=February 2007 The Bombers have won a total of 15 national titles in seven team sports and five individual sports.
Coached by Jim "Butts" Butterfield [http://www.ithaca.edu/icq/2003v1/sports/index.htm] for 27 years, the football team has won three NCAA Division III football championships in 1979, 1988 and 1991 (a total surpassed only by Augustana and Mount Union). Bomber football teams made a record seven appearances in the Division III national championship game, the Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl.Fact|date=February 2007 The Bombers play the SUNY Cortland Red Dragons for the Cortaca Jug, which was added in 1959 to an already competitive rivalry. The matchup is one of the most prominent in Division III college football.Fact|date=February 2007
Most recently, the women's crew won back-to-back NCAA Division III championships in 2004 and 2005.
Women's soccer has won two national championships in Division III and is consistently ranked in the top 20 nationally.
Ithaca is also home to more than 60 club sports, many of which compete regularly against other colleges in leagues and tournaments.
Current president
Ithaca's current president is Peggy Williams. President Williams assumed the presidency of Ithaca College on July 1, 1997. She is the College's seventh president and its first female president. Williams came to Ithaca from Lyndon State College, where she had been president since 1989. Williams holds a bachelor of arts degree in psychology from St. Michael's College of the University of Toronto; a master of education degree from the University of Vermont; and a doctorate in administration, planning, and social policy from Harvard University. A native of Montreal, Williams has lived in the United States since 1968 and is a citizen of both the United States and Canada.
On July 12, 2007, Williams announced that she would retire from the presidency post effective May 31, 2009 following a one-year sabbatical commencing May 31, 2008. [ [http://www.ithaca.edu/intercom/article.php/20070712140046911 Intercom - Important News to Share ] ]
The search for a new president has been underway since the announcement of President William's departure from Ithaca College. The field has been narrowed down to three candidates, who are currently visiting the campus and meeting with members of the Ithaca College community. The top candidates are Iain Crawford, MaryAnn Baenninger and Dr. Thomas Rochon. Iain Crawford is currently the vice president for academic affairs and English professor at the College of Wooster in Wooster, Ohio. MaryAnn Baenninger is now the president at the College of Saint Benedict in St. Joseph, Minnesota. The final candidate, Dr. Rochon is currently the executive vice president and chief academic officer of the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota.
MaryAnn Baenninger, who was probably the first choice, has dropped out of the candidacy for president, deciding she is needed more at her current position. It was decided that there would not be any deliberations to find a replacement third candidate to replace Baenninger.
On April 11, 2008, Ithaca College named Dr. Thomas Rochon the eighth president of the college. [ [http://www.ithaca.edu/features/release.php?release=2445 Ithaca College Selects Thomas R. Rochon As Eighth President ] ]
Notable alumni and faculty
Following is a brief list of noteworthy Ithaca College alumni and faculty. "For a more extensive list, see main entry List of Ithaca College People."
*Jessica Savitch, first female network news anchor
*Rod Serling, screenwriter, creator of "The Twilight Zone"
*David Muir, ABC news anchor for "World News Saturday" and co-anchor of "Primetime"
*Barbara Gaines, executive producer, "Late Show with David Letterman"
*Chris Regan, writer for "The Daily Show" from 1999-2006.
*Robert Marella aka Gorilla Monsoon, World Wrestling Entertainment Hall of Fame wrestler, former ringside commentator
*Robert Iger, president & CEO, The Walt Disney Company
*Karl Ravech, ESPN sportscaster
*Bob Kur, Washington Post Radio, former NBC News National Reporter
*Richard Jadick, combat surgeon who was awarded the Bronze Star for service in Iraq
*Steven Van Slyke, chemist, 20 patents related to Organic Light Emitting Diodes (OLEDs)
*Kate Aldrich, internationally-renowned mezzo-soprano
*David Boreanaz, actor, "Bones", "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Angel".
*David Guy Levy, film producer, August and Patriotville.
*Ricki Lake, actress (only completed her freshman year before departing).
*Scott LaFaro, influential jazz bassist with the Bill Evans Trio (1959-61).
*Dimitri Milovich, inventor of the first Winterstick snowboard in 1970.
*Michelle Federer, theatre and film actress; originated the character, Nessarose, in Broadway's Wicked 2003-2006
*Matt Cavenaugh, film, tv, and Broadway actor
*Amanda Setton, film and tv actress
*Sara Schmidt, theatre actress; originated the character, Francine Valli, in Broadway's Jersey Boys
"Within the Ithaca College School of Music:"
* Ithaca College Choir
* Madrigal Singers
* Vocal Jazz Ensemble
* Ithaca College Chorus
* Women's Chorale
* Symphony Orchestra
* Chamber Orchestra
* Concert Band
* Symphonic Band
* Wind Ensemble
* Cello Choir
* Trombone Troupe
* Brass Choir
* Contemporary Chamber Ensemble
* Guitar Ensemble
* Percussion Ensemble
* Jazz Workshop
* Opera Workshop
;Outside the Ithaca College School of Music
* "Ithacappella" - All-Male a cappella
* "Premium Blend" - Female a cappella
* Amani Gospel Singers
* "VoiceStream" - Co-ed a cappella
* "Five Cents Sharp" - Male Brass Quintet (2006-2010)
tudent Organizations
Some of the larger Ithaca College student organizations include:
Residence Hall Association (RHA)
The Ithaca College RHA, established in 1988, is one of the college's largest student-run organizations. RHA improves student residential life on campus by engaging on-campus students with entertainment, information, and student organization funding. Ithaca College's RHA is a North East affiliate of the National Association of College and University Residence Halls, or NACURH. NACURH is the world's largest completely student-run organization by membership. RHA Members attend NACURH-sponsored conferences nationwide to exchange ideas for improving college residential life.
IC After Dark
[http://www.ithaca.edu/afterdark IC After Dark] is a student-run organization that provides free, themed late-night events for the Ithaca College community. Each event features a main attraction, food, music, crafts, giveaways and prizes. Since its establishment in 2001, IC After Dark has hosted an average of four events per semester including flagship events such as E Komo Mai (a welcome luau for first-year students), Urban Cowboy (a Western-themed event made popular thanks to the mechanical bull), the Super Bowl Party, and The Dating Game. Each event attracts hundreds of students bringing in among the largest crowds for any student-run function.
Do Anything Nice (D.A.N.)
Do Anything Nice (D.A.N.) is a student-led organization that demonstrates the importance of acts of kindness in everyday life and leads in creative strategies for people to practice kindness in their daily lives. D.A.N. members engage in innovative new methods to bring community service to educational institutions.
Bigs IC
Bigs IC [http://www.ithaca.edu/csli/orgs/directory/index.php?org_id=281] is a student-run organization that works hand-in-hand with the Big Brother Big Sister program in the Ithaca Community. The Members volunteer directly with the children of the community and assist in helping making Ithaca a better and safer place. Bigs IC runs programs at the Youth Bureau downtown on a regular basis. Children from around the Ithaca community are invited to join the college students in the craft, activity and snack they have planned. The main goal of Bigs IC is to maintain a fun and caring relationship between college students and children in need.
NSSHLA
The National Student-Speech-Language-Hearing Association [http://www.nsslha.org/nsslha/] , better known as NSSHLA, is a student-run organization to promote awareness of Speech-Pathology and Audiology professions for students within the major. This nation-wide club helps students studying the field get involved and become educated on opportunities available to them once they earn their degree. The NSSHLA club here at Ithaca College holds meetings twice a month and runs fund raisers and events to help the members get more involved within their HSHP school and Ithaca College as a whole.
Circle K [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle_K_International] is a student led organization on campus that is known for their community service and help throughout the community. It is an international club that has been around for many years and has chapters in high schools and colleges throughout the nation. The Ithaca College chapter sponsors many different events throughout the Ithaca Community including volunteering at a local nursing home and an after school program at an Ithaca middle school. Meetings are held twice a month to discuss the service done throughout the week and plan new activities. Circle K club looks for members who are willing to help and be committed to serving the people of the world.
Colleges Against Cancer, CAC, [http://www.cancer.org/docroot/VOL/Content/VOL_2_Colleges_vs_Cancer.asp] is a student-run organization that is known on the national level. It is sponsored by the American Cancer Society [http://www.cancer.org/docroot/home/index.asp] to help fight cancer and educate the youth on prevention and finding a cure. It runs fund raisers and programs to promote the fight against cancer and raise money for survivors and a cure. Relay for life is a annual event that Ithaca College participates in and raises thousands of dollars each year to donate to the cause. Other programs include, the Great American Smokeout, Breast Cancer Walk and dodge ball tournament. Meetings are held every Monday at 7pm.
Historically, various independent and national fraternities and sororities had active chapters at Ithaca College. However, due to a series of highly publicized hazing incidents in the 1980s, including one that was responsible for the death of a student, the College administration removed all but four Greek letter organizations from campus, and adopted a non-expansion policy, prohibiting any new Greek houses from affiliating with the College. [ [http://www.ithaca.edu/ithacan/articles/0411/11/news/5music_frater.htm November 11, 2004 - Music fraternities break stereotype ] ] As of 2008, three recognized Greek organizations remain on campus, all of which are music oriented:
*Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia (Delta Chapter)
*Sigma Alpha Iota (Epsilon Chapter)
*Mu Phi Epsilon (Lambda Chapter)
*A fourth, performing arts oriented house, Kappa Gamma Psi, went inactive in 2008.
* [http://www.ithaca.edu/ Official website]
Entropy (information theory)
Individual differences psychology
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MAS Special ReportNATO - UE
28 septembrie 2018 - Special reports - NATO - UE
NATO – EU BULLETIN / SEPTEMBER (2)
Ştefan Oprea
Sursă foto: Mediafax
Two months after NATO summit in July, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg visits Washington DC;
Born as an idea in 1992, Alliance Ground Surveillance system is approaching full operational capability;
Growth plan for the Bundeswehr in the coming years
The Iran Nuclear Deal - Implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action;
Trilateral meeting African Union - European Union - United Nations
Czech Republic and Slovakia - the joint acquisition of military equipment;
NSPA Industry Day - NATO Alliance Future Surveillance and Control (AFSC)
Two months after NATO summit in July, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg visits Washington DC
Continued adaptation, fairer burden-sharing within the Alliance, the implementation of the decisions taken at the NATO Summit in July and preparations for upcoming NATO ministerial were the subjects of the NATO Secretary General's meetings with US officials.
On Thursday (September 13, 2018) NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg met with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defence Secretary James Mattis on Thursday (September 13, 2018), also with President Assistant and National Security Advisor, Ambassador John Bolton.
The topics on the importance of the Alliance to the security of the US, as well as the current security challenges, were discussed by Mr. Stoltenberg with members of the US Senate Observer Group, the Foreign Relations Committee as well as Members of the House of Representatives.
On Friday (14 September), the Secretary General will deliver a keynote speech at the Heritage Foundation on the value of NATO in the 21st century.
The main message of this discourse is that NATO is very important to Europe and equally to the United States and is supported by three main reasons:
- Firstly, peace and stability in Europe are of vital interest to both Europeans and the United States;
- Second, NATO Allies share and support the fundamental values which are at the heart of American society;
- And third, NATO Allies boost America’s military power.
The speech also gave an overview of the Alliance's success arguments, from its creation to the present. Today, NATO's value lies in the fact that the Alliance has contributed to maintaining peace and stability in Europe, thus providing the foundation for unprecedented period of prosperity, for all NATO allies on both sides of the Atlantic. Europe and North America together represent half of the world’s economic output.
The existence of disagreements over tariffs does not change the fact that Europe and North America are each other’s biggest trading partners.
Europe and the United States also share fundamental values that they protect and defend together. These values, democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law are the foundations of the NATO member states, but they are also the foundations of our engagement with the rest of the world. After the Berlin Wall came down, the accession of the Warsaw Pact countries and the Baltic states to NATO, as well as the current aspirations of other countries to join the Alliance, represent a historic geopolitical shift for the benefit of the US and the world at large.
Regarding the contribution of NATO allies to the increase of America's military power, NATO Secretary-General, in a brief enumeration, presented the essence of these contributions.
France and the United Kingdom contribute 30% of NATO's Nuclear ballistic missile submarine. US NATO allies also maintain dual-purpose aircraft for nuclear equipment transport. Moreover, thousands of Allied countries work in close coordination with their American counterparts in the field of information. From this point of view, the US has an additional surveillance system from tracking submariners in the Arctic to capabilities for identifying terrorists.
NATO allies also host twenty-eight major US operating bases across Europe not only aimed to assure European security but also to facilitate the projection of US military across the wider Middle East and Africa (the US Africa Command is based In Stuttgart, Germany, the 6th Fleet - operating from the Barents Sea to Antarctica - has its headquarters in Naples, Italy, and the Landstuhl Regional Medical Centre is located in Ramstein, Germany).
Regarding the fact that the US benefits from the solidarity of the other NATO allies, the Secretary-General reminded of the September 11th terrorist attacks on the United States. After that, NATO invoked collective defence, the clause - Article 5 for the first and only time, so far.
Since then, hundreds of thousands of European and Canadian soldiers have fought alongside American soldiers in Afghanistan. More than a thousand have paid the ultimate price. Even today, NATO allies continue to stand with the United States, not only in Afghanistan and the Global Coalition against ISIS, but also in deterring an increasingly assertive Russia.
For almost seven decades since NATO's establishment, the United States and other allies have been able to stay together and support the Alliance's prosperity, values and security in its entirety. Recent developments have shown that allies need to invest more and better in our shared security. Thus, all NATO allies have agreed to stop cuts to defence budgets, and in the past year, NATO allies in Europe and Canada have boosted their defence budgets by 5.2%. The biggest increase in real terms in the last century. Even if there is still much to reach the agreed level, the trend is positive and the steps that follow will make the promise made at the recent summit respected.
In an uncertain world, the joint effort on both sides of the Atlantic to protect the freedom and security of nearly a billion citizens living in this area will demonstrate the vital transatlantic link that must further strengthen the most successful and the most valuable alliance in history.
Born as an idea in 1992, Alliance Ground Surveillance system is approaching full operational capability
Alliance Ground Surveillance (AGS) is a NATO programme to acquire an airborne ground surveillance capability by Multi-Platform Radar Technology Insertion Program on the Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk.
The program is run by the following 15 NATO member states: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and the United Kingdom.
Beginning in 1992, the AGS Program was defined as an effort to acquire capabilities in 1995 when defence ministers from NATO states agreed that the Alliance should continue to work on a basic, and supplemented by national interoperable assets with the new system.
The AGS Program was to provide NATO with a complete and integrated ground- surveillance capability that would offer the Alliance and its member countries unrestricted and unfiltered access to ground surveillance data in near real time, and in an interoperable manner.
Surveillance include an air segment comprising airborne radar sensors, and a ground segment comprising fixed, transportable and mobile ground stations for data exploitation and dissemination, all seamlessly interconnected linked through high-performance data links.
In 2004, NATO decided to move forward with what was called the "mixed fleet". The air segment would include Airbus A321 and Unmanned Global Hawk (UAV), while the land segment would include an extended set of fixed, deployable land-based radar stations. In 2004, NATO decided to move ahead with what was labelled as a "mixed-fleet" approach. The air segment was to include Airbus A321 manned aircraft and Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), while the ground segment was to comprise an extensive set of fixed and deployable ground stations.
Due to declining European defence budgets, NATO decided in 2007 to discontinue the mixed-fleet approach and instead to move forward with a simplified AGS system where the air segment was based on the off-the-shelf an UAV and its associated sensor. The ground segment, which would largely be developed and built by European and Canadian industry, remained virtually unchanged as its functional and operational characteristics were largely independent of the actual aircraft and sensor used.
The NATO's 2010 Strategic reconfirmed the Alliance's most pressing capability needs.
On 3 February 2012, the North Atlantic Council decided on a way ahead to collectively cover the costs for operating AGS for the benefit of the Alliance. The decision to engage NATO common funding for infrastructure, satellite communications and operations and support paves the way for awarding the AGS acquisition contract. In addition, an agreement was reached to make the UK Sentinel system and the future French Heron TP system available as national contributions in kind, partly replacing financial contributions from those two Allies.
In the margins of the NATO Summit in Chicago in 2012, NATO countries have taken a major step towards providing NATO-led ground-based surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities. In September 2015, the AGS program has reached important milestones such as first ground testing of NATO's first Global Hawk and activating the structure responsible for operating the AGS Global Hawk airplane in Sigonella Air Base (Italy). Later, by the end of 2015, the AGS Operational Centre in Sigonella was handed over from the host nation Italy, to NATO, the Mobile General Ground Station (MGGS) and the Transportable General Ground Station (TGGS) roll-outs took place and the first NATO Global Hawk's first test flight in Palmdale, California. AGS successfully participated in exercise Trident Juncture 2015 from the NATO AGS Capability Testbed (NACT) in the Netherlands.
In 2016 and 2017, several test trials culminated in the first flight, remote controlled from the AGS Operational This year (May 2018) the core acquisition contract took place and was finalised and signed to help ensure that AGS will deliver an adequate operational capacity that can be certified for global airspace operations. The first NATO Global Hawk is expected to fly from the United States to its new location in Sigonella in 2019.
Germany's stringent austerity policies since 1990 have had the effect of seriously eroding its army's availability for the accomplishment of its national missions, but also within NATO. Without investing in new capabilities and the transformation of the German Army, by assuming increasing international commitments, Berlin leaders push the national armed forces beyond the limits.
In such an unacceptable situation, the German government presented an ambitious plan to strengthen the country's armed forces by 2031.
This strategy is based on a modernization concept in which a new “profile of capabilities” is highlighted.
From a current budget of 1.2% of GDP it is hoped to increase it to 1.5% by 2024 (about 60 billion euros), less than NATO's 2% commitment. Immediate priority will be to equip the military and improve the Bundeswehr's cyber capabilities. Also, the role of Germany in the 2023 as a framework nation for the NATO Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF) will mark the first stage in the government's plan by providing a modernized brigade / equivalent force package which will also include an air and naval components.
Last but not least, the Bundeswehr will develop this plan based on the idea that there will be a parity between the fundamental missions of defending Germany's territory and conducting overseas missions.
Unlike in the previous period, when the main concern was to ensure the necessary capabilities for the execution of the missions outside the national territory, the new approach to the concern for the defence of the country as well as the fulfilment of the international obligations implies the allocation of substantial financial resources in an area proven chronically underfunded.
It remains to be seen, however, how the political coalition in power will react in the coming period to this proposal.
The Iran Nuclear Deal - Implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
On 24 September 2018 was held in New York, a Ministerial Meeting of the E3/EU+2 (China, France, Germany, the Russian Federation and the United Kingdom, with the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy) and the Islamic Republic of Iran
At the meeting, chaired by the EU High Representative / Vice President of the European Commission Federica Mogherini, the participants took stock of the process of identifying and implementing practical solutions to the problems arising from the unilateral withdrawal of the United States from this agreement and the re-imposition of sanctions lifted under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and Annex II.
Iran has good reasons to remain in the 2015 nuclear agreement, despite the withdrawal of the United States, an essential part of the agreement and its implementation, referring to the possibility of Iran benefiting from the lifting of the sanctions.
At the meeting, the participants reconfirmed their commitment to full and effective implementation, in good faith and in a constructive atmosphere of the agreement, as a key element of the global non-proliferation architecture and a significant achievement of multilateral diplomacy, approved unanimously by the UN Security Council through Resolution 2231. It also stressed the determination to protect the freedom of economic operators to conduct legitimate business with Iran in full compliance with the same resolution.
The fact that updates of the EU's "Blocking Statute" and the external lending mandate of the European Investment Bank, came into effect on 7 August mandate to make Iran eligible, was presented as an important step in the evolution of these measures implementation. The meeting ended with the view that these initiatives aim at keeping the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in the international interest.
The EU's attempt to circumvent US sanctions against Iran highlights the fact that the European Union has so far failed to develop a legal, functional framework to protect its companies against US sanctions that will come into force in November. In this respect, the abandonment by the French state-owned bank - Bpifrance of the plan to set up a financial mechanism to help French companies that deal with Iran, demonstrates how difficult it is for Europeans to find concrete solutions.
African Union Commission President Moussa Faki Mahamat, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and UN Secretary-General António Guterres met on September 23, 2018, at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, within the framework of the annual session of the United Nations General Assembly.
Coordinating efforts to address global challenges is an end in itself for the three organizations, considering that peace, security and stability are essential not only to ensure decent living conditions for all citizens but also to attract the necessary investment for sustainable and favourable growth inclusion.
In the joint press release, following the tripartite annual meeting, the three organizations expressed their readiness to take further action to enhance synergies and coordination in addressing global challenges through international cooperation.
The African Union, the EU and the UN intend to intensify political, economic and operational co-ordination and cooperation, particularly in the area of peace and security, the implementation of the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development and the AU's Agenda 2063 in the areas of human rights, climate change, and to support the implementation of AU and UN reforms. Leaders of these organizations welcomed the cooperation and the results of the tripartite task force to address the migrant situation in Libya, launched in November 2017. On the same subject, they highlighted the progress in the protection of migrants and refugees, the voluntary return of migrants and the reintegration process. Improving the humanitarian situation of migrants and dismantling trafficking and criminal networks remain top priorities in which the European Union continues to be a strong partner in the joint effort to save and protect the lives of people in need.
The three organizations will continue to work together in support of the countries of the Sahel region as well as other important issues in countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, the Central African Republic and Libya.
Building on the positive push of the working group, the three partners want to use this potential to strengthen their joint work not only in terms of migration but also in other areas such as youth investment with a focus on training, education, security and governance, etc.
To this end, the EU will increase support for scholarships and education programs in order to have more than 100,000 students benefiting from the Erasmus + program over the next ten years and 750,000 people will benefit from skills development training by 2020.
For the future, it is intended to monitor how to ensure the predictability, sustainability and flexibility of funding AU peacekeeping operations conducted by the AU and authorized by the Security Council.
Czech Republic and Slovakia - the joint acquisition of military equipment
Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis and his Slovak counterpart, Peter Pellegrini, have announced that the two countries will cooperate for joint purchases of weapons and military equipment. The fact that the Czech Republic produces armoured vehicles and Slovakia make artillery systems is a key element in focusing efforts on promoting defence cooperation between Member States. Moreover, Prime Minister Babis said that this format of in-depth cooperation could include Poland and Hungary. The Nexter Group in France and the Czech manufacturer Tatra Trucks jointly produce the TITUS armoured vehicle. The DMD Group in Slovakia manufactures the Zuzana 2 155 mm model self-propelled artillery howitzer.
Organized by the NATO Agency for Support and Acquisitions, the 5th of November 2018 edition of the Industry Day will take place in Capellen, Luxembourg.
The NATO's Alliance future for Surveillance and Control (AFSC) is a primary concern now that the AWACS is expected to be withdrawn in 2035 after 50 years of service.
Launched at the Warsaw Summit in 2016, the requirement to identify options for future NATO surveillance and control capacities was taken up in the following year by the North Atlantic Council which, together with the NATO Support and Acquisition Agency, the stage of conceiving future surveillance and control capabilities.
The NATO Agency, at this stage of conception, will work with the defence industry in NATO states to develop the initial concepts and feasibility studies for this project. The Agency also undertakes to include the defence industry from the outset of the process and to introduce its vision in the development of future surveillance and control capabilities. The resulting studies will contribute to the development of NATO, individual nations or multinational groups' decisions to acquire new systems before the AWACS fleet ends.
From this point of view, industry participation is crucial in defining options for future surveillance and control capabilities and the success of this concept.
(To participate, fill out an application form to be submitted by October 5 at afsc_industry_day@nspa.nato.int.)
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Food safety - From farm to fork
Sustainable development is a trend and goal in every industry. In food, the “farm-to-fork” clean agriculture model is also becoming an inexorable trend. Clean and organic food with clear origin and processed right after harvesting is increasingly popular nowadays.
VNA Saturday, December 19, 2020 21:11
Vietnam to work to ensure food security
Friday, December 04, 2020 11:24
Opportunities for Vietnam to penetrate Halal food market
Concerned about buying unclean food from the market, to actively create a clean food source this school invested in a 2.3-ha farm, growing fruit and vegetables and breeding livestock for its kitchen. All farming processes follow a closed-loop model that meets safety standards, providing fresh food and nutritious meals for more than 500 students.
With fields of more than 2,000 square meters organically growing a variety of vegetables, the school is entirely self-sufficient. This is also where students enjoy their extra-curricular activities.
From farm to fork has become a popular trend today. On 3.5 hectares, this unit has invested in producing clean vegetables in line with safety standards. Despite the difficulties in following the strict processes, it still strives for clean and safe food every day.
Figures show that, at present, all cities and provinces in Vietnam have developed a “from farm to fork” production chain. Experts said that to change people’s mindsets, it is necessary for related agencies to be fully involved.
A recent report showed that up to 86 percent of Vietnamese consumers prioritise organic products for their daily meals, because of safety and nutrition factors. Clean food, from farm to fork, contributes to product safety, thereby creating trust and confidence among consumers./.
Topics: 13th National Party Congress
National annual figure for labour productivity set to rise by over 7.5%
Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has recently issued a master plan aimed at improving productivity based on utilising science, technology, and innovation for the 2021 to 2030 period, under which the annual target for average labour productivity is expected to surge by over 7.5 % by 2030.
The COVID-19 pandemic has costed Khanh Hoa province a negative growth of 10.5% and budget collection shortage of over 25%. Tourism is the hardest hit sector in the locality. The locality has sped up several stimulus programmes to rock the market in the coming time.
Longan-shaped snack making village busy ahead Tet festival
As the Lunar New Year is approaching, Hoi Xuan village in Quan Hoa mountainous district in Thanh Hoa province, where is famous for making longan-shape snack, has been busier than ever.
Students produce bricks from plastic waste
Recycling is a particularly useful measure in cutting plastic waste. Let’s find out more about a recycling project in Ho Chi Minh City where a group of students have managed to produce building bricks from plastic waste.
Due to COVID-19, museums around the country have welcomed substantially fewer visitors. Da Nang, however, has introduced a policy of free entry to museums during all of 2021, which has encouraged a number of domestic travellers to visit the central coastal city and improved the local tourism sector.
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This Week's Cover: Johnny Depp goes mad for 'Alice in Wonderland'
Back in 2003, Johnny Depp famously panicked Disney executives with his whacked-out turn as Pirates of the Caribbean‘s Captain Jack Sparrow — only to have the character become an instant icon. For the upcoming 3-D Alice in Wonderland, opening March 5, Depp decided to dive even further down the rabbit hole with an orange-haired, green-eyed, nonsense-spouting take on Lewis Carroll's Mad Hatter. Alice is Depp's seventh collaboration with director Tim Burton, and anyone who's seen the other films they've made together — including Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory — knows they share a taste for, as Depp puts it, "the slightly left of center." Still, with this gonzo turn as the Hatter, Depp braced himself for a full-blown freakout in Disney's executive suites. "When we first went in to do the camera tests, I was thinking, ‘They're going to lose their minds,'" Depp recalls. "But Tim fully supported it. It was a couple of solid hours in the makeup chair everyday but it really helped. You start to understand who the guy is through all that weird kind of Carrot Top kabuki."
Alice marks Depp's first foray into the brave new world of 3-D filmmaking, but the actor (who admits he still hasn't seen Avatar) says he won't be able to fully appreciate that extra dimension. "I'm actually unable to see 3-D," he says. "I've got a weird thing where I don't see properly out of my left eye, so I truly can't see 3-D." Then again, he never likes watching himself onscreen anyway. "So I have an excuse this time," he says, laughing.
For more on Alice in Wonderland, plus an exclusive interview with Johnny Depp and Tim Burton about their 20-year partnership, pick up the new issue of Entertainment Weekly, on stands February 26th.
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Pereiaslav-Khmelnytskiy Folk Museum (UA)
Member of EXARC
Member of ICOM
At the ethnographic open-air museum in Pereiaslav-Khmelnytskiy (near Kyiv) you can find the wooden houses and places of worship of the 17th – 19th centuries as well as reconstructed buildings of earlier eras.
Open from
On the territory there are a numerous of museums (embroidery, ceremonies, transportation, bread, space, museum-mail, etc.). The museum is set in an open-air area of 30 hectares and includes many buildings, museums, churches, and a unique atmosphere. Here you can learn about how different segments of the population lived in the Ukraine in the old days. The museum is an important cultural and educational institutions to help assess the cultural heritage of the past, reveal traces of interference of cultures and see local history of the Middle Dnieper Region.
The construction of the open-air museum was launched in 1964. The area meets the conditions under which a settlement occurred in ancient times. The museum grounds contain remains of archaeological monuments (a Bronze Age mound, the remains of a settlement and burial ground of the Chernyakhivska Culture of the 2nd – 5th centuries and more). Nearby one can find the so-called dragon rolls (defensive structures from the 3rd and 4th century).
On the 30 hectares, 185 objects are located, including 104 monuments of folk architecture of the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, 20 yards of houses and outbuildings, 23 different settings and workshops, over 20 thousand works of folk art and implements, and household items collected in the forest-steppe zone of Ukraine. The museum is lined with tens of thousands of trees and shrubs, carefully maintained gardens and yards.
The museum also has several reconstructed dwellings from the Palaeolithic up to the Late Middle Ages. The Palaeolithic site reproduced in this museum was originally located on the left bank of the Supiy River belonging to a group of mammoth hunters from 15,000 BC. The frame of the hut is made of wooden poles, which are covered with skins of animals. The base of the hut is decorated with large mammoth bones, mainly skulls, which are inserted into the post holes. Storage pits were filled with bones and mammoth tusks. These places were used to make stone and bone tools. Next to huts one finds open fire places, around which flint tools were made.
The reconstructed Rus house from the 11th century is a single-chamber semi-dugout house sizing 3.8 x 4 meters. This residence was typical for old Pereiaslav. The walls are made of hewn pine logs in the technique of horizontal filling "in Shula." The gabled roof has a ridge and groove for water drainage. The interior is reconstructed. In the right corner a cob oven is placed. To the left, a plank bunk is made covering the grain supply. In the centre of the room an oak stump is turned into a table.
A manor from Kiev from the 10th century is built new here as well, an economic complex, created on the basis of two log cabins. The farmstead is fenced with a high palisade which includes houses and outbuildings. All structures are built of pine logs. The residence is two-chambered: chalet + canopy. The lower half of the residential logs are lying on the ground, propped up the corners of the vestibule oak risers. In the residential part, in the corner to the right of the door a cob oven is constructed. The interior exhibition uses authentic things from the 11th – 13th centuries from archaeological excavations, as well as from the ethnographic collection of the museum.
A Polovtsian sanctuary from the 12th – 13th century was reconstructed here as well. It is a rectangular area, lined with limestone recess with stone statues placed in the centre - two female and one male. The sculptures presented in the sanctuary are the most advanced and perfect type of this period. In the pit of the sanctuary one found animal bones of a horse, sheep and bull, a copper kettle and fragments of amphorae. These sanctuaries were built in honour of the patron of the ancestors.
Finally, the museum also shows a reconstruction of a 17th century Cossack outpost.
Text Source: Wikipedia
Photo: reconstructed dwelling from the 11th Century, Pereyaslav-Khmelnitsky district, Kyiv region, Жилище ХІ века, с. Сосновая, Переяслав-Хмельницкий район, Киевская область.
Аuthor: Uk-Kamelot - собственная работа, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2682160
Early Middle Ages
Late Middle Ages
Newest Era
Музей народної архітектури та побуту Середньої Наддніпрянщини
вул. Літописна, 2
Pereyaslav-Khmelnitsky
Kiev oblast
(+380) 4467.52936
Internet Presence:
http://www.niez-pereyasl…
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Last edited by Gardalmaran
Saturday, May 9, 2020 | History
1 edition of Twenty-first century macroeconomics found in the catalog.
Jonathan M. Harris
responding to the climate challenge
by Jonathan M. Harris
Published 2009 by Edward Elgar in Cheltenham, UK, Northampton, MA .
Macroeconomics,
Environmental aspects,
Economic development,
Statement edited by Jonathan M. Harris and Neva R. Goodwin
LC Classifications HD75.6 .T88 2009
Pagination xxii, 332 p. :
About Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty. Published in volume , issue 5, pages of American Economic Review, May , Abstract: In this article, I present three key facts about income and wealth inequality in the long run emerging from my book, Capital in the Twenty-First. I here provide a summary of Capital in the 21st Century by Thomas Piketty. The summary is broken into three parts by theme. The first part of the summary covers the Capital/Income ratio and the Capital Share of second part of the summary covers Income inequality and Wealth third part of the summary is about Inherited Wealth.I also provided a .
A book review of The Maoist Insurgency in Nepal: Revolution in the Twenty-First Century published in Journal of South Asian Development, October [Mahendra Lawoti and Anup Kumar Pahari (eds). Author: Chandan Sapkota. It is my hope and ambition to write a radical and revolutionary textbook with the theme: “Macro-economics for the twenty first century” which will re-create the field from scratch. In fact, every revolution builds upon the accomplishments of earlier revolutionaries – we reach heights by standing on the shoulders of our predecessors.
Macroeconomic theory has not yet come to grips with major issues of the twenty- first century. These include environmental pressures, demographic changes, . Teaches school college students how macroeconomics is studied and utilized inside the twenty first century. Macroeconomics is the first textual content material to actually mirror in the meanwhile’s macroeconomy.
Adventures of Byron and Max
Time-dependent behavior of a graphite/thermoplastic composite and the effects of stress and physical aging
Notes on an old Indian encampment
Learning the Korn shell
Right Honourable Sir John Eamer, Lord-mayor
Photographs and Haiku
Crossing boundaries
The possible lack of due discretion of adult children of alcoholics under canon 1095, 2
Selected chapters from modern English verb syntax
Welding HY100 and HY130 steels
Pharmaceutical Statistics, Fifth Edition
One Night with a Rogue (Zebra Historical Romance)
Native American Designs (International Design Library)
Live stock sanitary and veterinary laws, 1905
Deluxe street atlas of Eastern & Northern Ontario
Political thought since World War II
Twenty-first century macroeconomics by Jonathan M. Harris Download PDF EPUB FB2
Twenty-First Century Macroeconomics: Responding to the Climate Challenge [Harris, Jonathan M., Goodwin, Neva R.] on *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Twenty-First Century Macroeconomics: Responding to the Climate ChallengeFormat: Hardcover.
In this updated and revised edition of Post Keynesian Macroeconomic Theory, Paul Davidson explains how and why contemporary macroeconomic textbooks fail to incorporate Keynes's liquidity and financial analysis framework to explain the importance of money and financial markets in the real world of experience.
This important text develops Keynes's analytical Cited by: The authors and editors of this book challenge traditional assumptions about economic growth, and develop the elements of a reoriented macroeconomics that takes account both of environmental impacts and social equity.
Policies including carbon trading, revenue recycling, and reorientation of private and social investment are analyzed, providing insight into new paths for. Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Twenty-First Century Macroeconomics: Responding to the Climate Challenge (, Paperback) at the best online prices at eBay.
Free shipping for many products. Policies including carbon trading, revenue recycling, and reorientation of private and social investment are analyzed, providing insight into new paths for economic development with flat or negative carbon emissions. These issues will be crucial to macroeconomic and development policies in the twenty-first : $ Back to the future: a heterodox economist rewrites Keynes’s General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money to serve as the basis for a macroeconomics for the twenty-first century.
John Maynard Keynes’s General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money was the most influential economic idea of the twentieth century. But, argues Stephen Marglin, its radical implications. economics curricula. Macroeconomics is also the part of economics most often associated with the field by the general public.
For example, a few years ago, Daniel Bell and Irving Kristol edited a book titled The Crisis in Economic Theory;1 * Prepared for the conference on “Frontiers of the Mind in the Twenty-First Century,” Library of Congress,File Size: KB. COVID Resources. Reliable information about the coronavirus (COVID) is available from the World Health Organization (current situation, international travel).Numerous and frequently-updated resource results are available from this ’s WebJunction has pulled together information and resources to assist library staff as they consider how to handle.
Freakonomics: a book for unconventional thinkers and practical millenial economist; Macroeconomics "Capital in the Twenty-First Century" - a comprehensive master piece on world Economy and the reign of inequality; Why China has flatter business cycles than the US.
A new twist on the impact of technology on productivity and job growth. Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century This is one of those scholarly books that seem to end up being accidental cultural markers of time and place.
I'm pretty sure Piketty wanted his book to be read/discussed/debated, and Belnap/Harvard Press certainly wanted it to be bought.4/5(K). This is “An Emerging Consensus: Macroeconomics for the Twenty-First Century”, section from the book Macroeconomics Principles (v.
For details on it. Watch the next lesson: ?utm_source=YT&utm_med. “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” – a comprehensive master piece on world Economy and the reign of inequality.
Written by Koiner Filed under Best Selling Books / Textbooks & Reviews, EconGuru, Economics, History of Economics, International Economics, Macroeconomics.
Designed for a single-semester undergraduate course, this introductory economics textbook updates traditional macroeconomics to encompass twenty-first century concerns. In contrast to standard texts, the book starts with the question of human well-being, and then examines how economic activities can contribute to or detract from it."Macroeconomics in Context" covers.
Featured Book Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Thomas Piketty Paperback edition Reviewed by George Kasabov Contributing Writer.
In we reached the startling position where the world’s richest 8 individuals own more than the whole of the bottom half of the world population, over billion people, and this concentration of wealth is still accelerating.
Toward a Just Society brings together a range of essays whose breadth reflects how Stiglitz has shaped modern economics. The contributions to this volume, all penned by high-profile authors who have been guided by or collaborated with Stiglitz over the last five decades, span microeconomics, macroeconomics, inequality, development, law and.
Twenty-First Century Macroeconomics: Responding to the Climate Challenge The $ book (edited by Jonathan M. Harris, Director of the Theory and Education Program and Neva R. Goodwin, Co-Director of the Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University, and published by Edward Elgar) is a bit hard to characterize.
Economists could be far more effective if they read more novels. That is the striking claim of a new book by literary critic Gary Saul Morson and economist Morton Schapiro, Cents and Sensibility: What Economics Can Learn from the gh both authors value the insights of economics, particularly at the micro level, they believe something has gone.
The last two decades of the twentieth century brought progress in macroeconomic policy and in macroeconomic theory. The outlines of a broad consensus in macroeconomic theory began to take shape in the s. This consensus has grown out of the three bodies of macroeconomic thought that, in turn, grew out of the experiences of the twentieth century.
American journalist and author Thomas L. Friedman was so inspired by a trip to Bangalore, India, that he wrote the book The World Is Flat, A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century. In it, he. Back to the future: a heterodox economist rewrites Keynes's General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money to serve as the basis for a macroeconomics for the twenty-first Maynard Keynes's General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money was the most influential economic idea of the twentieth century.
But, argues Stephen Marglin, its radical implications .David Romer's Advanced Macroeconomics, 3e is the standard text and the starting point for graduate macro courses, and helps lay the groundwork for students to begin doing research in macroeconomics.Understanding macroeconomic developments and policies in the twenty-first century is daunting: policy-makers face the combined challenges of supporting economic activity and employment, keeping inflation low and risks of financial crises at bay, and navigating the ever-tighter linkages of globalization.
Many professionals face demands to evaluate the implications of developments .
gama-uk.com - Twenty-first century macroeconomics book © 2020
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NPPD still hopeful on infrastructure protection
Department of Homeland Security officials are hopeful that a plan will move ahead to put cybersecurity analysts from the Office of Infrastructure Protection next to physical security experts from the Federal Protective Service in the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center.
"I'm optimistic," Suzanne Spaulding, undersecretary for DHS' National Protection and Programs Directorate (NPPD), told FCW after a speech at the Homeland Security Law Institute on Aug. 25.
DHS officials have said the proposed combined Cyber Infrastructure Protection unit would address the troubling and looming threat of combined, or associated, cyber and physical attacks on facilities.
Spaulding told FCW that NPPD is gearing up to brief presidential transition teams on the reorganization and the reasoning behind it. She said she was encouraged by apparent support in Congress in the past few weeks.
At the Aspen Institute Security Forum in July, DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson said the fact that President Barack Obama linked the reorganization to his policy directive on cyber incident coordination, which defines responsibilities for the federal response to cyberattacks, would help the realignment's chances. However, there still has been no concrete progress.
In a panel discussion after Spaulding's speech, several lawyers for large corporations said the need for closer coordination of cyber and physical security has been apparent to industry for years.
Ira Raphaelson, former general counsel for the Las Vegas Sands Corp., said the company became aware of a threat to one of its buildings in a recently foiled Singapore missile attack via threatening posts on social media by one of the facility's employees.
A lawyer for a U.S. critical infrastructure company said his corporation found itself at the mercy of a disgruntled employee bent not only on wreaking havoc on its IT systems but also on its physical infrastructure.
Christopher Graham, assistant general counsel at Georgia-Pacific, said his company had to call in the FBI to help stop a cyber assault on a paper processing plant in Louisiana by an ex-employee.
Brian Johnson, a former IT specialist and systems administrator at Georgia-Pacific, was arrested in July 2015 for allegedly committing a weeklong assault on IT systems at the plant earlier that year. He had been fired only days before the attack began, Graham said, and had told friends that the company would regret it if he were ever fired.
In February, Johnson pleaded guilty to intentionally damaging a protected computer.
During the attack, Graham said the company lost control of IP addressing capabilities for many plant functions such as scheduling. Firewalls were breached, and passwords were changed for devices.
However, Graham said the attack became more than just an IT problem when the attacker gained access to and blocked the controls to a massive, potentially dangerous high-pressure paper dryer at the plant.
Graham told FCW that closer control of cyber and physical security is always a good thing. He said his company's chief information security officer has been working with the head of physical security for some time.
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Keeping It Faux-Real Case File #195: Ali G Indahouse
Nathan Rabin
I recently re-watched the first season of the American incarnation of Da Ali G Show in a rapt state. I am in awe of Sacha Baron Cohen. The depth and scope of his achievement is remarkable. For two incredible seasons in the United States, where he brought the show in 2003 after finding fame in the UK in the late ’90s, Cohen interviewed some of the most savvy people in the world under the pretense of being a weed-smoking, do-rag-sporting idiot named Ali G., all without them calling him out on being anything but what he professed to be. On Da Ali G Show, Cohen transformed the likes of Ralph Nader, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Buzz Aldrin, James Baker, and other luminaries into unwitting straight men for his masterful shtick.
It doesn’t take anything from Cohen’s achievement that Da Ali G Show was written by a staff that was always forced to think three or four steps ahead so they could anticipate what a guest might conceivably say. Of course the writers worked within certain parameters: They didn’t have to worry about, say, Marlon Fitzwater going off on a bizarre digression about elephants in Africa. But human beings are predictable only up to a point. So Cohen obviously had to improvise extensively. Even when he was using his writers’ material, he still had to access an impressive, vast database of quips and one-liners and deliver them so flawlessly that they appear to be the organic, real sentiments of a genuine idiot, not a chameleon playing one. All the while, Cohen was careful never to betray the manners, breeding, and intelligence that would mark him as a well-educated, upper-middle-class British Jew. Most impressively, Cohen was able to perform this dazzling mental and psychological mimicry opposite other human beings who had no idea what kind of idiocy might fall out of his mouth. That was the essence of Da Ali G Show—the exhilaration of the moment, that intoxicating sense that anything might happen.
The high-wire nature of Cohen’s act obscured the sometimes-hacky nature of his material. Cohen’s shenanigans as Ali G, Borat, or fashion reporter Brüno intermittently inspired a sort of double laugh. Viewers might laugh at the stupidity of Cohen-as-Ali G referring to the late Martin Luther King as Martin Luther Vandross, but they can also laugh at themselves for finding something so transparently stupid so funny. That’s the essence of Cohen’s Ali G shtick: It’s lowbrow humor, brilliantly and thoughtfully executed. Da Ali G Show only looks dumb, and where Sacha Baron Cohen is concerned, looks can be deceiving.
The exhilaration of the moment is missing entirely from 2002’s Ali G Indahouse, an ill-fated attempt to expand Cohen’s audience by transforming the title character from a sneaky secret satirist into a cuddly big-screen hero before he took his show to the United States. The film went straight to home video in the U.S., where it has sleepily been failing to pick up a cult over the past few years, in spite of all Cohen’s subsequent success.
Ali G Indahouse begins by removing everything that makes the character special. The interchange between the real and unreal that gave Da Ali G Show its transgressive thrill is gone. We’re now firmly in the land of make-believe. Ali G is no longer a fictional character in the real world having real conversations; everything is now fake, so the stakes are automatically lower.
Cohen set the bar so high for himself with Da Ali G Show that it almost feels like cheating when he’s surrounded by other actors. The danger is gone. It might be intimidating to act opposite Michael Gambon, but Gambon can hopefully be counted upon to read his lines and hit his marks. Even if he improvises, Cohen knows what to expect; the excitement of his in-character interviews came in part from one party not knowing they were half of an impromptu comedy team.
Ali G Indahouse inexplicably takes its protagonist away from his job in the media and makes him an instructor at a rec center where he teaches a class on “Keeping It Real” (his oft-repeated mantra) and big-ups his young charges for staying off crack for eight years, largely because they haven’t yet reached their eighth birthdays. Alas, the rec center is in danger of closing. Clearly only one thing can save it: a ragtag team of multicultural breakdancers winning the top prize at a climactic, film-closing dance-off. A ragtag team of multicultural breakdancers isn’t at hand, however, so Cohen stages a hunger strike to save the rec center, which brings him to the attention of a scheming politician played by Charles Dance.
Dance has Cohen run for MP of his hometown, and everything goes predictably wrong. “All the bitches in the house say ‘ho’,” he tells the denizens of a meeting of a feminist alliance. He rubs the woman behind an anti-bullying campaign the wrong way by antagonizing an overweight child. At a groundbreaking ceremony, he answers a call to “lay down a brick” by pulling down his pants and taking a dump. He behaves, in other words, in a manner unbecoming of an elected individual.
In a Hail Mary move seldom seen in political circles, Cohen tries to salvage a disastrous debate by accusing his opponent of sucking off a horse. In an astonishing coincidence, his opponent did end up on the business end of a horse’s cock after falling off the horse during a hunting trip, but it was all a simple misunderstanding. (Bestiality, incidentally, proves a recurring theme: at the beginning of the film, Cohen is awakened by his dog greedily lapping at his crotch.) Cohen’s opponent nevertheless quits in disgust, paving the way for Cohen’s paradigm-shifting victory. Cohen has somewhat astonishingly made a comedy about British politics wholly devoid of political satire.
Dance props Cohen up to hurt the popularity of Prime Minister Michael Gambon, who inexplicably takes a shine to the young moron and gives great credence to every bonehead thing he says. Cohen quickly, unbelievably becomes Gambon’s closest advisor. He even gets to bang his girlfriend in the Prime Minister’s bedroom, a plot point nearly as important to the film as Cohen’s rival having performed oral sex on a horse.
Cohen’s unlikely ascent gives the filmmakers a massive canvas to work with. They can take Cohen anywhere and have him do anything. Their powers and his are limitless. So what do the filmmakers do with Cohen’s new prominence as a man essentially given carte blanche to recreate his homeland however he sees fit? They have him watch lots of confiscated pornography alongside his friends get the UN high by slipping high-quality marijuana into its tea supply. Oh, and they get Charles Dance to say “I am a bell end… I like to take it up the batty. Yes, I do. It feel really nice and is me favorite. I used to be a girl and wear knicks. Honest. Ask me mum,” as if each successive word drives a spike deeper into his tortured cerebral cortex.
Oh, and they have Ali G. meet Borat for the anticlimax of the century.
There’s an impish subversion in having serious actors deliver such ridiculous material, but having an actor like Michael Gambon lustily play a scene where his comments about international politics are misinterpreted as interracial gay boasting by a horrified fancy soirée proves an empty victory. In its final act, Ali G Indahouse devolves into a strange comic caper film where Cohen and his buddies attempt to steal an incriminating tape from Dance. Martin Freeman of The Office plays Cohen’s best friend and sidekick; though he looks and acts like Cohen, he has all the authority and conviction of a small child dressed like Ali G for Halloween.
It’s never an encouraging sign when you can single out the laughs in a comedy. It’s even more discouraging when you can literally single out the only laugh-out-loud funny moment in a movie that aspires to do nothing more than wring some cheap laughs out of the public’s enduring amusement over dongs, weed, and the magic and mystery of the bathroom. Not coincidentally, Ali G Indahouse’s only funny line is also the only one that genuinely satirizes clueless middle-class white co-option of West Caribbean and American black culture: At the end of the movie, Cohen says of Dance, “He’s a criminal, and not even the good kind that sells drugs and does drive-bys.” In Borat, the title character’s ignorance helped expose the prejudices and preconceptions of those he encountered; here, the butt of the joke is invariably Cohen, or one of the interchangeable stuffed shirts. Indahouse never even aspires to satire. It sets the bar so low for itself that it almost can’t help but clear it.
I re-watched Ali G Indahouse with that profound disappointment endemic to experiences where extraordinarily talented people fail to live up to their potential. Cohen is reduced to playing a road-show Groucho Marx opposite an endless series of Margaret Dumonts just waiting to have their bourgeois sensibilities offended and their monocles shattered. Thankfully, Cohen is a smart enough man to have learned volumes from his mistakes here. The interplay between the real and the faux-real was back in Borat, and with it, Cohen’s singular genius.
Failure, Fiasco, or Secret Success: Failure
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Adolfo Celi Movie Posters
Welcome to the official Film/Art Gallery collection of original Adolfo Celi vintage movie posters from his critically acclaimed catalog of timeless cinematic performances.
Adolfo Celi was born on July 27th, 1922 in Curcuraci, Messina, Sicily. Celi was an Italian actor and director who appeared in almost 100 movies, specializing in international villains. He was internationally known for playing Emilio Largo in the 1965 James Bond film Thunderball, but he was already a prominent actor in the Italian film industry.
The Italian filmmaker became an actor in post-war Italy and left the Italian film industry when he moved to Brazil. In Brazil, he co-founded the Teatro Brasileiro de Comédia together with Paulo Autran and Tônia Carrero in São Paulo, Brazilian stage greats. In Argentina and Brazil, Adolfo Celi became a successful stage actor. He also directed three films in the 1950s in South America including Tico-Tico no Fubá, a Brazilian hit in 1952. He changed his career trajectory when he played the villain in That Man from Rio by Philippe de Broca. The film’s popularity led him to another role as camp commandant Battaglia in the drama Von Ryan’s Express, in which Celi featured with Frank Sinatra and Trevor Howard. This led him to his breakout role in Thunderball. Adolfo Celi is also known internationally as one of the villains, Ralph Valmont, in the action thriller Danger: Diabolik by Mario Brava. The Italian actor and director appeared as a protagonist in some comedy films in Italy like Brancaleone alle Crociate and Amici Miei, and in mini-series like Petrosino and La Baronessa di Carini. He was fluent in many languages, including Spanish, English, French, German and Portugues. Adolfo Celi passedd in Siena in 1986 due to a heart attack.
Film/Art Gallery’s collection of original Adolfo Celi movie posters includes first release Italian Locandina (13x28) poster for the Thunderball James Bond 007 film, starring Sean Connery. Our Adolfo Celi poster collection also includes a 1970 re-release poster in 1 Sheet (27x41).
Film/Art Gallery movie posters are original prints and film poster collectibles. These are original movie posters. We do not carry any movie poster reproductions or reprints of any kind.
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David Duke Net Worth 2020 – How Much is he Worth?
Published on May 27, 2020 June 4, 2020
David Duke is an American activist, and a white nationalist politician, as well as an anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist. He is a convicted felon and a former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.
He was born on July 1, 1950 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to David Hedger Duke Sir and Alice Maxine. His father worked for the Shell Oil Company. The family often had to move due to his work. They even lived in the Netherlands for a period. They finally settled in Louisiana.
Once there, Duke met William Luther Pierce, the leader of a white nationalist group and became a good friend with him. Pierce influenced his views on the world. In 1967, Duke became a full member of the Ku Klux Klan. He also enrolled into the Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.
While working for the White Youth Alliance, he met a beautiful girl named Chloe Eleanor Hardin, a prominent member of the group. They had a relationship during college, and married each other in 1974. They have two daughters, Erika and Kristin Duke. The pair divorced in 1984, after which Chloe moved to West Palm Beach in Florida to be close to her parents. She eventually married Don Black, a member of Duke Klan. David lived in Moscow, Russia for five years after this, starting in 1999.
Img source: usmagazine.com
Career and Achievements
In 1972, Duke was detained in New Orleans for provoking a mutiny. Three years alter in 1975, he ran for a political seat for the first time, in Louisiana. He was unsuccessful, after which in 1979 he competed as a Republican for a seat at the tenth district senate. Again, he was not that successful, but never gave up. In 1988, he entered the race for the Democratic presidential primaries, and again failed. Duke tends to switch sides between parties at the first sign of trouble. His Twitter account was suspended because of offensive tweets that marginalize or attempt to divide races. He wrote several publications that did relatively well. His biggest success in politics were the populist nomination for the president of the United States of America, and a nomination for the Senator of Louisiana.
Img source: politico.com
David Duke’s has net worth is estimated to be over $600,000. He accumulated his wealth mainly from politics. He was a member of the Democratic Presidential primaries, which earned him money and publicity. He also earned during his race for the 10th District Senate seat. Although very controversial as a politician, he did found himself on some high positions. His determination is to be admired, but his motifs and believes are questionable.
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Commemorating Evita’s Centennial – A Life Dedicated to the Fight for Social Justice
Latin AmericaArgentinaHeadline News
By FRN Editorial Board Last updated May 8, 2019
Published on: May 7, 2019 @ 20:20 – María Eva Duarte de Perón was born on May 7, 1919 in the city of Los Toldos, Argentina. Beloved by the humble and hated by the oligarchy, Evita dedicated her life to the struggle for social justice. Better known as Evita, she was one of the most influential figures in Argentine politics. The wife of former President Juan Domingo Perón, she knew how to win the love of the people and sow an indelible legacy in the South American nation.
Evita was known for her love towards the humblest, not only in speech but through action. In 1946, shortly after Perón assumed the presidency, the Sociedad de Beneficiencia, an institution monopolized by women belonging to the oligarchy, refused to accept Eva Perón as its honorary president. The Society, based on the concept of alms and charity, was replaced to open the way to social justice. In 1948, the Eva Duarte de Perón Foundation began to function, with the aim of contributing to a decent life for the most vulnerable sectors. Not only food, clothing and toys for children were delivered, but also the construction of homes, nursing homes, polyclinics, recreational centers and homes for single mothers who came to Buenos Aires from the provinces in search of work. There Evita had an active role, cooperating in activities and in constant interaction with the people.
The struggle of women for the right to vote goes back to the beginning of the 19th century. However, it was not until 1947 when Perón’s government issued Law 13,010 that enshrined the female vote in Argentina. Since the general became president, Evita took the campaign for the right to women to vote.
“The Argentine woman has passed the period of civil guardianships, the woman must affirm her action, the woman must vote, the woman, the moral spring of her home, must occupy the place in the complex social gears of the people; Newly organized in more extended and rejuvenated groups, ” said Evita in her first political speech at 26 years of age. Argentine women voted for the first time in the presidential elections of 1951.
Evita expressed her love to the humblest, to the working class forgotten by the oligarchic governments that historically exercised power in Argentina. One example is the message she gave to the people on Christmas night in 1951:
“There can be no love where there are exploiters and exploited, there can not be love where there are dominant oligarchies full of privileges and dispossessed and miserable peoples, because the exploiters could never be nor feel themselves the brothers of their exploited, and no oligarchy could be given to any people with the sincere embrace of fraternity.”
The centenary of the birth of Eva Perón will have, in addition to acts with political symbolism in electoral times, several cultural events, both in the Evita Museum and in the Book Fair.
A hundred years after the birth of Eva Duarte de Perón , social organizations, trade unions and Argentine politics will pay tributes on Tuesday with different activities that will include talks, exhibitions and artistic performances.
If she had not lost the battle against cancer at the young age of 33, Eva Perón, eternal first lady of Argentina and forever known as Evita, would on Tuesday be celebrating a century of life. But her physical absence, far from taking her legacy to oblivion, has only served to engender a political and social myth in the whole world.
