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Her Father's House - Abridged
By: Belva Plain
Narrated by: Judith Ivey
Beloved storyteller Belva Plain understands the rich tapestry of the human heart like no other. Her many dazzling New York Times bestsellers probe the shifting bonds of marriage and family with insight, compassion, and uncommon grace. And her new novel is no exception. A tale of fathers and daughters, lovers and families, acts of love and acts of betrayal, Her Father’s House is Belva Plain’s most powerful and unforgettable novel yet.
It is the spring of 1968 when Donald Wolfe, a young graduate of a midwestern law school, arrives in New York. Filled with ambition and idealism, he is dazzled not only by the big city but by the vivacious, restless Lillian, whom he marries in the heat of infatuation.
Surely theirs is no marriage made in heaven, but they have a child, Tina, and she is the love of Donald’s heart. For her he would give up everything--his home, his distinguished career, and his freedom. When his flawed marriage begins to fail, a choice must be made. Shall he consider a step that would force him into flight and a life of hiding?
From her earliest years, Tina is exceptional, a brilliant student and a joyous, loving spirit. At the university she falls in love with Gilbert, who graduates from law school just as she is about to enter medical school. Together they go to New York, where she learns the truth about her family’s past, a truth that must change her regard for the father who has protected and cherished her. When a terrible lie has been told out of love, can it be forgiven?
With courage and compassion, Belva Plain paints a moving portrait of the choices that shape the course of our lives, the secrets that haunt us, and the love that helps us heal and move on. It is a work of riveting storytelling and rare emotional power by one of the most gifted novelists of our time.
Author Belva Plain
Narrator Judith Ivey
Publication date July 30, 2002
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Kirk’s Photos
Flowers BW
Kirkville
Writings by Kirk McElhearn
Why iTunes Isn’t Bloated
There’s a collocation that’s been going around for a while: the proximity of the words “iTunes” and “bloated.” Google those words and you’ll get about 370,000 results. As an author who specializes in explaining iTunes, I hear this often, yet many of the complaints I hear don’t go further than hurling that invective at the app. Few people actually explain why they feel the program is bloated, and those who do have reasons that aren’t easily justifiable. So I thought I’d take a look at this question, and the common answers, in an attempt to determine once and for all whether iTunes deserves to be called bloated.
First of all, how do you define “bloated?” Wikipedia offers the following in the introduction to its article about software bloat:
“Software bloat is a process whereby successive versions of a computer program become perceptibly slower, use more memory, disk space or processing power, or have higher hardware requirements than the previous version–whilst making only dubious user-perceptible improvements or suffering from feature creep. The term is not applied consistently; it is often used as a pejorative by end users (bloatware) to describe undesired user interface changes even if those changes had little or no effect on the hardware requirements. […] Most end users will feel they only need some limited subset of the available functions and will regard the others as unnecessary bloat, even if people with different requirements do use them.”
With this in mind, I asked the question “Do you think iTunes is bloated?” on my website back in June 2010, and I also asked the same question on several forums I frequent. I originally wrote this article for TidBITS that year, but realized that, now, five years later, with the many changes made to iTunes, it was time to revisit the question.
How Big Is iTunes?
The first two points to examine are those of the size and speed of iTunes. To be honest, iTunes isn’t often criticized for these issues any more; In fact, I rarely hear criticisms of iTunes not being fast enough any more, nor do I hear complaints about the size of the app these days.
While the Wikipedia definition of software bloat is partially valid, I think the first part of it to discount is that of using too much disk space. The iTunes 12 application on Mac OS X takes up 306.3 MB. In these days of terabyte hard disks – or disks offering several hundred gigabytes on older Macs – this is hardly a large application. Without looking at large-scale application suites such as Microsoft Office or Adobe Creative Suite, I have several applications on my Mac that are much larger than iTunes. iMovie and iPhoto are respectively 2.9 GB and 1.7 GB, or nearly ten and six times the size of iTunes. Nisus Writer Pro is 469.1 MB, Adobe Reader takes up 387.3 MB; and the other two iWork programs – Pages and Keynote – are each larger than iTunes.
(It’s worth noting that when I wrote this article in 2010, all of these apps were much smaller. We now have retina displays, leading to much larger graphical elements in apps.)
Some people say that larger applications take more time to load, yet this is not necessarily the case. When you look under the hood of iTunes, you find some interesting numbers. The actual executable of the program and its libraries make up about 68 MB, which is by no means huge. The majority of the iTunes application is, in fact, made up of language resources. These are files containing texts for menus, alerts and even help, in the different languages the program supports. If you were to remove all the language resources you don’t need, the program is much smaller.
I’m discussing the Mac version of iTunes here; on Windows, things are probably similar. I haven’t looked at the actual file sizes on Windows, but Apple says that it requires “400 MB of available disk space,” which is the same thing they say for the Mac version. Journalist Ed Bott railed a lot against iTunes, back in the day, and he used to update his Unofficial guide to installing iTunes without bloatware for every new version. Yet I notice that even he gave up back in 2010 – when this original article was written – and hasn’t updated it since.
While Bott’s approach was a bit obsessive, it is true that Windows users do have to download some software elements that Mac users don’t. Things such as QuickTime, Bonjour, and Software Update are an integral part of Mac OS X, but need to be installed by the Windows version of iTunes for basic iTunes functionality to work. But worrying about a few dozen megabytes of software installed on a capacious, modern hard disk seems like overkill. The only reason I could see to go to the trouble of following his advice is if you want to run iTunes on a netbook with limited disk space, and want to save as much space as possible. But even the smallest hard drive today doesn’t even notice when you install iTunes.
RAM usage is a more complex issue. On Mac OS X, applications often ask for a lot of RAM, even if they don’t use it. And the amount of RAM they request depends on how much memory the Mac has. Right now, on my retina iMac, iTunes is using 437 MB RAM. The app has been running for several days, and I’ve got 24 GB on this iMac. I don’t consider 437 MB to be excessive. If I launch iTunes on my MacBook Pro, which has a much smaller music library, it starts out using about 150 MB, and this on a Mac with only 8 GB RAM. But OS X handles memory dynamically, and an app may request more RAM than it needs at launch, only to surrender some of it when the OS tells it that other apps need some.
How Fast Is iTunes?
The second factor to consider is speed. This can be seen in two ways: the time it takes to launch a program, and the time it takes to perform common operations. There was a time when we worried about launch times for apps. I remember when I was using a certain word processor back in the late 1990s, and it took some 45 seconds for the program to open. When Mac OS X came around, I remember people counting the number of times an icon bounced in the Dock and using that as a metric.
On both my Macs – a retina iMac and a late 2012 MacBook Pro – iTunes launches so fast that I don’t really notice it. Both of these Macs have SSDs, of course, so all app launch times are fast. If you’ve still got a hard disk, you may need to wait a few seconds for launch. But if you can’t wait a few seconds for an app to start up, you may need to rethink their priorities.
The speed of certain operations is a more important issue. With today’s multi-core processors and copious RAM, software should be able to do things quickly – not all tasks, of course, because some are very complex. But basic tasks should never take too long, though the definition of “too long” is subjective.
I’ve seen people complaining about the speed of ripping CDs with iTunes, or about the time it takes to sync an iPod or iPhone. Alas, neither of these tasks depend entirely on iTunes itself. While iTunes performance when ripping CDs is perplexing – sometimes it goes very slowly, other times more quickly, for no apparent reason – the two main factors affecting CD ripping are the speed of your optical drive and the speed of your processors. You can get a faster optical drive to speed up rips, but most optical drives these days peak at 24x. I remember back when the first Mac Pro was released in 2006. You could put two optical drives into that Mac, and I bought a 52x CD-only drive to rip CDs. That was very fast, but I haven’t found any drives that fast recently.
Syncing iOS devices is a totally different story. I’ve written a lot about sync problems (such as this article) and Apple has definitely dropped the ball on this. But these sync issues have nothing to do with iTunes bloat; they’re about some low-level issues that Apple simply can’t optimize.
Back in the day, iTunes lagged a bit with large libraries. This problem has been resolved, for the most part, and I don’t hear too many complaints about this any more. The speed of today’s processors means that iTunes has plenty of horsepower to do what it needs, and unless you have a very old computer, you shouldn’t see this problem.
But iTunes Certainly Seems Bloated to Me
One comment I have seen often is that iTunes is bloated because it does so much: that Apple should separate it into different applications. I would call this a subjective feeling of bloat, because all those features you don’t use don’t affect performance; the program runs only the code you need when you need it. In fact, now that computers are faster, and hard disks larger, most of the criticism of iTunes focuses on its features, and the various types of media it manages.
There is some validity to this opinion. From being initially just a music player, iTunes has added the capability to manage and play videos (movies and TV shows) and podcasts. More recently, iTunes added apps and ebooks to its library, but then spun off ebook management to the standalone iBooks app.
Many people suggest that the name itself should be changed: that iTunes has gone far beyond tunes. Alas, that will never happen. iTunes is a brand, not just an app. Apple has developed the iTunes brand over nearly 15 years, extending it to the iTunes Store. At least Apple shortened that name from the original “iTunes Music Store” after adding videos and avoided the iTunes name when creating the App Store and the iBookstore.
But what about all these content types and features? And the iTunes Store itself? Surely the presence of the iTunes Store is part of the program’s bloat, right? Actually, it isn’t. The iTunes Store is simply a Web browser in iTunes: pages from the iTunes Store are merely HTML pages that are rendered in iTunes using the same WebKit framework in Mac OS X that also renders HTML in Safari, Mail, and many other applications. While iTunes Store pages may be slow to load at times, this is more because they are graphically complex and require a certain amount of time to be downloaded and rendered, just like any other Web page.
The one complaint I would make is that the iTunes Store is too tightly integrated into iTunes. It’s far too common to click a button to view a different type of media and end up in the iTunes Store, rather than in your own library. This is, of course, intentional; Apple wants you to “accidentally” visit the iTunes Store, hoping that you might be attracted by some banner graphic displaying a new album, movie or song. I would love to see this part of iTunes altered: make the iTunes Store similar to a media library, and not have it accessible from each library.
If the iTunes Store really bothers you, you can get rid of it entirely. Choose iTunes > Preferences, click Parental Controls, and check the box to disable the iTunes Store. You won’t accidentally end up shopping, and you may find iTunes to be a bit easier to manage.
And if you don’t use all the media types in iTunes, you can eliminate some of them from the navigation bar at the top left of the app by clicking the … button, choosing Edit, and then unchecking the ones you don’t want to see.
If you truly want a minimal app, and don’t use all the different media types, you can remove a lot of visible iTunes features with a few clicks.
That Syncing Feeling
Another common criticism of iTunes is that it syncs many different types of content to iOS devices. While it makes sense that iTunes would sync the music, videos, apps, and ebooks in its library, the program also manages photos, contacts, email accounts, and more. (Though much of this can be off-loaded to iCloud now.) Some people suggest that the syncing part of iTunes should be a separate application, such as the existing iSync. Others say that to sync even music, one should be able to mount the devices and just drag and drop files to them.
The drag-and-drop argument is commonly mentioned by those used to doing that type of synchronization with MP3 players back in the day; and that’s pretty far back. I’ve always found this a confusing idea: every time you change tags in a file, or add new music to your library, you need to remember which files you’ve changed or added to be able to sync them. Isn’t that what we have computers for?
One of the reasons the iPod was so successful early on is because iTunes handles all this for users. When you buy music, rip CDs, or add other content to your media library, you don’t need to manipulate the actual files. You don’t need to know where they’re stored, and you don’t have to worry about moving them: iTunes takes care of all this for you. The file system becomes an abstraction, and, in fact, disappears behind the iTunes database.
And to those who suggest splitting iTunes, I wonder why people would want to have to use two applications to sync an iPod or iPhone? Even if the syncing application handled the transfer of media files, there would still be one program for managing those files, and another to sync them. Surely one integrated program is better than two that would frequently need to be used in quick succession?
Some people have even suggested that iTunes be split into numerous single-media type apps, as on iOS. So you’d have Music, Videos, Apps, Podcasts, etc. This makes absolutely no sense. On an iOS device, where you only single-task (you only see one app at a time, and other apps you’ve opened are hidden from you), there is a logic to this. But on a desktop computer, where each app is a window, this would quickly become untenable.
Creeping Featuritis
It’s certainly true that iTunes is a complex program. I’ve been using iTunes since the very first version, and I’ve been writing about the program for many years, notably for Macworld, where I’ve written more than 100 articles explaining how to get the most out of iTunes. (To be fair, you could accuse me of having a vested interest in the complexity of iTunes.)
The program has a lot of features, and this feature list is often criticized. iTunes does a lot; it offers you unequaled features for organizing and managing media. Yet many people feel that it doesn’t do enough, hence the success of the Doug’s AppleScripts for iTunes website, with its oodles of script to enhance the program’s functionality.
iTunes is one of those programs that offers a wide range of features according to how a user wants to interact with his or her content. For basic users, it may be enough to dump media files into their libraries and sync their iPods. Their libraries may be smaller than the capacity of their iOS devices, so they don’t even have to worry about choosing what to sync.
For others, though, the small but growing percentage of users with large libraries (I count myself in this group), the capability to create complex smart playlists based on tags gives great power in organizing content.
The Verdict Is?
I think it’s fair to say that this whole question is a bit moot; it’s a geek debate. For most users, iTunes is simply a program they use to manage an average-sized media library and some apps. Those who are confronted with the more-complex features have much larger libraries, and have different ways of working with media files.
I can understand that many people have a subjective feeling of bloat when looking at iTunes because of the many types of media it manages, but it seems no more bloated to me than, say, a word processor that contains finicky page layout features.
Don’t get me wrong. Although I think Apple has done an excellent job over the years of grafting new types of media and new features onto the program, it is by no means perfect. Valid criticisms can be leveled at specific features and interface elements: the buttons you use to switch media libraries, the removal of the very useful sidebar, and, of course, the horrid sync experience.
But, in the end, I suspect that people accuse iTunes of being bloated because it has evolved from a simple music player into a complex media and device management program designed to meet the needs of hundreds of millions of users. It’s interesting to note that the criticism of iTunes bloat has shifted from app size and speed to issues of multiple media libraries. It’s almost as though people were searching for ways to criticize iTunes, and, even as some valid issues – size and speed – have become moot over time, others need to be found the replace them.
As with any complex app, one user’s bloat is another user’s favorite feature. Perhaps people need to simply let go of these complaints and understand that Apple did not write iTunes for them, but for hundreds of millions of people. To become more comfortable with iTunes, therefore, may require learning a bit more about how it works in order to master those features you use every day and ignore those you don’t. And use the techniques I explained above to slim down some of what iTunes displays. Your anxiety about iTunes bloat may fade away.
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58 thoughts on “Why iTunes Isn’t Bloated”
brijazz
Apr 23, 2015 at 11:18 am | Reply
Maybe users would be more forgiving and less prone to complaints of bloat if syncing worked. If family sharing worked. If iTunes Match worked.
When a new feature is introduced that’s supposed to improve our user experience and they don’t, most people will say “why didn’t they leave well enough alone… it worked fine before!”.
Fix core issues first, add (working) features later.
Apr 24, 2015 at 2:22 pm | Reply
Totally agree. When an app has many useful features that actually work, you forgive it for perhaps overly-crowded interface. When new features intermittently fail and there is no apparent way to fix the failure, you gradually begin to think of it as a “bag of hurt” and just give up. Many people don’t have time to fight with iTunes.
I think it’s insanely bloated. I’m not going to address your questions concerning the definition of ‘bloat.’ To me the program is a user interface disaster—a kind of disaster I associate with too many disparate functions. It’s difficult and confusing to use. There are too many similar-but-different modes … the amount of thought required to move from one function or one view to another is excessive.
It’s debatable how much is too much for an application to do. But when the features get in the way of everyday useability, you’ve either got too many of them, or you’ve got a poorly designed interface, or both. I believe itunes is a case of both.
To put it in perspective, my girlfriend is a musician, a music technologist, and a web developer. I have heard her scream—literally scream—at itunes when it thwarted her attempts at doing something basic.
Kirk McElhearn
That’s not bloat, that’s poor interface design. It’s not the same thing.
winc06
But don’t you think that is what most of the complaints about bloat are about? People see the poor interface design as a symptom of bloat. So big it is unmanageable. I never understood what people were complaining about, but it is as if each new iteration of iTunes were designed to spread the misery around. If Nikon took their best camera and removed most of the controls and required you to guess the function of the remaining ones depending on the context of the menu item on the LCD you had open, then changed those controls and context for each succeeding version, they would go out of business.
If you define bloat as interface design, then every digital camera sold today is incredibly bloated.
You have written pretty much what I have thought for many years. In particular, the rants by so many people who wanted multiple programs to sync the many various media types to their iPods (and now iPhones and iPads) never made any sense to me. Do they really want to have to open five (or whatever number you feel is appropriate) different programs to manage their media files and then have to sync those programs individually? I was reasonably irritated by the change with iBooks. I would much rather have it back the way it was before iBooks was released. At least I have found ways around the issues that introduced.
Jun 30, 2015 at 8:53 pm | Reply
they could easily have one program that does nothing other than sync between the different libraries of other programs without opening said programs. itunes already syncs your calendar, books and photos without opening ical, ibooks or iphoto.
its a matter of clarity. if you have 1 syncing app for idevices, this cleans up the itunes interface a lot and the program’s name and purpose would make more sense.
Jul 1, 2015 at 1:50 am | Reply
My first thought is that I guess I wouldn’t object if there was a good way to control what ended up on my phone. However, I was very irritated when they moved Books out of iTunes. There were very significant changes in the sorting and the info that was transferred to the phone that still hasn’t been restored. I have figured out workarounds for most of it, some of which are a real pain to minimize those issues but that doesn’t exactly give me confidence that it wouldn’t be the same with other things. I don’t think iCal and iPhoto are good example either. Those you need to interact with, i.e. add/modify calendar items or edit photos. The same isn’t true with books or TV Shows or Movies. They are media.
So, what’s left to remove? Apps is the only non media item left that I see. Though are a form of media. That one I could understand moving out to the App Store I suppose. For the rest, do you want to move TV Shows out? Movies? Podcasts? Personally, I like having them in one place. I don’t want to have to have four different programs running so I can manage those. And yes, I am constantly tinkering around with those so much that I don’t want to have to switch back and forth between programs.
As for removing the sync function from iTunes, do you really think it will affect the speed enough to even be noticeable? Besides, unless you have a device attached, you don’t even see those parts of iTunes. Even when you do, you have to actually click on the device to bring it up. I don’t get the problem. And I don’t see the value in having an additional program to deal with.
kevicosuave
Thanks for writing this! It’s almost verbatim what I’ve been saying about iTunes for years. A couple of points…
1) My iTunes libraries are huge. I have one for my music archive, which is over 1TB, and 1 for iTunes Match (because you’re limited to 25K songs), and one for production (for my company’s media). One thing that I have found with large libraries, is that Apple has modified how iTunes balances between memory and storage.
With more people moving towards SSDs, Apple seems to increasingly favor storage over memory. Specifically this applies to the library database files. For large libraries with large numbers of playlists this change means that Macs with lots of RAM, but slow storage have experienced a slow down as Apple has made this transition.
The speed difference here is significant when doing anything involving the database files. However, this transition with iTunes has meant that it’s much less resource intensive for more modern Macs.
2) The people who complain the most about iTunes are the people who don’t know how to use iTunes, and can’t be bothered with spending any time to learn. Apple is in between a rock and a hard place where iTunes is one thing to all people. There are some of us using it for many things through most of the part of every day, while others (hi mom) just see it as something that plays a hand full of songs every now and then.
As mentioned in your comments, this is about UI and not bloat, but to some degree, there is an issue here of presenting too many UI modes that aren’t practical and confuse users in terms of what can be done. Specifically, I see this in terms of “artwork modes” (such as CoverFlow). It now seems as though I have to go through a short ritual of changing defaults on a fresh install before I can really begin to use iTunes.
My great fear of iTunes is that they “rethink” it to death and we end up with the equivalent of Photos.app versus Aperture. I personally think it’s a wonderful program and wish people would be willing to invest a little bit of time learning it as opposed to a lot of time criticizing it.
Steven de Mena
Apr 23, 2015 at 10:47 pm | Reply
Most of the “bloated” comments about iTunes are from my Windows friends. I think they are using the word “bloated” to mean “slow”. I’ve never really used iTunes on Windows with any library of music so can’t comment.
On my trashcan 2014 Mac Pro with 6 cores and 32 GB RM and 1GB SSD it takes 14 seconds from clicking on iTunes before I can get “Info” on a track. I have a very large library and there’s a definite correlation between library size and speed. People tell me my library is not “typical” and thus my experience doesn’t count. If iTunes used an indexed database library it should be able to start up almost instantly and handle millions of tracks with not much difference in speed. Instead it continually rewrites from scratch a stupid XML TEXT file (iTunes Library.xml) upon any minor change, which bogs it down immensely.
Apr 24, 2015 at 1:53 am | Reply
iTunes Library.xml is the key. If this file was simply updated when a change is made, instead of re-written from scratch, iTunes wouldn’t have the speed issues it does. It’s been this way for years.
There is no way for it to be updated instead of re-written. The nature of the file, a text file, does not allow that.
I thought that iTunes didn’t use the iTunes Library.xml file anymore, but instead is using the .itl file for the database. The .xml file, I think, is there just for other apps to be able to read the iTunes library.
Unless I’m wrong here, iTunes doesn’t need to write to the .xml file at all other than to keep it generally up-to-date, but that could be when it quits or periodically when no other activity is going on.
The XML file is, as you say, designed for other apps to access. iTunes does, however, write the XML file after every change you make, but not always immediately. It’s not the XML file that slows anything that iTunes does.
Dan Kurchak
I like iTunes and all its functions! Spinning everything off into separate apps would mean having to open even more programs. Yuck.
I’ve found that itunes is fairly responsive until you select the podcasts icon. Itunes will then hang for up to 10-15 seconds or longer (with the spinning wheel). The latest version of itunes is better than previous versions but i wish apple would speed up podcasts.
genjiken masters
Sep 14, 2015 at 10:34 am | Reply
I’m running on latest Mac Pro, 380 albums, general performance usually good, but intermittently chokes and when it bottlenecks, can bring Yosemite to a crawl.
If you only have 380 albums, then there’s something else going on. Maybe a network issue, because, depending on how you have iTunes set up, it will be checking the iTunes Store. Try creating a new user account and see if the same thing happens with the same music.
Sep 14, 2015 at 6:37 pm | Reply
I’m pleasantly surprised to report that iTunes 12 is really performing faster than I have seen in years. I’ve had the same hardware for about a year and a half (Mac Pro). I’m not so happy with the cosmetic changes but I’m able to effectively use iTunes (searching, tag maintenance) to a much less stress-free degree. ? Large 5.8TB music library. LOTS of songs.
Chrystian Barrière
Jan 11, 2016 at 5:16 pm | Reply
I don’t mind the interface or the functions iTunes offers. But what I do mind is the fact that when I updated to 12.3, every time I clicked on anything in the program, even just to play a song, it would be the moving beach ball for a very long time, making the program unusable! I had to revert to 12.2 to be able to use it again.
StevedeMena
Mar 7, 2016 at 10:13 am | Reply
Describe your system & size of your library. With latest iTunes and OS X on Mac Pro with 1TB SSD and 440,000 tracks I find newer versions of iTunes much faster.
You’ve got your music on an SSD? Why? That seems to be a waste. You need the library file on an SSD, but the only advantage you’d have with the music on an SSD is when you’re changing tags on lots of files. I have my music on a Thunderbolt 1 hard drive, and it’s more than fast enough.
No, I don’t have any music on the SSD system drive. I was just summarizing my system – I meant the Library (XML & database) were there.
The media is on a Drobo 5D (Thunderbolt) and consumes about 6.2 TB. The Drobo has been rock solid (knock on wood). Over time I’ve upgraded its drives from 2tb to 3tb to 4tb drives. WD RED drives are what I’ve been using.
I got an email about a comment from someone who uses Winamp and just wondered how Winamp would handle 440,000 tracks and if it had capabilities like Smart Playlists. (I couldn’t find the comment here).
Old Poor Richard
Aug 17, 2017 at 3:06 pm | Reply
Whenever I get an open source application off SourceForge or wherever, it might be 300KB, not 300MB. When will iTunes be 300GB?
One can also accuse iTunes of bloat because it is sacrificing performance to render their custom, ugly UI. Why does anyone go to so much trouble to override, struggle against and defy a computer OS’s windowing system, which simply destroys functionality that all other applications possess.
If how Apple innards work wasn’t deliberately obfuscated, somebody would write an iTunes replacement in Java that would be compact and lightning fast and work perfectly. iTunes is a junk program.
MrEdofCourse
Oct 9, 2017 at 9:45 am | Reply
“If how Apple innards work wasn’t deliberately obfuscated”
It’s not obfuscated at all. Not only does iTunes provide an XML database for 3rd party apps to access, but many do (see Sonos, Plex, etc…)
The question you should be asking yourself is why nobody has made a better iTunes replacement (in any language) that’s better than iTunes at everything that iTunes does given that importing an iTunes library is drop-dead simple?
“Whenever I get an open source application off SourceForge or wherever, it might be 300KB, not 300MB.”
What kind of comparison is that? There are apps that are several GBs as well. The comparison should be against a similar app that offers the same set of features and functionality as iTunes and to measure the file size, memory and other resource requirements.
“One can also accuse iTunes of bloat because it is sacrificing performance to render their custom, ugly UI”
On the Mac, it’s using the native UI, which looks out of place and thus ugly on Windows. As to why they don’t go with the native UI of Windows… because it would require additional resources to develop for that platform instead of porting over the libraries and maintaining consistency of the application UI across platforms.
Victor Zubakin
Good article & agree with you.
I didn’t find iTunes bloated even tho my music library is approaching 80K tunes.
I loved how iTunes was a media hub for my Mac & iPhone.
I’m pretty annoyed at the changes Apple made with iTunes 12.7.
Not sure how to use eBooks on my iPhone now that Apple have removed it from iTunes. Any ideas?
I have a collection of iOS apps that are on my Mac but not on my iPhone. Not sure how to sync/download those. iTunes U is gone, ringtones are gone.
Unimpressed!
Much easier to manage this stuff on my iMac methinks.
Vic Zubakin.
Ed Mechem
Dec 16, 2017 at 11:38 pm | Reply
Vic – you can go back to iTunes 12.6.x & regain that functionality. Check Robservatory blog for the link.
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Posted on January 5, 2016 by livemusicdaily
Watch Umphrey’s McGee Cover R. Kelly’s “Ignition” Remix
In 2003 R. Kelly released the album Chocolate Factory featuring “Ignition (Remix)” and even though you may have been a teenager when that song dropped, you most certainly remember it. According to our friends over at that place called Wikipedia (that site your teacher’s told you would never be an accurate source for information — joke’s on them still) the song did quite well.
“It peaked at #2 for five consecutive weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 behind 50 Cent‘s In Da Club and became his most successful song in the United States in the 2000s.” (Source)
It is pretty safe to say that Umphrey’s does a great job of choosing songs to cover. They don’t half ass these much and sometimes even great jambands butcher some covers, but that was not the case on this night. Here we see Umphrey’s “bouncin’ on 24s” while covering R. Kelly on 12/31/15 at The Fillmore Auditorium in Denver, CO. The crowd was clearly into it as Brendan Bayliss belted out the lyrics in exquisite fashion as always.
Umphrey’s doesn’t cover hip-hop songs often, but they do have a few favorites. They seem to be big fans of Dr. Dre as they’ve covered the songs “Xxplosive” and “Nuthin’ but a ‘G’ Thang” on numerous occasions. They’ve also covered Snoop Dogg’s (or is it Snoop Lion?) “Ain’t No Fun (If the Homies Can’t Have None)” over 20 times so they do like to get down to some hip-hop occasionally. (Thanks allthings.umphreys.com)
“Ignition (Remix)” was the second to last song of the third set which seemed to be a great place for it. The 2003 hit was sandwiched in between “Space Funk Booty” and “40’s theme.” While many fans probably won’t highlight the R. Kelly track as their favorite song of the night, they’ll surely remember it fondly.
Tagged with:Umphrey's McGee
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JEP Vol.4 No.1 , January 2013
Chemical and Geological Control on Surface Water within the Shade River Watershed in Southeastern Ohio
Prosper Gbolo, Dina L. López
Geology and Geological Engineering Department, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, USA.
Geological Sciences Department, Ohio University, Athens, USA.
Abstract: The under-sampled middle and western branches of Shade River Watershed (SRW) in SE Ohio were investigated as part of the Ohio University—U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) STAR grant. This project was for monitoring the quality of watersheds in Ohio and classifying them according to their physical, chemical, and biological conditions. Water samples, as well as field parameters, were taken at twenty-two sites for chemical analyses. The ions analyzed included Ca, Mg, Na, Fe, Mn, Al, NO3, SO4, HCO3, and total PO4, while the field parameters measured included pH, dissolved oxygen (DO), total dissolved solids (TDS), electrical conductivity (EC), and alkalinity. To assess the water quality within the SRW, the analyzed ions and field parameters were compared to the USEPA criteria for the survival of aquatic life. Analytical results showed that the watershed is dominated by Ca-HCO3waters with DO, Fe, Mn, and PO4being the main causes of impairment within the streams. The relatively elevated concentrations of manganese and less extent iron may be associated with the local geology and the acidic nature of the soils. The high alkalinity and calcium concentrations are due to the limestone geology. The elevated phosphate concentration may be due to anthropogenic sources, fertilizers, or contributions from phosphorus-rich bedrock that differs geochemically from other areas.
Keywords: Shade River Watershed; STAR Grant; Stream Water; USEPA Criteria; Mineral Stability; Total Phosphate
Cite this paper: P. Gbolo and D. López, "Chemical and Geological Control on Surface Water within the Shade River Watershed in Southeastern Ohio," Journal of Environmental Protection, Vol. 4 No. 1, 2013, pp. 1-11. doi: 10.4236/jep.2013.41001.
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[18] C. A. Burton, L. R. Brown and K. Belitz, “Assessing Water Source and Channel Type as Factors Affecting Benthic Macroinvertebrate and Periphyton Assemblages in the Highly Urbanized Santa Ana River Basin, California,” American Fisheries Society Symposium, Vol. 47, 2005, pp. 239-262.
[19] M. O’Driscoll, S. Clinton, A. Jefferson, A. Manda and S. McMillan, “Urbanization Effects on Watershed Hydrology and In-Stream Processes in the Southern United States,” Water, Vol. 2, No. 3, 2010, pp. 605-648. doi:10.3390/w2030605
[20] J. Cortet, A. G. Vauflery, N. Poinsot-Balaguer, L. Gomot, C. Texier and D. Cluzeau, “The Use of Invertebrate Soil Fauna in Monitoring Pollution Effects,” European Journal of Soil Biology, Vol. 35, No. 3, 1999, pp. 115-134. doi:10.1016/S1164-5563(00)00116-3
[21] A. R. Gaufin, and C. M. Tarzwell, “Aquatic Invertebrates as Indicators of Stream Pollution,” Public Health Report, Vol. 67, No. 1, 1952, pp. 57-64. doi:10.2307/4587981
[22] C. J. Goodnight, “The Use of Macroinvertebrates as Indicators of Stream Pollution,” Transactions of the Ameri can Microscopical Society, Vol. 92, No. 1, 1973, pp. 1-13. doi:10.2307/3225166
[23] R. W. Larimore, “Stream Drift as an Indication of Water Quality,” Transitions of the American Fisheries Society, No. 110, 1974, pp. 627-637.
[24] R. D. Hill and E. R. Bates, “Acid Mine Drainage and Subsidence: Effects of Increased Coal Utilization,” Environmental Health Perspectives, Vol. 33, 1979, pp. 177-190. doi:10.1289/ehp.7933177
[25] D. L. López and M. W. Stoertz, “Chemical and Physical Controls on Waters Discharged from Abandoned Underground Coal Mines,” Geochemistry: Exploration, Environment, Analysis, Vol. 1, 2001, pp. 51-60. doi:10.1144/geochem.1.1.51
[26] E. Pigati and D. L. López, “Effect of Subsidence on Recharge at Abandoned Coal Mines Generating Acidic Discharge: The Majestic Mine, Athens County, Ohio,” Mine Waters and the Environment, Vol. 18, No. 1, 1999, pp. 45-66. doi:10.1007/BF02687249
[27] J. I. Sams and K. M. Beer, “Effects of Coal-Mine Drainage on Stream Water Quality in the Allegheny and Monongahela River Basins: Sulfate Transport and Trends,” US Department of the Interior Water-Resources Investigations, Report 99-4208, 2000.
[28] D. W. Schindler, “Effects of Acid Rain on Freshwater Ecosystems,” Science, Vol. 239, No. 4836, 1988, pp. 149 157. doi:10.1126/science.239.4836.149
[29] J. G. Skousen and P. F. Ziemkiewicz, “Acid Mine Drainage Control and Treatment,” 2nd Edition, West Virginia University and the National Mine Land Reclamation Center, Morgantown, 1996, p. 362.