The centenary of the birth of Eva Perón will see, besides events with political symbolism in these electoral times, several cultural events, both in the Evita Museum (Buenos Aires neighborhood of Palermo) and in the Book Fair that takes place in the premises of the Rural Society , In Buenos Aires city.
Considered the Spiritual Chief of the Nation, Perón dedicated her life to provide help to the most needy – such as the elderly, sole mothers and children – through the Eva Perón Foundation and the Feminist Peronist Party.
10 sayings of Eva Perón for Argentina
“I did not let myself take the soul I brought from the street, so I was never dazzled by the greatness of power and I could see their misery, that’s why I never forgot the miseries of my people and I could see their greatness.” –
“I know that you will pick up my name and take it as a flag to victory” –
“Where a need exists, a right is born.” –
“I confess that I have an ambition, a single and great personal ambition: I would like the name of Evita to appear at some time in the history of my country, and I would feel duly compensated if the note ended in this way: Of that woman we only know that the people called her, affectionately, Evita. “-
“A women’s movement in a world without social justice would be worthless.” –
“We want a peaceful, powerful and sovereign Argentina and a united and happy mass of workers like no other in the world, we want the welfare of the workers, the dignity of the humble and the greatness of this country that Perón has given us and that we all must defend as the most just, the freest and the most sovereign on Earth. “-
“He whose heart bleeds for the needy, is he who has to run and give, without delay.” –
“Only the fanatics, who are idealistic and sectarian, do not give themselves. The cold, the indifferent, should not serve the people, they can not serve it even if they want to.”
“All we have to do is acquire full awareness of the power we have and never forget that nobody can do anything without the people, that no one can do anything that the people do not want, it is enough for the people to decide to take for themselves their destines! Everything else is a matter of facing fate. “-
“Now, if you ask me what I prefer, my response would soon come out of me: I like my nick-name better.” When a kid names me “Evita,” I feel like the mother of all the kids and all the weak and humble of my land. a worker calls me Evita I feel with pleasure the companion of all men. “-
Translated by and for FRN from Telesur
ArgentinaEva PeronEvitaJusticialismPeronismsyncretismworking class
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Home » News and Blog » Indiana and RFRA: A Glimpse of Post-Christian America
Indiana and RFRA: A Glimpse of Post-Christian America
The United States of America, founded by Christians on a legal system (common law) rooted in the Old and New Testaments and institutions (military in particular) based on same, has sustained a seismic shift of foundation beginning in the middle of the 20th Century. Today the recent upheaval in Indiana and Arkansas, whose governments passed state versions of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), has given Christians a glimpse of the hostility that awaits them in a nation now considered post-Christian.
The gay rights movement, in concert with their allies in state governments (Washington, Connecticut), academia (NCAA), and corporate America (Angie’s List, NASCAR, Google, Starbucks, Apple), attacked Indiana and Arkansas with overwhelming fury. While it did not help that Gov. Mike Pence (R-IN) fumbled in his interview with George Stephanopoulos, his performance would not have mattered: the backlash was so severe that the legislatures of Indiana and Arkansas backtracked and passed weakened versions of what was already a benign RFRA law.
I’m not going to focus on the particulars of the RFRA laws; at this point, that is a secondary issue. Even then, small businesses are hardly out of the woods on this. More on that later.
If you are a Christian, you need to pay serious attention to what just happened in Indiana and Arkansas.
Corporate America is not on your side.
Many Americans suffer from the illusion that Big Business leans conservative. In fact, Big Business is completely on board with Progressive government agendas.
(Planned Parenthood has many corporate donors spanning all sectors of the economy, and the Human Rights Campaign—which has spearheaded the efforts to redefine marriage to include gays—has a vast corporate base of support including IBM, BP, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Credit Suisse, Dell Computers, Morgan Stanley, Pepsico, Shell, Starbucks, Google, Bank of America, Delloite, Ernst and Young, Lexus, Prudential, Apple, Citi, American Airlines, The Coca Cola Company, Microsoft, Northrop Grumman, and Nationwide.)
Homosexuals, as a demographic group, have very high per capita income, and represent many high achievers in the corporate world. Ditto for feminists, who have been climbing the corporate ladder for decades. Moreover, corporations often embrace government “diversity” standards in return for lucrative government contracts (some of which are “no-bid”).
In the government world, “diversity” is about mass re-education—promoting a leftist social agenda—and not about equitable race relations.
Big Business also has an economic incentive to support the sodomy agenda: it crushes small businesses. Yes, you read that correctly: the gay agenda crushes small businesses.
For one thing, any small business that refuses to bow to the sodomy lobby is going to face litigation in a hostile court system. Hiring a legal team and fighting court battles is not value-added activity, and many small businesses will lack the resources to fight those battles. And while RFRA provides some protection—the verbiage is exactly the standard that allowed Hobby Lobby to prevail with SCOTUS—there are still many particulars that the gay lobby is anxious to test in court. Small businesses are going to be ground zero in that fight.
If you own a bakery and refuse to cater a gay “wedding”, you are still at risk of being sued. While RFRA appears to be on your side, that is no guarantee that the federal court system won’t decide that the “compelling government interest” test requires you to cater the wedding. And fighting that battle requires money, which leads me to…
Secondly, corporations have the economies of scale to handle the non-value-added activity of managing Human Resources (HR) policy, often at the direction of in-house legal counsel. If you’re a mom-and-pop shop that ekes out a marginal profit, you cannot afford that, and the big corporations know it. If the sodomites drive you out of business, then that’s good for the big businesses.
That dynamic is, in point of fact, the essence of the old-school Fascism of Mussolini’s Italy and the National Socialism that Germans embraced in the wake of their economic collapse.
If you work in corporate America, your job is not safe.
The corporate backlash against Indiana is very instructive; when have corporations ever made such waves against benign laws? Angie’s List canceled a planned expansion in Indiana; Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple Computers, penned an op-ed denouncing RFRA laws; Google, Microsoft, and even NASCAR released statements affirming the “LGBT” community and opposing the Indiana RFRA law.
If you work for a corporation, then you’d better trod very carefully. This is a perfect opportunity to be wise as a serpent. If you haven’t studied Proverbs in a while, then this is a good time to get re-acquainted with it. As you do, I will admonish you as a friend once admonished me when I was in a crisis: Keep your eyes and ears open, and your mouth shut. Pick your battles wisely, and prepare for the worst.
If you’ve ever given money to a cause that supports historical marriage, then you could be a target. Brandon Eich, whose record at Mozilla was stellar, was forced to resign his post as CEO. After a gay activist employee outed Eich for giving money in support of California’s Proposition 8, his board wouldn’t support him: he was done.
Even if you’re not an officer of a company, you’re still fair game. When layoffs become necessary, the HR department may put you at the top of the pecking order. Even if you are in a union-protected job, the union might cut a deal and throw you under the bus. You may find yourself passed over for promotions and pay raises.
If you belong to a church or religious group that defines homosexuality as sin, then you could be a target. All it will take is one activist who baits you into expressing your views, after which you could be at risk of termination for “promoting a hostile work environment.” It will not matter if your prior job evaluations are sterling. Just ask Lt. Cmdr Wes Modder, a Navy Chaplain whose latest evaluation rated him “the best of the best”, who now risks being drummed out of the service—short of his 20 year retirement—all because he stuck to the Biblical understanding of sexuality. His great performance and respect among his peers does him nothing; he’s still being targeted because he won’t click his heels and bow to the sodomy lobby.
While the anti-Christian tide in America pales in comparison to the slaughter of Christians at the hands of ISIS, Boko Haram, and the Muslim Brotherhood, make no mistake: Christians in America are facing marginalization on the home front, and that situation is getting more—not less—hostile.
Just as ISIS is destroying Christian artifacts and relics and churches in the Middle East, the secular left in America is destroying every vestige of Christianity that made America exceptional.
This is a time for sobriety among the Christians of America. The same country that won the Cold War—because of the Christian—is now embracing the very secularist agenda that has led to barbarism on scales that would have made Ghengis Khan blush, all at a time when the Islamic world is advancing against the West.
It is on the Christian to provide the answer to the Islamist and the Secularist.
While the penalty for doing so will be costly, the penalty for silence will be magnitudes worse.
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Instagram & Your Content: The Legal Stuff
Sharing content with the world every day is fun. You interact with people all over the world, you see parts of the globe that you wouldn’t have seen, and you get glimpses into other people’s lives. All through the magic of smart devices and the Internet.
But to be able to do this, you partake in the use of social media. You sign up for accounts on the platforms of your choice, and you fill in your personal details. You’ve freely given tech companies info that market research companies would have struggled to come by only 15 years ago.
That’s where the unnerving part of social media captures imaginations. Questions like “who owns my information?”, “what are they doing with it?”, “does the platform own my content?” make uneducated users rather nervous about what they’ve agreed to without reading any documents.
I’m only going to discuss images here, but this does apply to captions that you write, as well as any other original writing that you post to social media (eg, status updates).
Here’s what you need to know. When you snap a photo with your phone, camera, or any device that can take a photo, you immediately own the copyright to that image, without needing to file a copyright claim.
There is a doctrine that exists in the United States called the Fair Use Doctrine. This allows for the fair use and distribution of content. For example, visitors to a blog can share blog posts to their social networks or email the URL to their friends without requiring permission from the owner of the content. Social media users can share images and memes. If you’re writing a book review, you can quote sections from the book you’re reviewing. At the end of this post, I’ve linked an easy-to-understand article on Fair Use written by Rich Stim.
I’m allowed to share this image of this gorgeous daxie without asking permission to do so. I’m not taking credit for the image, and I’m making it clear as to the source and the original owner. I’m doing this to illustrate my point, as well as because he’s such a handsome boy, and this post is hugely improved with the presence of a daxie photo.
Ahhh just another lazy Monday for me! 🙃🙃🐾🐾
A post shared by Monty the Mini Dachshund (@montyminidachshund) on Jun 5, 2017 at 2:22am PDT
Creating and using an Instagram account means that you’ve agreed to Instagram’s Terms of Use. This is a hugely complicated document that’s approximately 7 printed pages long. Most people don’t scroll past the first screen of text and merely click “Accept”. Understandable because these terms and conditions are boring to read, and aren’t written in terms that the average person using Instagram would understand.
I’ll highlight the most relevant parts of the Terms of Use for now, and then explain it in simpler terms. Disclaimer: I’m not a lawyer and have no experience with intellectual property. My explanation isn’t complete or exhaustive, nor does it include all the interpretations of the text. My explanation here is merely to help you begin to understand parts of the Terms of Use document.
Extract from Instagram’s Terms of Use:
“Instagram does not claim ownership of any Content that you post on or through the Service. Instead, you hereby grant to Instagram a non-exclusive, fully paid and royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable, worldwide license to use the Content that you post on or through the Service, subject to the Service’s Privacy Policy…”
When you create an Instagram account, Instagram doesn’t own your content – meaning you own the copyright to your images. However, you grant Instagram a license to use your content in any way they like, including selling your images to third parties. This license is non-exclusive, meaning you can license your images to another party as well. The license is fully paid and royalty-free, meaning that Instagram doesn’t pay you anything for the license, nor will it have to pay you anything for the license in the future. “Transferrable, sub-licensable” means that Instagram can give your license to any third party, and that they can sell a sub-license to any third party without paying you for it, because as mentioned above, the license is royalty-free.
Another extract from Instagram’s Terms of Use:
The Service contains content owned or licensed by Instagram (“Instagram Content”). Instagram Content is protected by copyright, trademark, patent, trade secret and other laws, and, as between you and Instagram, Instagram owns and retains all rights in the Instagram Content and the Service. You will not remove, alter or conceal any copyright, trademark, service mark or other proprietary rights notices incorporated in or accompanying the Instagram Content and you will not reproduce, modify, adapt, prepare derivative works based on, perform, display, publish, distribute, transmit, broadcast, sell, license or otherwise exploit the Instagram Content.
Instagram has licensed the content on the platform (as explained earlier), and that content is protected by copyright and other laws. Instagram owns and keeps all rights to the content as well as to the service it provides. You agree not to remove, change or hide any trademark attached to content on the platform. You also won’t copy, distribute, or exploit the content on the platform.
This inherently has a lot of grey area attached to it, so in my next post, I’ll be discussing how to share content on other accounts.
Resources and further reading:
Instagram Terms of Use
Instagram Policy
Articles about Instagram’s Terms of Service/Terms of Use
https://qz.com/878790/a-lawyer-rewrote-instagrams-terms-of-service-for-kids-now-you-can-understand-all-of-the-private-data-you-and-your-teen-are-giving-up-to-social-media/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/parenting/wp/2017/01/08/a-lawyer-rewrote-instagrams-terms-of-use-in-plain-english-so-kids-would-know-their-privacy-rights/?utm_term=.512af8be2fd0
https://petapixel.com/2016/12/07/lawyer-digs-instagrams-terms-use/
Melissa Javan on Jun 16, 2017 at 8:32 am
Nice! We take for granted those T&Cs.
Melissa on Jun 17, 2017 at 7:07 am
I know :/ I’m also guilty of scrolling past and just clicking “accept”. And software companies know that we do this 🙂
kirsty-rose on Jun 16, 2017 at 6:01 pm
This was really helpful and definitely something that I have been thinking about for a while now! Thank you 🙂
Hi Kirsty!
I’m so glad you found the info useful 🙂
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Home /McDonald’s ordering kiosks have a major flaw, making them unusable for large number of customers
Business NewsNovember 13, 2019
McDonald’s ordering kiosks have a major flaw, making them unusable for large number of customers
McDonald’s Corp. has pitched self-ordering kiosks as a key part of its plans to boost sales by improving technology and renovating restaurants. But it turns out the kiosks aren’t usable by a significant slice of McDonald’s customers: cash payers.
The Big Mac seller is leaning hard into digital ordering and technology improvements to attract on-the-go customers, but a recent test shows the kiosks may need to be replaced or retrofitted to accommodate cash transactions. About 6.5 per cent — or 8.4 million — of U.S. households don’t have a bank account or a debit or credit card, preventing them from using McDonald’s kiosks that are in about 9,000 domestic locations.
That’s problematic for the company because franchisees have been bearing much of the cost for renovations that include the kiosks and creating a more modern look. Many restaurant owners have already having paid as much as US$750,000 per store for the kiosks and other improvements.
“As part of McDonald’s efforts to identify the best experience for customers and employees, we are always testing new approaches to meet customer demand,” the company said in an emailed statement. It confirmed it’s testing kiosks that accept cash in a “small handful of U.S. restaurants.”
New Initiative
The kiosks, which started being used in the U.S. in 2015, quickly became a focus of recently departed Chief Executive Officer Steve Easterbrook, who said last month that touchscreen ordering is increasing worldwide. He noted that diners usually spend more when ordering via kiosk, and said in July that 40 per cent of in-store customers used one in Australia and major European markets.
“Potentially the franchisee could have to pay,” said John Gordon, principal at restaurant adviser Pacific Management Consulting Group. He called the oversight for the kiosks a “mistake” and said the world’s biggest restaurant company “should have thought about that.”
He estimates that 30 per cent of fast-food customers use cash in the U.S. McDonald’s says that worldwide, 40 per cent to 60 per cent of its diners use cash.
“Lower income people just don’t have access to credit cards; they’re paying with a lot of things in cash,” Gordon said. “Why should they not have the same access to personalization, or to get in and out quickly if there’s a line?”
Lower income people just don’t have access to credit cards; they’re paying with a lot of things in cash
John Gordon, principal at restaurant adviser Pacific Management Consulting Group
McDonald’s says the kiosks offer a faster ordering experience and that some cash-paying customers have said they want to be able to use them.
Cashless restaurants, including Dos Toros Taqueria, have faced criticism that they discriminate against low-income consumers who may not have bank accounts. Amazon.com Inc.’s Go grocery markets and the Sweetgreen salad chain reversed their no-cash policies earlier this year.
Cities and states are starting to ban cashless stores. Philadelphia and San Francisco have such rules in place now and other municipalities are weighing similar measures.
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MilitaryMoneyUS News
The U.S. Government Is Spending $400,000 On A Single Helmet
Michael Snyder October 28, 2015
Would you pay $400,000 for a single helmet? Of course you wouldn’t – but that is precisely what the U.S. government is doing. Just the helmet for the pilot of the new F-35 Lightning II is going to cost taxpayers nearly half a million dollars. And since we are going to need 2,400 of those helmets, the total bill is going to end up approaching a billion dollars. But what is a billion dollars between friends, eh?
Sadly, our military has a very long history of wasting money like this. Back in the 1980s, the “six hundred dollar toilet seat” became quite famous. Average Americans were absolutely outraged that the government was wasting so much of our hard-earned money, and promises were made that things would change. Here is more on what transpired back then from Wikipedia…
Beginning in 1981, President Ronald Reagan began an expansion in the size and capabilities of the United States armed forces, which entailed major new expenditures on weapons procurement. By the mid-1980s, this spending became a scandal when the Project On Government Oversight reported that the Pentagon had vastly overpaid for a wide variety of items, most notoriously paying $435 for a hammer, $600 for a toilet seat, and $7,000 for a coffee pot.
But of course things haven’t changed, have they?
Instead, they have gotten even worse.
I have no idea how a single helmet could be worth $400,000.
Does it grant magic wishes?
Does it turn the user into a mutant superhero?
Here is an excerpt from the USA Today article that is reporting on this super expensive helmet…
When the joint strike fighter, the F-35 Lightning II, finally takes to the skies on its first official mission, it will be one of the most advanced and one of the most expensive planes ever.
And the pilots flying the aircraft will be wearing the most advanced and most expensive helmet ever.
The helmet will give pilots quicker access to the information they need to see and has special cameras to “see” through the bottom of the plane. But it will cost an estimated $400,000 per helmet — more than four times as much as the Air Force paid for head wear for other aircraft such as the F-16.
Is that why the helmet is so expensive?
It can help the pilot see through the bottom of the plane?
If you just go down to your local Ford dealer they will be glad to show you lots of new trucks that can “see behind them,” and the best truck on the lot only costs about $50,000.
Or better yet, if F-35 pilots really want to see what is going on underneath them they should just slap a window on the bottom of the plane.
Of course I am just being facetious, but I think that you get the point.
We all work really hard for our money, and it is quite disheartening to watch the government waste it so flippantly.
And this week the Republicans in Congress have agreed to suspend the debt ceiling for the rest of the time that Barack Obama is in the White House. In one of his final acts as House Speaker, John Boehner has given Barack Obama a wonderful parting gift…
Outgoing House Speaker John Boehner presented his newly forged budget deal to his Republican colleagues at a private meeting this morning, outlining his plan to avert another government shutdown and raise the debt ceiling as a parting gift to his successor.
The deal would increase federal spending by $80 billion over two years and raise the federal borrowing limit through 2017. The 144-page bill, which was released Monday shortly before midnight, was welcomed by Democrats who have been pushing for budget negotiations all year.
Thank you John Boehner for selling us all down the river time after time. You have done a great disservice to our nation.
This new budget agreement is actually going to significantly increase spending. Here are some more of the details from the New York Times…
For this fiscal year alone, the deal would add $50 billion in spending, divided equally between defense and domestic programs, as well as $16 billion for emergency war spending, half for the military, half for the State Department. Together, that represents an increase of $66 billion in the spending limits for 2016, not far off the $70 billion increase Mr. Obama requested in his budget.
Personally, I can’t wait to see how much of that 16 billion dollars is for lethal military aid for Ukraine. Many of you that have been following this closely know exactly what I am talking about.
Of course this budget deal still must be approved by Congress, but that is just a formality at this point. Many “conservatives” in Congress are voicing displeasure with this deal, but is anyone listening? The following comes from Business Insider…
Conservatives moved quickly to revolt over a blockbuster budget deal reached among congressional leaders and the White House early Tuesday morning, calling it a “betrayal” days before US House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is set to leave Congress.
“This budget deal is a betrayal of all the fiscally conservative promises Republicans made in the last election. It is emblematic of why working-class Americans are angry with congressional Republicans,” said prominent right-leaning economist Stephen Moore, in a statement released by the conservative group FreedomWorks.
The Tea Party is supposed to be standing against the tax and spend agenda of the Democrats and the establishment Republicans, but enthusiasm for the Tea Party seems to be subsiding. In fact, according to Gallup support for the Tea Party has hit an all-time low of 17 percent.
So we will just continue to witness business as usual in D.C. until disaster strikes. At this point it is expected that somewhere around 100 Republicans in the House will support this deal, and with all of the Democrats on board that should be enough to get it to pass.
Since Boehner reached his first “budget deal” with Barack Obama back in 2011, the U.S. national debt has increased by $3,970,023,503,348.07. It is a betrayal of a magnitude that is difficult to put into words.
Overall, the federal government has been stealing 100 million dollars from future generations of Americans every single hour of every single day since Barack Obama first entered the White House.
When I tell most people that, I can tell that they don’t really believe me, and truthfully that statistic does sound completely and utterly ridiculous.
But it is true.
When you multiply 100,000,000 by 24 by 365 you get 876,000,000,000. And if you multiply that number by 7 (the number of years that Obama has “served” so far rounding up), you get 6.132 trillion.
Well, according to CNSNews.com the U.S. national debt has risen by more than seven and a half trillion dollars since Barack Obama was first inaugurated…
Since Obama took office, the total debt of the federal government has already increased by $7,525,761,885,381.30—rising from $10,626,877,048,913.08 on Jan. 20, 2009 to $18,152,638,934,294.38 on Oct. 23, 2015.
When you break that number down, the amount of new debt added under Obama comes to $64,134.73 per household…
The $7,525,761,885,381.30 that the total debt has increased so far during the Obama presidency equals $64,134.73 for each of the 117,343,000 households that were in the United States as of June.
Are you ready to cough up your share?
The truth is that it is already mathematically impossible for the U.S. government to pay off this debt.
What our politicians are attempting to do now is to keep borrowing money and extending the game for as long as they possibly can.
If that sounds like a really bad plan to you, that is because it is a really bad plan.
What our leaders have done to future generations of Americans is beyond criminal. But the American people have come to accept this as “normal,” and only a very small percentage of us are still complaining about it.
So the jokers in Washington will just keep on doing what they are doing until it all comes tumbling down all around them. By then, it will be far too late to do anything about it.
Take a look at the future of America: The Beginning of the End and then prepare.
michael snydermilitarymoney
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Michael T. Snyder is a graduate of the University of Florida law school and he worked as an attorney in the heart of Washington D.C. for a number of years. Today, Michael is best known for his work as the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog. Michael and his wife, Meranda, believe that a great awakening is coming and are working hard to help bring renewal to America. Michael is also the author of the book The Beginning Of The End
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Knisely-Southerland, Kris
knisely@email.arizona.edu
Office Modern Languages 549C1
Spring 2021: On leave, by appointment only.
krisknisely.wordpress.com
Dr. Kris Aric Knisely (he/they) is Assistant Professor of French and Intercultural Competence in the Department of French and Italian at the University of Arizona. He is also a faculty member of the Secold Language Acquisition and Teaching (SLAT) Graduate Interdisciplinary Program and is a member of the Trans Studies Research Cluster (TSRC).
He completed his PhD in French and Educational Studies at Emory University in 2015 and then served as Assistant Professor of French and the Program Director for French and Francophone Studies at the University of South Dakota from 2015 to 2018 before coming to UA.
His primary line of research focuses on gender identity and sexual orientation in Second Language Acquisition (SLA). In a secondary line of research, he explores educational technology and teacher education as they relate to language education. Dr. Knisely has published in the fields of applied linguistics, CALL, cultural studies, education, and measurement. You can find details for many of his publications both here and below.
His current project investigates the linguistic practices of gender non-binary speakers of French, building on his previous work on learner identities and gendered language attitudes. The primary objective of this project is to describe how non-binary gender identities can be expressed in a grammatically binary language in order to develop a set of best practices for supporting non-binary students of French as a second language.
Dr. Knisely has a broad range of teaching interests including French language, linguistics, intercultural communication, gender and sexuality, and education, among others.
Knisely, K. (Forthcoming 2021). L/G/B and T: Queer Excisions, Entailments, and Intersections. In J. Piaz & J. Coda (Eds.) Intersectional Perspectives on LGBTQ+ Issues in Language Teaching and Learning. Palgrave Macmillan.
Knisely, K. (Forthcoming 2021). A Starter Kit for Rethinking TGNC Representation and Inclusion in French L2 Classrooms. In N. Meyer & E. Hoft-March (Eds.) Teaching Diversity and Inclusion: Examples from a French-Speaking Classroom. Routledge.
Knisely, K. (Forthcoming 2021). Teaching trans: The Impetus for trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming inclusivity in L2 classrooms. In K. Davidson, S. Johnson, & L. Randolph (Eds.) How We Take Action: Social Justice in K-16 Language Classrooms. Information Age.
Knisely, K. (2021). Le français non-binaire: linguistic forms used by non-binary speakers of French. Foreign Language Annals. 53(4). https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/flan.12500
Knisely, K. (2020). Subverting the culturally unreadable: Understanding the self-positioning of non-binary speakers of French. The French Review. 94(2), 149-168.
Knisely, K. and Gorham, J. (2019). Systems in Need of Activism: Considering the Effects of Segregation and Policy on French and U.S. Primary and Secondary Education. The Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association.
Knisely, K. (2018). Intégration des réseaux sociaux dans les cours de langue: justifications et mises en garde. The French Review. 92(1), 97-111.
Knisely, K. and Wind, S. (2017). Developing a Survey to Explore Sense of Belongingness related to Language Learning Using Rasch Measurement Theory. Pensamiento Educativo. 54(2), 1-20.
Knisely, K. (2017). Exploring the role of culture in the formation of French language ideologies among US post-secondary students. Contemporary French Civilization 42(2), 189-210.
Knisely, K. (2016). Language Learning and the Gendered Self: The Case of French and Masculinity in a US Context. Gender and Language 10(2), 216-239.
Zorko, D., Alkhas, A. and Knisely, K. (2015). Should we go high or low? A few tips on using and choosing technology wisely. The Voice of WAFLT: A Wisconsin Association of Foreign Language Teachers Publication.
Knisely, K. and Wind, S. (2015). Gendered language attitudes: Exploring language as a gendered construct using Rasch measurement theory. Journal of Applied Measurement 16(1), 95-112.
Open Accessible Summaries of Recent Publications
Knisely, K. (2020). Read this realness: How non-binary people are taking up and subverting cultural and linguistic spaces in French. OASIS Summary of Knisely (2020). Subverting the culturally unreadable: Understanding the self-positioning of non-binary speakers of French. The French Review. 94(2). 149-168. https://oasis-database.org/concern/summaries/2227mp912?locale=en
Knisely, K. (2020). “How do you say the singular they in French?”: How non-binary people are adapting the French language. OASIS Summary of Knisely (2020). Le français non-binaire: linguistic forms used by non-binary speakers of French. Foreign Language Annals. 53(4). 1-27. doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/flan.12500. https://oasis-database.org/concern/summaries/np1939428?locale=en
Recent Invited Lectures and Workshops
Knisely, K. (March, 2021). (Keynote) Resisting normativities, reinventing possibilities: Toward trans-affirming L2 pedagogies. The Cultural Constructions Conference. The University of Texas-Arlington. Arlington, TX. (Online).
Knisely, K. (January, 2021). Decentering power, (Re)centering possibilities: Toward trans-affirming language pedagogies. The Pennsylvania State University. University Park, PA. (Online).
Knisely, K. (September, 2020). Un-boxing gender: Toward trans-affirming L2 pedagogies. The Berkeley College Language Center. The University of California-Berkeley. Berkeley, CA. (Online).
Knisely, K. (2019, November). Les mouvements linguistiques non-binaires au Canada et en France [Non-binary linguistic movements in Canada and in France]. Carnegie Mellon University. Pittsburgh, PA.
Knisely, K. (2019, October). Teaching to and about TGNC individuals in L2 Contexts. Purdue. West Lafayette, IN.
Knisely, K. (2019, April). Non-binary French: Troubling L2 pedagogy for inclusivity, recruitment, retention, and achievement. Paper presented at the Innovating Undergraduate French Studies Colloquium. The University of Texas-Austin, Austin, TX.
Knisely, K. (2019, April). Inclusive L2 pedagogy: Teaching to support students of all genders and sexualities. Critical and Social Justice Approaches Special Interest Group of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. Webinar.
Knisely, K. (2019, March). Gender diversity and L2 pedagogy: Adapting classroom practice for inclusivity. The University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI.
Knisely, K. (2018, October). Soyons inclusifs.ves: Adapting L2 teaching practices to support non-binary students. The University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, Eau Claire, WI.
Knisely, K. (2018, September). Le français non-binaire: linguistic forms used by non-binary speakers of French and their pedagogical implications for intercultural competence development. Duke University, Durham, NC.
Knisely, K. (2018, September). Gender diversity and L2 pedagogy: Cultivating inclusive teaching practices for non-binary students. Duke University, Durham, NC.
Knisely, K. (2018, March). Developing inclusive second language teaching practices for non-binary students. The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI.
Knisely, K. (2017, October). Inclusiveness beyond the binary: Attending to gender diversity in the French language classroom. The University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA.
Knisely, K. (2020, November). Weaving transness into the fabric of French L2 learning: Toward TGNC-affirming French L2 pedagogies. Paper presented at the Diversity, Decolonization, and the French Curriculum (DDFC) conference. (Online).
Knisely, K. (2020, March). Intersectionality Under the Umbrella: The Linguistic Self-Positioning of Trans Speakers. Paper presented at the American Association of Applied Linguistics Conference, Denver, CO. (Conference canceled)
Knisely, K. (2019, November). Developing Queer Materials and Practices for L2 Teaching and Learning. Paper presented at the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages Conference, Washington, DC.
Knisely, K. (2019, August). Subverting the Culturally Unreadable: Understanding the self-positioning of non-binary speakers of French. Paper presented at the Contemporary French Civilization Conference, Tucson, AZ.
Knisely, K. Parlons non-binarité: Troubling binary grammatical constructions in the French language classroom. Paper presented at the American Association of Applied Linguistics Conference, Atlanta, GA.
Knisely, K. (2018, November). Developing Intercultural and Symbolic Competence via Gender-neutral French. Paper presented at the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages Conference, New Orleans, LA.
Knisely, K. (2018, March). Inclusive Pedagogy: Supporting Trans and Gender Non-Binary Language Learners. Paper presented at the Central States Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, Milwaukee, WI.
Knisely, K. (2017, November). Cultivating inclusive pedagogical practices for students of all genders. Paper presented at the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages Conference, Nashville, TN.
Knisely, K. (2016, November). Teaching for Inclusiveness: Language Attitudes and Learner Identity. Paper presented at the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages Conference, Boston, MA.
Knisely, K. (2016, February). Language Learner Identity: Framing Applied Linguistics Research with French Cultural Studies. Paper presented at the Lavender Languages Annual Conference, Washington, D.C.
Knisely, K. & Alkhas, A. (2015, November). When to go high or low: Toward a more intentional use of technology Paper presented at the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages Annual Conference, San Diego, CA.
Knisely, K. (2015, February). Language Learning and Sexuality. Panel Organizer, Session Chair, and Discussant at the Lavender Languages Annual Conference, Washington, D.C.
Knisely, K. (2014, February). Hors norme: Negotiating the Perceived Incongruence of Heterosexual Male Identities and French Language Study. Paper presented at the Lavender Languages Annual Conference, Washington, D.C.
Knisely, K. (2013, November). Facebooker ou pas? Social Networking Websites and Language Teaching. A paper presented at the Midwest Modern Language Association Annual Convention, Milwaukee, WI.
Knisely, K. (2013, November). Gender, Sexuality, and Learning French as a Second Language: The Strange Relationship between Learner Attitudes, Identity and Behavior. A paper presented at the Midwest Modern Language Association Annual Convention, Milwaukee, WI.
Knisely, K., Chang, M. & Nguyen, M. (2013, May). Self-Efficacy in Math: A Rasch Measurement Approach. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco, CA.
Knisely, K. (2013, April). Gendered Language Attitudes, Learner Identity, and Motivation to Learn French. A paper presented at the Southeastern Conference on Language. Spartanburg, SC.
Knisely, K. (2013, February). Languages and Language Learning: Learner Attitudes, Self-Efficacy, Identity, and Behavior. Paper presented at the Lavender Languages Annual Conference, Washington, D.C.
Knisely, K. (2013, February). Self-Efficacy, Sexuality, and Language Learning: The Strange Relationship between Learner Attitudes, Identity, and Behavior. Paper presented at the Studies in Sexualities Conference, Atlanta, GA.
Knisely, K. (2013, February). Lavender Rhetoric, Composition, and Language Learning: Why Study Lavender Rhetoric? Paper presented at the Lavender Languages Annual Conference, Washington, D.C.
Knisely, K. & Alkhas, A. (2012, November). No, Low and High Tech: The Role of Technology in the Standards-Based Classroom. A presentation and workshop at the Wisconsin Association of Foreign Language Teachers Annual Conference, Milwaukee, WI.
Knisely, K. (2012, April). Language Diversity in the Classroom. A workshop conducted at the Teaching in the Urban South (TITUS) Education Conference, Decatur, GA.
Knisely, K. & Alkhas, A. (2012, March). High/Low Tech: Keeping it Real in Today’s Classroom. A presentation and workshop at the Central States Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, Appleton, WI.
Knisely, K. (2012, January). College French, American Masculinity, and the Need to Belong. Paper presented at the Studies in Sexualities Conference, Atlanta, GA.
FREN 301 Pronunciation and Conversation
FREN 280 Introduction to French Language, Linguistics, and Culture
FREN 160A1 The French Speaking World
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HomeSchmooze: Your Jewish Pop Culture Fix
The Schmooze
Netanyahu Plays Tour Guide
March 6, 2014 By Curt Schleier
Image by Nina Dietzel
Peter Greenberg has what may be the world’s best job. He is travel editor of CBS News, a post he’s held for the last 13 years. Before that he spent a combined 21 years in the same job at the Today Show and Good Morning America. He also has a syndicated radio show on travel and, for PBS, hosts “Royal Tour” specials, where Greenberg visits a nation with an unusual tour guide — the nation’s leader.
On previous Royal Tours Greenberg, 64, visited Jordan, Mexico, Peru, Jamaica and New Zealand. His latest special, which premiered March 6, was to Israel, where his escort was Benjamin Netanyahu. The Prime Minister proves a gracious host and takes Greenberg and his large crew to a host of traditional tourist sites — the Dead Sea, Masada, Caesarea — as well as providing personal insights about his experiences in the military.
Greenberg spoke to the Forward about his job, the show, and the secrets of a frequent flyer.
Curt Schleier: How much traveling do you do?
Peter Greenberg: I travel almost 400,000 miles a year. Today is the only day this week I’m not an airplane.
Traveling today is a pain. Do you ever get tired of crowded planes and delays and cancelled flights?
It doesn’t get tiring. You have to know the process of travel and know how to navigate. You have to have a Plan B and a Plan C, because Plan A never works.
For instance?
For example, I carry with me about 40 different airline tickets, all valid, to 20 different destinations. They’re never denied. I have the OAG [Official Airline Guide] in my suitcase. I don’t go to the Internet. I use the print version to figure out the best route to where I’m going. I’m old school that way.
But not every traveler can do that. Do you have advice for the one-vacation-a-year guy, or business travellers?
The whole idea is to beat the airline and cruise line by playing their game. I don’t check bags. I FedEx my bags ahead and save two hours of my flight every time I fly. I don’t obey airport signs. I don’t go to the departure area when I leave. I don’t have bags so I go downstairs to arrivals and go to TSA that way. When I arrive I have a car pick me up in the departure area, because there are too many people waiting for cars in arrivals. And when I get to the hotel, my bags are in my room because I FedExed them.
Do you have a favorite country?
That’s difficult. There are 198 countries in the world and I’ve been to 151 of them. That’s 150 more than most Americans. Only 37% of Americans have passports. I don’t really have a favorite.
What’s on the top of your list of the 47 countries you haven’t visited?
Honestly? All of them. [Then pressed for an answer:] One country I’d like to visit is Azerbaijan. I’d also like to visit the Gilbert Islands, Guadalcanal in the Solomons and the island nations of the South Pacific.
Are there places you never want to go back to?
I’ve been in a shootout in Nairobi, Kenya, in war zones all over the place, in parts of Sudan and Somalia I wouldn’t recommend. I’m not on holiday. I’m working.
Where do you go on vacation?
Last year, for the first time in 12 years, I took seven days off and went to the Maldives in the Indian Ocean. I brought DVDs of “House of Cards,” the books I wanted to read and just chilled out hoping nothing happened in the world. And nothing did.
Had you been to Israel before?
Forty times, going back to 1970. I covered a couple of wars there and covered the entire region.
Did you know the Prime Minister before this trip?
Yes, I met him in New York when he was Israel’s ambassador to the U.N.
Was filming in Israel in any way special to you?
It’s interesting. You have a certain cavalier attitude going in, but when you get there all of a sudden it hits you. You realize it’s impossible to go 20 steps without being confronted by history. You realize you can’t go just once; you have to keep going.
Did it seem special to you as a Jew?
For me, honestly, you’re shooting 20 hours a day going at full speed, it’s significance hits you after you’re gone.
What is your Jewish background? Were you a bar mitzvah?
I wasn’t a bar mitzvah. I wasn’t given any formal religious training. Of course, I attended a lot of bar mitzvahs, but I also attended a huge number of confirmations and christenings. It made me respectful of all religions.
You asked the PM several interesting political questions. Was there anything off limits?
These are very difficult projects to produce, given the nature of asking the head of state to give you six days, making sure they get no right of review and have no editorial control. The first time he sees it will be at its premiere.
You had a particularly difficult shoot this time. Netanyahu was showing off his soccer skills and damaged a ligament. He was put in a cast. You had to suspend production and return a couple of months later. I’m wondering if there was any blowback from Israelis about their leader spending so much time on this project?
Not that I’m aware of, for the simple reason they understood it wasn’t about him. He was the tour guide showing Israel through his eyes to people who’d never seen Israel through their own.
About The Forward
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Did President Trump Flash His Middle Finger to Women Astronauts in This Viral Video?
Gif: C-SPAN/YouTube
Video of President Donald Trump flashing his middle finger went viral over the weekend. Did the president intentionally flip the bird to women astronauts who corrected one of his factual inaccuracies? That’s open to interpretation. But it’s at least the fourth time during his presidency that Trump appeared to give a sneaky middle finger to people he doesn’t like.
On Friday, President Trump spoke via video link from the White House to astronauts in space as they became the first two women to conduct a spacewalk together. Trump was visibly frustrated that there was a 5-second delay in communication, a technical limitation that can’t be helped since he was talking to astronauts in orbit. But the thing that really seemed to anger Trump was that one of the astronauts corrected something he said.
“And this is the first time for a woman outside of the space station,” President Trump said in his opening remarks.
But once the astronauts, Christina Koch and Jessica Meir, were able to speak, they mentioned that this wasn’t the first time that a woman had been outside of the space station. This was only the first time that two women had been outside in space together.
“First of all, we don’t want to take too much credit, because there have been many other female space walkers before us. This is just the first time there have been two women outside at the same time,” Meir said.
As you can see from the video uploaded to YouTube by C-SPAN, Trump raises his middle finger to touch his face while Meir was speaking. Was it an innocent gesture? If it only happened once, you might be able to say that. But Trump’s middle finger on Friday was far from the first time that he pulled this move.
President Trump flipped two birds during a Black History Month “listening session” at the White House on February 1, 2017, one of which you can see in the GIF below.
As you can see on Trump’s right, he’s sitting next to Omarosa Manigault, who would leave the White House and go on to write a scathing book about the dysfunction of the Trump government, even accusing the president of eating paper to conceal sensitive documents.
Gif: C-SPAN
Trump, an infamously petty man, made another middle finger gesture at the G7 in Italy during a panel on investment in Africa on May 27, 2017. President Trump received criticism during the meeting for supposedly not putting his translation earpiece in while the Italian Prime Minister was speaking, even though Trump eventually did. The thing that went unnoticed by most mainstream news outlets, however, was Trump’s middle finger, which is pretty clear in the GIF below.
Gif: CGTN Africa/YouTube
Then there was the middle finger President Trump gave during an impromptu press briefing on September 25, 2017 after he was criticized for railing against NFL players who were kneeling during the national anthem. Trump insisted at the time that his comments had “nothing to do with race.”
Gif: Washington Post/YouTube
A Trump supporter in South Carolina famously said before the 2016 election that they were voting with their middle finger. And that sentiment is the entire reason that people seem to still support Trump here in our era of hatred and division.
Obviously Trump’s middle finger isn’t the most pressing issue of the day. The president is investigating his political opponents, he’s openly solicited help from multiple foreign governments to investigate a Democratic candidate for president, and he continues to profit from the presidency through his various business holdings. The nonprofit watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has discovered over 2,500 conflicts of interest involving Trump’s businesses.
And all of that is to say nothing of foreign policy decisions, like the betrayal of the Kurds, that make the U.S. not only less safe, but also make America an object of ridicule and hate by former allies. Kurds were even seen pelting U.S. troops with fruit today in Qamishli, Syria as American convoys retreated from the area, opening the door for Turkey and Turkish-backed extremist groups to slaughter innocent people.
Every day that Trump remains in office he’s doing irreparable harm to our country. But Trump’s middle finger is, if nothing else, a succinct visual demonstration of what’s happening to the U.S. right now.
The Trump presidency operates through a perpetual state of plausible deniability. Trump supporters can call people crazy for seeing things that are happening right in front of their eyes and saying that they’re not actually occurring. When President Trump looks to the skies and says he’s the “chosen one” people can say he was joking, despite the fact that he wasn’t laughing or even smiling.
White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney spent his weekend denying things we’d seen him say on Thursday about the White House’s pressure on Ukraine for an investigation of Joe Biden. That’s how this regime operates. And Trump’s middle finger appears to be just one more example of Trump pushing the limits of plausible deniability.
The only question is how much longer the American people will let him get away with it. Because if Trump’s government survives impeachment, there’s no telling how much worse it’s going to get.
Matt Novak is the editor of Gizmodo's Paleofuture blog
leo gold
let us say that he did, 100% with no doubt....what the fuck is anyone actually going to do about it?
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Tag: hedonic treadmill
The Axiological Treadmill
The obvious reason that Moloch is the enemy is that it destroys everything we value in the name of competition and survival. But this is missing the bigger picture. We value what we value because, in our ancestral environment, those tended to be the things that helped us with competition and survival. If the things that help us compete and survive end up changing, then evolution will ensure that the things we value change as well.
To borrow a metaphor: Elua cheats. The hedonic treadmill has nothing on the axiological treadmill.
Consider a thought experiment. In Meditations on Moloch, Scott Alexander dreams up a dictatorless dystopia:
Imagine a country with two rules: first, every person must spend eight hours a day giving themselves strong electric shocks. Second, if anyone fails to follow a rule (including this one), or speaks out against it, or fails to enforce it, all citizens must unite to kill that person. Suppose these rules were well-enough established by tradition that everyone expected them to be enforced.
So you shock yourself for eight hours a day, because you know if you don’t everyone else will kill you, because if they don’t, everyone else will kill them, and so on. Every single citizen hates the system, but for lack of a good coordination mechanism it endures. From a god’s-eye-view, we can optimize the system to “everyone agrees to stop doing this at once”, but no one within the system is able to effect the transition without great risk to themselves.
Even if this system came into being ex nihilo it probably wouldn’t be stable in reality; a population that spends eight hours a day receiving strong shocks isn’t going to be able to feed itself, or reproduce. But assume for a moment that this system starts out economically and biologically stable (that is, people can still eat, and reproduce at the rate of replacement, despite the electric shocks, and that there are no outside countries ready to invade). What do we expect to happen over the long run?
Well, obviously there’s a strong evolutionary pressure to be tolerant to electric shocks. People who can tolerate those shocks better will do better on average than those who can’t. However, there’s another more subtle pressure at play: the pressure to ensure you shock yourself. After all, if you forget to shock yourself, or choose not to, then you are immediately killed. So the people in this country will slowly evolve reward and motivational systems such that, from the inside, it feels like they want to shock themselves, in the same way (though maybe not to the same degree) that they want to eat. Shocking themselves every day becomes an intrinsic value to them. Eventually, it’s no longer a dystopia at all.
They would be aghast at a society like ours, where Moloch has destroyed the value of receiving electrical shocks, all in the name of more perfect competition.
Evan Ramblings 1 Comment September 15, 2020 2 Minutes
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Places to Visit – The Big Prawn, West Ballina, Australia
Home > Uncategorised > Places to Visit – The Big Prawn, West Ballina, Australia
14 Jun Places to Visit – The Big Prawn, West Ballina, Australia
There’s nothing shrimpy about the World’s largest artifical prawn.
At a height of nearly 30 feet and weighing almost 40 tons, this prawn boasts the title of “The World’s Largest Artificial Prawn.” It was slated for demolition in 2009 until the community of West Ballina, Australia banded together to save the Statue of the oversized crustacean.
The supersized sea creature was constructed in 1989 as an ode to the local prawning industry. It underwent additional work in 2013 to give it a proper tail, as it originally lacked one. the giant crustacean was built on West Ballina’s transit center, which was positioned on the main highway that passed through town.
After years of disrepair and the construction of a bypass that rerouted the highway traffic, the Ballina Council voted to approve the prawn’s demolition. Public outcry and a private investor came to its rescue. The prawn was given a fresh coat of paint and was relocated a short distance from its original location to where it currently stands outside a Bunnings Warehouse, a hardware store. It’s one of Australia’s many quirky, oversized structures.
If the prawn inspires cravings for seafood among its visitors, there are several restaurants located nearby.
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X-ray Astronomy Satellite (ASTRO-H) Solar Array Paddles Deployment and Name Decided>
X-ray Astronomy Satellite (ASTRO-H)
Solar Array Paddles Deployment and Name Decided
February 17, 2016 (JST)
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) confirmed that the X-ray Astronomy Satellite (ASTRO-H) has deployed its solar array paddles (SAPs) normally through data transmitted from the satellite and received at the Uchinoura Ground Station at 7:40 p.m. on February 17, 2016. ASTRO-H was launched by the H-IIA Launch Vehicle No. 30 from the Tahegashima Space Center at 5:45 p.m. on the same day.
The satellite is currently in good health.
ASTRO-H is the eye to study the hot and energetic universe. Therefore we name ASTRO-H, “Hitomi”. The word Hitomi generally means “eye”, and specifically the pupil, or entrance window of the eye - the aperture!
There is also an ancient legend that inspires the name Hitomi.
"One day, many years ago, a painter was drawing four white dragons on a street. He finished drawing the dragons, but without “Hitomi”. People who looked at the painting said “why don’t you paint Hitomi, it is not complete! The painter hesitated, but people pressured him. The painter then drew Hitomi on two of the four dragons. Immediately, these dragons came to life and flew up into the sky. The two dragons without Hitomi remained still. (Put Hitomi of Dragon in the drawing).”
The inspiration of this story is that Hitomi is regarded as the “One last, but most important part”, and so we wish ASTRO-H to be the essential mission to solve mysteries of the universe in X-rays. Hitomi refers to the aperture of the eye, the part where incoming light is absorbed. From this, Hitomi reminds us of a black hole. We will observe Hitomi in the Universe using the Hitomi satellite!
For your information, a nano-satellite “PRISM”, which was developed by Profs Nakasuka and Funase laboratory, at the University of Tokyo, and is currently in operation, shares the same name of Hitomi as its nickname. The laboratory kindly accepted our request to use the same name for ASTRO-H, and we would like to express our sincere appreciation for their cooperation.
(Next press release)
We will inform you of the completion of the orbit calculation result of Hitomi (ASTRO-H) in the next press release on Feb. 18 or later.
X-ray Astronomy Satellite "Hitomi" (ASTRO-H)
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Sport Clips Haircuts of Short Pump Town Center
11736 West Broad Street Suite #107 Richmond, Virginia 23233
Sport Clips Collecting $1 Million to "Help A Hero" - October 12 - December 5
Since 2013, Sport Clips has been the primary supporter of the VFW’s "Sport Clips Help A Hero Scholarship" program, which provides scholarships for service members and veterans for use at post-secondary schools and trade schools. To date, we have awarded 1,750 scholarships totaling $8 million.
From October 12 through December 5, Sport Clips stores around the country will be collecting donations in-store to help fund these life-changing scholarships. More than 80% of the funds raised each year come directly from our generous Clients, with the balance coming from our generous suppliers and product partners. And on Veterans Day, November 11th, participating Sport Clips locations will provide free haircuts to veterans and active duty service members as well as donate $1 for every haircut service provided on that day. Click here to find a participating store near you.
Our scholarship recipients come from every part of the United States, represent every branch of service and are earning a variety of degrees including engineering, computer science, business, accounting, health care and many more. During our annual promotion in 2019, Sport Clips locations around the country collected $1.35 million to continue to support the educational goals of our service members and veterans.
“The VFW's Help A Hero Scholarship has helped me make the first step in my educational journey as I transition from aviation technician in the Navy to a career as a physician's assistant. I offer my gratitude to Sport Clips and its generous Clients for the support of my college endeavors.” – Matthew Martinez, U.S. Navy
“The Help A Hero Scholarships has been an answered prayer. With this help, I can clearly see the finish line of my undergraduate career as I prepare for the LSAT and ultimately, law school. Thank you to the VFW and Sport Clips for this amazing opportunity.” – Julia Vineyard, U.S. Air Force
“I am extremely grateful to have received the VFW's "Sport Clips Help A Hero Scholarship" for four semesters. It helped alleviate the financial burden my family faces as I continue my medical education while my wife works full-time and our son attends daycare. Thank you so much.” – Brandon Price, U.S. Army
To learn more about the VFW's "Sport Clips Help A Hero Scholarship" program, including details on eligibility, click here.
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One and the Same: A Cultural Comparative Analysis of the Societal Pressures and their Effects upon the Emotional, Social, Behavioral, and Sexual Development of Adolescent Girls in Taiwan, China, and the United States
Posted on May 22, 2017 by Garrett S. Griffin under Politics
Wenting Chen, Chia-Hua Chu, and Garrett S. Griffin
This comparative analysis seeks to examine negative cultural pressures on female adolescents in China, Taiwan, and the United States, through the theoretical lenses of developmental psychologists like Carol Gilligan and Erik Erikson. Gender stereotypes, depression, body image, menstruation, adolescent pregnancy, eating disorders, and more, are included in this report. This study is divided into three sections and a summative conclusion. The first sections illuminate societal pressures on female adolescents in the three homelands of these authors, using research from each respective country. The conclusion offers a comparison between the three. It is the hope of these authors that understanding the forces acting upon girls will better equip citizens and professionals of all three countries, particularly their educators, to work for social change.
Societal Pressures on Female Adolescents in China
Psychologist Carol Gilligan conducted research on moral reasoning development and saw developmental differences in gender. Gilligan’s three stages of moral reasoning (Ethics of Care) include the pre-conventional stage (selfishness and survival), the conventional stage (serving others is right and true), and post-conventional stage (one must care for oneself as well as others, so that selflessness does not cause self-harm). Having been influenced by the ideas promoted by Freud and Erikson, but rejecting the emphasis on males, Gilligan’s model is female-centered. As Gilligan knew, differences exist between boys and girls, and men and women. The authors of this comparative analysis acknowledge the existence of these differences, but emphasize society’s role in shaping the development, thought processes, and behavior of females that differ from those of males.
In China, a patrilineal culture in ancient times, males were historically much more powerful than women; they were even allowed to have more than one wife. It is easy to imagine the powerlessness of women and how vulnerable they felt within their families and in society at large. Having persisted through this situation for thousands of years, until the modernization of the country, there is renewed interest today in the importance of women and in balancing the relationship between genders. In the decades since the People’s Republic of China was established in 1949, more people have begun to view females as “half of the sky,” but due to stereotypes and lasting traditions, females are still living under unique pressures and inequity in Chinese society. Adolescent females, being in a stage of identity development, are at particular risk to negative effects of such stressors.
In the past 20 years, much research has investigated adolescents’ psychological well-being, identity development, cognitive development, gender differences and roles during adolescence, sociocultural influences, and so forth. For example, Cheung (1996) wrote of gender role development in Growing Up the Chinese Way: The Chinese Child and Adolescent Development. The work discusses the gender roles which “are prescribed in traditional Chinese societies where stereotypical gender roles are socialized primarily in the family, and reinforced by other social institutions. The only place delegated to women was in the family, where they would play the instrumental and supportive roles of managing the home and supplying male heirs” (Cheung, 1996, p. 45). While familial and cultural traditions of Chinese perspective on gender differ from those of Western societies, females suffer to the same or even greater extent sex-typed values, motives, and behaviors than American girls.
Historically, Chinese girls were taught to be extremely obedient and tolerant at home and in public. They were raised to enter as quickly as possible and remain within Gilligan’s conventional stage. Parents decided almost every single aspect of their lives, including marriage. They had little choice in their lifestyles or plans for their future. Fathers were naturally the master of the family, while mothers were symbolic authorities who impacted few important decisions. Girls were not educated if the family could afford schooling for only one child. Boys were always the unquestioned choice of the family to be educated. Society largely regarded “good girls” as those who stay at home, those who remained “innocent” (less-educated). “Although education is an important value in Chinese culture, aspirations for educational achievement were focused on boys rather than on girls. Women were not allowed, nor encouraged, to receive formal education until the beginning of the twentieth century” (Cheung, p. 47). Fortunately, much has changed in modern Chinese society. Many women are completely independent and self-oriented. For many, fathers and mothers are no longer the only ones with decision-making power, and girls own the same legal rights as their male peers. Women as a whole have emerged on the post-conventional stage.
Even so, there are still concerns for the female psyche in Chinese society. Body image and dissatisfaction are two heatedly debated issues in discussion of female adolescence. As Xu and colleagues (2010) illustrated in Body Dissatisfaction, Engagement in Body Change Behaviors and Sociocultural Influences on Body Image Among Chinese Adolescents, this issue is becoming more and more significant because when females enter adolescence, they focus more on appearance and how other people think of them. Xu’s investigation shows the sociocultural pressures on body image, and the relationships between these variables. A large survey study which involved over 9,000 Chinese children “found that rates of body dissatisfaction were comparable to those reported in Western populations. Among the children classified as healthy weight, only 46.5% of boys and 43.0% girls were satisfied with their bodies, and preferences for thinner bodies increased with age” (Xu, Mellor, Kiehne, Ricciardelli, & McCabe, 2009, p. 156). This posits that girls care more about their body image. In China, it is often “required” by external influence that girls keep fit. Body size is a standard of beauty.
Further, eating disorders is a common issue that occurs amongst adolescents, especially girls. Research has examined young girls struggling with eating problems due to social judgment. A survey of eating disorder symptomatology among female adolescents in China was conducted in 2002 by Gail Huon, Mingyi Qian, Kylie Oliver, and Guanglan Xiao. It was designed to comprehensively document the prevalence of signs, symptoms, and associated features of anorexia and bulimia nervosa among female students. The results showed that a surprisingly high level of weight-related concerns amongst schoolgirls across mainland China (six main cities covering North East, Central East, South East, South West, and North). 1,246 Chinese female students ages 12 to 19 years old took part in the surveys. The researchers used questionnaires with different criteria, including weight status, weight-related attitudes and feelings, dieting, and vomiting and purging. The responses reveal the female adolescents’ attitude on weight: “More than one-fourth of the girls indicated that body weight was ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ important in determining their evaluation of themselves” (Huon, Qian, Oliver, & Xiao, 2001, p. 196).
Beyond this, women are considered responsible for taking care of the family. Raising a child is usually a mother’s priority. Although women today are more independent and have more privileges, no longer required to be full-time wives and mothers, girls are still influenced and in some ways educated to be virtuous, gentle, quiet, and “in the hall and next to the kitchen.” It is said that mothers should guide Chinese children in how to properly live and study. It is almost always mothers who shop, entertain friends, and attend parents’ meetings at school. Just as Cheung wrote, “The traditional achievement for Chinese women is to be married to a good provider for herself, to bear male children for his family, and hope these children will be successful” (p. 46). Some fathers are deeply involved in a child’s development; however, they are usually professionals working to provide financial support, to give their child a better life. Further, fathers are more likely to be less emotionally connected with their children, not because they are unconcerned, but because society has encouraged them to not express emotions as readily as mothers.