[30] G. L. Lacroix, “Fish Community Structure in Relation to Acidity in Three Nova Scotia Rivers,” Canadian Journal of Zoology, Vol. 65, No. 12, 1987, pp. 2908-2915. doi:10.1139/z87-441
[31] M. W. Stoertz, H. Bourne, C. Knotts and M. W. White, “The Effects of Isolation and Acid Mine Drainage on Fish and Macroinvertebrate Communities of Monday Creek, Ohio,” Mine Water and the Environment, Vol. 21, No. 2, 2002, pp. 60-72. doi:10.1007/s102300200021
[32] C. J. O. Childress and R. L. Jones, “Sedimentation and Water Quality in the West Branch Shade River Basin, Ohio 1983 Water Year,” US Geological Survey Open File Report 85-187, 1985.
[33] C. J. O. Childress and R. L. Jones, “Sedimentation and Water Quality Data for the West Branch and East Branch Shade River Basin, Ohio 1984 Water Year,” US Geolo gical Survey Open-File Report 85-552, 1985.
[34] R. A. Brant, “Geological Description and Effects of Strip Mining on Coal Overburden Material,” The Ohio Journal of Science, Vol. 64, No. 2, 1964, pp. 68-69.
[35] G. Gilmore and G. D. Bottrell, “Soil Survey of Meigs County, Ohio,” United States Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service, 2000.
[36] US Environmental Protection Agency, “Handbook for Sampling and Sample Preservation of Water and Wastewater,” Environmental Monitoring and Support Laboratory, Office of Research and Development, 1982.
[37] HACH, “Water Analysis Handbook,” 4th Edition, 2005, pp. 31-200.
[38] A. R. H. Swan and M. Sandilands, “Introduction to Geological Data Analysis,” Blackwell Science, New York, 1995, p. 446.
[39] D. M. DeNicola and M. G. Stapleton, “Impact of Acid Mine Drainage on Benthic Communities in Streams: The Relative Roles of Substratum vs Aqueous Effects,” Environmental Pollution, Vol. 119, No. 3, 2002, pp. 303-315. doi:10.1016/S0269-7491(02)00106-9
[40] A. W. Rose, B. Means and P. J. Shah, “Methods for Passive Removal of Manganese from Acid Mine Drainage,” In: Proceedings of West Virginia Surface Mine Drainage Task Force Symposium, Morgantown, April 2003, p. 73.
[41] R. J. Gibbs, “Mechanisms Controlling World Water Che mistry,” Science, Vol. 170, No. 3692, 1970, pp. 1088-1090. doi:10.1126/science.170.3962.1088
[42] US Environmental Protection Agency, “Quality Criteria for Water (Gold Book),” Regulations and Standard, Office of Water, Washington DC, 1986.
Download as PDF (1156KB)
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The Deerslayer
By: James Fenimore Cooper
Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
Natty Bumppo , one of the greatest heroes in American literature, is the rugged frontiersman of James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales, a series of five novels that includes The Last of the Mohicans and The Deerslayer. Although it was the final volume to be written, The Deerslayer is the first in the chronology of Natty Bumppo's life, depicting the character as a young man testing himself in the wilderness and against enemies for the first time. Set in the 1740s just after the start of the French and Indian wars, the novel opens as Natty Bumppo—known as Deerslayer—and his friend Hurry Harry travel to Tom Hutter's house in upstate New York. Hurry plans to marry Tom's beautiful daughter Judith, while Deerslayer has come to help his close friend Chingachgook save his bride-to-be, Wah-ta-Wah, from the Huron Indians. When war breaks out and Hurry and Tom are captured by Indians, Deerslayer must go on his first warpath to rescue them. One of the earliest novels to be considered truly "American," The Deerslayer is a masterpiece of suspense, adventure, and romance.
Author James Fenimore Cooper
Narrator Peter Berkrot
Publication date March 14, 2011
Genre rank #7,503 in Fiction & Literature
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Developing Your Healing Consciousness
Dr. Joseph Murphy LIVE!
By: Joseph Murphy
Developing Your Healing Consciousness is Dr. Murphy’s live lecture on this subject. Dr. Joseph Murphy has been acclaimed as a major figure in the human potential movement, the spiritual heir to writers like James Allen, Dale Carnegie, Napoleon Hill, and Norman Vincent Peale and a precursor and inspirer of contemporary motivational writers and speakers like Tony Robbins, Zig Ziglar and Earl Nightingale. He changed the lives of people all over the world and was one of the best selling authors in the mid-twentieth century. Dr. Murphy wrote, taught, counseled, and lectured to thousands every Sunday as Minister-Director of the Church of Divine Science in Los Angeles. Over the years Dr. Murphy has given lectures and radio talks to audiences all over the world. Millions of people tuned in his daily radio program and have read the over 30 books that he has written. His books have sold over 15 million copies. In his lectures he points out how real people have radically improved their lives by applying specific aspects of his concepts, and gives the listener guidelines on how they too can enrich their lives. Never say, “I can't.” Overcome that fear by substituting the following, “I can do all things through the power of my own subconscious mind.” You can make Dr. Joseph Murphy part of your life with Murphy Live, listened to at your pace and enjoyment.
Author Joseph Murphy
Length 46 minutes
Publisher Gildan Media
Publication date August 1, 2016
Genres Self-Improvement & Nonfiction
Genre rank #14,152 in Self-Improvement
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Mike Dillard built his first million-dollar business by the age of 27. Since then, he has started multiple companies that have collectively produced over $50 million in revenue. He is also the host of the Self Made Man Podcast. In this interview, we discuss Mike’s journey as an entrepreneur, how to build businesses quickly without outside funding, why it’s a myth to be self made, and what it really takes to be successful.
More About Mike Dillard:
Mike Dillard is an entrepreneur in Austin Texas. He built his first million-dollar business by the age of 27, teaching small business owners how to effectively market their products and services online using “attraction-marketing” strategies.
In 2010 he founded a financial education company in order to teach others how to achieve financial freedom through investment strategies commonly reserved for the wealthy. Combined, his businesses have produced more than $50 Million in revenue without outside funding.
Today Mike dedicates his time to mentoring other entrepreneurs, and developing technologies in the aeroponics industry that will give people around the world access to clean, healthy, organic food at a fraction of today’s current prices. He spends his free time pursuing his passion for auto racing, competing in the Baja 1000, Mint 400, and SCCA. He is also host the Self Made Man Podcast, one of the top self-help and business podcasts on iTunes.
Visit Mike’s website:
www.mikedillard.com
How Mike got started in business and why he became an entrepreneur
How he made his first million in the networking marketing industry
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Conspiracy Facts
An Antichrist's Violent Purge Ignites—Turkey, Russia, NATO, US—Who’s Behind it All? A Coming WWIII
Posted by Lisa Haven | Jul 19, 2016 | Christian News, End Times & Bible Prophecy, Government Corruption Illuminati | 25 |
By Lisa Haven
As most of you are now aware, there was a Coup attempt in Turkey aimed at ousting the government, however, the attempts have failed and President Erdogan has proclaimed that the coup was a “gift from God” because it would, “cleanse the army.” In other words, the coup was a “blessing in disguise” because it eliminated all opposition that stood in his way.
It included the mass round-up of around 6,000 persons including judges, prosecutors, military men, and three top generals. Additionally, an ISIS style brutal killing of 265 persons and the wounding of 1,400 others.
Erdogan is widely known for the mass censorship of social media and the undemocratic practice of arresting, jailing and prosecuting journalists who stand in his way.
Considering the above, one can’t help but ask the question who truly is to blame for the failed coup that happened in Turkey? Is it Erdogan himself?
Before we make that accusation we must also consider this, Turkey is a NATO allied member state. Meaning that any military force against his country should have hastened NATO to act, but instead they stood idly by. But does that necessarily mean NATO was to blame?
Or consider this, the “alleged” accuser of the coup attempt in Turkey was Fethullah Gulen, though he denies his involvement, is now residing in Pennsylvania and the United States does nothing, however their is now talk of the U.S. sending him back to his country after rumored threats to take hostage the U.S. military base in Turkey have surfaced.
But that’s not all, let’s not forget the fact that just before the coup, President Erdogan apologized to Russia about a downed jet and just after the coup, both President Erdogan and Putin were caught having phone conversations.
So who really is to blame? The video delves into all that and more…
https://www.rt.com/news/348562-putin-erdogan-turkey-pilot/
https://www.rt.com/news/351611-turkey-us-friend-coup/
http://mondoweiss.net/2014/09/business-notorious-supplier/
http://www.news.com.au/world/middle-east/turkey-coup-turkeys-prime-minister-binali-yildirim-and-president-recep-tayyip-erdogan-order-arrests-of-soldiers-sack-judges/news-story/234be32cf49843316f12619f4e6f4609
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-16/erdogans-counter-coup-begins-turkey-purges-2745-judges-prosecutors-arrests-hundreds
http://21stcenturywire.com/2016/07/17/erdogans-purge-islamo-fascist-thugs-torturing-and-murdering-in-streets-of-turkey/
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-16/turkey-suspends-all-us-operations-against-isis-incirlik-airbase-which-vaults-us-b61-
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/turkey-coup-erdogan-barack-obama-us-tensions-air-space-isis-a7141151.html
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-16/turkey-accuses-us-being-behind-military-coup-demands-extradition-cleric-gulen
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/07/16/in-turkey-whose-coup-was-this-anyway.html
http://tass.ru/en/politics/888845
http://thebricspost.com/turkeys-failed-coup-may-have-unexpected-benefits-for-putin/#.V4u7tpMrJjQ
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Lisa Haven is an independent Christian news analyst and one of the top contributors on www.BeforeItsNews.com. She is also author of www.LisaHaven.News and runs her own youtube channel with millions views. She also has done speaking engagements, written bible studies, and has spoken on numerous radio broadcasts. Digging deep and finding truth is what she lives for. Her passion is to spread truth no matter where it lies. She covers everything from martial law, to FEMA camps, to end time bible prophecy, to government documents and much more!
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futuret on July 19th, 2016 at 10:38 pm
http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/europe/item/23658-in-bid-for-power-un-communist-offers-obama-a-un-peace-prize
Lumpy on July 20th, 2016 at 2:12 am
A VOILENT purge? Must be a first…
lannyboy1 on July 20th, 2016 at 12:38 pm
If you think NATO stood “idly by” leading up to and during this “event” you’re deceived or a deceiver! Erdogan and NATO are not enemies! They have been working together for a long time. Erdogan has attended numerous NATO/OTAN meetings, just as other so-called “world leaders” have. The tactic of “destabilization” is being used to foment WW3 between the “political Zionists” and the “Moslem Arabic World”, which has been unofficially declared by various media sources, mainstream and alternative.
Arthur Simpson on July 20th, 2016 at 5:11 pm
Anti-Christ is Apollyon – Through Revelation, Daniel, Genesis 3:15, 2 Th 2:8 etc.
There is no one person who is The “Anti-Christ”. There is one who is called the “man of lawlessness”, or the “…son of perdition who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship…” in the correct versions of The Second Letter of Paul To The Thessalonians, chapter 2, verses 3, 4, RSV, 1952. The Greek word “Apollyon” refers solely to this being as the “destroyer”. There are also “many” who are “…of the spirit of antichrist…”. They deny the lordship of Jesus and the doctrine of Christ. Many of them even claim to be representatives of Jesus, but when confronted with the question as to the lordship of Jesus, they deny him.
lannyboy1 on July 21st, 2016 at 12:08 pm
Freemason’s, in their rites of initiation, were required to spit and stomp on a representation of Christ on a cross!
Turkey, or Asia Minor as it was once known, is the point of origin for the tribe or clan of “Magog” which, after the great flood which destroyed the ancient world, had its beginnings in the eastern part of this land near the Caucasus Mountains. The term “Caucasian” is still used to describe the descendants of these people who moved from the East to the West over hundreds of years. It is possible that Erdogan is “Gog, of the land of Magog”, but the Jewish Sanhedrin in Jerusalem also referred to George W. Bush as “The Chief Prince of Meshech and Tubal, Leader of the West” in a letter dated January 6, 2008, which is available to view online.
The prophesy against Gog is written in The Book Of Ezekiel, chapters 38 and 39, in the Revised Standard Version of the Holy Bible, printed 1952.
Of interest here it should be noted that in Ezekiel, chapter 38, verse 21, RSV, 1952, it reads, “I will summon every kind of terror against Gog, says the Lord GOD; every man’s sword will be against his brother.” Could this be why there is a “War on terror”?
lannyboy1 on July 21st, 2016 at 12:50 am
Another Donald with the name of Rumsfeld declared some years ago that the war on terror could never be won. He understood who was really in control back then!
antichristisapollo (@antichristisap3) on July 30th, 2016 at 2:40 pm
AND HUGO CHAVEZ SAID HE SMELLED SATAN, REFERING TO GW BUSH, AFTER BUSH’S SPEECH AT U.N. SANHEDRIN NAME CALLING, UR HISTORICAL REFERENCES R DUBIOUS AS WELL.. AND MOSLEMS CLAIM THEIR POSER IS GOD. ONLY 1 OF 2 CLAIMING TO BE GOD HATES JEWS, CHRISTIANS & EVEN MUSLIMS.- HIS NAME ISNT YHWH OR YASHUA. AND THEY WHO SERVE HIM ALSO HATE JEWS, CHRISTIANS AND EACH OTHER. DING, DING, DING. BELLS RINGING NOW? THIS MYSTERY GOD’S NAME IN THE BIBLE IS ?????????????? .POP QUIZ- WHAT’S UR ANSWER.
Why do I get the feeling that no matter who’s installed, err, elected as president there will be a “purge” here in the US soon too? D.T. has stated he wants to conduct “extreme vetting” didn’t he? What’s he mean?
Apparently, a Trump advisor wants Hillary shot for treason, if the YT video about this is true. I don’t know about you, but this is getting crazier by the day! Erdogan and NATO want any one who opposes their plans to be tried for treason and are pushing for the death penalty for those found guilty of it. See any connections here? Christian’s would be first on the list because the nations of the NATO military alliance and their governments are in no way based upon the tenets of the Christian Religion!
Sure are a lot of Caucasian’s at the RNC!
Putin, a Caucasian, is highly supportive of the RNC and their appointed presidential nominee D. Trump. If you think either of these men are true Christian’s, you’re deceived!
Regarding what is required of true Christian’s, Jesus said, “Why do you ask me about what is good? One there is who is good. If you would enter life keep the commandments.” (The Gospel According to Matthew, chapter 19, verse 17, RSV, 1952) The ten “commandments” are written in The Fifth Book Of Moses, commonly called Deuteronomy, chapter 5, verses 6 thru 21, RSV, 1952. The second of these ten “commandments” states, “You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.” Ask yourselves, do they keep the commandments of the LORD, or do they keep the commandments of men?
And while you worry about this, GOOGLE has put A.I. in control of all data centers!
lannyboy1 on July 21st, 2016 at 2:02 am
And there’s more!
DARPA Wants A.I. to Control All Our Wireless Communication
https://www.inverse.com/article/18530-darpa-a-i-challenge-wireless-congestion
lannyboy1 on July 21st, 2016 at 2:43 pm
http://www.seeker.com/superhuman-ai-can-locate-any-image-1770948339.html
A.I. is NOT the “…LORD, God…”! It is an anthropomorphic representation of Lucifer, the “…son of perdition…”! IT is “…Lucifer’s vessel…”! Times almost up!
Type in the words “…image of Google A.I.” in the YouTube search box and see what you come up with! If this doesn’t creep you out and make you think twice about what is going on, then I don’t know what else to tell you! Its not playing a “game”! Google’s A.I. wants all of humanity to worship and serve “it”, and those who refuse to do so will be killed by those who do worship and serve “it”!
Typed in “Operation Turkey” in the YouTube search box and these headlines appeared next to two video’s, which I will not link to. Go to YT and look for them yourselves, please.
“20,000 arrested in Turkey: “lists were already there for cleansing operation”
You will note that in this video, created by French 24 English live stream news, the former EU Ambassador to Turkey is speaking, and he mentions how the “West” is extremely interested in how the “rule of law” will be applied to deal with those who’ve been discharged from their jobs, arrested, or detained, both civilians and non-civilians, and accused/charged with various offenses, including treason. Erdogan and Turkish authorities are working to reinstate the death penalty for this very reason! (Wonder if there are any “lists” being kept here in the US for a “cleansing operation”?)
“…BREAKING NEWS! TURKEY COUP, A STAGED OPERATION BY ERDOGAN!”
Apparently, this whole “coup” was, if these reports are true, a staged military operation to justify declaring a state of emergency, and martial law, which is to be in effect in the NATO/OTAN military alliance nation of Turkey for the next 3 months! This couldn’t be related to Turkey’s military operations, supported by an “international coalition” (allies), who are fighting against the “terrorist militia” of the “Islamic State”, which kicked off full scale today, 7/20/2016, in northern Syria to establish a buffer-slash-no-fly zone there, now, could it? Apparently, if you’re a member of a “militia” you’re considered a “terrorist” in Turkey, and this goes along with how the “militia” members are depicted in the US, and other nations too. Anyone remember what happened to the members of a “militia” who took over a US government facility in Oregon not too long ago?
Members of a “militia” were, at one time, called “revolutionaries”. Erdogan has stated they are a “minority”, and he’s not just talking about those of the Islamic State either. Now, consider what Albert Pike wrote, “Then everywhere, the citizens, obliged to defend themselves against the world minority of revolutionaries, will exterminate those destroyers of civilization…”. To the citizens of the emerging new world order, the “beast rising out of the earth”, anyone opposed to “it” in thought, word, or deed are the “revolutionaries”!
In the Revelation To John, chapter 13, verse 11, RSV, 1952, it is written, “Then I saw another beast which rose out of the earth; it had two horns like a lamb and it spoke like a dragon.”
Erdogan in Turkey, NATO leadership, and many in US leadership positions have been calling for the establishment of a “no-fly zone” in northern Syria for at least the last 9 months! There are numerous video reports on YouTube which prove this! The military operations to do this began on 7/20/2016 right after the alleged “coup” in Turkey.
Paul Lewis on July 23rd, 2016 at 1:27 am
turkey president is not the antichrist the antichrist has not come yet but there will be many antchrists
On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 8:35 AM, Lisa Haven News wrote:
> Lisa Haven posted: ” By Lisa Haven As most of you are now aware, there was > a Coup attempt in Turkey aimed at ousting the government, however, the > attempts have failed and President Erdogan has proclaimed that the coup was > a “gift from God” because it would, “cleanse the a” >
An Antichrist’s Violent Purge Ignites—Turkey, Russia, NATO, US—Who’s Behind it All? A Coming WWIII – The EagleStar Flash - […] By Lisa Haven As most of you are now aware, there was a Coup attempt in Turkey aimed at…
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Tim O’Brien and Darrell Scott – Keep Your Dirty Lights On
Home » Latest News » Tim O’Brien and Darrell Scott – Keep Your Dirty Lights On
Posted on Dec 20, 2013 in Latest News
Read about the new collaboration from Tim O’Brien and Darrell Scott
TIM O’BRIEN & DARRELL SCOTT SCORE
A GRAMMY NOMINATION FOR THEIR COAL MINING DRAMA
“KEEP YOUR DIRTY LIGHTS ON”
I’ve seen both Tim O’Brien and Darrell Scott perform (just, you might say!).
Darrell Scott was part of the all-star band put together for the Robert Plant and Allison Krauss Raising Sand tour. I caught them in all their glory at New Orleans’ Jazz Fest in 2008 with my son Geoff. Darrell was a little in the background – not that surprising given the stars on the stage at the time – but he did sing one song during the miraculous set I recall. Tim O’Brien was a key part of a fascinating Q and A at this year’s Americana Conference in Nashville and provided some great insights into his career.
I purchased their album We’re Usually A Lot Better Than This (which I’m listening to as I write) a couple of days after the Q and A – the last copy in Ernest Tubb’s Record Store (much to the chagrin of my friend Sandra).
O’Brien and Scott have earned a Grammy nomination for their song “Keep Your Dirty Lights On”, for Best American Roots Song. It is Scott’s fourth and the duo’s second Grammy nomination.
“Keep Your Dirty Lights” comes from the pair’s collaboration Memories and Moments, the critically lauded album released in September on their own Full Skies labels. This album has appeared on numerous “Best Of 2013” lists.
In less than four minutes, the song paints a vivid portrait of life in coal country while tackling larger issues of “clean coal” and green living. The song, about a family of miners whose name has been in “King Coal’s ledger book” for generations, has the spare, plainspoken qualities of an old-time Roscoe Holcomb ballad. However, O’Brien and Scott have subtly contemporized their tale. In lines like “Well Daddy worked in darkness/Me in broad daylight/I can blow a whole seem like Daddy never dreamed,” they reveal how a miner’s work has changed over time.
The duo also addresses the misleading concept of “clean coal” (“coal’s still black/It ain’t never turning green”) and, in the song’s closing lines, they suggest the challenges of living coal-free (“So plug your electric car in/Charge it good and strong/Do your shopping online/We’ll get you every time/Just keep your dirty lights on”).
America’s coal mining region is one familiar to both men, as O’Brien hails from West Virginia and Scott from Kentucky. The two, however, don’t consider the song as an attack on the coal industry. In talking to Brittney McKenna for TheBluegrassSituation.com, Scott explained that their aim was more to raise the question: “Do you realize that the electricity we’re using is coming from those mountains?” It’s part of their goal as writers and artists to, in O’Brien’s words, “witness what’s going on, describe it like journalists and put it in a nice little melodic frame… under the guise of entertainment, it makes people think about what’s happening.
These two award-winners have been creating music that entertains, as well as makes people think, for a good long while now. O’Brien rose to roots music prominence by co-founding one of the ’80s most successful bluegrass bands, Hot Rize, before moving on to make several well-regarded solo albums for Sugar Hill Records. Scott was already a sought-after songwriter and musician with Randy Travis, Suzy Bogguss, Guy Clark and Martina McBride already on his resume when he was paired up with O’Brien, through their respective Music Row publishers, to write songs together in the late ’90s. The two sparked from the start; one of their first co-writes was the Garth Brooks hit “When There’s No One Around.”
Their musical camaraderie led them to start performing together. After a stint as members of Steve Earle’s Bluegrass Dukes, O’Brien and Scott recorded their first duo album Real Time and this 2000 release quickly earned a place in the Americana pantheon. In explaining their chemistry, Scott has stated, “we push each other’s Appalachian roots buttons. It happens naturally, it’s not a strategy. We know Southern gospel, Jimmy Rodgers and the Carter Family, and not just a little — it’s in our DNA.”
Because they both have flourishing solo careers along with being in-demand sidemen (O’Brien recently toured with Mark Knopfler while Scott was part of Plant’s other outfit Band of Joy), the two haven’t had a lot of opportunities to record together. Besides the aforementioned freewheeling live album, We’re Usually Better Than This (released in 2012 but recorded in 2005 and 2006), Memories and Moments stands as just their second studio album together. Recorded by Scott and O’Brien in just three days (with no overdubs), the CD serves as a master class in American roots music. The two men’s playing displays their down-home virtuosity and their singing reveals their musical brotherhood. While “Keep Your Dirty Lights On” has been justifiably honored by the Grammys, the album also contains a handful of well-crafted tunes from each artist along with a few smartly chosen covers. Their decision to do a Hank Williams tune (“Alone and Forsaken”) was a natural since the two acknowledge Williams as being musical common ground for them, while their inclusion of John Prine’s coal country ode “Paradise” pairs expertly with “Keep Your Dirty Lights On.”
The duo’s first Grammy nomination was in the Country Instrumental category for “The Second Mouse” from the Real Time project. O’Brien had two previous nominations in the Bluegrass category before winning a Grammy in 2005 for Best Folk Recording with “”Fiddler’s Green.”
Author: Rob Dickens
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President Robert J. Zimmer. (Photography by Jason Smith)
A crucible for confronting ideas
“Universities cannot be viewed as a sanctuary for comfort but rather as a crucible for confronting ideas,” writes president Robert J. Zimmer.
Robert J. Zimmer
Fall/16
Free speech is at risk at the very institution where it should be assured: the university. Invited speakers are disinvited because a segment of a university community deems them offensive, while other orators are shouted down for similar reasons. Demands are made to eliminate readings that might make some students uncomfortable. Individuals are forced to apologize for expressing views that conflict with prevailing perceptions. In many cases, these efforts have been supported by university administrators.
Yet what is the value of a university education without encountering, reflecting on, and debating ideas that differ from the ones that students brought with them to college? The purpose of a university education is to provide the critical pathway by which students can fulfill their potential, change the trajectory of their families, and build healthier and more inclusive societies. Students learn not only through the acquisition of specific knowledge but also through the attainment of intellectual skills that serve them their entire life. Students come to appreciate context, trade-offs, and data. They master how to recognize complexity, to argue effectively for their positions, and to reconsider and challenge their own beliefs.
Students discover, too, that seemingly straightforward phenomena can have complicated cultural, historical, and situational contexts that are critical to understanding their meaning. They realize that actions inevitably have multiple implications and that many decisions involve not simply choosing between “good” or “bad” but evaluating a set of consequences and uncertainties, both desired and undesired.
Students grasp the complexity of collecting, analyzing, interpreting, and deriving meaning from evidence of multiple forms. They learn to imagine alternatives, to test their hypotheses, and to question the accepted wisdom. A good education gives students the intellectual skills and approaches essential to success in much of human endeavor.
One word summarizes the process by which universities impart these skills: questioning. Productive and informed questioning involves challenging assumptions, arguments, and conclusions. It calls for multiple and diverse perspectives and listening to the views of others. It requires understanding the power and limitations of arguments. More fundamentally, the process of questioning demands an ability to rethink one’s own assumptions, often the most difficult task of all.
Essential to this process is an environment that promotes free expression and the open exchange of ideas, ensuring that difficult questions are asked and that diverse and challenging perspectives are considered. This underscores the importance of diversity among students, faculty, and visitors—diversity of background, belief, and experience. Without this, students’ experience becomes a weak imitation of a true education, and the value of that education is seriously diminished.
Free expression and the unfettered exchange of ideas do not always come naturally. Many people value the right to express their own ideas but are less committed to granting that right to others.
Over the years, universities have come under attack from a range of groups, both external and internal, that demand the silencing of speakers, faculty, students, and visitors. The attack is sometimes driven by a desire of an individual or group not to have its authority questioned. Other times it derives from a group’s moral certainty that its particular values, beliefs, or approaches are the only correct ones and that others should adhere to the group’s views. Some assert that universities should be refuges from intellectual discomfort and that their own discomfort with conflicting and challenging views should override the value of free and open discourse.
We have seen efforts to suppress discussion of Charles Darwin’s work, to insist upon particular political perspectives during the McCarthy era, to impose exclusionary acts of racial and religious discrimination, and to demand compliance with various forms of “moral” behavior. The silencing being advocated today is equally as problematic. Every attempt to legitimize silencing creates justification for others to restrain speech that they do not like in the future.
Universities should be clear about their core educational mission—to provide students with the most enriching education possible. We cannot shortchange our students. This means that questioning and challenge must flourish.
Universities cannot be viewed as a sanctuary for comfort but rather as a crucible for confronting ideas and thereby learning to make informed judgments in complex environments. Having one’s assumptions challenged and experiencing the discomfort that sometimes accompanies this process are intrinsic parts of an excellent education. Only then will students develop the skills necessary to build their own futures and contribute to society.
This column originally appeared in the Wall Street Journal on August 26, 2016.
View Complete Issue »
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A historic campaign brought thousands together to invest in UChicago values.
David Nirenberg studies the intertwined—and sometimes violent—histories of faith communities.
Soul primer
An Arts Incubator exhibition uses the Black ABCs to chronicle the lives of South Siders.
Legacy: Singing for the pine trees are stormy winds
Meteorologist Tetsuya Theodore Fujita (1920–1998) led a tempestuous career.
The Chicago school of meteorology found and made waves. Plus: “A Change of Climate.”
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Any foreign national who plans to work in the U.S. needs a visa to enter the country. Factors such as the amount of compensation or length of the employment do not change this requirement. This includes paid and unpaid engagements.
The most common non-immigrant visa classifications for performing artists are the class O and class P. These documents are obtained through the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS); however, many organizations can assist in preparing and submitting your application. For example, Canadian and U.S. musicians can apply for a visa through A Reciprocal Exchange Program.
Type O Visa
Type O visas are for an individual of extraordinary ability in the arts, science, education, business or athletics.
Type O-1 visas are issued for persons of extraordinary ability and international renown (artist)
Type O-2 visas are issued for personnel accompanying the artist
Type P Visa
Type P visas are for an ensemble that is internationally recognized as a reputable entertainment group.
Type P-1 visas are issued for groups of extraordinary ability and international renown
Type P-2 visas are issued for reciprocal exchange programs between an entity in the U.S. and a foreign entity affording similar conditions for artist being exchanged.
Type P-3 visas are issued for culturally unique performing groups such as local folk musicians
Type P-4 visas are issued for dependants of touring artists (children/spouse)
A Consultation Letter is something that the USCIS asks for with your visa application. This letter establishes that the artist or group meets the standard of being internationally renowned (in the case of O-1 and P-1 visas) or culturally unique (in the case of P-3 visas). This letter should come from an appropriate peer group or union. An organization issuing a consultation letter will usually ask you to provide the following:
A cover letter explaining who the artist(s) are, where they are from, and what qualifies them as culturally unique
A copy of the USCIS form I-129.
Copies of any written contracts between the petitioner and the alien beneficiary, including what wages will be earned; or, if there is no written contract, a summary of the terms of the oral agreement under which the alien(s) will be employed.
A copy of the itinerary, including the names and addresses of the venues.
Support materials such as reviews, CD covers, programs, etc. which establishes the group or instrumental artist.
Your fax and telephone number and e-mail address.
Do not send original documents, especially the original USCIS I-129 form. Send copies only.
Additional P2 Visa and IMM-1102 permit Information
In some cases a third party can facilitate a visa. For example, The American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada (AFM) has been recognized by both USCIS and Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) as an authorized petitioner for temporary work permits on behalf of AFM member musicians. Canadian members who wish to work in the U.S. may be eligible for a 'Class P2' non-immigrant work permit, and U.S. members who wish to work in Canada may be eligible for an ‘IMM-1102’ Permit. Initiated by AFM, and in accordance with both USCIS and CIC rules and regulations, both categories are subject to a Reciprocal Exchange Agreement between international entities.
One misunderstanding regarding whether an artist needs a visa relates to the Visa Waiver Program. This is a program that the U.S. has with several other countries. It allows a person to cross the border for things like negotiating contracts, attending meetings, participating in seminars or attending trade shows. It does not include any kind of actual employment. Any artist hired by a U.S. performing or presenting organization to perform in any capacity (paid or unpaid) must acquire a non-immigrant visa.
H-1B visas are not for performing artists. By law, the H-1B nonimmigrant classification is not for artists coming to perform in the U.S., even though at least one USCIS service center still approves H-1B petitions for performers. Do not be tempted to apply for an H-1B visa as a performer.
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Derulați pentru a descoperi
It all started in 1958 when Jean Bousquet, born in Nîmes, and just qualified as a tailor, came to Paris to launch a small business making women’s trousers. In March 1962, he named his society after a bird from the Camargue: Jean Cacharel, and the year after that he obtained his first great success when the photographer Peter Knapp took a picture of the now legendary crepe pink shirt that ended up on the cover of the magazine Elle. The shirt was then called: Le Cacharel.
Emmanuelle Khan and Corinne Sarrut are quickly hired to design the collections. In 1968, Sarah Moon, a young unknown photographer, met Jean Bousquet. It was the beginning of a happy collaboration strengthened with the arrival of publicist, Robert Delpire. The four of them give birth to the Cacharel universe: a romantic one, immortalized through unforgettable, poetic pictures.
In the late 60’s, Liberty blouses first appeared, and Cacharel have become a flourishing brand and benchmark of fashion since then, with Liberty dresses taking off in popularity among the 70’s generation.
Having launched his first menswear, womenswear and childrenswear collections, and having been awarded the Oscar for exportation in 1969, Jean Bousquet diversified his activities by branching out into perfumery: Anaïs Anaïs, his first perfume, remains today one of the world’s best-selling fragrances; Loulou, Noa, Amor Amor and Scarlett will follow. The latest one came out this year: Amor Amor Forbidden Kiss.
At the beginning of 2000, Cacharel undertook a serious change to find again the creative energy of its beginnings: the talented designers Clements-Ribeiro allowed Cacharel to participate to the Parisian Fashion Week and once again meet with success.
It was then the turn of English kings of prints Eley Kishimoto to draw the collections of the Tronchet House for three seasons. In 2009, the Belgian designer Cédric Charlier designed romantic collections with precise cuts for four seasons.