With females playing such a significant role in the home, they are more likely to be drawn away from the workplace. In many instances, women are not treated equally as men in professional world, despite what the law says. For example, many of positions in companies are open for both men and women, but employers who believe in women’s “social obligations” prefer hiring men. They know female employees will have to take care of their children once they get married, and they have many “inconvenient” privileges which are protected by the law, such as a 14-week maternity leave. This breeds discrimination in the workplace. Thus, female adolescents are under pressure to seek jobs while completing their education, to start a career at a younger age. Some have gone to great lengths to land a job; for instance, some young female graduates go to the plastic surgeon, attempting to change their appearance because they know improved looks will help them find employment. Others resist getting married and having children because they are afraid of being substituted while on marriage or maternity leave. Although under the law they cannot be fired, they would still be considered the next candidate for dismissal. Many Chinese women must live daily with such apprehension.
Societal Pressures on Female Adolescents in the United States
In the United States, a plethora of societal stressors and expectations change the way girls think, feel, act, and even develop physically. This section will examine, in the Eriksonian spirit, how the adolescent female’s identity is affected, and in some cases abused, by such cultural pressures. Topics such as parent nurturing and peer relationships, ideal body image, self-conscious emotions, depression, self-value, puberty, and women in the workplace will be discussed as we move through the years of an American girl’s development.
In Impediments to Identity Formation in Female Adolescents, Drs. Dianne Ollech and James McCarthy write that “female adolescents bury their subjectivity and constrain the strong sense of self that was theirs during the latency years” and that they “experience greater increases in anxiety, conflict, shame, self-doubt when faced with choice” than boys (1997, p. 66). Psychologist Carol Gilligan posited that adolescent girls lose their “voice,” that while speaking truth and opinion forcefully is innate, they are taught doing so is selfish (Gerson, 1994, p. 494). How can this be? What in society is warping self-confidence, and even emotions themselves? According to these researchers, and others, it begins at birth, with the most direct and obvious factors being the mother and father and their relationships with the child.
Though exceptions multiply, the American mother is largely responsible for raising children. Rather than biological differences, Ollech and McCarthy argue it is a cultural ideology that acquiesces to male desires that perpetuates this arrangement (p. 67). American society approves, or is at least resigned to, father absence. Nurturing children and housework are still viewed as the woman’s duties, and the man is still “the head of the household.” This teaches young girls that males have the prerogative, the authority. “[Nancy] Chodorow (1978) saw that women’s monopoly on childcare and men’s abrogation of this task assured the devaluation and derogation of all things feminine and the idealization and blamelessness of the masculine” (Ollech & McCarthy, p. 67). Girls begin losing their voice because society teaches them their needs are less important than those of males, and begin to emulate the mother in her role as an inferior and a nurturer (p. 68).
In addition, psychoanalyst Mary-Joan Gerson of New York University emphasizes the role of peer relationships. Essentially, the parental influences carry over into peer groups (again, rather than differences being strictly biological). While girls are learning at home that their needs are secondary, boys are learning their own are primary. Therefore, boys in all-boy groups will be more commanding, argumentative braggarts, while girls in all-girl groups tend to be more agreeable and conforming, and less likely to interrupt (p. 499-500). Gerson suggests when adolescence arrives and opposite-sex interaction increases, girls find themselves disadvantaged due to these differences (p. 500), which may contribute to the overall problem. Professors Amanda Rose and Karen Rudolph had similar findings, concluding that girls are more empathetic to the feelings of others and more likely to seek emotional support, while boys are more self-interested, controlling, and competitive (2006, p. 125). The authors write, “Several of these sex differences increase over the course of development,” and while there can be positive aspects to these differences, “female-linked relationship processes may…heighten vulnerability to emotional difficulties. Male-linked relationship processes may interfere with the development of intimate relationships and contribute to behavioral problems” (p. 125). Obviously, when girls and boys come together as friends, classmates, co-workers, or lovers, these opposing psychological mindsets preserve a patriarchal system.
As the American female grows, society’s sexualization of women becomes a more obvious and powerful force, with often harmful side-effects. Jennifer Bradford and Trent Petrie of the University of North Texas write that “sociocultural pressures to be thin may lead women to internalize a thin-ideal stereotype, which is thought ultimately to produce eating disorder symptomatology through its influence on body image” (2008, p. 247). This ideal, distributed widely through American media, is another offspring of a patriarchal society that deems male desires and expectations superior to those of females. Consider:
Males hold the power and prerogative to project on females what they find repugnant in themselves and to define females accordingly. Males have therefore retained the “clean” realm of rationality and independence and have relegated physicality and dependence to females. Females are culturally defined by their bodies, and girls’ reproductive capacity forms the foundation of their identity. (Ollech & McCarthy, p. 67)
If women are defined (by men as well as women, who judge others as they themselves are judged) by how closely they align with the thin ideal, there exists enormous pressure to conform. A dangerous cycle can emerge in which a girl grows depressed due to negative body image, binge eats to cope with the bad mood, creates dietary restrictions for herself or purges in reaction to the binge, which in turn increases shame and depressive symptoms (Bradford & Petrie, p. 260). The psychological damage the sexualization of girls causes can hardly be overstated.
It is in adolescence that these societal pressures reach a crescendo and their effects become most evident. Researchers in 2012 published a study that examined the differences in “self-conscious emotions” (SCE) between men and women. “SCE are moral emotions that function to facilitate our social interactions and relationships by motivating us to adhere to social norms” (Else-Quest, Higgins, Allison, & Morton, p. 948), such as shame and guilt. They found no relevant difference between boys and girls in regards to shame and guilt until adolescence (when girls begin to suffer these emotions more frequently), paralleling findings that marked adolescence as the time when girls experience increased depression and decreased self-esteem (p. 965).
In Pubertal Transition, Stressful Life Events, and the Emergence of Gender Differences in Adolescent Depressive Symptoms, Xiaojia Ge and his colleagues examined when depression arose in boys and girls, and how these processes were different. In 1994, they found that girls suffered from depression much more than boys in early adolescence (Ge, Conger, & Elder, 2001, p. 414). Seven years later, they saw that while the gender differences arose at age 13 or 14, those differences remained throughout adolescence (p. 413). The researchers also emphasized the role that the onset of menarche plays (p. 413), which will be discussed in a moment. The big idea is that depression becomes a more significant part of girls’ lives than boys’ in early adolescence. The effects will only worsen. In adulthood, rates of depression are two to three times higher for women than men (p. 404). When women are devalued by society, such an influence affects self-perception and feelings of self-worth, and depression is a predictable side effect.
All these social stressors can affect girls’ sexual development and identity. For instance, Jenée James and colleagues from the University of Arizona and Vanderbilt University write that in their study:
Among girls only, father absence (a) directly and uniquely predicted earlier timing of sexual debut and greater sexual risk taking; (b) had a significant indirect effect on earlier pubertal maturation through quality of family relationships; and (c) had a significant indirect effect on increased sexual risk taking through earlier sexual debut. (James, Ellis, Schlomer, & Garber, 2012, p. 698)
When the responsibility of raising girls lands solely on the mother, American girls tend to become sexually active sooner, and are less likely to have safe sex. Combining father absence with depressive effects and a culture of sexualization, the risks only multiply. James et al. go on to say that a wealth “previous research indicates that girls growing up in father absent homes tend to experience menarche 4–6 months earlier than do those from father present households” (p. 698), but caution that more research is needed with more reliable variables. If the research holds true, it is significant because Ge et al. demonstrated that girls who experience menarche sooner in life tend to suffer greater bouts of depression (p. 413). If father absence can cause earlier menarche, which can cause more frequent and persistent depressive symptoms, which can cause poor self-image and disordered eating, then such absence can be even more psychologically (and physically) harmful than previously discussed, where girls are taught their desires come second and their place is in the home.
Gender differences will later affect women in the workplace, and career choices. Researchers at the University of Missouri cite studies that indicate “awareness of one’s gender is…important, further shaping adolescents’ early perceptions of available and attainable careers” (Lapour & Heppner, 2009, p. 479). Social Cognitive Career Theory (while also considering race and class) examines whether or not women believe they can succeed in a given occupation, evaluating the societal pressures that push girls into choosing “gender-appropriate” careers (p. 479) (i.e., nursing and teaching, rather than science). There still exist cultural pressures that try to confine women to a narrow set of occupational options, those determined appropriate by the opposite gender. Bonita London of Stony Brook University and fellow researchers looked at gender-based rejection in the workplace. Essentially, women who feel undervalued or treated unfairly at work due to their sex tend to self-silence (hold back thoughts, opinions, feelings, and behaviors) in order to avoid further rejection (London, Downey, Romero-Canyas, Rattan, & Tyson, 2012, p. 963). This of course limits their potential for growth, innovation, and advancement. Further, the researchers found self-silencing led to women feeling ostracized, unmotivated, and less self-confident (p. 975), and more likely to expect sexism in the future (p. 961). This study echoes remarkably Gilligan’s idea of adolescent girls losing their “voice,” suggesting that in the current patriarchal society of the United States, where women are deemed less valuable than men, there is little change in the female experience from adolescence to adulthood.
Societal Pressures on Female Adolescents in Taiwan
The Taiwanese have different perspectives on men and women. In traditional society, females would stay at home and take care of the children. Females had worse chances of attaining an education or employment. Males were dominant in society. Today, although females can work and have opportunities to compete with males, they still have obstacles to true equality Taiwanese society.
For instance, most Taiwanese still cling to gender stereotypes. In one study, An Investigation of the Gender Stereotyped Thinking of Taiwanese Secondary School Boys and Girls, researchers examined boys’ and girls’ viewpoints on learning. The result indicates boys believe themselves superior to girls in certain academic areas. “The present results indicate that the strongest gender stereotyped thinking for higher academic school students concerns their belief that boys are superior to girls in logical thinking, mathematics, and science, whereas girls are better at language and liberal arts” (Hong, Veach, & Lawrenz, 2003, p. 502). This will have grave consequences for gender equality.
Owing to this perception, females have greater difficulty finding a job in mathematics and science. Many schools don’t have female teachers in these subjects. When females seek employment in these fields, they are at risk of rejection if employers believe males are biologically better equipped to do the job. These stereotypes allow adolescent girls to lose their confidence in mathematics and the sciences. Girls understand that if they choose one of these as their major, they might have fewer chances gaining employment.
Male attitudes toward menstruation can further exacerbate the problem. While society determines differences between females and males, physiological differences can warp those same societal pressures. The menstrual period can bring discomfort, cramps, mood swings, and trouble concentrating. In Taiwan, some female workers may be absent during menstruation, and, if they are at work, male supervisors may consider them less effective.
In a study called Taiwanese Adolescent Gender Differences in Knowledge and Attitudes towards Menstruation, researchers investigated males’ and females’ views on menstruation. The results show, perhaps unsurprisingly, male students have more inaccurate attitudes towards it than females. For instance: “In response to questions about their knowledge of menstruation, 48.3% of the male participants believed that women cannot exercise during their period” (Cheng, Yang, & Liou, 2007, p.129). Males also have more negative views. The article mentions that “72.2% of males believed that the woman was likely to be ‘ill-tempered’” (p. 131) during menstruation. Further, a stereotype exists in Taiwan that males have more energy and more passion for their jobs, which only adds to the problem. These perspectives keep females in lower societal positions. Educators and parents must provide positive information on menstruation to males and females alike to remedy this issue.
Body image issues are also social stressors on females. In Taiwanese society, a woman’s body plays a significant role. The idolization of the female form is a modern concept. In traditional society, body image was not near as important. Today, if females aren’t concerned for their figure, they may lose ground in the competition with males for good jobs. Overweight girls may be less confident in the search for employment. Thus, beauty shops and plastic surgery are prevalent in Taiwan. This social pressure prompts females to keep careful control their weight and buy cosmetic products in great sums.
One 2010 study, Body Image and Physical Activity Among Overweight and Obese Girls in Taiwan, examined body image perspectives, looking at the attitudes of overweight and obese girls’. The results indicated that body image plays a dominant role in the development of overweight girls’ motives, creating barriers to physical activity engagement. Boys’ weight- related teasing and girls’ “fat talk” can have a profoundly negative effect on overweight females. In addition, media portrayal of the thin ideal is a major problem. Female adolescents usually discussed the thin ideal in relation to pop stars: “The most frequently reported socially ideal female image was that of Lin Chi-Lin, who is the most popular model in Taiwan with a BMI of 17.7 (weight 52 kg, height 174 cm)” (Chen, Fox, & Haase, 2010, p. 238).
The final issue for this section is adolescent pregnancy, a critical issue in Taiwan. Taiwanese conservative culture does not believe adolescent pregnancy is acceptable, nor pre-marital sex. Most parents will set up an abortion plan for their child. When pregnant adolescents seek employment, they will likely be rejected. While public schools and the government seek to provide positive, safe-sex education, traditional society frowns when things go wrong. In Factors Associated with Adolescent Pregnancy–A Sample of Taiwanese Female Adolescents, researchers compared sexually experienced (but never pregnant) girls with pregnant girls. The results pinpoint differences between pregnant and never-pregnant female adolescents. Varying beliefs, personal values, family backgrounds, and attitudes toward contraceptives will change the likelihood of pregnancy. It also shows safe-sex education is not working as effectively as it should: “In this study, 32.2% of never-pregnant adolescents used contraceptives every time, and 14.3% used them most of the time” (Wang, Wang, & Hsu, 2003, p. 38). Clearly, more needs to be done to reduce adolescent pregnancy, to avoid the effects of such behavior that hold women back in Taiwanese society.
Women in China, the United States, and Taiwan face similar challenges. Many still largely consider mathematics and science to be male-appropriate fields, and there exists, from men and media alike, tremendous pressure for girls to maintain the thin ideal. Girls who seek employment in these areas or fail to meet body weight standards are often met with condescension. The authors of this comparative analysis see the thin ideal in particular as an impediment to women reaching their full professional potential, as women are sexualized, being hired and valued based on appearance.
Body dissatisfaction is a widely recognized mental state that has negative impact on girls. Plastic surgery is popular in all three countries. Numerous studies have proved girls are over-concerned for their bodies and confused by various external societal judgments. Research indicates girls suffer from emotional issues like depression, low self-confidence and self-esteem, guilt, and shame more than boys. Further, perceived gender roles still impact women. All three nations are emerging from patriarchal societies. In such environments, women are regarded as the family caretaker. Excess privilege and authority of men diminishes the privilege and authority of women, as seen in the workplace, where stereotypes of females affect the hiring process. Women are still discriminated against, even when protected by law.
It is important to note that in three different societies, beliefs and social stressors will not be identical. In Taiwan (and indeed the U.S.) for instance, the government doesn’t have any policies restricting the number of children per family, unlike China, where couples can have but one. If they have more than one, they will be fined by the State. Fewer children may provide women more opportunity and time to engage in the professional world. Regardless, similarities overpower differences. These authors believe that raising awareness of these important issues and building an education system geared toward social goals is the best way to achieve gender equality. This report is meant to contribute to that end.
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Cheng, C., Yang, K., & Liou, S. (2007). Taiwanese adolescents’ gender differences in knowledge and attitudes towards menstruation. Nursing and Health Sciences, (9), 127-134.
Cheung, F. M. (1996). Growing up the Chinese way: Chinese child and adolescent development. The Chinese University Press, 45-62.
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Gerson, M. (1994). Standing at the threshold: A psychoanalytic response to Carol Gilligan. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 11(4), 491-508.
Hong, Z., Veach, P. M., & Lawrenz, F. (2003). An investigation of the gender stereotyped thinking of Taiwanese secondary school boys and girls. Sex Roles, 48, 495-504.
Huon, G. F., Qian, M, Oliver, K., & Xiao, G. (2002). A large-scale survey of eating disorder symptomatology among female adolescents in the People’s Republic of China. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 32, 192-205.
James, J., Ellis, B. J., Schlomer, G. L., & Garber, J. (2012). Sex-specific pathways to early puberty, sexual debut, and sexual risk taking: Tests of an integrated evolutionary–developmental model. Developmental Psychology, doi:10.1037/a0026427.
Lapour, A., & Heppner, M. J. (2009). Social class privilege and adolescent women’s perceived career options. Journal Of Counseling Psychology, 56(4), 477-494.
London, B., Downey, G., Romero-Canyas, R., Rattan, A., & Tyson, D. (2012). Gender-based rejection sensitivity and academic self-silencing in women. Journal Of Personality And Social Psychology,102(5), 961-979.
Ollech, D., & McCarthy, J. (1997). Impediments to identity formation in female adolescents. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 14(1), 65-80.
Rose, A. J., & Rudolph, K. D. (2006). A review of sex differences in peer relationship processes: Potential trade-offs for the emotional and behavioral development of girls and boys. Psychological Bulletin, 132(1), 98-131.
Wang, R., Wang, H., & Hsu, M. (2003). Factors associated with adolescent pregnancy–a sample of Taiwanese female adolescents. Public Health Nursing, 20(1), 33-41.
Xu, X., Mellor, D., Ricciardelli, L. A., McCabe, M. P., & Xu, Y. (2010). Body dissatisfaction, engagement in body change behaviors and sociocultural influences on body image among Chinese adolescents. Body Image, 7, 156-164.
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George Town Festival is an internationally renowned annual event, which operates under the George Town World Heritage Incorporated umbrella since it was first organised in 2010. Celebrating George Town’s inscription as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and its Outstanding Universal Values, the Festival showcases the richness and diversity of arts, culture and heritage through world-class performances and installations with collaborations from international and local artists.
The planning for the Festival in 2010 aimed to actively engage the people living in the World Heritage Site, and for the event to be a catalyst in creating a sustainable and liveable city. It also hoped to improve the quality of life for the people who live here, to enable the residents to feel more connected to the city, and would therefore want to be involved and own the programme.
George Town Festival is a platform that encourages development of the arts, while rejuvenating both used and unused spaces in the George Town UNESCO World Heritage Site. It gained strong brand recognition over the years, with extensive international media coverage and accolades. Local and international visitors would come to George Town to experience the Festival featuring programmes on art, culture, music, theatre, dance, opera and film.
The year 2019 is the 10th edition for the Festival, with the collaboration of artists, local businesses and communities in a collective celebration of arts, culture and heritage. While promoting the arts and our multicultural heritage at an international level, the Festival aims to advance the format of arts and heritage education and instil an appreciation for the role of arts and heritage in George Town. At least 70% of the events will be free-to-attend for the public, and featuring a minimum of 40% of local programmes and artists.
George Town Festival 2019 will be held from 13 – 28 July 2019, with TLM Event Sdn Bhd as the awarded contractor to plan, manage and grow the Festival. For more information, visit https://georgetownfestival.com.
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No Quick Fix for the UN
“(Kofi Annan’s) lack of leadership, combined with conflicts of interest and a lack of responsibility and accountability, point to one, and only one, outcome: his resignation.” If that had been the conclusion of Paul Volcker, chairman of the independent committee of inquiry into the oil-for-food scandal at the United Nations, the UN secretary-general would have had to resign on the spot.
In reality, however, it was only Norm Coleman, a Republican senator who has devoted his career to attacking the UN, putting the worst possible spin on an interim report last Wednesday that actually said “there is neither convincing testimony…nor documentary evidence” that the secretary-general was guilty of any misconduct. When Annan was asked if he planned to resign over the report, he replied “Hell, no” — but it does make his task of reforming the UN even harder.
Kofi Annan may privately wish to strangle his son Kojo, who is suspected of trading on his presumed influence on the secretary-general for personal gain. In 1997, at the age of 22, Kojo walked straight into a $200,000-a-year job with a Swiss firm, Cotechna Inspections, and he did not alert his father to the possible conflict of interest when Cotechna got a fat contract from the UN to inspect food shipments to Iraq the following year. But that is just a family matter. The damage to the UN is more serious.
Chief executive officers don’t usually launch massive plans for root-and-branch reform of the organisations they lead in their last year in office (Annan retires next year at the end of his second five-year term), but this is a rescue mission. The UN was already under fire as a useless talking-shop that failed to stop most of the civil wars and genocides of the past fifteen years, but the combination of internal scandals and President George W. Bush’s headlong assault on the organisation have created an atmosphere of crisis.
Intervening in the internal affairs of sovereign states, even to stop civil wars, was no part of the UN’s original job description, but once the paralysis caused by the Cold War was at an end, people EXPECTED the UN to do something about such tragedies. They didn’t understand that it can do nothing whatever without the agreement and support of the great powers. It is a club, not an independent organisation, and the members who sit on the steering committee, the Security Council, decide what it can and cannot do.
The most vivid case of the UN’s “failure” in the 90s, the Rwanda genocide, shows how things really work. The real reason that the UN did not send large numbers of troops to stop the killing there was that the great powers, and especially the United States, were unwilling to make that kind of commitment.
President Bill Clinton had inherited a commitment to the UN peace-keeping operation in Somalia from the first President Bush, and had his fingers badly burned when the American force took substantial casualties in an ill-judged raid and subsequently had to be withdrawn under the pressure of US public opinion. Clinton didn’t want another African military commitment blowing up in his face in the midst of the 1994 mid-term elections in the US, and refused to allow any major UN commitment to Rwanda. Then later, when the full scale of the atrocity became clear, he blamed the UN for its “failure”.
Governments shift the blame for their own inaction onto the UN all the time. The only way to change that would be to remove the UN from the control of the states that created it, and set it up as an independent power with its own sources of income and its own army. That just isn’t going to happen.
Since it’s impossible to fix the main problem with the UN, its supporters have come up with a series of diversionary projects to fix lesser problems. The most important by far is the expansion of the Security Council from its current fifteen members, including five veto-wielding permanent members, to twenty-four members including six new permanent ones (without vetoes).
The five existing permanent members are simply the five great powers that were on the winning side in the Second World War: the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China. Japan and Germany weren’t on the list because they lost the war, and India wasn’t on the list because it was still a colony.
The new deal would give all of them permanent seats, as well as one Latin American country (Brazil) and two African countries (still to be decided). Secretary-General Annan is determined to push this reform through before September, but dissension in the ranks is so great that he may not actually succeed: the deal still provides no permanent seat for any Muslim country, and gives only three seats to Asia (half the world’s people) while it gives four to Europe (one-tenth of the world’s people).
Then there’s a project for a new human rights council to replace the discredited Human Rights Commission, and a plan to tackle the “crisis of relevance” at the UN’s Geneva-based Conference on Disarmament, and much other tinkering with the system. Some of it is well worth doing, but the main reason for popular impatience and disillusion with the United Nations, the fact that governments control the UN and not the other way round, cannot be changed. Turkeys do not vote for Christmas.
To shorten to 725 words, omit paragraphs 3, 10 and 11. (“Kofi…serious”; and “The five…people”)
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The Great Islamic Threat
People often wind up believing their own cover story. Former British prime minister Tony Blair, for example, is trapped forever in the rationalisations he used in 2003 to explain why he was going along with George Bush’s invasion of Iraq. He was at it again last week, telling the BBC that “radical Islam” is the greatest threat facing the world today.
The BBC journalist went to Ireland for the interview, because Blair chose Dublin for the only live signing of his newly published autobiography: a personal appearance in Britain wouldn’t be safe. Even in Ireland, the protesters threw eggs and shoes at the man who was Bush’s faithful sidekick in the struggle to save Western civilisation from radical Islam.
But is militant Islam really a bigger threat to the world than the possibility of a major nuclear war (happily now in abeyance, but never really gone)? Bigger than the risk that infectious diseases are going to make a major come-back as antibiotics become ineffective? Bigger even than the threat of runaway global warming?
Blair has to say it is, because he was one of the people who launched a crusade against radical Islamists after 9/11. Or at least against those whom they accused of being supporters of radical Islam, although many of them (like Saddam Hussein) were nothing of the sort.
Blair has never publicly acknowledged that Saddam Hussein was actually an enemy of radical Islam: admitting it would drain the last dram of logic from his justification for invading Iraq. So he only talks in general terms about fighting “radical Islam”, and hopes that the more ignorant part of the public will think that includes the Iraq war.
Never mind. It’s far too late for Blair to change his story, and anyway the argument about Iraq has gone stale by now. Except for one thing: many influential people in Western countries still insist that “radical Islam” is indeed the world’s greatest threat. Some do it for career reasons, and others do it from conviction, but they all get a more respectful hearing than they deserve.
It depends on what you mean by “radical Islam,” of course. In some Western circles, any Muslim who challenges Western policies is by definition an Islamist radical. But if it means Sunni Muslims who believe in the Salafist interpretation of Islam and are personally willing to use terrorist violence to spread it, then there aren’t very many of them: a few hundred thousand at most.
These people are unlikely to start blowing things up in New Jersey or Bavaria, though they are a serious threat to fellow Muslims living in their own countries. (They are particularly keen on killing Shias.) The vast majority of them speak no foreign language and could never get a passport.
It’s a big, ugly problem for countries like Iraq and Pakistan, but it is a pretty small problem for everybody else. The number of people killed by “radical Islamic” terrorists in the past decade OUTSIDE the Muslim world is probably no more than 15,000.
None of these deaths is justifiable, but it is weird to insist that a phenomenon that causes an average of, say, 1,500 non-Muslim deaths a year, on a planet with almost seven billion people, is the greatest threat facing the world today. Yet the people who launched the “war on terror” do say that, as do many others who built their careers by pushing the same proposition.
They do it by the simple device of warning (to quote Blair’s recent interview) that “there is the most enormous threat from the combination of this radical extreme movement and the fact that, if they could, they would use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. You can’t take a risk with that happening.”
Never mind the quite limited damage that terrorists actually do. Imagine the damage they MIGHT do if they got their hands on such weapons. Very well, let us imagine just that.
During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union had 10,000 nuclear weapons ready to launch at each other. If they had ever gone to war, hundreds of millions of people would have been killed – even several billion, if it had caused a nuclear winter. And of course the two countries had huge biological and chemical warfare capabilities too.
If “radical Islamists” ever got their hands on a nuclear weapon, it would be ONE bomb, not ten thousand warheads. If they managed to explode it, it would be a local disaster, not a global holocaust. The worst poison gas attack ever, on the Tokyo underground system in 1995, killed only thirteen people, and although germ warfare could be hugely destructive of human life, it requires scientific capabilities that are very difficult to master
Besides, just how does invading various Muslim countries shrink any of these dangers? It probably increases them, actually, by outraging many Muslims and providing the extremists with a steady flow of recruits.
Terrorism, by radical Islamists or anybody else, is a real threat but a modest one. It cannot be “defeated”, but it can be contained by good police work and wise policy choices. It might make it into the top ten global threats, but it certainly wouldn’t make it into the top three. Anybody who says it does has something to sell or something to hide.
To shorten to 725 words, omit paragraphs 2 and 5. (“The BBC…Islam”; and “Blair…war”)
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Malaysia: Najib in Trouble
“There’s no more rule of law,” said Mahathir Mohamad, the 90-year-old grandee who was prime minister of Malaysia for 22 years. “The only way for the people to get back to the old system is for them to remove this prime minister.”
Mahathir has been openly criticising the current prime minister, Najib Razak, for the past year although they both belong to the same political party, the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO). What made it special this time was that he said it at a two-day mass demonstration in the centre of Kuala Lumpur.
Mass demonstrations are normally attacked and dispersed by the police in Malaysia despite its formally democratic system, but this time the police remained peaceful. There were the usual disputes about how many people were there, with the organisers claiming 300,000 and the police saying 20,000, but the important thing was that Mahathir showed up and gave it his support.
There’s certainly good reason to demand Najib Razak’s resignation as prime minister. In July the Wall Street Journal published a report that $700 million had been transferred into his personal bank accounts in 2013 by the deeply indebted 1MDB state investment fund, which he created in 2009 shortly after becoming prime minister. He remains chairman of the fund’s board of advisers even today.
At first Najib just denied it all. He fired his deputy prime minister, Muhyiddin Yassin, for criticising his handing of the affair, and also the attorney general, Abdul Gani Patail, who was leading the the investigation into the scandal. Then, when it became impossible to deny that the money had appeared in his accounts, his advisers began claiming that it had come not from 1MDB but as a “political donation” from unnamed Middle Eastern sources.
Whether it was really looted from the 1MDB investment fund or just given to Najib by a “wealthy Arab family”, its purpose was clear. It was not to enrich Najib personally. It was to swing the outcome of the 2013 election, which Najib’s party was in danger of losing.
In a normal democracy, accepting the better part of a billion dollars from foreigners to win an election would be just as serious a crime as stealing it from a national investment fund, but Malaysia is not a normal democracy. It has been effectively a single-party state since independence in 1957, because the great majority of ethnic Malays vote for UMNO and its allies in order to retain their special privileges in the country.
Malays, who are almost all Muslims, were the original population in most of the country and still account for 60 percent of its people. However, large-scale immigration by Chinese and Indians in the 19th century shifted the balance: Chinese Malaysians now account for about a quarter of the population, and people of Indian descent for around one-tenth.
Moreover, it is the Chinese who dominate the country economically, a fact that led to the bloody race riots of 1969. Since then, Malays have enjoyed cheaper housing, priority in government jobs and business licenses, and in practice (though no longer in theory) better access to university courses, in order to help them catch up economically with the Chinese and Indian populations.
The policy has had some success: average household incomes have converged, with Malay families going from about 40 percent of Chinese family earnings in 1970 to around 70 percent in 2009. Most Malays nevertheless feel this institutionalised favouritism is still necessary, and vote UMNO to protect it – while a majority of Chinese and Indian Malaysians undoubtedly feel that half a century of extra privileges for Malays is enough.
That’s why the great majority of protesters at last weekend’s demonstration in Kuala Lumpur were ethnically Chinese or Indian. Najib’s financial misdeeds provided a justification for the protest, and even many Malays want to see the back of Najib, but the Malays stayed away because they detect a deeper agenda in the protest movement.
Matters are further complicated by the fact that all Malays are Muslims whereas practically nobody else is. Mahathir was exploiting the demo in order to further his campaign to unseat Najib in an internal conflict within UMNO, but he certainly does not want to end the Malay-Muslim domination of the country’s politics or dismantle Malay privileges.
“What is 20,000 (demonstrators)? We can gather hundreds of thousands,” said Najib after the demonstration. “The rest of the Malaysian population is with the government.” Or at least most Malays are, especially in rural areas, and that’s probably enough for him to ride out this crisis unless Malaysia’s economic situation worsens.
The Malaysian economy has slowed down dramatically since Chinese demand for imports and the price of oil both began to collapse. Malaysia’s currency, the ringgit, is in free-fall. If it gets bad enough, Najib will have to go.
Whatever the injustices involved, it’s probably better for everybody that the ethnic can of worms stays firmly closed for a while yet, so UMNO should be thinking hard about a successor who will be acceptable to everybody.
To shorten to 725 words, omit paragraphs 3 and 12. (“Mass…support”; and “Matters…privileges”)
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Adjunct Professor – Cinema & New Media Arts
Job Title: Adjunct Professor – Cinema & New Media Arts
Position Number: ACAD-ADJ-CNMA-09302014
Departments: School of Fine Arts
Reports To: Dean, School of Fine Arts
Houston Baptist University seeks Adjunct Professors to join the Cinema & New Media Arts program with expertise in a variety of relevant content areas including cinematic theory, visual storytelling, narrative and non-narrative video production, multimedia post-production, and film history / media studies.
Adjunct faculty will be responsible for teaching one or more on-campus classes, including overseeing all relevant student work and grading assignments. Some courses may also require the development of a new syllabus in coordination with the director of the Cinema & New Media Arts program.
Applicants should have a graduate degree in a relevant media field or considerable professional experience in the media industry. Candidates may be considered for the following courses:
• Cinematic Core Principles: An introductory cinematic theory course bridging traditional filmmaking and new media. Grounded in Andrey Tarkovsky’s approach to cinema and integrating theories from a variety of sources, from Eisenstein to Bazin, this course walks students through the building blocks of creating cinematic media.
• The Art of Cinema & New Media: This course challenges students to develop their own artistic voice. Includes an historical walkthrough of storytelling and art from Homer all the way to modern video games. Oral storytelling and media pitching are also central to this course.
• History of Cinema: A chronological survey of the cinematic medium, introducing students to the key artists and developments in the first century of filmmaking. Particular attention should be paid to connecting historical developments to current trends and approaches to new media.
• Video Production: An introduction to video production, with a particular focus on capturing live events and non-fiction content with polish and efficiency. Students in this course will work closely with The Collegian, HBU’s online news source. Multiple workflows and approaches are encouraged, with students introduced to ENG and DSLR cameras, as well as learning how to use mobile devices such as iPhones to greatest effect.
• Website & App Development: Introductory course(s) in interactive media. Could introduce students to the basics of web design, available web platforms such as WordPress and Squarespace, and / or basic app or game development. Special emphasis should be focused on theoretical concerns such as the aesthetics of design or the functionality of interfaces and interactive content, equipping students with timeless knowledge that can be applied in a variety of circumstances, rather than simply training students in a specific program or programs.
Successful candidates should also be able to clearly express how their Christian faith enriches, guides, and undergirds their understanding of the creation of cinema and art.
Houston Baptist University is an independent, private Christian liberal arts institution with a diverse student body. It has access to all the cultural advantages of one of the largest metropolitan centers in the country. For more information about the University and the College of Arts and Humanities, visit hbu.edu.
The University is in the process of implementing its Ten Pillars vision (hbu.edu/vision) and anticipates significant growth in student enrollment and university programs. The successful candidate will also be able to articulate a vision for the role of his or her discipline at HBU that is supportive of the Ten Pillars vision statement.
Direct questions about this position to Joshua Sikora, director of the Cinema & New Media Arts program (jsikora@hbu.edu).
Kristin Thompson
Naturalistic Lighting
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Panic! At The Disco’s Brendon Urie Debuts On Billboard Social 50 Chart Following Donald Trump Tweet
Shawn Mendes’ “If I Can’t Have You” Officially Reaches #1 At Hot AC Radio
Ed Sheeran & Justin Bieber’s “I Don’t Care” Earns 5th Week As Hot AC Radio’s #1 Song
Matt Maeson’s “Cringe” Officially Earns #1 At Alternative Radio
Ed Sheeran & Justin Bieber’s “I Don’t Care” Enjoys 4th Week As Hot AC Radio’s #1 Song
Ed Sheeran & Justin Bieber’s “I Don’t Care” Spends 3rd Week At #1 On Pop & Hot AC Radio Charts
Aug 4, 2019, 4:56 pm
Ed Sheeran & Justin Bieber’s “I Don’t Care” Remains #1 At Pop & Hot AC Radio
Ed Sheeran & Justin Bieber’s “I Don’t Care” Reaches #1 At Pop & Hot AC Radio
Jul 21, 2019, 12:29 pm
Jonas Brothers’ “Sucker” Enjoys 8th Week As Hot AC Radio’s #1 Song
Ed Sheeran & Justin Bieber’s “I Don’t Care” Joins Top 5 At Pop Radio; Panic! At The Disco Top 10
Panic! At The Disco’s “Hey Look Ma,” Billie Eilish’s “Party” Enter Top 15 At Pop Radio
Halsey’s “Nightmare,” Panic! At The Disco’s “Hey Look Ma” Added By Los Angeles’ 102.7 KIIS FM
BTS, Taylor Swift, OneRepublic, Halsey, More Scheduled To Perform On “The Voice” Finale
Ed Sheeran & Justin Bieber’s “I Don’t Care” Ranks As Pop Radio’s Most Added Song
Shawn Mendes’ “If I Can’t Have You” Erupts As Pop Radio’s Most Added Song
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The Faith in Chaos Issue
by Ryan White
Jul 1 2020, 12:00pm
Krule Summer: How King Krule became the sound of a generation
At a pub in south London the day coronavirus is declared a global health pandemic, King Krule discusses 'Man Alive!', an album that punctuated the beginning of a new world.
King Krule's story originally appeared in i-D's The Faith In Chaos Issue, no. 360, Summer 2020. Order your copy here.
If you could capture the mood of British youth right now with a single record – one that speaks to a generation restless, listless, staring down the barrel of a stultifying summer and another financial crash – it would sound a lot like King Krule’s Man Alive!. Released in February, almost ceremoniously as the coronavirus outbreak hit Europe, the album marked the beginning of the new decade for an artist who spent the previous one successfully building a dominion worthy of his name. A few months later and as each day bleeds into the next, and the pendulum swings between apathy and dread, Krule’s impassive melancholy – a feature of every record, but truer than ever here – has never felt more apt.
“Guess this ain’t a world that I dreamt of,” he sings on the album’s lead single "(Don’t Let the Dragon) Draag On", before asking, “You think those blue giants feel the same? You think they ever have these days?”
We speak in an empty pub off Peckham Rye. The World Health Organisation declared the coronavirus a global health pandemic just a few hours ago. All conversations begin and end with what might happen next and, only six dates into his tour, the outlook for the remaining dates aren’t great. But Archy Marshall seems, as ever, unperturbed. “Maybe I’ll have to wear a mad hazmat suit,” he says, words delivered in his slow, dilatory manner. Within a matter of days, all dates will inevitably be cancelled.
King Krule wears coat andshirt Gucci AW20.
Work on Man Alive! began during the tour for Archy’s previous album, The Ooz. “I just felt really good, really inspired. Felt like I could do anything, loved what I was making,” he says. “I had a nice set-up with my studio at home and everything sounded good. I didn’t really lose momentum, until…” he trails off. “I just remember one point listening to it and just not really being excited by it, you know? That was a really frustrating feeling. So then I spent an extra year on it, trying to excite myself again.” Now that it’s finished, out in the world (and the recipient of critical acclaim) he doesn’t need to listen to it anymore. “It’s like anything, if you create something, then you spend a lot of time with it. You feel like you’re deep within it in a three-dimensional sense. It takes years to kind of appreciate it in a two-dimensional way that the listeners get straight away. But, I listened to it a lot on the trains from here up to the north west – it really suited that journey.”
Archy spent a few months in the north west of England after his girlfriend, the photographer Charlotte Patmore, became pregnant midway through working on the album. It’s where Charlotte’s from and the move “just made sense,” he says. Back in his native south London now, a perennial reference and inspiration to his work, he says it’s here he feels his most comfortable. “But I can make home anywhere, you know. I don’t need too much – just a roof and a bed.” Despite a spate of critically acclaimed albums and the birth of his daughter, there doesn’t appear to be a huge shift in Archy since he appeared on the cover of i-D in 2013, promoting his debut album, 6 Feet Beneath the Moon. “I think what people forget about anyone is that there are never not off-days. People say, like, ‘What have you got to write about anymore? You’ve got money and more money and you’ve got a little more comfortable’... a lot of people don’t realise that it’s like, well, some things don’t change.”
Shirt and T-shirt Gucci AW20. Trousers Gucci Pre-Fall 20. Necklace (worn throughout) model’s own.
This space between him and his music may not be growing, but it is changing. The six dates of his tour prior to this interview – across the UK, Paris and Brussels – have had a new feel. “The stage has got different, the appreciation got different. When I was young,” he says, referencing touring as Zoo Kid, his first moniker, “it was kind of about acting intimidating towards those crowds. I wasn’t there to fuck around, I didn’t care if you were talking. Then with the King Krule tours, some of the early ones were really soul-destroying because there’s more people and they’ve come to see you but they don’t take you seriously. It’s a small kid on the stage looking goofy, so I got a lot of piss takers. Then, by the time of The Ooz, kids were going wild and I didn’t even have to do much, just kind of play and sing. So, I don’t know but I’m in a bit of a limbo space right now. I’ve just started this tour and the new music has a different performance – it’s a bit more reserved and open to its anger, and it’s heavy.”
Archy doesn’t label himself an entertainer. Or, at least, he didn’t until recently. Now, with the prospect of a cancelled tour, his perspective has shifted a little. “I’m not an entertainer at all. I feel like I’m an artist. I don’t want to entertain. But with all the stuff about the virus it’s like, well, people are playing football matches with no crowds and I wondered, you couldn’t play a gig without the audience. I don’t go up there to play for the audience – but then I guess I do?”
Shirt and trousers Gucci Pre-Fall 20. Trainers Nike.
Turning 26 this summer, there’s so much time for King Krule to evolve. Like the records that came before it, Man Alive! is still a eulogy of sorts, even if its name suggests the opposite. But at its close, on the song "Please Complete Thee", Archy asks, “Have you seen the disasters? We don’t have long ‘til this earth is drowned”, ending, “Girl / Please complete me.” With fatherhood on his mind, perhaps, and a cry for help, we’re left to wonder what the next decade will bring him. “I’ve got some ideas but I’m not gonna make any statements because people might take too much from it,” he says. “I want to make more, create more, write more... it’s the only thing I’m good at. But I also wanna just like, maybe go incognito – go under the radar when I’m 30 and then reappear when I’m like 80 years old.”
For now, there’s already new music in the pipeline. “The next thing I’m working on is really just about me and the guitar. I’ve been thinking about whether I would be able to do these shows just me, on my own. I probably could but…” he trails off again. “Maybe I’ll get a decent beat-boxer like Ed Sheeran.” Though the similarities between him and Ed Sheeran as artists may end there, since the baby came along, Archy does have new priorities. “I’m going to do some shit – I can’t say, I’ll tell you afterwards,” he says. “I’ve got big master plans to sell my soul because I’ve got someone to support now and I want her to be blessed for the rest of her life.”
Jumper, shirt and T-shirt Gucci AW20. Trousers Gucci Pre-Fall 20.
Jumper, shirt and T-shirt Gucci AW20. Trousers Gucci Pre-Fall 20. Trainers Nike.
Shirt and T-shirt Gucci AW20. Trousers Gucci Pre-Fall 20.
Shirt and T-shirt Gucci AW20.
Photography Colin Dodgson
Styling Alastair McKimm
Hair Duffy at Streeters.
Make-up Sally Branka at LGA Management using M.A.C Cosmetics.
Photography assistance Aaron Lippman and Jonathan Tasker.
Styling assistance Madison Matusich.
Hair assistance Lukas Tralmer.
Make-up assistance Juan Jaar.
On-set production Alexis Piqueras.
Casting director Samuel Ellis Scheinman for DMCASTING.
King Krule:
Archy Marshall
colin dodgson
the faith is chaos issue
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LEGO® Minerals
ddf72
Congratulations on 5,000 supporters! You've earned an extra 182 days.
Wow! By passing 5,000 supporters, you've made it into the upper ranks on LEGO Ideas. Since you've passed the halfway point, here's another 6 months (182 days) to reach the final milestone of 10,000 supporters. Best of luck as you aim to finish your journey strong.
Your project is so well made that 1,000 of your new best friends have supported you within your first year. As a reward, you've earned an extra 6 months (182 days) to reach your next milestone of 5,000 supporters. Best of luck as you continue to rally support for your project.
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You've passed the first milestone and reached 100 supporters within the first 60 days. As a reward, here's a boost of one year (365 days) to reach 1,000 supporters. Best of luck as you continue to rally support for your project.
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In Minecraft, books are simple to create. However, it can be a bit frustrating to track down the ingredients.
But as long as you have the material you require, it is elementary to set up a farm so that you can never run out of leather and paper.
In this post, we will discuss how to plan your library and how to make a book in Minecraft.
Before we proceed to our crucial topic, we need you first to understand some basic information about Minecraft.
Therefore, we will provide you with an overview of what Minecraft describes and how exactly it works.
Above all, we shall discuss various modes available for the game so that you will able to understand How to Make a Book in Minecraft in whatever method of the game that you could be using. Make sure to read this article to the end.
RELATED POST: How to Change the Biome in Minecraft
Minecraft describes a sandbox type of video game that Mojang Studios developed.
Markus Notch created Minecraft in the form of the Java Programming Language and released it as a public alpha in November 2011 to help serve personal computers.
Jens Bergensten took over the development of the game in 2011. The video game is one of the best-selling video games and is available on several gaming platforms.
It had recorded more than 126 million active users by early 2020 and has sold more than 200 million copies across the globe.
In the video game, users can explore a blocky and procedurally-generated 3D world.
The players can discover and extract earthworks, build structures, craft tools, or raw materials, and, based on the mode of the game, can take part in computer-controlled mobs.
The players can also either compete against or cooperate with other players in the same video game world.
The video game modes comprise the Creative Mode, where users have unlimited access to resources and the Survival Mode, where users have to acquire resources to build a world and generally maintain health. Users can modify video game settings to create new gameplay assets, items, and mechanics.
Minecraft has received critical acclaims, won numerous awards, and is generally one of the most influential video gaming options.
The Annual MineCon, merchandise, adaptations, parodies, and social media play a significant role in making the video game accessible.
The video game also applies well in educational environments, most precisely in the realm of computer gaming systems, since it features built-in hardware and computer devices.
Microsoft purchased both the Minecraft and Mojang intellectual property in 2014 for about 2.5 US billion dollars.
The video game features several spin-off games such as Minecraft Earth, Minecraft Dungeons, and Minecraft Story Mode.
The video game has no specific goals to accomplish. For that reason, it allows the players to access unlimited freedom in selecting how they would like to play the video game.
Nevertheless, it features an achievement system in the Java Version of the video game.
Although the players have the option to choose the third-person perspective, the default gameplay for the video game is in the first-person perspective.
The video game world features rough 3D objects that are mainly fluids and cubes, and most times, the game refers to them as blocks representing several materials like lava, water, tree trunks, ores, stone, and dirt.
The main procedure for playing the game successfully depends on how the user discovers picks and places the raw materials.
The blocks appear in a 3D grid, and players are free to move around the video game world.
In any case, the players can mine blocks and can place them anywhere in the world to enable them to build what they want.
Most users describe the video game physics system as unrealistic since it features fluid flow continuously for a limited horizontal distance from the source block.
The players can remove this by scooping it into a bucket or placing a solid block.
The video game also features a Redstone material, which can enable them to create logic gates, electrical circuits, and primitive mechanical devices.
The creation of such logic allows them to construct many complex systems.
The video game world is procedurally generated and virtually infinite since the users are free to explore it, using the map seed that they can obtain from the system clock when they are creating the world or when the player manually specifies it.
Most importantly, there are no limits on the game’s vertical movement, but the video game also allows a vast video game world on the horizontal plane.
As a result of technical problems when the player attains extremely distant locations, however, the video game develops a barrier that prevents the players from traveling to sites that are past 30,000,000 blocks from the center of the game.
The video game makes this possible by splitting the game’s available world data into smaller sections of chunks that only appear and load when the player is nearby.
The world features divisions in the form of biomes that range from the deserts to jungles and snowfields.
The video game’s terrain features various water/lava bodies, caves, forests, mountains, and plains.
The video in-game comes with a time system that follows the night and day cycle, and one full period would last up to 20 real-time minutes.
Whenever the user wants to start a new world, they are supposed to choose one of the five available video game modes and one of the four difficulties that may range from the peaceful ones to the hard ones.
If the video game increases the game’s complexity, the player must take in more damages from the mobs and may encounter many other difficulties with specific effects.
For instance, the peaceful challenge would prevent the hostile mobs from causing any spawn while the hard problem would expose the player to starvation and death if the hunger bar gets depleted.
Once the player selects the difficulty mode, they can change their option, but the video game mode would appear locked, and they can only change this using cheats.
New players can randomly select the default character skin of either Alex or Steve, but the available option to create custom skins has been open since 2010.
Players meet non-player characters (mobs) such as hostile creatures, villagers, and animals.
Hence, the players can hunt passive mobs like chickens, pigs, and cows for food and crafts.
Such mobs appear during the day while hostile mobs like zombies, skeletons, and spiders spawn in dark places and during the night.
Fortunately, some hostile mobs such as drowned, skeletons, and zombies burn under the sun unless they access the headgear.
Other creatures that are unique to the video game may include the creeper and the enderman, an animal that can teleport, pick, and place blocks.
Several mobs can spawn in a different situation. For instance, zombies feature husk variants that can generate in the deserts.
Minecraft also features two alternative gaming dimensions apart from the main world.
The aspects include the End and the Nether. The Nether describes a hell-like size that users can access through the player-built portals.
This option features many unique resources that can allow the players to travel great distances across the main world since every block that you visit in the Nether dimensions is equal to 8 block travels in the main world.
Also, the user can create an optional boss mob that the game refers to as the Wither using the materials they access in the Nether mode.
On the other hand, the End describes a barren land that consists of many islands.
The Boss dragon that the game represents as the Ender Dragon can dwell on the main island.
If the player kills the dragon, they get access to an exit portal that upon entering can cue the video game to end credits and the poem that the Irish novelist, Mr. Julian Gough wrote.
The players then get teleported back to their spawn points and can continue to play the video game indefinitely.
How to Make a Book in Minecraft in Survival Mode
How to Make a Book in Minecraft in Hardcore Mode
How to Make a Book in Minecraft in Creative Mode
How to Make a Book in Minecraft in Adventure Mode
How to Make a Book in Minecraft in Spectator mode
How to Make a Book in Minecraft in Multi-Player
How to Make a Book in Minecraft in Minecraft Realms
How to Make a Book in Minecraft for the Console and Computer
How to Make a Book in Minecraft Pocket Edition
In the survival mode, the players should gather natural resources such as stone and wood available in the environment to help them craft certain items and blocks.
Based on the level of difficulty, monsters can spawn under the dark areas that appear outside a specific radius of the character.
Therefore, the video game requires the players to seek shelter at night.
The survival mode also features the health bar, which depletes in a case of attacks from events such as starvation, suffocation, falling into lava, drowning, falls, and monsters.
The mode also comes with the hunger bar, which requires the player to refill it periodically by eating food in-game.
In a case where the hunger bar gets depleted, the game will stop automatic healing, and the health level will deplete over time.
All the same, health can replenish when the players have a full hunger bar.
Players can build an array of items in the video game. Some of the things that they can craft include the armor, which can help them to mitigate damages that can result from attacks.
They can also craft weapons, which allow them to kill animals and monsters quickly.
Above all, they can craft tools, which can help them to break the blocks quickly.
Some Minecraft items come with multiple tiers based on the material that the players use to craft them.
Generally, the higher-tier items feature more durability and effectiveness.
Players can craft the furnace with which they can process ores, cook food, and also convert materials into other valuable items.
They can trade goods with the villagers NPCs through an exchange system that involves trading emeralds for various products.
The video game features an inventory system that allows players to carry a limited count of items.
The items available in the inventory system of the players may drop soon after they die, and the players can respawn and the relative point of spawning, which is by default the place the player spawned for the first time in the game.
Also, they can set this by sleeping in a bed or using the anchor.
They can recover the items they dropped if the player reaches them before they de-spawn in five minutes.
The players can access experience points by killing other players or mobs, cooking food, breeding animals, armor ores, smelting, and mining.
They can then spend the experience enchanting their tools, weapons, and armor.
Enchanting their items will render them generally more robust, durable, and with exclusive effects.
The hardcore mode is a variant of the survival mode that features locked and hardest setting options.
The players are no longer allowed to explore the hardcore world if they die in this mode.
Alternatively, the game places them in the spectator mode if they want to explore the world or delete it.
Under this play mode, the players enjoy access to all items and resources available in the video game via the inventory menu and can remove or place them instantly.
Players can toggle the ability to fly freely around the world of the video game.
Their characters don’t necessarily cause any damage and do not get exposed to the effects of hunger.
This game mode would help the players to focus on creating and building projects of any size without any kind of hindrance.
The adventure mode features a design that specifically allows the players to experience user-crafted adventures and custom maps.
In this case, the video gameplay is mostly the same as that survival mode, although it comes with several restrictions, which the creator of the map can apply to the video game world.
This feature can force the players to access the necessary items and also experience adventure the way the map maker intends.
The command block is another addition that the custom maps feature.
The neighborhood would enable the map makers to expand their interactions with players via the scripted server commands.
This mode allows the player to fly through the available blocks and watch the gameplay without having to interact directly.
In this case, players do not have access to any inventory, although they can teleport other players’ options and view everything from another creature or player’s perspective.
The spectator mode is only accessible in the PC or Java versions of the video game.
The option for multiplayer is available in Minecraft through the direct game-to-game multiplayer, servers, local split-screen and LAN play.
It allows multiple players to communicate and interact with each other in one video game world.
Users can run their game servers, connect directly to other players of use hosting providers via Xbox Live.
The single-player world options feature a local area network support that allows players to join a world that the game local interconnects computers without setting up a server.
Minecraft multiplayer servers feature guidance from the server operators, who have all the access to the server commands like teleporting players and setting the time of the day.
Operators are also allowed to set up restrictions regarding the IP addresses and usernames that they allow or disallow to join the server.
The multiplayer servers feature an array of activities. Some of the servers feature unique rules and customs.
Hypixel is one of the most popular and most significant servers, which records over 14 million players.
PVP (Player Versus Player) combat is available to allow competition between the players.
Above all, many servers feature custom Plugins that would enable players to access abnormal actions.
Mojang announced Minecraft Realms back in 2013. This option describes server hosting services that intend to enable users to run server multiplayer video games safely and efficiently without the need to set up their server.
The Minecraft Realms works unlike most other standard servers since it only allows invited players to join the Realms and does not base on the IP address.
Players who own the Realms server can invite up to twenty other users to play on their server and allows up to ten users online at the same time.
Nevertheless, the server does not support the user-made plugins, although users can play the custom maps.
In 2016 at the Electronic Entertainment Expo, the company announced that the Minecraft Realms would enable the video game to support cross-platform play between Android, iOS, and Windows 10 platforms as from June 2016, with Nintendo Switch and Xbox One support to come in 2017, and the support for the virtual reality devices. Mojang launched the beta version on 31st July 2017
An array of player-generated and downloadable content for the video game, such as custom maps, texture packs, and modifications, is available on the internet.
The adjustment of the available Minecraft code can add an array of gameplay options that range from new mobs, new items, and new blocks to entire varieties of mechanisms that players can craft.
The community is supposed to ensure a substantial supply of the mod from the ones that can promote the gameplay, such as durability counters, waypoints, and minimaps to the ones that can add to the video game elements from the other media or video games.
The community-created resource packs that can changer specific video game elements such as sound and textures are also available.
Above all, users can create maps, which most times contain certain quests, puzzles, challenges, and rules and share them with other players.
The company also added an adventure mode back in August 2012 and introduced the command blocks in October 2012. This move created custom maps in the Java version of the game.
On the other hand, the Xbox 360 version of the video game can support downloadable content, which you can access via the Xbox Game Store.
The content packs often feature the additional character skins. The company launched the first mash-up pack for the Xbox 360 version of the game on 4th September 2013.
The kit features a theme that reflects the Mass Effect franchise. However, unlike the Java version, the Xbox 360 edition does not allow custom maps and player-made mod.
Gather Sugar Cane: The sugar cane, in this case, describes the green reeds around the water bodies. It is challenging to locate the sugar cane some worlds of the video game, but by following the coastline, you will occasionally come across the reeds. Break it with the available tools or your bare hands. All the same, note that sugar cane cannot grow next to the frozen waters. Look for areas with warm water bodies.
Startup a sugar cane farm: You should save some sugar cane for planting before turning it into the paper because it might be challenging to locate sugar. If you place a piece of sugar cane on the ground, it will grow and develop more stems of sugar. However, you should follow a series of factors to ensure that you get the best results. First and foremost, ensure that you plant it on grass, sand, or dirt. Next, make sure that there is at least one water body near the ground where you place the sugar cane stem to grow. You can then wait for it to grow taller and just break the top blocks to harvest it. Leaving the lower part of the sugar cane enables it to improve again over time.
Turn three sugar cane into the paper: Fill at least one row of the crafting table with three sugar canes. This step enables you to get three sheet papers, which are enough for you to create a book.
Hunt for leather: Horses only appear in the Savannah and Plains, but cows are not difficult to locate. Every kill you make gives you 0 to two units of leather. You just need one piece of leather to create a book. You can easily make leather from four rabbit hides or only find it though fishing. Alternatively, you could grow wheat and make use of the stalks you harvest to attract cows to the enclosure if you want a steady source of leather.
Combine leather and paper to create the book: Place the paper in three squares and leather in one square at any point within the crafting area. This step will allow you to make the book.
Ensure that you check your version number: This procedure is best applicable if you use Minecraft Pocket Edition version 0.12.1 or better.
If you are using a previous version, you should be aware that before 0.12.1, books do not demand any sort of leather to craft, but you may need to use it in the game.
Also, note that books do not exist for versions before 0.3.0.
This article provides you with a better understanding of How to Make a Book in Minecraft.
Above all, we have provided you with the general knowledge of Minecraft’s works and how you can get the best experience out of it all.
We have also discussed how various categories of the game works, and we believe that you all understand it well.
Now we are confident that you can now work on creating your book in Minecraft without having to seek help from other players.
We have also saved you from the drawbacks that come along with using the video game cheat options. Make sure to put our ideas into practice and you will get the best results ever.
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Dan Pink - Why following passion alone doesn’t work for your career
Dan Pink has written multiple New York Times best sellers, he’s been a speech writer for Al Gore, He’s given many Keynotes all over the world. His current book “When” has been sitting atop the best seller list for months. Looking at his career right now, you’d have no idea that at one point he was in law school but decided being a lawyer wasn’t for him, got into politics and after the initial luster wore off that the political space wasn’t for him either.
So how did Dan go from shifting career focus multiple times to deciding to become a writer with relative ease?
Well… turns out, he didn’t!
Find out exactly what happened here https://happentoyourcareer/229
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/en/articles/if-you-re-learning-about-global-issues-learn-with-global-peers
https://cdn.hundred.org/uploads/article/cover_image/700/wide_globallearn.jpg
If You're Learning About Global Issues, Learn With Global Peers
12.4.2018 | BY LAUREN WILSON
All around the world you’ll find schools, classrooms, teachers and learners. Education is a truly global practise. Yet, while countless companies and offices have adopted a global mindset and use technology to create an international network, learners are often isolated from other schools in their community, let alone those around the world. Children learning about global issues like poverty, environmentalism and intercultural awareness might just be missing out on the best resource for learning - each other!
Innovative educators are out to change this, like Koen Timmers, Innovator and Top 10 Finalist for this year’s Global Teacher Prize. Timmers is the brain behind Global Learning, an initiative that brings together learners over the world to collaborate on ambitious projects addressing pressing real-life challenges.
Being recognized as one of the Top 10 teachers in the world was “fun, life changing and intense”, explained Timmers. “It really meant a lot to be a top 10 finalist. It was a really nice confirmation for the hard work of the last years. It brought me in contact with lovely and inspiring educators around the world, I had a lot of media attention in Belgium and I was interviewed by media across 15 countries in Dubai and I was able to talk to public figures... But the most heartwarming was receiving so many messages from people around the world – teachers claiming I changed the way they teach. Is there anything more awesome than this?”
As a Computer Science teacher, Timmers appreciates the power and potential of technology to make learning a global experience. While Timmers loves teaching his classes in Belgium, he wanted to reach more learners and connect children around the world, so set to work establishing a variety of international school projects focused around the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a set of 17 goals to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all.
Timmers admits that expanding his scope globally hasn’t always been easy. In 2015, Timmers launched a project connecting international teachers with classrooms in Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya, via Skype. It was a dire situation back then, with one teacher per 200 students, no computers and no reliable power supply, so Timmers had to establish his own infrastructure there to make his dream a reality.
“When I launched the Kakuma project very few people believed I could do it. After one year I was on my own. People thought I was nuts. At the same moment my private laptop I sent to the camp disappeared and the agency which shared internet connectivity and power supply lost interest. But I learned never to give up. I can now proudly say we have 175 global educators across 50 countries willing to teach the African students in the Kakuma refugee camp for free via Skype. And this group is growing on a daily basis. Thanks to being a Global Teacher Prize finalist I'm being invited to do keynotes in 15 countries and I get the chance to share our message.”
There are so many reasons to get involved with Global Learning. Connecting with international peers can broaden learners' perspectives, encouraging them to celebrate diversity, inclusivity and open-mindedness, while basing projects on the SDGs encourages learners to think creatively about some of the most pressing issues facing society today, promoting awareness and a proactive approach to addressing global challenges. Timmers explains the difference a global approach to learning makes, saying: “Formal education tends to be restricted to memorization, knowledge acquisition and examination. We are learning about global issues via textbooks instead of making a connection to students living in those countries. Thanks to projects like Climate Action, the Kakuma project and the Innovation project, tens of thousands of students and teachers across 6 continents are able to explore, brainstorm, create, connect, present and share their findings about global issues and specific SDGs.” Global Learning can help social cohesion and empathy within and beyond the classroom, as learners from all backgrounds see they share common problems and solutions.
Global Learning lends itself perfectly to multidisciplinary learning, tackling broad topics that encompass a range of subjects. Collaborating globally offers a way for young people to see the world from many different perspectives, work with other students from all over the globe and tackle some of the most important challenges facing our planet today. In doing so, learners gain valuable skills such as problem-solving, teamwork, creative thinking and communication. Learners are encouraged to think innovatively and work together to have a positive impact on the world around them - a truly empowering learning experience.
Educators that are keen to get involved should check out the upcoming Innovation project, which so far involves teachers and students from over 400 schools in more than 80 countries and boasts the support of Charlize Theron, Greenpeace, Unesco and other international public figures. Timmers explains, “The project is student-centered and teachers are asked to shift from instruction to guiding their students. Collaboration is key. Students will explore, brainstorm, discuss, create, present and share findings via weekly videos on the website. This way students will learn from each other in their classroom and then in the next stage from their global peers.”
Over the course of a month the learners will focus on 4 topics relating to their particular chosen SDG. Teachers can easily see which other schools around the world are focusing on the same SDG, making it quick and easy to connect with a partner school. Collaboration and sharing is key, so in the last week the students will be able to connect via Skype and experts will share their expertise during master classes.
In this increasingly connected world, it's vital that educators can connect children with others to normalize international relationships and prepare them to be successful adults in a globalized working world. Global Learning breaks down the four walls of the classroom, bringing global issues to life. As Koen Timmers says, “What can possibly be better than learning about global issues directly from each other?”
Open up your classroom to the world now by signing up to the upcoming Innovation Project or registering to teach refugee children as part of the Kakuma Project.
If you’re interested in learning about related innovations, follow our projects to keep up to date with the latest developments :
A project-based learning method that encourages students to work collaboratively and proactively, th
Check out these HundrED articles for more on this subject:
Teacher Testimonials: If You Want Your Students To Become Global Citizens, You Must First Be A Global Teacher
Nam Ngo Thanh used to focus on knowledge acquisition and teaching out of textbooks and he thought he
HundrED Ambassadors Share Their Journey as Global Teacher Prize Finalists
We caught up with Barbara Zielonka and Nam Ngo Thanh, two of our HundrED Ambassadors, to discover w
James Steckart: Control in the Classroom is an Illusion
Jamie Steckart, Head of School at THINK Global School, explains how uncontrolled learning environments can benefit learning and why Project Based Learning is really taking off around the world.
All Together Now... How Collaboration Is Shaping Education From The Ground Up
Working together to bring change seems obvious. So why, in many school systems around the world, isn’t this a reality? We need to shift our education's focus away from competition towards collaboratio
PenPal Schools Launch Pen-Pal-A-Palooza 2018!
Today marks the start of the biggest PenPal exchange of the year - an international extravaganza of collaborative learning, connecting thousands of kids around the world. Has your school enrolled?
The Innovators Providing Hope For A ‘Lost Generation’ Of Refugee Children
Millions of refugee children face a bleak future without access to education. These innovations are finding simple yet impactful ways to bring learning opportunities to some of the most vulnerable chi
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Hunter Writers Centre Inc. is a not-for-profit, incorporated organisation
devoted to engaging, educating and employing writers of Australia
Hunter Writers Centre Board
Megan Buxton
Megan taught secondary English for thirty years in the Hunter and worked as a tutor in the School of Education at the University of Newcastle. She values the Hunter Writers Centre's strong contribution to the cultural life of the Hunter region. Megan was president of HWC 2013-2018
Julie Loveridge
Julie is an experienced leader in operations and logistics with strong project management and IT skills. She holds a Bachelor of Mathematics and Computer Science plus Masters of Business Administration. Julie is an avid reader and musician with a strong interest in all forms of creative arts.
Dr Alexandra Lewis
Dr Alexandra Lewis is a lecturer at the University of Newcastle where she teaches English Literature and Creative Writing. She was Senior Lecturer in English and Creative Writing in Aberdeen, Scotland and has also taught, supervised, and held research fellowships at the Universities of Cambridge, Goldsmiths College London, School of Advanced Study London, and Warwick. Read more about Dr Lewis here.
Karen Crofts
Karen has been director of HWC since 2012. She holds a Masters degree in Writing from the University of Newcastle. Karen is passionate about connecting the Arts with important social issues of the Hunter: reconciliation, homelessness, disability, grief, loss and trauma.
Jacqueline Williams
Jacqueline is HWC Bookkeeper. She has 30+ years experience working with Not-for-Profit organisations. She holds a Bachelor of Commerce and Masters in Business Administration. Jacqueline is also a Director & Consultant for Business Network International (BNI) in the Hunter Region – an International Referral Marketing and Networking membership-based organisation.
Leanne Lim
Leanne is currently a student at the University of Melbourne. She has just finished her Bachelor's degree and will be starting a Masters degree in Applied Psychology. Leanne has internship experience working with NGO's and government agencies, and is interested in establishing a career in the non-for-profit sector in the future.
Christine Bramble
Strategic Advsior
Christine has been a teacher of History, a museum education officer and a cultural planner. Christine advises HWC on policies and cultural projects.
Helen Blackney
Helen prepares our workshops, operates our bookshop and researches writerly articles for our members. Her background is in banking and customer service.
HWC Strategic Plan 2019-2021
HWC Mission, Vision and Structure
HWC has formally adopted the NSW Dept of Fair Trading Model Constitution
Hunter Writers Centre adopts the Aboriginal Arts and Cultural Protocols and the NSW Aboriginal Arts and Cultural Strategy
Cultural Protocols
Arts and Cultural Strategy
Hunter Writers Centre Disability Action Plan
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हाइपोक्लोरस तेज़ाब का अनुसंधान - नतीजे Type: Bacteria Microbe: Escherichia coli
हाइपोक्लोरस तेज़ाब
के विषय में
शरीरविज्ञान
प्रौद्योगिकी
अनुसंधान
जीवाणु की खोज
सार्वजनिक स्वास्थय
खाद्य सुरक्षा
आम सवाल
(Chinese)
अनुसंधान > जीवाणु की खोज > Bacteria > Escherichia coli
See our COVID-19 virus research - CLICK HERE
हाइपोक्लोरस तेज़ाब के घोल के सामान्य नाम
Electrolytically Generated Hypochlorous Acid
Neutral Electrolyzed Water (NEW)
Electrolyzed Oxidizing Water (EOW)
Electro-chemically Activated Water (ECA)
Super-oxidized water (SOW)
परिणाम : 103 प्रकाशित लेख
LWT-Food Science and Technology 79 (2017): 594-600
Treatment with low-concentration acidic electrolysed water combined with mild heat to sanitise fresh organic broccoli (Brassica oleracea)
Microbe(s): Escherichia coli O157:H7, Listeria monocytogenes
ABSTRACT - Full Text PDF 247
The effects of low-concentration electrolysed water (LcEW) (4 mg/L free available chlorine) combined with mild heat on the safety and quality of fresh organic broccoli (Brassica oleracea) were evaluated. Treatment with LcEW combined with mild heat (50 C) achieved the highest reduction in naturally occurring microorganisms and pathogens, including inoculated Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Listeria monocytogenes (P < 0.05). In terms of the antioxidant content of the treated broccoli, the total phenolic levels and ferric reducing antioxidant power remained unchanged however, the oxygen radical absorbance capacity of the treated broccoli was higher than that of the untreated control. In addition, mild heat treatment resulted in an increase in firmness. The increased firmness was attributed to changes in the pectin structure, including the assembly and dynamics of pectin. The results revealed that mild heat induced an antiparallel orientation and spontaneous aggregation of the pectin chains. This study demonstrated that LcEW combined with mild heat treatment was effective to reduce microbial counts on fresh organic broccoli without compromising the product quality.
Food Control 73 (2017): 889-899
Efficacy of low concentration neutralised electrolysed water and ultrasound combination for inactivating Escherichia coli ATCC 25922, Pichia pastoris GS115 and Aureobasidium pullulans 2012 on stainless steel coupons
Microbe(s): Escherichia coli ATCC 25922, Pichia pastoris GS115, Aureobasidium pullulans
The sanitising effect of low concentration neutralised electrolysed water (LCNEW, pH: 7.0, free available chlorine (FAC): 4 mg/L) combined with ultrasound (37 kHz, 80 W) on food contact surface was evaluated. Stainless steel coupon was chosen as attachment surface for Escherichia coli ATCC 25922, Pichia pastoris GS115 and Aureobasidium pullulans 2012, representing bacteria, yeast and mold, respectively. The results showed that although LCNEW itself could effectively reduce survival population of E. coli ATCC 25922, P. pastoris GS115 and low concentration A. pullulans 2012 in planktonic status, LCNEW combined with ultrasound showed more sanitising efficacy for air-dried cells on coupons, with swift ificantly reduced the survival cells both on coupons and in suspension for all three strains. The results suggest that LCNEW combined with ultrasound is a promising approach to sanitise food equipment.
Journal of food science and technology 54.5 (2017): 1321-1332
Application of electrolysed oxidising water as a sanitiser to extend the shelf-life of seafood products: a review
Microbe(s): Listeria monocytogenes, Escherichia coli, Vibrio parahaemolyticus
Electrolysed oxidising water (E.O. water) is produced by electrolysis of sodium chloride to yield primarily chlorine based oxidising products. At neutral pH this results in hypochlorous acid in the un-protonated form which has the greatest oxidising potential and ability to penetrate microbial cell walls to disrupt the cell membranes. E.O. water has been shown to be an effective method to reduce microbial contamination on food processing surfaces. The efficacy of E.O. water against pathogenic bacteria such as Listeria monocytogenes, Escherichia coli and Vibrio parahaemolyticus has also been extensively confirmed in growth studies of bacteria in culture where the sanitising agent can have direct contact with the bacteria. However it can only lower, but not eliminate, bacteria on processed seafoods. More research is required to understand and optimise the impacts of E.O. pre-treatment sanitation processes on subsequent microbial growth, shelf life, sensory and safety outcomes for packaged seafood products.
Reduction of Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Salmonella Typhimurium DT 104 on fresh produce using an automated washer with near neutral electrolyzed (NEO) water and ultrasound
Microbe(s): Escherichia coli O157:H7, Salmonella Typhimurium
Automated produce washers can be a useful processing aid when treating fresh produce contaminated with pathogens. The of near neutral pH electrolyzed (NEO) water as a wash or sanitizing solution has been shown to lead to significant reductions of Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Salmonella on fresh produce. To further enhance reported pathogen reductions, the effects of a combined NEO water (155 mg/L free chlorine, pH 6.5) and ultrasound wash protocol on lettuce and tomatoes inoculated with E. coli O157:H7 and S. Typhimurium DT 104 were studied. The effects of the pH of NEO water and washer agitation on pathogen reductions were also assessed. Inoculated tomatoes and lettuce leaves were treated with either chilled deionized water or NEO water, with or without 20 kHz ultrasound (130 W and 210 W). Tomatoes were treated for 1, 3 and 5 min while lettuce was treated for 5, 10 and 15 min. Ultrasound significantly increased the oxidation-reduction potential (ORP) of NEO water (p < 0.05) but did not affect the pH and free chlorine concentration (p > 0.05). Increased washing time and higher ultrasonic power led to significantly greater reductions of both pathogens on produce items (p < 0.05). NEO water combined with 210 W ultrasonication for 15 min led to 4.4 and 4.3 log reductions of E. coli O157:H7 and S. Typhimurium on lettuce, respectively, while 210 W ultrasound for 5 min completely inactivated both pathogens on tomatoes. Both pathogens were completely inactivated in NEO water solutions, suggesting that its presents little chance of cross-contamination.
Foods 5.2 (2016): 42
Evaluation of Electrolytically-Generated Hypochlorous Acid (Electrolyzed Water) for Sanitation of Meat and Meat-Contact Surfaces.
Microbe(s): Listeria monocytogenes, Escherichia coli O157:H7, and Salmonella sp.
Electrolyzed water generators are readily available in the food industry as a renewable source of hypochlorous acid that eliminates the need for workers to handle hazardous hypochlorite concentrates. We applied electrolyzed water (EW) directly to multi-strain cocktails of Listeria monocytogenes, E. coli O157:H7, and Salmonella sp. at 250 ppm free available chlorine (FAC) and achieved greater than 6-log reductions in 2 min. Lower EW values were examined as antimicrobial interventions for fresh meat (beef carcasses), processed meats (frankfurters), and food contact surfaces (slicing blades). Little or no reduction relative to controls was observed when generic E. coli-inoculated beef carcasses or L. monocytogenes-inoculated frankfurters were showered with EW. Spray application of EW (25 and 250-ppm FAC) onto L. monocytogenes-inoculated slicing blades showed that greater reductions were obtained with clean (3.6 and 5.7-log reduction) vs. dirty (0.6 and 3.3-log reduction) slicing blades, respectively. Trials with L. monocytogenes-inoculated protein-EW solutions demonstrated that protein content as low as 0.1% is capable of eliminating FAC, reducing antimicrobial activity against L. monocytogenes. EW appears better positioned as a surface sanitizer with minimal organic material that can otherwise act as an effective reducing agent to the oxidizing solution rendering it ineffective.
International journal of food microbiology 231 (2016): 48-53
Effect of acidic electrolyzed water-induced bacterial inhibition and injury in live clam (Venerupis philippinarum) and mussel (Mytilus edulis)
Microbe(s): Escherichia coli O104:H4, Listeria monocytogenes, Aeromonas hydrophila, Vibrio parahaemolyticus, Campylobacter jejuni
The effect of acidic electrolyzed water (AEW) on inactivating Escherichia coli O104:H4, Listeria monocytogenes, Aeromonas hyrol possible unhygienic practices during production and processing of shellfish without apparent changes in the quality of the shellfish.
International Journal of Molecular Sciences 17.7 (2016): 1161
Effectiveness of hypochlorous acid to reduce the biofilms on titanium alloy surfaces in vitro
Microbe(s): Escherichia coli, Porphyromonas gingivalis, Enterococcus faecalis, Streptococcus sanguinis
Chemotherapeutic agents have been used as an adjunct to mechanical debridement for peri-implantitis treatment. The present in vitro study evaluated and compared the effectiveness of hypochlorous acid (HOCl), sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl), and chlorhexidine (CHX) at eliminating Gram-negative (E. coli and P. gingivalis) and Gram-positive (E. faecalis and S. sanguinis) bacteria. The effect of irrigating volume and exposure time on the antimicrobial efficacy of HOCl was evaluated, and a durability analysis was completed. Live/dead staining, morphology observation, alamarBlue assay, and lipopolysacLPS) detection were examined on grit-blasted and biofilm-contaminated titanium alloy discs after treatment with the three chemotherapeutic agents. The results indicated that HOCl exhibited better antibacterial efficacy with increasing irrigating volumes. HOCl achieved greater antibacterial efficacy as treatment time was increased. A decrease in antimicrobial effectiveness was observed when HOCl was unsealed and left in contact with the air. All the irrigants showed antibacterial activity and killed the majority of bacteria on the titanium alloy surfaces of biofilm-contaminated implants. Moreover, HOCl significantly lowered the LPS concentration of P. gingivalis when compared with NaOCl and CHX. Thus, a HOCl antiseptic may be effective for cleaning biofilm-contaminated implant surfaces.
Effects of bacterial concentrations and centrifugations on susceptibility of Bacillus subtilis vegetative cells and Escherichia coli O157: H7 to various electrolyzed oxidizing water treatments
Microbe(s): Bacillus subtilis, Escherichia coli O157: H7
This study discussed the effects of different bacterial concentrations and centrifugations on the antimicrobial efficacy of electrolyzed oxidizing (EO) water on Bacillus subtilis and Escherichia coli O157:H7. Overnight grown bacterial cultures were centrifuged 1 to 3 times and bacterial concentrations were adjusted to approximately 9 (high), 7 (medium), or 5 (low) log10 CFU/mL. Antimicrobial efficacy of acidic EO water (AEW) and neutral pH EO water (NEW) containing 0.2530 mg/L available chlorine was determined. In order to ascertain the effects of AEW and NEW on targeted pathogens, cellular properties at bio-molecular levels were also studied. The results showed that the susceptibility of both pathogens decreased significantly with increasing bacterial concentrations. AEW with 10, 0.25 and 0.25 mg/L and NEW with 30, 0.5 and 0.25 mg/L available chlorine were needed for high, medium and low bacterial concentrations, respectively to non-detectable levels by direct plating for E. coli O157:H7. B. subtilis was found more resistant to both EO water treatments and only 4.1 and 3.8 log reductions were achieved for AEW and NEW containing 30 mg/L available chlorine. On the other hand, it was observed that as centrifugation time increased, both bacteria became significantly more sensitive to EO water treatments. When centrifugation period increased from 1 to 3 times, additional 2.67 and 3.38 log E. coli O157:H7 reductions were observed for AEW and NEW treatments, respectively. A similar trend was observed for B. subtilis. DNA and protein leakage increased when pathogens were treated by AEW and NEW with increasing available chlorine concentration, but decreased DNA and protein leakage were observed with increased centrifugation times. These results indicate that initial bacterial concentration and the centrifugation time are two important factors and should be carefully considered in chlorine-based antimicrobial efficacy testing.
Journal of Veterinary Medical Science 78.7 (2016): 1123-1128
Inactivation of bacteria on surfaces by sprayed slightly acidic hypochlorous acid water: in vitro experiments
Microbe(s): Escherichia coli, Salmonella Infantis
The capacity of slightly acidic hypochlorous acid water (SAHW), in both liquid and spray form, to inactivate bacteria was evaluated as a potential candidate for biosecurity enhancement in poultry production. SAHW (containing 50 or 100 ppm chlorine, pH 6) was able to inactivate Escherichia coli and Salmonella Infantis in liquid to below detectable levels (2.6 log10 CFU/ml) within 5 sec of exposure. In addition, SAHW antibacterial capacity was evaluated by spraying it using a nebulizer into a box containing these bacteria, which were present on the surfaces of glass plates and rayon sheets. SAHW was able to inactivate both bacterial species on the glass plates (dry condition) and rayon sheets within 5 min spraying and 5 min contact times, with the exception of 50 ppm SAHW on the rayon sheets. Furthermore, a corrosivity test determined that SAHW does not corrode metallic objects, even at the longest exposure times (83 days). Our findings demonstrate that SAHW is a good candidate for biosecurity enhancement in the poultry industry. Spraying it on the surfaces of objects, eggshells, egg incubators and transport cages could reduce the chances of contamination and disease transmission. These results augment previous findings demonstrating the competence of SAHW as an anti-viral disinfectant.
Combined effect of acidic electrolyzed water (AcEW) and alkaline electrolyzed water (AlEW) on the microbial reduction of fresh-cut cilantro
Microbe(s): Escherichia coli
In the present study, the disinfection efficacy on fresh-cut cilantro of the combination of strongly acidic electrolyzed water (AcEW) and alkaline electrolyzed water (AlEW) was evaluated, in comparison with single slightly acidic electrolyzed water (SAEW) and single AcEW treatments. The populations of E. Coli O78 on inoculated cilantro treated by AlEW 5 min + AcEW 5 min, was not detected while 3.43 and 3.73 log10 CFU/g in the AlEW 2.5 min + AcEW 2.5 min and AcEW 2 min + AlEW 2 min + AcEW 2 min treatments respectively. Our results implied that the bactericidal abilities of the combination of AlEW and AcEW treatments were higher than that of single AcEW and SAEW, which also was demonstrated microscopically by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Moreover, the efficacy of combination of AcEW and AlEW in reducing natural micro flora on fresh-cut cilantro was also evaluated compared with single AcEW and SAEW. The results showed that the combination of AlEW and AcEW had stronger sterilization ability than single AcEW and SAEW. Considering the utilizations of AlEW and disinfection efficacy, we suggest that the combination of AlEW and AcEW may also be a better choice in fresh-cut produce.
Poultry science 94.11 (2015): 2838-2848
Reduction of microbial contamination on the surfaces of layer houses using slightly acidic electrolyzed water
Microbe(s): Escherichia coli, Salmonella enteritidis, Staphylococcus aureus
The objective of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of slightly acidic electrolyzed water (SAEW) in reducing pathogens on pure cultures and on cotton fabric surfaces in the presence of organic matter and estimate its efficacy in comparison with povidone iodine solution for reducing pathogenic microorganisms on internal surfaces of layer houses. Pure cultures of E.coli, S.enteritidis, and S.aureus and cotton fabric surfaces inoculated with these strains were treated with SAEW in the presence of bovine serum albumin (BSA). In the absence of BSA, complete inactivation of all strains in pure cultures and on cotton fabric surfaces was observed after 2.5 and 5 min treatment with SAEW at 40 mg/L of available chlorine concentration (ACC), respectively. The bactericidal efciency of SAEW increased with increasing ACC, but decreased with increasing BSA concentration. Then, the surfaces of the layer houses were sprayed with SAEW at 60, 80, and 100 mg/L of ACC and povidone iodine using the automated disinfection system at a rate of 110 mL/m2, respectively. Samples from the floor, wall, feed trough, and egg conveyor belt surfaces were collected with sterile cotton swabs before and after spraying disinfection. Compared to tap water, SAEW and povidone iodine significantly reduced microbial populations on each surface of the layer houses. SAEW with 80 or 100 mg/L of ACC showed significantly higher efficacy than povidone iodine for total aerobic bacteria, staphylococci, coliforms, or yeasts and moulds on the floor and feed trough surfaces (P < 0.05). SAEW was more effective than povidone iodine at reducing total aerobic bacteria, coliforms, and yeasts and moulds on the wall surface. Additionally, SAEW had similar bactericidal activity with povidone iodine on the surface of the egg conveyor belt. Results suggest that SAEW exerts a higher or equivalent bactericidal efficiency for the surfaces compared to povidone iodine, and it may be used as an effective alternative for reducing microbial contamination on surfaces in layer houses.
Food and bioprocess technology 8.8 (2015): 1762-1770
Reduction of Escherichia coli and Vibrio parahaemolyticus Counts on Freshly Sliced Shad (Konosirus punctatus) by Combined Treatment of Slightly Acidic Electrolyzed Water and Ultrasound Using Response Surface Methodology
Microbe(s): Escherichia coli, Vibrio parahaemolyticus
The aim of this study was to determine the combined effects of slightly acidic electrolyzed water SAEW (pH range 5.06.5, oxidationreduction potential 6501000 mV, available chlorine concentration 1080 mg/L) containing 0, 15, and 30 ppm chlorine and 0, 50, and 100 min of ultrasound US (37 kHz, 380 W) using the central composite design (CCD) on the reductions of Escherichia coli and Vibrio parahaemolyticus (initial value, approximately 67 log10 colony forming unit (CFU) of E. coli or V. parahaemolyticus/g) and the sensory properties on freshly sliced shad (Konosirus punctatus), in comparison with SAEW or US alone. Another aim was to develop the response surface model for E. coli and V. parahaemolyticus in the shad treated with the combination of SAEW and US. Single treatments with SAEW (chlorine 15 ppm), SAEW (chlorine 30 ppm), or US for 50 min caused a much-less-than-1-log10 reduction in the number of both E. coli and V. parahaemolyticus in the shad. In contrast, the combination of SAEW (15 or 30 ppm chlorine) and US (50 or 100 min) caused >1-log10 reduction of E. coli numbers (1.041.86 log reduction) and V. parahaemolyticus (1.021.42 log reduction) in the shad. In addition, the sensory properties of the shad were not changed under the harshest conditions of the combination (SAEW with chlorine at 30 ppm and US for 100 min). Response surface models were developed for the population of E. coli (Y=6.153220.024732X 10.016486X 20.00015X 1 X 20.00024X 1 20.00007X 2 2) and V. parahaemolyticus (Y=5.676490.042598X 10.014013X 20.00003X 1 X 20.00006X 1 20.00062X 2 2 ), where Y is the bacterial population (log10 CFU), X 1 is ppm chlorine in SAEW, and X 2 is the duration of treatment (min) with US. The appropriateness of the models was verified by bias factor (B f 1.10 for E. coli, 1.03 for V. parahaemolyticus), accuracy factor (A f 1.11 for E. coli, 1.05 for V. parahaemolyticus), mean square error (MSE 0.0087 for E. coli, 0.0028 for V. parahaemolyticus), and coefficient of determination (R 2 0.976 for E. coli, 0.982 for V. parahaemolyticus). To produce a 1-log10 reduction of E. coli and V. parahaemolyticus, US treatment times for E. coli and V. parahaemolyticus were calculated within the maximum of 54 and 67 min, respectively, at chlorine 10 ppm in SAEW. SAEW chlorine concentrations (ppm) for E. coli and V. parahaemolyticus were calculated within the maximum of 38 and 41 ppm, respectively, at 20 min of US. Therefore, the resulting response surface models for E. coli and V. parahaemolyticus should be further validated on slices of other kinds of raw fish. Ultimately, the response surface quadratic polynomial equations may thus be used for predicting the combined treatments of SAEW and against E. coli and V. parahaemolyticus in raw fish production, processing, and distribution.
International journal of clinical and experimental medicine 8.7 (2015): 11463
An nvestigation into the in-vitro effectiveness of electrolyzed water against various microorganisms
Microbe(s): Acinetobacter baumannii, Escherichia coli, Enterococcus faecalis, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus subtilis, Myroides spp, MRSA, VRE
The aim of this study was to investigate the in-vitro antimicrobial activity of usage and normal concentrations of electrolyzed water in hospital. In our study, the effects of different concentrations of electrolyzed water on two gram positive, four gram negative standard strains and clinical isolates of four gram negative, two gram positive, one spore-forming bacillus and Myroides spp strains that lead to hospital infections were researched. The effects of different concentrations and different contact times of Envirolyte electrolyzed water on cited strains were researched through method of qualitative suspension tests. Petri dishes fo bacteria have been incubated at 37 C 48 hours. Bactericidal disinfectant was interpreted to be effective at the end of the period due to the lack of growth. Solutions to which disinfectant were not added were prepared with an eye to control reproduction and controlcultures were made by using neutralizing agents. 1/1, 1/2, and 1/10 concentrations of Envirolyte electrolyzed water were found to be effective on the bacteria that lead to hospital infections used during all test times. As a conclusion, based upon the results we acquired, it was observed that Envirolyte electrolyzed water of 100 concentration would be convenient to be used for disinfection when diluted to a usage concentration of 1/10.
Polymers 7.12 (2015): 2638-2649
Physicochemical and antibacterial properties of carrageenan and gelatine hydrosols and hydrogels incorporated with acidic electrolyzed water.
Microbe(s): Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli
The article focuses on investigation of the effects of usage of acidic electrolyzed water (AEW) with different sodium chloride concentration (0.001, 0.01, and 0.1) for the preparation of carrageenan and gelatine hydrosols and hydrogels. To determine physiochemical properties of hydrosols, the pH, oxidation-reduction potential (ORP), available chloride concentration (ACC) and rheological parameters such us gelation and flow temperatures were measured. The samples were also 0.1 w/v). These results suggest that hydrogels and hydrosols incorporated with AEW may be used for food preservation.
Efficacy of acidic and alkaline electrolyzed water for inactivating Escherichia coli O104: H4, Listeria monocytogenes, Campylobacter jejuni, Aeromonas hydrophila, and Vibrio parahaemolyticus in cell suspensions
Microbe(s): Escherichia coli O104: H4, Listeria monocytogenes, Campylobacter jejuni, Aeromonas hydrophila, Vibrio parahaemolyticus
This study investigated the effect of electrolyzed water on pathogenic bacteria cell suspensions. Specifically, we evaluated the efficacy of strong and weak acidic electrolyzed waters (SACEW, WACEW) and strong and weak alkaline electrolyzed waters (SALEW, WALEW) on Vibrio parahaemolyticus, Listeria monocytogenes, Aeromonas hyificantly more resistant to ALEW compared to ACEW. Results also show that the bactericidal activity of SACEW (20 mg/mL ACC) was more effective than WACEW (10 mg/mL ACC) in terms of inactivating E. coli O104:H4. Alkaline-electrolyzed waters were found to reduce cell numbers by 13 log (P < 0.05). However, alkaline electrolyzed water was less effective (P < 0.05) than acidic electrolyzed treatment.
Food Science and Biotechnology 24.3 (2015): 1011-1016
Application of slightly acidic electrolyzed water and ultrasound for microbial decontamination of kashk
Microbe(s): Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus cereus, Escherichia coli, Aspergillus fumigatus
Application of slightly acidic electrolyzed water (SAEW) in combination with ultrasound for decontamination of kashk was investigated. SAEW had a pH of 5.3-5.5, an oxidation reduction potential of 545-600 mV, and an available chlorine concentration of 20-22 mg/L. Kashk is a dairy product with a unique aroma and a high nutritive value produced in Iran. A 2/1 SAEW/kashk ratio showed 1.42, 1.13, 1.24, and 1.37 log CFU/mL microbial reductions in Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus cereus, Escherichia coli, and Aspergillus fumigatus, respectively, at room temperature. A combination of SAEW treatment with ultrasound (SAEWultrasound) resulted in 1.87, 1.67, 1.71, and 1.91 log CFU/mL reductions in S. aureus, B. cereus, E. coli, and A. fumigatus, respectively. The developed hurdle approach can be a useful tool for sanitization of kashk and similar products. Application of SAEWultrasound in dairy microbial decontamination is first reported herein.
Journal of Food Science 80.8 (2015)
Efficacy of neutral pH electrolyzed water in reducing Escherichia coli O157: H7 and Salmonella Typhimurium DT 104 on fresh produce items using an automated washer at simulated food service conditions
The objective of this study was to determine the efficacy of neutral pH electrolyzed (NEO) water (155 mg/L free chlorine, pH 7.5) in reducing Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Salmonella Typhimurium DT 104 on romaine lettuce, iceberg lettuce, and tomatoes washed in an automated produce washer for different times and washing speeds. Tomatoes and lettuce leaves were spot inoculated with 100 L of a 5 strain cocktail mixture of either pathogen and washed with 10 or 8 L of NEO water, respectively. Washing lettuce for 30 min at 65 rpm led to the greatest reductions, with 4.2 and 5.9 log CFU/g reductions achieved for E. coli O157:H7 and S. Typhimurium respectively on romaine, whereas iceberg lettuce reductions were 3.2 and 4.6 log CFU/g for E. coli O157:H7 and S. Typhimurium respectively. Washing tomatoes for 10 min at 65 rpm achieved reductions greater than 8 and 6 log CFU/tomato on S. Typhimurium and E. coli O157:H7 respectively. All pathogens were completely inactivated in NEO water wash solutions. No detrimental effects on the visual quality of the produce studied were observed under all treatment conditions. Results show the adoption of this washing procedure in food service operations could be useful in ensuring produce safety.
Combined effects of slightly acidic electrolyzed water and fumaric acid on the reduction of foodborne pathogens and shelf life extension of fresh pork
Microbe(s): Escherichia coli O157:H7, Listeria monocytogenes, Staphylococcus aureus, and Salmonella Typhimurium
This study evaluated the efficacy of the individual treatments (slightly acidic electrolyzed water [SAcEW] or fumaric acid [FA]) and their combination to reduce Escherichia coli O157:H7, Listeria monocytogenes, Staphylococcus aureus, and Salmonella Typhimurium in fresh pork as well as to study the shelf life and sensory quality (color, odor, and texture) of pork during storage at 4 and 10 C. The inoculated pork samples (10 g) were dipped for 3 min in each treatment (tap water [TW], SAcEW, strong acidic electrolyzed water [StAEW], 0.5% FA, or SAcEW + 0.5% FA) with or without mild heat (40 C). Decontamination of fresh pork with SAcEW +0.5% FA at 40 C for 3 min showed greater bactericidal effect compared to other treatments, which significantly (P < 0.05) reduced E. coli O157:H7, L. monocytogenes, S. aureus, and S. Typhimurium by 2.59, 2.69, 2.38, and 2.99 log CFU/g, respectively. This combined treatment significantly (P < 0.05) yielded in a longer lag time of naturally occurring bacteria (TBC) on pork stored at 4 C. This combined treatment also prolonged the shelf life of pork up to 6 days and 4 5 days when stored at 4 C and 10 C, respectively, compared to those of the untreated pork. The results suggest that the combined treatment of SAcEW + 0.5% FA has potential as a novel method to enhance the microbial safety and quality of fresh pork.
Food microbiology 46 (2015): 471-478
Cross-contamination of Escherichia coli O157: H7 is inhibited by electrolyzed water combined with salt under dynamic conditions of increasing organic matter
Microbe(s): Escherichia coli O157:H7
Water can be a vector for foodborne pathogen cross-contamination during washing of vegetables if an efficient method of water disinfection is not used. Chlorination is the disinfection method most widely used, but it generates disinfection by-products such as trihalomethanes (THMs). Therefore, alternative disinfection methods are sought. In this study, a dynamic system was used to simulate the commercial conditions of a washing tank. Organic matter and the inoculum of Escherichia coli O157:H7 were progressively added to the wash water in the washing tank. We evaluated the effectiveness of the electrolyzed water (EW) when combining with the addition of salt (1, 0.5 and 0.15 g/L NaCl) on the pathogenic inactivation, organic matter depletion and THM generation. Results indicated that electrolysis of vegetable wash water with addition of salt (0.5 g/L NaCl) was able to eliminate E. coli O157:H7 population build-up and decrease COD accumulation while low levels of THMs were produced.
The bactericidal activity of acidic electrolyzed oxidizing water against Escherichia coli O157: H7, Salmonella Typhimurium, and Listeria monocytogenes on raw fish, chicken and beef surfaces
Microbe(s): Escherichia coli O157:H7 Salmonella Typhimurium, Listeria monocytogenes
The bactericidal efficacy of acidic electrolyzed oxidizing water (AC-EW) (pH = 2.30, free chlorine = 38 ppm) and sterile distilled water (DW) on three pathogens (Escherichia coli O157:H7 Salmonella Typhimurium, and Listeria monocytogenes) inoculated on raw trout skin, chicken legs and beef meat surfaces was evaluated. The decontaminating effect of AC-EW and DW was tested for 0 (control), 1, 3, 5 and 10 min at 22 C. AC-EW significantly (P < 0.05) reduced the three pathogens in the inoculated samples compared to the control and DW. The level of reduction ranged between ca.1.5 1.6 logs for E. coli O157:H7 and S. Typhimurium in the inoculated foods. However, AC-EW exhibited less bactericidal effect against L. monocytogenes (1.1 1.3 logs reduction). AC-EW elicited about 1.6 2.0 log reduction in the total mesophilic count. Similar treatment with DW reduced pathogens load by ca. 0.2 1.0 log reduction and total mesophiles by ca. 0.5 0.7 logs. No complete elimination of the three pathogens was obtained using AC-EW possibly because of the level of organic matter and blood moving from food samples to the AC-EW solution. This study demonstrates that AC-EW could considerably reduce common foodborne pathogens in fish, chicken and beef products.
Combined Effect of Thermosonication and Slightly Acidic Electrolyzed Water to Reduce Foodborne Pathogens and Spoilage Microorganisms on Fresh cut Kale
Microbe(s): Total Microbial Count, Escherichia coli O157:H7, Listeria monocytogenes, Pseudomonas spp., Fungi, Yeast
This study evaluated the efficacy of individual treatments (thermosonication [TS+DW] and slightly acidic electrolyzed water [SAcEW]) and their combination on reducing Escherichia coli O157:H7, Listeria monocytogenes, and spoilage microorganisms (total bacterial counts [TBC], Enterobacteriaceae, Pseudomonas spp., and yeast and mold counts [YMC]) on fresh-cut kale. For comparison, the antimicrobial efficacies of sodium chlorite (SC; 100 mg/L) and sodium hypochlorite (SH; 100 mg/L) were also evaluated. Each 10 g sample of kale leaves was inoculated to contain approximately 6 log CFU/g of E. coli O157:H7 or L. monocytogenes. Each inoculated or uninoculated samples was then dip treated with deionized water (DW; control), TS+DW, and SAcEW at various treatment conditions (temperature, physicochemical properties, and time) to assess the efficacy of each individual treatment. The efficacy of TS+DW or SAcEW was enhanced at 40 C for 3 min, with an acoustic energy density of 400 W/L for TS+DW and available chlorine concentration of 5 mg/L for SAcEW. At 40 C for 3 min, combined treatment of thermosonication 400 W/L and SAcEW 5 mg/L (TS+SAcEW) was more effective in reducing microorganisms compared to the individual treatments (SAcEW, SC, SH, and TS+DW) and combined treatments (TS+SC and TS+SH), which significantly (P < 0.05) reduced E. coli O157:H7, L. monocytogenes, TBC, Enterobacteriaceae, Pseudomonas spp., and YMC by 3.32, 3.11, 3.97, 3.66, 3.62, and >3.24 log CFU/g, respectively. The results suggest that the combined treatment of TS+SAcEW has the potential as a decontamination process in fresh-cut industry.
International Journal of Food Microbiology 177 (2014): 1-8
Modeling growth of Escherichia coli O157: H7 in fresh-cut lettuce treated with neutral electrolyzed water and under modified atmosphere packaging
The purpose of this study was to evaluate and model the growth of Escherichia coli O157:H7 in fresh-cut lettuce submitted to a neutral electrolyzed water (NEW) treatment, packaged in passive modified atmosphere and subsequently stored at different temperatures (4, 8, 13, 16 C) for a maximum of 27 days. Results indicated that E. coli O157:H7 was able to grow at 8, 13, and 16 C, and declined at 4 C. However at 8 C, the lag time lasted 19 days, above the typical shelf-life time for this type of products. A secondary model predicting growth rate as a function of temperature was developed based on a square-root function. A comparison with literature data indicated that the growth predicted by the model for E. coli O157:H7 was again lower than those observed with other disinfection treatments or packaging conditions (chlorinated water, untreated product, NEW, etc.). The specific models here developed might be applied to predict growth in products treated with NEW and to improve existing quantitative risk assessments.
Journal of food protection 77.12 (2014): 2176-2180
Efficacy of Neutral Electrolyzed Water for Reducing Pathogenic Bacteria Contaminating Shrimp
Microbe(s): Vibrio parahaemolyticus, Vibrio vulnificus, Salmonella Enteritidis, Escherichia coli
Pathogenic contamination is a food safety concern. This study was conducted to investigate the efficacy of neutral electrolyzed water (NEW) in killing pathogens, namely, Vibrio parahaemolyticus, Vibrio vulnificus, Salmonella Enteritidis, and Escherichia coli in shrimp. Pure cultures of each pathogen were submerged separately in NEW containing five different chlorine concentrations: 10, 30, 50, 70, and 100 ppm. For each concentration, three submersion times were tested: 1, 3, and 5 min. The population of V. parahaemolyticus was rapidly reduced even at low concentrations, but prolonged contact times caused only a slight reduction. V. vulnificus was gradually inhibited with increasing NEW concentrations and contact times. For the V. parahaemolyticus applications of 70 ppm for 5 min and of 100 ppm for 3 min, each eliminated 7 log CFU/ml. For V. vulnificus, applications of 50 ppm for 3 min and 100 ppm for 1 min, each eliminated 7 log CFU/ml. Salmonella Enteritidis and E. coli were slightly reduced by NEW. Applications of 50 ppm for 15 min and 10 ppm for 30 min completely eliminated 4.16 log CFU/g of V. parahaemolyticus in inoculated shrimp, while only a 1-log CFU/g reduction of V. vulnificus was detected. Soaking shrimp in 10 ppm NEW for 30 min did not affect its sensory quality. Our results suggest NEW could be an alternative sanitizer to improve the microbiological quality of seafood.
Journal of Food Protection 77.1 (2014): 23-31
Growth model of Escherichia coli O157: H7 at various storage temperatures on kale treated by thermosonication combined with slightly acidic electrolyzed water
This study was conducted to investigate the disinfection efficacy of hurdle treatments (thermosonication plus slightly acidic electrolyzed water [SAcEW]) and to develop a model for describing the effect of storage temperatures (4, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, and 35 C) on the growth of Escherichia coli O157:H7 on fresh-cut kale treated with or without (control) thermosonication combined with SAcEW. The hurdle treatments of thermosonication plus SAcEW had strong bactericidal effects against E. coli O157:H7 on kale, with approximately 3.3-log reductions. A modified Gompertz model was used to describe growth parameters such as specific growth rate (SGR) and lag time (LT) as a function of storage temperature, with high coefficients of determination (R2 > 0.98). SGR increased and LT declined with rising temperatures in all samples. A significant difference was found between the SGR values obtained from treated and untreated samples. Secondary models were established for SGR and LT to evaluate the effects of storage temperature on the growth kinetics of E. coli O157:H7 in treated and untreated kale. Statistical evaluation was carried out to validate the performance of the developed models, based on the additional experimental data not used for the model development. The validation step indicated that the overall predictions were inside the acceptable prediction zone and had lower standard errors, indicating that this new growth model can be used to assess the risk of E. coli O157:H7 contamination on kale.
Food Science and Technology Research 20.1 (2014): 93-100
Efficacy of slightly acidic electrolyzed water for reduction of foodborne pathogens and natural microflora on shell eggs
Microbe(s): Salmonella enteritidis, Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Staphylococcus aureus
The efficacy of slightly acidic electrolyzed water (SAEW) to inactivate foodborne pathogens and indigenous microbiota on shell eggs was evaluated and compared to chlorine dioxide (CD), acidic electrolyzed water (AEW) and NaClO solution. The eggs were artificially inoculated with S. enteritidis, E. coli O157:H7 and S. aureus and sprayed or immersed with SAEW, alkaline electrolyzed water (AlEW) followed by SAEW (AlEWSAEW), CD, AEW and NaClO solution, respectively. The effect of SAEW on the natural microbiota of shell eggs was also determined. Spraying shell eggs with SAEW, CD and NaClO solution at an ACC of 60 mg/L had no significant bactericidal difference for foodborne pathogens and indigenous microbiota on shell eggs, and the difference of disinfection effect between SAEW and AEW was not significant, whereas the bactericidal activity of SAEW for E. coli O157:H7, S. aureus, total aerobic bacteria and moulds and yeasts was significantly higher than that of CD and NaClO solution at ACCs of 80 or 100 mg/L. SAEW was found to be more effective when used in conjunction with AlEW, and higher reductions were obtained with the immersion treatment. Results indicate that the disinfectant efficiency of SAEW is equivalent to or higher than that of chlorine dioxide and NaClO solution and therefore SAEW shows the potential to be used for sanitization of egg shells as an environmentally friendly disinfection agent.
Annals of Clinical Microbiology and Antimicrobials 13.1 (2014): 29
In vitro antimicrobial activity of Medilox super-oxidized water
Microbe(s): Acinetobacter baumannii, Escherichia coli, Enterococcus faecalis, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus, MRSE, VRE Bacillus subtilis, Myroides spp.
Super-oxidized water is one of the broad spectrum disinfectants, which was introduced recently. There are many researches to find reliable chemicals which are effective, inexpensive, easy to obtain and use, and effective for disinfection of microorganisms leading hospital infections. Antimicrobial activity of super-oxidized water is promising. The aim of this study was to investigate the in-vitro antimicrobial activity of different concentrations of Medilox super-oxidized water that is approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as high level disinfectant. Material and methods In this study, super-oxidized water obtained from Medilox Soosan E & C, Korea device, which had been already installed in our hospital, was used. Antimicrobial activities of different concentrations of super-oxidized water (1/1, 1/2, 1/5, 1/10, 1/20, 1/50, 1/100) at different exposure times (1, 2, 5, 10, 30 min) against six ATCC strains, eight antibiotic resistant bacteria, yeasts and molds were evaluated using qualitative suspension test. Dey-Engley Neutralizing Broth Sigma-Aldrich, USA was used as neutralizing agent. Results Medilox was found to be effective against all standard strains (Acinetobacter baumannii 19606, Escherichia coli 25922, Enterococcus faecalis 29212, Klebsiella pneumoniae 254988, Pseudomonas aeruginosa 27853, Staphylococcus aureus 29213), all clinical isolates (Acinetobacter baumannii, Escherichia coli, vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus subtilis, Myroides spp.), and all yeastsat 1/1 dilution in 1 minute. It was found to be effective on Aspergillus flavus at 1/1 dilution in 2 minutes and on certain molds in 5 minutes. Conclusion Medilox super-oxidized water is a broad spectrum, on-site producible disinfectant, which is effective on bacteria and fungi and can be used for the control of nosocomial infection.
Poultry Science 93.9 (2014): 2320-2326
Benefits of neutral electrolyzed oxidizing water as a drinking water additive for broiler chickens
In the wake of discussion about the of drugs in food-producing farms, it seems to be more and more important to search for ncy of treatment days was represented by the number of used daily doses per population and showed lower values in EO-water-treated groups at both farms. Furthermore, the addition of EO water resulted in a lower mortality rate. In terms of analyzed performance parameters, no significant differences were determined. In this study, the of EO water improved drinking water quality and seemed to reduce the drug without showing negative effects on performance parameters and mortality rates.
Journal of applied microbiology 115.3 (2013): 703-710
Disinfection effectiveness of slightly acidic electrolysed water in swine barns
Microbe(s): Escherichia coli, Salmonella
To evaluate the disinfection effectiveness of slightly acidic electrolysed water (SAEW, pH 625653), a new environmental friendly agent for inactivating micro-organisms adhered to the facility and aerosolized in the air of the swine barns and to explore the application of SAEW in livestock industries. Methods and Results Bacteria and fungi were isolated from the swine hoair and treated by SAEW. The SAEW solution was flushed onto surfaces and sprayed within the whole swine barn. SAEW with an available chlorine concentration (ACC) of 300 mg l1 can inhibit isolated microbes completely. The usage of SAEW (300 mg l1) resulted in a significant (P < 005) reduction in microbes on the wall, rail and floor after flushing disinfection. Additionally, spraying SAEW at an ACC of 300 mg l1 reduced 59 of the airborne organisms in 30 min and kept the population of microbes at a reduced level for at least 8 h. SAEW treatment also reduced pathogens on surfaces (P < 003) after spraying disinfection except on the surface of the wall. Conclusions SAEW may be a potential alternative disinfectant to reduce infections in swine barns Significance and Impact of the Study The results of this study provide information on the antimicrobial efficiency of SAEW on the airborne bacteria and fungi in swine barns.
The University of Georgia Cooperative Extension
Preventing Salmonella colonization of chickens: electrostatic application of electrolyzed oxidative acidic water
Microbe(s): Salmonella typhimurium, Listeria monocytogenes, Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli
Salmonella spp. may be found in the nest box of breeder chickens, cold egg-storage rooms at the farm, on the hatchery truck, or in the hatchery environment (5). These bacteria may then be spread to fertilized hatching eggs on the shell or, in some cases, may penetrate the shell and reside just beneath the surface of the eggshell.Research has demonstrated that contamination of raw poultry products with Salmonella spp. may be attributable to cross-contamination in the hatchery from Salmonella infected eggs or surfaces to uninfected baby chicks during the hatching process. Cox et al. (6 and 7) reported that broiler and breeder hatcheries were highly contaminated with Salmonella spp. Within the broiler hatchery, 71 percent of eggshell fragments, 80 percent of chick conveyor belts swabs, and 74 percent of pad samples placed under newly hatched chicks contained Salmonella spp. (6).Cason et al. (4) reported that, although fertile hatching eggs were contaminated with high levels of Salmonella typhimurium, they were still able to hatch. The authors stated that paratyphoid salmonellae do not caadverse health affects to the developing and hatching chick. During the hatching process, Salmonella spp. is readily spread throughout the hatching cabinet due to rapid air movement by circulation fans. When eggs were inoculated with a marker strain of Salmonella during hatching, greater than 80 percent of the chicks in the trays above and below the inoculated eggs were contaminated (4). In an earlier study, Cason et al. (3) demonstrated that salmonellae on the exterior of eggs or in eggshell membranes could be transmitted to baby chicks during pipping.Salmonella may persist in hatchery environments for long periods of time. When chick fluff contaminated with Salmonella was held for 4 years at room temperature, up to 1,000,000 Salmonella cells per gram could be recovered from these samples (12).Researchers have demonstrated a link between cross-contamination in the hatchery and contaminated carcasses during processing. Goren et al. (8) isolated salmonellae from three different commercial hatcheries in Europe and reported that the same serotypes found in the hatcheries could be found on processed broiler chicken carcass skin. Proper disinfection of the hatchery environment and fertile hatching eggs, therefore, is essential for reducing Salmonella on ready-to-cook carcasses.
Food Control 30.2 (2013): 580-584
Resistance of various shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli to electrolyzed oxidizing water
The resistance of thirty two strains of Escherichia coli O157:H7 and six major serotypes of non-O157 shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) plus E. coli O104:H4 was tested against electrolyzed oxidizing (EO) water using two different methods; modified AOAC 955.16 sequential inoculation method and minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC). In sequential inoculation method efficacy of sodium hypochlorite was also compared with equal free chlorine (45 mg/L) containing EO water. MIC experiments were conducted for 15 s testing period with free chlorine concentrations of 3.00, 2.50, 2.00, 1.50, 1.00, 0.50 and 0.25 mg/L. The individual strain resistance when tested using the sequential inoculation method was in between 5 and 10 positive tubes, where greater numbers of positive tubes indicate increased resistance of the respective strain to the particular sanitizer. The MIC of individual strains ranged from 0.50 to 1.50 mg/L free chlorine of EO water. In comparison to sodium hypochlorite at same free chlorine concentration EO water was more effective against all STEC cocktails tested. The resistance of STEC cocktails using sequential inoculation method was determined as E. coli O157 O103 O26 0111 O121 045 > O145. The similar pattern of resistance was observed when cocktails were subjected to MIC. The results indicate that different strains of same serotype can differ in their resistance toward an intervention. In addition, EO water treatment that reduces E. coli O157:H7 can equally if not more effectively reduce other non-O157 STEC tested.
Food Science and Biotechnology 22.1 (2013): 131-136
Ultrasonication enhanced low concentration electrolyzed water efficacy on bacteria inactivation and shelf life extension on lettuce
Effect of ultrasonication (40 kHz) to enhance low concentration electrolyzed water (LcEW) efficacy for microbial decontamination on lettuce leaves was investigated. Lettuce was separately treated with LcEW, ultrasonication, LcEW combined with ultrasonication, LcEW followed by ultrasonication, and ultrasonication followed by LcEW for 1, 3, and 5 min for each step at room temperature. The highest reduction (2.3 log CFU/g) in total bacteria count (TBC) was resulted from ultrasonication followed by LcEW. Subsequently, the effect of temperature was studied resulting in 2.6 and 3.18 log CFU/g reduction of TBC and Escherichia coli O157:H7 respectively, in 3 min ultrasonication followed by 3 min LcEW treatment at 40 C. This optimum treatment also prevented lettuce from reaching 7.0 log CFU/g in TBC until the end of the 6 day storage at 10 C. Therefore, this newly developed approach may result in improved microbiological safety and enhanced shelf life of produce.
Food Control 29.1 (2013): 42-48
Operating conditions for the electrolytic disinfection of process wash water from the fresh-cut industry contaminated with E. coli O157: H7
The effect of operating conditions (current density, recirculation flow rate and electrode doping level) on the efficacy of boron-doped diamond (BDD) electrodes to inactivate microorganisms and decrease chemical oxygen demand (COD) was studied in lettuce process wash water with a COD of 725 mg/L and inoculated with a 5-strain cocktail of Escherichia coli O157:H7. Changes in pathogen population, COD, pH, temperature, redox potential, and free and total chlorine were monitored in process wash water during treatments. Considering the specific characteristics of the washing step included in the fresh-cut processing, the disinfection of process wash water should be of fast action. A biphasic with a shoulder model was used to estimate shoulder length (Sl), log-linear inactivation rates (kmax1,kmax2), lowest population (Nf) and highest log reduction (HLR). Current density clearly influenced Sl, and kmax2; recirculation flow rate influenced Sl, kmax1,kmax2 and COD depletion; and doping level influenced Nf. No relationship was observed between inactivation parameters and chlorine concentration. Conditions including high current density (180 mA/cm2), high flow rate (750 l/h) and high doping level (8 000 mol/mol) seems to provide a disinfection efficiency suitable to decrease the chance of bacterial cross contamination in the fresh-cut industries while saving on water consumption and decreasing the amount of wastewater effluents.