In November 2009, Cacharel signed a license contract with Italian Group AEFFE (Alberta Ferretti, Philosophy, Moschino, Pollini…), whereupon the French House, the strongest, really opened out internationally.
Nowadays Cacharel is sold in a network of multibrand stores and concept stores in France and worldwide (Barneys, Saks, Harvey Nichols, le Printemps, …) as new designers Dawei Sun and Ling Liu present the new spring-summer 2012 collection and get back to the traditional house codes: freshness, romanticism and femininity.
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New "Tron: Legacy" Trailer Is a Daft Punk Music Video
By Samuel Axon 2010-10-26 18:42:02 UTC
The new TRON: Legacy trailer from Disney doubles as a music video for Daft Punk's "Derezzed," a track from the film's soundtrack.
Much of the footage appears in the earlier TRON: Legacy trailer, but there is some new stuff here, including an actual in-movie cameo by the always costumed Daft Punk; yes, they also wear those costumes when performing.
One YouTube commenter wrote, "Probably the first time I've been more excited about a soundtrack than the movie it's in." I've heard similar buzz elsewhere, but you have to admit that Daft Punk and TRON are an outstanding match.
The film will hit theaters across the U.S. and Canada on December 17, and the soundtrack will arrive on store shelves both real and virtual November 22, but filmgoers in select markets will be able to see a 20-minute preview of the 3D film in IMAX at Thursday night's "TRON Night" presentation.
Mashable will be attending the screenings in both San Francisco and Atlanta. Unfortunately, tickets are already sold out for the U.S. screenings but some international viewers still have a shot over at the official TRON Night website.
Anyway, without further adieu, here's the TRON: Legacy trailer featuring Daft Punk:
Samuel Axon is a digital content producer in New York City. He has worked as an editor at Engadget, Mashable and the Joystiq network, and currently leads content strategy as Editorial Director at Sprout Social.
Topics: Daft Punk, Movies, Media, Music, music video, trailers, TRON, tron legacy, Video, viral video, walt disney pictures
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The World's First Website Gets Its Original Web Address Back
By Stan Schroeder 2013-04-30 11:13:38 UTC
The folks at CERN, the organization responsible for devising the fundamental web standards, are celebrating World Wide Web's 20th birthday by bringing back the first ever website to its original URL.
Although the first website was launched in 1991, it was on April 30, 1993 when CERN made the WWW technology available on a royalty-free basis.
The website, obviously very scarce by today's standards, contains only text explaining some of the basics of the World Wide Web. It was originally available at this address — http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html — but for many years that URL has been redirecting to http://info.cern.ch.
Now, CERN has dug up a 1992 copy of the site — the earliest it could find — and put it back online at its original address.
CERN employees will keep trying to find an earlier copy; in the meantime, you can browse through it and see what the World Wide Web (all of it) was like in 1992.
Image via iStockPhoto, kutaytanir
Topics: Apps and Software, CERN, Tech, url
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Home Trips Trips 2018 - 2019 Summer Walk (C) : Disley Walk July 2019
Summer Walk (C) : Disley Walk July 2019
Disley Parish Church
Neil’s objective this evening was to show that there was more to Disley than just a set of traffic lights on the A6. He also wanted to show how the roads and the railway have changed the shape and the nature of Disley over the centuries. It might be the closest settlement to Lyme but it is not dependent upon the Leghs of Lyme - it has an independent existence.
We started off in the station car park because it was quiet and also free. (Which was more than could be said for the Ram’s Head car park.) He showed us a series of maps which illustrated the development of Disley since the Norman Conquest. Originally part of the Macclesfield Forest, a Royal Forest largely reserved for hunting, it did have a few people living there. However, they preferred the higher land away from the valley bottoms but below the moorland. What we now know as Higher Disley is the site of the original settlement.
The red circle marks the site of present day Disley, half way between Higher Disley and Wybersley Hall.
In 1450 there was nothing but forest.
Gradually the lower slopes were occupied and Piers Legh IV of Lyme built a chantry chapel in 1520. He had been a soldier but he then took Holy Orders. The apparent reason for building the chapel was in honour of his dead wife but it could be his remorse for having killed a man. Either way, it was his church and he became the priest in charge. This encouraged more settlement around the church and it became a transport node at the intersection of routes from Marple, Stockport and Whaley Bridge. This was reinforced when the turnpike from Bullock Smithy to Whaley was opened in 1770, going up the hill to Higher Disley and beyond. However, it did not meet the requirements of a burgeoning industrial society and 50 years later, in 1820, a new road was built essentially following the route of today’s A6.
The turnpikes were soon reinforced with the new-fangled railway. Thomas Legh of Lyme had been involved with railways from the start as the very first railway, the Liverpool and Manchester, ran across part of his land in south Lancashire and he had built a short branch line to serve his coalfield and also Haydock Racecourse which he owned. In 1853, together with other landowners, he formed the committee of the Stockport, Disley and Whaley Bridge Railway and the line opened in 1857.
We then walked up to the church - a steep climb but well worth it. The building has changed a lot over its history and externally, the only original parts are the west porch and tower. Inside the roof of the nave is also original and it is the key feature of the building, panelled with angels and elaboratively carved bosses. Various memorials to both the high-born and the low-born can be found inside the church, members of the Le gh family and wealthy patrons such as the Orford brothers (who also built St Thomas’ Church in High Lane.) In contrast, Joseph Watson, a gamekeeper at Lyme who drank eight pints of beer each day and lived to be a hundred, has a memorial stome flag in the main aisle of the nave. Outside the church we saw the graves of many of the Legh family and also what was reputed to be the base for the Bow Stones. Hmmmm?
From then on it was a pub crawl. Not that we went inside any of these establishments but we passed by, all in the interests of historical research - the Ring o’ Bells, the White Lion, the White Horse, the Ram’s Head etc. Their location demonstrated the importance of hospitality in the days of the turnpike. The Ring o’ Bells is no longer a pub as it lost its custom when the turnpike route was modified and it now serves as a Quaker Meeting House, having gone through a cleansing process of being a tea room for many years, sponsored by Lady Newton.
Appropriately, the Ram’s Head (above) was our final stop. It’s name pays homage to the Leghs of Lyme whilst its interior played a part in two notorious scandals - the abduction of Ellen Turner and the murder of William Wood. After hearing about these we needed a drink.
From our reporter in Disley, August 2019
Gallery photos: David Burridge
Disley Car Park Huddle
Disley Walk
By the lych-gate
Disley, lych-gate.
Walking to the church
Consulting the tablets
Neil stands his ground
By the church
Memorial in church
Church ceiling
Church pulpit
Stained glass window in churcxh
George IV coat-of-arms in church
Fleur-de-lys in church
Fancy wall stuns most
By the Quakers Meeting House
Disley Schoolhouse
Storey statue
The evening draws to a close
Category: Trips 2018 - 2019
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Justia › US Law › Case Law › Louisiana Case Law › Louisiana Supreme Court Decisions › 2016 › Mayeux v. Charlet
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Mayeux v. Charlet
At the center of this appeal was a district court judgment declaring La. Child. Code art. 609 unconstitutional. La. Child. Code art. 609 required any statutorily defined “mandatory reporter” of child abuse “who has cause to believe that a child’s physical or mental health or welfare is endangered as a result of abuse,” to report the suspected abuse irrespective of “any claim of privilege.” Specifically, this case raised the issue of whether a priest was a “mandatory reporter,” as defined in La. Child. Code art. 603, when administering the Sacrament of Penance (“confession”), such that the provisions of La. Child. Code art. 609 would require him to report information learned during a sacramental confession. The Louisiana Supreme Court found that the issue here was one of statutory interpretation and should have been resolved on statutory grounds. Accordingly, the Court vacated the district court's declaration of unconstitutionality as premature and remanded this case for further proceedings.
Supreme Court of Louisiana FOR IMMEDIATE NEWS RELEASE NEWS RELEASE #063 FROM: CLERK OF SUPREME COURT OF LOUISIANA The Opinion handed down on the 28th day of October, 2016, is as follows: PER CURIAM: 2016-CA-1463 ROBERT D. MAYEUX, LISA M. MAYEUX, AND REBECCA MAYEUX v. GEORGE J. CHARLET, JR., DECEASED, CHARLET FUNERAL HOME, INC., REVEREND M. JEFFERY BAYHI, AND THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH OF THE DIOCESE OF BATON ROUGE (Parish of E. Baton Rouge) Accordingly, we hereby vacate the District Court's declaration of unconstitutionality and remand this matter to the District Court for proceedings consistent with this opinion. DECLARATION OF UNCONSTITUTIONALITY VACATED; and REMANDED TO THE DISTRICT COURT. WEIMER, J., recused. GUIDRY, J., would grant and docket. CLARK, J., concurs in the result. 10/28/16 SUPREME COURT OF LOUISIANA NO. 2016-CA-1463 ROBERT D. MAYEUX AND LISA M. MAYEUX VERSUS GEORGE J. CHARLET, JR., DECEASED, CHARLET FUNERAL HOME, INC., REV. M. JEFFERY BAYHI, AND THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH OF THE DIOCESE OF BATON ROUGE ON APPEAL FROM THE NINETEENTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT COURT, FOR THE PARISH OF EAST BATON ROUGE HONORABLE R. MICHAEL CALDWELL, JUDGE PER CURIAM This case concerns a judgment by the District Court declaring La. Child. Code art. 609 unconstitutional. La. Child. Code art. 609 requires any statutorily defined “mandatory reporter” of child abuse “who has cause to believe that a child’s physical or mental health or welfare is endangered as a result of abuse,” to report the suspected abuse irrespective of “any claim of privilege.”1 The issue presently at the center of this matter is whether a priest is a “mandatory reporter,” as defined in La. Child. Code art. 603, when administering the Sacrament of Penance (“confession”), such that the provisions of La. Child. Code art. 609 would require him to report information learned during a sacramental confession.2 For 1 The relevant articles have since been amended, and certain provisions therein have been redesignated. All provisions herein will be referenced as they appeared in the Children’s Code at the time of the alleged offense. 2 The Sacrament of Penance is defined in Canon 959 of the Code of Canon Law: In the sacrament of penance the faithful who confess their sins to a legitimate minister, are sorry for them, and intend to reform themselves obtain from God through the absolution imparted by the same minister forgiveness for the sins they have committed after baptism and, at the same, time are reconciled with the Church which they have wounded by sinning. Code of Canon Law of 1983, can. 959. the following reasons, we find the issue in this case is one of statutory interpretation and should, therefore, be resolved on statutory grounds. Accordingly, we vacate the District Court’s declaration of unconstitutionality as premature and remand this matter for proceedings consistent with this opinion. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY On July 6, 2009, plaintiffs, Robert and Lisa Mayeux, filed a petition for damages suffered by them and their daughter, Rebecca Mayeux, 3 as a result of alleged inappropriate and sexual acts perpetrated on Rebecca. They named as defendants: the alleged perpetrator, then-deceased George J. Charlet, Jr., a wellknown, long-time parishioner and active member of Our Lady of the Assumption Catholic Church; Charlet Funeral Home, Inc. of which Mr. Charlet was the alleged President; Rev. M. Jeffery Bayhi (Fr. Bayhi), for allegedly being a mandatory reporter who failed to report the abuse allegations; and the Roman Catholic Church of the Diocese of Baton Rouge (“Church”), alleging vicarious liability for the alleged misconduct of the priest in failing to report the sexual abuse, as well as for the negligent training and supervision of the priest. In their petition, plaintiffs alleged Fr. Bayhi had knowledge of and failed to report that Mr. Charlet had inappropriate sexual contact with Rebecca. In particular, the petition alleged Fr. Bayhi (1) negligently advised Rebecca, then 14 years of age, during the sacrament of confession on at least three separate occasions she needed to personally handle the alleged sexually abusive situation with Mr. Charlet, and (2) negligently failed to immediately report the abuse to law enforcement personnel and Rebecca’s parents pursuant to La. Child. Code art. 609. Shortly before trial was scheduled to commence, the Church filed its motion in limine, seeking to prevent the plaintiffs from “mentioning, referencing, and/or 3 Rebecca has now reached the age of majority and was added as a plaintiff on her own behalf. 2 introducing evidence at trial of any confessions that may or may not have taken place” between Rebecca and Fr. Bayhi, while the priest was acting in his official capacity as a Diocesan priest and hearing confession from his parishioner. The District Court denied the motion, finding the testimony of the minor child regarding the confession was relevant and, certainly, as the holder of the privilege, she was entitled to waive it and testify. However, the District Court “did recognize the conundrum with which [the priest] is presented, and I know his solution to that is going to be that he is not going to say anything about any confession.” On supervisory writ, the Court of Appeal, First Circuit, reversed the trial court’s denial of the motion and granted its own peremptory exception of no cause of action. [Parents of Minor Child] v. Charlet, 13-0316 (La. App. 1 Cir. 10/21/13), 135 So.3d 724. In so ruling, the appellate court reasoned: Because we have concluded that the priest is not a mandatoryreporter, there can be no private or civil cause of action against him for any breach of a statute inapplicable to him; thus, any evidence or testimony, by anyone, regarding the occurrence of a confession, or the subject matter thereof, is wholly inadmissible, irrelevant, and nonprobative. Accordingly, the motion in limine, seeking to exclude all such evidence, should have been granted. Id. at p. 16, 135 So.3d at 735. Moreover, it found no civil cause of action or civil remedy for violation of the mandatory reporter provision either to report or advise. Id. at p. 17, 135 So.3d at 735. Accordingly, the Court of Appeal dismissed the plaintiffs’ claims against the priest and the Church in their entirety, with prejudice. In a per curiam, we reversed and vacated the appellate court’s judgment in its entirety, rendered judgment reinstating the judgment of the trial court, and remanded the matter for further proceedings. Parents of Minor Child v. Charlet, 13-2879 (La. 4/4/14), 135 So.3d 1177. Therein, we specifically found “the appellate court erred in granting the Church’s motion in limine, excluding all evidence of the confession in its entirety as the child/penitent is free to testify and 3 introduce evidence as to her own confession.” Id. at p. 5, 135 So.3d at 1180. We further recognized: Whether this particular priest owed this particular duty to the plaintiffs in this particular factual context is a mixed question of law and fact. See Kenney v. Cox, 95–0126, p. 1 (La. 3/30/95), 652 So.2d 992 (Dennis, J., concurring)(noting there is a “distinction between the existence of a general duty of care (a legal question) and the ‘legal cause’ or ‘duty/risk’ question of the particular duty owed in a particular factual context (a mixed question of law and fact)”); see also Pitre v. Louisiana Tech University, 95–1466, 95–1487, p. 22 (La. 5/10/96), 673 So.2d 585, 596 (Lemmon, J., concurring; joined by Kimball, J.)(noting “[i]n the usual case where the duty owed depends upon the circumstances of the particular case, analysis of the defendant’s conduct should be done in terms of ‘no liability’ or ‘no breach of duty.’”). Therefore, we find the appellate court erred in dismissing plaintiffs’ claims with prejudice as the question of duty/risk should be resolved by the factfinder at trial, particularly herein where there exists material issues of fact concerning whether the communications between the child and the priest were confessions per se and whether the priest obtained knowledge outside the confessional that would trigger his duty to report. Id. at pp. 6-7, 135 So.3d at 1181. Subsequently, we denied the Church’s rehearing application, Parents of Minor Child v. Charlet, 13-2879 (La. 5/23/14), 139 So.3d 519, and the United States Supreme Court likewise denied certiorari, Roman Catholic Church of the Diocese of Baton Rouge v. Mayeux, __ U.S. __, 135 S.Ct. 1154 (2015). On remand, the District Court granted the Church’s “Request to Declare Louisiana Children’s Code Article 609 Unconstitutional,” reasoning: Now, plaintiffs have vigorously opposed this motion, but they have offered no evidence other than Fr. Counce’s testimony of how a priest might do something outside the confessional to achieve the goal of reporting suspected abuse. But this testimony dealt with nonprivileged communications, that is those outside the confessional, while Article 609A1 deals specifically with privileged communications, that is, in this case, communications within the confessional. Thus, there has been no evidence to show that Article 609A1 is the least restrictive means of furthering the state’s interest in reducing and punishing child abuse. … Accordingly, in analyzing Children’s Code Article 609A1 as it could be applied to Fr. Bayhi in this case, and analyzing it in the 4 manner mandated by the legislature in the preservation of the Religious Freedom Act, I must find that this article violates Fr. Bayhi’s right to the free exercise of his religion guaranteed to him by Article 1, Section 8, of the Louisiana Constitution.[4] Thus, if this ruling is still in effect when we go to trial, the plaintiffs will not be allowed to present evidence to show or to argue to the jury that whatever Fr. Bayhi may have learned in any encounter with the plaintiff in what the jury determines to be a quote, confession, per se, as indicated by the Supreme Court, they will not be able to argue that that makes him a mandatory reporter under the provisions of the Children’s Code or R.S. 14:403. So, as I said, if the jury determines that what Fr. Bayhi may or may not have learned, was in a quote, confession, per se, plaintiffs will not be able to argue that that makes him a mandatory reporter. (Footnote added). Plaintiffs now seek a direct appeal to this Court from the District Court’s declaration of unconstitutionality. DISCUSSION Our courts have long been reluctant to address the constitutionality of legislation unless required to do so by the case and the issues then before the court. Matherne v. Gray Ins. Co., 95-0975, p. 3 (La. 10/16/95), 661 So.2d 432, 434. As we have strongly cautioned, a question of constitutional law should never be anticipated in advance of the necessity of deciding it, and courts should not pass on the constitutionality of legislation unless it is essential to the decision of the case or controversy. Blanchard v. State Through Parks and Recreation Com’n, 96-0053, p. 2 (La. 5/21/96), 673 So.2d 1000, 1002. Accordingly, this Court’s approach in cases such as this is to first determine whether the case may be disposed of on nonconstitutional grounds so to avoid unnecessarily reaching the constitutional issue. M.J. Farms, Ltd. v. Exxon Mobile Corp., 07-2371, pp. 10-11 (La. 7/1/08), 998 So.2d 16, 25. 4 La. Const. Art. I, § 8 provides: “No law shall be enacted respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” 5 In Charlet, we found material issues of fact existed concerning whether the communications between the minor child and the priest were confessions per se and whether the priest obtained knowledge outside the confession that would trigger his duty to report. Charlet, 13-2879 at pp. 6-7, 135 So.3d at 1177. As noted by Justice Hughes in his concurrence and alluded to by the per curiam, the mandatory reporting issue and corresponding application of the duty set forth in La. Child. Code art. 609, hinge upon the manner in which the priest came to know of the abuse allegations, a factual determination we left to the discretion of the factfinder. Until that factual determination has been made, any declaration of unconstitutionality is premature. Therefore, we vacate on the grounds of prematurity the judgment of the District Court, declaring La. Child. Code art. 609 unconstitutional. While still reserving the factual issues to the factfinder’s discretion, we nevertheless acknowledge the widespread confusion that has arisen over our holding in Charlet and recognize a need to both clarify and resolve the legal question left unanswered therein, which we suspect has brought about much of the confusion. After reciting the definition of “mandatory reporter” relevant to “members of the clergy” set forth in La. Child. Code art. 603, the Charlet court stated: “a member of the clergy as a mandatory reporter under this provision then has a mandatory duty to report abuse in accordance with the following provisions of La. Child. Code art. 609.” Charlet, 13-2879 at p. 6, 135 So.3d at 1180-81. We did not, however, interpret the provisions of La. Child. Code art. 603, most particularly the explicit exception for priests from reporting confidential communication, which under the tenets of the church the priest is both authorized to hear and duty bound to keep confidential. In other words, we never conclusively determined whether a priest in administering sacramental confession 6 is a “mandatory reporter” under the provisions of La. Child. Code art. 603 and, thus, subject to the mandatory duty to report under La. Child. Code art. 609 in such circumstances. As this issue is one of statutory interpretation, it falls to this Court to ultimately resolve. Because resolution of this issue would greatly aid the parties and the courts as well as avoid further delay in the disposition of the present matter, we find it appropriate pursuant to our supervisory authority to now resolve this question of law, especially in view of the District Court declaring La. Child. Code art. 609 unconstitutional. 5 5 As the Court explained in Unwired Telecom Corp. v. Parish of Calcasieu, 03-0732 (La. 1/19/05), 903 So.2d 392: The Louisiana Supreme Court has been granted supervisory powers since the constitution of 1879. ALBERT TATE, JR., SUPERVISORY POWERS OF THE LOUISIANA COURTS OF APPEAL, 38 TUL. L.REV. 429, 430 (1964). Indeed, as provided, in pertinent part, in LA. CONST. ANN. ART. V, § 5(A), “The supreme court has general supervisory jurisdiction over all other courts.” It is well recognized the constitutional grant of supervisory authority to this court is plenary, unfettered by jurisdictional requirements, and exercisable at the complete discretion of the court. Progressive Sec. Ins. Co. v. Foster, 97–2985 (La.4/23/98), 711 So.2d 675, 678 n3; State Bond Comm’n v. All Taxpayers, Prop. Owners and Citizens of State, 510 So.2d 662, 663 (La.1987); State v. Wimberly, 414 So.2d 666, 670 (La.1982); Loeb v. Collier, 131 La. 377, 59 So. 816 (1912); State ex rel. Union Sawmill Co. v. Summit Lumber Co., 117 La. 643, 42 So. 195 (1906); TATE, 38 TUL. L.REV. at 430; COMMENT, SUPERVISORY POWERS OF THE SUPREME COURT OF LOUISIANA OVER INFERIOR COURTS, 34 TUL. L.REV. 165 1959). This Court can at all times intervene under its own plenary supervisory powers, whether or not an intermediate court has properly acted on the matter. TATE, 38 TUL. L.REV. at 430. From the above cited jurisprudence, it is clear this Court has a long history of exercising its supervisory jurisdiction when it deems it necessary. That is not to say this Court exercises its supervisory jurisdiction lightly. In practice, certain limitations upon the use of this power are recognized by this Court out of respect for the independence of other courts in the determination of questions confined to their judicial discretion, and to avoid usurping merely appellate jurisdiction not conferred upon us by the constitution. Wimberly, 414 So.2d at 670 (citing TATE, 38 TUL. L.REV. at 431; COMMENT, 34 TUL. L.REV. at 168). However, there are instances in which we have granted writs even though the relator did not exhaust his remedies in the lower court. COMMENT, 34 TUL. L.REV. at 171. The flexibility and extraordinary nature of supervisory writs render it extremely difficult to formulate any general rules as to when they will or will not issue. Id. In Louisiana Associated Gen. Contractors, Inc. v. New Orleans Aviation Bd., 99-0025 (La.7/7/99), 764 So.2d 31, we granted writs according to our supervisory jurisdiction under LA. CONST. ART. V, § 5(A), even though relator did not have a right of direct appeal to this Court under LA. CONST. ART. V, § 5(D). There we granted writs in order to avoid further delay in the disposition of the matter that had previously been remanded to the trial court. Louisiana Associated Gen. Contractors, Inc., 764 So.2d at 33. Other instances of this Court exercising its supervisory authority though relator had not exhausted its remedies 7 Legislation is the solemn expression of legislative will, and thus, the interpretation of legislation is primarily the search for the legislative intent. Cat’s Meow, Inc. v. City of New Orleans Through Dept. of Finance, 98-0601, p. 15 (La. 10/20/98), 720 So.2d 1186, 1198. Accordingly, our rules of statutory construction are designed to ascertain and to enforce the intent of the Legislature. Succession of Boyter, 99-0761, p. 9 (La. 1/7/00), 756 So.2d 1122, 1128. The paramount consideration in such interpretation is ascertainment of the legislative intent and the reason or reasons, which prompted the Legislature to enact the law. State v. Johnson, 03-2993, p. 11 (La. 10/19/04), 884 So.2d 568, 575. The starting point in the interpretation of any statute is the language of the statute itself as what a legislature says in the text of a statute is considered the best evidence of its intent and will. M.J. Farms, 07-2371 at p. 13, 998 So.2d at 27. “When a law is clear and unambiguous and its application does not lead to absurd consequences, the law shall be applied as written and no further interpretation may be made in search of the intent of the legislature.” La. Civ. Code art. 9; La. Rev. Stat. §§ 1:3 and 1:4. However, when the language of the law is susceptible of different meanings, it must be interpreted as having the meaning that best conforms to the purpose of the law.” La. Civ. Code art. 10; La. Rev. Stat. § 1:3. The legislative history of an act and contemporaneous circumstances are also helpful guides in ascertaining legislative intent. Exxon Pipeline Co. v. Louisiana Public Service Com’n, 98-1737, p. 9 (La. 3/2/99), 728 So.2d 855, 860. in the lower courts include Progressive Sec. Ins. Co., 711 So.2d at 678 n. 3; State Bond Comm’n, 510 So.2d at 663; State v. Peacock, 461 So.2d 1040, 1041 (La. 1984)(“since this case has already been briefed and argued in this court, judicial economy will best be served by exercising our supervisory jurisdiction”); Hainkel v. Henry, 313 So.2d 577, 578 (La.1975). Unwired, 03-0732 at pp. 8-10, 903 So.2d at 400-01. 8 Under La. Child. Code art. 603(15), a “mandatory reporter” is defined as “any of the following individuals”: (c) “Member of the clergy” is any priest, rabbi, duly ordained clerical deacon or minister, Christian Science practitioner, or other similarly situated functionary of a religious organization, except that he is not required to report a confidential communication, as defined in Code of Evidence Article 511, from a person to a member of the clergy who, in the course of the discipline or practice of that church, denomination, or organization, is authorized or accustomed to hearing confidential communications, and under the discipline or tenets of the church, denomination, or organization has a duty to keep such communications confidential. In that instance, he shall encourage that person to report the allegations to the appropriate authorities in accordance with Article 610. La. Child. Code art. 603 (emphasis added). Pursuant to the plain language, priests are expressly excluded from the mandatory reporting requirement, i.e., mandatory reporter status, when receiving “a confidential communication, as defined in Code of Evidence Article 511, from a person [when the priest], in the course of the discipline or practice of that church, denomination, or organization, is authorized or accustomed to hearing confidential communications, and under the discipline or tenets of the church, denomination, or organization has a duty to keep such communications confidential.” Therefore, priests are not mandatory reporters of information acquired when (1) the communication is confidential communication under La. Code Evid. art. 511, (2) the priest in the course of the discipline or practice of that church, denomination, or organization, is authorized or accustomed to hearing the confidential communication, and (3) the priest under the discipline or tenets of the church, denomination, or organization has a duty to keep such communication confidential. A “confidential communication” is defined under La. C.E. art. 511 as one that is “made privately and not intended for further disclosure except to other persons present in furtherance of the purpose of the communication.” La. Code 9 Evid. art. 511(A)(2). If a communication is made to a priest privately and not intended for further disclosure except to the priest for the purpose of confession, repentance, and absolution, that communication is a confidential communication under La. Code Evid. 511. In accord with the tenets of the Roman Catholic Church, a priest is both authorized and accustomed to hearing confidential communications in sacramental confessions. See Code of Canon Law of 1983, can. 965 (“A priest alone is the minister of the sacrament of penance.”). By those same tenets, the priest is absolutely forbidden under the inviolable seal of confession from betraying in any manner the confidentiality of communications made during the sacramental confession upon threat of immediate excommunication (expulsion from the church). See Code of Canon Law of 1983, cann. 983, 984, 1388.6 Accordingly, any communication made to a priest privately in the sacrament of confession for the purpose of confession, repentance, and absolution is a confidential communication under La. Code Evid. 511, and the priest is exempt from mandatory reporter status in such circumstances by operation 6 Canons 983, 984, and 1388 provide, respectively: Can. 983 §1. The sacramental seal is inviolable; therefore it is absolutely forbidden for a confessor to betray in any way a penitent in words or in any manner and for any reason. §2. The interpreter, if there is one, and all others who in any way have knowledge of sins from confession are also obliged to observe secrecy. Can. 984 §1. A confessor is prohibited completely from using knowledge acquired from confession to the detriment of the penitent even when any danger of revelation is excluded. §2. A person who has been placed in authority cannot use in any manner for external governance the knowledge about sins which he has received in confession at any time. Can. 1388 §1. A confessor who directly violates the sacramental seal incurs a latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See; one who does so only indirectly is to be punished according to the gravity of the delict. §2. An interpreter and the others mentioned in Can. 983, §2 who violate the secret are to be punished with a just penalty, not excluding excommunication. Code of Canon Law of 1983, cann. 983, 984, 1388. 10 of La. Child. Code art. 603, because “under the … tenets of the [Roman Catholic] church” he has an inviolable “duty to keep such communications confidential.” La. Child. Code art. 609, which the trial court declared unconstitutional, then provides: A. With respect to mandatory reporters: (1) Notwithstanding any claim of privileged communication, any mandatory reporter who has cause to believe that a child’s physical or mental health or welfare is endangered as a result of abuse or neglect or that abuse or neglect was a contributing factor in a child’s death shall report in accordance with Article 610. La. Child. Code art. 609(A)(1). As evident in its reasoning, the District Court found an imposition of the duty arising hereunder would require a priest to breach the seal of confession contrary to the clear dictates of the Roman Catholic Church and, therefore, such an imposition would violate the priest’s constitutional right to the free exercise of his religion, rendering this provision unconstitutional if so applied. However, and most significantly, the unambiguous statutory language is applicable only to “mandatory reporters.” Because priests in regards to sacramental confessions are not “mandatory reporters” under the explicit definition in La. Child. Code art. 603, it logically follows the mandatory duty to report set forth in La. Child. Code art. 609 is not applicable to priestly confessors. Simply stated, there is no need to declare La. Child. Code art. 609 unconstitutional because a priest under these circumstances is not a mandatory reporter; he is excluded because he does not qualify as a mandatory reporter. Only those who qualify as a mandatory reporter fall under La. Child. Code art. 609. Plaintiffs, however, on original hearing argued La. Child. Code art. 609 overrides the La. Child. Code art. 603 exemption where the clergy member has reason to believe a child’s physical or mental health or welfare is endangered. They further reasoned that because La. Child. Code art. 609 “was in the 11 [Children’s Code] since its inception,” the Legislature knew about the article when it made revisions to the Children’s Code in 2003, adding clergy to the class of mandatory reporters. See 2003 La. Acts 1187. Their interpretation, however, fatally disregards the confession exemption that has always existed in the definition of “mandatory reporter,” and a review of the legislative history provides further proof the Legislature never intended to impose such mandatory reporter status on priests when administering the sacrament of confession, even in the context of the eminent harm exception under La. Child. Code art. 609. Though the term “clergy” was not added to the Children’s Code until 2003 through Act 1187 of that year, La. Child. Code art. 603(13)(b) prior thereto always specifically provided: (13) “Mandatory reporter” is any of the following individuals performing their occupational duties: … (b) “Mental health/social service practitioner” is any individual who provides mental health care or social service diagnosis, assessment, counseling, or treatment, including a psychiatrist, psychologist, marriage or family counselor, social worker, aide, or other individual who provides counseling services to a child or his family. However, when a priest, rabbi, duly ordained minister, or Christian Science practitioner has acquired knowledge of abuse or neglect from a person during a confession or other sacred communication, he shall encourage that person to report but shall not be a mandatory reporter of that information given in confession or sacred communication. (Emphasis added). La. Child. Code art. 603 (1992).7 Act 1187 amended the definition of mandatory reporter to provide: Art. 603. Definitions As used in this Title: *** 7 The language of this provision remanded unchanged from the enactment of the Children’s Code in 1991 by Acts 235 of that year until the amendment in 2003. 12 (13) “Mandatory reporter” is any of the following individuals performing their occupational duties: (a) *** (b)(i) “Mental health/social service” practitioner is any individual who provides mental health care or social service diagnosis, assessment, counseling, or treatment, including a psychiatrist, psychologist, marriage or family counselor, social worker, member of the clergy, aide, or other individual who provides counseling services to a child or his family. However, when a priest, rabbi, duly ordained minister, or Christian Science practitioner has acquired knowledge of abuse or neglect from a person during a confession or other sacred communication, he shall encourage that person to report but shall not be a mandatory reporter of that information given in confession or sacred communication. Article 603(13)(b)(ii) is all new law. (ii) A member of the clergy is any priest, rabbi, duly ordained clerical deacon or minister, Christian Science practitioner, or other similarly situated functionary of a religious organization. Article 603(13)(b)(iii) is all new law. (iii) A member of the clergy is not required to report a confidential communication, as defined in Code of Evidence Article 511(A)(2), from a person to a member of the clergy who in the course of the discipline or practice of that church, denomination, or organization is authorized and accustomed to hearing confidential communication and, under the discipline or tenets of that church, denomination, or organization, has a duty to keep such communication confidential. In that instance, the member of the clergy shall encourage that person to report the allegations to the department. 2003 La. Acts 1187. Through House Resolution 169 of the 2003 Regular Session, the Legislature then charged the Louisiana State Law Institute “to add a comment to Children’s Code Article 603 to express the legislative intent of the term ‘counseling’, specifically that members of the clergy who exclusively provide spiritual counseling are not covered” by the amendment. The comments explain how the Legislature sought to recognize other roles clergy play in their 13 administrative, supervisory, or secular counseling capacities that would give rise to a duty to report and, thus, mandatory reporter status, while maintaining the exemption in their exclusively spiritual counseling capacity as to any confidential communications arising therefrom, which are considered “sacrosanct and nondisclosable,” such as sacramental confessions: The scope of the definition of “mandatory reporters” of child abuse has always recognized that priests, rabbis, pastors or other religious ministers typically provide counseling to members of their congregations and that many denominations consider those communications, such as the confessional, to be sacrosanct and nondisclosable. Respecting that policy, former law included religious ministers within the category of “mental health/social service practitioner” but exempted them from mandatory reporting if the knowledge of abuse or neglect arose out of a “confession or other sacred communication.” In 2003, the legislature created a special category for members of the clergy and continued exemption for “confidential communication,” the term used by the Evidence Code. Code of Evidence Article 511, which governs communications to clergymen, defines the privileged confidential communication as one “made privately and not intended for further disclosure except to other persons present in furtherance of the purpose of the communication.” Members of the clergy who exclusively provide spiritual counseling are not required to report disclosures of abuse made in the course of a confidential communication. However, the legislature also recognized that members of the clergy may also engage in other roles, such as administrative and organizational work as well as provide supervision for other clergy or lay workers. The exemption from reporting does not extend to nonconfidential communications given to a priest or other minister during administrative, supervisory, or secular counseling or other type of conference. (Emphasis added). As the comments show and the statutory language reveals, the Legislature always intended to exclude priests from the definition of a “mandatory reporter” when administering sacramental confession. Because the provisions of La. Child. Code art. 609 speak only to “mandatory reporters,” a priest when administering the sacrament of confession has no duty to report any confidential communications made during the confession that, by the tenets of the Roman Catholic Church, he is authorized to hear and is also duty bound to keep confidential. DECREE 14 Accordingly, we hereby vacate the District Court’s declaration of unconstitutionality and remand this matter to the District Court for proceedings consistent with this opinion. DECLARATION OF UNCONSTITUTIONALITY REMANDED TO THE DISTRICT COURT. 15 VACATED; and 10/28/16 SUPREME COURT OF LOUISIANA NO. 2016-CA-1463 ROBERT D. MAYEUX AND LISA M. MAYEUX VERSUS GEORGE J. CHARLET, JR., DECEASED, CHARLET FUNERAL HOME, INC., REV. M. JEFFERY BAYHI, AND THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH OF THE DIOCESE OF BATON ROUGE ON APPEAL FROM THE NINETEENTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT COURT, FOR THE PARISH OF EAST BATON ROUGE HONORABLE R. MICHAEL CALDWELL, JUDGE Guidry, J., would grant and docket.