Synergistic effect of low concentration electrolyzed water and calcium lactate to ensure microbial safety, shelf life and sensory quality of fresh pork
The objectives of this study were to evaluate the effectiveness of low concentration electrolyzed water (LcEW) and other carcass decontaminants against Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Listeria monocytogenes in fresh pork and to conduct the shelf life/sensory study of pork. Pork samples were inoculated with approximately 5 log cfu/g of afore mentioned pathogens and dip treated with distilled water (DW), aqueous ozone (AO), 3% lactic acid (LA), 3% calcium lactate (CaL), sodium hypochlorite solution (NaOCl), LcEW, strong acidic electrolyzed water (SAEW), and LcEW + CaL for 5 min at room temperature (23 2 C). The greatest reduction (3.0 3.2 log cfu/g) was achieved with LcEW + CaL against pathogens and significantly differed (p < 0.05) from other treatments. This combination also extended shelf life of pork up to 6 days at 4 C storage.
Effects of water hardness and pH on efficacy of chlorine-based sanitizers for inactivating Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Listeria monocytogenes
ABSTRACT - Full Text PDF 34
The effects of hardness and pH of water used to prepare electrolyzed oxidizing (EO) water and bleach solutions on the bactericidal activity of sanitizer prepared from the water were examined. EO water and bleach solutions were prepared with hard water of 0, 50, 100, and 200 mg/l as CaCO3 at pH 5, 6, 7, and 8. Increased water hardness tended to increase free chlorine and oxidation-reduction potential (ORP) and decrease pH of EO water. Chlorine levels also increased with water pH. Water hardness and pH only had minor effect on the pH of bleach solutions. Increasing hardness to 50 mg/l increased antimicrobial effect of EO water against Escherichia coli O157:H7, but reduced when water hardness further increased to 100 mg/l or higher. Water pH had no effect on EO water produced against E. coli O157:H7. Water hardness had no significant effect on bactericidal activity of EO water against Listeria monocytogenes but elevated water pH decreased bactericidal activity of EO water produced against L. monocytogenes. Bleach solution prepared using hard water at 200 mg/l or at pH 7 or higher had significant lower efficacy in inactivating E. coli O157:H7, but had no effect on the inactivation of L. monocytogenes. Results indicate that increasing the hardness or pH of water used to prepare EO water or bleach solutions will decrease the bactericidal activity of sanitizers prepared from the water.
Sanitizing effectiveness of commercial active water technologies on Escherichia coli O157: H7, Salmonella enterica and Listeria monocytogenes
Microbe(s): Escherichia coli O157:H7, Salmonella enterica, Listeria monocytogenes
Electrochemically activated water (ECAW), also known as electrolyzed water, and ozonized water are typically effective in inactivating bacteria, but their generation typically uses high current and voltage. A few simpler antimicrobial technologies that are also based on the application of a mild electrical current have been recently marketed to food retail and service customers claiming to have sanitizing properties for controlling bacteria. The objective of this study was to determine the sanitizing effect of some of these commercial technologies on Escherichia coli O157:H7, Listeria monocytogenes, and Salmonella enterica and compare them with sterile water, generated ECAW generated with a pilot size electrolyzing unit, and salt solutions sprayed using commercial device sprays. A concentration of 100 mg/L ECAW had sanitizing effects of at least 5 log CFU/mL reductions on liquid culture and more than 4 log CFU/coupon reductions for E. coli O157:H7, L. monocytogenes and Salmonella dried on stainless steel surface, respectively. No bacterial cells were detected by direct plate counting post-ECAW treatment. In contrast, the treatment of liquid cultures with any of the commercial technologies tested resulted in non-significant bacterial cell reductions greater than 0.5 log CFU/mL. Similarly, when cells had been dried on metal surfaces and treated with any of the water generated with those technologies, no reductions were observed. When the manufacturer s instructions were followed, the reduction of cells on surface was largely due to the physical removal by cloth-wiping after water fraction application. These results indicate that treatment with any of these portable technologies had no noticeable antimicrobial activity. These results would be helpful for guiding consumers when choosing a right sanitization to ensure food safety.
Food microbiology 36.1 (2013): 40-45
Hurdle enhancement of slightly acidic electrolyzed water antimicrobial efficacy on Chinese cabbage, lettuce, sesame leaf and spinach using ultrasonication and water wash
Slightly acidic electrolyzed water (SAEW) is well known as a good sanitizer against foodborne pathogens on fresh vegetables. However, microbial reductions from SAEW treatment are not enough to ensure produce safety. Therefore, it is necessary to improve its antimicrobial efficiency by combining it with other appropriate approaches. This study examined the microbicidal activity of SAEW (pH 5.2-5.5, oxidation reduction potential 500-600 mV, available chlorine concentration 21-22 mg/l) on Chinese cabbage, lettuce, sesame leaf and spinach, four common fresh vegetables in Korea under same laboratory conditions. Subsequently, effects of ultrasonication and water wash to enhance the sanitizing efficacy of SAEW were studied, separately. Finally, an optimized simple and easy approach consisting of simultaneous SAEW treatment with ultrasonication (3 min) followed by water wash (150 rpm, 1 min) was developed (SAEW + US-WW). This newly developed hurdle treatment significantly enhanced the microbial reductions compared to SAEW treatment alone, SAEW treatment with ultrasonication (SAEW + US) and SAEW treatment followed by water wash (SAEW-WW) at room temperature (23 2 C). Microbial reductions of yeasts and molds, total bacteria count and inoculated Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Listeria monocytogenes were in the range of 1.76-2.8 log cfu/g on different samples using the new hurdle approach.
International Journal of Food Microbiology 155.3 (2012): 99-104
Roles of hydroxyl radicals in electrolyzed oxidizing water (EOW) for the inactivation of Escherichia coli
The food industry has recognized electrolyzed oxidizing water (EOW) as a promising alternative decontamination technique. However, there is not a consensus about the sanitizing mechanism of EOW. In this study, we evaluated the disinfection efficacy of different types of EOW on Escherichia coli. Based on the hypothesis of hydroxyl radicals existing in EOW, in the present study, the hydroxyl radicals existed in slightly acidic electrolyzed water (SAEW) and acidic electrolyzed water (AEW) diluted to different levels were detected quantitatively. An ultraviolet (UV) spectrophotometer was used to scan EOW with different pH values. Accounting for the results of UV scanning to EOW with different pH value and the disinfection efficacy of different types of EOW, it can be concluded that considering the lower chlorine concentration of EOW compared with traditional chlorine disinfectants, the existing form of chlorine compounds rather than the hydroxyl radicals played important role in the disinfection efficacy of EOW.
Transmission Electron Microscopic Analysis Showing Structural Changes to Bacterial Cells Treated with Electrolyzed Water and an Acidic Sanitizer
Microbe(s): Escherichia coli, Listeria innocua
The effects of various sanitizers on the viability and cellular injury to structures of Escherichia coli and Listeria innocua were investigated. A food grade organic acidic formulation (pH 2.5) and acidic, neutral, and basic electrolyzed water [AEW (pH 2.7, oxidation reduction potential; ORP: 1100 mV, free available chlorine; FAC: 150 ppm), NEW (pH 6.9, ORP: 840 mV, FAC: 150 ppm), BEW (pH 11.6, ORP: 810 mV)] were used to treat E. coli and L. innocua cells. After 10 min of exposure to the sanitizers, changes to the bacterial numbers and cell structures were evaluated by plate counting and transmission electron microscopy (TEM), respectively. It was concluded from the results that the sanitizers reduced the E. coli cells between 2 and 3 log CFU/mL. Except for the BEW treatment, reductions in L. innocua population were greater (>1 log CFU/mL) than that of E. coli for all treatments. Data from the TEM showed that all sanitizers caused changes to the cell envelope and cytoplasm of both organisms. However, smaller changes were observed for L. innocua cells. Decrease in the integrity of the cell envelope and aggregation of the cytoplasmic components appeared to be mainly because of exposure to the sanitizers. The organic acid formulation and AEW were the most effective sanitizers against bacterial cells, indicating that penetration of acidic substances effectively caused the cell inactivation.
Intl. J. Food Eng 8.3 (2012): 41
Bactericidal activity of slightly acidic electrolyzed water produced by different methods analyzed with ultraviolet spectrophotometric
Microbe(s): Escherichia coli O157:H7, Salmonella enteritidis
Slightly acidic electrolyzed water (SAEW) as a novel antimicrobial agent is generated by electrolysis of dilute hydrochloric acid (HCl) and/or sodium chloride (NaCl) solution in a cell with or without a separating membrane. The ultraviolet absorption spectra were used to determine the concentration of hypochlorous acid (HClO) and hypochlorite ion (ClO ) in SAEW generated by four different methods and their bactericidal efficiency for inactivation of Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Salmonella enteritidis was evaluated. During the production of equivalent available chlorine in SAEW, more HClO was produced by electrolysis of HCl solution in a non-membrane generator and mixing the acid and alkaline electrolyzed water generated in a generator with membrane, compared with the methods of adding HCl to neutral electrolyzed water (NEW) and electrolyzing the mixture of NaCl and HCl solution in a non-membrane cell. At the 10 mg/L available chlorine concentration, SAEW produced by the methods with more HClO generation had significantly higher (p<0.05) bactericidal efficiency for inactivation of both pathogens.
Journal of Food Engineering 110.4 (2012): 541-546
Efficacy of neutral electrolyzed water for sanitization of cutting boards used in the preparation of foods
The effectiveness of neutral electrolyzed water (NEW) to sanitize cutting boards used for food preparation was investigated. Cutting boards made of hardwood and bamboo were inoculated with Escherichia coli K12 and Listeria innocua, dried for 1 h, washed, rinsed and sanitized with NEW, sodium hypochlorite (NaClO) solution, or tap water (control). After each washing protocol, surviving bacterial populations were determined. Results showed that both NEW and NaClO sanitizing solutions produced similar levels of bacterial reductions. In manual washing, the population reductions by NEW and NaClO were 3.4 and 3.6 log10 CFU/100 cm2 for E. coli, and 4.1 and 3.9 log10 CFU/100 cm2 for L. innocua, respectively. In the automatic washing, the reductions by NEW and NaClO were 4.0 and 4.0 log10 CFU/100 cm2 for E. coli, and 4.2 and 3.6 log10 CFU/100 cm2 for L. innocua, respectively. No significant differences (P > 0.05) were observed in surviving bacteria counts when comparing board material types.
Stability of low concentration electrolyzed water and its sanitization potential against foodborne pathogens
Low concentration electrolyzed water (LcEW) has been proved to be an effective sanitizer against pathogens in cell suspensions as well as pathogens and spoilage organisms attached to vegetables, poultry and meat. In this study, effect of current, electrolysis time and salt concentration on physical properties (pH, ORP and ACC) and inactivation efficacy of LcEW was monitored. Pure cultures of Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Listeria monocytogenes were prepared and exposure treatment was performed for bacteria inactivation study in cell suspensions at room temperature (23 2 C). Our results showed increased reduction of both pathogens with the increase in current. Changes of current also affected the ACC, pH and ORP values of the tested solution. Values of ACC, pH and ORP were increased with the increase in current. Log reduction of 4.9 5.6 log CFU/mL for both pathogens was achieved when the current was increased from 1.15 to 1.45 A. Electrolysis time and percent of salt concentration also influenced the physical properties of LcEW. Stability of LcEW was also investigated under different conditions and it was observed that LcEW produced with increased electrical current was more stable during storage. Therefore, current might influence the properties and sanitizing effect of LcEW.
Journal of Food Protection 74.9 (2011): 1552-1557
Reduction of Salmonella enterica, Escherichia coli O157: H7, and Listeria monocytogenes with electrolyzed oxidizing water on inoculated hass avocados (Persea americana var. Hass)
Microbe(s): Salmonella enterica, Escherichia coli O157:H7, Listeria monocytogenes
This study was intended to evaluate the bactericidal effect of electrolyzed oxidizing water (EOW) and chlorinated water on populations of Salmonella enterica, Escherichia coli O157:H7, and Listeria monocytogenes inoculated on avocados (Persea americana var. Hass). In the first experiment, inoculated avocados were treated with a water wash applied by spraying tap water containing 1 mg/liter free chlorine for 15 s (WW); WW treatment and then spraying sodium hypochlorite in water containing 75 mg/liter free chlorine for 15 s (Cl75); WW treatment and then spraying alkaline EOW for 30 s (AkEW) and then spraying acid EOW (AcEW) for 15 s; and spraying AkEW and then AcEW. In another experiment, the inoculated avocados were treated by spraying AkEW and then AcEW for 15, 30, 60, or 90 s. All three pathogen populations were lowered between 3.6 and 3.8 log cycles after WW treatment. The application of Cl75 did not produce any further reduction in counts, whereas AkEW and then AcEW treatment resulted in significantly lower bacterial counts for L. monocytogenes and E. coli O157:H7 but not for Salmonella. Treatments with AkEW and then AcEW produced a significant decrease in L. monocytogenes, Salmonella, and E. coli O157:H7 populations, with estimated log reductions of 3.9 to 5.2, 5.1 to 5.9, and 4.2 to 4.9 log CFU/cm , respectively. Spraying AcEW for more than 15 s did not produce any further decrease in counts of Salmonella or E. coli O157:H7, whereas L. monocytogenes counts were significantly lower after spraying AcEW for 60 s. Applying AkEW and then AcEW for 15 or 30 s seems to be an effective alternative to reduce bacterial pathogens on avocado surfaces.
Aquaculture 319.3-4 (2011): 315-318
Elimination of Escherichia coli from oysters using electrolyzed seawater
Electrolyzed seawater (ESW) is reportedly an effective disinfectant for aquaculture equipment becaof its simple mechanism and cost effectiveness. The potential of electrolyzed seawater for oyster depuration was studied using different experiments. The first was determination of chlorine tolerance of oysters. Second was effectiveness of ESW against Escherichia coli in artificially contaminated oysters and third was effectiveness of ESW against E. coli in naturally contaminated oysters from two culture farms. Tolerance of oysters for Chlorine was studied by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and histological observation demonstrating that more than 0.5 mg/L of chlorine was toxic while 0.2 mg/L was safe for the oysters. Oysters artificially contaminated with E. coli (230 MPN/100 mL, 16.5 C for 15 h) were depurated for 6, 24, and 48 h using ESW and UV irradiated seawater. E. coli counts in artificially contaminated oysters decreased to below the detection limit (30 E. coli MPN/100 g) after depuration with ESW for 24 h or UV irradiated seawater for 6 h. In experiments on naturally contaminated oysters E. coli counts decreased to below detection limits after depuration with ESW for 24 h. From these results, electrolysis of seawater is a useful method for post harvest elimination of E. coli from oysters.
Journal of Food Safety 31.1 (2011): 28-34
EFFICACY OF SLIGHTLY ACIDIC ELECTROLYZED WATER (SAEW) FOR REDUCING MICROBIAL CONTAMINATION ON FRESH CUT CILANTRO
Microbe(s): Escherichia coli, Bacillus subtilis
The efficacy of slightly acidic electrolyzed water (SAEW) for reducing microbial contamination on fresh-cut cilantro was investigated in this study. The impacts of SAEW on the microbes of cilantro samples inoculated with two kinds of bacteria (Escherichia coli O78 and Bacillus subtilis 1.1849) were evaluated in comparison with NaClO solution and acidic electrolyzed water (AEW). Dipping with AEW, SAEW and NaClO solutions for 5 min resulted in a reduction in populations of E. coli O78 from 6.38 to 4.93, 3.89 and 4.88 log10 cfu/g and in populations of B. subtilis from 6.52 to 5.02, 4.98, 4.63 log10 cfu/g, respectively, The similar results were found that the populations on cilantro inoculated the mixture of two microbes of E. coli O78 treated with AEW, SAEW and NaClO solutions decreased to 4.15, 3.99, 5.10 log10 cfu/g, respectively, and the populations of B. subtili on cilantro decreased to 5.08,4.97,4.82 log10 cfu/g, respectively. The efficacies of SAEW wash in reducing natural micro flora on fresh-cut cilantro were studied. The results showed SAEW had strong disinfection ability to reduce the microbe population of fresh-cut cilantro and could be an alternative of AEW and NaClO solutions.
Food microbiology 28.3 (2011): 484-491
Combination treatment of alkaline electrolyzed water and citric acid with mild heat to ensure microbial safety, shelf-life and sensory quality of shredded carrots
The objective of this study was to determine the synergistic effect of alkaline electrolyzed water and citric acid with mild heat against background and pathogenic microorganisms on carrots. Shredded carrots were inoculated with approximately 6 7 log CFU/g of Escherichia coli O157:H7 (932, and 933) and Listeria monocytogenes (ATCC 19116, and 19111) and then dip treated with alkaline electrolyzed water (AlEW), acidic electrolyzed water (AcEW), 100 ppm sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl), deionized water (DaIW), or 1% citric acid (CA) alone or with combinations of AlEW and 1% CA (AlEW + CA). The populations of spoilage bacteria on the carrots were investigated after various exposure times (1, 3, and 5 min) and treatment at different dipping temperatures (1, 20, 40, and 50 C) and then optimal condition (3 min at 50 C) was applied against foodborne pathogens on the carrots. When compared to the untreated control, treatment AcEW most effectively reduced the numbers of total bacteria, yeast and fungi, followed by AlEW and 100 ppm NaOCl. Exposure to all treatments for 3 min significantly reduced the numbers of total bacteria, yeast and fungi on the carrots. As the dipping temperature increased from 1 C to 50 C, the reductions of total bacteria, yeast and fungi increased significantly from 0.22 to 2.67 log CFU/g during the wash treatment (p 0.05). The combined 1% citric acid and AlEW treatment at 50 C showed a reduction of the total bacterial count and the yeast and fungi of around 3.7 log CFU/g, as well as effective reduction of L. monocytogenes (3.97 log CFU/g), and E. Coli O157:H7 (4 log CFU/g). Combinations of alkaline electrolyzed water and citric acid better maintained the sensory and microbial quality of the fresh-cut carrots and enhanced the overall shelf-life of the produce.
Efficacy of slightly acidic electrolyzed water in killing or reducing Escherichia coli O157: H7 on iceberg lettuce and tomatoes under simulated food service operation conditions
Microbe(s): Escherichia coli O157:H7
The objective of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of slightly acidic electrolyzed (SAEO) water in killing or removing Escherichia coli O157:H7 on iceberg lettuce and tomatoes by washing and chilling treatment simulating protocols used in food service kitchens. Whole lettuce leaves and tomatoes were spot-inoculated with 100 L of a mixture of 5 strains of E. coli O157:H7. Washing lettuce with SAEO water for 15 s reduced the pathogen by 1.4 to 1.6 log CFU/leaf, but the treatments did not completely inactivate the pathogen in the wash solution. Increasing the washing time to 30 s increased the reductions to 1.7 to 2.3 log CFU/leaf. Sequential washing in SAEO water for 15 s and then chilling in SAEO water for 15 min also increased the reductions to 2.0 to 2.4 log CFU/leaf, and no cell survived in chilling solution after treatment. Washing tomatoes with SAEO water for 8 s reduced E. coli O157:H7 by 5.4 to 6.3 log CFU/tomato. The reductions were increased to 6.6 to 7.6 log CFU/tomato by increasing the washing time to 15 s. Results suggested that application of SAEO water to wash and chill lettuce and tomatoes in food service kitchens could minimize cross-contamination and reduce the risk of E. coli O157:H7 present on the produce.
Postharvest Biology and Technology 61.2 (2011): 172-177
The use of electrolyzed water as a disinfectant for minimally processed apples
Microbe(s): Escherichia coli, Listeria innocua, Salmonella choleraesuis
Chlorine (sodium hypochlorite solution) is the most common disinfectant used in the fresh-cut industry, however, environmental and health risks related to its use have resulted in a need to find new sanitizers. Electrolyzed water (EW) is a promising alternative, showing a broad spectrum of microbial decontamination. In this study the efficacy of acidic electrolyzed water (AEW) and neutral electrolyzed water (NEW) as disinfectants of apple slices inoculated with Escherichia coli, Listeria innocua or Salmonella choleraesuis, individually or in a mixture, were compared to that of sodium hypochlorite solution and distilled water. Apple slices were inoculated with a 107 cfu/mL suspension of the pathogens and treated with diluted electrolyzed water. Bactericidal activity of washing treatments was assessed after 30 min and after storage for 5 days at 4 C. AEW and NEW disinfection efficacy was compared to that of washings with sodium hypochlorite at the same free chlorine concentration and with distilled water. AEW diluted to 100 mg/L of free chlorine was the treatment with the highest bactericidal activity in all tested conditions (reductions obtained ranged from 1.2 to 2.4 log units) followed by NEW and AEW at 100 and 50 mg/L of free chlorine respectively. In general these treatments were equal or more effective than sodium hypochlorite washings at 100 mg/L of free chlorine. The effect of the different sanitizer washings when pathogens where in a mixture was similar to that which occurred when pathogens were individually inoculated. The effectiveness of all washings slightly decreased when apple slices were stored for 5 days at 4 C.
Application of slightly acidic electrolyzed water as a potential non-thermal food sanitizer for decontamination of fresh ready-to-eat vegetables and sprouts
Microbe(s): Escherichia coli, Salmonella spp.
The sanitization efficacy of slightly acidic electrolyzed water (SAEW) against food pathogens on selected fresh ready-to-eat (RTE) vegetables and sprouts was evaluated and compared to sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl) solution. RTE vegetables and sprouts were dip-inoculated with Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Salmonella spp. and dip-treated with SAEW, NaOCl solution for 5 min. SAEW treatment significantly (p < 0.05) reduced the total aerobic mesophilic bacteria from Chinese celery, lettuce and daikon sprouts by 2.7, 2.5 and 2.45 log10CFU/g, respectively relative to un-treated. Pathogens were significantly (p < 0.05) reduced from Chinese celery, lettuce and daikon sprouts by 2.7, 2.8 and 2.8 log10CFU/g (E. coli) and 2.87, 2.91 and 2.91 log10CFU/g (Salmonella spp.), respectively following a SAEW treatment. SAEW and NaOCl solution showed no significant sanitization difference (p > 0.05). Results demonstrate that SAEW at low chlorine concentration and a near neutral pH is a potential non-thermal food sanitizer that could represent an alternative to NaOCl solution and would reduce the amount of free chlorine used in fresh-cut vegetables industry, since the same microbial reduction as NaOCl solution is obtained.
Inhibitory effects of low concentration electrolyzed water and other sanitizers against foodborne pathogens on oyster mushroom
Microbe(s): Escherichia coli O157:H7, Listeria monocytogenes, Salmonella Typhimurium, Bacillus cereus
In this study we investigated the effects of low concentration electrolyzed water (LcEW) and several other sanitizers (strong acid electrolyzed water (SAEW), aqueous ozone (AO), 1% citric acid (CA) and sodium hypochlorite solution (NaOCl)) on the inactivation of natural microflora (total aerobic bacteria counts (TBC) and yeasts and moulds (YM)) and foodborne pathogens (Escherichia coli O157:H7, Listeria monocytogenes, Salmonella Typhimurium and Bacillus cereus) on oyster mushroom. The effects of temperature and treatment time on the antimicrobial activity of LcEW to reduce the populations of foodborne pathogens were also determined. LcEW showed the strongest bactericidal efficacy among all the sanitizers on TBC, YM and pathogens by reductions of 1.35, 1.08 and 1.90 2.16 log CFU/g after 3 min treatment at room temperature (23 2 C), respectively. There was no significant difference between the antimicrobial effects of LcEW and SAEW (P > 0.05). Among those sanitizers, their relative influence of inactivation was LcEW > NaOCl > CA > AO.
Reduction of Escherichia coli O157: H7 and Salmonella enteritidis on mung bean seeds and sprouts by slightly acidic electrolyzed water
High microbial populations on mung beans and its sprouts are the primary reason of a short shelf life of these products, and potentially present pathogens may cause human illness outbreak. The efficiency for inactivating Escherichia coli O157:H7 (E. coli O157:H7) and Salmonella enteritidis (S. enteritidis), which were artificially inoculated on mung bean seeds and sprouts, by means of slightly acidic electrolyzed water (SAEW, pH 5.0 to 6.5) generated through electrolysis of a mixture of NaCl and hydrochloric acid solution in a non-membrane electrolytic chamber, was evaluated at the different available chlorine concentrations (ACCs, 20-120 mg/l) and treatment time (3-15 min), respectively. The effect of SAEW treatment on the viability of seeds was also determined. Results indicate that the ACC had more significant effect on the bactericidal activity of SAEW for reducing both pathogens on the seeds and sprouts compared to treatment time (P < 0.05). The seeds and sprouts treated with SAEW at ACCs of 20 and 80 mg/l resulted in a reduction of 1.32-1.78 log10 CFU/g and 3.32-4.24 log10 CFU/g for E. coli, while 1.27-1.76 log10 CFU/g and 3.12-4.19 log10 CFU/g for S. enteritidis, respectively. The germination percentage of mung bean seeds was not significantly affected by the treatment of SAEW at an ACC of 20 mg/l for less than 10 min (P > 0.05). The finding of this study implies that SAEW with a near-neutral pH value and low available chlorine is an effective method to reduce foodborne pathogens on seeds and sprouts with less effects on the viability of seeds.
Food control 22.3-4 (2011): 601-607
The sanitization efficacy of slightly acidic electrolyzed water (SAEW) against food pathogens on 2.7, 2.8 and 2.8 log10CFU/g (E. coli) and 2.87, 2.91 and 2.91 log10CFU/g (Salmonella spp.), respectively following a SAEW treatment. SAEW and NaOCl solution showed no significant sanitization difference (p > 0.05). Results demonstrate that SAEW at low chlorine concentration and a near neutral pH is a potential non-thermal food sanitizer that could represent an s industry, since the same microbial reduction as NaOCl solution is obtained.
Journal of food science 75.4 (2010): M231-M238
Efficacy of sanitized ice in reducing bacterial on fish fillet and in the water collected from the melted ice
Microbe(s): Escherichia coli K12, Listeria innocua, Pseudomonas putida
This study investigated the efficacy of sanitized ice for the reduction of bacteria in the water collected from the ice that melted during storage of whole and filleted Tilapia fish. Also, bacterial reductions on the fish fillets were investigated. The sanitized ice was prepared by freezing solutions of PROSAN (an organic acid formulation) and neutral electrolyzed water (NEW). For the whole fish study, the survival of the natural microflora was determined from the water of the melted ice prepared with PROSAN and tap water. These water samples were collected during an 8 h storage period. For the fish fillet study, samples were inoculated with Escherichia coli K12, Listeria innocua, and Pseudomonas putida then stored on crushed sanitized ice. The efficacies of these were tested by enumerating each bacterial species on the fish fillet and in the water samples at 12 and 24 h intervals for 72 h, respectively. Results showed that each bacterial population was reduced during the test. However, a bacterial reduction of < 1 log CFU was obtained for the fillet samples. A maximum of approximately 2 log CFU and > 3 log CFU reductions were obtained in the waters sampled after the storage of whole fish and the fillets, respectively. These reductions were significantly (P < 0.05) higher in the water from sanitized ice when compared with the water from the unsanitized melted ice. These results showed that the organic acid formulation and NEW considerably reduced the bacterial numbers in the melted ice and thus reduced the potential for crosscontamination.
International Journal of Food Microbiology 139.3 (2010): 147-153
Effectiveness of low concentration electrolyzed water to inactivate foodborne pathogens under different environmental conditions
Microbe(s): Escherichia coli O157:H7, Listeria monocytogenes, Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella Typhimurium
Strong acid electrolyzed water (SAEW) has a very limited application due to its low pH value (< 2.7) and corrosive characteristics. Thus, we developed new low concentration electrolyzed water (LcEW). The efficacy of LcEW under various treatment conditions for the inactivation of different foodborne pathogens in pure culture was evaluated and compared with SAEW. The efficiency of LcEW and SAEW for the inactivation of predominant foodborne pathogens (Escherichia coli O157:H7, Listeria monocytogenes, Staphylococcus aureus and Salmonella Typhimurium) with different dipping times (1, 3, 5, 7 and 10 min), pH values (2.5, 4.0, 5.0, 6.0 and 9.0) and temperatures (4, 15, 23, 35 and 50 C) were determined. Reductions of bacterial populations of 1.7 to 6.6 log10 CFU/mL in various treated conditions in cell suspensions were observed after treatment with LcEW and SAEW, compared to the untreated control. Dip washing (1 min at 35 C) of lettuce leaves in both electrolyzed water resulted in 2.5 to 4.0 log10 CFU/g compared to the unwashed control. Strong inactivation effects were observed in LcEW, and no significant difference (p > 0.05) was observed between LcEW and SAEW. The effective form of chlorine compounds in LcEW was almost exclusively hypochlorous acid (HOCl), which has strong antimicrobial activity and leaves no residuals due to the low concentration of residual chlorine. Thus, LcEW could be widely applied as a new sanitizer in the food industry.
Effect of slightly acidic electrolyzed water for inactivating Escherichia coli O157: H7 and Staphylococcus aureus analyzed by transmission electron microscopy
Microbe(s): Escherichia coli O157: H7, Staphylococcus aureus
The use of different available chlorine concentrations (ACCs) of slightly acidic electrolyzed water (SAEW; 0.5 to 30 mg/
Food Control 21.10 (2010): 1383-1387
Inactivation effect of newly developed low concentration electrolyzed water and other sanitizers against microorganisms on spinach
The efficacy of newly developed low concentration electrolyzed water (LcEW) was investigated to inactivate the pathogens on spinach leaves as a convenient and safe alternative sanitizer and it was compared to other sanitizers. Spinach leaves were inoculated with Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Listeria monocytogenes and dip treated with deionized water (DIW), LcEW, strong acid electrolyzed water (SAEW), aqueous ozone (AO), 1% citric acid (CA) and sodium hypochlorite solution (NaOCl) for 3 min at room temperature (23 +/- 2 C). For all pathogens, the similar pattern of microbial reduction on spinach was apparent with LcEW and SAEW washing. In the present study, it was found that LcEW inactivated, at maximum, 1.64-2.80 log cfu/g and DIW resulted in lowest reduction, 0.31-0.95 log cfu/g of background or pathogenic microflora present on spinach leaves compared to the unwashed control. The findings of this study indicate that LcEW and SAEW did not differ significantly (P > 0.05) in reducing background or pathogenic microflora on spinach and LcEW may be a promising sanitizer for washing vegetables without environmental pollution instead of using electrolyzed oxidizing (EO) water or SAEW.
Studies on disinfection mechanism of electrolyzed oxidizing water on E. coli and Staphylococcus aureus
Microbe(s): Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus
Suspension quantitative germicidal test showed that electrolyzed oxidizing water (EO water) was an efficient and rapid disinfectant. Disinfection rates towards E. coli (available chlorine concentration ACC: 12.40 mg/L) and Staphylococcus aureus (ACC: 37.30 mg/L) could reach 100% at 1 and 3 min, respectively. Disinfection mechanism of EO water was investigated at a molecular biological level by detecting a series of biochemical indices. The results showed that the dehydrogenase activities of E. coli and S. aureus decreased rapidly, respectively, at the rates of 45.9% and 32% in the 1st minute treatment with EO water. EO water also improved the bacterial membrane permeability, causing the rise of conductivities and the rapid leakages of intracellular DNA, K+, and proteins in 1 min. The leakages of DNA and K+ tended to slow down after about 1 min while those of proteins began to decrease a little after reaching the peak values. The sodium dodecyl sulfonate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) showed that EO water destroyed intracellular proteins. The protein bands got fainter and even disappeared as the treatment proceeded. EO water s effects on the bacterial ultrastructures were also verified by the transmission electronic microscopy (TEM) photos. The disinfection mechanism of EO water was composed of several comprehensive factors including the destruction of bacterial protective barriers, the increase of membrane permeability, the leakage of cellular inclusions, and the activity decrease of some key enzymes.
Journal of Faculty Agriculture, Kyushu University, 55 (2), 275 280 (2010)
Comparison of the Bactericidal Effect of Slightly Acidic Hypochlorous
Microbe(s): Salmonella Enteritidis, Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Listeria monocytogenes, and Bacillus cereus
The bactericidal effect of slightly acidic hypochlorous water (SAHW) on Salmonella Enteritidis, Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Listeria monocytogenes, and Bacillus cereus, as well as some bacterial strains isolated from fresh lettuce was evaluated. Viable counts of all tested bacterial samples decreased immediately after treatment by SAHW. Most bacterial cells with the exception of B. cereus, and S. aureus were not culturable on TSA after treatment by 1 to 30 mg/L SAHW. Likewise, Pseudomonas sp., and Flavobacterium or Xanthomonas sp., Kurthia sp., Micrococcus sp., and Corynebacterium or Microbacterium sp. were not culturable on TSA after treatment by 30 mg/L SAHW. Viable counts of S. aureus, E. coli, Flavobacterium or Xanthomonas sp., and Pseudomonas sp. showed a 5 to 6 log cfu/mL reduction at day 0 and maintained a count of less than 1 log cfu/mL from day 1 to day 7 following treatment by 30 mg/L SAHW. Sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl, 0.5-1.0 mg/L) decreased the viable counts of S. Enteritidis to less than the lower limit of detection, 1 log cfu/mL, from day 1 to day 7 following treatment by 1 mg/L. NaOCl was not sufficient at 0.5-0.75 mg/L in reducing viable counts of S. Enteritidis because of a 2 to 5 log cfu/mL increase from day 2 to day 5 due to recovery from injury. Initial counts of S. Enteritidis after hydrogen
Journal of Bioscience and Bioengineering 110.3 (2010): 308-313
In vitro inactivation of Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus and Salmonella spp. using slightly acidic electrolyzed water
Microbe(s): Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella spp.
In the current study, the effectiveness of slightly acidic electrolyzed water (SAEW) on an in vitro inactivation of Escherichia coli (E. coli), Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) and Salmonella spp. was evaluated and compared with other sanitizers. SAEW (pH 5.6, 23 mg/l available chlorine concentration; ACC; and 940 mV oxidation reduction potential; ORP) was generated by electrolysis of dilute solution of HCl (2%) in a chamber of a non-membrane electrolytic cell. One milliliter of bacteria suspension (ca. 10-11 log10CFU/ml) was mixed with 9 ml of SAEW, strong acidic electrolyzed water (StAEW; ca. 50 mg/l ACC), sodium hypochlorite solution (NaOCl; ca.120 mg/l ACC) and distilled water (DW) as control and treated for 60 s. SAEW effectively reduced the population of E. coli, S. aureus and Salmonella spp. by 5.1, 4.8, and 5.2 log10CFU/ml. Although, ACC of SAEW was more than 5 times lower than that of NaOCl solution, they showed no significant bactericidal difference (p > 0.05). However, the bactericidal effect of StAEW was significantly higher (p < 0.05) than SAEW and NaOCl solution in all cases. When tested with each individual test solution, E. coli, S. aureus and Salmonella spp. reductions were not significantly different (p > 0.05). These findings indicate that SAEW with low available chlorine concentration can equally inactivate E. coli, S. aureus and Salmonella spp. as NaOCl solution and therefore SAEW shows a high potential of application in agriculture and food industry as an environmentally friendly disinfection agent.
African Journal of Microbiology Research 4.20 (2010): 2174-2180
Antimicrobial effect of slightly acidic electrolyzed water for inactivation of Salmonella spp. and Escherichia coli on fresh strawberries (Fragaria L.)
Microbe(s): Salmonella spp., Escherichia coli
Antimicrobial effect of slightly acidic electrolyzed water (SAEW: pH 5.6 0.1, 20.5 1.3 mg/L available chlorine concentration; ACC) against indigenous aerobic mesophiles and inoculated Escherichia coli and Salmonella spp. on fresh strawberry was assessed. The antimicrobial effect of SAEW was compared with that of strong acidic electrolyzed water (StAEW) and sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl) solution. SAEW effectively reduced total aerobic mesophilic bacteria from strawberries by 1.68 log10CFU/g and was not significantly different from that ofNaOCl solution (p > 0.05). Antimicrobial effect of SAEW against Salmonella spp. andE. coli was indicated by a more than 2 log10CFU/g reduction of their population andthe effect was not significantly different from that of NaOCl solution and StAEW at similar treatment conditions (p > 0.05). From these findings, SAEW with a near-neutral pH and low available chlorine concentration exhibits an equivalent bactericidal effectiveness to NaOCl solution and thus SAEW is a potential sanitizer that would be used as an alternative for StAEW and NaOCl solution in the fresh fruit and vegetables industry.
Combined effects of alkaline electrolyzed water and citric acid with mild heat to control microorganisms on cabbage
Microbe(s): Listeria monocytogenes, Escherichia coli O157 : H7
Effects of alkaline electrolyzed water (AlEW), acidic electrolyzed water (AcEW), 100 ppm sodium hypochlorite (NaClO), deionized water (DIW), 1% citric acid (CA) alone, and combinations of AlEW with 1% CA (AlEW + CA), in reducing the populations of spoilage bacteria and foodborne pathogens on cabbage were investigated at various dipping times (3, 5, and 10 min) with different dipping temperatures (1, 20, 40, and 50 C). Inhibitory effect of the selected optimal treatment against Listeria monocytogenes and Escherichia coli O157 : H7 on cabbage were also evaluated. Compared to the untreated control, AlEW treatment most effectively reduced the numbers of total bacteria, yeast, and mold, followed by AcEW and 100-ppm NaClO treatments. All treatments dip washed for 5 min significantly reduced the numbers of total bacteria, yeast, and mold on cabbage. With increasing dipping temperature from 1 to 50 C, the reductions of total bacteria, yeast, and mold were significantly increased from 0.19 to 1.12 log CFU/g in the DIW wash treatment (P < 0.05). Combined 1% CA with AlEW treatment at 50 C showed the reduction of around 3.98 and 3.45 log CFU/g on the total count, and yeast and mold, effective reduction of L. monocytogenes (3.99 log CFU/g), and E. coli O157 : H7 (4.19 log CFU/g) on cabbage. The results suggest that combining AlEW with CA could be a possible method to control foodborne pathogens and spoilage bacteria effectively on produce.
Journal of Food Quality 33.5 (2010): 559-577
Efficacy of electrolyzed oxidizing (EO) water and chlorinated water for inactivation of Escherichia coli O157: H7 on strawberries and broccoli
Inoculated strawberries were treated with deionized water (control), electrolyzed oxidizing (EO) water (23 and 55 mg/L of residual chlorine), and chlorinated water (55 mg/L of residual chlorine), either with or without ultrasonication. Inoculated broccoli was treated with EO water containing 55 and 100 mg/L of residual chlorine and chlorinated water with 100 mg/L of residual chlorine. Treatments were conducted for 1 and 5 min at temperatures of 4 and 24C, respectively. Dipping strawberries and broccoli into EO water or chlorinated water significantly (P < 0.05) reduced the Escherichia coli O157:H7 counts compared with inoculated controls. Dipping inoculated strawberries with chlorinated water or EO water with ultrasonication reduced E. coli O157:H7 cells by 0.7 to 1.9 log cfu/g depending on the treatment time and treatment solution temperature. Dipping inoculated broccoli into chlorinated water or EO water with ultrasonication for 1 or 5 min reduced the bacterial population by 1.2 to 2.2 log cfu/g. Significant (P < 0.05) reductions in pathogen populations were observed when produce was treated with EO water in conjunction with ultrasonication. Results revealed that EO water was either more than or as effective as chlorinated water in killing E. coli O157:H7 cells on strawberries and broccoli.
Microbe(s): Escherichia coli O157:H7, Staphylococcus aureus
The use of different available chlorine concentrations (ACCs) of slightly acidic electrolyzed water (SAEW; 0.5 to 30 mg/liter), different treatment times, and different temperatures for inactivating Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Staphylococcus aureus was evaluated. The morphology of both pathogens also was analyzed with transmission electron microscopy. A 3-min treatment with SAEW (pH 6.0 to 6.5) at ACCs of 2 mg/liter for E. coli O157:H7 and 8 mg/liter for S. aureus resulted in 100% inactivation of two cultures (7.92- to 8.75-log reduction) at 25 C. The bactericidal activity of SAEW was independent of the treatment time and temperature at a higher ACC (P > 0.05). E. coli O157:H7 was much more sensitive than S. aureus to SAEW. The morphological damage to E. coli O157:H7 cells by SAEW was significantly greater than that to S. aureus cells. At an ACC as high as 30 mg/liter, E. coli O157:H7 cells were damaged, but S. aureus cells retained their structure and no cell wall damage or shrinkage was observed. SAEW with a near neutral pH may be a promising disinfectant for inactivation of foodborne pathogens.
Reduction of Escherichia coli O157: H7 on produce by use of electrolyzed water under simulated food service operation conditions
Treatment of fresh fruits and vegetables with electrolyzed water (EW) has been shown to kill or reduce foodborne pathogens. We evaluated the efficacy of EW in killing Escherichia coli O157:H7 on iceberg lettuce, cabbage, lemons, and tomatoes by using washing and/or chilling treatments simulating those followed in some food service kitchens. Greatest reduction levels on lettuce were achieved by sequentially washing with 14-A (amperage) acidic EW (AcEW) for 15 or 30 s followed by chilling in 16-A AcEW for 15 min. This procedure reduced the pathogen by 2.8 and 3.0 log CFU per leaf, respectively, whereas washing and chilling with tap water reduced the pathogen by 1.9 and 2.4 log CFU per leaf. Washing cabbage leaves for 15 or 30 s with tap water or 14-A AcEW reduced the pathogen by 2.0 and 3.0 log CFU per leaf and 2.5 to 3.0 log CFU per leaf, respectively. The pathogen was reduced by 4.7 log CFU per lemon by washing with 14-A AcEW and 4.1 and 4.5 log CFU per lemon by washing with tap water for 15 or 30 s. A reduction of 5.3 log CFU per lemon was achieved by washing with 14-A alkaline EW for 15 s prior to washing with 14-A AcEW for 15 s. Washing tomatoes with tap water or 14-A AcEW for 15 s reduced the pathogen by 6.4 and 7.9 log CFU per tomato, respectively. Application of AcEW using procedures mimicking food service operations should help minimize cross-contamination and reduce the risk of E. coli O157:H7 being present on produce at the time of consumption.
Efficacy of electrolyzed water and an acidic formulation compared with regularly used chemical sanitizers for tableware sanitization during mechanical and manual ware-washing protocols
Microbe(s): Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus epidermidis
This study investigated residual bacteria and different food types left on tableware items after various washing and sanitization protocols. Escherichia coli K-12 and Staphylococcus epidermidis were inoculated into whole milk and soft cream cheese. The milk was used to contaminate regular drinking glasses and the cheese was used to contaminate plates and silverware. These tableware items were washed in manual (43 C) and mechanical (49 C) washers and sanitized with different sanitizers (24 C) for 5 s. Quaternary ammonium compound, sodium hypochlorite, peroxyacetic acid, neutral electrolyzed water (NEW), and a combination of citric acid with sodium dodecylbenzene sulfonate (acidic formulation) were used as the chemical sanitizers. Tap water was used as a control. Results showed that at least 5-log reductions in both bacterial numbers were achieved for all sanitizers in both types of washers, except for the control. With mechanical dishwashing, the NEW and acidic formulation treatments reduced bacterial populations by >6.9 and >6.0 log CFU per tableware item, respectively. With the manual operation, bacterial numbers were reduced by >5.4 and >6.0 log CFU per tableware item, respectively. This study revealed that NEW and the acidic formulation are as effective as the other chemical sanitizers for food contact surface sanitization in manual and mechanical ware washing.
Efficacy of chlorine, acidic electrolyzed water and aqueous chlorine dioxide solutions to decontaminate Escherichia coli O157: H7 from lettuce leaves
This study compared the efficacy of chlorine (20 200 ppm), acidic electrolyzed water (50 ppm chlorine, pH 2.6), acidified sodium chlorite (20 200 ppm chlorite ion concentration, Sanova ), and aqueous chlorine dioxide (20 200 ppm chlorite ion concentration, TriNova ) washes in reducing populations of Escherichia coli O157:H7 on artificially inoculated lettuce. Fresh-cut leaves of Romaine or Iceberg lettuce were inoculated by immersion in water containing E. coli O157:H7 (8 log CFU/ml) for 5 min and dried in a salad spinner. Leaves (25 g) were then washed for 2 min, immediately or following 24 h of storage at 4 C. The washing treatments containing chlorite ion concentrations of 100 and 200 ppm were the most effective against E. coli O157:H7 populations on Iceberg lettuce, with log reductions as high as 1.25 log CFU/g and 1.05 log CFU/g for TriNova and Sanova wash treatments, respectively. All other wash treatments resulted in population reductions of less than 1 log CFU/g. Chlorine (200 ppm), TriNova , Sanova , and acidic electrolyzed water were all equally effective against E. coli O157:H7 on Romaine, with log reductions of ~ 1 log CFU/g. The 20 ppm chlorine wash was as effective as the deionized water wash in reducing populations of E. coli O157:H7 on Romaine and Iceberg lettuce. Scanning electron microscopy indicated that E. coli O157:H7 that was incorporated into biofilms or located in damage lettuce tissue remained on the lettuce leaf, while individual cells on undamaged leaf surfaces were more likely to be washed away.
The decontaminative effects of acidic electrolyzed water for Escherichia coli O157: H7, Salmonella typhimurium, and Listeria monocytogenes on green onions and tomatoes with differing organic demands.
Microbe(s): Escherichia coli O157:H7, Salmonella typhimurium, Listeria monocytogenes
Acidic electrolyzed water (AC-EW) has strong bactericidal activity against foodborne pathogens on fresh vegetables. However, the efficacy of AC-EW is influenced by soil or other organic materials present. This study examined the bactericidal activity of AC-EW in the presence of organic matter, in the form of bovine serum against foodborne pathogens on the surfaces of green onions and tomatoes. Green onions and tomatoes were inoculated with a culture cocktail of Escherichia coli O157:H7, Salmonella typhimurium, and Listeria monocytogenes. Treatment of these organisms with AC-EW containing bovine serum concentrations of 5, 10, 15, and 20 ml/l was performed for 15 s, 30 s, 1 min, 3 min and 5 min. The total residual chlorine concentrations of AC-EW decreased proportional to the addition of serum. The bactericidal activity of AC-EW also decreased with increasing bovine serum concentration, whereas unamended AC-EW treatment reduced levels of cells to below the detection limit (0.7 logCFU/g) within 3 min.
Journal of Food Engineering 91.4 (2009): 582-586
Physicochemical properties and bactericidal efficiency of neutral and acidic electrolyzed water under different storage conditions
Neutral (NEW) and acidic (AEW) electrolyzed water were stored in open or closed glass bottles under light or dark conditions at 20 C for 30 days. The pH, oxidation reduction potential (ORP), electrical conductivity (EC), available chlorine concentration (ACC), dissolved oxygen (DO), and bactericidal efficiency of NEW and AEW were determined during storage or before and after storage, respectively. The pH and EC of NEW and AEW remained unchanged in storage. The ORP, ACC and DO of AEW decreased 22%, 100% and 52% under open storage conditions, respectively. Light had no significant effects on the physicochemical properties of NEW (P > 0.05). Bactericidal efficiency was not markedly affected by storage conditions for NEW, but decreased significantly for AEW under open storage conditions. Electrolyzed water should be stored in closed containers or used immediately to prevent the loss of available chlorine that is one of the main contributing factors for antimicrobial activity.
Reduction of bacteria on spinach, lettuce, and surfaces in food service areas using neutral electrolyzed oxidizing water
Microbe(s): Escherichia coli, Salmonella typhimurium, Staphylococcus aureus, Listeria monocytogenes, and Enterococcus faecalis
ABSTRACT - Full Text PDF 8
Food safety issues and increases in food borne illnesses have promulgated the development of new sanitation methods to eliminate pathogenic organisms on foods and surfaces in food service areas. Electrolyzed oxidizing water (EO water) shows promise as an environmentally friendly broad spectrum microbial decontamination agent. EO water is generated by the passage of a dilute salt solution (1% NaCl) through an electrochemical cell. This electrolytic process converts chloride ions and water molecules into chlorine oxidants (Cl2, HOCl/ClO-). At a near-neutral pH (pH 6.3-6.5), the predominant chemical species is the highly biocidal hypochlorous acid species (HOCl) with the oxidation reduction potential (ORP) of the solution ranging from 800 to 900 mV. The biocidal activity of near-neutral EO water was evaluated at 25 C using pure cultures of Escherichia coli, Salmonella typhimurium, Staphylococcus aureus, Listeria monocytogenes, and Enterococcus faecalis. Treatment of these organisms, in pure culture, with EO water at concentrations of 20, 50, 100, and 120 ppm total residual chlorine (TRC) and 10 min of contact time resulted in 100% inactivation of all five organisms (reduction of 6.1-6.7 log10 CFU/mL). Spray treatment of surfaces in food service areas with EO water containing 278-310 ppm TRC (pH 6.38) resulted in a 79-100% reduction of microbial growth. Dip (10 min) treatment of spinach at 100 and 120 ppm TRC resulted in a 4.0-5.0 log10 CFU/mL reduction of bacterial counts for all organisms tested. Dipping (10 min) of lettuce at 100 and 120 ppm TRC reduced bacterial counts of E. coli by 0.24-0.25 log10 CFU/mL and reduced all other organisms by 2.43-3.81 log10 CFU/mL.
Effect of Electrolyzed Water for Reduction of Foodborne Pathogens on Lettuce and Spinach
The ability of electrolyzed water (EW) to inactivate foodborne pathogens on the surfaces of lettuce and spinach was investigated. Lettuce and spinach leaves were inoculated with a cocktail of 3 strains each of Escherichia coli O157:H7, Salmonella Typhimurium, and Listeria monocytogenes and treated with acidic electrolyzed water (AC-EW), alkaline electrolyzed water (AK-EW), alkaline electrolyzed water followed by acidic electrolyzed water (sequential treatment, AK-EW + AC-EW), deionized water followed by acidic electrolyzed water (sequential treatment, DW + AC-EW), and deionized water (control, DW) for 15, 30 s, and 1, 3, and 5 min at room temperature (22 2 C). For all 3 pathogens, the same pattern of microbial reduction on lettuce and spinach were apparent. The relative efficacy of reduction was AC-EW > DW + AC-EW = AK-EW + AC-EW > AK-EW > control. After a 3-min treatment of AC-EW, the 3 tested pathogens were reduced below the detection limit (0.7 log). DW + AC-EW and AK-EW + AC-EW produced the same levels of reduction after 5 min when compared to the control. AK-EW did not reduce levels of pathogens even after a 5-min treatment on lettuce and spinach. Results suggest that AC-EW treatment was able to significantly reduce populations of the 3 tested pathogens from the surfaces of lettuce and spinach with increasing time of exposure.
Efficacy of neutral electrolyzed water (NEW) for reducing microbial contamination on minimally-processed vegetables
Microbe(s): Salmonella, Listeria monocytogenes, Escherichia coli O157:H7, Erwinia carotovora
Consumption of minimally-processed, or fresh-cut, fruit and vegetables has rapidly increased in recent years, but there have also been several reported outbreaks associated with the consumption of these products. Sodium hypochlorite is currently the most widespread disinfectant used by fresh-cut industries. Neutral electrolyzed water (NEW) is a novel disinfection system that could represent an alternative to sodium hypochlorite. The aim of the study was to determine whether NEW could replace sodium hypochlorite in the fresh-cut produce industry. The effects of NEW, applied in different concentrations, at different treatment temperatures and for different times, in the reduction of the foodborne pathogens Salmonella, Listeria monocytogenes and Escherichia coli O157:H7 and against the spoilage bacterium Erwinia carotovora were tested in lettuce. Lettuce was artificially inoculated by dipping it in a suspension of the studied pathogens at 108, 107 or 105 cfu ml 1, depending on the assay. The NEW treatment was always compared with washing with deionized water and with a standard hypochlorite treatment. The effect of inoculum size was also studied. Finally, the effect of NEW on the indigenous microbiota of different packaged fresh-cut products was also determined. The bactericidal activity of diluted NEW (containing approximately 50 ppm of free chlorine, pH 8.60) against E. coli O157:H7, Salmonella, L. innocua and E. carotovora on lettuce was similar to that of chlorinated water (120 ppm of free chlorine) with reductions of 1 2 log units. There were generally no significant differences when treating lettuce with NEW for 1 and 3 min. Neither inoculation dose (107 or 105 cfu ml 1) influenced the bacterial reduction achieved. Treating fresh-cut lettuce, carrot, endive, corn salad and Four seasons salad with NEW 1:5 (containing about 50 ppm of free chlorine) was equally effective as applying chlorinated water at 120 ppm. Microbial reduction depended on the vegetable tested: NEW and sodium hypochlorite treatments were more effective on carrot and endive than on iceberg lettuce, Four seasons salad and corn salad. The reductions of indigenous microbiota were smaller than those obtained with the artificially inoculated bacteria tested (0.5 1.2 log reduction). NEW seems to be a promising disinfection method as it would allow to reduce the amount of free chlorine used for the disinfection of fresh-cut produce by the food industry, as the same microbial reduction as sodium hypochlorite is obtained. This would constitute a safer, in situ , and easier to handle way of ensuring food safety.
Journal of Food Protection 71.3 (2008): 625-628
Effect of acidified sodium chlorite, chlorine, and acidic electrolyzed water on Escherichia coli O157: H7, Salmonella, and Listeria monocytogenes inoculated onto leafy greens
Microbe(s): Escherichia coli O157:H7, Salmonella, and Listeria monocytogenes
Recent foodborne outbreaks implicating spinach and lettuce have increased consumer concerns regarding the safety of fresh produce. While the most common commercial antimicrobial intervention for fresh produce is wash water containing 50 to 200 ppm chlorine, this study compares the effectiveness of acidified sodium chlorite, chlorine, and acidic electrolyzed water for inactivating Escherichia coli O157:H7, Salmonella, and Listeria monocytogenes inoculated onto leafy greens. Fresh mixed greens were left uninoculated or inoculated with approximately 6 log CFU/g of E. coli O157:H7, Salmonella, and L. monocytogenes and treated by immersion for 60 or 90 s in different wash solutions (1:150, wt/vol), including 50 ppm of chlorine solution acidified to pH 6.5, acidic electrolyzed water (pH 2.1 0.2, oxygen reduction potential of 1,100 mV, 30 to 35 ppm of free chlorine), and acidified sodium chlorite (1,200 ppm, pH 2.5). Samples were neutralized and homogenized. Bacterial survival was determined by standard spread plating on selective media. Each test case (organism treatment time) was replicated twice with five samples per replicate. There was no difference (P 0.05) in the time of immersion on the antimicrobial effectiveness of the treatments. Furthermore, there was no difference (P 0.05) in survival of the three organisms regardless of treatment or time. Acidified sodium chlorite, resulted in reductions in populations of 3 to 3.8 log CFU/g and was more effective than chlorinated water (2.1 to 2.8 log CFU/g reduction). These results provide the produce industry with important information to assist in selection of effective antimicrobial strategies.
Journal of Food Engineering 78.4 (2007): 1326-1332
The generation and inactivation mechanism of oxidation reduction potential of electrolyzed oxidizing water
The Nernst equations between the oxidation reduction potential (ORP), the concentration of hypochlorous acid and chlorine and the value of pH in electrolyzed oxidizing water (EOW) were developed in three parts, which were in agreement in the measured values. The role of ORP in EOW for killing Escherichia coli O157:H7 was studied. The inactivation effect of EOW on E. coli O157:H7 was also studied by spectroscopy measurements, and the inactivation mechanism was proposed.
Direct measurement of chlorine penetration into biofilms during disinfection
Microbe(s): Escherichia coli, Listeria monocytogenes, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus
This study evaluated the efficacy of neutral electrolyzed water (NEW; 64.1 mg/liter of active chlorine) to reduce populations of Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus, and Listeria monocytogenes on plastic and wooden kitchen cutting boards. Its effectiveness was compared with that of a sodium hypochlorite solution (NaClO; 62.3 mg/liter of active chlorine). Inoculated portions of cutting boards were rinsed in either NEW or NaClO solutions, or deionized water (control). Plastic boards were rinsed for 1 min and wooden boards for 1 and 5 min. After each treatment, the surviving population of each strain was determined on the surface and in the soaking water. No significant difference (P 0.05) was found between the final populations of each strain with regard to the treatment solutions (NEW or NaClO). However, a significant difference (P 0.05) was revealed between surface materials after 1 min of washing. Whereas in plastic boards the initial bacterial populations were reduced by 5 log CFU/50 cm2, in wooden cutting boards they underwent a reduction of <3 log CFU/50 cm2. A 5-min exposure time yielded reductions of about 4 log CFU/50 cm2. The surviving populations of all bacteria in NEW and NaClO washing solutions were <1 log CFU/ml after soaking both surfaces. This study revealed that NEW treatment is an effective method for reducing microbial contamination on plastic and wooden cutting boards. NEW efficacy was comparable to that of NaClO, with the advantage of having a larger storage time.
Recovery of bacteria from broiler carcasses after spray washing with acidified electrolyzed water or sodium hypochlorite solutions
Microbe(s): Escherichia coli, Campylobacter, Salmonella
A study was conducted to investigate the effects of spray washing broiler carcasses with acidified electrolyzed oxidizing water (EO) or sodium hypochlorite (HOCl) solutions for 5, 10, or 15 s. Commercial broiler carcasses were contaminated with 0.1 g of broiler cecal contents inoculated with 105 cells of Campylobacter and 105 cells of nalidixic acid-resistant Salmonella. Numbers of bacteria recovered from unwashed control carcasses were 6.7, 5.9, 6.3, and 3.9 log10 cfu/mL for total aerobic bacteria, Escherichia coli, Campylobacter, and Salmonella, respectively. Washing in either EO (50 mg/L of sodium hypochlorite, pH 2.4, oxidation reduction potential of 1,180 mV) or HOCl (50 mg/L of sodium hypochlorite, pH 8.0) significantly reduced the levels of bacteria recovered from carcasses (P < 0.05). Carcasses washed with EO had slightly lower levels of total aerobic bacteria (0.3 log10 cfu/mL) and E. coli (0.2 log10 cfu/mL) than HOCl-treated carcasses; however, populations of Campylobacter and Salmonella were comparable after washing in either solution. Increasing the carcass washing time from 5 to 10 s lowered the levels of total aerobic bacteria (6.1 vs. 5.8 log10 cfu/mL), E. coli (4.6 vs. 4.1 log10 cfu/mL), Campylobacter (5.2 vs. 4.2 log10 cfu/mL), and Salmonella (2.0 vs. 1.2 log10 cfu/mL), but no further microbiological reductions occurred when washing time was extended from 10 to 15 s. Data from the present study show that washing poultry carcasses with EO is slightly better (total aerobic bacteria and E. coli) or equivalent to (Campylobacter and Salmonella) washing with HOCl. Washing broiler carcasses for a period equivalent to 2 inside-outside bird washers (10 s) provided greater reductions in carcass bacterial populations than periods simulating 1 (5 s) or 3 inside-outside bird washers (15 s).
Antimicrobial effect of electrolyzed oxidizing water against Escherichia coli O157: H7 and Listeria monocytogenes on fresh strawberries (Fragaria ananassa)
Antibacterial activity of electrolyzed oxidizing (EO) water prepared from 0.05% or 0.10% (w/v) sodium chloride (NaCl) solutions against indigenous bacteria associated with fresh strawberries (Fragaria ananassa) was evaluated. The efficacy of EO water and sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl) solution in eliminating and controlling the growth of Listeria monocytogenes and Escherichia coli O157:H7 inoculated onto strawberries stored at 4 +/- 1 C up to 15 d was investigated at exposure time of 1, 5, or 10 min. Posttreatment neutralization of fruit surfaces was also determined. More than 2 log10 CFU/g reductions of aerobic mesophiles were obtained in fruits washed for 10 or 15 min in EO water prepared from 0.10% (w/v) NaCl solution. Bactericidal activity of the disinfectants against L. monocytogenes and E. coli O157:H7 was not affected by posttreatment neutralization, and increasing exposure time did not significantly increase the antibacterial efficacy against both pathogens. While washing fruit surfaces with distilled water resulted in 1.90 and 1.27 log10 CFU/mL of rinse fluid reduction of L. monocytogenes and E. coli O157:H7, respectively, > 2.60 log10 CFU/mL of rinse fluid reduction of L. monocytogenes and up to 2.35 and 3.12 log10 CFU/mL of rinse fluid reduction of E. coli O157:H7 were observed on fruit surfaces washed with EO water and NaOCl solution, respectively. Listeria monocytogenes and E. coli O157:H7 populations decreased over storage regardless of prior treatment. However, EO water and aqueous NaOCl did not show higher antimicrobial potential than water treatment during refrigeration storage.
Efficacy of sanitizers in reducing Escherichia coli O157: H7, Salmonella spp. and Listeria monocytogenes populations on fresh-cut carrots
Microbe(s): Escherichia coli O157:H7, Salmonella spp., Listeria monocytogenes
Shredded carrots were inoculated with Escherichia coli O157:H7, Salmonella or Listeria monocytogenes and washed for 1 or 2 min with chlorine (Cl; 200 ppm), peroxyacetic acid (PA; 40 ppm) or acidified sodium chlorite (ASC; 100, 200, 500 ppm) under simulated commercial processing conditions. After washed, the carrots were spin dried, packaged and stored at 5 C for up to 10 days. Bacterial enumeration was significantly (P 0.05) reduced by 1, 1.5 and 2.5 log CFU/g after washing with ASC 100, 250 and 500 ppm, respectively. All sanitizers reduced pathogen load below that of tap water wash and unwashed controls. During storage at 5 C the bacterial load of all treatments increased gradually, but to different extent in different treatments. ASC inhibited bacterial growth more effectively than the other sanitizers and also maintained the lowest pathogen counts (<1 log CFU/g) during storage. Organic matter in the process water significantly (P 0.05) reduced the antibacterial efficacy of Cl, but not that of PA or ASC. Therefore, ASC shows the potential to be used as a commercial sanitizer for washing shredded carrots.
KASETSART JOURNAL (2006): 716
Efficacy of Electrolyzed Oxidizing Water for Inactivating Escherichia coli Inoculated on Holy Basil
Electrolyzed - oxidizing (EO) water is a relatively new method that has been utilized for killing pathogens in agriculture, medical sterilization and food sanitation. This water is generated by passing sodium chloride solution through EO water generator. In this study, the EO water was used to treat holy basil inoculated with Escherichia coli. The initial pH and oxidation - reduction potential (ORP) of EO water were 2.09 and 1200 mV, respectively. The treatments changed ORP to 800,950 and 1100 mV. The contact times were 10,30 and 60 min. In pure culture, E. coli viable counts in the sample treated with EO water were reduced to undetectable levels at all ORP and times. However no reduction in E. coli counts was achieved in the control sample (treated with deionized water). The initial population of E. coli was about 8.5 log10 CFU / ml which was inoculated on 5 g of holy basil. Results showed that the treatment treated with EO water was reduced about 2 log10 CFU / ml in ORP 800 and 950 mV, 4 log10 CFU / ml in ORP 1100 mV for 10 min. When the contact time increased to 30 min, the reduction of E. coli count was about 3 log 10 CFU / ml in ORP 950 mV and 5 log10 CFU / ml in ORP 1100 mV. But the reduction was not different from 10 min when treated with ORP 800 mV. When the contact time increased to 60 min, the reduction of E. coli count was about 3 log10 CFU / ml in ORP 800 mV, 4 log10 CFU / ml in ORP 950 mV. and 6 log10 CFU / ml in ORP 1100 mV. These results could be concluded that the ORP of EO water and contact time significantly inactivated E. coli.
Food control 17.12 (2006): 987-993
Application of electrolyzed oxidizing water on the reduction of bacterial contamination for seafood
For reducing bacterial contamination, electrolyzed oxidizing water (EO water) has been used to reduce microbial population on seafood and platform of fish retailer. The specimens of tilapia were inoculated with Escherichia coli and Vibrio parahaemolyticus, and then soaked into EO water for up to 10 min. EO water achieved additional 0.7 log CFU/cm2 reduction than tap water on E. coli after 1 min treatment and additional treatment time did not achieved additional reduction. EO water treatment also reduced V. parahaemolyticus, by 1.5 log CFU/cm2 after 5 min treatment and achieved 2.6 log CFU/cm2 reduction after 10 min. The pathogenic bacteria were not detected in EO water after soaking treatment. In addition, EO water could effectively disinfect the platform of fish retailer in traditional markets and fish markets.
Electrolyzed oxidizing anode water as a sanitizer for use in abattoirs
Microbe(s): Total Microbial Count, Total Aerobic Bacteria, Coliforms, Escherichia coli
The effectiveness of electrolyzed oxidizing anode (EOA) water (oxidation-reduction potential, 1,120 mV; pH 2.0) as a sanitizer for use in abattoirs was compared with the iodophor (IOD) Mikroklene (25 ppm), a sanitizer approved for use by regulatory authorities in Canada and the United States. A total of 240 swab (100 cm2) samples were obtained from 4 sites on the kill floor and 16 sites in the secondary processing areas, during two visits within a 4-week period to each of three meat packing plants, processing < or =50 animals per week. Swabs were obtained 12 h after the application of IOD and EOA and were analyzed for the presence of total aerobic bacteria, total coliforms, and total Escherichia coli. Total aerobic bacteria (log CFU/ 100 cm2) recovered from the 20 sample sites were lower (P < 0.0001) in EOA as compared with IOD (2.94 +/- 0.12 versus 3.75 +/- 0.12, respectively). Plant A was 1.5 times more likely (P < 0.0001) to have a sampling site positive for the presence of coliforms and E. coli than plants B and C. There was no difference (P > 0.05) between treatment IOD or EOA in the likelihood of obtaining a positive sample for the presence of total coliforms or E. coli among the three plants. When the kill floor and secondary processing areas are compared, the likelihood of obtaining a sample positive for coliforms or E. coli was similar (P > or = 0.05). Results indicate that EOA was more effective than IOD in reducing populations of total aerobic bacteria on equipment surfaces in the three meat packing plants studied. Because the likelihood of obtaining a positive sample for coliforms or E. coli in EOA as compared with IOD was similar, EOA may be a suitable alternative or complement to IOD as a sanitizer in small- to medium-sized abattoirs. Additional research is required to further evaluate the effectiveness of EOA to sanitize processing equipment on the basis of subsequent isolation of aerobes, coliforms, and E. coli from meat products.
Electrolyzed oxidizing water treatment for decontamination of raw salmon inoculated with Escherichia coli O157: H7 and Listeria monocytogenes Scott A and response surface modeling
Microbe(s): Escherichia coli O157: H7, Listeria monocytogenes
Raw fish is prone to the risk of microbial outbreaks due to contamination by pathogenic microorganisms, such as Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Listeria monocytogenes. Therefore, it is essential to treat raw fish to inactivate pathogenic microorganisms. Electrolyzed Oxidizing Water (EO) is a novel antimicrobial agent containing acidic solution with a pH of 2.6, Oxidation Reduction Potential (ORP) of 1150 mV, and 70 90 ppm free chlorine, and alkaline solution with a pH of 11.4 and ORP of 795 mV. This study was undertaken to evaluate the efficacy of acidic EO water treatment and alkaline EO water treatment followed by acidic EO water treatment at various temperatures for the inactivation of E. coli O157:H7 and L. monocytogenes Scott A on the muscle and skin surfaces of inoculated salmon fillets. Inoculated salmon fillets were treated with acidic EO water at 22 and 35 C and 90 ppm free-chlorine solution as control at 22 C for 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, and 64 min. The acidic EO water treatments resulted in a reduction of L. monocytogenes Scott A population in the range of 0.40 log10 CFU/g (60%) at 22 C to 1.12 log10 CFU/g (92.3%) at 35 C. Treatment of inoculated salmon fillets with acidic EO water reduced E. coli O157:H7 populations by 0.49 log10 CFU/g (67%) at 22 C and 1.07 log10 CFU/g (91.1%) at 35 C. The maximum reduction with chlorine solution (control) was 1.46 log10 CFU/g (96.3%) for E. coli O157:H7 and 1.3 log10 CFU/g (95.3%) for L. monocytogenes Scott A at 64 min. A response surface model was developed for alkaline treatment followed by acidic EO water treatment to predict treatment times in the range of 5 30 min and temperatures in the range of 22 35 C for effective treatment with alkaline EO water followed by acidic water, alkaline and acidic water treatments. Response surface analysis demonstrated maximum log reductions of 1.33 log10 CFU/g (95.3%) for E. coli O157:H7 and 1.09 log10 CFU/g (91.9%) for L. monocytogenes Scott A. Data collected from the treatments was used to develop empirical models as a function of treatment times and temperature for prediction of population of E. coli O157:H7 and L. monocytogenes Scott A. Correlations (R2) of 0.52 and 0.77 were obtained between model predicted and experimental log10 reduction for E. coli O157:H7 and L. monocytogenes Scott A reductions, respectively. These results clearly indicated that EO water has a potential to be used for decontamination of raw fish.
Letters in Applied Microbiology 40.5 (2005): 341-346
Inactivation of Escherichia coli, Listeria monocytogenes, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus on stainless steel and glass surfaces by neutral electrolysed water
Aim: To ascertain the efficacy of neutral electrolysed water (NEW) in reducing Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus and Listeria monocytogenes on glass and stainless steel surfaces. Its effectiveness for that purpose is compared with that of a sodium hypochlorite (NaClO) solution with similar pH, oxidation-reduction potential (ORP) and active chlorine content. Methods and Results: First, the bactericidal activity of NEW was evaluated over pure cultures (8-5 log CFU ml-1) of the abovementioned strains: all of them were reduced by more than 7 log CFU ml-1 within 5 min of exposure either to NEW (63 mg l-1 active chlorine) or to NaClO solution (62 mg l-1 active chlorine). Then, stainless steel and glass surfaces were inoculated with the same strains and rinsed for 1 min in either NEW, NaClO solution or deionized water (control). In the first two cases, the populations of all the strains decreased by more than 6 log CFU 50 cm-2. No significant difference (P 0 05) was found between the final populations of each strain with regard to the treatment solutions (NEW or NaClO solution) or to the type of surface. Conclusions: NEW was revealed to be as effective as NaClO at significantly reducing the presence of pathogenic and spoilage bacteria (in this study, E. coli, L. monocytogenes, P. aeruginosa and S. aureus) on stainless steel and glass surfaces. Significance and Impact of the Study: NEW has the advantage of being safer than NaClO and easier to handle. Hence, it represents an advantageous alternative for the disinfection of surfaces in the food industry.
Meat Science 71.1 (2005): 79-91
Post-harvest interventions to reduce/eliminate pathogens in beef
Microbe(s): Salmonella, Listeria, Campylobacter, Escherichia coli
In 1999 the foodborne pathogens Salmonella, Listeria, Campylobacter, and Escherichia coli (both O157 and non-O157) were estimated to cause more than 6 million illnesses and approximately 9000 deaths each year. However, the most recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report on the sources and incidence of foodborne disease, released in 2004, has shown a dramatic decrease in E. coli O157:H7 infections. Since raw beef products are the most frequently foodborne sources of these pathogens, the results of this report demonstrate that the microbiological quality of raw beef has improved greatly. During the intervening years, post-harvest interventions have continually improved, with new attention to hide decontamination and innovative treatments of carcasses. In addition, a system to hold and test beef trim or ground beef for E. coli O157:H7 before its release into commerce has provided an even greater level of safety. In this paper, we review the latest information on the prevalence of E. coli O157:H7 and other pathogens on beef, the evidence identifying the hide as the primary source of pathogens on beef carcasses, the efficacy of various hide and carcass interventions, and other developments that have led or have the potential to lead to even greater improvements in the microbial quality of beef.
Effect of mild heat pre-treatment with alkaline electrolyzed water on the efficacy of acidic electrolyzed water against Escherichia coli O157: H7 and Salmonella on lettuce
Microbe(s): Escherichia coli O157:H7, Salmonella
Cut lettuce dip-inoculated with Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Salmonella was treated with alkaline electrolyzed water (AlEW) at 20 C for 5 min, and subsequently washed with acidic electrolyzed water (AcEW) at 20 C for 5 min. Pre-treatment with AlEW resulted in an approximate 1.8 log10 cfu/g reduction of microbial populations, which was significantly (p 0.05) greater than microbial reductions resulting from other pre-treatment solutions, including distilled water and AcEW. Repeated AcEW treatment did not show a significant bacterial reduction. Mildly heated (50 C) sanitizers were compared with normal (20 C) or chilled (4 C) sanitizers for their bactericidal effect. Mildly heated AcEW and chlorinated water (200 ppm free available chlorine) with a treatment period of 1 or 5 min produced equal reductions of pathogenic bacteria of 3 log10 and 4 log10 cfu/g, respectively. The procedure of treating with mildly heated AlEW for 5 min, and subsequent washing with chilled (4 C) AcEW for period of 1 or 5 min resulted in 3 4 log10 cfu/g reductions of both the pathogenic bacterial counts on lettuce. Extending the mild heat pre-treatment time increased the bactericidal effect more than that observed from the subsequent washing time with chilled AcEW. The appearance of the mildly heated lettuce was not deteriorated after the treatment. In this study, we have illustrated the efficacious application of AlEW as a pre-wash agent, and the effective combined use of AlEW and AcEW.
Efficacy of Acidic Electrolyzed Water Ice for Pathogen Control on Lettuce
Microbe(s): Listeria monocytogenes, Escherichia coli O157:H7
Acidic electrolyzed water (AcEW) was used as frozen AcEW (AcEW-ice) for inactivation of Listeria monocytogenes and Escherichia coli O157:H7 on lettuce. AcEW-ice was prepared from AcEW with 20, 50, 100, and 200 ppm of available chlorine by freezing at 40 C and generated 30, 70, 150, and 240 ppm of chlorine gas (Cl2), respectively. The AcEW-ice was placed into styrene-foam containers with lettuce samples at 20 C for 24 h. Although AcEW-ice generating 30 ppm Cl2 had no effect on L. monocytogenes cell counts, AcEW-ice generating 70 to 240 ppm of Cl2 significantly (P < 0.05) reduced L. monocytogenes by ca. 1.5 log CFU/g. E. coli O157:H7 cell counts were reduced by 1.0 log CFU/g with AcEW-ice generating 30 ppm of Cl2. AcEW-ice generating 70 and 150 ppm of Cl2 reduced E. coli O157:H7 by 2.0 log CFU/g. Further significant reduction of E. coli O157:H7 (2.5 log CFU/g) was demonstrated by treatment with AcEW-ice generating 240 ppm of Cl2. However, treatment with AcEW-ice generating 240 ppm of Cl2 resulted in a physiological disorder resembling leaf burn. AcEW-ice that generated less than 150 ppm of Cl2 had no effect on the surface color of the lettuce. AcEW-ice, regardless of the concentration of the emission of Cl2, had no effect on the ascorbic acid content in the lettuce. The weight ratio of lettuce to AcEW-ice required was determined to be over 1:10. The bactericidal effect of AcEW-ice appeared within the first 2 h. The use of AcEW-ice provides simultaneously for low temperature storage and inactivation of bacteria.
International Journal of Food Microbiology 91.1 (2004): 13-18
Effects of chlorine and pH on efficacy of electrolyzed water for inactivating Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Listeria monocytogenes
The effects of chlorine and pH on the bactericidal activity of electrolyzed (EO) water were examined against Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Listeria monocytogenes. The residual chlorine concentration of EO water ranged from 0.1 to 5.0 mg/l, and the pH effect was examined at pH 3.0, 5.0, and 7.0. The bactericidal activity of EO water increased with residual chlorine concentration for both pathogens, and complete inactivation was achieved at residual chlorine levels equal to or higher than 1.0 mg/l. The results showed that both pathogens are very sensitive to chlorine, and residual chlorine level of EO water should be maintained at 1.0 mg/l or higher for practical applications. For each residual chlorine level, bactericidal activity of EO water increased with decreasing pH for both pathogens. However, with sufficient residual chlorine (greater than 2 mg/l), EO water can be applied in a pH range between 2.6 (original pH of EO water) and 7.0 while still achieving complete inactivation of E. coli O157:H7 and L. monocytogenes.
Effects of water source, dilution, storage, and bacterial and fecal loads on the efficacy of electrolyzed oxidizing water for the control of Escherichia coli O157: H7
Microbe(s): Escherichia coli O157: H7
To evaluate the potential of using electrolyzed oxidizing (EO) water for controlling Escherichia coli O157:H7 in water for livestock, the effects of water source, electrolyte concentration, dilution, storage conditions, and bacterial or fecal load on the oxidative reduction potential (ORP) and bactericidal activity of EO water were investigated. Anode and combined (7:3 anode:cathode, vol/vol) EO waters reduced the pH and increased the ORP of deionized water, whereas cathode EO water increased pH and lowered ORP. Minimum concentrations (vol/vol) of anode and combined EO waters required to kill 104 CFU/ml planktonic suspensions of E. coli O157:H7 strain H4420 were 0.5 and 2.0%, respectively. Cathode EO water did not inhibit H4420 at concentrations up to 16% (vol/vol). Higher concentrations of anode or combined EO water were required to elevate the ORP of irrigation or chlorinated tap water compared with that of deionized water. Addition of feces to EO water products (0.5% anode or 2.0% combined, vol/vol) significantly reduced (P < 0.001) their ORP values to <700 mV in all water types. A relationship between ORP and bactericidal activity of EO water was observed. The dilute EO waters retained the capacity to eliminate a 104 CFU/ml inoculation of E. coli O157:H7 H4420 for at least 70 h regardless of exposure to UV light or storage temperature (4 versus 24 C). At 95 h and beyond, UV exposure reduced ORP, significantly more so (P < 0.05) in open than in closed containers. Bactericidal activity of EO products (anode or combined) was lost in samples in which ORP value had fallen to 848 mV. When stored in the dark, the diluted EO waters retained an ORP of >848 mV and bactericidal efficacy for at least 125 h; with refrigeration (4 C), these conditions were retained for at least 180 h. Results suggest that EO water may be an effective means by which to control E. coli O157:H7 in livestock water with low organic matter content.
Efficacy of electrolyzed oxidizing water for the microbial safety and quality of eggs
Microbe(s): Salmonella enteritidis, Escherichia coli
During commercial processing, eggs are washed in an alkaline detergent and then rinsed with chlorine to reduce dirt, debris, and microorganism levels. The alkaline and acidic fractions of electrolyzed oxidizing (EO) water have the ability to fit into the 2-step commercial egg washing process easily if proven to be effective. Therefore, the efficacy of EO water to decontaminate Salmonella Enteritidis and Escherichia coli K12 on artificially inoculated shell eggs was investigated. For the in vitro study, eggs were soaked in alkaline EO water followed by soaking in acidic EO water at various temperatures and times. Treated eggs showed a reduction in population between > or = 0.6 to > or =2.6 log10 cfu/g of shell for S. Enteritidis and > or =0.9 and > or =2.6 log10 for E. coli K12. Log10 reductions of 1.7 and 2.0 for S. Enteritidis and E. coli K12, respectively, were observed for typical commercial detergent-sanitizer treatments, whereas log10 reductions of > or =2.1 and > or =2.3 for S. Enteritidis and E. coli K12, respectively, were achieved using the EO water treatment. For the pilot-scale study, both fractions of EO water were compared with the detergent-sanitizer treatment using E. coli K12. Log10 reductions of > or = 2.98 and > or = 2.91 were found using the EO water treatment and the detergent-sanitizer treatment, respectively. The effects of 2 treatments on egg quality were investigated. EO water and the detergent-sanitizer treatments did not significantly affect albumen height or eggshell strength however, there were significant affects on cuticle presence. These results indicate that EO water has the potential to be used as a sanitizing agent for the egg washing process.
2004 ASAE Annual Meeting. American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, 2004
of electrolyzed oxidizing water to Inactivate Escherichia coli O157: H7 and Listeria monocytogenes Scott A on raw salmon.
Raw fish is prone to risk of microbial outbreaks due to contamination of pathogenic microorganisms. Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Listeria monocytogenes are among the pathogens associated with raw fish. Therefore, it is important to treat raw fish to inactivate pathogenic microorganisms. Electrolyzed oxidizing water is novel antimicrobial agent containing acidic solution with a pH of 2.6- 2.9, ORP of 1120 1180 mV, and 76-90 ppm free chlorine, and alkaline solution with a pH of 11.5 and ORP of 795 mV. This study was undertaken to evaluate the efficacy of electrolyzed oxidizing (EO) water for inactivation of E. coli O157:H7 and L. monocytogenes Scott A on the surfaces (muscle and skin surfaces) of inoculated salmon fillets. Inoculated salmon fillets were treated only with acidic EO water at 22C and 35C and sodium hypochlorite solution (90 ppm free chlorine) as control at 22C for 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, and 64 min, respectively. For the treatment with alkaline EO water followed by acidic EO water, a response surface model was developed to predict effective times in the range of 5-30 min and temperatures in the range of 22-35C for both alkaline and acidic water treatments. The acidic EO water treatments resulted in reductions of population of L. monocytogenes Scott A ranging from 0.40 log10 CFU/g (60 %) at 22oC to 1.12 log10 CFU/g (92.3 %) at 35oC. Treatment of inoculated salmon fillets in acidic EO water reduced E. coli O157:H7 populations by 0.49 log10 CFU/g (67 %) 22C and 1.07 log10 CFU/g (91.1 %) at 35C, respectively. Response surface analysis for alkaline EO water treatment followed by acidic treatment demonstrated that, maximum log reduction of 1.33 log10 CFU/g (95.3 %) for E. coli O157:H7 and 1.09 log10 CFU/g (91.9 %) for L. monocytogenes Scott A.
Effectiveness of Electrolyzed Acidic Water in Killing Escherichia coli O157: H7, Salmonella Enteritidis, and Listeria monocytogenes on the Surfaces of Tomatoes
Microbe(s): Escherichia coli O157: H7, Salmonella Enteritidis, Listeria monocytogenes
A study was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of electrolyzed acidic water, 200-ppm chlorine water, and sterile distilled water in killing Escherichia coli O157:H7, Salmonella, and Listeria monocytogenes on the surfaces of spot-inoculated tomatoes. Inoculated tomatoes were sprayed with electrolyzed acidic water, 200-ppm chlorine water, and sterile distilled water (control) and rubbed by hand for 40 s. Populations of E. coli O157:H7, Salmonella, and L. monocytogenes in the rinse water and in the peptone wash solution were determined. Treatment with 200-ppm chlorine water and electrolyzed acidic water resulted in 4.87- and 7.85-log10 reductions, respectively, in Escherichia coli O157:H7 counts and 4.69- and 7.46-log10 reductions, respectively, in Salmonella counts. Treatment with 200-ppm chlorine water and electrolyzed acidic water reduced the number of L. monocytogenes by 4.76 and 7.54 log10 CFU per tomato, respectively. This study s findings suggest that electrolyzed acidic water could be useful in controlling pathogenic microorganisms on fresh produce.
Poultry Science 82.1 (2003): 158-162
The effect of electrolyzed oxidative water applied using electrostatic spraying on pathogenic and indicator bacteria on the surface of eggs
Microbe(s): Salmonella typhimurium, Staphylococcus aureus, and Listeria monocytogenes, Escherichia coli
Research was conducted to compare the effectiveness of electrolyzed oxidative (EO) water applied using an electrostatic spraying system (ESS) for killing populations of bacteria that are of concern to the poultry industry. Populations of pathogenic bacteria (Salmonella typhimurium, Staphylococcus aureus, and Listeria monocytogenes), and the indicator bacterium Escherichia coli were applied to eggs and allowed to attach for 1 h. EO water completely eliminated all Salmonella typhimurium on 3, 7, 1, and 8 out of 15 eggs in Repetitions (Rep) 1, 2, 3, and 4, respectively, even when very high inoculations were used. EO water completely eliminated all Staphylococcus aureus on 12, 11, 12, and 11 out of 15 eggs in Rep 1, 2, 3, and 4, respectively. EO water completely eliminated all Listeria monocytogenes on 8, 13, 12, and 14 out of 15 eggs in Reps 1, 2, 3, and 4, respectively. EO water completely eliminated all Escherichia coli on 9, 11, 15, and 11 out of 15 eggs in Reps 1, 2, 3, and 4, respectively. Even when very high concentrations of bacteria were inoculated onto eggs (many times higher than would be encountered in industrial situations), EO water was found to be effective when used in conjunction with electrostatic spraying for eliminating pathogenic and indicator populations of bacteria from hatching eggs.
Effectiveness of Electrolyzed Acidic Water in Killing Escherichia coli O157:H7, Salmonella Enteritidis, and Listeria monocytogenes on the Surfaces of Tomatoes
Microbe(s): Escherichia coli O157: H7, Salmonella Enteritidis, and Listeria monocytogenes
Journal of Food Science 68.3 (2003): 1013-1017
The effect of pH on inactivation of pathogenic bacteria on fresh cut lettuce by dipping treatment with electrolyzed water
Fresh-cut lettuce samples inoculated with S. Typhimurium, E. coli O157:H7 or L. monocytogenes were dipped into 300 ppm electrolyzed water (EW) at pH 4 to 9 and 30 C for 5 min. The effects of treatment pH on bacterial reduction and visual quality of the lettuce were determined. The treatments at pH 4 and 8 resulted in the most effective inactivation of E. coli O157:H7, but the effect of pH was not significant (P > 0.05) for S. Typhimurium and L. monocytogenes. The treatment at pH 7 retained the best visual quality of lettuce, and achieved a reduction of approximately 2 log CFU/g for above 3 bacteria.
International Journal of Food Microbiology 86.3 (2003): 231-237
Treatment of Escherichia coli O157: H7 inoculated alfalfa seeds and sprouts with electrolyzed oxidizing water
Electrolyzed oxidizing water is a relatively new concept that has been utilized in agriculture, livestock management, medical sterilization, and food sanitation. Electrolyzed oxidizing (EO) water generated by passing sodium chloride solution through an EO water generator was used to treat alfalfa seeds and sprouts inoculated with a five-strain cocktail of nalidixic acid resistant Escherichia coli O157:H7. EO water had a pH of 2.6, an oxidation reduction potential of 1150 mV and about 50 ppm free chlorine. The percentage reduction in bacterial load was determined for reaction times of 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, and 64 min. Mechanical agitation was done while treating the seeds at different time intervals to increase the effectiveness of the treatment. Since E. coli O157:H7 was released due to soaking during treatment, the initial counts on seeds and sprouts were determined by soaking the contaminated seeds/sprouts in 0.1% peptone water for a period equivalent to treatment time. The samples were then pummeled in 0.1% peptone water and spread plated on tryptic soy agar with 50 g/ml of nalidixic acid (TSAN). Results showed that there were reductions between 38.2% and 97.1% (0.22 1.56 log10 CFU/g) in the bacterial load of treated seeds. The reductions for sprouts were between 91.1% and 99.8% (1.05 2.72 log10 CFU/g). An increase in treatment time increased the percentage reduction of E. coli O157:H7. However, germination of the treated seeds reduced from 92% to 49% as amperage to make EO water and soaking time increased. EO water did not cause any visible damage to the sprouts.
Journal of Food Science 66.9: 1368-1372
Pathogen Reduction and Quality of Lettuce Treated with Electrolyzed Oxidizing and Acidified Chlorinated Water
The efficacy of electrolyzed oxidizing (EO) and acidified chlorinated water (45 ppm residual chlorine) was evaluated in killing Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Listeria monocytogenes on lettuce. After surface inoculation, each leaf was immersed in 1.5 L of EO or acidified chlorinated water for 1 or 3 min at 22 C. Compared to a water wash only, the EO water washes significantly decreased mean populations of E. coli O157:H7 and L. monocytogenes by 2.41 and 2.65 log10 CFU per lettuce leaf for 3 min treatments, respectively (p < 0.05). However, the difference between the bactericidal activity of EO and acidified chlorinated waters was not significant (p > 0.05). Change in the quality of lettuce subjected to the different wash treatments was not significant at the end of 2 wk of storage.
Journal Japanese Society of Food Science and Technology 48.11 (2001): 827-834
Sterilization effect and influence on food surface by acidic electrolyzed water treatment
Recently, several reports about sterilization effect of electrolyzed water have been published. The electrolyzed water is expected as one of attractive application for sanitation of fresh food, however, to install this electrolyzed water, we have to clear the potential of the microorganism control for real food. In this paper, we try to reveal the mechanism of the microorganism control, and also try to check the food quality change during the treatment. Therefore, to evaluate the effect of the electrolyzed water, we examined the several test for making sterilization mechanism clear and observed microorganism behavior on food surface. At first, for the purpose of making sterilization effects clear in vitro condition, we did microorganism test with several injection ratio and number. Then, we studied the effects of catalase on the enumeration of stressed Escherichia coli cells after acidic electrolyzed water treatment. Moreover, we studied sterilization effect of acidic electrolyzed water for E. coli on an agar block on the assumption as one of food model. In addition, we studied sterilization effects for sliced raw tuna as one sample of food surface treatment. The change in the quality of food surface was observed by scanning electron microscope, color meter and so on. Steriliaation effects are dependent the condition of injection ratio and mixing numbers. These results suggest that it is important to keep available chlorine concentration for keeping the potential to the microorganisms control. The increasing of E. coli number with the addition of catalase was suggested that the weak concentration of electrolyzed water gave the injured microbes. The Observation of cultivated E. coli behavior on agar block showed the microorganism behavior. Acidic electrolyzed water sterilizes microorganisms on sliced raw tuna, however, after treatment, the color change of surface of tuna and the protein denaturation were observed. These results suggest that when the electrolyzed water treatment is applied to control the microorganism on surface, the effect against food surface must be considered.
Survival of Escherichia coli O157: H7 on strawberry fruit and reduction of the pathogen population by chemical agents
Survival of Escherichia coli O157:H7 was studied on strawberry, a fruit that is not usually washed during production, harvest, or postharvest handling. Two strains of the bacteria were tested separately on the fruit surface or injected into the fruit. Both strains of E. coli O157:H7 survived externally and internally at 23 C for 24 h and at 10, 5, and 20 C for 3 days. The largest reduction in bacterial population occurred at 20 C and on the fruit surface during refrigeration. In all experiments, the bacteria inside the fruit either survived as well as or better than bacteria on the surface, and ATCC 43895 frequently exhibited greater survival than did ATCC 35150. Two strains of E. coli also survived at 23 C on the surface and particularly inside strawberry fruit. Chemical agents in aqueous solution comprising NaOCl (100 and 200 ppm), Tween 80 (100 and 200 ppm), acetic acid (2 and 5%), Na3PO4 (2 and 5%), and H2O2 (1 and 3%) were studied for their effects on reduction of surface-inoculated (108 CFU/ml) E. coli O157:H7 populations on strawberry fruit. Dipping the inoculated fruit in water alone reduced the pathogen population about 0.8 log unit. None of the compounds with the exception of H2O2 exhibited more than a 2-log CFU/g reduction of the bacteria on the fruit surface. Three percent H2O2, the most effective chemical treatment, reduced the bacterial population on strawberries by about 2.2 log CFU/g.
Analytical Sciences 16.4 (2000): 365-369
The efficiency of disinfection of acidic electrolyzed water in the presence of organic materials
Acidic electrolyzed water (acidic EW), which is prepared by the electrolysis of an aqueous NaCl solution, has recently become of great importance for disinfection in a variety of fields, including medicine, the food industry and agriculture. In a previous paper we showed that: 1) acidic EW is a mixture of hypocholorite ion, hypochlorous acid and chlorine, depending upon the pH; 2) hypochlorous acid is primarily responsible for disinfection in the case of Escherichia coli K12 and Bacillus subtilis PCI219, both in clean culture media. In practice, however, the use of acidic EW is in many cases severely hampered due to the presence of a variety of non-selective reducing agents. In view of the salient nature of acidic EW, it is therefore strongly urged to establish an optimum way to use acidic EW in a variety of systems. The present paper is the first report on our attempt along this line in order to characterize the nature of the chemical changes that the bactericidal activity of the acidic EW deteriorates in the presence of organic materials, which include amino acids and proteins.
Efficacy of electrolyzed oxidizing (EO) and chemically modified water on different types of foodborne pathogens
Microbe(s): Escherichia coli O157:H7, Listeria monocytogenes, Bacillus cereus
This study was undertaken to evaluate the efficacy of electrolyzed oxidizing (EO) and chemically modified water with properties similar to the EO water for inactivation of different types of foodborne pathogens (Escherichia coli O157:H7, Listeria monocytogenes and Bacillus cereus). A five-strain cocktail of each microorganism was exposed to deionized water (control), EO water and chemically modified water. To evaluate the effect of individual properties (pH, oxidation-reduction potential (ORP) and residual chlorine) of treatment solutions on microbial inactivation, iron was added to reduce ORP readings and neutralizing buffer was added to neutralize chlorine. Inactivation of E. coli O157:H7 occurred within 30 s after application of JAW EO water with 10 mg/l residual chlorine and chemically modified solutions containing 13 mg/l residual chlorine. Inactivation of Gram-positive and -negative microorganisms occurred within 10 s after application of ROX EO water with 56 mg/l residual chlorine and chemically modified solutions containing 60 mg/l residual chlorine. B. cereus was more resistant to the treatments than E. coli O157:H7 and L. monocytogenes and only 3 log10 reductions were achieved after 10 s of ROX EO water treatment. B. cereus spores were the most resistant pathogen. However, more than 3 log10 reductions were achieved with 120-s EO water treatment.
Roles of oxidation reduction potential in electrolyzed oxidizing and chemically modified water for the inactivation of food-related pathogens
This study investigates the properties of electrolyzed oxidizing (EO) water for the inactivation of pathogen and to evaluate the chemically modified solutions possessing properties similar to EO water in killing Escherichia coli O157:H7. A five-strain cocktail (1010 CFU/ml) of E. coli O157:H7 was subjected to deionized water (control), EO water with 10 mg/liter residual chlorine (J.A.W-EO water), EO water with 56 mg/liter residual chlorine (ROX-EO water), and chemically modified solutions. Inactivation (8.88 log10 CFU/ml reduction) of E. coli O157:H7 occurred within 30 s after application of EO water and chemically modified solutions containing chlorine and 1% bromine. Iron was added to EO or chemically modified solutions to reduce oxidation reduction potential (ORP) readings and neutralizing buffer was added to neutralize chlorine. J.A.W-EO water with 100 mg/liter iron, acetic acid solution, and chemically modified solutions containing neutralizing buffer or 100 mg/liter iron were ineffective in reducing the bacteria population. ROX-EO water with 100 mg/liter iron was the only solution still effective in inactivation of E. coli O157:H7 and having high ORP readings regardless of residual chlorine. These results suggest that it is possible to simulate EO water by chemically modifying deionized water and ORP of the solution may be the primary factor affecting microbial inactivation.
Applied and Environmental Microbiology 65.9 (1999): 4276-4279
Efficacy of Electrolyzed Oxidizing Water for Inactivating Escherichia coli O157:H7, Salmonella enteritidis, and Listeria monocytogenes
Microbe(s): Escherichia coli O157:H7, Salmonella enteritidis, Listeria monocytogenes
The efficacy of electrolyzed oxidizing water for inactivating. Escherichia coli O157:H7, Salmonella enteritidis, and Listeria monocytogenes was evaluated. A five-strain mixture of E. coli O157:H7,S. enteritidis, or L. monocytogenes of approximately 108 CFU/ml was inoculated in 9 ml of electrolyzed oxidizing water (treatment) or 9 ml of sterile, deionized water (control) and incubated at 4 or 23 C for 0, 5, 10, and 15 min; at 35 C for 0, 2, 4, and 6 min; or at 45 C for 0, 1, 3, and 5 min. The surviving population of each pathogen at each sampling time was determined on tryptic soy agar. At 4 or 23 C, an exposure time of 5 min reduced the populations of all three pathogens in the treatment samples by approximately 7 log CFU/ml, with complete inactivation by 10 min of exposure. A reduction of 7 log CFU/ml in the levels of the three pathogens occurred in the treatment samples incubated for 1 min at 45 C or for 2 min at 35 C. The bacterial counts of all three pathogens in control samples remained the same throughout the incubation at all four temperatures. Results indicate that electrolyzed oxidizing water may be a useful disinfectant, but appropriate applications need to be validated.
Inactivation of Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Listeria monocytogenes on Plastic Kitchen Cutting Boards by Electrolyzed Oxidizing Water
One milliliter of culture containing a five-strain mixture of Escherichia coli O157:H7 (1010 CFU) was inoculated on a 100-cm2 area marked on unscarred cutting boards. Following inoculation, the boards were air-dried under a laminar flow hood for 1 h, immersed in 2 liters of electrolyzed oxidizing water or sterile deionized water at 23 C or 35 C for 10 or 20 min; 45 C for 5 or 10 min; or 55 C for 5 min. After each temperature-time combination, the surviving population of the pathogen on cutting boards and in soaking water was determined. Soaking of inoculated cutting boards in electrolyzed oxidizing water reduced E. coli O157:H7 populations by 5.0 log CFU/100 cm2 on cutting boards. However, immersion of cutting boards in deionized water decreased the pathogen count only by 1.0 to 1.5 log CFU/100 cm2. Treatment of cutting boards inoculated with Listeria monocytogenes in electrolyzed oxidizing water at selected temperature-time combinations (23 C for 20 min, 35 C for 10 min, and 45 C for 10 min) substantially reduced the populations of L. monocytogenes in comparison to the counts recovered from the boards immersed in deionized water. E. coli O157:H7 and L. monocytogenes were not detected in electrolyzed oxidizing water after soaking treatment, whereas the pathogens survived in the deionized water used for soaking the cutting boards. This study revealed that immersion of kitchen cutting boards in electrolyzed oxidizing water could be used as an effective method for inactivating foodborne pathogens on smooth, plastic cutting boards.
Archives of biochemistry and biophysics 367.2 (1999): 311-316
Reactive oxygen species are partially involved in the bacteriocidal action of hypochlorous acid
Hypochlorous acid (HOCl) is probably the most widely used disinfectant worldwide and has an important role in inflammatory reaction and in human resistance to infection. However, the nature and mechanisms of its bactericidal activity are still poorly understood. Bacteria challenged aerobically with HOCl concentrations ranging from 9.5 to 76 M exhibit higher ability to form colonies anaerobically than aerobically. Conversely, aerobic plating greatly increased lethality after an anaerobic HOCl challenge, although anaerobic survival did not depend on whether HOCl exposure was aerobic or anaerobic. Even a short transient exposure to air after anaerobic HOCl challenge reduced anaerobic survival, indicative of immediate deleterious effects of oxygen. Exposure to HOCl can cause lethal DNA damage as judged by the fact that recA sensitivity to HOCl was oxygen dependent. Antioxidant defenses such as reduced glutathione and glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase were depleted or inactivated at 10 M HOCl, while other activities, such as superoxide dismutase, dropped only above 57 M HOCl. Cumulative deficiencies in superoxide dismutase and glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase rendered strains hypersensitive to HOCl. This indicates that part of HOCl toxicity on Escherichia coli is mediated by reactive oxygen species during recovery.
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The Crimes That Will Need A Defence
by Javier Matthews | Mar 21, 2019 | Blog, General |
Traffic offence lawyers will help you escape the conviction you may or may not deserve. They will fight tooth and nail to make sure that you don’t get that fine or that prison sentence your crime deserves. They will call in favours from anyone they know that can help you while they will do all the research they can into precedents that will set you free. What they can’t do is make sure that you don’t commit the same crime again and again. They don’t even want to do this because traffic offence lawyers in Melbourne VIC need all the work they can get.
There are plenty of reasons to hire traffic offence lawyers in Melbourne. But what are the most common reasons for people to seek out the help of these top legal professionals.
Driving under the influence of alcohol is still a huge problem in Australia, especially in rural parts of the country, much like rural parts of countries in most developed nations. There are less cameras and safety measures taken in these parts of the world compared to major cities where governments make it a priority to ensure there is zero tolerance to driving having consumed alcohol. Outside major cities, there is also said to be a lack of education for younger drivers especially about the perils of driving under the influence of alcohol. While living in cities and suburbs you can’t go 1 kilometre without seeing an advert or warning about alcohol, it is not the same situation in areas that are less densely populated, making this a popular reason for enlisting the help of traffic offence lawyers in Melbourne.
Driving while using a device
Traffic offence lawyers in Melbourne are regularly called to defend those who have been caught on camera using their mobile phones or other devices. With new laws bringing into effect the use of better technology to catch those breaking the rules of the road, it has become easier for law enforcement to catch the perpetrators leaving traffic offence lawyers in Melbourne busier than they have ever been. Using your phone, tablet or any other device while sitting at the wheel of a car, even when parked can be a fine waiting to happen. It seems unfair but anything that breaks the concentration of the driving is said to be dangerous. So, to ensure that there are less accidents and fatalities on the roads, these preventative measures have been implemented. There are numerous adverts on our screens warning against these bad habits too, so ignorance is not an excuse.
Breaking the rules of the road
We have all been there. Rushing to a meeting, however inconsequential it is, we see the light go orange speed up and by the time we are going through the lights it has changed to red. We know it but go through anyway hoping that we won’t be caught. The decision makers and powers that be have become stricter than ever when it comes to incidents like this and more than likely you will be caught and left needing traffic offence lawyers in Melbourne. They can do everything in their power to help you but when the incident has been caught on camera there is not much that can be done. You and your legal professional can be left powerless all because you didn’t want to miss the closing time of your favourite take out restaurant.
If you find yourself accused of any of the crimes above, reach out to traffic offence lawyers in Melbourne. They will help you and guarantee you a premium service.
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The Kabbalah’s Remarkable Idea
by Paul Levy
During the question and answer period for the book release of my new book Dispelling Wetiko: Breaking the Curse of Evil, someone asked what was I going to write about next. Without having to blink, I responded “Kabbalah,” which is considered to be one of the most profound spiritual and intellectual movements in all of human history. Soon after the publication of my book I had discovered, much to my surprise, that the Kabbalah had a similarly radical view on many of the things I had written about, particularly the nature and role of evil in the cosmic drama. In my book, I contemplate how the wisdom traditions of alchemy, Gnosticism, shamanism, Buddhism, mystical Christianity and the depth psychology of Jung were pointing at and could help us to deepen our understanding of what the Native Americans call “wetiko” (which, simply put, refers to the spirit of evil), but I hadn’t written about the Kabbalah because I hadn’t realized that it was pointing at wetiko in a particularly unique and creative way.[i] In Dispelling Wetiko, I point out, in as many ways as I can imagine, that encoded in the deepest evil of wetiko, which is the evil that inspires humanity’s inhumanity to itself, is actually a blessing in a very convincing disguise to the contrary, such that if we recognize what it is revealing to us about ourselves, it can help us to wake up. In essence, the Lurianic Kabbalah of Isaac Luria (1534-1572) says the same thing, i.e., that evil, which by definition is diametrically opposed to good, is, paradoxically, at the same time its very source.
Upon studying the Lurianic Kabbalah (henceforth referred to simply as “Kabbalah”), a place of deep recognition stirred within me. In reading its creation myth, it was as if images were being activated within my mind which matched a deep inner experience I had been having for years. According to the Kabbalah, when it first arose within the divine will to create a universe, there was a contraction (known as the “Tzimtzum”), a localized withdrawal and concealment of God so as to prepare a space and “make room” for a finite creation with all of its distinctiveness, multiplicity and limitation to be brought about. At the very moment that God then conceived of the world and poured his[ii] infinite light into the “vessels” that he had prepared for this very event, the vessels were instantaneously filled and shattered by this influx of divine light. This catastrophic event, called “The Breaking of the Vessels” shattered the vessels into shards which fell through primordial space, the metaphysical void, while at the same time severing the previously united (and unconscious) opposites that constitute the underlying unified structure of the universe. Each shard entrapped a portion of divine light, seemingly separating this primordial light from its source.
These shards, known as the “kelipot” (pronounced k’lee-pote), represent malevolent constrictions in being, which, according to the Kabbalah, became the source of evil and personal suffering. The negation and mirror image of divine holiness and purity, the kelipot were like envelopes that concealed holiness just as a peel hides the fruit within. The kelipot were likened to husks or shells that imprisoned within themselves the divine light of God, which, because of its estrangement from its source, becomes malevolent. The kelipot altered the appearance of the light, but didn’t, however, change the essence of the light itself. The kelipot are themselves infertile and lifeless, with no independent existence, vacuous apparitions sustained in their seeming vitality and existence only by the very divine light that they have captured. According to the Kabbalah, evil has no life of its own, as the very source of evil is both intrinsically connected to, and yet, parasitic in relation to the divine light. From the perspective of the Kabbalah, though parasitically dependent upon the light of God, evil seeks to destroy holiness, which is to ultimately destroy everything, including itself. By severing the primary reality from its source of being, the kelipot had assumed an illusory reality, becoming a lethal mirage that, though ultimately not truly existing, could potentially destroy our species. The kelipot were also thought to imprison and bind aspects of human souls as well, feeding parasitically on the divine light within them, which is to say that the Kabbalah’s view of cosmic events was also a description of the dynamics within humanity’s soul. The entrapped divine sparks of light symbolize each individual’s essential but forgotten reality. Significantly, just like the spirit of wetiko, the kelipot contained within themselves the source and very energy for their own undoing, and ultimately, the potential for their own redemption.
Like autonomous complexes within the psyche, the kelipot appeared to obtain a measure of independent existence, as if they had become separated from, and other than, the light of God itself (something which is inherently impossible). For the Kabbalists, evil emerges out of separating things that should (and necessarily do) remain united, a “splitting” of a deeper unity. It was as if the universe itself had been subject to a cosmic “dissociative reaction,” in which the underlying unity of the universe had been fragmented into a multiplicity of selves. Both the kelipot and affect-laden complexes become relatively inaccessible to consciousness, shrouded in the darkness of the unconscious. Becoming “exiled” from their source, these split-off complexes become the source of much suffering in the personal realm, just as the kelipot become the source of evil on the cosmic scale. Just as the divine light estranged from its source becomes evil, when our psychic energy becomes encapsulated through repression and severed from the wholeness of the psyche from which it arose, we develop all sorts of negative, neurotic and self-destructive symptoms.
It was as if in the process of creation, God (or in psychological terms, “the Self”), had become alienated from itself, as if “Being” was in exile from itself. And yet, according to the Kabbalah, this cosmic cataclysm was no accident, but was inherent in the overall scheme of things, built into the very design of the universe, as if God had to become estranged from himself in order to become more fully himself. To quote Jung, “And where would God’s wholeness be if he could not be the ‘wholly other’?”[iii] In becoming concealed and eclipsed from himself, the infinite God creates the illusion of finitude, limitation and separation.
As if clothing himself in a garment that is our world, God creates a very convincing illusion that is akin to a dream. According to the Kabbalah, our world is itself like a dream in the infinite mind of God. Dreams themselves are tailor-made so as to help us understand Kabbalistic thought in general. As long as we are under the spell of the dream that we are having, all of the people and objects within the dream seem separate and objectively existing. It is only upon awakening to the dreamlike nature of our situation that we recognize that who we thought we were is nothing other than a model of ourselves being dreamed by something deeper, and that the dream in which we find ourselves is a display of, and not separate from, who we have discovered ourselves to be. Similarly, it is only when God is differentiated into, and includes within himself, a seemingly boundless expanse of apparently finite entities, which are then understood as all participating in his unified essence, that God completes himself as the Infinite All and his full infinity is achieved. This is to say that the deepest unity isn’t opposed to multiplicity, but, rather, requires and embraces it.
In the same way that God has to become estranged from himself in order to become who he is, according to the Kabbalah, it was only after the vessels break that humanity’s potential to become fully itself is set in motion. It is as if some form of destruction, deconstruction, or disintegration is a prerequisite for individuation and is necessary for the birth of the Self. Seen symbolically, the Breaking of the Vessels is an expression of the inevitable brokenness that everyone experiences at one point or another within, and even throughout, the course of a lifetime. It is when things seem most broken and shattered─when we hit bottom─that the deeper process of healing and transformation can begin. This archetypal idea is also expressed in the figure of the wounded healer, who accesses the ability to heal by going through and adding consciousness to the process of being wounded. Seen psychologically, the archetype of the wounded healer expresses the idea that the ego, if it’s to undergo transformation, must be wounded or broken in some way in order to open up to its connection to the healing energies of the unconscious. This idea of being broken, of experiencing failure, feeling psychologically and spiritually impotent, and going through a symbolic “death” experience is also related to the archetypal “Dark Night of the Soul,” an inner, psychospiritual experience which involves descending into the darkness─similar to the archetypal descent of the shaman into the underworld─which is the very process through which the light is discovered. This is similar to the personal process of spiritual emergence, which almost always looks like a nervous “breakdown.” The person who is spiritually awakening is typically experienced to be “falling into pieces,” as their psyche “melts down” and disintegrates, all potentially leading towards a higher form of integration more in alignment with their deeper, intrinsic wholeness. This process of falling apart is an iteration of the same fractal, a recapitulation on the microcosmic scale of an individual psyche, that the Kabbalah describes as initiating the process of divine evolution on a cosmic scale. The shattering of the vessels can also symbolize moments when life so shakes us up that we snap out of our fixed patterns of thought, rigid beliefs and assumed ideas about both the world and ourselves, such that a divine spark of creativity can come through us.
One of the striking features in the Kabbalah’s account of the origin of evil is that, unlike the Biblical myth, whose notion of the Fall of Humanity is attributed to a human act as described in the Garden of Eden story, the Kabbalah sees the origin of evil as an inescapable feature of the very process of cosmogenesis itself. Instead of seeing evil as existing outside of God, the Kabbalists saw evil as an essential component of the deity, woven into the very fabric of creation. From the point of view of the Kabbalah, evil issues forth from God himself, originating in the very heart of divinity, and is a logically necessary consequence of the very act of creation itself. In the earliest Kabbalistic writings it says “The Holy One praised be He has a trait which is called Evil.”[iv] From the Kabbalah’s point of view, to deny evil its rightful place in the cosmos is to do away with the Good as well. To quote Sanford L. Drob, author of Symbols of the Kabbalah: Philosophical and Psychological Perspectives, “Evil is to creation, and the individual finite existence that is creation’s very essence, as the outside of a container is to the space it contains.”[v] To one-sidedly strive after good and unilaterally reject and exclude evil would be like trying to grasp the container without taking hold of the boundary which defines it.
This “crisis in creation” was built into all things, both human and divine, into the molecular and subatomic structure of the cosmos itself. The dialectical tensions of the cosmos are mirrored in the psyche of each individual. This primordial rupture, which was a form of trauma on a cosmic scale, became the in-forming force behind human history itself, conditioning the experience of each individual, as well as our species as a whole. It is as if our entire species is suffering from a form of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Seen as a whole person, it is as if the wholeness of the universe had split into cosmic multiple sub-personalities who are dissociated from and seemingly separate from each other, desperately in need of recognizing their connection so as to come together and reintegrate.
When Freud was first introduced to the Kabbalah, he was so beside himself in excitement that he exclaimed “This is gold.” When Jung, who to my mind has the deepest insight into the nature of evil of anyone I have yet encountered, had his eyes opened to the profundity of the Kabbalah, he realized that his entire psychology had been anticipated by certain of their adepts. In an interview on his eightieth birthday in 1955, Jung declared, “the Hasidic Rabbi Baer from Mesiritz anticipated my entire psychology in the eighteenth century.”[vi] I can relate to how Jung must have felt, as the more I studied the Kabbalah’s cosmology, the more my mind was being blown, feeling as if I had found an alternative─and complementary─rendering of what I had written about in Dispelling Wetiko. The Kabbalah provides an ingenious model of how we have become entranced by the spell-binding powers of our own mind. It was as if the Kabbalist’s had been tracking wetiko for centuries, had created their own mythology and symbol system which “captured” it, and in so doing had presciently realized how to “break the curse of evil.”