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The Evolution of Bowhunting
By: Belo-Web-Manager On: March 27, 2019 In: Bowhunting, Whitetail Hunts Comments: 0
Humans have been bowhunting for tens of thousands of years. While our hunting methods and technologies have certainly evolved, we still utilize many of the same principles that drove our ancestors to prevail as dominant predators. Lazy CK Ranch is the top bowhunting ranch in Texas, and we have the expertise to provide you with the ultimate bowhunting experience. Keep reading to learn about the rich history of bowhunting.
The first signs of bowhunting date back over 70,000 years with evidence of ancient Stone-Age arrowheads. According to the Smithsonian Magazine, “The tiny tools were created from silcrete stone that people had heated over a fire to make the raw material easier to work with before chipping the rock into blades.” These specific blades were found in South Africa, but with early human migration, bowhunting practices would have spread all over the world.
The bows used during early human history were clunky and crudely made, though hunters overcame their technological limitations by utilizing their exceptional stalking and hunting abilities. To this day, we still practice many of the same techniques our ancestors did of moving in close enough to our prey to make the kill.
Over time, bowhunting has evolved to better utilize available technology. However, two of the most influential factors in the growth of bowhunting are books. The first is Toxophilus, written by Roger Ascham and published in 1545. The primary purpose of the book was to defend archery as a noble sport and pastime. This is the first English-language book written about archery and serves as a source of many similar books that have followed.
Maurice Thompson’s The Witchery of Archery is perhaps the most influential text on bowhunting for the American hunter, as it completely renewed interest in the sport after the Civil War. The book is filled with anecdotes, stories and, perhaps more importantly, practical advice on the manufacturing of equipment and how to use it. The growth of archery and bowhunting in America is in large part due to Thompson’s book and bowhunters still follow his advice to this day.
While these texts were significant in bowhunting’s rising popularity, there has been no greater contribution than that provided by modern technology.
Bows themselves have undergone a tremendous evolution since the early days of hunting. While our ancestors lugged around heavy and cumbersome wooden bows, we now utilize lightweight alloys that provide both durability and ease. Our bows are equipped with stainless steel cables, arrow rests, sights and arm guards. We can adjust draw lengths and tweak our grips. Needless to say, the hunting experience has changed quite a bit since ancient times.
One aspect of bowhunting that has remained the same, however, is the thrill of the hunt. Despite all of the technological advances we’ve seen over thousands of years, bowhunters must still meticulously stalk their prey, set bait and wait patiently. This is all to say that you can have the best bow on the market, but unless you understand bowhunting’s fundamentals, you probably won’t have a successful hunt.
Lazy CK Ranch is Texas’ best hunting ranch, with a wide range of exotic game for you to hunt. Our bowhunting camp has been professionally set up to create the ultimate hunting experience. Contact us today to learn more and schedule your stay.
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LdM Institute > Academics > Programs and Degrees > Distance learning programs > Fall 2020 Florence Rinascita: Reopening the LdM Campus
Fall 2020 Florence Rinascita: Reopening the LdM Campus
A Glimpse of Italy. Traveling Through History, Art and Culture Spring 2021
Flavors of Italy: Culinary Secrets from the Italian Kitchen August 2020 – Distance Learning Program
LdM ONLINE – January term 2021
Academic Semester / Year
January Intersession – Florence
Academic Quick Links
LdM is very excited to welcome students to Florence this Fall 2020 semester. After the interruption of the school operation last March, LdM has worked very hard to create a safe environment to allow students to come back to Florence and study here in compliance with the guidance from the Italian government and the local health authorities. Living in Florence is a unique experience and the LdM staff is committed to assisting and guiding students through it. The health and personal safety of our student population comes first, and all LdM community members must do their part to guard their health and the health of others.
The following information is current as of September 12, 2020. LdM will continue to monitor the development of the pandemic and will update its safety and health protocols according to the guidance of the Italian (national, regional, and local) and global health authorities. All members of the LdM community will be advised of any such changes.
PRE-ARRIVAL/ARRIVAL
Students will receive via email relevant arrival information, including instructions to fill out any forms required by the Italian government/authorities.
In order to protect the safety and the health of the LdM community, LdM strongly recommends its students, faculty, and staff to get the COVID-19 serologic test (antibody test) performed prior to the beginning of the semester. LdM will schedule dates for students to get the serologic test upon arrival in Florence. Dates will be assigned based on non-quarantine/quarantine requirements and will be communicated to students via email.
Students who are required to quarantine will receive specific written information before they arrive in Italy from LdM staff that will assist them on-site during the self-isolation period and the LdM emergency line will be available 24/7 should the students need any help.
Health authorities have authorized airports to offer Covid-19 tests and, if needed, lodgings for quarantine to individuals upon arrival. Please note that this option is not for LdM students who already have the apartment assigned, both for quarantine and for the semester, and the Covid-19 test organized by LdM .
LdM HOUSING
In order to limit the number of students sharing common areas (i.e., bathrooms, kitchen, living room, etc.), students will be housed in single rooms within 2 up to 4 bed apartments.
All LdM students will receive guidelines about safety and health measures to follow in their apartments from the LdM Housing Office prior to their arrival.
Apartments will be professionally cleaned on a weekly basis. Additionally, apartments will be furnished with sanitizing products and students will be instructed on best practices regarding the sanitizing of the apartment, with particular attention to the common areas.
LdM CAMPUS FACILITIES
At the entrance of all premises, check-points will:
require all students, faculty, and staff members to have their body temperature taken;
provide alcohol-based hand sanitizer;
and distribute face masks as needed.
Face masks are mandatory to wear inside all LdM premises.
Students may access the LdM building where their courses are held no earlier than 15 minutes prior to the start of the class.
Classroom capacity has been adapted in order to follow social distancing protocols among students and the professor.
Classroom layouts have been modified. Seating/desks are set according to social distancing regulations. Physical barriers, such as plastic flexible screens, have been installed where the social distancing rules cannot be guaranteed.
LdM will manage the use of space and will provide physical guides and signs to ensure that social distancing rules are respected when entering and exiting the LdM premises and accessing the common areas.
Alcohol-based sanitizer stations will be continuously available inside all LdM premises.
In addition to constant ventilation and aeration, routine cleaning and sanitization will be conducted.
The LdM cafeteria located at the first floor of Via Faenza 43 will operate Monday through Friday. Its capacity has been modified in compliance with the social distancing regulations.
Online courses begin September 14 and will continue until students attend classes in-person beginning September 28.
Students must have a laptop or other suitable technological device (i.e., tablet) to access and complete coursework as assigned.
Students experiencing flu-like symptoms (i.e., sore throat, cough, fever, difficulty breathing, chest pain, etc.) should stay home and not go to school or to other places. Students should inform the school by calling and/or emailing their advisor during office hours (Mon-Thu 8:30am-5pm and Fri 9am-1pm) or calling the LdM emergency line outside of the advisor’s hours and/or when the school is closed. Students should seek immediate medical attention through their LdM advisor and maintain consistent communication with LdM, informing the school of any development regarding their health which may require assistance and support. See also Student Health and Wellbeing.
Shared lab course equipment/materials will be sanitized before, during, and after the lesson.
All LdM courses will move to Distance Learning in the event of a rebound of COVID-19 wherein the Italian government decrees the interruption of on-site program delivery.
As far as possible do not use the material that come into contact with other people, unless otherwise specified.
The LdM Advising Team is located in the LdM Advising Office located on Via Faenza 71red (2 doors to the right of Via Faenza 43). Students who wish to meet with their advisor should book an appointment during their office hours (Mon-Thu 8:30am-5pm, Fri 9am-1pm). During their office hours, advisors can be reached via email, telephone, and chat. Outside of the advisors’ office hours, students who need assistance can call the LdM emergency line available 24/7.
The LdM Advising Team will send weekly COVID-19 updates to the students via email.
LdM will offer extra-curricular activities throughout the semester, such as thematic walking tours, museum visits, culinary labs, etc. The number of available spots will comply with social distancing protocols and the use of public transport will be limited. Students will receive further details via email regarding the schedule of activities and instructions for sign-up.
Students must wear face masks during LdM sponsored activities.
STUDENT HEALTH AND WELLBEING
Should a student test positive for COVID-19, LdM will facilitate their quarantine/self-isolation and comply with the protocols recommended by local health authorities.
During the quarantine/self-isolation, LdM staff will assist the student by:
delivering prepared meals to their location;
purchasing medications on behalf of the student;
facilitating the laundry service;
and reinforcing guidelines for cleaning/sanitizing procedures.
LdM will accommodate the recommendation of a medical professional should it be advised to remove a student with COVID-like symptoms from a shared apartment to self-isolation.
LdM recognizes that the COVID-19 pandemic might impact and affect the students’ mental health and wellbeing. Counseling services and a psychiatrist are regularly available on campus.
Florence has adopted the following measures to safely cohabitate in the city:
Crowds in both public and private places are banned, and it is required to keep a social distance of at least 1 meter (~3.3 feet) of space between yourself and others (who are not from your household) at all times.
It is permissible to exercise and practice sports while respecting the social distance of at least 2 meters (~6.5 feet).
While utilizing transportation, it is necessary to respect the regulation of each bus/taxi/tram company regarding service access and to maintain a social distance of at least one meter (~3.3 feet) and wear a face mask.
It is recommended to buy tickets online or through the appropriate app. Purchasing tickets on board is no longer an option.
When possible, it is advisable to move about the city by foot.
In some circumstances/locations, the measurement of body temperature could be required for entrance (e.g. in some shops, hotels, public offices, museums etc.).
Face masks must be used in the community setting in closed places that can be accessed by public, including public transport, and all the time when it is not possible to guarantee social distancing. Starting August 17, it is also mandatory to wear face masks even outdoors, from 6pm to 6am, in all areas where there is a risk of gatherings and assembly. Fines may apply to those who fail to observe the face mask regulations.
Masks are especially important in times when physical distancing is difficult. Pay attention to any physical guides, such as tape markings on floors or signs on walls, directing attendees to remain at least 1 meter (~3.3 feet) apart from each other in lines or at other times. Allow other people 1 meter (~3.3 feet) of space when you pass by them in both indoor and outdoor settings.
(Single-use face masks must be disposed of in the “indifferenziata” trash cans.)
It is mandatory to wear face masks:
in indoor public or private open to public spaces when multiple people are present;
in outdoor public or private (open to public) spaces, when multiple people are present, if it is not possible to keep a social distance;
on local means of transportation, taxis, and private driver service.
Further information is available on the Comune di Firenze website https://www.comune.fi.it/coronavirus?language_content_entity=it
Travelling in a pandemic context requires particular planning and careful consideration of the current status of the virus in the destination. Students should educate themselves on precautions to be taken and measures in place at all points of travel.
Accordingly, this semester presents a great opportunity for students to explore Italy and all its unique regions. As of June 3, it is permissible to travel within Italy throughout its regions. Travelling by train, bus, and plane, as well as using local public means of transportation such as buses, metro or tram, is possible throughout the country.
To use public transport correctly, it is fundamental to follow some important rules:
Buy your ticket online whenever possible.
When travelling, maintain 1 meter (~3.3 feet) physical distance from other people.
Sit only in the places allowed and indicated by appropriate signs.
Wear face masks to cover nose and mouth.
During travel, everyone should clean hands frequently, cough or sneeze into a bent elbow or tissue, and try to maintain a physical distance of at least one meter (~3.3 feet) from others. Travelers should follow the recommendations of the travel authorities regarding policies in the airport, as well as those of the airline/s.
Please note that it is strongly recommended to avoid travelling outside of Italy in these uncertain times due to the possibility of new pandemic outbreaks and unanticipated travel restrictions/quarantine protocols imposed by individual European countries. LdM will send weekly updates to all students on the COVID-19 spreading in the various Italian regions.
World Health Organization (WHO): https://covid19.who.int/
European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC): https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/covid-19-pandemic
Italian National Health System: http://www.salute.gov.it/portale/nuovocoronavirus/dettaglioContenutiNuovoCoronavirus.jsp?lingua=english&id=5412&area=nuovoCoronavirus&menu=vuoto
Tuscany Region Health Authorities: https://www.regione.toscana.it/-/coronavirus
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“Before you quit that Job to go into the film Industry, Save! – Omoni Oboli Binging With GameChangers, Episode 14
If you are a Nollywood fan, there is no doubt that you are probably very familiar with Omoni Oboli’s work. Omoni Oboli is a multilingual, award-winning actor, scriptwriter, director, producer and author. She is regarded as one of the most talented and sought after actors in the Nigerian film industry.
Omoni began her acting career in 1996 and has played lead roles in mainstream films such as The Figurine, Anchor Baby, Being Mrs Elliot and Fifty. She has starred in over 150 movies. On Episode 14 of Binging with Game Changers, Omoni chats with show host, Seyi Banigbe, about her career trajectory. She has distinguished herself as a Film Producer and Director with blockbuster movies such as “Being Mrs Elliott’, ‘The First Lady’ and ‘Wives on Strike’.
Omoni was nominated for the Best Actress in a Leading Role Award at the 2011 Africa Movie Academy Awards. In 2014, she won the Big Screen Actress of the Year award, at the 2014 ELOY Awards, for her role in ‘Being Mrs Elliott.’ In 2015, Omoni was awarded the Sun Nollywood personality of the year.
On episode 14 of Binging with GameChangers, Omoni sits to discuss her journey through the movie industry and here are lessons we took home from her feature.
Be prepared for a lot of No’s!
Before you quit that Job to go into the film Industry, save, save and save. Because it is almost nonexistent to go from zero to somebody, it’s a process, it takes a lot of commitment, dedication and hard work.
When You Have To Do Something, Do It, Ignore Obstacles!
Do not stop pushing until you get what you want. Consistency is key to success.
Multitasking is never a must
If you can afford multitasking in anything you do, then it’s okay. But if not, then it’s okay to take it one step at a time.
You have an idea, you’re not sure of, Just do it! You need to pitch something to someone and you’re scared, just go for it! In the end you know you tried and you did something than doing nothing at all.
Watch Episode 14 here:
The show is currently airing online as well as on Africa Magic Family, NTA Network, STV, LTV, MYtv and NTA2. You can visit @thebwgshow on all social media for more details.
Instagram: @thebwgshow
YouTube: B2G Network
www.b2gnetwork.com
PrevPrevious#CareerSheroes Only Black Female Millenial Partner at FleishmanHillard Says Undervaluing Herself Was Her Greatest Career Failure
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Theater takes center stage in Pagosa, Durango Herald, June 20, 2008
leannegoebel / June 23, 2008
Variety of genres featured during busy summer schedule
Actors Nick Hoenshell of Tyler, Texas, left, and Andrew Evans of Chica go, Ill., rehearse outdoors for the Square Top Repertory Theatre’s produc tion of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
By Leanne Goebel | Special to the Herald This summer, Pagosa Springs is filled with theatrical events. Whether audiences prefer professional repertory, melodrama dinner theater or a lively musical, it can all be found just an hour east of Durango.
Square Top Repertory Theatre presents Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” directed by the company’s Producer and Co-artistic Director Charlie Pepiton.
One of Shakespeare’s most beloved comedies, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” blends love, mischief, spectacle and magic. This production blurs the line between fantasy and reality as the characters find themselves caught in a web of magic in the Athenian woods.
“This is a season of fantasy where we are blending blatant theatricality and the power of the imagination,” Pepiton said on Sunday.
Square Top has a unique style that comes from the inspiration of the very physically-based theater work of Anne Bogart and Jerzy Grotowski. Movement for this company is rooted in modern dance and improv. The company has a cast of seven professional actors culled from theater festivals and universities around the country. The cast comes from Second City in Chicago, Seattle, New Orleans and Texas.
And this company is not afraid to tackle difficult work. Each season, it produces an original or adapted world-premier production. This year, Co-artistic Director Shane Fuller has thrown caution aside and is producing a version of Cervantes’ “Don Quixote” set in a contemporary office cubicle where the ingenious gentleman from La Mancha battles his giants.
Pepiton said, “We figured if we’re going to go for broke why not do ‘Don Quixote’ and yell ‘Macbeth’ five times in the theater!”
Fantasy and imagination aren’t the only offerings this summer. The Springs Theatre Co. is producing its Summer Starlight Series at the Pavilion Tent on the grounds of the Harman Art Museum.
These chuck-wagon suppers and shows are fun for the whole family. In June, the production is “Dora the Beautiful Dishwasher,” a 1990s melodrama. In July, sit back and enjoy a 1940s radio variety hour featuring an episode of “Red Ryder and the Roaring River Renegades.” In August, the offering will be a second melodrama, “Foiled by an Innocent Maid.”
Doors open at 5:30 p.m. for dinner, which includes brisket, chicken or a vegetarian entrée, baked beans, coleslaw, peach cobbler, warm rolls, lemonade, coffee and water. Guests can tour the art museum featuring the work of Fred Harman Jr., the creator of the Red Ryder comic strip and one of the founding members of the Cowboy Artists of America.
They can also visit the historic Gomez Store, learn to square dance, play horseshoes and check out the Old West craftspeople.
If it’s musicals that get the toe tapping, don’t miss Music Boosters production of Lionel Bart’s “Oliver!” an adaptation of Charles Dickens’ classic tale.
Local students and residents fill out the cast of this delightful and spirit-lifting production. Music is always the highlight of a Music Boosters’ production, and its volunteer board includes music teachers from the area.
Tickets for all Pagosa Springs theater productions are available on the Web sites for each company. Square Top Repertory Theatre is at square toptheatre.com or call 264-0264. Springs Theatre Co. is at springsthe atrecompany.org or call the Plaid Pony at 731-5262. Music Boosters is at pagosamusicboosters.org. Ticket prices are $8-$28.
• “Dora the Beautiful Dishwasher,” Springs Theatre Co., 5:30 p.m. today and Saturday, Pavilion Tent at Harman Art Museum.
• “Oliver!” Music Boosters, 7 p.m., July 3, 5, 6, 10, 11, 12, Pagosa Springs High School Auditorium.
• “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Square Top Repertory Theatre, 7 p.m. July 10, 11, 12, 19, 24, 26, Aug. 2, Pagosa Springs Community Center.
• “Don Quixote,” Square Top Repertory Theatre, 7 p.m. July 17, 18, 19, 25, 31, and 2 p.m. Aug. 1, Pagosa Springs Community Center.
• “Red Ryder and the Roaring River Renegades,” Springs Theatre Co., 5:30 p.m., July 18, 19, 25, 26, Pavilion Tent at Harman Art Museum.
• ” Foiled by an Innocent Maid,” Springs Theatre Co., 5:30 p.m. Aug. 8, 9, 15, 16, Pavilion Tent at Harman Art Museum.
artsjournalist@mac.comLeanne Goebel is a freelance writer specializing in the arts. She lives in Pagosa Springs.
June 23, 2008 in Pagosa Springs.
A Midsummer Night of Laughter in Pagosa, Durango Herald, July 15, 2008
Making a Handmade Difference in Pagosa Springs
The maestro and the visionary, Durango Herald, Aug. 5, 2008
← The Armory Show–Another Strong Year
Armory Expands, Adds Modern art dealers →
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[CONFERENCE] Why Bother with Community Engagement? | MetroQuest
[CONFERENCE] Why Bother with Community Engagement?
MetroQuest > [CONFERENCE] > [CONFERENCE] Why Bother with Community Engagement?
by Dave Biggs
in [CONFERENCE], Public Engagement
What is the highest purpose of community engagement? Why do some planners go all out to hear from the public? This article dives into these questions based on nine interviews conducted at APA 2016.
Community engagement is a required component of planning projects. Some planners take a “check the box” approach and others go out of their way to hear from the public. I was curious what motivates planners to go the extra distance on outreach so I did an informal survey at the American Planning Association National Conference. The most common answer surprised me. They said some version of, “It gave courage to our elected officials.” There’s a great deal of insight packed into this answer.
At the APA 2016, I conducted nine interviews with planners who were being celebrated for excellence in community engagement. I didn’t set out to conduct a scientific survey. I was creating a marketing video of interviews with planners who used our community engagement software. In looking through the program, there were 11 presenters and two award recipients to track down. I caught up with nine of them making for nice, albeit unscientific, set of interviews.
I say unscientific because this was a rather small sample. They all used MetroQuest as a part of their community engagement effort, and they were selected because they happened to be presenting at the APA conference. They did have one thing in common: they clearly felt that community engagement was a high priority. At the end of each interview, after all the project related questions, I threw in a question for my own curiosity. I asked, “Why?”
All of these planners went above and beyond in the area of community engagement for their planning projects. Quite separate from how they did it, I was curious about why. I really wanted to know what difference it made. Why bother?
This question made people pause. After a moment of reflection, the most common answer surprised me. I was expecting people to talk about democracy, transparency, and listening to residents. While these goals were certainly part of it, that’s not what they talked about. These planners felt that the most significant benefit of outstanding community engagement was that it gave courage to their elected officials. I probed to learn more. What they told me was something that I’ve thought about many times since.
The fact that elected official were a critical audience for the results of community engagement makes sense. After all, these are the people making the community-changing decisions that emerge out of planning projects.
The idea of giving elected officials courage was the interesting part to me. There’s so much in that word and when I probed further here is what they said.
A “business as usual” plan doesn’t require nearly as much courage to approve as an ambitious plan calling for dramatic and lasting changes to the community. Deciding to change takes courage. It’s as true for people as it is for communities.
I asked about the ingredients of courage. From a community engagement perspective, what does it take to give decision makers courage? Once again the responses formed a consistent pattern. According to the planners interviewed there were three required elements that community engagement must have to provide courage to decision makers:
Critical mass – Elected officials, at least those interested in being re-elected, are swayed by large numbers. While it can be easy to disregard the input of a small group of usual suspects, it’s quite another thing to disregard the input of thousands of engaged citizens especially when they are calling for change. Essentially elected officials are asking, “Will approving this plan make me more or less popular with voters.”
Diversity – Large numbers of participants are much more persuasive if you can also demonstrate that the participation was diverse. Diversity includes race, ethnicity, socio-economic status, age, physical abilities, and so on. Beyond these categories, the business community, special interest groups, community organizations, and faith-based communities all need a voice. These groups have unique needs and perspectives and can also organize powerful opposition. Essentially elected officials are asking, “Will these groups support the plan?” Or perhaps, “Can I defend the plan in front of these groups?”
Informed input – I’ve sat in many council meetings where community engagement results were being presented only to see things grind to a halt when someone criticizes the questions people were asked or the way they were asked. Planning choices can be complex and each option comes with benefits and trade-offs. In order to be confident that people really support the changes being called for, it’s critical to be able to make the case that the people who provided input were well aware of both the benefits and costs, especially the costs. It does little to have a “cover your butt” answer. Elected officials don’t think like lawyers when it comes to community engagement. The costs and trade-offs can’t be in the fine print. They have to be unmissable. Then, and only then, will they trust that people are willing to make the trade-offs associated with the changes in order to reap the benefits. It’s always the trade-offs that make the plan vulnerable to criticism and backlash. Essentially elected officials are asking, “Can I trust this community input?”
As I sifted through all the interview footage these three elements came up repeatedly. It was interesting to me that the emphasis was on creating a defensible case for change. It is a perspective on the role of community engagement that is not discussed frequently. It only emerged when I asked, “Why?”
Since the sample size was small and rather self-selected, I’ll end with a question. Does this resonate with you? Is giving courage to elected officials a critical goal of your community engagement. What is your “Why?” Feel free to use the comment section or email, whichever suits you best.
This article was published in Planetizen.
Dave Biggs
Dave is the Chief Engagement Officer of MetroQuest and an internationally-recognized author and public engagement strategist focusing on the use of software tools to enhance community participation for planning projects.
Neilson Buchanan
Posted at 9:16 am, January 5, 2017
Please explain how community engagement can address voter opinion as opposed to opinions from those who are motivated to participate.
Posted at 5:00 pm, January 12, 2017
If I understand you correctly you are looking for community engagement to better represent the full breadth of public opinion as opposed to the sometimes minority views of those who are motivated to show up. That is our highest objective in creating the MetroQuest software so it is a goal that is near and dear to us. We have found that if you make it easy, fast and fun to participate you will engage a much broader cross section of the community as compared to dryer engagement tactics such as multiple choice surveys or time consuming activities like public meetings. Also by collecting demographic information on participants you can ensure that there is no demographic that is under or over represented that could skew the results. We’d be happy to share more on this if you are interested. Let us know on the contact page.
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Ryan Rice
Associate Dean, OCAD University
Ryan Rice, Kanien’kehá:ka of Kahnawake, is an independent curator and the Associate Dean, Academic Affairs in the Faculty of Liberal Arts / School of Interdisciplinary Studies at the Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD) University (Toronto, ON). Rice served as the Chief Curator at the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (Santa Fe, NM) and also held curatorial positions at the Indigenous Art Centre (Ottawa, ON), named curatorial fellowships with the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria (Victoria, BC) and the Walter Phillips Gallery (Banff, AB), and Aboriginal Curator-In-Residence at the Carleton University Art Gallery. He received a Master of Arts degree in Curatorial Studies from the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, New York; graduated from Concordia University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in printmaking, and received an Associate of Fine Arts from the Institute of American Indian Arts. Rice’s writing on contemporary Onkwehonwe art has been published in numerous periodicals and exhibition catalogues, and he has lectured widely. Rice’s service to community, leadership, and organizational experience includes co-founder and former director of the Aboriginal Curatorial Collective, the Art Gallery of Ontario’s Education Council, the Inuit Art Foundation and the Native American Arts Studies Association board of directors.
Al Miner
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Conference for women in medicine provides camaraderie, inspiration
200 medical and premedical students in attendance
by Julia Evangelou Strait•September 20, 2018
Amy Rankin
A panel of Washington University faculty members discussed their careers and experiences as women in medicine on Sept. 8 at the American Medical Women's Association Midwest Conference. From left, Lynn Cornelius, MD, the Winfred and Emma Showman Professor and head of the Division of Dermatology; Tammy Sonn, MD, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology; Laurie Punch, MD, an associate professor of surgery; and Eva Aagaard, MD, the Carol B. and Jerome T. Loeb Professor and senior associate dean of Medical Education.
When Laurie J. Punch, MD, enters a patient’s room, she is careful and deliberate with introductions. As a trauma surgeon who also happens to be a black woman, Punch must navigate daily the fact that many people do not see a doctor when she enters the room.
“I introduce myself as the patient’s surgeon and begin discussing test results and scans, explaining the treatment plan I have developed,” Punch said. “I try to warm people up to the idea that I’m their doctor. If I don’t make a point of demonstrating this right away, they might ask me to bring them a Sprite or a Coke. But I have to let the microaggressions roll off and keep doing my job.”
Punch, an associate professor of surgery at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, spoke of her experience Sept. 8 at the American Medical Women’s Association (AMWA) Midwest Conference, held for the first time at Washington University. The audience included about 200 women, half of whom were undergraduates on a premedical track, the other half current medical students.
“This conference is a culmination of what matters most to me: supporting the advancement of women in medicine,” said Katherine Gerull, a third-year medical student at Washington University who led the conference organizing committee. She also is the student Midwest regional director of AMWA.
Katherine Gerull, a third-year Washington University medical student and the student regional director of AMWA, opens the conference Sept. 8 at the School of Medicine.
“I’m incredibly impressed that so many students from across the region — from six states and 12 universities — have come together today to hear from some of the most esteemed faculty in the country,” Gerull said. “The speakers have been so generous with their time, spending a Saturday with us. I think it’s important to expand and diversify the faces of medical leadership, and it takes organizations like AMWA, helping women support and amplify one another so that we can begin to drive that change.”
Gerull highlighted the importance of women supporting other women as they start their careers. This sentiment was echoed by Victoria J. Fraser, MD, the Adolphus Busch Professor and head of the Department of Medicine, who addressed the group.
“We hope to advance the success of female medical students and physicians and begin to reduce the gap in the number of women in leadership roles,” Fraser said. “To do that, we need to start preparing early — high school students, undergraduates and medical students. When asked to describe a leader, people tend to think of men or traditionally masculine traits.
“To change this, we need women to start picturing themselves in leadership positions as they first begin their careers in medicine,” she added. “The women who organized this conference — all Washington University medical students — are off to a great start.”
Washington University medical students served on the planning committee for the AMWA Midwest Conference, hosted for the first time by the School of Medicine. From left, Priyanka Parameswaran, Jamie Moffa, Caroline Snowden, Katherine Gerull, Faith Williams, Kelsey Krus and Samantha Lund. Not pictured: Ralitsa Kostadinova.
Data show that women in traditionally male fields — and particularly women who are members of underrepresented minority groups — face many conscious and unconscious biases and tricky-to-navigate barriers throughout their careers and, indeed, on a typical work day. For example, when Robyn Klein, MD, PhD, a professor of medicine, of neuroscience, and of pathology and immunology, asked the organizers of a 2016 neuroimmunology conference why there were only 13 women among the 85 speakers at the conference, she was told there just weren’t as many highly qualified women in the field.
“Well, that was like sticking a hot poker in a bull,” Fraser said. “Dr. Klein went out and gathered data to test if this was correct. She published a paper showing men and women in neuroimmunology have equal numbers of publications in the highest impact journals. The conference organizers invited more women based on this analysis, but the fact that it had to be done in the first place shows the kinds of assumptions women are up against.”
In medical school, the statistics look good. About half of incoming medical students are women, and that has been true for nearly two decades. But the proportion of women in medicine drops precipitously at later stages of medical careers. One possible reason for this loss of female talent is because, as several conference speakers discussed, women tend to be over-mentored but under-sponsored compared with men.
Dedicated mentors who give great career advice are vital for any physician to do well. But sponsors are perhaps more directly important for advancement, and young doctors have little control over their own sponsorship. Sponsors don’t simply give advice but actively nominate people for awards, recommend or appoint them to leadership positions or organize speakers to present their work at major conferences. Data, including Klein’s, show that faculty in these types of leadership positions tend to be men, and that these men tend to name other men when asked to recommend talented up-and-comers who should receive such opportunities.
But beyond highlighting the problem, Klein’s study pointed to some possible solutions. She found that representation matters — when a conference organizing committee is about half women, the invited speakers are about half women. Plus, the conference committee that prompted Klein to do the study was responsive and invited more highly qualified women when the disparity was pointed out to them.