Jung writes, “In a tract of the Lurianic Kabbalah, the remarkable idea is developed that man is destined to become God’s helper in the attempt to restore the vessels which were broken when God thought to create a world.”[vii] Commenting on this novel idea, Jung writes, “Here the thought emerges for the first time that man must help God to repair the damage wrought by creation. For the first time man’s cosmic responsibility is acknowledged.”[viii] Jung was appreciating the Kabbalist’s (r)evolutionary insight that humanity was playing the crucial role of co-partnering with God so as to complete the creative act of his Incarnation. The radical and taboo thought was, “for the first time,” emerging into a monotheistic worldview that, to put it into religious language, humanity didn’t just depend upon God, but that God, as if to complete the circle, depended upon humanity as well. From the Kabbalah’s point of view, God did not just create humanity, but in a joint venture, humanity is reciprocally helping to create God as well – talk about a “cosmic responsibility!”
According to the Kabbalah, it was as if divine sparks, psychic/spiritual treasures were encoded within us and hidden throughout the physical universe. It is a Sethian[ix] notion, as expressed by Hippolytus, that the darkness “held the brightness and the spark of light in thrall,”[x] the wording of which suggests that the darkness seems to have the light under a magical “spell.” This is quite remarkable, considering that, as mentioned earlier, the darkness parasitically requires the energy of the light in order to maintain its seeming existence and appear real. Ultimately speaking, the light has used its own creative energy to constrain its infinite radiance, as if the light has cast a spell upon itself. Seen as a reflection of a process happening within each of us, this expresses how something so incredibly powerful (i.e., ourselves as the radiant plenum – the boundless luminosity which is the very fabric of our being) can fall under the spell of a nonexistent phantom appearance that arises from the immense creativity of our own mind such that it entrances the light within us into believing that this imaginary, illusory phantom of darkness is more powerful than the light that we are. These apparition-like “darker forces,” the result of a timeless, acausal, nonlinear and insidious feedback loop within our own mind, only have power over us to the extent that their illusory nature is not seen through. The powers of darkness cannot take our intrinsic power from us, rather, they can only take on seeming reality by tricking us into giving our power away to them.
The idea of sparks of divine light becoming trapped in the dark denseness of matter, and this state of affairs being linked with human salvation is a quintessentially Gnostic idea. The Gnostic Gospel of Phillip says, “I am scattered in all things, and from wherever thou wilt thou canst gather me, but in gathering me thou gatherest together thyself.” It was as if sparks of the divine, of our very Self were dispersed throughout the manifest world, waiting to be discovered and liberated.
To the Kabbalists, it was humanity’s divinely appointed task to find, extract and free this light that is hidden in the darkness of the material realm (this is called “The Raising of the Sparks”), thereby helping this light return to its divine source. It is the mission of each one of us to raise the sparks hidden within those kelipot that reside within our soul or that come our way over the course of a lifetime so as to fulfill our part in the healing of the world. According to the Kabbalah, humanity plays a key role in the repair and restoration of the world, called “Tikkun ha-Olam” (henceforth “Tikkun” for short). Tikkun is a project in which humanity, the world, and God himself becomes more fully themselves, as if humanity plays a vitally important role in the completion and actualization of the universe, and if we can talk in such human terms, of God himself. The profound viewpoint of Tikkun reveals that the purpose and significance of evil in God’s plan is to provide a context for humanity’s redemption, which is to say that the vision provided by Tikkun puts evil, humanity, and God himself in their proper places within the cosmos.
This cosmic process is mirrored in humanity through the process of individuation, of becoming an indivisible unity or “whole,” which entails a gathering, recollecting and remembering of all of the split-off, projected parts of the psyche. Etymologically, the root of the word individuation means “un-divided,” as if the process of individuation is the antidote to the “diabolical” (whose etymology means “that which separates and divides”), disintegrating effects of evil. To quote Jung, “Individuation does not shut one out from the world, but gathers the world to oneself.”[xi] Elsewhere Jung writes, “Everything living dreams of individuation, for everything strives towards its own wholeness.”[xii] As Jung suggests, just as each one of us dreams of individuation as we strive towards the wholeness of our nature, can’t we say the same of the universe itself: that it too dreams of individuation, of gathering its nature to itself, and re-membering all of its split-off parts? Are we all just playing roles in a cosmic process of individuation─a universal awakening─that is mysteriously being revealed and catalyzed through our darker half?
It is an age-old, archetypal idea, expressed in both alchemy and Gnosticism, that light is to be found hidden within the darkness, which suggests that evil is connected to the process of redemption and individuation. Jung comments, “that not only darkness is known through light, but that, conversely, light is known through darkness.”[xiii] According to the Kabbalah, the extraction of the light requires an acknowledgement of, and sojourn into the realm of darkness, which psychologically speaking, can be thought of as making a descent into the underworld of the unconscious and coming to terms with our base desires, what in Kabbalah is referred to as a “descent on behalf of the ascent.” Going inward is going upward in consciousness, dimensionally speaking. This descent always involves a coming to terms with the “shadow” of ourselves (which has both a personal, as well as transpersonal/archetypal component). Our totality must include a dark side if we are to be whole. Jung writes, “Where there is no shadow, there is no light.”[xiv] By entering the dark realm of the unconscious, we are offered the possibility of refining ourselves as if in a crucible, as if the shadow-world of the unconscious is a divine furnace of purification. If we fail to take into account the shadow aspect of ourselves, we are unwittingly feeding it, increasing its power over us; if we don’t acknowledge and see our darkness, we deliver ourselves into its hands.
The kabbalistic idea of finding the light hidden in the darkness is also a basic psychoanalytic idea, having to do with making the unconscious conscious, as well as connecting split-off complexes to the wholeness of the Self. If we don’t acknowledge and pay our dues to the darkness, like the return of the Freudian repressed, it will take its due on its own terms, with a vengeance. In alchemy, the prima materia, which is considered the primal chaos that includes within itself elements of negativity and evil (and is symbolized by the element “lead”), is necessary and indeed indispensible for the making of the “gold” (which is the awakened consciousness) and the completion of the opus.
The entire process of Tikkun proceeds out of what the Kabbalah refers to as “The Other Side” (called “The Sitra Achra,” a nether realm of evil inhabited by and composed of the kelipot), which is to say that, kabbalistically speaking, there is no liberated light except that which issues forth out of the evil realm. The Zohar, the key Kabbalistic text, makes this very point when it makes the remarkable statement, “There is no light except that which issues from darkness…and no true good except it proceed from evil.”[xv] According to the Kabbalah, evil is the very condition of good’s realization. Evil, at cross purposes to the good at its core, is at the same time, paradoxically, its very foundation. It is only by attending to the darkness within ourselves and making the darkness conscious, however, that we become secure in the attainment of the good and begin to wake up. Jung writes, “He who comprehends the darkness in himself, to him the light is near.”[xvi]
From the Kabbalistic point of view, evil brings into the world the possibility of choosing between sin and virtue, which is to say that evil is the very origin of the possibility of the highest good. Freedom of choice is a necessary postulate for responsibility, morality and the creation of values. Evil becomes the condition for free choice, and hence, the condition for the full realization of good. As if the revelation of everything is through its opposite, an idea is only complete when it reveals its opposite to be inextricably linked to its very significance, e.g., darkness is only known through light, just as light is only known through darkness. According to the Kabbalah, the world and the soul of humanity are partly immersed in the “Other Side,” which is to say that the evil impulse can’t be banished, but needs to be harnessed for the good. To quote Jung, “You can’t reject evil because evil is the bringer of light.”
Evil, according to the Kabbalah, reciprocally co-arises with the possibility of humanity’s freedom, as if God could not create true freedom for humanity without providing a choice for evil. Freedom and evil are thus two aspects of the same process. It is as if the Breaking of the Vessels, the seeming exile of divine light, and the production of evil which resulted made possible the process by which humanity can attain its autonomy and potential freedom. Only in an evil and tragic world can compassion and kindness be most fully realized. Jung succinctly expresses this realization when he writes, “The evil one is holy.”[xvii] This is not to justify, sanction or condone evil, but rather, to contextualize it. The chaos and negativity that resulted from the Breaking of the Vessels was, for the Kabbalists, the inevitable result of, and the price to be paid for, the infinite taking on finite form, of divine unity giving itself over to distinction, individuality and freedom. From the Kabbalistic point of view, evil is created by and for freedom, and it is only through freedom by which it can be overcome.
If the kelipot are solely the source of evil, how do we explain that is it is through their evil that we potentially actualize our freedom? Are the kelipot expressions of a higher intelligence, part of the divine plan to bring about a higher form of good that couldn’t be achieved without their existence?
As if intimately related, there is a deep interconnection between the forces of light and dark, as if at a certain point the dark and the light become indistinguishable from one another, a “coincidentia oppositorum” (co-incidence of opposites). The idea of the interpenetration, interdependence and the coming together of the opposites is at the root of every wisdom tradition on our planet, and is an idea that underlies, informs and animates the Kabbalah’s entire cosmology. In addition, the principle of coincidentia oppositorum can be considered to be the cornerstone of Jung’s entire psychology. In Jung’s personal journal, the recently published Red Book, whose reflections are the basis of his life’s work, he refers to the coincidentia oppositorum as producing the “supreme meaning.”[xviii] The part of us that is having the realization of, in Jung’s words, the “mysterium coniunctionis” (the mystery of the conjunction – the co-joining of things typically conceived of as being opposites) is the Self, the wholeness of our personality. The Self─who we are─is simultaneously the sponsor and result of this realization.
Through its choices, humanity can realize and actualize the values that are only abstractions and ideas in the mind of God. Humanity’s actions can instantiate, embody and make fully real the higher, spiritual values of our universe, helping God to see, and experience the totality of himself in the process. It is as if humanity is the vessel which God has created in order to complete and incarnate himself. It is the Kabbalah’s perspective that the unity and perfection that is provided with humanity’s help is of a higher-order than the unity that existed before the Breaking of the Vessels and prior to creation itself. This is similar to how, in the alchemical operation of “solve et coagula” (dissolve and synthesize), an original unity is separated into its opposing parts, and then reunited in a process that brings about a superior wholeness. From the Kabbalah’s point of view, it is as if God creates the world in order to fully realize himself in it. In a case where the microcosm mirrors the macrocosm, this is similar to how the unconscious manifests itself in a reflective ego in order to complete and know itself as a conscious “Self.”
It is only a broken and disordered state of affairs─such as we have in the world today─that provides the optimal environment within which humanity can best exercise the greatest spiritual, moral, aesthetic and intellectual virtues that truly make us a reflection of God. The discordant, unassimilated and antagonistic effects of both our personal complexes and the kelipot of the Kabbalah all serve to call forth our highest potentialities, similar to how a road test for a car involves being put under the most difficult conditions to push it to its edge and elicit the limits of its performance capabilities. This world is truly a perfect realm for the “road-testing” of our souls. Humanity’s highest virtues are called upon when confronted by evil.
Jung writes, “The self is made manifest in the opposites and in the conflict between them; it is a coincidentia oppositorum. Hence the way to the self begins with conflict.”[xix] Conflicting energies exist relative to, by virtue of, and at the expense of each other. Reciprocally co-arising, they belong together precisely insofar as they oppose each other; their antagonism is the very source of their essential oneness. The conflict that arises from the Breaking of the Vessels and the creation of evil is inherent to, and necessary for, the cultivation of the human spirit. Jung writes, “The stirring up of conflict is a Luciferian virtue in the true sense of the word. Conflict engenders fire, the fire of affects and emotions, and like every other fire, it has two aspects, that of combustion and that of creating light.”[xx] In other words, the conflict and friction that is the result of the Breaking of the Vessels can potentially create separation, hurt and misunderstanding─producing more trauma─or it can create light, the light of consciousness itself. From this meta-perspective, the shattering of the vessels allows, potentially, for more light to be revealed. To quote Jung, “But that which brings division ultimately creates union.”[xxi]
Though the Kabbalist’s envision the Breaking of the Vessels (and the kelipot entrapping the divine light and bringing evil into the world) as a cosmic event that happened back in the dawning of time─at the very moment of the creation of our universe─this process is also atemporal, in that it happens outside of time, which is to say that it is happening right now. The Breaking of the Vessels is a symbolic articulation of a process that is active in us right now and is informing our human condition in each and every moment.
Like the prototypical Adam, whose situation in the Garden is a metaphor for the archetypal human dilemma, as well as for all subsequent human decisions, each one of us stands at a fork in the road─a place of great opportunity─between the paths of Tikkun (and life) on the one hand, and feeding the kelipot and evil (and death) on the other.[xxii] Adam’s sin was catastrophic precisely because it was an act of free choice, and for this reason it strengthened the kelipot and the power of the “Other Side.” Similarly, whenever any of us is “unconsciously” taken over by evil in the form of compulsive, addictive behaviors (as compared to “acting out” our compulsions as the medium through which we become conscious of them), we are unwittingly investing in the grip of the kelipot over our soul. When we are able to choose differently, however, and redirect our psychic energy so as to “re-turn” (a word which, etymologically, has to do with the word “repentance”) to the true spiritual home within ourselves, the energy that was bound up in the compulsive re-creation of our habitual patterns becomes freed up and available for the expression of love and creativity (which, in religious language, would be to serve God). To “turn away” from the “self and/or other” destructive evil impulse within ourselves and to “turn towards” and reorient ourselves towards the good is to genuinely “repent.” Repentance is the highest expression of humanity’s capacity to choose freely – it is a manifestation of the divine in humanity. Repentance is a living manifestation of the power within us to extricate ourselves from the binding power of the kelipot, from the chains of endless causality that otherwise compel us to follow a path of “no return.” As Jung points out, “The sin to be repented, of course, is unconsciousness.”[xxiii] From the Kabbalah’s point of view, a “sinner” who “repents” is on a higher level than the saint who has never sinned.
The moment of “metanoia,” of a shift in our attitude, a change in our mind and a softening of our heart, is a moment in which we are participating in the birth of consciousness. Individuation is Incarnation. In this moment of awareness, the energy that was bound up in the recreation of the kelipot and their seeming power over us is instantaneously liberated. The holy sparks imprisoned by the kelipot, like iron filings drawn to a magnet, fly back to their divine source, where they can then assist and inspire the process of a universe-wide Tikkun even further. The kelipot, which had been parasitic on this sacred light are then deprived of their vitality and vanish as though they had never existed, as if a dream that had seemed real vaporizes into the light of awakening consciousness, getting reabsorbed into the very divine light from which it arose.
We, by our very choices, are actively participating in creating (in my language, “dreaming up”) the archetypal process of either feeding the kelipot and their resultant evil or denying them their food in each and every moment by feeding awareness instead. Once we cultivate the compassion that is at the root of this process, the evil impulse─“yetzer ha-ra”─within us is not, like in the psychological process of sublimation, merely redirected while the underlying drive is left essentially unchanged; rather, the redirection implied by this process elevates and alchemically transforms the evil urge into “yetzer ha-tov,” the impulse for good. It is the creative tension between these two primordial urges within us that supplies the energy for humanity to potentially connect with our true power and exercise the divine gift of genuine freedom. For the Kabbalists, the good that we are capable of in our personal life issues forth, and is functionally related to the evil inclination within us; which is to say that the energy that is animating the evil impulse can potentially be channeled to inspire the good. The greater our evil impulse, the greater our potential for good.
At this point, I am left practically speechless, in awe and appreciation for the divine creative imagination as it imagines itself through the Kabbalistic cosmology. My life truly feels enriched after finding the gold of the Kabbalah. The Kabbalist’s vision of the cosmos and the Native American idea of wetiko mutually illuminate and shed light on each other, expanding our vision of who we are in the process. As I become more familiar with the Kabbalah, I am realizing that I have been a “closet Kabbalist,” and that my inner Kabbalistic nature was a secret, hidden and unknown even to myself.
For the Kabbalah, the act of creation itself is an introduction, a mere opening act, a preparation for the process of Tikkun. The Kabbalistic myth of Tikkun, at least in my imagination, is a satisfying myth, as the ‘mystic’ Tikkun is the true coming of the Messiah, which psychologically speaking, is the birth of the Self through humanity. Kabbalistically speaking, the savior does not come to unite humanity with God, but to unite humanity with itself; individuation means becoming who one is. The process of Tikkun involves seeing through and transcending the illusion of the imaginary “separate” self and recognizing our true self, which is a “self” that is interconnected and interdependent with all beings. This is an insight that is not limited to the merely inner domain within our own minds, but requires us to embody its realization and carry its compassion into the world at large. Tikkun doesn’t have to do with leaving the world behind and entering our own personal nirvana, nor does it have to do with transcending the world. The vehicle for Tikkun’s realization is our world.
When we truly become a living representative for the process of Tikkun, we realize the synchronistic dialectic between the outer world and the inner landscape of our mind, which is to say that the outer and inner worlds, just like a dream, are recognized to be reflections of each other. This is to recognize that the outer world is the medium through which our inner realization is made manifest and given form, which is to say that one very powerful way to “work on ourselves” and deepen our inner realization is to engage with, fully participate in and be of service in and to the world. The psychological redemption that is at the heart of Tikkun involves a simultaneous turning inward and outward. As practitioners of Tikkun we seek to discover the core of divinity that resides within ourselves as well as within the world at large. From the perspective of the Kabbalah, it is incumbent upon humanity to discover, recognize, bring out and sanctify the sacramental value of the material world. The world becomes alchemically transfigured in the moment of recognizing that it is, and always has been a pure spiritual realm. We ourselves become transformed in the process. The process of Tikkun will only be complete when the last spark has been raised and the universe, suffused with the inviolable primordial radiance of the divine, reveals itself to be the dream that it is. As we collectively connect with each other in the profound process of Tikkun, we can refresh and restore the world to a state of harmony undreamed of previously.
A pioneer in the field of spiritual emergence, Paul Levy is a wounded healer in private practice, assisting others who are also awakening to the dreamlike nature of reality. He is the author of Dispelling Wetiko: Breaking the Curse of Evil (North Atlantic Books). He is also the author of The Madness of George W. Bush: A Reflection of Our Collective Psychosis, An artist, he is deeply steeped in the work of C. G. Jung, and has been a Tibetan Buddhist practitioner for over thirty years. Feel free to pass this article along to a friend if you feel so inspired. Please visit Paul’s website www.awakeninthedream.com. You can contact Paul at paul@awakeninthedream.com; he looks forward to your reflections. Though he reads every email, he regrets that he is not able to personally respond to all of them. © Copyright 2013.
This article was originally published on awakeninthedream.com.
[i] It was particularly Sanford L. Drob’s brilliant writings on the Kabbalah that opened my eyes to how the Kabbalah was, through its own divinely inspired creative imagination, describing wetiko in its own unique way.
[ii] For consistency’s sake, I have chosen to use the masculine gender when referring to God, as this is the gender used in referring to God in the Kabbalah, as well as by Jung.
[iii] Jung, CW 11, Psychology and Religion: West and East, par. 380.
[iv] Sefer ha Bahir, par. 109, as cited in Gerhom Scholem, Origins of the Kabbalah, trans. R. J. Zwi Werblowsky (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1987), pp. 149-150.
[v] Drob, Sanford, Symbols of the Kabbalah, p. 329.
[vi] “An Eightieth Birthday Interview,” in C. G. Jung Speaking, ed. W. McGuire and R. F. C. Hull (Princeton, N. J: Princeton University Press, 1977), pp. 271-272.
[vii] Jung, Letters vol. 2, p. 157.
[viii] Jung, Letters vol. 2, p. 155.
[ix] a Christian Gnostic sect
[x] Elenchos, V, 19, 7 (Legge, I, p. 162).
[xi] Jung, CW 8, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, par. 432.
[xii] Jung, Letters vol. 2, p. xlvi.
[xiii] Jung, CW 9ii, Aion, par. 92.
[xiv] Jung, Visions 1, p. 162.
[xv] Zohar II, 184a; Sperling and Simon, The Zohar, Vol. IV, p. 125.
[xvi] Jung, Red Book, p. 272b.
[xvii] Jung, Red Book, p. 290.
[xviii] Jung, Red Book, p. 229.
[xix] Jung, Psychology and Alchemy, CW 12, par. 259.
[xx] Jung, CW 9i, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, par. 179.
[xxi] Jung, CW 10, Civilization in Transition, par. 293.
[xxii] “…I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may have life.” (Deuteronomy 30:19).
[xxiii] Jung, CW 9ii, Aion, par. 299.
This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged alchemy, birth, Carl Jung, Consciuosness, death, divine light, essential oneness, fabric of creation, Freud, Gnostic, Gnosticism, God, Holy One, imagination, Kabbalah, Kabbalistic nature, light and dark, macro, micro, Mind, origin of evil, Paul Levy, PSTD, Red Book, shamanism, Symbols, The Kabbalah, The Other Side, Tikkun, wetiko. Bookmark the permalink.
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Nikola Tesla: Maverick, Visionary and Master of Light →
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350 divest church
Uniting Church Leads on Divestment from Fossil Fuels
My published article on the commitment to divest from fossil fuels by the NSW Synod of the Uniting Church.
The NSW/ACT Synod of the Uniting Church will withdraw all its investment in fossil fuel stocks over the next three years.
In April, 400 people at the Synod meeting unanimously agreed to a resolution to “divest from stocks and shares in corporations engaged in the extraction of fossil fuels, and to redirect investments into renewable energy”. At the October meeting of the Synod’s Standing Committee, the implementation strategy and timing was presented by church investment managers and approved.
“We’re the first church in Australia to do this and the reaction in the community is exciting,” says Mission Development Manager at the Uniting Church Paddington and a proponent of the original divestment proposal Justin Whelan. “This is leadership from the church and there’s a lot of respect for it.”
“The General Secretary will now write to other Synods to ask them to do the same,” says Whelan.
Across Australia there is also mounting pressure on universities and other public institutions to divest from fossil fuels as part of the Go Fossil Free global campaign that aims to move public institutions’ and individuals’ investments out of fossil fuels and into clean energy. In New Zealand, five dioceses of the Anglican Church have now committed to divest. There is growing pressure around the world for colleges and universities to sell off their fossil fuel stock and for superannuation funds to offer fossil free investment options.
The Go Fossil Free campaign started in the United States and is led by 350.org leader Bill McKibben, who modelled it on the influential global campaign against South Africa’s apartheid government in the 1980s that eventually ended apartheid. “It’s wrong to profit from wrecking the climate,” he says. “If the fossil fuel industry carries out its business plans, the planet will tank. Exxon alone, one company, has 7 per cent of the carbon in its reserves necessary to take us past that red line. What these numbers show is that the fossil fuel industry is now a rogue industry, determined to do things that everybody who studies this knows are unwise, unsafe, crazy.”
McKibben recently toured Australia as part of a “Do the Maths” tour to demonstrate how close the planet is to reaching two degrees warming. The numbers at the heart of McKibben’s argument show that if Exxon and other companies simply sell what is in their reserves, they will drive up the planet’s temperature more than two degrees. The global coal, oil and gas industry has five times as much carbon in its reserves as the planet can afford to burn to prevent two degrees warming. A recent report from the Climate Institute shows that Australia’s current coal export plan would produce 30 per cent of the carbon needed to push global warming beyond that two degrees.
Exxon doesn’t dispute McKibben’s numbers and an industry-funded expert from MIT University confirmed them, as well as saying that at the current rate of emissions, the planet’s temperature will probably have risen five degrees by the end of the century. “We’re already deep in a hole, and the first rule of holes is that when you’re in one, you stop digging,” says McKibben. “To change path demands structural shifts on a massive scale.”
More Information – The Australian Religious Response to Climate Change is a interdemoninational network of church leaders acting on the threat of climate change.
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New Alliance to Stop Mining in Sydney Drinking Water Catchments »
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Tonys Administration Committee Announces Final Eligibility Rulings for 2019-2020 Season
The Tony Awards administration committee met on August 27 for the final time to confirm the eligibility status of three Broadway productions for the 2020 Tony Awards. As previously reported, the Broadway League and the American Theatre Wing have shared that the ceremony will now take place digitally this fall. The organizations have announced that nominations for the 2020 Tony Awards will be announced soon. Further details, a platform for the awards ceremony and an exact date will be announced later.
The productions discussed were My Name is Lucy Barton, A Soldier’s Play and Grand Horizons.
Unless determined otherwise by the Tonys administration committee, performers billed above a show’s title are automatically considered eligible in leading acting categories, while those billed below the title are eligible in featured categories. The committee made the following determinations:
Elizabeth Strout and Rona Munro will be considered jointly eligible in the Best Play category for their work as co-authors on My Name is Lucy Barton.
Laura Linney will be considered eligible in the Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play category for her performance in My Name is Lucy Barton.
Bob Crowley and Luke Halls will be considered jointly eligible in the Best Scenic Design of a Play category for their work on My Name is Lucy Barton.
David Alan Grier will be considered eligible in the Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play category for his performance in A Soldier’s Play.
As previously reported, a February 19 eligibility cutoff has been established for the 2020 Tonys, despite Broadway not being shut down until March 12. The following productions will be considered eligible for 2020 Tony Award nominations (in opening night order): Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, Moulin Rouge! The Musical, Sea Wall/A Life, Betrayal, The Height of the Storm, The Great Society, Slave Play, Linda Vista, The Rose Tattoo, The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical, The Sound Inside, Tina – The Tina Turner Musical, The Inheritance, A Christmas Carol, Jagged Little Pill, My Name is Lucy Barton, A Soldier’s Play and Grand Horizons.
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Home/Tech/WhatsApp: What does the newspaper emoji mean?
WhatsApp: What does the newspaper emoji mean?
Have you used the emoji from the newspaper?
Here we tell you its meaning and when you can send it by WhatsApp
The arrival of emojis to the digital world has made it easier for users to express their feelings in conversations on WhatsApp and other platforms. They are generally divided into six categories among which are yellow faces, food, animals, weather conditions, numbers and symbols.
Currently, it is very common to replace words or phrases with an emoji that expresses exactly what you want to say. WhatsApp has made its catalog of emojis available to everyone, which makes clear their real meaning, be it happiness, sadness, dream, anger, disappointment, among others, but there are some more whose interpretation is subject to different cultural contexts depending on the environment of the person using them.
Today we have to talk about the emoji of the WhatsApp newspaper, which is shown as the image of a newspaper (not just a page as in the case of a page up emoticon) with a different design and also a name, which depends on the emoji provider. Let’s take an example, Apple’s version is called “The Apple Times” and Facebook’s is called “Daily Feed”, with a headline “El Capitan” and a photo of that famous rock formation in Yosemite National Park.
Users can use it in any context that has to do with periodicals and newspapers, as well as any news in general. It is also often used as a general means of communication, such as television or radio.
It is important to mention that, despite having the same Unicode encoding, each platform can vary the design of each emoji to adapt to its operating system or interface. On many occasions this makes a big difference in the interpretation of the same symbol.
News Newspaper Whatsapp Whatsapp Emoji Whatsapp Emoji Meaning
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Home > IV Online magazine > 2018 > IV519 - April 2018 > “Our Destinies are Linked”: Joseph Daher on the Syrian Revolution
“Our Destinies are Linked”: Joseph Daher on the Syrian Revolution
Thursday 12 April 2018, by Joseph Daher
As the Syrian revolution entered its eighth year this march, Dan Fischer and S. Maja sent some questions to Joseph Daher. We discussed how the destiny of Syria’s popular struggle against Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorship is linked to anti-authoritarian and anti-fascist struggles globally, including in Rojava, Palestine, Europe, and North America.
Do the policies and actions of Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorship approach fascism? Why are authoritarians and far-rightists around the world supporting the Assad regime, and to what extent are Assad’s massacres in Ghouta and elsewhere an inspiration for them?
The Assad despotic regime definitely has fascistic trends, demonstrated by its refusal of any kind of opposition and the violence it has committed. Regarding the nature of the Assad regime, I would argue it is a despotic, capitalist and patrimonial state ruling through violent repression and using various policies such as sectarianism, tribalism, conservatism, and racism to dominate society and mobilize a cross-class popular base linked through sectarian, regional, tribal and clientelist connections to defend the regime on a reactionary basis.
The patrimonial nature of the state means the centers of power (political, military and economic) within the regime are concentrated in one family and its clique, similar to Libya and the Gulf monarchies for example, therefore pushing the regime to use all the violence at its disposal to protect its rule.
It is therefore very far from being socialist, anti-imperialist and secular as presented by some among sectors of the western left, often ignorant of Syria.
Many fascist and fascistic parties and personalities support Assad’s regime throughout the world, including Italy’s far-right Forza Nuova and CasaPound, Greece’s neo-fascist Golden Dawn, the UK’s British National Party (BNP), and Poland’s ultranationalist National Rebirth, among others. These are part of an international front that has rallied on behalf of Bashar al-Assad and sent solidarity delegations to Syria since the beginning of the uprising. One example is European Solidarity Front for Syria (ESFS) – a coalition of neo-fascist and far-right groups that support Assad’s regime. More recently in March, seven members of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) visited Damascus.
You can find other far-right personalities supporting Assad as well, including Nick Griffin, formerly of the British National Party; American white supremacist Richard Spencer, etc.
There are different reasons that might be in contradiction sometimes, but you can found notably:
Islamophobia: Assad is seen as a “bulwark” against Islam and Sunni Islamic fundamentalism
Anti-USA position, not to be confused with anti-imperialism, because they have no problem with Russian imperialism
Anti-Semitism, which in this case includes an opposition to Israel
Links actually existed with different fascist and fascistic movements even before the uprising. For example, in 2005, David Duke, former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan and notorious Holocaust denier, delivered a speech in Damascus on state television.
On your last question, what is sure is that the impunity given to the continuous murderous crimes of Assad’s despotic regime in Ghouta and elsewhere with the assistance and/or complicity of international imperialist powers encourages other dictators and authoritarian regimes to repress violently their own people. This participates as well in a global international trend of authoritarianism present throughout the world, including among liberal democracies in the Western countries, with the advancement and deepening of neo-liberalism.
What is your response to those who say that the Syrian opposition to Assad is comprised mainly of Jihadis? What are the politics of left and democratic currents within the Syrian Revolution?
We should remember first that the Syrian grassroots civilian opposition was the primary engine of the popular uprising against the Assad regime. They sustained the popular uprising for numerous years by organizing and documenting protests and acts of civil disobedience, and by motivating people to join protests. The earliest manifestations of the “coordinating committees” (or tansiqiyyat) were neighborhood gatherings throughout Syria. The regime specifically targeted these networks of activists, who had initiated demonstrations, acts of civil disobedience, and campaigns in favor of countrywide strikes. The regime killed, imprisoned, kidnapped and pushed to exile these activists.
Tragically throughout the year, each defeat of the democratic resistance strengthened and benefited the Islamic fundamentalist and jihadist forces on the ground. The rise of Islamic fundamentalist and jihadist movements and their dominations on the military scene in some regions has been negative for the revolution, as they opposed its objectives (democracy, social justice and equality). With their sectarian and reactionary discourses and behaviors, these movements not only acted as a repellent for the vast majority of religious and ethnic minorities, and women, but also to sections of Arab Sunni populations in some liberated areas where we have seen demonstrations against them, especially among large sections of the middle class in Damascus and Aleppo. They attacked and continue to attack the democratic activists, while they often tried to impose their authority on the institutions developed by locals, often bringing resistance from local populations against their authoritarian behaviors.
Nobody denies that we are no longer in March 2011 and that the situation of democratic and progressive forces is very weak today in Syria. Revolutionary processes are long-term events, characterized by higher and lower level mobilizations according to the context. They are even characterized by some periods of defeat, but it’s hard to say when they end. This is especially the case in Syria, when the conditions that allowed for the beginning of these uprisings are still present, while the regime is very far from finding ways to solve them.
The other element that could also play a role in shaping future events is the large documentation of the uprising that has never been seen before in history. There has been significant recording, testimonies and documentation of the protest movement, the actors involved and the modes of actions. In the seventies, Syria witnessed strong popular and democratic resistance with significant strikes and demonstrations throughout the country with mass followings. Unfortunately, this memory was not kept and was not well-known by the new generation of protesters in the country in 2011. The Syrian revolutionary process that started in 2011 is one of the most documented. This memory will remain and could inspire and inform future resistance. The political experiences that have been accumulated since the beginning of the uprising will not disappear.
Regarding the expansion of ISIS and other extremist jihadi forces, some people argue that we must “choose a camp,” between Assad’s regime and jihadist forces in order to find a concrete solution to the conflict. In effect, this means we must throw our support behind Assad and his allied Iranian and Russian forces. Sadly, baseless discourse like this became particularly prominent after terrorist attacks by ISIS in different countries in the world. After these attacks, many in the West began advocating for a “global war against ISIS.” Those on the left and right alike argued for the need to collaborate with the Assad regime, or at least seek a solution in which the Assad dynasty remains in control of the country.
Those, like myself, who oppose this outlook are charged with being idealistic. Our critics tell us we must take “more realistic” approaches toward Syria, in order to save lives. What these individuals fail to appreciate, however, is that it is not enough to defeat ISIS, jihadist forces and other Salafist organizations. Brute military force alone only ensures that other militant groups will take its place, as al-Qaida in Iraq demonstrates. Real solutions to the crisis in Syria and elsewhere in the region must address the socio-economic and political conditions that have enabled the growth of ISIS and other extremist organizations.
We have to understand that ISIS’s expansion is a fundamental element of the counter-revolution in the Middle East that emerged as the result of authoritarian regimes crushing popular movements linked to the 2011 Arab Spring. The interventions of regional and international states have contributed to ISIS’s development as well. Finally, neo-liberal policies that have impoverished the popular class, together with the repression of democratic and trade union forces, have been key in helping ISIS and Islamic fundamentalist forces grow.
The left must understand that only by ridding the region of the conditions that allowed ISIS and other Islamic fundamentalist groups to develop can we resolve the crisis. At the same time, empowering those progressive and democratic forces on the ground who are fighting to overthrow despotic regimes and face reactionary groups is part and parcel of this approach. Clearly, no peaceful and just solution in Syria can be reached with Bashar al-Assad and his clique in power. He is the biggest criminal in Syria and must be prosecuted for his crimes instead of being legitimized by international and regional powers.
What impact did the anarchist economist Omar Aziz have on the Syrian Revolution, particularly on the establishment of self-governing local councils? In 2016, Leila Al-Shami cited an estimate that there were 395 local councils across Syria. What has happened with the councils since then?
Omar Aziz, a 63-year-old anarchist activist who was arrested in October 2012 and died under torture in a regime jail in February 2013, was the first to call for the establishment of “local councils” in October 2011. Certainly in Damascus and its province his ideas and call for self-governing councils was important and inspirational for many activists. However, this was also the result of the reality of the ground. After the regime’s forces withdrew from some regions, people had to organize society politically and to coordinate between civilians and armed opposition groups.
The number of local councils has diminished considerably after the fall of Eastern Aleppo in December 2016 and because of the military advances of pro-regime forces capturing opposition held territories, and also as a result of the attacks of Islamic fundamentalist and jihadist armed groups that replaced civilians councils with their own.
Regarding local councils that played an important role in the opposition held areas, we must be clear that their very important experiences did not mean that there were no shortcomings, such as the lack of representation of women, or of religious minorities in general. Other problems existed as well such as some forms of disorganization, undemocratic practices, over-representation of some influential families in some areas, etc. Civil councils were also not always completely autonomous from military groups, relying often on military groups for resources. While numerous council members were generally elected, nearly half of them, there were also a number of councils undemocratically appointed rather than elected, based on the influence of local military leaders, clan and family structures, and elders. Another problem that was encountered in the selection of the council’s representatives was the need for particular professional and technical skills.
Despite these limitations, local councils were able to restore a minimum level of social services in their regions and enjoyed some level of legitimacy.
In your article “The Kurdish Crisis in Iraq and Syria” you argue that “we should not isolate the struggle for self-determination of the Kurdish people from the dynamics of the Syrian revolution.” [1] What suggestions do you have for people who support both the Syrian revolution and the Rojava revolution despite the clashes between elements of these two struggles?
We should not separate their destinies firstly, and we should oppose the various military attacks on Afrin, Idlib and Eastern Ghouta and support all the civilians in Syria.
More broadly, the Afrin operation reflects the weakness of all democratic and progressive actors in Syria in the face of the Assad regime and its allies’ destruction of the Syrian revolution, and the consequent renewed power of this regime, which has received acceptance by all international actors.
What is desperately needed is solidarity between all revolutionaries (Arabs, Kurds and all other ethnic minorities) who are against the Assad regime and all the regional and international imperialist powers and support the struggles for social justice, women’s rights and the rights of oppressed minorities.
In general, no solution for the Kurdish issue and an inclusive Syria can be found without recognizing the Kurds as a proper “people” or “nation” in Syria and providing unconditional support to the self-determination of the Kurdish people in Syria and elsewhere. This does not, however, justify being uncritical of any negative PYD policies (or any other Kurdish political party).
We can see that defeat of the Syrian uprising would probably mark the end of the Rojava experience and the return to an era of oppression for the Kurds of Syria. The Assad regime and the reactionary forces, which now dominate much of the scene in Syria would not allow any possible development of a political experience that is at odds with their authoritarianism.
We should oppose also all forms of sectarianism and racism. Our slogan should be “Our destinies are linked.” More generally we have to link once again the uprising in Syria to the uprisings in the region in other countries. Like this, we can see the links in our struggles and that each defeat of people in struggles for more democracy and social justice is a defeat for all. Despotic and authoritarian regimes learn from their experiences in repression and share them with their allies. This is a reality, and this is why we need more collaborations between progressive forces throughout the region.
What is the effect of Turkey’s invasion of Afrin on the Syrian and Rojava revolutions?
It is catastrophic in humanitarian aspect of course, but also politically.
So in mid-March 2018, as a reminder, the Turkish army and its Syrian proxies took over the city of Afrin, following the withdrawal of YPG forces of the city. Following the conquest and occupation of the city, fighters of the Syrian opposition armed groups linked to Ankara plundered and looted civilian residences and shops, while they tore down a statue of Kawa, a central and symbolic figure in a Kurdish legend about the new year celebration of Newroz. Nearly 100,000 people also fled their homes after the invasion of Afrin. This is not to forget that during the military campaign against Afrin, they also attacked civilians and mutilated the corpses of Kurdish YPG and YPJ soldiers and displayed it on social media, notably of a member of the Kurdish Women’s Protection Units, fueling ethnic tensions. Tensions were heightened, and ethnic divisions were deepened between Arabs and Kurds.
Opposition activists have to be clear in their opposition to the Syrian Coalition. The Syrian Coalition, composed mainly of liberal, Islamic and conservative personalities and groups, not only supported Turkish military intervention and continued its chauvinistic and racist policies against the Kurds in Syria, but also participated in this operation by calling Syrian refugees in Turkey to join the Syrian armed opposition groups fighting in Afrin. They have called for Turkish military intervention for a long time and have encouraged Arab chauvinism and racism against the Kurds, while even justifying and supporting the presence of Islamic fundamentalist movements. The Syrian fighters in Ankara have multiplied racist speeches against Kurds since the beginning of the military operation.
Turkey is also using this military intervention to serve internal objectives by crushing the Kurdish issue and satisfying the Turkish far right and extreme nationalists. In addition to this, and as I had mentioned on numerous occasions in the past, as the fight against Daesh is nearly completed, the USA has announced its willingness to withdraw its forces from Syria, which would leave the opportunity for Turkey to intervene military, just as in Afrin, in the northeastern areas of the country controlled by PYD, without opposition from the USA. Erdogan has actually declared that Turkish forces will press their offensive against Kurdish YPG fighters along the length of Turkey’s border with Syria and if necessary into northern Iraq.
How should the internationalist left respond to calls from some Syrians and Kurds for assistance from the United States military?
There is definitely no easy answer, especially when people are getting massacred on one side and, on the other, the USA has no willingness of any regime change in Syria, as has been the case since the beginning of the uprising, or, as we saw, to stop the Turkish intervention against the Kurds in Afrin.
Today the main issue is really demanding the end of the war, an end to all military interventions and guaranteeing rights for the civilians. I expanded on this issue in the last question.
However, while disagreeing with groups demanding military interventions, we should still maintain our solidarity with all the democratic and progressive forces in Syria as well as the Kurdish socialist and democratic forces that resist against the two actors of the counter revolution: the Assad regime on one side and the jihadist and Islamic reactionary forces on the other side.
From this perspective, what we can argue is that it is necessary to defend a local dynamic of self-defense rather than increasing the stranglehold of imperialism, and therefore we should also support the provision of weapons and arms to these democratic forces in the region to combat both counter-revolutionary forces. These are important element that could empower the democratic and progressive forces on the ground and give them the tools to defend themselves.
For the people who don’t feel at ease with the fact of demanding arms and weapons with no political conditions and strings attached from the West, I would like to invite them to read Trostky’s “Learn to Think.” [2]
This does not mean of course that we are uncritical of the leadership of these groups that have such demands, and we should maintain our independence and critical opinions, even when dealing with them.
We have to be clear that imperialist actors and regional powers all act according to an imperialist logic that maintains authoritarian and unjust systems. They all oppose the self-determination of the peoples of the region and their struggles for emancipation. Hence, anti-war activists whether in the Middle East or the West need to address all forms of repression and authoritarianism, and condemn all forms of foreign intervention against the interests of the people of the region.
What is Israel’s role in the conflict and view on regime change? How do you respond to those who say Assad’s regime is a champion of Palestine?
Unwilling to see any radical change at its borders, Israel favored a similar option in Syria to the USA’s. The main priorities of the Israeli state were firstly to prevent the civil war in Syria from spreading across its borders and secondly to prevent chemical weapons from falling into the hands of extremist Islamic groups or the transfer of significant arms to Hezbollah in Lebanon. In September 2017, former Israeli air force chief Amir Eshel declared Israel had hit arms convoys of the Syrian military and its Hezbollah allies nearly 100 times since the beginning of 2012. Assad’s regime, unwilling to provoke Israel, never responded to these interventions, except in February 2018 when an anti-aircraft fire downed an Israeli warplane returning from a bombing raid on Iran-backed positions in Syria. Israel then launched a second and more intensive air raid, hitting what it stated were 12 Iranian and Syrian targets in Syria, including Syrian air defense systems. Following this confrontation, both Israel and Syria signaled they were not seeking wider conflict, while Russia and the USA were concerned about any more violent escalation.
Israeli authorities also publicly stated their opposition to seeing any Iranian or Hezbollah troops close to its borders and called on Russia to prevent this from happening. In this context, Israel multiplied attacks, especially from 2017, against Hezbollah and pro-Iranian targets in Syria.
As a possible gesture to appease the apprehensions of the Israeli state, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi stressed at the end of February 2018 that his country’s presence in Syria at the invitation of Damascus was not aimed at creating a new front against Israel, but at combating terrorism. The main issue today for Israel is therefore the presence of Iran and Hezbollah close to its borders in Syria.
Regarding the second question, this is one of the biggest lies of the Syrian regime. Actually the final break in 1970 between Salah Jadid, de facto leader of Syria at the time, and Hafez al-Assad, who was Minister of Defense and head of the Air force, occurred following the refusal of Hafez al-Assad to support the government decision to allow the Palestinian Liberation Army (under command of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA)) to intervene in Jordan during the war in 1970 between the Palestinian resistance and King Hussayn’s army. This led to the bloody Black September with thousands Palestinians killed. The Ba’th party led by Jadid started a process to expel Assad from his positions of power, in order to dominate the army more firmly. The decision was never implemented. The army took control over the party headquarters, on the orders of Hafez al-Assad and Mustafa Tlass. This new bloody coup led to complete control of the party and of the regime by Assad.
As for anti-imperialism: the Assad regime has a history of collaboration with various imperialist forces. Assad’s regime forces entered Lebanon in 1976 to crush Palestinian and Lebanese leftist forces with the support and approval of the United States and Israel. Throughout the eighties you had the war of the camps between mostly Amal and Palestinian groups, and Syria was supporting Amal against the Palestinian groups and crushing them.
Less known, following 1982 and the crushing of Palestinian groups in Lebanon by the Syrian regime, Yarmouk camp, which is a neighborhood of Palestinians in Damascus, witnessed a couple of uprisings or protest movements on a massive level within Damascus. There was massive repression by the Syrian secretive services against them, with more than a 1,000 political prisoners throughout the eighties in Assad’s prisons.
In 1991, Syria supported the US led intervention against Iraq. From 1974 until 2011, not a single bullet was shot from Syria to liberate the occupied Golan. Assad was always ready to enter into a peace agreement with Israel if Israel gave back at least a section of the occupied Golan but Israel never wanted that. It wasn’t the opposite and it’s very important to understand this. Until this day they see Assad as the lesser evil, as the best guarantee for their own borders. So this is why they are happy with a weakened dictatorship in Syria, as opposed to regime change. Israel fears various uprisings in the region, because authoritarian regimes had interest to, directly or indirectly, collaborate with Israel and crush their own people along with the Palestinians. The best example was a statement made by Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s Minister of Foreign Affairs in 2011, when he declared that the biggest threat to Israel is a successful Egyptian revolution, an Egyptian democracy, and not Iran. Because this revolution could be extended to the region, and people liberating themselves will turn towards the Palestinian cause that has been a central cause for decades in the region. So no, definitely the Assad regime is very far from being an ally of the Palestinian people or of any of the peoples struggling for freedom and dignity.
Since 2011, there has been massive repression against Palestinians refugees in Syria. Syria’s Yarmouk camp suffered a horrible siege with hundreds of people dying of hunger etc. In the first week of the uprising Bouthaina Shaaban, the advisor of the Syrian regime, accused the Palestinians of fomenting sectarian strives within Syria, especially in Latakia etc. Several Palestinian refugee camps have been bombed. Today there’s more than 20,000 Palestinians wanted by the Assad regime.
I believe that the liberation of the popular classes of the region and of Palestine are linked. The liberation of Palestine and its popular classes is linked to the liberation and emancipation of the popular classes in the region against their ruling classes and the various imperialists, particularly the USA and Russia, and regional powers, such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar. In this similar logic we have to fight against all attempts by regimes and Islamic reactionary forces to divide the popular classes according to their gender, religious sects, nationalities, etc. in an attempt to rule them and therefore prevent their liberation and the Palestinian popular classes’ liberation as well.
What are some direct actions that anti-fascists and anti-authoritarians can take in solidarity with the Syrian people, including those being massacred in Ghouta, Idlib, and Afrin?
Multiple things should be done. I think anti-fascists and anti-authoritarians should call for an end to the war, which has created terrible suffering. It has led to massive displacement of people within the country and driven millions out of it as refugees. The war only benefits the counterrevolutionary forces on all sides. From both a political and humanitarian perspective, the end of the war in Syria is an absolute necessity.
Likewise, we must reject all the attempts to legitimize Assad’s regime, and we must oppose all agreements that enable it to play any role in the country’s future. A blank check given to Assad today will encourage future attempts by other despotic and authoritarian states to crush their populations if they come to revolt.
We have to guarantee as well the rights of civilians within Syria, particularly preventing more forced displacements and securing the rights of refugees (right of return, right for financial compensations in case of destruction of their houses, justice for the losses of their relatives, etc.).
Assad and his various partners in the regime must be held accountable for their crimes. The same goes for the Islamic fundamentalist and jihadist forces and other armed groups.
We need to support the democratic and progressive actors and movements against both sides of the counterrevolution: the regime and its Islamic fundamentalist opponents. We have to build a united front based on the initial objectives of the revolution: democracy, social justice, and equality, saying no to sectarianism and no to racism.
We of course need to oppose all imperialist and authoritarian actors intervening in Syria.
In their own countries, the left internationally should also struggle
for the opening of borders for migrants and refugees and against building walls or transforming Europe for example into a fortress that would turn the Mediterranean Sea into a cemetery of migrants
against all forms of Islamophobia and racism
against all cooperation of Western states with despotic regimes and the Apartheid, colonial and racist state of Israel (in this latter case, support BDS campaigns)
against more “security” and anti-democratic policies promoted in the name of “the war against terrorism.”
“Its Going Down”
our-destinies-are-linked-joseph-daher-on-the-syrian_a5455.pdf (PDF - 393.2 kb)
[1] see http://newsocialist.org/the-kurdish-crisis-in-iraq-and-syria/ http://newsocialist.org/the-kurdish...
[2] Marxist.org https://www.marxists.org/archive/tr...
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Joseph Daher
Joseph Daher is a Swiss-Syrian academic and activist. He is the author of Syria After the Uprising: The Political Economy of State Resilience (Pluto, 2019) and Hezbollah: The Political Economy of Lebanon’s Party of God (Pluto, 2016), and founder of the blog Syria Freedom Forever. He is also co-founder of the Alliance of Middle Eastern and North African Socialists.
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As filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on August 21, 2020
Registration No. 333-
FORM S-8
The Securities Act of 1933
ALTIMMUNE, INC.
910 Clopper Road Suite 201S
2017 OMNIBUS INCENTIVE PLAN
(Full Title of the Plan)
Dr. Vipin K. Garg
910 Clopper Road, Suite 201S
(Name, address, including zip code, and telephone number, including area code, of agent for service)
Copies to:
Joseph Theis, Jr., Esq.
Goodwin Procter LLP
100 Northern Ave
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, a smaller reporting company or an emerging growth company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer,” “smaller reporting company” and “emerging growth company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.
Large accelerated filer ☐ Accelerated filer ☐
Non-accelerated filer ☒ Smaller reporting company ☒
If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 7(a)(2)(B) of the Securities Act. ☐
CALCULATION OF REGISTRATION FEE
Title of Securities
to be Registered
Registered(1)
Offering Price
per Share(2)
Amount of
Common Stock, $0.0001 par value per share
1,066,810 shares(3) $25.02 $26,691,586.20 $3,464.57
Pursuant to Rule 416 under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “Securities Act”), this Registration Statement shall also cover any additional shares of the Registrant’s common stock, par value $0.0001 per share (the “Common Stock”) that become issuable under the Altimmune, Inc. 2017 Omnibus Incentive Plan, as amended (the “2017 Plan”) by reason of any stock split, stock dividend, recapitalization or other similar transaction effected without the Registrant’s receipt of consideration that results in an increase in the number of the Registrant’s outstanding shares of Common Stock.
Estimated solely for the purpose of calculating the registration fee pursuant to Rules 457(c) and 457(h) of the Securities Act on the basis of $25.02, the average of the high and low sale prices of the Registrant’s common stock as reported on the Nasdaq Global Market on August 19, 2019.
Represents an automatic increase to the number of shares available for issuance under the 2017 Plan, in accordance with the automatic annual increase provision of the 2017 Plan as amended. Shares available for issuance under the 2017 Plan were previously registered on Form S-8 filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on May 10, 2017 (Registration No. 333-217846).
Proposed sales to take place as soon after the effective date of the Registration Statement as awards are granted, exercised or distributed under the 2017 Plan.
STATEMENT OF INCORPORATION BY REFERENCE
This Registration Statement on Form S-8 registers an additional 1,066,810 shares of Common Stock under the 2017 Plan. The additional shares are of the same class as other securities relating to the 2017 Plan for which the Registrant’s registration statement filed on Form S-8 (File No. 333-217846) on May 10, 2017 (the “Registration Statement”), is effective. The information contained in the Registration Statement is hereby incorporated by reference pursuant to General Instruction E.
INFORMATION REQUIRED IN THE REGISTRATION STATEMENT
See the Exhibit Index below for a list of exhibits filed as part of this registration statement on Form S-8, which Exhibit Index is incorporated herein by reference.
4.1 Amended and Restated Certificate of Incorporation of the Registrant (incorporated by reference to the Current Report on Form 8-K (File No. 001-32587) filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on October 18, 2017).
4.2 Certificate of Amendment to Amended and Restated Certificate of Incorporation regarding a reverse stock split (incorporated by reference to the Current Report on Form 8-K (File No. 001-32587) filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on September 13, 2018).
4.3 Certificate of Amendment to Amended and Restated Certificate of Incorporation regarding an increase in authorized shares (incorporated by reference to the Current Report on Form 8-K (File No. 001-32587) filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on September 13, 2018).
4.4 Amended and Restated Bylaws of the Registrant (incorporated by reference to the Current Report on Form 8-K (File No. 001-32587) filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on October 18, 2017).
5.1* Opinion of Goodwin Procter LLP.
23.1* Consent of Ernst & Young LLP, independent registered public accounting firm.
23.2* Consent of Goodwin Procter LLP (included in Exhibit 5.1).
24.1* Power of Attorney (included on signature page).
99.1 2017 Omnibus Incentive Plan and forms of award agreements thereunder (incorporated by reference to the Registration Statement on Form S-8 (File No. 333-217846) filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on May 10, 2017).
99.2 Amendment to the Altimmune, Inc. 2017 Omnibus Incentive Plan (incorporated by reference to the Definitive Proxy Statement on Schedule 14A (File No. 001-32587) filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on July 26, 2018).
Filed herewith
Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, the registrant certifies that it has reasonable grounds to believe that it meets all of the requirements for filing on Form S-8 and has duly caused this Registration Statement to be signed on its behalf by the undersigned, thereunto duly authorized, in the City of Gaithersburg, State of Maryland, on the 21st day of August, 2020.
/s/ Vipin K. Garg
Vipin K. Garg, Ph.D.
POWER OF ATTORNEY AND SIGNATURES
KNOW ALL BY THESE PRESENT, that each individual whose signature appears below hereby constitutes and appoints each of Vipin K. Garg, Ph.D. and William Brown as such person’s true and lawful attorney-in-fact and agent with full power of substitution and resubstitution, for such person in such person’s name, place and stead, in any and all capacities, to sign any and all amendments (including post-effective amendments) to this Registration Statement on Form S-8, and to file the same, with all exhibits thereto, and all documents in connection therewith, with the Securities and Exchange Commission granting unto each said attorney-in-fact and agent full power and authority to do and perform each and every act and thing requisite and necessary to be done in and about the premises, as fully to all intents and purposes as such person might or could do in person, hereby ratifying and confirming all that any said attorney-in-fact and agent, or any substitute or substitutes of any of them, may lawfully do or cause to be done by virtue hereof.
Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, this Registration Statement has been signed by the following person in the capacities and on the date indicated.
Name Title Date
President, Chief Executive Officer and Director August 21, 2020
Vipin K. Garg, Ph.D. (Principal Executive Officer)
/s/ William Brown
Chief Financial Officer August 21, 2020
William Brown (Principal Financial and Accounting Officer)
/s/ Mitchel Sayare
Chairman of the Board, Director August 21, 2020
Mitchel Sayare, Ph.D.
/s/ David J. Drutz
Director August 21, 2020
David J. Drutz, M.D.
/s/ John M. Gill
John M. Gill
/s/ Philip L. Hodges
Philip L. Hodges
/s/ Diane Jorkasky
Diane Jorkasky, M.D.
/s/ Wayne Pisano
Wayne Pisano
/s/ Klaus O. Schafer
Klaus O. Schafer, M.D., MPH
EX-5.1
Exhibit 5.1
100 Northern Avenue
goodwinlaw.com
Re: Securities Being Registered under Registration Statement on Form S-8
Ladies and Gentlemen:
We have acted as counsel to you in connection with your filing of a Registration Statement on Form S-8 (the “Registration Statement”) pursuant to the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “Securities Act”), on or about the date hereof relating to an aggregate of 1,066,810 shares (the “Shares”) of Common Stock, $0.0001 par value per share, of Altimmune, Inc., a Delaware corporation (the “Company”), that may be issued pursuant to the Company’s 2017 Omnibus Incentive Plan (the “Plan”).
We have reviewed such documents and made such examination of law as we have deemed appropriate to give the opinions set forth below. We have relied, without independent verification, on certificates of public officials and, as to matters of fact material to the opinion set forth below, on certificates of officers of the Company.
The opinion set forth below is limited to the Delaware General Corporation Law.
For purposes of the opinion set forth below, we have assumed that no event occurs that causes the number of authorized shares of Common Stock available for issuance by the Company to be less than the number of then unissued Shares.
Based on the foregoing, we are of the opinion that the Shares have been duly authorized and, upon issuance and delivery against payment therefor in accordance with the terms of the Plan, will be validly issued, fully paid and nonassessable.
We hereby consent to the inclusion of this opinion as Exhibit 5.1 to the Registration Statement. In giving our consent, we do not admit that we are in the category of persons whose consent is required under Section 7 of the Securities Act or the rules and regulations thereunder.
/s/ GOODWIN PROCTER LLP
EX-23.1
CONSENT OF INDEPENDENT REGISTERED PUBLIC ACCOUNTING FIRM
We consent to the incorporation by reference in the Registration Statement (Form S-8) pertaining to the Altimmune, Inc. 2017 Omnibus Incentive Plan, as amended of our report dated March 27, 2020 with respect to the consolidated financial statements of Altimmune Inc. included in its Annual Report (Form 10-K) for the year ended December 31, 2019, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
/s/ Ernst & Young LLP
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The Maserati Quattroporte Is A Rich Young Woman's Car In China
Zac Estrada
Sometimes the same cars that sell to old people in the U.S. and Europe sell to a very different crowd in China. Buick is one of the best examples, earning a decent foothold among up-and-coming Chinese consumers while it was saddled with a senior citizen image here. Now, it's Maserati's turn to find a new audience.
Case-in-point is the new Quattroporte. Automotive News Europe spoke to Maserati's CEO, Harald Wester, who said 40% of Quattroporte buyers in China are "very successful young businesswoman who love European craftsmanship and want to be chauffeured."
That goes up next to the fact Maserati claims just 5% of its American and European customers are women.
Wester said there's also an age difference in their, as the average Maserati buyer in China is 37, compared to 55 elsewhere.
A couple of takeaways here: That stretch in the Quattroporte's length has really paid off for the company, even if the car does not look as good as before. And second, the coveted rich 37-year-old woman demographic is a great one to have.
So the next thing you'll hear is Maserati's big effort to shake off its old person's image in the West. Oh great.
Photo: Maserati
spanfucker retire bitch
What the hell is the point of being chauffeured in a Maserati? It's not like it's a Rolls or anything. It's a driver's car - at least that's what I always thought.
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Jessica Paster
The Future is Green
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21+ Animals That Start With The Letter L | Names & Pictures
JC Paster
Animals that Start with L – It is known that we are the human not living alone on this earth. There are many wonderful creatures outside there; the plants and animals in which the viability is needed to be maintained and saved.
Aside from the animals we often see in our daily life, let’s say the birds, cats, ants, lizards, and others, there are surely many others outside there that we need to know.
Well, in this article, some animals with L initial are enlisted and described. What are they?
1. Ladybird (Ladybug)
Compared to any other small insects, the ladybird or ladybug tends to be more recognizable for its shape. Yes, it has red brisket with black spots. Initially, ladybird was considered one of Hemiptera members for the sizes and the back armors. But later, it is known as a different species and included in the family of Coleoptera.
The insect can be found all around the world. Farmers commonly just love it for its habit to eat smaller insects that are disadvantageous for the farming and crops. However, some sub-species of ladybug are actually also the pests.
2. Llama
Llama is the member of the group of Camelidae and it is the endemic animal of South America. In the past, Llama was utilized as the means of transportation by the Inca tribe particularly to carry the stuff. Nowadays, it is one of the conservative animals.
In nature, llama can be found in the Andes Mountain with the characters as follows. The height is up to 1.8 meters and the weight is around 150 kg. They live in colonies.
3. Leopard
Leopard is one of the big cats with a length up to 2 meters. It is known for the climbing ability. Therefore, the animals are often seen on the branches whether in the zoo or in the wildlife. The name of Leopard was created for the early assumption that the cat was the hybrids of the lion and tiger.
The spreading of leopard is around Asia and Africa continents. Meanwhile, there are many variants of the animal up to 30 sub-species. Unfortunately, the leopard is one of the species that is endangered.
4. Lobster
Lobster is known for how it is later processed and cooked in various delicious cuisines. It is included in the family of Nephropidae and also often grouped in the Crustacean. Although people may only know it as one of the seafood, there are actually more than 30 sub-species of lobsters in the world. There are only some of them which are edible.
Generally, the main characteristics of this animal are placed on its bright red body color and the sharp thongs that are also functioned as the weapons.
5. Lynx
Lynx is one of about 17 wild cats with the medium sizes. The term Lynx itself actually refers to the name of a genus. But since there are many contradictions in the way to group them, some scientists tend to categorize the animal in the genus Felis.
This animal has some unique characteristics compared to the other cats. The tail is short and they are little parts in black on the tips of the earlobes. The neck has some black lines and the claws are big enough to help them while walking on the snowy and icy areas.
Lion or Panthera Leo is one of the Felidae family members. In other words, it is still in the same groups with the cute animals, the cats. The difference is that this animal has a bigger size as well as it is known as the wild creature.
Lion lives in groups consisting of one male and many females. Each group protects its own area so that the other groups cannot come forward. The lifespan of a lion is from 10 to 15 years in nature. Meanwhile, for them that live in the conservative areas, the lions may live up to 20 years. Lions are good hunters but uniquely, the female tends to be more active and aggressive.
7. Lizard
Lizard is one of the land scaled animals with four legs. It is known as the reptile and it has the closest relation to some other animals including gecko, home lizard, and chameleon. The scale itself is not similar to the fish’s scales. It tends to be more slippery.
Although people may refer the lizard to one particular species, the sub-species is actually various. They are distinguished from the size, shapes, and color patterns. Meanwhile, although it looks sparkling and slippery, the scales are actually really dry since lizard doesn’t have any pores on the skin to take out the sweat or oil.
8. Liger
Liger is actually the result of the hybrids between the male lions and the female tigers. In general, the breed forms a big lion known for the long hair but with the stripes just like the tiger. Commonly, the lion characteristics are more dominant here.
In term of the behavior, a liger is able to swim just like the tiger. However, it is good also in socializing like the lion. The animal is only able to survive in the particular situations since the tiger and lion habitats are quite different.
9. Lemur
Lemur is an animal from the primate order widely found in the areas of Madagascar, Africa. The meaning of lemur itself is the ghost of the spirit. Supposedly, it is due to the animal’s eyes that can reflect the light at night as well as its very loud scream.
Physically, the height of the animals from the head to the body is approximately 28-56 cm. The tail is very long with the white and black stripes. The body itself is reddish brown with some parts in grey. Particularly the face, it is white with the bright brown eyes.
10. Lion Fish
This salt-water animal is known for its dangerously beautiful image. Physically, it is indeed really stunning with the thorns that can be bloomed when it feels threatened. This way, it makes the enemies want to be closer to them. But this is the case; the thorns contain poison that may be dangerous for the human and other animals.
Lion fish is grouped in the genus of Pterois with the appearance that is indeed quite similar to the lion. The fishes are widely found in some oceans but it was actually originated from the area of Indo-pacific. The approximate length is around 5-45 cm.
11. Long-eared Owl
The long-eared owl is one of the animals with the medium size with yellowish brown feathers and some spots all over the body. Although the bird is named that way, it actually doesn’t really have any long tail. The so-called ears are the feather tassels right on the sides of the head.
Female long-eared owls have darker colors than the males. The tassels are not only functioned as the decoration. It muffles the sound especially when it flies. Therefore, even when they pass through such a quiet area, there will be no enemy to hear their flapping wings.
12. Leatherback Sea Turtle
The leatherback sea turtle is one of the biggest tortoise species in the world. Indeed, it looks so cute when it is still a baby but when it grows into an adult, the weight is even up to 900 kg. Slightly, the tortoise’s appearance is not different from any other tortoises in general. But once it opens the mouth, you can see that there is something hidden inside.
Yes, although the leatherback sea turtle doesn’t have any tooth at all, there are many big and sharp thorns functioned to crush and smash the foods before it swallows them up. Daily, the tortoise must consume around 800-900 kg foods indeed and its favorite food is the jellyfish.
13. Lemming
nationaleographic.com
Lemming is a name of a small rodent which is quite similar to the hamster. But if the hamsters can be found anywhere all around the world, the habitat of lemming is on the poles particularly on the areas of tundra.
Just like any other polar animals, lemming’s body is covered by the fur. The back’s fur has a darker color than the fur of the other parts. The teeth continuously grow up so that it needs to grind the foods to avoid them being too long. A unique thing about this animal is regarding the behavior of the “mass suicide” by jumping to the sea. Supposedly, they do that to limit their population by themselves.
14. Lorikeet
Lorikeet is known for its colorful feathers. Therefore, it is also often called the rainbow lorikeet. Being one of the Australasia cockatoo species, it can be simply found in the areas of Australia, eastern Indonesia, New Guinea, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, and Solomon Islands.
Indeed, the habitat of this bird is mainly in the tropical rain forest areas. Originally, the term lorikeet is a general name for many types of birds. There are more than 10 sub-species with various shapes and colors.
15. Loris
Loris is one of the cute but deadly animals in the world. Slightly, it indeed looks so tiny, sweet, and shy with the length of only about 15-25 cm. Meanwhile, the eyes are quite large for their small faces to help them to hunt at night. Although their main foods are insects, they can also eat the fruits.
But behind its innocent look, Loris is also very poisonous. It produces the venom through the gland placed on the elbows and then it flows into the mouth cavity. If you are bitten or accidentally you swallow the venom, it causes an extreme stomachache.
16. Leafcutter Ant
From many sub-species of ant in the world, there is one of them with such an amazing ability. One of them is the leafcutter ant. Literally, the name refers to the ability of this ain’t to cut off the leaves. But if the human has been bitten by it, your skin can just be simply bleeding.
The primary strength of this ant is from the claws or tweezers. Once it bites even a hard matter, it can easily break it. Sure, the claws are indeed the main weapons of these South American animals to face the enemies.
17. Leech
Leech is an animal included in the phylum of Annelida and the family of Hirudinea. There are many types of leech all around the world; they live on the land, freshwater, and ocean. They have a feature namely Clitellum to keep the eggs in particular segments. Besides, it is a hermaphrodite or has double sex organs.
In general, the classification of the leech is not based on the taxonomy but the habitats. Some of the leech is able to live outside the water with the note that the area must be wet and humid. Most of the species are carnivores and even some of them are considered predators.
18. Leopard Seal
The seal is named Leopard for the black dots all over the body. Yes, leopard indeed has such a characteristic. However, quite different from the big cat in which the fur is dominated by the brown or yellow colors, the leopard seal is still similar to the other seals in general. The body colors are dominated by white and dark grey.
This animal lives in the cold areas particularly in Antarctica and the oceans of Sub-Antarctica. They eat penguins by waiting for those animals underwater. Once the penguins jump to the sea, the leopard seal can just catch and attack them.
19. Limpet
Limpet is one of the ocean mollusks and it is famous for having very strong shells. The other physical characteristics are the beautiful appearances with the light blue stripes. The stripes are produced by the reflection of the blue light spectrum entered.
The general characteristics of limpet are indeed that way. However, there are actually some other sub-species with different shapes and colors. Those stunning colors are arranged from the solid calcium carbonate and thromboses and the thing organic layers.
20. Locust
Locust is a type of insects classified in the order of Orthoptera. Orthoptera itself refers to any insects with an incomplete metamorphosis cycle or known also as Paurometabolus. Aside from locus, the other insects in the category are several types of the grasshopper, crickets, lubber, acrida, and many more.
Locust and some other insects in this order have the ability to release sound by rubbing the wings one to another or with the rear legs. The wings and the legs’ surfaces are not smooth. They have rows of bum that ease them in doing many activities. The ears or Tympanium of Locust are placed on the first abdominal segments.
21. Lion Tailed Macaque
The lion-tailed macaque or Wanderoo is one of the old-world endemic primates that still survive until nowadays. Originally, it comes from the areas of the Western Ghat, South India. The naming itself is due to the animal’s hair that is quite thick and long just like the lion. The white long hair covers its small face. Meanwhile, the body’s hair is grey.
Unfortunately, this primordial species has been endangered recently. It is due to the hunting as well as the habitat that is getting more and more limited.
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Tags: Animals
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Needs and Responses
Catalog of Needs and Responses
Using data from our members and partner agencies, Jewish Funders Network is collecting and curating systemwide and sector-specific nonprofit needs, examples of how funders are responding, and available resources. Please note, this is a work in progress, and we are constantly updating these pages.
In addition to killing hundreds of thousands of people around the world so far, COVID-19 is leaving a trail of economic destruction, with ripple effects in almost every sector. Jewish nonprofits, like their nonsectarian counterparts, must confront multiple challenges at once: increased demand for services, fewer opportunities to generate revenue, and, as the stock market plunges, donors with less disposable income.
(North America)
Innovation and Startups
Synagogues and Spiritual Communities
Teen Engagement
U.K. Jewry
Young Adult/
While first-responder and health organizations directly confronting coronavirus of course face the most immediate challenges, those that serve people who are elderly, sick and/or in poverty also face monumental challenges, since these constituencies are most vulnerable both to the virus and to its economic impact. But the wider sphere of nonprofits, ranging from Jewish day schools to arts organizations are also at great risk. In addition to the challenges shared with everyone — economic downturn; the need to cancel programs and operations, including ones that generate needed revenue; concern about the health and well-being of employees and volunteers; making payroll and addressing cash-flow needs; adapting from in-person programming, services and workplaces to a remote, online one — they also risk being deemed non-essential or of lesser priority as funders turn their attention to more urgent needs.
Meanwhile, Israel’s nonprofit sector is grappling with an additional challenge on top of the coronavirus and its fallout: The country is still recovering from a lengthy period with no government, and the ensuing slowdown of essential government allocations, a critical source of nonprofit revenue, particularly in the human services sector.
JFN is working to map the overall needs, responses and resources in general and by sector. We are also mapping funders’ needs so that we can support them in their efforts to respond as effectively — and quickly — as possible to the vast needs.
What follows is a brief summary of our general findings. Each page (see links at the top of this page) lists in detail the findings specific to each sector. Please note that this is a work-in-progress and very much incomplete — we will continue to update these pages with new information as it becomes available, and we encourage our members to share information with us. Please also keep in mind that it is too soon to know the full extent of needs, and that it’s critical for funders to respond to immediate needs while also ensuring they keep resources available for the long tail of the crisis.
One overriding need in this crisis: To respond effectively, the Jewish community must make full use of its networks, intermediate organizations, national umbrella organizations and coordinating bodies like JFN and the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA).
As JFNA noted in a July update on business continuity issues for major Jewish communal networks:
In general, if the early stages of response by all the organizations could be described as a very long and intensive sprint, everyone is repositioning to address what is now clearly a marathon … Most national networks have been through layoffs and furloughs at both the national and local levels, some because of immediate impacts on their revenue and others because they are planning for what they anticipate will be an exceedingly difficult year ahead. Some organizations have had to react to both factors. SBA Payroll Protection Program (PPP) loans were accessed heavily across these networks and bought valuable time for the national organizations and their local affiliates to sustain key staff and enable the organizations to plan more thoughtfully for the year ahead. JFNA estimates that about 1,300 Jewish organizations received PPP loans totaling more than $512M.
As of July, the Jewish communal workforce was estimated to have contracted by about 20 percent since the beginning of the Covid crisis.
Many funders and foundations say they are either doing or exploring the following: shifting from project-based grants to general support, creating new emergency and rapid-response funds, loosening reporting requirements, allowing already approved project grant funds to be used at the discretion of the grantee rather than for the original purpose, eliminating matching-gift requirements, offering loans and bridge funding and offering technical support to grantees.
They are also stepping up communication with grantees — via emails, phone calls and Zoom calls, emphasizing that they will continue to support the grantees, that they will fulfill all previous commitments even if the grantee is unable to implement specific projects, and asking grantees to tell them what they need. Some foundations are exploring increasing their giving beyond the 5 percent legal minimum and “invading their endowment,” while others report they are recalibrating their investment portfolios to give them more financial liquidity.
Funders, including federations, have reported: new grants addressing food insecurity; distributing pledged payments ahead of schedule; creating a “modest rapid-response grant fund that allows us to provide some immediate financial support to address time-sensitive needs of current grantees.” As of December 2020, UJA-Federation of New York had allocated $64 million in emergency funding, including grants to expand food distribution and support the operational capacity of key human service agencies, Jewish community centers, to assist low-income populations, and to ensure that no Jewish casualty of the virus will be denied a dignified burial.
In April, JFNA launched the more than $80 million Jewish Community Response and Impact Fund (JCRIF), supported by a seven foundations, including the Aviv Foundation, the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Foundation, the Jim Joseph Foundation, Maimonides Fund, the Paul E. Singer Foundation, and the Wilf Family Foundation, which will operate in coordination with the JFNA. The invite-only program is divided in two, with a loan program based at the Nonprofit Finance Fund, providing payroll and basic operational assistance for non-profits in the coming months. In July, JCRIF announced it had made $10 million in grants to more than 20 Jewish organizations, as well as $20 million in no-interest loans, with $20 million more in loans under consideration. More details about JCRIF, including a JFN webinar, here.
Funders are also looking into non-financial supports, such as offers of in-kind services, providing financial planning and scenario-planning advice to grantees, convening a WhatsApp group for grantees to support one another and share information with one another; convening weekly calls with the heads of large grantees/agencies. Another area of focus is lobbying and advocacy to ensure that government resources are available for grantees and that they know how to access them. Toward that end, Jewish Federations of North America developed a website and a series of webinars to help Jewish nonprofits learn about the CARE Act and how to apply for Small Business and Nonprofit (SBA) loans.
Many are also seeking out opportunities to pool their resources with other funders or to build partnerships. For example, the Jewish Federation of San Diego County, Jewish Community Foundation of San Diego and Leichtag Foundation have partnered to establish a $1.6 million San Diego Jewish Community COVID-19 Emergency Fund that will “gather information about community needs and immediately allocate funds.”
In July, JFNA reported that:
In addition to accelerating already planned campaigns, Federations launched emergency campaigns and drew from endowments to inject a total of $175M in additional funds into the 146 Federation communities during the first three months of the crisis. They also took active roles in helping their community organizations to access the federal PPP loans and the private JCRIF loans.
JFNA also reported that Federations:
have played very strong convening roles in their local communities, and many have marshalled extensive additional resources to sustain local community services and long-standing overseas commitments. Federations are now increasingly focused on how to develop and manage complex community development and planning processes to help reshape the local communal landscape given the anticipated hard times ahead.
See more in the “News from Funders” section of our Resource Hub.
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Tag: ‘Pink Friday’
Posted in 'Pink Friday', Gracing Pages, Jay Z, Kanye West, magazine, Nicki Minaj, YRB Magazine
Gracing Pages: Nicki Minaj Graces the Pages of YRB Magazine
Posted on November 4, 2010 by JNEL & J. Magazine
Nicki Minaj is being featured in the latest issue of YRB magazine. Inside she addresses the haters and opens up about her life. The photos look DOPE!!
Check out some excerpts from her interview after the jump….
On “Monster” Being The Pivotal Moment In Her Career
That has to be the breakout Nicki Minaj moment. That was my moment “People paid attention because of who was on it and because I held my own and I stayed true to my crazy animation, and it’s like I didn’t have to take my fun stuff out. I was able to incorporate Nicki Minaj on a record with Jay-Z and Kanye West. And I think people know that’s a difficult task in itself.”
On Female Rappers Who Don’t Support Her
These girls aren’t mad at me. They’re mad at themselves,” she states, shooting down questions on why she never took Kim’s bait. “[It’s] jealousy, insecurity and being broke. When you haven’t capitalized and you see I’m about to capitalize on this sh*t like it’s never been done before, then you’re mad at yourself.
On being afraid to release her album
I was so afraid to put out an album for fear of failure. I wanted to put my album out on Valentine’s Day of 2011. And my label was like, are you f*cking crazy?”
On ‘Pink Friday’
I know that ‘Pink Friday’ is a classic album. I have never been this proud of anything in my life,” she says. “I just think that it’s such a dynamic body of work. I’m no longer afraid to drop it. Now, I know it’s time…..
Read the full interview over @ YRB Magazine.com.
Source: YRB
Nicki Minaj Talks ‘Pink Friday’ With YRB Magazine (justjared.buzznet.com)
Nicki Minaj Was Once ‘Afraid’ To Release Pink Friday (mtv.com)
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Posted in 'Pink Friday', “Roman’s Revenge”, Eminem, Music, Music In Ya Ear, New Music, Nicki Minaj
Music In Ya Ear!: Nicki Minaj ft Eminem – “Roman’s Revenge”
Here is a new track by Nicki Minaj titled, ” Roman’s Revenge” in which features none other than Eminem . Both artists dedicate some words to their critics over the Swizz Beatz-produced beat. The track will appear on Minaj’s much anticipated album ‘Pink Friday’, which is due November 22nd.
Track is DOPE!!
Listen to the track below…
‘Pink Friday’ can be pre-ordered – HERE.
“Nicki Minaj featuring Eminem — Roman’s Revenge” and related posts (hypebeast.com)
Nicki Minaj & Eminem: ‘Roman’s Revenge’ Song Premiere! (justjared.buzznet.com)
Nicki Minaj ‘In Shock’ Over Eminem Collaboration ‘Roman’s Revenge’ (mtv.com)
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Posted in 'Dark Twisted Fantasy World', 'Dark Twisted Fantasy', 'Pink Friday', Album Artwork, Album Cover, Kanye West, Nicki Minaj
Album Cover: Nicki Minaj Unveils Album Cover for ‘Pink Friday’
Posted on October 17, 2010 by JNEL & J. Magazine
On Friday Nicki Minaj unveiled the new album cover for her highly anticipated debut album, ‘Pink Friday’. The album will now be released, Friday, November 22, which is actually one day earlier than it’s original set release date. It will now go head-to-head with Kanye West‘s, ‘Dark Twisted Fantasy World’.
Will you be buying Nicki’s Album or Kanye’s Album? Or both?
Posted in "All of the Lights", "Avril 14th", "Blame Game", "Christian Dior Denim Flow", "Dark Fantasy", "Fantasy tour", "Ghetto University", "Good Fridays", "Griffin", "I’m So Appalled", "Lord Lord Lord", "Lost in the World", "Power", "Runaway", "So Appalled", "The Wall", "Monster", 'Dark Twisted Fantasy', 'My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy', 'Pink Friday', 'Purple Rain', 'Thriller', 'Watch the Throne', Alicia Keys, Aphex Twin, Bon Iver, Charlie Wilson, Cyhi da Prince, Elly Jackson, G.O.O.D Friday, Jay Z, John Legend, Justin Vernon, Kid Cudi, La Roux, Lloyd Banks, M.I.A., Michael Jackson, Mos Def, MTV Uk, Music News, Nicki Minaj, No I.D, Pete Rock, Pink Floyd, Pusha T, Raekwon, Rick Ross, Ryan Leslie, RZA, Santigold, Selita Ebanks, Swizz Beats, Tom Thorogood, Wu-Tang
Music News: Kanye West Reveals Album Title Plus Features M.I.A. ~ La Roux & Alicia Keys Amongst Others On The Album!
Kanye West announced the official album title on Tuesday morning (October 5) via his Twitter. The name has been floating around for some time in various rumor reports and blog postings, but in the shorter iteration of ‘Dark Twisted Fantasy’.
“The first song on the album is called “Dark Fantasy” produced by the RZA, co-produced by me and No I.D.” West added. “I ain’t letting no leaks have any [effect] on my song choices… “All of the Lights” is the next single, but wait till y’all hear the final!”
On Monday, West also confirmed the album’s release date, November 22. The project will arrive a day before Nicki Minaj‘s debut, ‘Pink Friday,’ and a number of other albums getting a jumpstart on the holiday shopping season.
The first two singles from ‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’ have already been released, “Power” and “Runaway,” featuring Pusha T.
Another track scheduled to appear on the project, “Lost in the World,” leaked online last week, leading West to announce he was canceling his weekly free “G.O.O.D. Fridays” music offering. But by Friday night, he recanted and delivered the sartorial “Christian Dior Denim Flow,” featuring John Legend, Kid Cudi, Pusha T, Lloyd Banks and Ryan Leslie.
On Tuesday, West also assured fans of the G.O.O.D offerings that some of those songs would be included on the album too.
In other news….
Kanye West’s ‘Runaway’ London Screening Was A ‘Mad Event’
After showing ‘surreal’ film, West stuck around for two hours of Q&A, MTV UK reporter says. Kanye West invited a very select group of about 100 journalists and bloggers to the Wednesday-night London screening of his 35-minute art film for the song “Runaway.” Among them was MTV UK reporter Tom Thorogood, who got on the phone on Thursday morning (October 7) to talk about the typically over-the-top audience with the Louis Vuitton Don.
“It was a mad event,” Thorogood said of the screening, which included a rambling two-hour Q&A session during which West took any and all questions about the film and his upcoming albums. “Halfway through, an American guy from his label asked for one last question and just as the person asked it, Kanye said, ‘Why is this the last question?’ and said he was happy to talk as long as people wanted him to.”
Thorogood said there are perhaps only two dozen words spoken in the “ambitious … great looking” 35-minute art movie, whose narrative he described as “very loose and abstract.” If anything, he suspected it could be chopped up into five separate mind-bending music videos, though it only uses heavily altered snippets of West‘s music that are quite different from the versions of such songs as “Monster,” “Runaway” and the Bon Iver-sampling “Lost in the World” that fans have heard so far.
“It opens with shots of Kanye in a sports car and slow motion shots of deer and then you see a huge explosion and you see he’s crashed into the Phoenix,” said Thorogood of the other star of the film, model Selita Ebanks, who plays the Phoenix and who has been seen on ‘Ye’s arm at events lately. “He picks her up in his arms and walks away from the car which explodes behind him.” The title of the film then flashes on the screen and the first voice you hear is a snippet of Nicki Minaj‘s English-accented rhyme from “Monster.”
In another scene, Thorogood said you hear a brief bit of “Power,” which Kanye taps out on the same kind of MPC drum machine he played on both the VMAs and on “Saturday Night Live.” The three- to four-minute bit features Ebanks silently dancing around West as the song plays. “It was quite clear that [the movie is about] what he said about this before being about his story … a representation of his career,” Thorogood said.
And in a setup cued to the new song “Lights” that is likely to be the most iconic of the film, Thorogood said Kanye (a.k.a. “Griffin”) and the Phoenix watch as a marching band stomps across the screen carrying a giant, somewhat flimsy-looking papier-mâché model of Michael Jackson‘s head.
“With the passing of Michael Jackson, I feel a responsibility to bring things to our generation that can inspire and bring real culture to pop culture,” West told the audience in London about the film shot over four grueling days in Prague last month. “I want to use my power in a proper way.”
In another pivotal scene, West and the Phoenix arrive for a formal dinner at a huge table and are given weird looks by their fellow diners, one of whom asks, “Why didn’t you leave the monkey in the zoo?”
Thorogood said the film had French subtitles for the sparse dialogue, which were likely a holdover from Tuesday night’s screening in Paris, since West said the version he showed in London was still a rough cut. Among the other new songs featured in the movie is one called “Blame Game,” which contains a healthy sample of the melancholy piano groove in cult electronic musician Aphex Twin‘s 2001 song “Avril 14th,” as well as vocals from frequent ‘Ye collaborator John Legend, which the rapper said may or may not make the final cut of the album.
West introduced the film to his London audience by saying, ” ‘Purple Rain,’ [Pink Floyd’s] ‘The Wall,’ Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ — I wanted to do a modern version of that.” He also said that about “90 percent” of the music featured in the film appears on his upcoming fifth album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, due out on November 22.
Plus….
Kanye West Adds M.I.A., La Roux And Alicia Keys To Album, ‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy,’ which might also feature Jay-Z, Kid Cudi, Mos Def and Santigold.
It was the court of the Crimson King (remember the red suit at the VMAs?) on Wednesday in London as Kanye West spoke to a select group of journalists and bloggers about his upcoming “Runaway” mini-movie and accompanying album, ‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy,’ due out November 22.
In addition to screening the nearly wordless, trippy fantasia on the high prices of fame and individuality, ‘Ye also dropped some information on a number of the collaborators he’s got lined up for the album. According to our colleague Tom Thorogood of MTV UK, during a rambling two-hour Q&A session, West mentioned that he’s been in the studio with everyone from Alicia Keys to M.I.A., Kid Cudi, Mos Def and Santigold working on tracks for Fantasy.
He also confirmed that Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon is “all over” the album, a fact we already learned when a demo of “Lost in the World” recently leaked, which features re-recorded vocals from the BI track “Woods.” The pair reportedly recorded at least nine tracks together, and West has said Vernon is slated to appear on multiple songs.
Among the other new tracks featured in the movie is “Blame Game,” which contains a healthy sample of the melancholy piano groove in cult electronic musician Aphex Twin’s 2001 song “Avril 14th,” as well as vocals from frequent ‘Ye collaborator John Legend, which may or may not make the album’s final cut. Other collaborators who’ve dropped in on sessions include Wu-Tang mastermind RZA and hip-hop icon Pete Rock.
The spate of collaborations is no surprise, considering West has already dropped a number of singles packed with bold-faced names as part of his “G.O.O.D. Friday” series, including “So Appalled” (RZA, Jay-Z, Pusha T, Swizz Beatz, CyHi Da Prynce), “Lord Lord Lord” (Mos Def, Swizz Beatz, Raekwon, Charlie Wilson) and “Monster” (Jay-Z, Rick Ross, Bon Iver, Nicki Minaj).
NME also reports that West said the album could feature vocals from La Roux‘s flame-haired frontwoman, Elly Jackson, as well as Chicago hip-hop don producer No ID.
‘Ye also said he’s traveling back to France soon — he debuted the film there Tuesday — to finish work on his mini-album with Jay-Z, ‘Watch the Throne’.
And, in typically epic Kanye fashion, the Chicago MC said he’s planning a spectacular live show for the “Fantasy tour”, which he wants to wind up in front of the Egyptian pyramids. Unfortunately, he told the crowd, they’re not available until April.
Which Kanye collabo are you most excited about?
Listen to Kanye West ft. Drake – “All Of The Lights (Ghetto University)” below….
Source: MTV News
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The Do-Over Review
Published on June 19, 2016 June 19, 2016 by Just Alright Reviews
“…exploits childish humour, but alienates the “family audience” by having very adult themes as well as unnecessary nudity”
Last night i decided to watch The Do-Over and it is a decision that I will always regret having made. Unfortunately (or fortunately if you’re an optimist) there is really no way for me to discuss this movie without spoiling the plot. If you are upset by this fact please direct all of your anger at Adam Sandler for making a film that relies very heavily on plot twists. While you are getting mad at him for that, also get mad at him for making a terrible movie.
I don’t hate Adam Sandler, in fact I admire him. Adam Sandler has found a way to follow his dreams by making movies with his friends. There is not a day that goes by that I don’t wish i was him. Sure, his movies aren’t for everyone but who cares? Definitely not Adam Sandler (at least he shouldn’t). He makes a shitload of money producing movies with the same characters, the same actors (his friends), and locations that act as vacations for the cast and crew. Adam Sandler is living the life, and is probably the only person I can truly admit to idolizing. But when I say his movies aren’t for everyone, I mean it. And unfortunately his latest movies just haven’t been for me, including The Do-Over.
For those who don’t know, Adam Sandler signed a deal with Netflix providing them with exclusive rights to the next four Adam Sandler movies. Unfortunately for us, they didn’t buy the rights to burn the movies so they would never be seen by anyone on this earth. Actually, what they did was very smart, but I’m not going to talk about business here. The first of these four movies was The Ridiculous 6, the second was The Do-Over (that’s where I come in). the Do-Over follows Adam Sandler and David Spade as two men who meet up at their high school reunion. Adam Sandler reveals he is an FBI agent and convinces David Spade to come and hang out with him. Adam Sandler then drugs David Spade, fakes both of their deaths, and they assume the identities of two recently deceased men. Of course, something goes wrong because otherwise there would be no conflict.
I want to start by saying that The Do-Over is a really fucking boring movie, That little synopsis I gave was like the first 30 minutes, and it was only down hill from there. The movie fails to pick up until half way through with the advent of a gunfight, but then it promptly falls flat on its face again. The film relies on “plot twists” to engage the audience, but really they just point out that Adam Sandler must think that his audience is brain dead. The entire narrative of the film is propelled by Adam Sandler’s character, and it doesn’t make sense until the end. First, he reveals himself as an FBI agent, but admits that was a ploy to impress his friend. Then he admits to working in a morgue, which is where he found the two dead bodies who’s identity he stole. He then admits to lying about that and says he is a guidance counsellor (wherever the fuck that came from), but they aren’t done yet. See, these “reveals” are treated as big news. Something bad happens, David Spade freaks out, Adam Sandler “comes clean” to try and keep David Spade around. AND HE FUCKING BELIEVES HIM EVERY TIME! This is why I said Adam Sandler must think his audience has the intelligence of a grape, because he keeps setting things up just to say “gotcha!”, and then he expects us to stay engaged in the story. So anyway, throughout all of these lies Adam Sandler treats everything like he is a detective. David Spade just wants people to stop shooting at him, but Adam Sandler wants to “get to the bottom of this”. This is why the “plot twists” don’t work. It’s really sad too because the actual reveal would have made an interesting story had we not been faked out five times prior. It is finally revealed that Adam Sandler has cancer, and the people who’s identities him and David Spade stole were two people who were working on a promising cure. Of course this reveal takes place at the end of the movie, so by that point I have already mentally checked out.
The reason I hate this movie is because it makes me mad. I didn’t expect to watch an Adam Sandler movie and be blown away by plot reveals, but he just couldn’t help himself from structuring his movie that way. Of course The Do-Over isn’t a movie where the plot is held in high regard, because it is a comedy. The problem here lies in the fact that the movie isn’t funny. I can count how many times I chuckled throughout The Do-Over and the number is under ten. Of course, me laughing isn’t the baseline because I know at least one person who enjoyed the film: Adam Sandler. Yes, throughout The Do-Over Adam Sandler’s character makes a point to laugh at any joke that is made. He’s like his own live studio audience. You never have to be worried that a joke will go over your head because Adam Sandler is there to save the day by pointing out every attempt to make you laugh. I’m not even going to talk about the acting in this movie, because if you have seen one Adam Sandler movie you can just use that to come to your own conclusions. One thing that surprised me was the staggering number of blatant advertisements in the movie. I have to give it to Netflix, they really got the better end of this deal. On top of everything else the music choices were all over the fucking place. Usually there is some sort of rhyme or rhythm to the style or genre of songs picked, but it seems that Adam Sandler just threw darts at the top 50 chart. You have your “country”, your club music, your rock, pretty much anything you can think of. The Do-over exploits childish humour, but alienates the “family audience” by having very adult themes as well as unnecessary nudity. Every single piece of The Do-Over is a mess.
Overall The Do-Over is movie that is best to watch when you have watched literally every other movie on the planet from now until the end of time.
I give the Do-Over a D
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The Writer's Block
Thoughts from a Writer on Writing
Asura’s Wrath
Spec Ops: The Line
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Posted on June 2, 2016 June 3, 2016 by John Stevenson
Game of Redemption: 3 Things This Season Has Done Right
The sixth episode of Game of Thrones premiered on Sunday, putting us past the midway point and doing a lot to repair the damage that was inflicted by some extremely questionable writing last year. The showrunners even went so far as to put an apology in the show, in the form a meta-apology from Petyr Baelish, admitting that Sansa’s wedding last year was a ridiculous misstep for both the story and the show at large.
Little Finger continues to give the most satisfying speeches in the show.
Beyond apologies though, this season of Game of Thrones has been delivering the kind of writing that made me fall in love with the books and the show in the first place. This is quite possibly the best season we’ve had since Season 3.
They’ve been doing a hell of a lot right in this season, but there are three major steps they’ve taken to rectify and improve the quality of Game of Thrones.
1. Killing off Extraneous Characters
We salute your (unfortunately necessary) sacrifice.
When the first episode premiered I was disappointed by the death of Alexander Siddig’s character (a character seen so infrequently I can’t remember his name) because I’m a huge fan of the actor. It also seemed like a continuation of the sloppy writing, and sloppy everything else, that marred the entire Sand Teen storyline. However, after several remarkably murderous episodes, I can see why characters are dropping like flies.
The showrunners of Game of Thrones are doing exactly what I said they needed to do in my review of the first episode. As I pointed out, the main threat has been revealed and the writers behind Game of Thrones need to start quickly wrapping up extraneous storylines. Which means murdering the shit out of anyone who doesn’t move that story forward.
Now don’t get me wrong, I didn’t like how either Roose Bolton or Osha died. The death of Roose Bolton in particular has huge ramifications for Ramsay’s storyline and deserved more attention, but Game of Thrones ran out of time. Last year, instead of Sansa’s rape and escape, it should have focused on Ramsay planning to kill his father, but it didn’t and now we just need to move on. Plus, Ramsay has always been a rabid dog who doesn’t think ahead, so just straight out stabbing his father in the gut isn’t completely out of character for him.
And since Ramsay’s usefulness to the story has run out, I’m pretty sure the mad dog is going to be put down fairly soon.
Yes, I’m upset Osha was killed too, she was a fascinating character. However, based on the fact the actress looked like she might be pregnant, there’s a good chance that there was a limited window of availability to shoot her scene. So it make sense that she was rather quickly dispatched in a way that didn’t require a drawn out fight scene.
As much as I love stories, storytelling has to take a backseat to reality when it comes to the people who create our stories. Plus Hodor’s amazing death scene more than makes up for the fact that Osha’s and Roose’s were a bit rushed.
2. The Story is Moving Forward
The dead weight of this stupid storyline has been thrown off.
I feel like for the past two seasons the story has been stuck, unable to move forward. Several characters have been on a hamster-wheel, Jamie, Arya and Daenerys in particular. Jaime’s character has been absolutely static, which is tragic because his was one of the most interesting arcs in the book. Arya has been messing around with the Faceless assassins, but aside from murdering a King’s Guard, her character hasn’t grown or changed since leaving Westeros. Daenarys has been stuck in Meereen trying to battle of the Sons of the Harpy, but Meereen has always just been a pit stop on Dany’s quest to conquer Westeros, and a lot of her efforts to pacify the city has seemed like wasted effort.
Last season when Dany’s storyline ended with her once again being abducted by the Dothraki I complained that it was just a boring rehash of her first season. That was true, we didn’t see anything in the last few episodes that we didn’t see in the first season. But I have to give Game of Thrones credit, they at least wrapped this up quickly. I was afraid they were going to spend the entire season slowly building up to Dany gaining control of the Mongol Dothraki horde, but they basically wrapped up the whole thing in a single episode. Her character’s arc is also starting to look quite interesting, since she’s beginning to look less and less like the heroic savior of Westeros, and more like her insane father.
“Burn Them All.” – The Targaryen family creed, apparently.
I think we were all excited to see Arya turn into a peerless assassin and return to Westeros in a murderous rage to kill all the characters we hate. Then she got stuck there doing nothing for the better part of three years, and we were all ready for her to move on. I’m glad that she’s not only moved on but also rejected the Faceless. Arya’s strong personality is the best part of her character and watching her turn into an emotionless automaton of death would have been tragic. Ultimately this storyline took way too long to reach this conclusion, this was a coming-of-age story for Arya and her learning of, and rejecting, the teachings of the Faceless shouldn’t have taken this long. But at least we’re finally past it, and I’m looking forward to seeing how she escapes the Faceless, or doesn’t as the case may be.
Jaime Lannister’s storyline has been without a doubt the biggest wasted opportunity of the entire show. In the books, his storyline was one of the most interesting and redemptive arcs in the entire Song of Ice and Fire saga. Early in the show he was well on his way to achieving that arc with his budding romance with Brienne and the reveal that the infamous “kingslayer” slew an insane king to save a city. Then for some bizarre reason the show runners made Jaime rape Cersei at their son’s funeral and his entire arc went off the rails. This season though, after being cleverly outmaneuvered by the High Sparrow, he seems to be back on track. Hopefully his coming siege of Riverrun will also see him reject Cersei and become the good man that’s been struggling to get free of his sister’s grasp.
And the greatest thing of all? It seems like the stupid Dorne storyline has been completely dropped, which can do nothing but help the overall quality of the coming seasons.
If we see these characters again, I hope its only so we can watch them die horribly.
Political Intrigue and the White Walkers
I’m looking forward to seeing his smirk being wiped off, preferably with a sword.
The political intrigue of Westeros is one of the defining aspects of the show. George RR Martin’s use of feudal governments to create a compelling drama is downright genius. However after Tyrion’s trial, all the intrigue and plots just disappeared, aside from the horribly constructed Dorne plot. The High Sparrow has largely just been sitting around looking innocent while taking on the role of an inquisitor. We haven’t seen any kind of political manuevering on his part or any attempts by the Lannisters to counter them, aside from sitting around complaining on how awful he is. That has all changed this season.
The High Sparrow is now showing his political acumen, skillfully manipulating the witless boy king into publicly admitting that the gods (and by proxy, High Sparrow) are on even footing with the Crown, greatly weakening the monarchy. The Lannisters and the Tyrells actually tried to counter the Sparrows growing influence, even if it did blow up in their face. And I’m pretty sure Margaery Tyrell is playing the long-con with the High Sparrow, and will probably end up usurping both the Sparrows and the Lannisters. Obviously this is another plotline that’s going to need to be resolved so we can move onto the main event, but until Dany has gotten to Westeros, the religious conflict brewing in King’s Landing looks to be an exciting diversion.
At least until the main event begins…
Undoubtedly the best part of the last two episodes has been the White Walkers finally taking center stage. For the majority of the series they’ve been lurking on the outskirts of the story, showing up to remind us of their presence and power, before sinking back into the shadows. After last season’s Hardhome episode though, that’s no longer an option, and I’m glad to see the writers are putting them front and center. Again, I was afraid the entire season would be wasted on Bran reliving past events with the Three-Eyed Raven, but Bran alerting the Night King to his presence was one of the best moments in the show.
I’ll admit I’m a little disappointed at the reveal of The White Walker’s origins, I did hope for something a bit more than Frankenstein’s monster. However, we still don’t know how the Night King came to control the White Walkers, or how their weapons are forged, or why Dragon Glass can both create and destroy them. There are still so many questions, the answers to which I hope add more complexity and depth to them beyond weaponized monsters gone amok.
Last season was a mess, but I’m glad to see our collective patience has paid off and that we are well on our to way to finding out who finally wins the Game of Thrones.
This entry was posted in:Reviews
Tagged with:Game of Thrones, Writing
Written by John Stevenson
I'm a freelance writer based out of Seattle, Washington.
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7 edition of Between Past And Future found in the catalog.
Between Past And Future
Evangelical Mission Entering The Twenty-First Century (Evangelical Missiological Society)
by Jon Bonk
Published January 31, 2003 by William Carey Library Publishers .
Missions & Missionary Work,
Religion - Church Life,
Christian Ministry - Missions,
Missions,
In Between Past and Future Arendt describes the perplexing crises modern society faces as a result of the loss of meaning of the traditional key words of politics: justice, reason, responsibility, virtue, and glory. Through a series of eight exercises, she shows how we can redistill the vital essence of these concepts and use them to regain a. Past tense verbs and past participles, for example, are very similar in concept but there is a distinction. Learning to understand the difference between the two is analogous to understanding the difference between a square and rectangle.
Between Past and Future is a collection of six long and rhetoric-filled essays that strive to measure how far modern man has strayed from the classical tradition, in both the way he educates his children and the way he evolves his outlook on life. This departure is not necessarily wholly bad, says the author, but she deplores the fact that nothing has been found that serves mankind so well as. In English grammar, the future-in-the-past is the use of " would or was/were going to" to refer to the future from the perspective of some point in the past. As illustrated below, other verbs in the past progressive can also be used to convey this future-in-the-past perspective. Also known as: Prediction in the past. Examples and Observations:Author: Richard Nordquist.
Book Description. Citizenship between Past and Future brings together some of the most prominent scholars in the field of citizenship studies to assess, critically and contextually, the ongoing significance of citizenship as an object of study.. The authors reflect on the major issues and debates that have emerged in the field of citizenship studies over the last decade as well as to point out. ISBN: X: OCLC Number: Description: ix, pages ; 25 cm: Contents: 1. European identity --Conditions of possibility for a European identity --A typology of European identity options The institutional construction of European identity --The emergence of European identity on the European political agenda --The Maastricht .
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Between Past And Future by Jon Bonk Download PDF EPUB FB2
Between Past and Future book. Read 46 reviews from the world's largest community for readers. Arendt’s penetrating observations of the modern world, base /5. In Between Past and Future Arendt describes the perplexing crises modern society faces as a result of the loss of meaning of the traditional key words of politics: justice, reason, responsibility, virtue, and glory.
Through a series of eight exercises, she shows how we can redistill the vital essence of these concepts and use them to regain a Cited by: About Between Past and Future. From the author of Eichmann in Jerusalem and The Origins of Totalitarianism, “a book to think with through the political impasses and cultural confusions of our day” Between Past And Future book Magazine) Hannah Arendt’s insightful observations of the modern world, based on a profound knowledge of the past, constitute an impassioned contribution to political philosophy.
HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I is the ninth studio album by American singer Michael Jackson, released on J It was the fifth Jackson album released through Epic Records, and the first on his label MJJ comprises two discs: HIStory Begins, a greatest hits compilation, and HIStory Continues, comprising new material written and produced by Jackson and Genre: R&B, pop, hip hop.
It is writing in both cases. I was writing a book. I will be writing a book. If you mean the past and future of to write, then it is wrote and will write. Asked in The Difference Between. The book Between Past and Future: The Revolutions of and Their Aftermath, edited by Sorin Antohi and Vladimir Tismaneanu and published by Central European University Press resulted from the excellent papers presented at that conference which, it may be argued, was the conference dedicated to the revolutions of and the first decade Cited by: In Between Past and Future Arendt describes the perplexing crises modern society faces as a result of the loss of meaning of the traditional key words of politics: justice, reason, responsibility, virtue, and glory.
Through a series of eight exercises, she shows how we can redistill the vital essence of these concepts and use them to regain a 4/4(1). “If I observe the microscopic state of things,” writes Rovelli, “then the difference between past and future vanishes in the elementary grammar of things, there is no distinction between Author: Charlotte Higgins.
There is a quote book by the name of The Life It shares quote about your past,your life now,and the future may hold in this there are many books to choose seems to me the. Hannnah Arendt () was for many years University Professor of Political Philosophy in the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research and a Visiting Fellow of the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago.
She is also the author of Eichmann in Jerusalem, On Revolution, and Between Past and Future (all available from Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics).5/5(1).
In Between Past and Future Arendt describes the perplexing crises modern society faces as a result of the loss of meaning of the traditional key words of politics: justice, reason, responsibility, virtue, and glory/10(69). Between Past and Future - Between Past and Future audiobook, by Hannah Arendt Hannah Arendt’s insightful observations of the modern world, based on a profound knowledge of the past, constitute an impassioned contribution to political philosophy.
In Between Past and Future Arendt describes the perplexing crises modern society faces as a result of the loss of meaning of the Price: $ War Is Coming Between Past and Future Violence in Lebanon Sami Hermez. pages | 6 x 9 | 20 illus. Cloth | ISBN | $s | Outside the Americas £ Ebook editions are available from selected online vendors A volume in the series Ethnography of Political Violence "War Is Coming provides a rather unique ethnographic study of the Lebanese, which should be mandatory.
Book Description. This book explores cultural sustainability and its relationships to heritage from a wide interdisciplinary perspective. By examining the interactions between people and communities in the places where they live it exemplifies the diverse ways in which a people-centred heritage builds identities and supports individual and collective memories.
Here at Between Past and Future, we focus on the fact that human beings live in the present, which requires navigation. This is important to realize because our country, and increasingly the world, is being pulled between two forces.
Those on the Far-Left look toward the future for perfection and those on the Far-Right see perfection in the. 5 quotes from Between Past and Future: ‘Courage is indispensible because in politics not life but the world is at stake.’ Rate this book.
Clear rating. 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars. Between Past and Future by Hannah Arendt 1, ratings, average rating, 45 reviews Open Preview Between Past Cited by: Virginia Woolf wrote Between the Acts shortly before she died and against a backdrop of turmoil and war.
Today, her final novel is one of her least-known – and most striking. This book speaks directly to all of these issues. In The Past and Future City, Stephanie Meeks, the president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, describes in detail, and with unique empirical research, the many ways that saving and restoring historic fabric can help a city create thriving neighborhoods, good jobs, and a vibrant.
Everyone has opinions on this lotta pretty cool stuff on the topic out there, here is my opinion: Here is something on time I wrote first: answer to Does time only exist in the human mind. Illusion: Google a thing that is or is likely to be wrong. At first glance, memory seems something inert, stuck in the past - a memory of something that has happened and stopped in time.
But a closer look reveals that memory is dynamic and connects the three temporal dimensions: evoked at the present, it refers to the past, but always views the future.
There are also some dangers to jumping between past and present. If you’re going to go for it, it’s always useful to start by asking yourself why you’re doing it, and how well it serves the story you’re trying to tell. There’s always a risk that movements backwards and forwards in time can seem like a bit of a gimmick.
Between past and future: Eight Exercies in Political Thought by Hannah Arendt; 21 editions; First published in ; Subjects: Philosophy. Get this from a library! Citizenship between past and future. [Engin F Isin; Peter Nyers; Bryan S Turner;] -- This text brings together scholars in the field of citizenship studies to assess, critically & contextually, the ongoing significance of citizenship as an object of study.
The authors reflect on the.
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Bologna a Laboratory for Urban Commoning
Anarchist anthropologist David Graeber argues in his recent book, The Utopia of Rules, that bureaucracy is the standard mechanism in contemporary life for coercing people to comply with the top-down priorities of institutions, especially corporations and government. Anyone concerned with the commons, therefore, must eventually address the realities of bureaucratic power and the feasible alternatives. Is there a more human, participatory alternative that can actually work?
The good news is that the City of Bologna, Italy, is pioneering a new paradigm of municipal governance that suggests, yes, there are some practical, bottom-up alternatives to bureaucracy.
Two weeks ago, the city government celebrated the first anniversary of its Bologna Regulation on public collaboration for urban commons, a system that actively invites ordinary citizens and neighborhoods to invent their own urban commons, with the government’s active assistance. I joined about 200 people from Bologna and other Italian cities on May 15 for a conference that celebrated the Regulation, which is the formal legal authority empowering citizens to take charge of problems in their city.
Collaborare a Bologna
It starts by regarding the city as a collaborative social ecosystem. Instead of seeing the city simply as an inventory of resources to be administered by politicians and bureaucratic experts, the Bologna Regulation sees the city’s residents as resourceful, imaginative agents in their own right. Citizen initiative and collaboration are regarded as under-leveraged energies that – with suitable government assistance – can be recognized and given space to work. Government is re-imagined as a hosting infrastructure for countless self-organized commons.
To date, the city and citizens have entered into more than 90 different “pacts of collaboration” – formal contracts between citizen groups and the Bolognese government that outline the scope of specific projects and everyone’s responsibilities. The projects fall into three general categories – living together (collaborative services), growing together (co-ventures) and working together (co-production).
Phase I projects over the past year included a kindergarten run by parents, a “social streets” initiative, and an urban agricultural coop. In the coming year a new set of Phase II test projects selected by citizens will attempt to extend the scope of the efforts – perhaps with collaborative housing and new sorts of social services provisioning, perhaps with new co-learning programs in the public schools and neighborhood markets.
Bologna’s self-declared ambition to become a “city of collaboration” has deep roots in its culture. It has long favored decentralized political authority and encouraged active citizen participation. Mayor Virginio Merola explained the city’s unusual stance toward development: “Our city relies upon common assets and social relationships – but we are also a city based on human rights and duties. Our traditions as a city have been based on collaboration.”
When Merola addressed the conference, he got quite emotional: “Being an attractive city means first of all, loving each other and not excluding,” noting that lots of Bolognese residents come from southern Italy and that there are 120 different ethnic groups in the city. In an apparent slap at fashionable technocratic management ideas, Merola said, “We are an intelligent city because we believe in feelings,” adding that “smart cities can be stupid.”
Unlike so many politicians who remain committed to tight, centralized control, Merola and his staff understand the virtues of decentralized participation: “The less that central administration is doing, the more things are working,” he said. “Everybody needs to have power to do something for their lives.” In this, a venerable Bolognese ethic meets up with Internet sensibilities, yielding a new model of city management.
The City of Bologna is quite serious about becoming a “city of collaboration.” City officials regard it as a unifying vision, and almost a brand identity – one that aligns Bologna with some of the larger trends sweeping global culture today, such as open source software, social networks, and DIY innovation. The City has even developed a “personalized logo”that allows anyone to produce a unique symbol that is graphically integrated with the general city logo — as if to say, we are all different, but we can all be Bolognese.
Luca Rizzo Nervo, the city’s development officer, explained that Bologna’s community development model “goes back to the real meaning of community. We need a collaborative ecosystem – a new way of living and working together.” Nervo hopes to create a national and international network of collaborative cities. Torino is already in the process of adopting the Regulation, and a number of other Italian cities, including Alessandria, Muggia and Rome, have expressed interest in the concept.
Of course, it’s not as easy as passing a new city ordinance. What’s really needed is a new cultural orientation and cultivation of new social practices – and those take time and commitment. It requires a retreat from bureaucratic formalism and an appreciation for the power of informal process and personal relationships.
Becoming a “collaborative city” requires that various stakeholders find new ways to work together, moving beyond political gamesmanship and bureaucratic maneuvering. Citizens, business, schools, and government, among others, have to learn how to make long term, good-faith commitments to each other and the process. Inevitably, any city will have to do its own experimentation and adaptation to learn how to make collaboration work within its distinctive culture.
This process, however, has the distinct advantage of limiting political conflict and ideological factionalism. Because goals are mutually set and programs co-designed, everyone’s focus is more on working through differences than on trying to “beat” the political opposition. The openness of the process also helps avoid NIMBY-ism (Not in My Backyard) and refresh the legitimacy of government action in an ongoing way. Unlike a bureaucracy, the system is designed for rapid citizen feedback and constant iteration. In time, citizens realize that they can adopt a different attitude toward government and become meaningful participants in the process of self-governance. The city truly does belong to them.
Professor Christian Iaione, a legal scholar and commons activist, has been the driving champion of the Bologna Regulation, working through his law school in Rome, LUISS, and a project called LabGov (Laboratory for the Governance of Commons).
Iaione considers the project an attempt to mimic the social dynamics of open source software in city government – the “Ubuntu State,” as he puckishly calls it. (“Ubuntu” is a South African Bantu term that literally means “human-ness,” but more broadly means, “the belief in a universal bond of sharing that connects all humanity,” as Wikipedia puts it.)
I found the conference both inspirational (testimonies from various citizen groups) and educational (commentary from Sheila Foster, a law scholar from Fordham Law School who has written about urban commons, and from Neal Gorenflo of Shareable magazine, which is a big proponent of “shareable cities” policies).
The concept of urban commons has been gaining a lot of visibility lately. Here’s hoping that its various advocates, thinkers, and project pioneers will find each other soon and begin to build a new school of thought. It’s hard to imagine a more effective, attractive way of reclaiming our cities and making them happy, liveable places.
— David Bollier
Reposted from David Bollier blog.
Note: Some links in the original did not work. These have been corrected.
Co-ops – sharing – commons
Bologna Celebrates One Year of a Bold Experiment in Urban Commoning
Be ready for the first civic Collaboration Fest in Bologna!
LabGov Pioneers the Paradigm of City as Commons
Professor Christian Iaione on the City as Commons
The city as a commons. The city as an institution for collective action
Tags: Bologna, Bologna a Laboratory for Urban Commoning, commons
This entry was posted on June 14, 2015 at 11:29 pm and is filed under economics, social networks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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Did you start going gray in 2020?
By Jess Jennings Jan 13, 2021
Seems for many women, the color of 2020 was gray.
A new OnePoll survey found that the average American woman says she feels four years older after the stress of last year. 65% of the women surveyed said they believe 2020 aged them more than ever – and that includes going gray.
52% said they’ve gone gray faster in the last year than they would have, and 42% said they discovered news strands of gray in their hair in the last year. 46% of those said it was the first gray hairs they’d ever had.
The survey, which was commissioned by Garnier, found that 33% of respondents said they dyed their hair at home during the pandemic – with 88% saying they did it to cover up their grays. 44% said they colored their hair just to make a change and another 32% said they tried a new color because they were bored.
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