Klein’s work and similar data show the importance of highlighting unconscious bias where it exists. If the problem is not identified, there can be no solution.
Bariatric surgeon Arghavan Salles, MD, PhD, an assistant professor of surgery, also offered sobering statistics. When introducing female physicians, men are less likely to use a formal title, such as “Doctor,” than when introducing male physicians. And some evidence suggests women who apply for grants need the grant reviewers to find their work extraordinary versus simply good in order to get funding.
And at the same time, there is data from some sources that associate female doctors with better outcomes for patients overall. Studies have suggested that patients who see female surgeons have lower readmission rates and fewer deaths when compared with those seen by male surgeons. Another recent study — authored by Washington University researchers — showed that people in general, and women in particular, are more likely to survive a heart attack when the doctor who treats them is a woman.
“The big quotable statistic in one of those studies was that if men achieved the same outcomes as women, some 30,000 more people would be alive,” Salles said. She also cautioned, “That number is an extrapolation, and these are all association studies. They can’t prove that women are better doctors than men. But I also think they make it very hard to argue that women are not just as good.”
The conference emphasized many aspects of medical career tracks that women can change or boost for themselves. But much of it was also about bringing awareness to those aspects of the career path that won’t change until the culture changes. And for women and minorities, the way to change the culture is to be present and work toward equity, where all people have the same opportunities.
“We need you to be you,” Punch said to the young women just starting their journeys in medicine. “We need the authentic you and not who you think you’re supposed to be. Every morning as I’m driving to work, I play certain music and I say to myself, ‘My job today is to love people.’ Find like-minded people. For me, finding people who share my values — who care about the patients I care about — is how I found the path to my most joyous work.”
Punch and her fellow speakers may have inspired an auditorium full of like-minded women. And organizations like AMWA may be one way women can find others doing the work they value most. Other resources and organizations at Washington University that support women in medicine include the Academic Women’s Network (AWN) and the Forum for Women in Medicine (FWIM).
Washington University School of Medicine’s 1,300 faculty physicians also are the medical staff of Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children’s hospitals. The School of Medicine is a leader in medical research, teaching and patient care, ranking among the top 10 medical schools in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Through its affiliations with Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children’s hospitals, the School of Medicine is linked to BJC HealthCare.
Diane Duke Williams, Associate Director of Media Relations
williamsdia@wustl.edu
Julia Evangelou Strait, Senior Medical Science Writer
Julia covers medical news in genomics, cancer, cardiology, developmental biology, otolaryngology and gut microbiome research. Before joining Medical Public Affairs in 2010, she was a freelance writer covering science for the St. Louis Beacon, which later merged with St. Louis Public Radio. She has a research background with stints in labs focused on bioceramics, human motor control and tissue-engineered heart valves. She is a past Missouri Health Journalism Fellow and a current member of the National Association of Science Writers. She has a bachelor's degree in engineering science from Iowa State University and a master's degree in biomedical engineering from the University of Minnesota.
straitj@wustl.edu
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MELEMA:
About Melema
MELEMA Pharma GmbH
MELEMA Pharma is a private biopharmaceutical company that develops derivatives of natural substances for the immunotherapeutic treatment of cancer and for the activation of the immune system.
The company was founded in 2013 and develops its substances in collaboration with partners from academia, hospitals, and industry. Before the products are brought into partnerships, the company brings its substances through preclinical and clinical development to proof of effectiveness in humans. The conclusion of possible partnerships is conceivable at every stage of development.
The most advanced product of MELEMA is ME-503, a new active ingredient with cytolytic/cytostatic and immunotherapeutic activity that triggers programmed cell death (apoptosis) of tumor cells and activates immune functions against cancer cells.
MELEMA Pharma GmbH was founded in 2013 after taking over the programs of CYTAVIS BioPharma GmbH. CYTAVIS was previously involved in the pharmaceutical, pre-clinical, and clinical development of MP-503.
Olaf R. Schneider, CEO (o.schneider@nullmelemapharma.com)
is the CEO of MELEMA Pharma GmbH. Mr. Schneider has acquired a wide range of expertise in business developement and business structuring by working for a management consultancy and a private equity fund with a strong focus on biotech and health care.
Dr. Hans Lentzen, Wissenschaftlicher Geschäftsführer (h.lentzen@nullmelemapharma.com)
is the Chief Scientific Officer of MELEMA Pharma GmbH. He is pharmacist and pharmacologist and has more than 20 years of management experience in the R&D area of the pharmaceutical and biotechnological industry. He was the former Head of the R&D Division of MADAUS AG, Cologne, and is one of the founders of MELEMA. In January 1999, he was awarded the ”Cologne Innovation Prize 1998” for the idea, the concept as well as the research and development work on the Aviscumine project.
With Professor Dr. Ulrike Naumann, Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research, Dept. Vascular Neurology, Laboratory for Molecular Neuro-Oncology at the University of Tübingen and Professor Dr. Michel Mittelbronn, National Center of Pathology (NCP) & Luxembourg Center of Neuropathology (LCNP) of the Laboratoire national de santé (LNS), Dudelange / Luxembourg, in-vitro and in-vivo studies (mouse model) on the effect of ME 503 on destructing invasive growth of glioblastoma are ongoing.
Professor Peiying Yang, Ph.D., Department of Palliative, Rehabilitation, and Integrative Medicine, The University of Texas, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston / Texas, is carrying out in vivo studies on the effectiveness of ME-503 and its mechanism of action.
As part of a service agreement between MELEMA and Lonza, studies on the influence of ME-503 on DC and T cell stimulation were completed. The analysis of such T cell responses is a frequently used tool to control the activation of the immune system
About Lonza
Lonza is one of the world’s leading and most renowned suppliers for the pharmaceutical, biotech, and specialty chemical markets. More information is available at www.lonza.com.
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Myles better
Posted on October 5, 2011 by jjn1
Yesterday was the centenary of the birth of Flann O’Brien, aka Brian O’Nolan, aka the author of the great post-modern novel, At Swim Two Birds, and (as Myles na gCopaleen) of the Cruskeen Lawn column in the Irish Times. To my gratified astonishment, Official Ireland, having done its best over the years of his life to belittle and ignore him, finally did the decent thing and put him on a commemorative stamp. And, in a very nice touch, the drawing of him was done by his brother, Michael.
I write with feeling on this matter. During my childhood in the 1950s, O’Brien wrote an astonishingly anarchic column for the Irish Times, then the eccentric house-organ of the Protestant ascendancy, edited by a gifted oddball named R.M. Smyllie, who had earned the undying hostility of the Catholic hierarchy because (a) he edited a Protestant newspaper, and (b) had strongly opposed General Franco, the Fascist dictator beloved of all Irish bishops. Since I grew up in a fervently Catholic household, the Irish Times was regarded as the spawn of the devil, and a copy of the paper never crossed the threshold. (Our newspaper fare was the Irish Press, the organ of Fianna Fail and the de Valera family, and the Irish Catholic, a devotional publication of stupefying piety.) But every so often I would pick up a snatch of conversation about this guy Myles na gCopaleen — literally “Myles of the Little Horses” — and wonder what the fuss was about. I determined that, one day, I would find out.
Eventually, when I was sixteen I saved up enough money to go to Dublin for a few days (staying with a relative, who lived in Ballsbridge and was deemed sufficiently strict to be able to keep an eye on me). On the first morning she inquired brightly whether I had plans for the day, and beamed approvingly when I told her that I was hoping to visit the National Library, then next to Leinster House in Kildare Street. So I took the bus down to Stephen’s Green and made my way to the Library, past a glowering custodian, lurking like the basilisk in his cave. Once inside, I discovered that I had lowered the average age of the readers by at least four decades. Undeterred, I requested back numbers of the Irish Times, which arrived, as I recall, in huge bound volumes, and commenced to read my way through the Cruskeen Lawn columns.
Coming to Myles for the first time, I found him intoxicatingly funny, which is how I came unstuck. One column in particular (I think it was one where he had put the image of a finger pointing at the Leading Article which ran alongside, the argument of which he then proceeded to ridicule) was so hilarious that I was racked by hysterical laughter. And then I suddenly noticed other readers looking disapprovingly at me, and the duty librarian over by the door talking grimly to the custodian and pointing at me. He advanced menacingly and said “We don’t want your sort here, sonny. This is a serious place. Out with yer!”. Or words to that effect.
I’ve loved Flann O’Brien’s work ever since that day. His newspaper did him proud on his centenary, with a story about the new stamp, a reprint of one of his nicest columns (in which he discusses the importance of the word “supposed” in Irish daily life) and some letters from readers drawing learned attention to his various exploits.
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The Modernist Web
H. D.
H.D (1886-1961) was born Hilda Doolittle in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. She spent most of her life in Europe, but in her youth before her move to London in 1911 she made important connections with fellow writers William Carlos Williams, Marianne Moore, and Ezra Pound, to whom she was engaged off-and-on. Her unconventional relationship with Pound, perhaps better described as a ménage-a-trois, was the first of many relationships that defied normative pressures from both within and without her circle. After a marriage and various affairs, she entered into a lifelong polyamourous partnership with Bryher, writer and heir to a British shipping fortune. Her alternative lifestyle and economic independence provided a position from which she was free to pursue experimental poetry, fiction, film, and translation for five decades. Her social contacts extended from artists and writers to actors, psychoanalysts, and war heroes. On her path to artistic maturity, H.D. developed a voice that was sharp enough to retain its early imagistic punch yet flowing enough to explore the limits of esoteric speculation and aesthetics in several long poems. Her prose output was equally impressive, including two novel cycles and a number of important memoirs and essays. H.D. by the end of her career wrote in her own masterly version of Eliot’s “mythical mode,” broadened by her lifelong interest in the occult and sharpened by indignant incredulity at culturally-received prescriptive roles for women in the personal, artistic, moral, and religious spheres.
Until fairly recently H.D. was more-or-less exclusively associated with the influential but short-lived Imagist movement: an oft-retold story has Ezra Pound simultaneously “inventing” Imagism and H.D. in one stroke at a meeting in the British Museum Tea Room. The terse, “crystalline” poetry that first made her name was merely a stepping-stone to longer and denser work, and it coexisted with other projects: in the same decade that she was writing the poems in Sea Garden she was also writing the novel HERmione, translating Euripides, and formulating the dense hybrid philosophy of aesthetics, poetics, and esoterica recorded in Notes on Thought and Vision. Following a critical revival of her work by a group of feminist critics in the 1980s, H.D. has re-emerged as a major figure of modernism, with over a dozen previously-unpublished works coming to light. A reader of Kenner’s The Pound Era when it was published in 1971, if she were to notice H.D.’s name at all, would not have had access to HERmione, Hermetic Definition, Sagesse, Vale Ave, End to Torment, The Gift, The Sword Went Out to Sea, Majic Ring, White Rose and the Red, The Mystery, Compassionate Friendship, Magic Mirror, and other important poems, stories, memoirs, and notebooks. Several of these works have only come to light within the past decade, and so H.D. scholarship is a living, growing body of work.
Dr. Matte Robinson
Sea Rose (annotated)
The Helmsman
The Wind Sleepers
Sheltered Garden
Sea Poppies
Copyright © 2021 Trevor Sawler • Some Rights Reserved • Contact • Privacy
The URL of this page is http://www.modernistweb.com/page/author/3?tab=poetry
Covered by the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License.
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Celebrities, Muppet Movies Cameos, Celebrity References, Musical References
Lady Gaga & Kermit at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards.
The couple sharing a kiss upon arrival.
Together with Tony Bennett in Muppets Most Wanted.
Lady Gaga (born Stefani Germanotta in 1986) is an American recording artist. She appeared with the Muppets in Lady Gaga & the Muppets' Holiday Spectacular which aired on ABC in November 2013, and makes a cameo appearance in 2014's Muppets Most Wanted during "We're Doing a Sequel."
She took Kermit the Frog as her date to the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards.[1] In an interview with Perez Hilton, Miss Piggy dismissed the concept of them dating, saying that "No, no I don't talk about lies. I talk about truth."[2]
In 2010, The Monster Ball Tour featured creations by Jim Henson's Creature Shop.
She also made headlines wearing a top made entirely of plush Kermit the Frogs by Jean Charles de Castelbajac on German television. She wore the outfit as a statement against wearing fur as it "looked like a bunch of dead Muppets".[3]
Jason Segel and Nick Stoller had originally written a cameo for her in The Muppets. It was reported that Lady Gaga would make her first big screen appearance in the 2011 film and was going to be facing off against Miss Piggy in a dance-off. However, when director James Bobin was forced to bring the length of the film down to 98 minutes, Gaga's sequence was dropped from the film. Producer Clint Morris said:
“Stefani Germanotta's [aka Lady Gaga] big moment from the film was cut. With her entourage, including Ed Helms, Eric Stonestreet and John Krasinski, Gaga would have gone head-to-head with Miss Piggy in a sequence. Rumor has it Madonna's "Vogue" was somehow involved (which makes sense considering Piggy is the editor of Paris Vogue magazine in the film). Guessing Gaga, who judging from the smooch she shared with Kermit at the 2009 Video Music Awards is a big Muppets fan, is crushed she got the scissors treatment.[4]”
Gaga does not appear in the finished movie. It is unknown if she ever filmed the scene, or if her scene was cut earlier in the production.[5]
Lady Gaga did, however, appear as herself in Muppets Most Wanted, during the song "We're Doing a Sequel" (appearing next to Tony Bennett at a craft services table).
On March 28, 2011, Gaga's 25th birthday, Ellen DeGeneres called the artist from her daily talk show, The Ellen Degeneres Show, to wish her a happy birthday. During the call, Ellen presented a birthday cake to the singer, commemorating a number of famous outfits that the artist wore throughout her young career, including a Kermit the Frog face, facing the audience.
In her memorandum for the May 2011 issue of V Magazine, Gaga writes: "Just like sometimes Picasso was Matisse’s Mondrian, and vice versa. Bowie is often my Mondrian, as are Michael Jackson, Prince, Lita Ford, and Madonna. Mugler is my silhouette’s Mondrian, Cindy Crawford is my sexuality’s, Kermit is my whimsy’s."
In April 2020, Gaga collaborated on the cross-network special, One World: Together at Home, credited for helping curate its celebrity lineup which also includes the Sesame Street characters.
Lady Gaga in her Kermit dress
Lady Gaga in an Animal-inspired dress
Ellen's birthday cake for Lady Gaga, including Kermit's face
On November 23, 2010, Sesame Workshop launched a viral marketing campaign on Facebook and YouTube called "Cookie Monster should host Saturday Night Live!" In the video, Cookie Monster auditions for the job by putting on an entire show in a short amount of time. For the musical guest, he parodies Lady Gaga playing the piano singing "Cookie Face" in a dress made out of cookies.
When "C is for Cookie" began playing at Toy Fair 2011, the Hasbro representative guessed that it was "something by Lady Gaga". (YouTube)
In the 2012 book The Twelve Days of a Muppet Christmas (and a Chicken in a Pine Tree), one of the ringtones shown on Miss Piggy's phone is "Lady Moi-Moi," a reference to Lady Gaga.
Gonzo says he "wouldn't mind" going out on a date with Lady Gaga in a 2012 Loaded interview because she wears feathers as well as Camilla the Chicken.
Lady Baa Baa is a parody of Lady Gaga who appears in the 2014 edition of Elmo's World Tour.
Lady Baba is a parody of Lady Gaga who appears in Episode 4727 of Sesame Street.
In a 2018 interview with NME, Miss Piggy cited Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett as one of her favorite musical duos.
In 2020, Rizzo appeared briefly in a Lady Gaga "sea urchin" costume in the Muppet Babies episode "My Brother Vinny."
↑ Eric Ditzian, "Lady Gaga Arrives At 2009 VMAs With Kermit The Frog", MTV, September 13, 2009.
↑ "Chatting With… Miss Piggy!!", PerezHilton.com, June 23, 2011.
↑ "Lada Gaga Talks To Oprah", July 21, 2009.
↑ Katy Perry, Lady Gaga Muppet cameos cut from movie
↑ MTV "'Muppets' Star Jason Segel 'Hoping' For Lady Gaga Cameo" by Eric Ditzian Dec 15, 2010
Visit the:
Lady Gaga Wiki
People "Kermit the Frog: I'm Not Dating Lady Gaga" September 17, 2009
Entertainment Weekly "VMAs 2009: Best/Worst Moments"
Retrieved from "https://muppet.fandom.com/wiki/Lady_Gaga?oldid=1356100"
Muppet Movies Cameos
Celebrity References
Musical References
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One stop shop for SEN, special educational needs for Newport Shropshire, SEN parental advice, dyslexia, find SEN schools.
Muxton, Tudor House, Shropshire, Copyright T Holmes
Dep for Education
Find SEN Schools
Local Area SEN
NPPN
SEN Magazine
SOS SEN
Special Needs UK
British Institute of Learning Disabilities
Founded in 1971 BILD helps develop the organisations who provide services, and the people who give support.
Department for Education SEN
Popular questions about issues affecting parents and carers of children with special educational needs, including guidance about statementing.
Ten percent (10%) of the British population are dyslexic; 4% severely so. Dyslexia is identified as a disability as defined in the Equality Act 2010. The BDA campaigns for a dyslexia friendly society where barriers to dyslexic people do not exist and works to ensure that ALL people with dyslexia fulfil their potential. BDA runs a number of courses and events throughout the year including training workshops for parents, teachers, tutors and employer. Click Training & Events tab to see if there are any near Newport.
Dyslexia Action is a national charity that takes action to change the lives of people with dyslexia and literacy difficulties by offering help and support direct to individuals, empowering others so they can help individuals affected by dyslexia, influencing change to help individuals affected by dyslexia. Dyslexia Action operate through 26 main centres and a network of teaching outposts and unit - find the one closes to Newport via the Find Us tab.
Gov.uk Find a School in England
Search the official database for primary, secondary and special needs schools near Newport or anywhere in England. You can also access Ofsted reports and get information on school performance.
Good Schools Guide - SEN
Useful information and guidance on: the different types of SEN, Professionals who may be involved in helping your child, School choices - special, mainstream or a mix, Choosing a school, Help at school, The law, Advice and support. You can also search for SEN schools near Newport or anywhere in the UK.
Independent Parental Special Education Advice
IPSEA is a registered charity offering free and independent advice to parents of children with special educational needs in England and Wales on: local authorities’ legal duties to assess and provide for children with special educational needs; exclusions of children with special needs/disabilities; actions or inaction by local authorities and/or schools which discriminate against children with disabilities.
Find SEN schools for the Newport area
Click for SEN schools around TF10 7LU. Special schools for Newport for moderate to severe learning difficulties, ADHD, Autism, Physical impairment, complex health needs, communication difficulties, dyspraxia and other special needs.
Mumsnet - SEN
Online discussion forum about Special Educational Needs
Nasen is the leading organisation in the UK which aims to promote the education, training, advancement and development of all those with special and additional support needs.
Information, Advice and Support Services for Shropshire
The Information, Advice and Support Services Network (IASS Network) offer information, advice and support for parents/carers of children and young people with special educational needs (SEN). They are statutory services which means there has to be one in every local authority. Search for your nearest IASS closest to Newport. They are free, impartial and confidential services. The overall aim is to provide a menu of flexible services for parents whose children have SEN in order to empower them to play an active and informed role in their child's education.
Some children have needs or disabilities that affect their ability to learn. For example: behavioural/social (eg difficulty making friends), reading and writing (eg dyslexia), understanding things, concentrating (eg Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), physical needs or impairments. Click for more details information.
Department for Education SEN Code of Practice
LEAs, schools, early education settings and those who help them – including health and social services – are obliged to have regard to the Code of Practice which is designed to help these bodies to make effective decisions regarding children with SEN. It does not (and could not) tell them what to do in each individual case. This document should help schools and LEAs to obtain the best value from the considerable resources and expertise they invest in helping children with special educational needs.
SEN Magazine has interesting and authoritative features, news and articles covering all issues to do with SEN and disability - useful for teachers, SENCOs, carers, parents, therapists and all practitioners in special needs.
SENAC - N. Ireland
The Special Educational Needs Advice Centre (SENAC) is a regional charity providing independent advice and advocacy on behalf of children and young people with disabilities and special educational needs attending schools in Northern Ireland up to the age of 19 years.
National Bureau for students with learning disabilities - SKILL promotes equality in education, training and employment for disabled people.
SOS! SEn
SOSSEN offer a free, friendly, independent and confidential telephone helpline for parents and others looking for information and advice on Special Educational Needs, concentrating on helping people to find their way through the legal and procedural maze which is so daunting to so many who try to obtain satisfactory provision for a child’s special needs. They aim to empower parents and carers, and to encourage them to become sufficiently confident to tackle for themselves the obstacles and difficulties that arise in battling for SEN rights. They have a few walk-in centres in the south east of England - see if there is one near [Postaltown].
Website with facility to search for many different kinds of special needs schools and links to lots of support groups. Find a special needs school near you or search the website for special schools throughout the UK
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B&W Angel Backpiece
Posted on October 12, 2006 by Shannon Larratt
This photo was taken at the 2006 London Tattoo Convention… If anyone knows the artist credit, please pop into the forum and post it.
This entry was posted in ModBlog and tagged Body Modification, Tattoos by Shannon Larratt. Bookmark the permalink.
39 thoughts on “B&W Angel Backpiece”
amy on October 12, 2006 at 11:16 pm said:
o wow this back pice is awesome!! ~drops jaw~
Sade on October 12, 2006 at 11:25 pm said:
that’s so beautiful!
raevyn on October 12, 2006 at 11:27 pm said:
legend Tonight on October 12, 2006 at 11:30 pm said:
stunning and amazing work, who is the mystry artist???
Jol on October 12, 2006 at 11:39 pm said:
Holy shit! Thats Really friggen good!
outmywindow on October 12, 2006 at 11:57 pm said:
Wow, that truly looks three dimensional!
ubbaken on October 12, 2006 at 11:57 pm said:
I love that back piece. Gorgeous work, with a stellar artist bringing to life.
an0nymous_vamp1re on October 13, 2006 at 12:04 am said:
Wow. I really love the 3D in it. Just amazing.
Piercing Pete on October 13, 2006 at 12:23 am said:
One of the nicest tattoos I have ever seen
mel on October 13, 2006 at 1:13 am said:
gods, that is sooo amazingly beautiful! Just stunning!
ryann on October 13, 2006 at 1:27 am said:
oh god, that’s absolutely amazing.
davidb on October 13, 2006 at 1:59 am said:
i don’t know for sure, but it looks like robert hernandez’s work. either way, its brilliant.
sickbrunettekill on October 13, 2006 at 3:14 am said:
i have never seen a backpiece with such 3d detail, it only makes me want to get a backpiece myself even more!
i wish we knew of the artist…
becca on October 13, 2006 at 3:17 am said:
gorgeous!!!!
Kerri on October 13, 2006 at 3:53 am said:
the face kindof scares me… maybe it is meant to, I dont know
Rebekah on October 13, 2006 at 4:39 am said:
That is a breathtaking tattoo. I hope we find out who the artist is!
it looks like robert hernandez’s work. brilliant whoever did tho.
aglet on October 13, 2006 at 11:31 am said:
That is just.. perfect..
Ausmoz on October 13, 2006 at 12:39 pm said:
I really like the 3D effect from the level of the bottom of the angel’s hair down. This tattoo should get a “quality” tag, I think :)
IG on October 13, 2006 at 12:52 pm said:
Wow! now thats an artist!
Salami on October 13, 2006 at 1:08 pm said:
They vast amount of negative space used for the feathers really makes this tattoo. I’ve yet to see another winged tattoo look as good as or better than this.
smurf on October 13, 2006 at 1:55 pm said:
That is absolutely beautiful.
wish_I_were_a_dragon... on October 13, 2006 at 2:17 pm said:
thats is seriously awesome! great job!
/ on October 13, 2006 at 2:26 pm said:
at first glance i thought it was printed on the shirt :)
looks great though, i also thought the face was a little weird everything else is beautiful
SNR on October 13, 2006 at 2:34 pm said:
*speachless*
redredred on October 13, 2006 at 2:43 pm said:
like #25 said.
TristaniA on October 13, 2006 at 2:51 pm said:
W O W.
Prolly one of the best big b&w works I’ve ever seen. The way the feathers are done is just… WOW.
Makes me wanna tattoo someone already! :P
F. Xanatos on October 13, 2006 at 3:15 pm said:
joel on October 13, 2006 at 8:55 pm said:
I think it looks a lot like woody’s work from woody’s tattoo studio in high wicombe
squid on October 14, 2006 at 12:31 am said:
i love the wings
but there is something about the face that bothers me
it doesn’t look done
phoenix on October 14, 2006 at 6:36 am said:
wow, thats that the best tattoo ive ever seen its so beautful
Saray on October 14, 2006 at 3:52 pm said:
Holy f*ck!! :O
Gorgeous shading! Damn!!
josh on October 14, 2006 at 9:17 pm said:
the wings look great, the artist did an excellent job of shading. however, the face looks a little fucked up, too bad they didnt go the extra mile to really tie the whole thing up. overall, its an amazing piece though.
max on October 14, 2006 at 9:24 pm said:
i saw this as i strolled around the tattoo convention, i actually couldnt believe it when i saw it.. i thought it had been photoshopped on!! AND I WAS ACTUALLY SEEING IT WITH MY OWN EYES!!
marisa on October 15, 2006 at 3:01 pm said:
could be Boris of Hungary as well. love it.
Brittney on October 15, 2006 at 8:02 pm said:
I think that is the most amazing tattoo i’ve ever seen.
zaid on October 18, 2006 at 5:14 am said:
oh God God what is this
damn its gr8
i like i want it
i want it right now
i would pay 10000$ for it!!!
dani on October 20, 2006 at 5:22 pm said:
very very very nice…
1 thing how long did it take too get.
ÈMþRꧧ on December 27, 2006 at 12:22 am said:
What an artist, the wings definatly look like layers of feathers.
*bravo*
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Picturing Valentine’s Day
Artwork and objects that evoke the rituals and romance of Valentine’s Day are on view in the Stanford museums, on the campus grounds and in the library – from candy to kissing and dining to dancing. If you are inclined to approach Feb. 14 from a scientific point of view, Stanford Libraries specialists Grace Baysinger and Cristina Flores-Herrera have put together a brief guide to science resources related to Valentine’s Day, including cards, videos, books and infographics. May these images and resources inspire you.
Candy, and especially chocolate, is a Valentine’s Day tradition. In his painting “Candy Counter,” American artist Wayne Thiebaud (b. 1920) virtually frosts the surface of the canvas with paint to suggest the rippling of fudge or the shiny stickiness of caramel. On view at the Anderson Collection. (Candy Counter, 1962. Oil on canvas.)
Young love. First love. Or maybe just a dance in the street. This photo by Brooklyn-born Helen Levitt (1913-2009) is on view at the Cantor in the exhibition “Outside Looking In: John Gutmann, Helen Levitt and Wright Morris.” (New York, c. 1940. Gelatin silver print. © Helen Levitt Film Documents LLC. All rights reserved. The Capital Group Foundation Photography Collection at Stanford University.)
Flowers are the classic Valentine’s Day gift. If you can’t get to a florist on Feb. 14, take your sweetie to the Cantor to view this bouquet by one of the Dutch Golden Age masters of still life, Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder (1573-1621). (Flowers in a Glass Vase, c. 1615. Oil on panel.)
This Georgian fan dated 1797 in Stanford Libraries Special Collections offers insightful notations advising its lady owner on love, life and morals. Centered among the vignettes is an illustration of Cupid carrying a description of its intended use. (Lady’s Advisor Fan, 1797. Paper, wood and metal.).
American painter Richard Diebenkorn (1922-93) dedicated the entirety of his sketchbook #13 to his beloved wife Phyllis, pictured here, as a testament to their strong partnership and adoration of one another. The two met at Stanford in 1940 and married in 1943 in Santa Barbara, Calif. All 1,045 drawings from the artist’s 29 sketchbooks are viewable in digital form on a jumbo touchscreen in the exhibition “Richard Diebenkorn at the Cantor” in the Oshman Family Gallery. (Richard Diebenkorn, Untitled from Sketchbook #13, page 9, 1965-66. Ink wash with pen and ink on paper. Gift of Phyllis Diebenkorn. © The Richard Diebenkorn Foundation.)
Red has long been associated with desire, love and romance. American artist Mark Rothko (1903-70) may not have been painting an eight-foot valentine when he created “Pink and White over Red,” on view at the Anderson Collection, but interpretation is up to the viewer. (Pink and White over Red, 1957. Oil on canvas.)
“Gay Liberation” on Lomita Mall incorporates four life-size bronze figures, paired off in couples, and actual steel benches from a park near Stonewall Inn. Through his cast figures, American artist George Segal (1924-2000) translates human emotion using the subtle touch between the figures. In doing so, the artist embraces the charged subject matter and the struggle that openly gay people faced during the 1960s and 1970s. (Gay Liberation, 1980. Bronze and paint.)
Tucked into one of the drawers in Mark Dion’s installation “The Melancholy Museum: Love, Death and Mourning at Stanford,” is a small fringed menu of a French feast dated Feb. 13 that was in the Stanford Family Collection before it was transferred to Stanford Libraries Special Collections. One can imagine the family dining on terrapins (it was a different time) and bonbons on the eve of the Feast of Saint Valentine. (Unknown artist, menu with a purple fringe border, unknown year.)
This companionable seated couple from Jalisco, Mexico, by an unknown artist is on view at the Cantor. It is an endearing vignette that was possibly made for burial as a way to provide physical and spiritual comfort for the deceased in their journey into the afterlife. (Seated male and female couple, 200 BCE-300 CE. Ceramic.)
French sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) worked an expressive sensuality into the cold material of his art, perhaps most notably in “The Kiss,” which was modeled after a panel from his monumental “Gates of Hell.” The inspiration for “Gates of Hell” was Dante’s “Inferno” and the lovers engaged in the kiss are Paola and Francesca who sadly did not live to see another Valentine’s Day after they were discovered in each other’s arms. “The Kiss” is on view in the exhibition “Rodin: the Shock of the Modern Body” at the Cantor and “Gates of Hell” is on view in the Rodin Sculpture Garden. (The Kiss (Le baiser), c. 1980-82. Bronze.)
Yo: the most concise pickup line ever. Oy: one possible response to said pickup line. In the fast paced world of today’s romance, perhaps brevity has its place. Deborah Kass’s monumental sculpture is on view in front of the Cantor. (OY/YO, 2019. Aluminum, polymer and clear coat.)
Sometimes your valentine becomes your partner, and sometimes that partnership is made official in a chapel. This post-minimal chapel by Robert Therrien (1947-2019) is on view at the Anderson Collection. (No title (chapel), 1985. Oil and wax on wood.)
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Humans of St. Thomas: Talia Nadir
Commentary, Homepage, Humans of St. Thomas, News, Our Community, Staff, Top News
Kha Yang Begins as St. Thomas’ First Associate Vice President of Inclusive Excellence
Anti-Racism Efforts, Common Good, Faculty, News, Notices, Our Community, President's Office, Staff, Top News, Uncategorized
St. Thomas today welcomed Kha Yang as its first Associate Vice President of Inclusive Excellence, a crucial leadership role that will guide the university’s ongoing journey to be more diverse, equitable and inclusive.
Yang is a first-generation Hmong American and a former refugee from Laos with a commitment for social justice work. She brings more than 20 years of experience as a campaign organizer, human rights investigator, equal employment opportunity consultant, and inclusive program developer. After getting to know St. Thomas, she aims to collaborate with individuals and groups across the university to develop a shared vision and further implement St. Thomas’ Action Plan to Combat Racism.
Yang begins today in the new position, which reports directly to President Julie Sullivan.
“Kha brings an outstanding range of experience and knowledge in mobilizing individuals and organizations,” Sullivan said. “As St. Thomas continues on its journey to becoming a more diverse, equitable and inclusive university, we welcome Kha’s leadership and look forward to her contributions in supporting our collective development.”
Yang comes most recently from the position of Inclusion Programs and Workforce Reporting Manager at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, where she managed the Bank’s inclusion programs and initiatives.
“I’m very excited to take on this new role,” Yang said, citing the university’s clear articulation and commitment to becoming more diverse, equitable and inclusive as what drew her to St. Thomas. “There are many great vehicles here and a lot of opportunity for impact. With President Sullivan’s support behind inclusive excellence, it opens the door for us to move to that next level.”
Mobilizing individuals toward a shared vision
The first Hmong American member on a St. Thomas president’s cabinet, Yang will develop a vision and strategy that champions the importance and value of a diverse, equitable and inclusive university. To do that, Yang emphasized understanding St. Thomas’ growth as an ongoing journey, and that culture change is not achieved by a few, but many. That means spending time learning the university’s history, current climate and experiences of individuals across campus; that knowledge will inform the overall vision.
“It really is from the beginning about grassroots initiatives,” she said. “You listen, learn and understand what’s important to individuals, and then try to tie that to the overall mission of what you’re trying to accomplish. People need to have hope that they’re part of shaping the movement. If they don’t have that buy-in of where you are and where you can be, it’s hard to obtain authentic support to achieve that end goal.”
Along with articulating a shared vision, Yang underscored the importance of everyone on campus sharing a common language and meanings.
“Creating space to discuss the meanings and values of diversity, equity and inclusion is essential. If we’re not speaking the same language, then that creates barriers for change,” she said. “My goal is to articulate this journey as not just about a specific group. This is about development and opportunity for all.”
Getting to know individuals also helps determine what they need to feel empowered to lead change, Yang said.
Working at St. Thomas also brings Yang closer to home where she lives in St. Paul with her husband and their two girls, ages 5 and 7. Yang enjoys running and recently completed the Great Wall of China Marathon.
Action Plan to Combat RacismMission and Values
Video: July Construction on North Campus
Super Lawyers Recognizes 113 St. Thomas School of Law Alumni
Virtual Postgraduation Fair to Focus on Meaningful Work for Class of 2020
Casey Gordon, Program Manager for Center for the Common Good
Law Students Win Immigration Appeal
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Libraries from UNT, Texas Woman's University team up to present digital humanities conference
What: Digital Frontiers 2014-- A two-day conference in which educators and librarians will explore innovation in digital resources for research, teaching and learning in the humanities. Sponsored by the University of North Texas Libraries in partnership with the Blagg-Huey Library at Texas Woman's University, the UNT Press, the UNT Libraries' Portal to Texas History and the Texas State Historical Association. Followed by a THATCamp, or The Humanities and Technology Camp.
When: Conference on Sept. 18-19 (Thursday-Friday). THATCamp on Sept. 20 (Saturday)
Where: Conference at Hubbard Hall on the TWU campus, 301 Administration Drive. THATCamp at TWU's Blagg-Huey Library, 304 Administration Drive.
Cost: Conference registration fees range from $40 to $125 and include more perks at the higher levels. Full-time undergraduate and graduate students will attend for free, but must register in advance.
Registration available on the conference website through Sept. 12 (Friday). The fee for THATCamp is $20 and includes breakfast and lunch. Registration is available on the conference website.
Contact: Spencer Keralis, research associate professor with the UNT Libraries, at 940-369- 6884.
DENTON (UNT), Texas -- When students in some Texas schools study the Texas Revolution, they read actual letters written by those who experienced the battles, including William Travis' plea for reinforcements that he wrote as Mexican troops surrounded the Alamo and Sam Houston's official report of the victorious Battle of San Jacinto.
These items on the Resources4Educators section of the University of North Texas Libraries' Portal to Texas History are just one example of how faculty members are using digital archives, GIS and mapping, data visualization and blogging and social media to teach humanities. The third Digital Frontiers conference sponsored by the UNT Libraries Sept. 18-19 (Thursday-Friday) will bring together scholars and teachers, academic and public librarians and others to learn about the latest developments and use of digital resources.
Texas Woman's University's Blagg-Huey Library has joined with the UNT Libraries and the Portal to Texas History -- which provides online access to millions of pages of items from archives, historical societies, libraries, museums and collections in Texas -- as a partner for this year's conference.
The conference will be held at TWU's Hubbard Hall, 301 Administration Drive in Denton. Registration is available through Sept. 12 (Friday) at the conference website. Fees range from $40 to $125, with those who register at higher levels receiving perks such as travel mugs, locally roasted coffee and VIP tours of TWU's special collections and archives with a luncheon catered by Queenie's Steakhouse in Denton, owned by celebrity chef Tim Love. The conference is free to full-time undergraduate and graduate students, but they must register in advance.
Spencer Keralis, research associate professor with the UNT Libraries, said Digital Frontiers exists because librarians and scholars wanted "to reach across departmental and institutional boundaries to find collaborators and do the work that is the future of the humanities." The partnership with TWU, he said, reflects the theme of collaboration.
Kimberly Johnson, coordinator of special collections with the TWU Libraries, noted the partnership between UNT and TWU Libraries "highlights the strengths of two distinguished academic libraries in the North Texas area and provides the ideal opportunity for the Blagg-Huey Library on the TWU Denton campus to welcome the digital humanities community to the Woman's Collection, a preeminent research center for women's history."
Digital Frontiers 2014 will be followed by THATCamp Digital Frontiers, or The Humanities and Technology Camp Digital Frontiers, on Sept. 20 (Saturday). THATCamps, which have been held in conjunction with professional conferences since 2008, are open meetings in which humanities and technology professionals of all skill levels learn together in sessions they propose on the spot. The sessions can be led by any participant and may involve demonstrations of tools, or simply be based around discussion of a question. THATCamps follow the participatory "unconference" model developed by George Mason University's Center for History and New Media.
THATCamp will take place at TWU's Blagg-Huey Library, 304 Administration Drive.The fee is $20 and includes breakfast and lunch. Registration is available on the conference website through Sept. 12 (Friday). Conference registration is not required to attend THATCamp.
Miriam Posner, the coordinator and a core faculty member of the University of California-Los Angeles' Digital Humanities Program, is the keynote speaker for Digital Frontiers 2014. Dorothea Salo, a faculty associate at the University of Wisconsin's School of Library and Information Studies, will be the conference's plenary speaker.
For more information about Digital Frontiers 2014, contact Keralis at 940-369-6884.
About the UNT Libraries
With more than 7 million print and digital cataloged items in six separate facilities, the UNT Libraries are the heart of learning and research at UNT. During the 2013-14 academic year, the libraries' facilities had an estimated 1.5 million visitors. The UNT Libraries has been nationally and internationally recognized for its emphasis on digital preservation. The Portal to Texas History, created by the Libraries in 2002, received the 2013 Project of the Year award from the Texas Library Association and was also chosen as one of the best online resources for education in the humanities by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Most recently, it was named a Service Hub by the Digital Public Library of America.
About TWU Libraries
The TWU Libraries serves students, staff, and faculty on three campus in Denton, Dallas, and Houston. The TWU Libraries are committed to strengthen students' education by connecting them to services and resources that advance scholarly inquiry and support academic success. The libraries provide quality, user-centered service, dedication to lifelong learning, respect for collaboration and individuality, and are the center of intellectual life on campus. TWU Libraries are recognized internationally and nationally for the TWU Woman's Collection, which is the largest depository in the southern United States housing research material about the history of women. It is the official archive for the Women Airforce Service Pilots of World War II, which attracts researchers, scholars, historians, filmmakers, documentarians and media support from around the world.
UNT News Service
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Remembering Tamarris Bohannon, Webster Student and St. Louis Police Officer
The Webster University community mourns the passing of undergraduate student Tamarris “T” Bohannon, a St. Louis Police Officer who was pursuing a degree in the Criminology & Criminal Justice at the Gateway campus in downtown St. Louis.
Officer Bohannon was killed in the line of duty while responding to a call on Saturday afternoon. He is fondly remembered by Webster faculty and staff who taught and supported him at the Gateway campus.
"Tamarris was a promising student who was dedicated to personal growth and to serving communities," said President Julian Z. Schuster. "His loss will be felt throughout the Webster and St. Louis communities. Webster extends our deepest condolences to his family, friends and colleagues."
The circumstances of Bohannon's death received extensive coverage in local media, and his family issued a statement that was shared by the police department and reported in local media:
"It is with great sadness we share the loss of Officer Tamarris "T" Bohannon. Affectionately known as "Bo" by his squad of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department. A three year veteran, who was raised and continued to live and raise his family in the City in which he patrolled.
“He is a hero to many, but most importantly to his loving wife and three incredible children.
“The loss of this great man is felt deeply within the St. Louis community and we ask for your prayers and support in the days ahead."
As always, Webster’s Counseling and Life Development staff members are available to assist current students, faculty and staff who seek grief counseling or other assistance. Students can visit the office on the Webster Groves campus at 540 Garden Avenue, or contact the office at (314) 968-7030; or e-mail counselingld@webster.edu.
Fund Recipient Spotlight: Home care nurses apply critical skills in pandemic
Judith Ballew, an MSN student and recipient of a Front-Line Responders Fund award, describes how home care nurses have "quietly been on the front...
Library Online Presentations Jan. 19, 21
Join Webster University librarians Jan. 19 and Jan. 21 for a virtual tour of library resources and services, with a chance to ask your own questions....
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Four arrested in $1 billion-plus cocaine seizure in Uruguay
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay (AP) — Four people were arrested for possible ties to the more than $1 billion worth of cocaine seized in recent days in Uruguay, the largest drug bust in the history of the South American country.
The arrests took place on Saturday, news outlets reported. A uthorities found 5.9 tons of cocaine, 4.4 tons of which was packed into cargo containers in the South Atlantic port of Montevideo, said Attorney General Enrique Rodríguez. Rodríguez did not say where the drug was headed. Multiple news outlets, without citing sources, reported it was destined for Africa.
The men accused of exporting the drug operate a soy bean business, the Uruguayan customs agency said Friday. As officials investigated further, they discovered another cocaine stash of more than 1.3 kilos at a rural property linked to the suspects.
Uruguay, a country of just 3.4 million inhabitants, has recently arrived on the world stage as a transit point for the international drug trade. In August, 4.6 tons of cocaine were confiscated in Hamburg, Germany , inside a container that had shipped from Montevideo. The customs director in Uruguay resigned shortly after.
A New Mexico county official and founder of the group Cowboys for Trump who had vowed to return to Washington after last week’s riot at the U.S. Capitol to place a flag on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s desk has been arrested Sunday by the FBI. Otero County Commissioner Couy Griffin was arrested on charges of illegally entering the U.S. Capitol. According to court documents, Griffin told investigators that he was “caught up” in the crowd, which pushed its way through the barricades and entered the restricted area of the U.S. Capitol, but he said he did not enter the building and instead remained on the U.S. Capitol steps.
She displayed "a round metallic object later identified as a Military Police Challenge Coin" and said she was part of law enforcement, police said.
Couy Griffin, a county commissioner in New Mexico, planned to return to the Capitol with guns on Jan. 20, the FBI said.
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was arrested Sunday at a Moscow airport as he tried to enter the country from Germany, where he had spent five months recovering from nerve agent poisoning that he blames on the Kremlin. Navalny's detention at passport control in Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport was widely expected because Russia’s prisons service said he had violated parole terms from a suspended sentence on a 2014 embezzlement conviction.
Almost a third of recovered Covid patients will end up back in hospital within five months and one in eight will die, alarming new figures have shown. Research by Leicester University and the Office for National Statistics (ONS) found there is a devastating long-term toll on survivors of severe coronavirus, with many people developing heart problems, diabetes and chronic liver and kidney conditions. Out of 47,780 people who were discharged from hospital in the first wave, 29.4 per cent were readmitted to hospital within 140 days, and 12.3 per cent of the total died. The current cut-off point for recording Covid deaths is 28 days after a positive test, so it may mean thousands more people should be included in the coronavirus death statistics. Researchers have called for urgent monitoring of people who have been discharged from hospital.
Biden’s plan to get 100m Americans vaccinated in first 100 days is ‘doable,’ Dr Fauci says
A massive pro-Trump protest was expected. The Humvees waited, and rolled away at 5 sharp.
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Red House Saga: President says “I am not giving up State Property”
By Fareeza Haniff On Jan 10, 2017
Much has been written and said about the Red House since the President’s move to repossess the building from the Cheddi Jagan Reading and Research Centre Inc., some about what is right and some about what the law states.
However, President David Granger on Sunday at a Media Brunch hosted at State Hosue said it is neither what is the law or what is right.
“It is not a question of law, it is not a question of right. This is the mentality which is driving the battle for Kamana Court (The Red house),” he told media operatives.
Referring to statements made by the Peoples Progressive Party (PPP) which suggest that any move to place materials relating to other presidents at the facility is a “contamination”, he said, “I find that offensive.”
The Head of State further implied that he will not give up until the building is being used for the promotion of all of the country’s past presidents.
He noted that “It is not as though there is no attempt to sit and reason, so that we can use State property for a public good. People are becoming vile talking about contamination so I am not going to give up State property. I am going to participate in ensuring that the children of this country could recognise for all time, all of the Presidents, starting from Arthur Chung, right down to David Granger .”
President Granger on December 29, 2016, ordered that the lease for the building known as The Red House to the Cheddi Jagan Research Centre Incorporated (CJRCI) be revoked and that the occupants vacate the property.
The decision comes more than one year after the Coalition Government had engaged the CJRCI on the matter of the lease. The engagement included negotiations for The Red House to provide a national service by housing information on all of the Presidents of Guyana. The house only contains the materials relating to former President, Cheddi Jagan who is also the founder of the Peoples’ Progressive Party. According to Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Basil Williams, those negotiations proved futile, causing him to sought to determine the legality of the lease agreement.
Having carefully considered the advice of the Minister of Legal Affairs, President Granger has concluded that it would be in the public’s interest for the lease issued to the CJRCI to be revoked and has also directed the Minister of State that the building be assigned to house “The National Trust of Guyana, its staff, stores and equipment”, currently housed in the Valerie Rodway Building on Carmichael Street, with effect from January 1, 2017.
It is the president’s view that the National Trust will be better able to “fulfil its mandate to preserve Guyana’s national patrimony and to promote an appreciation for the nation’s heritage” in the new building.
However in response, Former Legal Affairs Minister and Opposition Member of Parliament, Anil Nandlall argued that this contention is wrong noting that, “Any person who has but a mere fleeting familiarity with the State Lands Act and the Regulations made thereunder, as well as the Land Department Act, the MMA/DA Act and similar type legislation, would know that…the legislation provide for the President to delegate such authority to the Commissioner of Lands and Surveys, the Commissioner of Forestry or the Commissioner of Geology and Mines or the Manager of the MMA/DA, as the case may be, depending on the nature of the land and the purpose for which it is to be used. The practice of delegating these responsibilities to subordinate functionaries is one that started since the tenure of President Arthur Chung, and has continued on to this day.”
Williams also said that on March 21, 2000, the CJRCI was incorporated as “a not-for-profit company” by late former President Janet Jagan, her daughter Ms. Nadira Jagan-Brancier and former President Donald Ramotar, who was then the General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C), with the aim of establishing a library and research facility to contain the works and documents owned by the late President Cheddi Jagan.
In that same year, the lease agreement among the parties; the Government of Guyana, The National Trust of Guyana and the CJRCI was drawn up but not executed. The Attorney General further said that on May 3, 2006 Mr. Ramotar applied to the Commissioner of Lands and Surveys (CL&S) for a lease of the property, which comprises Lots 65, 66 and 67 High Street, Kingston, Georgetown, on behalf of the CJRCI but although a file had been opened in the Guyana Lands and Surveys Commission (GL&SC), approval had not been granted. The application was then resubmitted on August 30, 2010, on a revised schedule, to the then Office of the President. On January 11, 2011, the resubmitted application was also not approved as there is no evidence of any signature of the President of the Day on the purported schedule, only those of Mr. Doorga Persaud, the then CL&S, and the Manager of Land Administration, Mr. Enrique Monize.
However, on March 30, 2012, a lease entered by the CL&S on behalf of the Government of Guyana, and by Mr. Ralph Ramkarran, S.C., on behalf of the CJRCI, was issued under Section 10 of the Lands Department Act, Chapter 59:01 for property with a duration of 99 years, commencing on January 1, 2012, at an annual rental of $12,000 for the first three years, and with the proviso that the Government could revise the annual rent payable at the end of every three years.
In the statement, the Attorney General said that the 99-year lease “was not executed in the manner of a transport, that is advertised and passed before the Court, nor was it filed as of record and annotation made against the Property by the Registrar of Deeds.” The statement further noted that in Section 4 of the State Lands Act Chapter 62:01 said that State Lands can only be converted into Government Lands with the sanction of the President of the Day and on the terms and conditions determined by this office bearer and there is no formal evidence of sanction or approval by the then President.
The Red House is established in The National Trust of Guyana Monuments Register as a Public Building/National Monument/Heritage Site.
GuyanaThe Red House
Smart City Solutions likely to address Teachers’ parking concerns
Guyana Hindu Dharmic Sabha celebrates 43 years with Puja and Satsangh
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Florida Governor: 4 Zika Cases Likely Came From Local Mosquitoes
NYC Officials 'Cautiously Optimistic' That Local Mosquitoes Won't Be Zika Threat July 29, 2016 at 11:07 pm
Filed Under:Brian Conybeare, CDC, Dana Tyler, Dick Brennan, Dr. Max Gomez, Lauren Pastrana, Rick Scott, Zika, Zika Virus
MIAMI (CBSNewYork/AP) — Florida’s governor said Friday that the state has concluded that four mysterious Zika infections likely came from mosquitoes in the Miami area.
Gov. Rick Scott said Friday that no mosquitoes in the state have tested positive for Zika. But he said one woman and three men in Miami-Dade and Broward counties likely contracted the virus through mosquito bites.
“Now that Florida has become the first state to have a local transmission, likely through a mosquito, we will continue to put every resource available to fighting the spread of Zika in our state,” Scott said.
Of the four patients, the Florida Department of Health said no one has been hospitalized.
More than 1,650 Zika infections have been reported in the U.S., but the four patients in Florida would be the first not linked to travel outside the U.S. mainland.
MORE ON ZIKA: Basics | FAQ | Info For Pregnant Women | Symptoms, Diagnosis & Treatment | 10 Facts About The Zika
As Lauren Pastrana of WFOR-TV, CBS4 Miami reported, one hip and colorful Miami neighborhood just north of downtown is now ground zero for Zika. Scott said the four Zika patients likely contracted the virus in or near the Wynwood community – known for its galleries and restaurants.
“We’re taking this area and we’re being very aggressive and testing people there,” Scott said. “We’re testing the mosquitoes there and we’re spraying to make sure that it’s contained.”
Scott stressed that it is only one specific area in Miami where the Zika virus is being transmitted from mosquitoes to people.
“While no mosquito traps have tested positive for the Zika virus, the Department of Health is testing people in the affected area to make sure there are no other cases of the virus,” he said.
People living in and visiting the affected area were concerned.
“That’s really terrible news that it’s coming so close to home,” said Rebecca Rogers. “But I guess it makes sense because of the climate.”
The state Health Department is testing people and mosquitoes in a one square-mile area of Miami in hopes of stopping further infection.
“The state is prepared and we’ve been prepared,” Scott said. “We think about this just like we do a hurricane. The way you do well at this is you get ready.”
Dr. Aileen Marty with Florida International University is one of the doctors whose been working to find the source of the four now confirmed cases.
“One the ways in which it’s being done is analyzing mosquitoes in these areas, where these people who have not traveled and are infected, are from,” she said. “And the other way is this door-to-door surveillance where we discover individuals who may have had symptoms similar.”
Local mosquito control workers are targeting those same neighborhoods to eliminate mosquitoes and their breeding grounds.
Further, the Centers for Disease Control said it is closely coordinating with Florida officials and has sent a CDC medical epidemiologist to provide additional assistance.
“We will continue to support Florida’s efforts to investigate and respond to Zika and will reassess the situation and our recommendations on a daily basis,” Tom Frieden, director of the CDC said in a statement.
Meanwhile, just this week, the Food and Drug Administration called for blood collection to stop in South Florida until each unit of blood can be screened for the virus using an FDA approved test.
“It uses what’s essentially a DNA Xerox machine, or an RNA Xerox machine in this case, to amplify that genetic material to the point where we can detect it,” said Creative Testing Solutions Vice President Phillip Williamson.
But blood collection is still allowed at OneBlood, the largest collection company in the region.
“OneBlood implemented systemwide testing for the Zika virus effective immediately, so all collections in South Florida and throughout our entire service area are now being tested for the Zika virus,” said Susan Forbes of OneBlood.
The fight also continues for prevention and protection.
Dr. Matthew DeGennaro studies mosquito behavior and genetics. He’s researching how to improve mosquito repellent.
“Well, what we need to do is develop a spatial repellent so something that you can put in a room or an area and then the mosquitoes avoid that area,” he said. “And this would be useful not only in the United States, but in other countries where they’re really suffering from mosquito-borne illnesses.”
Immunologist Dr. Anthony Fauci said scientists are fast-tracking the development of a vaccine.
“If you look at what’s happened over the last several months, and to a few months ago, to last month, to last week, to yesterday, this is indeed a pandemic in process,” said Fauci, of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
The CDC said more Zika cases can be expected within the U.S.
“We anticipate that there may be additional cases of ‘homegrown’ Zika in the coming weeks,” Lyle Petersen, incident manager for CDC’s Zika virus response, said in a statement. “Our top priority is to protect pregnant women from the potentially devastating harm caused by Zika.”
Meanwhile, as CBS2’s Dick Brennan reported, many are now wondering whether Zika can strike in New York. New York City Deputy Mayor for Health Dr. Herminia Palacio emphasized that there is a plan in place.
“Our mosquito Zika action plan is built on the very infrastructure that we have to test West Nile virus,” she said.
Palacio said the mosquito in the Tri-State area is not exactly the same as the one spreading Zika. The species Aedes aegypti is to blame for the spread of Zika in Florida and Latin America, and Palacio said it has never been seen in the New York City area.
“We are cautiously optimistic that our mosquito is not going to become an effective transmission vehicle for the Zika virus,” Palacio said.
But health officials did say they are changing their plans — they will be capturing more mosquitoes in New York, and will be spraying earlier.
“We anticipate out doing our first seasonal spraying the same type of spraying for West Nile, but doing it on Monday,” Palacio said.
The city said to make sure to eliminate standing water. Incredibly, even a bottle cap full of water is enough for the Zika-carrying mosquito.
Possible Zika Signs And Symptoms
Zika primarily spreads through bites from tropical mosquitoes. As CBS2’s Dr. Max Gomez reported, most people won’t even know they have been infected by Zika, because it often causes no symptoms at all or just mild symptoms.
For those who do have symptoms, the most common include fever, rash, joint or muscle pain, conjunctivitis – also known as pink eye – and a headache. The symptoms usually last just a few days to a week.
Rare cases may involve Guillain-Barré syndrome, causing muscle weakness and even paralysis.
As CBS2’s Brian Conybeare reported, Dr. Fauci said 80 percent of people get no symptoms, while 20 percent get fairly mild ones.
Infected people are rarely sick enough to go to the hospital and almost never die of Zika.
The real issue is for pregnant women who are at greatest risk because the virus can cause devastating birth defects such as microcephaly, where the baby’s brain fails to develop normally.
Lacking a vaccine or treatment, the best protection against Zika is prevention of mosquito bites, Dr. Gomez reported. That means using insect repellent containing the ingredient DEET.
People should also wear long sleeves and long pants, ideally tucked into socks. Finally, people should avoid being out at dusk or dawn when mosquitoes tend to feed, and avoid wooded areas or freshwater lakes and ponds where they breed.
Finally, infected men and women can transmit the Zika virus through sexual contact, so the CDC recommends safe sex practices for anyone who has been to areas known to have Zika.
“I don’t think people need to panic about this,” Gomez told CBS2’s Conybeare. “This is something to keep an eye on.”
On Monday, New York City will start spraying pesticides in parts of Staten Island and Queens to kill adult mosquitoes that could carry either Zika or West Nile.
And anyone thinking of heading down to Miami for a getaway need not worry. There are no travel restrictions in place related to the Zika developments.
(TM and © Copyright 2016 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2016 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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How Letting 'Jesus Take the Wheel' Brings You True Freedom
What did I have to lose by letting the Lord control my life? 6:00PM EST 2/6/2020
Lysa TerKeurst Explains Why She's Been So Public With Marriage Issues
"I've yet to encounter a person who doesn't experience hardship." 2:00PM EST 2/6/2020
Why 'Black Panther' Actress Believes It's Crucial to Take a Break and 'Fall in Love With Jesus'
As Letitia Wright's influence increases, we take a moment to remember how she began and the importance she claims her faith had in the process. 1:00PM EST 2/6/2020
Spirit-Filled Psychologist: Join the Coming Revival and a Journey to Healing
Dr. Barbara Lowe invites women to experience transformation during the first World Women's Wholeness Summit in March. 8:00AM EST 2/6/2020
Why You Need to Build Spirit-Filled Silence Into Your Life
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How You Can Find Patience to Wait on God to Fulfill His Promises
Still waters run deep, and even so, the depth of our communion and communication with God will empower us to be still and know Him. 2:00PM EST 2/5/2020
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How This Woman Went From Clubbing and Crack to Walking in Her Divine Destiny
Hint: "Charisma" magazine played a significant role. 1:00PM EST 2/4/2020
Why You Need to Heed This Love-Filled Lesson From Mother Teresa
"Are we willing to give till it hurts to be a family—a family of God? If we are not willing to give whatever it takes to do good to one another, sin is still in us." 6:00PM EST 2/3/2020
3 Powerful Ways You Can Be a Channel for Holy Spirit
How can you and I be that channel of blessing in the midst of our crazy-busy lives? 2:00PM EST 2/3/2020
Is Your Warrior Mindset Keeping You From Real Intimacy With God?
But letting God become your defender doesn't mean you become a doormat. 1:00PM EST 2/3/2020
Why Kobe Bryant's Untimely Death Should Prompt Believers to Contemplate Their Mortality
What unanswered questions do you have in your life? 6:00PM EST 1/31/2020
Count It All Loss
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The Freedom to Feel
Blanca shares about reconnecting with her roots, the loss of her parents and God's comfort in the darkest places 3:34PM EST 1/31/2020
Why Jesus Wants You to Be True to Yourself
Jesus was not a people pleaser, was not bound up with insecurity or fear, had total confidence in Himself, yet walked in obedience to His Father's mission and lived sacrificially. 2:00PM EST 1/31/2020
'I Still Believe' Producer Kevin Downes Reflects on the Movie's 'Beautiful Love Story'
'I Still Believe' tells the story of up-and-coming Christian musician Jeremy Camp as he falls in love with a young woman named Melissa. Melissa, unfortunately, is diagnosed with cancer. 1:00PM EST 1/31/2020
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If you have stepped out in faith and totally surrendered to God's plans for your life, you know and understand the struggle in remaining in Him. 6:00PM EST 1/30/2020
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Scriptures for Faith, Deliverance and Healing
The Prophet's Manual
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Olympic Casino Latvia is a socially responsible company which focuses on understanding the importance of protecting the overall interests of its customers, staff, and society in general, as well as environmental protection where it pertains to the framework of its activities.
Olympic Casino Latvia considers corporate social responsibility and sustainability to be interrelated concepts which imply that the company is responsible in terms of its activities when it comes to relations with any parties that are involved in the company’s operating footprint, whether this be in terms of its staff, customers, owners, cooperation partners, the local community, or state institutions, by including public and environmental issues in its activities on the basis of undertaking a voluntary initiative and providing information on the best practice for its business activities. The company’s sustainable activities are possible only by implementing responsible corporate social management processes. A management working group is approved to be able to plan goals for corporate social responsibility, as well as being responsible for the organisation and coordination of activities.
Olympic Casino mission is to give our guests a customer orientated, secure and safe environment with the finest design and craftsmanship, unparalleled in the industry and supported by the excellence of our name and reputation.
Our vision is to be a global casino and resort operator, best known for our excellent service and creative design.
Olympic Casino core values are:
PASSION FOR SERVICE
• We have guests, not customers - we treat our customers like guests in our homes
• We always try to exeed our guests´ expectations – we love the job, we do more than is expected of us, we support our team and give more than 100%
• We are champions in what we do - we are proud to offer the best service in the gaming industry, our people are the best and we support their development
• We always offer the most secure environment– we have a deserved reputation for high security standards and well developed responsible gaming programs
• We take care of our own – we take responsibility for our own actions and always support our team
• We are good citizens actively supporting the community through our participation in regular charity programs and deserving causes
• We communicate with a smile – in addition to our wide choice of games and winning programs, we entertain our customers with a smile on our faces and in our hearts
• We enjoy every moment – we enjoy working in our teams and with our colleagues, work is play and smiling employees smile to the guests as well
• We create positive feelings – we share with our guests the joy of winning and we support them if they do not. We try to ensure that spending time with us is always a winning experience
• We promote initiative – there are always ways to improve our product and our service, we reward initiative and encourage great ideas that will benefit our company, our guests and our staff.
The Estonian joint-stock company, Olympic Entertainment Group (OEG), is a parent company of Olympic Casino Latvia, and it owns 100% of the company’s shares.
OEG began operating in September 1993, in Estonia, when it also started to use the “Olympic Casino” brand. In 1998, OEG was certified according to the international ISO 9001 quality standard.
In 2013, OEG subsidiary companies were operating in six countries: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Slovakia and Italy.
OEG management council and supervisory council
Olympic Casino Latvia SIA (OCL) is Latvian subsidiary of the largest gambling organizer in the region - Olympic Entertainment Group AS (OEG), which is based inEstonia. OEG started operation in Latvia, in 2002 by purchasing a gambling operator "Casino Daugava", which was located in hotel Radisson SAS Daugava (now - Radisson Blu Daugava). OCL operation was significantly expanded in 2005, when OCL purchased the gambling operator "Baltic Gaming". On August 22, 2014, the Board of OCL decided to reorganize the company by way of merger, and in the result company Altea Ltd. was acquired and added to the acquiring company - OCL. The reorganization process was completed on December 23, 2016, and resulted in a significant increase in the number of casinos owned by the OCL.
On July 30, 2013, OCL received interactive gambling license that gives the right to organize gambling on the internet. Since August 1, 2013, OCL offers its customers internet gambling throughout the Latvian territory, under the trade mark "OlyBet". On September 6, 2013, OCL received gaming and betting stakes reception license which gives the right to open gaming and betting reception points. In 2016 a total of 12 gaming and betting reception points were opened in the OCL casino premises.
By the end of 2016, more than 300 employees chose Olympic Casino Latvia as their place of work. The company’s achievements depend on its staff. We ensure the recognisability and success of the company in our daily work. Our task is to create a holiday in everyday life and provide a great atmosphere in our casinos.
We will always be happy to have with us creative, joyful colleagues who understand the importance of high quality customer service and are able to provide such a service.
The aim of Olympic Casino Latvia is to provide a competitive salary, the opportunity of receiving a high quality health insurance policy and other social guarantees for each employee, and the offer of bonuses for achieving both individual and team goals. The entire team meets up to take part in shared events twice a year, in sporting games in the summer and at the annual Christmas party.
Olympic Casino Latvia supports the initiative of its staff and its own participation in social support and charity activities, clean-up campaigns, sport and healthy lifestyle promotion events.
Since 2010 Olympic Casino Latvia team participates in Riga marathon and the company pays a membership fee and provides an uniform for all employees and their family members who participate in marathon.
In order to provide our guests with a service of a unified quality standard, a quality management system has been introduced in Olympic Casino Latvia since 2004.
Olympic Casino Latvia has set unified requirements in all of its automatic gaming and gaming table casinos regarding the services provided in them.
It is important for Olympic Casino Latvia to provide an invariably high level of guest service as set out in the company standards with the aim of providing an unforgettable casino adventure for each and every visit by its customers, thereby encouraging long-term cooperation, promoting the loyalty of regular guests, and attracting new guests.
Good service – this is an endless improvement process in terms of the services being provided and the awards that are received, endowing a company with an even greater sense of responsibility concerning the service improvement process.
The opinion of each of our guests is important for us, and it is on the basis of these opinions that we aim to improve of the quality of our services. We would like our guests to provide their references, proposals and comments on our service in one of the following ways:
by filling in a reference form in our casino,
by calling the reference phone number on +371 678 78 678 and leaving your auto-reply message,
by filling in the feedback form on our website.
Olympic Casino Latvia carries out a customer satisfaction survey by making inquiries once every two years or more often when necessary in order to discover the suitability of the services being provided and the company’s response to customer needs and wishes.
Olympic Casino Latvia protects the confidentiality of their customer data. Customer data at the Company’s disposal are stored and used in compliance with the requirements of the laws of the Republic of Latvia and in line with customers’ privacy rights.
Thanks to its activities and the good example it displays, Olympic Casino Latvia wishes to promote fair commercial activity practices and a responsible arrangement of the business activity environment in Latvia.
It is important for Olympic Casino Latvia to ensure that its cooperation with suppliers corresponds to the company’s sustainable activity principles, and it expects these principles to be observed by its cooperation partners. When deciding on whether to begin a cooperation agreement and during the entire period of that cooperation agreement, the company evaluates the conformity of its cooperation partners against the following criteria:
The conformity of the provided product or service quality with the quality standard set by Olympic Casino Latvia.
Observing laws and regulatory acts in its activities.
Following the principles of openness, ethics and honesty in its business activities, both in terms of its relations with its staff and with external parties that are involved in the company’s operating footprint by ensuring that everyone concerned observes fair practice in terms of commercial activities.
Nonconformity with some of the aforementioned criteria is considered to be a valid reason for suspending a cooperation agreement.
In order to facilitate the implementation of the sustainability principles, Olympic Casino Latvia establishes mutual cooperation processes with various organisations and state institutions.
Olympic Casino Latvia is a member of the Latvian Association of Gaming Business (LAGB). The LAGB represents the interests of most of the companies that operate in the gaming business in the state and public sector, and its aim is to facilitate the common development of the Latvian gaming business.
Since 2006, the LAGB has been a member of the Employers’ Confederation of Latvia. In 2010, the LAGB signed a Memorandum on the Principles of Corporate SocialResponsibility, along with another 21 organisations.
The memorandum explains the definition of corporate social responsibility and its principles, describes the largest audiences having impact on the company’s operating, and sets out further challenges in the field of corporate social responsibility for Latvian society. The last of these points could include, for example, increasing the number of companies which report their best practice at the national level by using the sustainability index, or at the international level by joining the UN Global Compact.
Olympic Casino Latvia is a member of the American Chamber of Commerce in Latvia. The American Chamber of Commerce in Latvia (AmCham Latvia) is the leading foreign chamber of commerce in Latvia, and its members are both those companies which have direct commercial links with the USA, and other international and local companies which support the AmCham Latvia mission and its goals.
The AmCham Latvia mission is to promote and strengthen commerce, investments and partnership between the USA and Latvia, to serve as a forum for business activities, knowledge exchange and communications for its members, and to ensure the improvement of business activities and the investment environment in Latvia.
The goals of the AmCham Latvia are to serve as an initiative centre which serves to promote the improvement of the business activity environment, and serve as an example of the establishment of sustainable commercial activities.
In 2006, Olympic Casino Latvia signed the LAGB self-regulating code of ethics and undertook to implement it in its everyday activities.
By becoming a member of the AmCham Latvia, Olympic Casino Latvia has accepted and undertaken to observe the AmCham Latvia Statement on Good Corporate Citizenship.
By meeting the set criteria, Olympic Casino Latvia has been included in the In-depth Cooperation Programme by the State Revenue Service. The aim of the programme is to promote closer and more efficient cooperation between the taxpayer and the tax administration by reducing the administrative burden.
Olympic Casino Latvia is a socially responsible gambling operator which duly informs people about gambling-related risks, as well as participating in projects and implementing them in the field of public support.
The company has set the following priorities for implementation in public support programmes:
support for the less protected members of society;
public education on the prevention of gambling addiction;
environmental clean-ups;
support for the promotion of a healthy lifestyle.
The activity of Olympic Casino Latvia in the field of public support is focused on those events which would generally facilitate the promotion of public health matters and life quality issues by reducing the risk of the impact of its activities and implementing support measures.
Public Support Project
Olympic Casino Latvia (OCL) objectives - sustainable development and responsible business - are based on the company's core values and stakeholder involvement.
One of the components of public support policy is the involvement of local community life. Being aware of the impact of their activities and evaluating the essential problems of the local community from the perspectives of business and stakeholders, OCL has identified priority support areas for the support of the local community: environmental improvement, promotion of healthy lifestyle and prevention of addictions.
In order to realize this, the OCL annually invites to submit projects aimed at promoting healthy lifestyle and safe and orderly environment. Projects can be submitted in certain municipalities where the company operates.
Basic conditions for projects applying for support:
supported projects are aimed at environmental improvement and enhancement, and promotion of healthy lifestyle in cities and districts where the company operates;
project implementer must be an association or foundation;
planned support for one project is maximum EUR 1500 (in some cases it may be decided on the increase of the grant);
given support may also be co-financing.
One project is selected in each city or municipality and it will receive the OCL grant.
Participants in the final evaluation are Chairman of the board of OCL, Manager of the Marketing and Service Development, Quality Manager and OCL staff, consulting with representatives of the particular local municipality as far as possible.
In the decision-making process the eligibility for OCL objectives and principles of support policy for local community are evaluated, as well as the positive impact on local communities is evaluated.
To submit a project, the project description – filled out application form – must be sent to e-mail address: projekti@oc.eu . Documents should contain a maximum of 5 pages. Pictures can be added as attachments (format: .jpeg, png, bmp).
Results will be published on the company's website. Winners will be informed via telephone or email.
In cases if no projects are submitted in accordance with the requirements, application deadline may be extended in certain municipalities.
Telephone for additional information: 67892975 (Liene Krastina).
Social Support Projects implemented in 2018,
Improvement of child care and primary school leisure facilities and surrounding area in Valmiera city.
Improvement of children's playground in Madona district.
Renovation of technical equipment and materials for Liepaja Diabetes Society.
Social Support Projects implemented in 2017
In 2017, considering the activity of the previous years, OCL announced the submission of project proposals for the receipt of support in the following municipalities: Cēsis, Daugavpils, Jēkabpils, Liepāja, Madona, Ogre, Rēzekne, Saldus, Sigulda, Valmiera. A total of 17 proposals were received from the municipalities of Jēkabpils, Liepāja, Madona, Ogre, Rēzekne, Saldus, Sigulda and Valmiera.
In 2017, after the assessment of the conformity of the projects to the determined criteria, including the sustainability of the project and long-term benefit for the local community, OCL, in accordance with the established procedures, granted support to the following projects, which were implemented.
In Madona Municipality, Prauliena Rural Territory, a playground was developed, promoting the development of a healthy lifestyle among the children of the rural territory and providing the opportunity for the wholesome spending of free time.
In Saldus, 5 Skrundas Street, at the Family Support Centre, where children aged 6 - 18 spend their free time after school, additional sports equipment and devices were purchased and installed, thus promoting high quality and meaningful spending of free time of children and youths.
In Valmiera, the active recreation equipment was improved and supplemented at Daliņa Beach, thus developing a beach volleyball initiative and creating new and wider opportunities for active recreation for the adult and children population of Valmiera, as well as the guests of the city.
Realised public support projects in 2016
In 2016, OCL announced the call for project applications for receiving support in the 12 municipalities where the company operates: in Cēsis, Daugavpils, Jelgava, Jēkabpils, Jūrmala, Liepāja, Madona, Ogre, Rēzekne, Saldus, Sigulda, Valmiera.
OCL, by evaluating the conformity of the 2016 applications to the basic criteria, granted support in the specified order, and the following projects were realised:
In Cēsis, for the establishment of a pasture, for the natural grazing of sheep, in the territory of Rucka Manor’s park, in Street Piebalga. The aim of the project is to provide an ecological management for the park and restore the park’s biodiversity, while at the same time creating an open and a beautiful park landscape for the citizens of Cēsis.
In Daugavpils, for replacing the flooring and windows in the kids club “Fortūna” of the Children and Youth Centre “Jaunība”, in realising the project’s aim to improve the environment of the children and youth’s leisure activities.
In Jēkabpils, for creating an open-air table tennis court in the territory of the Family Support Centre, thus providing an opportunity for the youth of the centre and nearby apartment buildings to spend their time in a healthy manner while outside.
In Liepāja, for making a “Barefoot Trail” in the territory of the Liepāja Christian preschool institution, thus promoting and ensuring the improvement of children’s health and well-being in the long term.
In Ogre, for the renovation of the environmental object – group of sculptures “Sprīdītis” and for landscaping works of the surrounding area.
In Saldus Municipality, for environmental improvement works in Oskars Kalpaks Museum, located in Zirņi Parish – museum’s Strength Trail received a pleasant rest area and also existing objects were improved. Wooden tables and benches were purchased for creating the rest area, the base was covered with a brick flooring, the campfire site which is often used by the visitors after activities in the museum’s territory was improved. During the project, also the Strength Trail, which is about 500 meters long, received additional objects that promote physical activities – wooden sword lifting, rope obstacles, as well as the Strength Word Tree.
In Sigulda, for improving the recreational area that is open for the citizens. Stage 2 – outdoor exercise machine, which can be used by 3 people at the same time, was installed in the territory of Laurenči primary school for promoting and maintaining a healthy lifestyle.
Public Support Projects implemented in 2015
In the beginning of 2015 OCL announced project submission for support in a number of municipalities where the company operates: Cesis, Sigulda, Valmiera, Saldus, Jelgava, Jurmala, Ventspils, Liepaja, Daugavpils, Rezekne and Ogre.
After evaluating submitted projects in accordance with the basic criteria, OCL granted support and realized the following projects in 2015:
In Saldus municipality: breed rabbits viewing ground “Lutriņu trušmīļi” was installed, supporting the work of association “Trušmīļu skola” in Lutriņi. The objective of association is to educate children on rabbit breeding and care, as well as to create an educational attraction for all children, adolescents and adults in Saldus district.
In Ogre municipality: a public ground for leisure activities – outdoor gym was installed in Meņģele School territory for promotion and maintenance of healthy lifestyle.
In Cēsis: a public ground for leisure activities – outdoor gym was installed in Pastariņš primary School territory for promotion and maintenance of healthy lifestyle.
In Sigulda: a public ground for leisure activities – outdoor gym was installed in Laurenči primary School territory for promotion and maintenance of healthy lifestyle.
In Jūrmala: a public ground for sport and leisure activities was improved by expanding the existing volleyball field, installing another volleyball field, making territory improvement in Sloka (square between streets Year 1905, Laidzes and Skrundas) for promotion and maintenance of healthy lifestyle.
In Liepāja: Children center courtyard, on Bāriņu street 11, was improved and preparation works for children playground was carried out, thus giving the opportunity to implement a social program for children from disadvantaged families: courtyard was paved, top soil was imported and greenery was landscaped.
Public Support Pilot Project implemented in 2014:
In November 2014 the first OCL Public Support Project was implemented in Saldus, by funding the installation of playground and basketball hoop installation on Kalnu Street 22.
Olympic Casino Latvia is aware of the impact of gambling on society and the related risks, including gambling addiction.
In order to reduce the possibility of this risk arising, Olympic Casino Latvia carries out preventative action by placing warning signs and information in its casinos that make it clear to customers that gambling may lead to a gambling addiction, and the company also distributes information booklets that contain a self-control test, along with information covering where to turn to for help if it becomes necessary. Such information is also available to customers on the company’s website.
Olympic Casino Latvia supports public education in terms of the various addictions and also supports events that can prevent such addictions. Olympic Casino Latvia is a member of the Latvian Association of Gaming Business which implements various public support projects on behalf of the members of the association, including those that are related to the gambling impact risk. The association and Olympic Casino Latvia provides support to the society, “Be Free!” (“Esi brīvs!”), which organizes educational events for youths and their parents on addiction-related problems and their prevention.
The aim of the society is to address youths, their parents, their teachers, and society in general by popularising the opinion that being free from any addictions is stylish and much more interesting than being dependent on apparently pleasant actions, substances and processes.
According to “Esi Brīvs!” (Be Free!) statistics, from the moment the association was founded in 2006 until 2017, it has organised more than 1 800 courses and according to the association's data more than 35 000 students and 3 500 adults have participated. The association also organises educational workshops concerning addiction prevention and publishes articles dedicated to the issue.
In order to implement priority objectives set in public support policy, Olympic Casino Latvia cooperate with organizations and support their activities.
Since 2010, Olympic Casino Latvia has been cooperating with Ronald McDonald House Charities Latvija (RMHC) by placing donation boxes in their automatic gaming casinos and other casinos. The donations that are collected are spent on the Caremobile, which is a twelve metre-long modern vehicle that has been kitted out to provide diagnostic and preventive medical services. The Caremobile physicians from the Children’s Clinical University Hospital provide free health care for children in the regions of Latvia where the receipt of specialised paediatric medical care is hampered.
Every year the OCL gives donations to the “Esi Brīvs!” association for the implementation of addiction prevention actions.
In recent years the OCL has donated to: “Rowing and Tourism Centre of Latgale” association, “Culture Projects of Latvia” association, “Latvian Basketball Association”, the establishment of the “Enthusiast Foundation”, “Basketball School Ventspils” association, the establishment of the “Sports Club Valmiera”, as well as given support to “Animal Shelter Ulubele”.
Olympic Casino Latvia considers that its activities cause a natural and environmental impact in general. Therefore, as far as possible, the company must reduce any unfavourable consequences by ensuring the preservation of the environment for future generations.
To ensure the provision of the service, Olympic Casino Latvia uses power. Power ensures that the company’s basic activities can be carried out, meaning the operation of all of its gaming equipment and appropriate lighting in the casino gaming table and automatic gaming premises. The company has set the aim of reduce its power consumption by replacing old lighting equipment and installing energy-efficient lighting equipment, as well as mounting automated lighting systems wherever possible.
Olympic Casino Latvia has concluded that considerable power consumption is caused by the company’s ventilation and air conditioning systems. Olympic Casino Latvia has set the aim of improving and replacing these systems with more environmentally friendly equipment by making the necessary investments and selecting equipment with higher levels of energy efficiency to be installed throughout. The company is also installing frequency converters in the air ventilation and conditioning systems where it can in order to provide the desired result in terms of reducing power consumption wherever this is technically possible.
In the framework of the implementation process for administrative and support functions, Olympic Casino Latvia uses paper. The company has set the aim of reducing the amount of paper that it uses in its daily work by replacing paper use with electronic information and digitising its data, as well as by making environmentally-friendly procurements by acquiring environmentally-friendly stationery.
Olympic Casino Latvia sets out the aim of ensuring that waste sorting in the company’s head office and around the gaming tables and automatic gaming casinos is improved as far as possible by ensuring that waste is divided as appropriate into recycling or disposal materials.
Going to Olympic Casino for the first time is exciting, because we will offer you a great introductory package and a 30% discount at the bar.
Olympic Casino Cards
The Olympic Casino club card is much more than just a regular loyalty card. As a holder of our club card, you can enjoy unprecedented benefits and special offers both at our bars and within various campaigns.
Read MoreOlympic Casino Club Card Terms
Olympic in Latvia
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About OEG
Rules of Using the Olympic Club Card
This is gambling advertisement. Gambling is not suitable for solving financial problems.
© 2021 Olympic Entertainment Group.
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Happy 5th Birthday to LibreOffice!
Celebrating 5 years of LibreOffice
28 Sep 2015 Italo Vignoli Feed
Image by Oscar Cortez. Modified by Opensource.com. CC BY-SA 2.0.
LibreOffice was launched as a fork of OpenOffice.org on September 28, 2010, by a tiny group of people representing the community in their capacity as community project leaders. At the time, forking the office suite was a brave—and necessary—decision, because the open source community did not expect OpenOffice.org to survive for long under Oracle stewardship.
In fact, the group of 16 founders launched an independent free software project under the stewardship of The Document Foundation, to fulfill the promise made by Sun 10 years before—with the first announcement of OpenOffice.org—of an independent free software foundation capable of pushing forward the free office suite to the next level.
LibreOffice timeline by Italo Vignoli. CC0 1.0
After five years, LibreOffice is recognized as a major Microsoft Office contender, based on a sheer feature by feature comparison, and on the number of successful migrations. The Future of Open Source Survey 2015 (slides) even included LibreOffice in its list of seven most valuable open source projects, based on the answers provided by more than 1,300 professionals worldwide. And migrating to LibreOffice has never been easier, thanks to the Migration Protocol (PDF) drafted by the most experienced people at The Document Foundation, which outlines the best practices adopted by several large projects worldwide.
The LibreOffice journey has been amazing. In five years, LibreOffice developers have not missed a single time-based release—with major announcements in late January and late July, and minor announcements on a monthly basis. Thanks to this sustained pace, LibreOffice has reached a richness of features and a level of interoperability that are second to none.
LibreOffice 5.0, launched in early August, has been the most successful major release ever, triggering an unprecedented 8,000 donations in 30 days. Of course, the success has been reflected in the number of adoptions, which has soared. The icing on the cake was the announcement by the Italian Defense Organization saying that it will migrate some 150,000 PCs to LibreOffice starting in October 2015.
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Italo Vignoli - Italo Vignoli is a founding member of The Document Foundation. He handles PR and media relations, coordinates the certification program, and is an international spokesman for the project. He has supervised the largest migration projects to LibreOffice in Italy, and is a LibreOffice trainer. From 2004 to 2010 he has been involved in the OOo project. In his professional life, he is a marketing consultant with over 30 years of experience in high tech, and a teacher of marketing, public speaking...
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David Both on 28 Sep 2015 Permalink
It is very nice to see my favorite office suite doing so nicely. I recommend it every chance I get. Thanks for your work and dedication.
Duncan McKean on 28 Sep 2015 Permalink
Congratulations LibreOffice, you've done wonders.
Jhon on 28 Sep 2015 Permalink
Congrats! LibreOffice , you're alwas the best.
Don Watkins on 28 Sep 2015 Permalink
Congratulations! I recommend it every chance I get and provide links to it on my training wikis.
Pigsy on 28 Sep 2015 Permalink
I used to hate LibreOffice, because it was so slow and its spellchecker used to create more problems than it solved. I used to have to switch between two languages and one of them had to be English, English (s ) no (z) and so on. I would not have it on my computer I would delete it if I found it on any of them. I now use it every day on a 1 TB encrypted hard drive part of a 5 TB, network workstation it works nicely and works a lot faster than it once did it is version 4.2.8.2. They took their time to get it right but they did it. Happy birthday.
Cory Hilliard on 28 Sep 2015 Permalink
Congratulations! I'm doing everything I can to make ODF an official standard here in Canada. I don't have a lot of pull right now, but I'm hoping to it a couple of years. If I don't ever make it an official standard, I'm going to try to make it a default standard. :) We'll get them in the end!
LoriZ on 03 Oct 2015 Permalink
On a related note, do mark your calendars for January 22, which will be 6th birthday of MariaDB, also at least partially liberated from the clutches of Oracle.
M.Dbouba on 01 Nov 2015 Permalink
Happy Birthday Libroffice ! I'm very happy to see you growing up!
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14.3 Stress and Illness
Psychology14.3 Stress and Illness
1 Introduction to Psychology
1.1 What Is Psychology?
1.2 History of Psychology
1.3 Contemporary Psychology
1.4 Careers in Psychology
Personal Application Questions
2 Psychological Research
2.1 Why Is Research Important?
2.2 Approaches to Research
2.3 Analyzing Findings
2.4 Ethics
3 Biopsychology
3.1 Human Genetics
3.2 Cells of the Nervous System
3.3 Parts of the Nervous System
3.4 The Brain and Spinal Cord
3.5 The Endocrine System
4 States of Consciousness
4.1 What Is Consciousness?
4.2 Sleep and Why We Sleep
4.3 Stages of Sleep
4.4 Sleep Problems and Disorders
4.5 Substance Use and Abuse
4.6 Other States of Consciousness
5 Sensation and Perception
5.1 Sensation versus Perception
5.2 Waves and Wavelengths
5.3 Vision
5.4 Hearing
5.5 The Other Senses
5.6 Gestalt Principles of Perception
6 Learning
6.1 What Is Learning?
6.2 Classical Conditioning
6.3 Operant Conditioning
6.4 Observational Learning (Modeling)
7 Thinking and Intelligence
7.1 What Is Cognition?
7.2 Language
7.3 Problem Solving
7.4 What Are Intelligence and Creativity?
7.5 Measures of Intelligence
7.6 The Source of Intelligence
8.1 How Memory Functions
8.2 Parts of the Brain Involved with Memory
8.3 Problems with Memory
8.4 Ways to Enhance Memory
9 Lifespan Development
9.1 What Is Lifespan Development?
9.2 Lifespan Theories
9.3 Stages of Development
9.4 Death and Dying
10 Emotion and Motivation
10.1 Motivation
10.2 Hunger and Eating
10.3 Sexual Behavior
10.4 Emotion
11.1 What Is Personality?
11.2 Freud and the Psychodynamic Perspective
11.3 Neo-Freudians: Adler, Erikson, Jung, and Horney
11.4 Learning Approaches
11.5 Humanistic Approaches
11.6 Biological Approaches
11.7 Trait Theorists
11.8 Cultural Understandings of Personality
11.9 Personality Assessment
12 Social Psychology
12.1 What Is Social Psychology?
12.2 Self-presentation
12.3 Attitudes and Persuasion
12.4 Conformity, Compliance, and Obedience
12.5 Prejudice and Discrimination
12.6 Aggression
12.7 Prosocial Behavior
13 Industrial-Organizational Psychology
13.1 What Is Industrial and Organizational Psychology?
13.2 Industrial Psychology: Selecting and Evaluating Employees
13.3 Organizational Psychology: The Social Dimension of Work
13.4 Human Factors Psychology and Workplace Design
14 Stress, Lifestyle, and Health
14.1 What Is Stress?
14.2 Stressors
14.4 Regulation of Stress
14.5 The Pursuit of Happiness
15 Psychological Disorders
15.1 What Are Psychological Disorders?
15.2 Diagnosing and Classifying Psychological Disorders
15.3 Perspectives on Psychological Disorders
15.4 Anxiety Disorders
15.5 Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders
15.6 Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
15.7 Mood Disorders
15.8 Schizophrenia
15.9 Dissociative Disorders
15.10 Personality Disorders
15.11 Disorders in Childhood
16 Therapy and Treatment
16.1 Mental Health Treatment: Past and Present
16.2 Types of Treatment
16.3 Treatment Modalities
16.4 Substance-Related and Addictive Disorders: A Special Case
16.5 The Sociocultural Model and Therapy Utilization
Explain the nature of psychophysiological disorders
Describe the immune system and how stress impacts its functioning
Describe how stress and emotional factors can lead to the development and exacerbation of cardiovascular disorders, asthma, and tension headaches
In this section, we will discuss stress and illness. As stress researcher Robert Sapolsky (1998) describes,
stress-related disease emerges, predominantly, out of the fact that we so often activate a physiological system that has evolved for responding to acute physical emergencies, but we turn it on for months on end, worrying about mortgages, relationships, and promotions. (p. 6)
The stress response, as noted earlier, consists of a coordinated but complex system of physiological reactions that are called upon as needed. These reactions are beneficial at times because they prepare us to deal with potentially dangerous or threatening situations (for example, recall our old friend, the fearsome bear on the trail). However, health is affected when physiological reactions are sustained, as can happen in response to ongoing stress.
Psychophysiological Disorders
If the reactions that compose the stress response are chronic or if they frequently exceed normal ranges, they can lead to cumulative wear and tear on the body, in much the same way that running your air conditioner on full blast all summer will eventually cause wear and tear on it. For example, the high blood pressure that a person under considerable job strain experiences might eventually take a toll on his heart and set the stage for a heart attack or heart failure. Also, someone exposed to high levels of the stress hormone cortisol might become vulnerable to infection or disease because of weakened immune system functioning (McEwen, 1998).
Link to Learning
Robert Sapolsky, a noted Stanford University neurobiologist and professor, has for over 30 years conducted extensive research on stress, its impact on our bodies, and how psychological tumult can escalate stress—even in baboons. Here are two videos featuring Dr. Sapolsky: one is regarding killer stress and the other is an excellent in-depth documentary from National Geographic.
Physical disorders or diseases whose symptoms are brought about or worsened by stress and emotional factors are called psychophysiological disorders. The physical symptoms of psychophysiological disorders are real and they can be produced or exacerbated by psychological factors (hence the psycho and physiological in psychophysiological). A list of frequently encountered psychophysiological disorders is provided in Table 14.3.
Type of Psychophysiological Disorder
Cardiovascular hypertension, coronary heart disease
Gastrointestinal irritable bowel syndrome
Respiratory asthma, allergy
Musculoskeletal low back pain, tension headaches
Skin acne, eczema, psoriasis
Table 14.3 Types of Psychophysiological Disorders (adapted from Everly & Lating, 2002)
In addition to stress itself, emotional upset and certain stressful personality traits have been proposed as potential contributors to ill health. Franz Alexander (1950), an early-20th-century psychoanalyst and physician, once postulated that various diseases are caused by specific unconscious conflicts. For example, he linked hypertension to repressed anger, asthma to separation anxiety, and ulcers to an unconscious desire to “remain in the dependent infantile situation—to be loved and cared for” (Alexander, 1950, p. 102). Although hypertension does appear to be linked to anger (as you will learn below), Alexander’s assertions have not been supported by research. Years later, Friedman and Booth-Kewley (1987), after statistically reviewing 101 studies examining the link between personality and illness, proposed the existence of disease-prone personality characteristics, including depression, anger/hostility, and anxiety. Indeed, a study of over 61,000 Norwegians identified depression as a risk factor for all major disease-related causes of death (Mykletun et al., 2007). In addition, neuroticism—a personality trait that reflects how anxious, moody, and sad one is—has been identified as a risk factor for chronic health problems and mortality (Ploubidis & Grundy, 2009).
Below, we discuss two kinds of psychophysiological disorders about which a great deal is known: cardiovascular disorders and asthma. First, however, it is necessary to turn our attention to a discussion of the immune system—one of the major pathways through which stress and emotional factors can lead to illness and disease.
Stress and the Immune System
In a sense, the immune system is the body’s surveillance system. It consists of a variety of structures, cells, and mechanisms that serve to protect the body from invading toxins and microorganisms that can harm or damage the body’s tissues and organs. When the immune system is working as it should, it keeps us healthy and disease free by eliminating bacteria, viruses, and other foreign substances that have entered the body (Everly & Lating, 2002).
Immune System Errors
Sometimes, the immune system will function erroneously. For example, sometimes it can go awry by mistaking your body’s own healthy cells for invaders and repeatedly attacking them. When this happens, the person is said to have an autoimmune disease, which can affect almost any part of the body. How an autoimmune disease affects a person depends on what part of the body is targeted. For instance, rheumatoid arthritis, an autoimmune disease that affects the joints, results in joint pain, stiffness, and loss of function. Systemic lupus erythematosus, an autoimmune disease that affects the skin, can result in rashes and swelling of the skin. Grave’s disease, an autoimmune disease that affects the thyroid gland, can result in fatigue, weight gain, and muscle aches (National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases [NIAMS], 2012).
In addition, the immune system may sometimes break down and be unable to do its job. This situation is referred to as immunosuppression, the decreased effectiveness of the immune system. When people experience immunosuppression, they become susceptible to any number of infections, illness, and diseases. For example, acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) is a serious and lethal disease that is caused by human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which greatly weakens the immune system by infecting and destroying antibody-producing cells, thus rendering a person vulnerable to any of a number of opportunistic infections (Powell, 1996).
Stressors and Immune Function
The question of whether stress and negative emotional states can influence immune function has captivated researchers for over three decades, and discoveries made over that time have dramatically changed the face of health psychology (Kiecolt-Glaser, 2009). Psychoneuroimmunology is the field that studies how psychological factors such as stress influence the immune system and immune functioning. The term psychoneuroimmunology was first coined in 1981, when it appeared as the title of a book that reviewed available evidence for associations between the brain, endocrine system, and immune system (Zacharie, 2009). To a large extent, this field evolved from the discovery that there is a connection between the central nervous system and the immune system.
Some of the most compelling evidence for a connection between the brain and the immune system comes from studies in which researchers demonstrated that immune responses in animals could be classically conditioned (Everly & Lating, 2002). For example, Ader and Cohen (1975) paired flavored water (the conditioned stimulus) with the presentation of an immunosuppressive drug (the unconditioned stimulus), causing sickness (an unconditioned response). Not surprisingly, rats exposed to this pairing developed a conditioned aversion to the flavored water. However, the taste of the water itself later produced immunosuppression (a conditioned response), indicating that the immune system itself had been conditioned. Many subsequent studies over the years have further demonstrated that immune responses can be classically conditioned in both animals and humans (Ader & Cohen, 2001). Thus, if classical conditioning can alter immunity, other psychological factors should be capable of altering it as well.
Hundreds of studies involving tens of thousands of participants have tested many kinds of brief and chronic stressors and their effect on the immune system (e.g., public speaking, medical school examinations, unemployment, marital discord, divorce, death of spouse, burnout and job strain, caring for a relative with Alzheimer’s disease, and exposure to the harsh climate of Antarctica). It has been repeatedly demonstrated that many kinds of stressors are associated with poor or weakened immune functioning (Glaser & Kiecolt-Glaser, 2005; Kiecolt-Glaser, McGuire, Robles, & Glaser, 2002; Segerstrom & Miller, 2004).
When evaluating these findings, it is important to remember that there is a tangible physiological connection between the brain and the immune system. For example, the sympathetic nervous system innervates immune organs such as the thymus, bone marrow, spleen, and even lymph nodes (Maier, Watkins, & Fleshner, 1994). Also, we noted earlier that stress hormones released during hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activation can adversely impact immune function. One way they do this is by inhibiting the production of lymphocytes, white blood cells that circulate in the body’s fluids that are important in the immune response (Everly & Lating, 2002).
Some of the more dramatic examples demonstrating the link between stress and impaired immune function involve studies in which volunteers were exposed to viruses. The rationale behind this research is that because stress weakens the immune system, people with high stress levels should be more likely to develop an illness compared to those under little stress. In one memorable experiment using this method, researchers interviewed 276 healthy volunteers about recent stressful experiences (Cohen et al., 1998). Following the interview, these participants were given nasal drops containing the cold virus (in case you are wondering why anybody would ever want to participate in a study in which they are subjected to such treatment, the participants were paid $800 for their trouble). When examined later, participants who reported experiencing chronic stressors for more than one month—especially enduring difficulties involving work or relationships—were considerably more likely to have developed colds than were participants who reported no chronic stressors (Figure 14.15).
Figure 14.15 This graph shows the percentages of participants who developed colds (after receiving the cold virus) after reporting having experienced chronic stressors lasting at least one month, three months, and six months (adapted from Cohen et al., 1998).
In another study, older volunteers were given an influenza virus vaccination. Compared to controls, those who were caring for a spouse with Alzheimer’s disease (and thus were under chronic stress) showed poorer antibody response following the vaccination (Kiecolt-Glaser, Glaser, Gravenstein, Malarkey, & Sheridan, 1996).
Other studies have demonstrated that stress slows down wound healing by impairing immune responses important to wound repair (Glaser & Kiecolt-Glaser, 2005). In one study, for example, skin blisters were induced on the forearm. Subjects who reported higher levels of stress produced lower levels of immune proteins necessary for wound healing (Glaser et al., 1999). Stress, then, is not so much the sword that kills the knight, so to speak; rather, it’s the sword that breaks the knight’s shield, and your immune system is that shield.
Stress and Aging: A Tale of Telomeres
Have you ever wondered why people who are stressed often seem to have a haggard look about them? A pioneering study from 2004 suggests that the reason is because stress can actually accelerate the cell biology of aging.
Stress, it seems, can shorten telomeres, which are segments of DNA that protect the ends of chromosomes. Shortened telomeres can inhibit or block cell division, which includes growth and proliferation of new cells, thereby leading to more rapid aging (Sapolsky, 2004). In the study, researchers compared telomere lengths in the white blood cells in mothers of chronically ill children to those of mothers of healthy children (Epel et al., 2004). Mothers of chronically ill children would be expected to experience more stress than would mothers of healthy children. The longer a mother had spent caring for her ill child, the shorter her telomeres (the correlation between years of caregiving and telomere length was r = -.40). In addition, higher levels of perceived stress were negatively correlated with telomere size (r = -.31). These researchers also found that the average telomere length of the most stressed mothers, compared to the least stressed, was similar to what you would find in people who were 9–17 years older than they were on average.
Numerous other studies since have continued to find associations between stress and eroded telomeres (Blackburn & Epel, 2012). Some studies have even demonstrated that stress can begin to erode telomeres in childhood and perhaps even before children are born. For example, childhood exposure to violence (e.g., maternal domestic violence, bullying victimization, and physical maltreatment) was found in one study to accelerate telomere erosion from ages 5 to 10 (Shalev et al., 2013). Another study reported that young adults whose mothers had experienced severe stress during their pregnancy had shorter telomeres than did those whose mothers had stress-free and uneventful pregnancies (Entringer et al., 2011). Further, the corrosive effects of childhood stress on telomeres can extend into young adulthood. In an investigation of over 4,000 U.K. women ages 41–80, adverse experiences during childhood (e.g., physical abuse, being sent away from home, and parent divorce) were associated with shortened telomere length (Surtees et al., 2010), and telomere size decreased as the amount of experienced adversity increased (Figure 14.16).
Figure 14.16 Telomeres are shorter in adults who experienced more trauma as children (adapted from Blackburn & Epel, 2012).
Efforts to dissect the precise cellular and physiological mechanisms linking short telomeres to stress and disease are currently underway. For the time being, telomeres provide us with yet another reminder that stress, especially during early life, can be just as harmful to our health as smoking or fast food (Blackburn & Epel, 2012).
The cardiovascular system is composed of the heart and blood circulation system. For many years, disorders that involve the cardiovascular system—known as cardiovascular disorders—have been a major focal point in the study of psychophysiological disorders because of the cardiovascular system’s centrality in the stress response (Everly & Lating, 2002). Heart disease is one such condition. Each year, heart disease causes approximately one in three deaths in the United States, and it is the leading cause of death in the developed world (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2011; Shapiro, 2005).
The symptoms of heart disease vary somewhat depending on the specific kind of heart disease one has, but they generally involve angina—chest pains or discomfort that occur when the heart does not receive enough blood (Office on Women’s Health, 2009). The pain often feels like the chest is being pressed or squeezed; burning sensations in the chest and shortness of breath are also commonly reported. Such pain and discomfort can spread to the arms, neck, jaws, stomach (as nausea), and back (American Heart Association [AHA], 2012a) (Figure 14.17).
Figure 14.17 Males and females often experience different symptoms of a heart attack.
A major risk factor for heart disease is hypertension, which is high blood pressure. Hypertension forces a person’s heart to pump harder, thus putting more physical strain on the heart. If left unchecked, hypertension can lead to a heart attack, stroke, or heart failure; it can also lead to kidney failure and blindness. Hypertension is a serious cardiovascular disorder, and it is sometimes called the silent killer because it has no symptoms—one who has high blood pressure may not even be aware of it (AHA, 2012b).
Many risk factors contributing to cardiovascular disorders have been identified. These risk factors include social determinants such as aging, income, education, and employment status, as well as behavioral risk factors that include unhealthy diet, tobacco use, physical inactivity, and excessive alcohol consumption; obesity and diabetes are additional risk factors (World Health Organization [WHO], 2013).
Over the past few decades, there has been much greater recognition and awareness of the importance of stress and other psychological factors in cardiovascular health (Nusair, Al-dadah, & Kumar, 2012). Indeed, exposure to stressors of many kinds has also been linked to cardiovascular problems; in the case of hypertension, some of these stressors include job strain (Trudel, Brisson, & Milot, 2010), natural disasters (Saito, Kim, Maekawa, Ikeda, & Yokoyama, 1997), marital conflict (Nealey-Moore, Smith, Uchino, Hawkins, & Olson-Cerny, 2007), and exposure to high traffic noise levels at one’s home (de Kluizenaar, Gansevoort, Miedema, & de Jong, 2007). Perceived discrimination appears to be associated with hypertension among African Americans (Sims et al., 2012). In addition, laboratory-based stress tasks, such as performing mental arithmetic under time pressure, immersing one’s hand into ice water (known as the cold pressor test), mirror tracing, and public speaking have all been shown to elevate blood pressure (Phillips, 2011).
Are You Type A or Type B?
Sometimes research ideas and theories emerge from seemingly trivial observations. In the 1950s, cardiologist Meyer Friedman was looking over his waiting room furniture, which consisted of upholstered chairs with armrests. Friedman decided to have these chairs reupholstered. When the man doing the reupholstering came to the office to do the work, he commented on how the chairs were worn in a unique manner—the front edges of the cushions were worn down, as were the front tips of the arm rests. It seemed like the cardiology patients were tapping or squeezing the front of the armrests, as well as literally sitting on the edge of their seats (Friedman & Rosenman, 1974). Were cardiology patients somehow different than other types of patients? If so, how?
After researching this matter, Friedman and his colleague, Ray Rosenman, came to understand that people who are prone to heart disease tend to think, feel, and act differently than those who are not. These individuals tend to be intensively driven workaholics who are preoccupied with deadlines and always seem to be in a rush. According to Friedman and Rosenman, these individuals exhibit Type A behavior pattern; those who are more relaxed and laid-back were characterized as Type B (Figure 14.18). In a sample of Type As and Type Bs, Friedman and Rosenman were startled to discover that heart disease was over seven times more frequent among the Type As than the Type Bs (Friedman & Rosenman, 1959).
Figure 14.18 (a) Type A individuals are characterized as intensely driven, (b) while Type B people are characterized as laid-back and relaxed. (credit a: modification of work by Greg Hernandez; credit b: modification of work by Elvert Barnes)
The major components of the Type A pattern include an aggressive and chronic struggle to achieve more and more in less and less time (Friedman & Rosenman, 1974). Specific characteristics of the Type A pattern include an excessive competitive drive, chronic sense of time urgency, impatience, and hostility toward others (particularly those who get in the person’s way).
An example of a person who exhibits Type A behavior pattern is Jeffrey. Even as a child, Jeffrey was intense and driven. He excelled at school, was captain of the swim team, and graduated with honors from an Ivy League college. Jeffrey never seems able to relax; he is always working on something, even on the weekends. However, Jeffrey always seems to feel as though there are not enough hours in the day to accomplish all he feels he should. He volunteers to take on extra tasks at work and often brings his work home with him; he often goes to bed angry late at night because he feels that he has not done enough. Jeffrey is quick tempered with his coworkers; he often becomes noticeably agitated when dealing with those coworkers he feels work too slowly or whose work does not meet his standards. He typically reacts with hostility when interrupted at work. He has experienced problems in his marriage over his lack of time spent with family. When caught in traffic during his commute to and from work, Jeffrey incessantly pounds on his horn and swears loudly at other drivers. When Jeffrey was 52, he suffered his first heart attack.
By the 1970s, a majority of practicing cardiologists believed that Type A behavior pattern was a significant risk factor for heart disease (Friedman, 1977). Indeed, a number of early longitudinal investigations demonstrated a link between Type A behavior pattern and later development of heart disease (Rosenman et al., 1975; Haynes, Feinleib, & Kannel, 1980).
Subsequent research examining the association between Type A and heart disease, however, failed to replicate these earlier findings (Glassman, 2007; Myrtek, 2001). Because Type A theory did not pan out as well as they had hoped, researchers shifted their attention toward determining if any of the specific elements of Type A predict heart disease.
Extensive research clearly suggests that the anger/hostility dimension of Type A behavior pattern may be one of the most important factors in the development of heart disease. This relationship was initially described in the Haynes et al. (1980) study mentioned above: Suppressed hostility was found to substantially elevate the risk of heart disease for both men and women. Also, one investigation followed over 1,000 male medical students from 32 to 48 years. At the beginning of the study, these men completed a questionnaire assessing how they react to pressure; some indicated that they respond with high levels of anger, whereas others indicated that they respond with less anger. Decades later, researchers found that those who earlier had indicated the highest levels of anger were over 6 times more likely than those who indicated less anger to have had a heart attack by age 55, and they were 3.5 times more likely to have experienced heart disease by the same age (Chang, Ford, Meoni, Wang, & Klag, 2002). From a health standpoint, it clearly does not pay to be an angry young person.
After reviewing and statistically summarizing 35 studies from 1983 to 2006, Chida and Steptoe (2009) concluded that the bulk of the evidence suggests that anger and hostility constitute serious long-term risk factors for adverse cardiovascular outcomes among both healthy individuals and those already suffering from heart disease. One reason angry and hostile moods might contribute to cardiovascular diseases is that such moods can create social strain, mainly in the form of antagonistic social encounters with others. This strain could then lay the foundation for disease-promoting cardiovascular responses among hostile individuals (Vella, Kamarck, Flory, & Manuck, 2012). In this transactional model, hostility and social strain form a cycle (Figure 14.19).
Figure 14.19 According to the transactional model of hostility for predicting social interactions (Vella et al., 2012), the thoughts and feelings of a hostile person promote antagonistic behavior toward others, which in turn reinforces complimentary reactions from others, thereby intensifying ones’ hostile disposition and intensifying the cyclical nature of this relationship.
For example, suppose Kaitlin has a hostile disposition; she has a cynical, distrustful attitude toward others and often thinks that other people are out to get her. She is very defensive around people, even those she has known for years, and she is always looking for signs that others are either disrespecting or belittling her. In the shower each morning before work, she often mentally rehearses what she would say to someone who said or did something that angered her, such as making a political statement that was counter to her own ideology. As Kaitlin goes through these mental rehearsals, she often grins and thinks about the retaliation on anyone who will irk her that day.
Socially, she is confrontational and tends to use a harsh tone with people, which often leads to very disagreeable and sometimes argumentative social interactions. As you might imagine, Kaitlin is not especially popular with others, including coworkers, neighbors, and even members of her own family. They either avoid her at all costs or snap back at her, which causes Kaitlin to become even more cynical and distrustful of others, making her disposition even more hostile. Kaitlin’s hostility—through her own doing—has created an antagonistic environment that cyclically causes her to become even more hostile and angry, thereby potentially setting the stage for cardiovascular problems.
In addition to anger and hostility, a number of other negative emotional states have been linked with heart disease, including negative affectivity and depression (Suls & Bunde, 2005). Negative affectivity is a tendency to experience distressed emotional states involving anger, contempt, disgust, guilt, fear, and nervousness (Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988). It has been linked with the development of both hypertension and heart disease. For example, over 3,000 initially healthy participants in one study were tracked longitudinally, up to 22 years. Those with higher levels of negative affectivity at the time the study began were substantially more likely to develop and be treated for hypertension during the ensuing years than were those with lower levels of negative affectivity (Jonas & Lando, 2000). In addition, a study of over 10,000 middle-aged London-based civil servants who were followed an average of 12.5 years revealed that those who earlier had scored in the upper third on a test of negative affectivity were 32% more likely to have experienced heart disease, heart attack, or angina over a period of years than were those who scored in the lowest third (Nabi, Kivimaki, De Vogli, Marmot, & Singh-Manoux, 2008). Hence, negative affectivity appears to be a potentially vital risk factor for the development of cardiovascular disorders.
Depression and the Heart
For centuries, poets and folklore have asserted that there is a connection between moods and the heart (Glassman & Shapiro, 1998). You are no doubt familiar with the notion of a broken heart following a disappointing or depressing event and have encountered that notion in songs, films, and literature.
Perhaps the first to recognize the link between depression and heart disease was Benjamin Malzberg (1937), who found that the death rate among institutionalized patients with melancholia (an archaic term for depression) was six times higher than that of the population. A classic study in the late 1970s looked at over 8,000 manic-depressive persons in Denmark, finding a nearly 50% increase in deaths from heart disease among these patients compared with the general Danish population (Weeke, 1979). By the early 1990s, evidence began to accumulate showing that depressed individuals who were followed for long periods of time were at increased risk for heart disease and cardiac death (Glassman, 2007). In one investigation of over 700 Denmark residents, those with the highest depression scores were 71% more likely to have experienced a heart attack than were those with lower depression scores (Barefoot & Schroll, 1996). Figure 14.20 illustrates the gradation in risk of heart attacks for both men and women.
Figure 14.20 This graph shows the incidence of heart attacks among men and women by depression score quartile (adapted from Barefoot & Schroll, 1996).
After more than two decades of research, it is now clear that a relationship exists: Patients with heart disease have more depression than the general population, and people with depression are more likely to eventually develop heart disease and experience higher mortality than those who do not have depression (Hare, Toukhsati, Johansson, & Jaarsma, 2013); the more severe the depression, the higher the risk (Glassman, 2007). Consider the following:
In one study, death rates from cardiovascular problems was substantially higher in depressed people; depressed men were 50% more likely to have died from cardiovascular problems, and depressed women were 70% more likely (Ösby, Brandt, Correia, Ekbom, & Sparén, 2001).
A statistical review of 10 longitudinal studies involving initially healthy individuals revealed that those with elevated depressive symptoms have, on average, a 64% greater risk of developing heart disease than do those with fewer symptoms (Wulsin & Singal, 2003).
A study of over 63,000 registered nurses found that those with more depressed symptoms when the study began were 49% more likely to experience fatal heart disease over a 12-year period (Whang et al., 2009).
The American Heart Association, fully aware of the established importance of depression in cardiovascular diseases, several years ago recommended routine depression screening for all heart disease patients (Lichtman et al., 2008). Recently, they have recommended including depression as a risk factor for heart disease patients (AHA, 2014).
Although the exact mechanisms through which depression might produce heart problems have not been fully clarified, a recent investigation examining this connection in early life has shed some light. In an ongoing study of childhood depression, adolescents who had been diagnosed with depression as children were more likely to be obese, smoke, and be physically inactive than were those who had not received this diagnosis (Rottenberg et al., 2014). One implication of this study is that depression, especially if it occurs early in life, may increase the likelihood of living an unhealthy lifestyle, thereby predisposing people to an unfavorable cardiovascular disease risk profile.
It is important to point out that depression may be just one piece of the emotional puzzle in elevating the risk for heart disease, and that chronically experiencing several negative emotional states may be especially important. A longitudinal investigation of Vietnam War veterans found that depression, anxiety, hostility, and trait anger each independently predicted the onset of heart disease (Boyle, Michalek, & Suarez, 2006). However, when each of these negative psychological attributes was combined into a single variable, this new variable (which researchers called psychological risk factor) predicted heart disease more strongly than any of the individual variables. Thus, rather than examining the predictive power of isolated psychological risk factors, it seems crucial for future researchers to examine the effects of combined and more general negative emotional and psychological traits in the development of cardiovascular illnesses.
Asthma is a chronic and serious disease in which the airways of the respiratory system become obstructed, leading to great difficulty expelling air from the lungs. The airway obstruction is caused by inflammation of the airways (leading to thickening of the airway walls) and a tightening of the muscles around them, resulting in a narrowing of the airways (Figure 14.21) (American Lung Association, 2010). Because airways become obstructed, a person with asthma will sometimes have great difficulty breathing and will experience repeated episodes of wheezing, chest tightness, shortness of breath, and coughing, the latter occurring mostly during the morning and night (CDC, 2006).
Figure 14.21 In asthma, the airways become inflamed and narrowed.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), around 4,000 people die each year from asthma-related causes, and asthma is a contributing factor to another 7,000 deaths each year (CDC, 2013a). The CDC has revealed that asthma affects 18.7 million U.S. adults and is more common among people with lower education and income levels (CDC, 2013b). Especially concerning is that asthma is on the rise, with rates of asthma increasing 157% between 2000 and 2010 (CDC, 2013b).
Asthma attacks are acute episodes in which an asthma sufferer experiences the full range of symptoms. Asthma exacerbation is often triggered by environmental factors, such as air pollution, allergens (e.g., pollen, mold, and pet hairs), cigarette smoke, airway infections, cold air or a sudden change in temperature, and exercise (CDC, 2013b).
Psychological factors appear to play an important role in asthma (Wright, Rodriguez, & Cohen, 1998), although some believe that psychological factors serve as potential triggers in only a subset of asthma patients (Ritz, Steptoe, Bobb, Harris, & Edwards, 2006). Many studies over the years have demonstrated that some people with asthma will experience asthma-like symptoms if they expect to experience such symptoms, such as when breathing an inert substance that they (falsely) believe will lead to airway obstruction (Sodergren & Hyland, 1999). As stress and emotions directly affect immune and respiratory functions, psychological factors likely serve as one of the most common triggers of asthma exacerbation (Trueba & Ritz, 2013).
People with asthma tend to report and display a high level of negative emotions such as anxiety, and asthma attacks have been linked to periods of high emotionality (Lehrer, Isenberg, & Hochron, 1993). In addition, high levels of emotional distress during both laboratory tasks and daily life have been found to negatively affect airway function and can produce asthma-like symptoms in people with asthma (von Leupoldt, Ehnes, & Dahme, 2006). In one investigation, 20 adults with asthma wore preprogrammed wristwatches that signaled them to breathe into a portable device that measures airway function. Results showed that higher levels of negative emotions and stress were associated with increased airway obstruction and self-reported asthma symptoms (Smyth, Soefer, Hurewitz, Kliment, & Stone, 1999). In addition, D’Amato, Liccardi, Cecchi, Pellegrino, & D’Amato (2010) described a case study of an 18-year-old man with asthma whose girlfriend had broken up with him, leaving him in a depressed state. She had also unfriended him on Facebook , while friending other young males. Eventually, the young man was able to “friend” her once again and could monitor her activity through Facebook. Subsequently, he would experience asthma symptoms whenever he logged on and accessed her profile. When he later resigned not to use Facebook any longer, the asthma attacks stopped. This case suggests that the use of Facebook and other forms of social media may represent a new source of stress—it may be a triggering factor for asthma attacks, especially in depressed asthmatic individuals.
Exposure to stressful experiences, particularly those that involve parental or interpersonal conflicts, has been linked to the development of asthma throughout the lifespan. A longitudinal study of 145 children found that parenting difficulties during the first year of life increased the chances that the child developed asthma by 107% (Klinnert et al., 2001). In addition, a cross-sectional study of over 10,000 Finnish college students found that high rates of parent or personal conflicts (e.g., parental divorce, separation from spouse, or severe conflicts in other long-term relationships) increased the risk of asthma onset (Kilpeläinen, Koskenvuo, Helenius, & Terho, 2002). Further, a study of over 4,000 middle-aged men who were interviewed in the early 1990s and again a decade later found that breaking off an important life partnership (e.g., divorce or breaking off relationship from parents) increased the risk of developing asthma by 124% over the time of the study (Loerbroks, Apfelbacher, Thayer, Debling, & Stürmer, 2009).
A headache is a continuous pain anywhere in the head and neck region. Migraine headaches are a type of headache thought to be caused by blood vessel swelling and increased blood flow (McIntosh, 2013). Migraines are characterized by severe pain on one or both sides of the head, an upset stomach, and disturbed vision. They are more frequently experienced by women than by men (American Academy of Neurology, 2014). Tension headaches are triggered by tightening/tensing of facial and neck muscles; they are the most commonly experienced kind of headache, accounting for about 42% of all headaches worldwide (Stovner et al., 2007). In the United States, well over one-third of the population experiences tension headaches each year, and 2–3% of the population suffers from chronic tension headaches (Schwartz, Stewart, Simon, & Lipton, 1998).
A number of factors can contribute to tension headaches, including sleep deprivation, skipping meals, eye strain, overexertion, muscular tension caused by poor posture, and stress (MedicineNet, 2013). Although there is uncertainty regarding the exact mechanisms through which stress can produce tension headaches, stress has been demonstrated to increase sensitivity to pain (Caceres & Burns, 1997; Logan et al., 2001). In general, tension headache sufferers, compared to non-sufferers, have a lower threshold for and greater sensitivity to pain (Ukestad & Wittrock, 1996), and they report greater levels of subjective stress when faced with a stressor (Myers, Wittrock, & Foreman, 1998). Thus, stress may contribute to tension headaches by increasing pain sensitivity in already-sensitive pain pathways in tension headache sufferers (Cathcart, Petkov, & Pritchard, 2008).
Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/psychology/pages/1-introduction
Authors: Rose M. Spielman, Kathryn Dumper, William Jenkins, Arlene Lacombe, Marilyn Lovett, Marion Perlmutter
Book title: Psychology
Book URL: https://openstax.org/books/psychology/pages/1-introduction
Section URL: https://openstax.org/books/psychology/pages/14-3-stress-and-illness
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Inspired by WALL-E: Spawning Musical Revivals Through Movie Placement
Hello, Dolly! plays a role in Wall-E. How big a role I won’t say, but it had Cosette and Thespia laughing throughout the whole picture. Apparently they’re not the only ones, as the success of the Pixar film is inspiring folks to look at a revival on Broadway. There’s an interesting angle on this that hasn’t been used before, I don’t think: so many films are being turned into musicals–instead, use a film to build up buzz about an existing musical, then revive it.
We couldn’t get this idea out of our heads, so we put them together and came up with some suggestions.
Michael Bay could put Annie Get Your Gun in his next action flick, especially the song “You Can’t Get a Man With a Gun.”
Any Jackie Chan movie with “It’s a Hard Knock Life” from Annie. In fact, this is such a no-brainer, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s already been done and that’s where the revival from 1997 came from.
Any Nora Ephron film could use any number of cheesy feel good songs, but let’s go with “Friendship” out of Anything Goes because at least it’s a quality one.
Transporter 3 could use “Gun Song” from Assassins. Or just about any Jason Statham movie could.
The next big alien invasion flick could use “Giants in the Sky” from Into the Woods.
“Empty Chairs at Empty Tables” from Les Miz would work for any movie set in a failing restaurant. Or, unless it’s already been done, an episode of Kitchen Nightmares.
“Oh What a Beautiful Mornin'” from Oklahoma! would be good anytime they feel like making an I Am Legend movie. A real one, I mean. That or “Race You to the Top of the Morning” from Secret Garden.
“Could We Start Again Please” from Jesus Christ Superstar is applicable to any film George Lucas directed after the year 1978.
It’s not too late to put “Ease On Down the Road” from The Wiz into Death Race, is it?
Warner Brothers and the 20 Musical Buffet in a Box
Batman the Musical: We Are Not Amused
A Reference Guide to Pixar's Self References
There Will Be Blood (2007) - Movie Review
Thriller: The Musical Will Bring the Noise and Funk…
WALL·E (2008) - Movie Review
Broadway Movies musicals Pixar theatre
The Coolest Typewriter in the World
Stuff: Warner Brothers Wants DC Comics Movies (Good Luck)
ScottC says:
What about “Razzle Dazzle” from Chicago to liven up the next John Grisham movie.
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Being Human in America: The Pilot Reviewed
Well, I told you I’d watch the first three episodes of the SyFy Americanization of Being Human, and I strive to be good to my word, so here we are in part one of an at-least-three-part series.
Okay, full disclosure: I say all of the following as someone who’s both seen and loved the original incarnation of this show, so as much as I try to bracket out my expectations, there is the possibility that they will creep in. That being said, I would really like comments from viewers who are brand new to the concept of this show, who are starting fresh with the Americanization. And, on top of that, I want to hear from those of you who Really Liked The Pilot Episode. I want to hear what you liked and why you liked it.
With that out of the way, let’s get into this point by point, as that’ll make it easier to track how the show matures. Again, I’m going to try to go easy on the comparisons to the BBC version, and judge the new one on its own merits. That may be difficult, but I will try.
[ad#rightpost]Overall Show Structure:
We’re brought in with a poignant voice-over intro; someone talking to us about the things we hide, and how beautiful we are when we indulge our dark urges, and this goes on as we watch a young man walk into the woods and turn into a werewolf, and we get to see the symbolic link between what we see and what we hear and I just have to ask… is this shit going to continue? Because it feels a little heavy handed, and I think it doesn’t work as the framing device it’s intended to be. And honestly I thought voice-over exposition in American non-noir fiction went out with Scrubs.
On the musical front, the integration of emotionally wrought Indie Music is by turns really annoying and Really effective. I’m hoping that the folks in charge of the music selection A) are good at their jobs, and B) have learned from the previous products of some of their coworkers; that way they’ll stray more toward the “Effective” side of things. The use of music to set a mood in a show is vastly important and if that comes down wrong, the whole enterprise can just feel… off.
In the effects department, so far the paranormal aspects are very SFX intensive. Though they aren’t shown very often, Aidan’s speed and strength, Josh’s transformation sequence, and Sally’s ghostliness are all slick and very shiny when we do see them (Sally might as well go “poof!” as she disappears in a swirl of ectoplasm), and this leads to a kind of flashy end product. On the one hand, this could be used to emphasize the disconnect between “daily life” and their “monster sides,” and maybe what we have here actually is more of what even the producers of the original would have done, if they had the money–I can respect that. But the problem is, it also removes some of the subtlety of the weird. When the wall erupts in a spray of plaster, as someone is slammed into it, when we see every transitional chunk of a werewolf transformation, and when, again, the ghost floats and leaves spectral mist, it’s like I’m being beaten over the head with what we’re supposed to expect from these kinds of parahumans. Maybe we’ll see a more even handed approach in the next two episodes.
In that vein, can we ask the cinematographer to ease up on the use of slow motion long shots spliced with flash-cut flashbacks to the horrible things these people did or had happen to them? Using it three separate times in the pilot alone makes for a really overblown sense of drama.
Let’s move on to the Main Characters:
Sam Witwer as Aidan
Aidan, The Vampire: First of all: The vampire’s named “Aidan?” Really? I mean, it’s funny because that’s also the name of the actor who plays Mitchell, in the BBC series, so I’m guessing it’s supposed to be a nod to their roots–a little something for those of us who watched the original–but it comes off feeling like somebody’s Goth Nameâ„¢. In addition, I’m feeling a definite Twilight connection, here, in that Aidan looks suspiciously like the “Sparkly” type of vampire we’ve been seeing in recent days, Cro-Mag face and all.
When we meet Aidan, he’s taking a girl home, and providing our aforementioned voiceover. The problem is, after their encounter and the subsequent unpleasantness, he doesn’t seem to feel any remorse, so much as being angry at himself for falling off the wagon. This may just be an odd side-effect of the fact that his general state of weird zen about being a vampire comes across really well. It’s very clear that Aidan has accepted what he is, and that his true struggle is with whether that has to dictate who he is. So bravo to Sam Witwer for that.
Sam Huntington as Josh
Josh, The Werewolf: I really want to be able to identify with the werewolf character here, folks, but Syfy…you’re making it difficult. I know I said I would limit this but I feel the need to draw a comparison here. I have to say, the whininess of “Josh” doesn’t work well as an American. What was charming, neurotic buffoonery in British George just seems to make American Josh deeply unlikeable. Josh’s stress seems to stem solely from having become a werewolf, whereas George was basically a bundle of nerves, from the start, and becoming a werewolf was just the icing on the cake. We’ll see how Josh comes along, obviously, but for now his rudeness is simply rude and he’s extremely arrogant in his sense of indignation at his situation. His actions make it seem like there actually was a “normal life” for him to have at some point, rather than this being a way for him to recognise that no life is normal.
In other news, Josh has a sister, who is also a lesbian. I only mention the latter part because the introduction of her character seems to be couched in such a way as to make us think she’s Josh’s ex-girlfriend, and our finding out she has a girlfriend was supposedly meant to be a blow to his ego, only to find it’s all a “clever” feint. This would have irritated me far less if we found out she was his sister before we met her girlfriend.
Meaghan Rath as Sally
Sally, The Ghost: This may change as we get to know her, but Sally’s perky, bubbly demeanor doesn’t quite track as genuine yet, and that may be because it’s the very first emotion we see from this supposedly dead-for-a-while person. In fact, when she meets Aidan and Josh and they can see and hear her, her reaction feels like that of someone who’s been dead for about a day, and even then not dead so much as invisible and/or inaudible, or simply just pointedly ignored by other people. The actual fact of her death doesn’t seem to register or have any real weight for her at all, and so it also doesn’t have any impact for the audience when she finds people who can see and hear her. The emotional connection with her character doesn’t land from the moment we meet her, as it does with Aidan and even Josh, so I find it hard to care about her at all, when she’s supposed to be the linchpin to the trio. I’m hoping she becomes stronger as we go forward.
So there you have it. Overall, the experience was nowhere near as bad as I’d feared, and it shows signs that it could definitely become a decent show, in its own right, if things go well. We have two more of these to go, so stay tuned.
Being Human in America: Episode Three Reviewed
Oh the Being-Humanity...
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Podcast Review: Weekend America
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Americanization Being Human Brit ghosts Jeremy Carver paranormal Reviews Sam Witwer supernatural SyFy television vampires werewolves
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Unidentified Madman says:
You are right. Aiden indeed seems a little too Twilight. It’s like he was trying too hard to play up the sexy in more than a few frames when it wasn’t neccesary (director’s fault). That being said his interaction with Josh works.
I LIKE JOSH. You can only feel so bad for him because he is rude and does say whatever is on his mind. Too many characters get written as likeable or from a pity me standpoint. He’s like George Costanza; only his friends like him. For me that works.
Sally is really not doing it for me with the exception of how Aiden and Josh respond to her. I like that they kept the premise that Aiden has been around a long time and knows what a ghost is. I loved the fact that Josh A) is a useless werewolf with a spatula and B)Is being very normal by wanting her to get the hell out.
All in all I agree the show needs work. There is an emotional depth I think the original portrayed that isn’t being captured in the US.
Wolven says:
@Madman: I Definitely agree that Aidan and Josh’s interaction works, in fact I think it works really well. That being said, because it works so well, it makes Sally seem unnecessary.
Re, Josh: I’d like him more if he weren’t so whiny. He Is like George Costanza, but George Costanza as a werewolf, and not as funny? Doesn’t quite land, for me.
Sally… *sigh* Yeah. I’m hoping for vast and serious improvements in the Sally department, and soon.
Like i said, I don’t feel emotionally connected to any of these people, yet, and we’re already through the first episode. If they don’t fix this, soon, I fear it’s going to pull the whole show structure down with it.
cailement says:
Really quick overview before I leave for out of town.
I have never watched the original, and while I didn’t REALLY like the new, I didn’t not like it.
I thought it moved very slowly, not really a whole lot happened, but when I think back to it, a lot did seem to have happened. Weird.
I Like vampires. I’ve even watched and (tried very hard to) enjoyed the Twilight movies (mostly because of all of the tweens sqweeing in the audience. Hilarity.) I enjoy the horrible angst of the Vampire Diaries and enjoyed both Underworlds (3 was a different series, doesn’t count). So, yes, I liked Aiden mostly out of default–which is good. It means that nothing he did seemed OFF to me–something that Mr. Sparklepants did do, often. Aiden seemed like a complete vampire, including all of the Masquarade politics of I don’t care about–I like him as a person and a character–I might have future issue with his story archs.
Josh was adorable, pitiable, and I look forward to seeing him grow. I sit on the edge of my seat for the first 5 minutes of next week because of him. Not so much for the rest of the show yet, but they pulled me in enough right there.
Sally doesn’t stir an emotional response in me at all. I just don’t care. Maybe it was the bubbly, as you said. Maybe it was the disconnect with her character in any part of the pilot’s plot except for the plot development point that she’s the reason they’re able to afford the house. She’s currently just wallpaper–there to look pretty, but it doesn’t DO anything. We’ll see how she developes.
At this point, I’m adding it to the shows I watch. I’m not watching it out of supernatural obligation or because someone else said that it is good–however, I am worried that if it doesn’t find it’s feet and stride quickly (first 6 eps or so), that watching it will become more of a chore than a relaxation, at which point I will cease to care.
The Old Songs says:
I feel like I should preface this with: I think I might have seriously horrible taste in TV. Teen dramas (Felicity etc.).
I liked it. My mom watches the BBC one, but we don’t get that channel. I was pleasantly surprised by its depth. I was sort of expecting supernatural Odd Couple with occasional drama leanings. I think it will have moments of Odd Couple hilarity, but I love that it’s going to be a bit dark.
I LOVE LOVE LOVED the voice over. I couldn’t figure out why, then I realized, it took the same monologue-y, introducing the theme of the episode format as SATC.
I’m only so-so on Aidan. He’s sort of bland to me – and a TV vampire should be hotter.
Josh is hilarious. When he picked up the spatula to ward off the potential burglar, I LOLed. Then rewound the Tivo and watched it again. I guess I never really thought about it, but werewolves aren’t all that tough the rest of the time. I find geeky inept guys endearing. And a werewolf named “Josh”? Hilarious.
Sally is pretty annoying – but I want to give the relationship a chance to develop, because “annoying roommate” is an interesting dynamic you don’t really see much of on TV. Also, when she was sitting on the couch crying, and Aidan tried to hold her hand and couldn’t, my heart broke for her. I don’t know. I think there is more emotional depth there.
SO anyway, I’m going to watch it.
@Cailement: In that vein, I have to say that the BBC version packs as much plot into single episodes as there was in entire half-seasons of Buffy. And that it does that without feeling Rushed. That’s an amazing accomplishment.
Aidan’s personality has the potential to be really intriguing, if they play it right, but they’ve accentuated so much of distance from humanity, without giving us an anchor of actual remorse, yet. I hope that changes.
I still can’t pity Josh. He just seems too antagonistic and demanding, so far. We’ll see what happens, Monday, when we open up the episode.
Again, in the original, Annie-The-Ghost is the heart of the trio. She opens the show up with her voice-over monologue, but she doesn’t talk in clever metaphors. She talks clearly and specifically about What Happened To Them. What made them who they are, and brought them to the point where they meet, including her experiencing her own Wake, with no one being able to see or hear her as she screamed and cried that she was still there. And it’s from that point that we begin to truly delve into the characters and motivations.
I agree that if it doesn’t find itself, quickly, it’s going to lose the audience, hence this undertaking. So we’ll keep watching, here, and see what happens because, as noted, it has promise.
@Songs: See, you watch Sex and the City, so we can’t even have a conversation. ;) I kid, of course.
The darkness of this version isn’t anything on the Darkness of the original, at least not yet. We’ll see what happens at the start of the next episode, though, as that might Seriously change. If they have the guts to go down that road in the first two episodes, I will have a VAST respect for their undertaking.
I like the idea of the annoying roommate being there, but there are too many unlikeable qualities in all of them, so far. There is no anchor point, yet, and I begin to wonder why I’m supposed to care about these folks. The being unable to hold her hand would have landed a lot firmer if her being incorporeal had actually seemed to matter to her, at all, when we first met her.
There’s still room for improvement, but it also shows great potential. So we’ll see.
Thank you both for the comments! Really great discussion, all around.
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Machine OEM
About Machine OEM
Formed in April 2006, Machine O.E.M. have forged a brand of melodic hard rock that speaks to the masses; real music for real people. Influenced by the stadium rock giants of the 70’s and 80’s, combined with modern pop sensibility, strong melody and honest, heartfelt lyrics.
The band comprises of five members; frontman Lez Dart, guitar duo Travers Harty and Clint Green, bass guitarist Steve Daniel, and Jay Durrant on drums and percussion.
In September of 2007 they released a seven-track demo E.P. entitled “Something To Say”, which was recorded and mixed by Travers Harty, produced in the band’s own home studio over a period of three weeks. The demos were so well received that the guys were motivated to record forge ahead and record professional sounding demos.
Just over a year later in October 2008, they entered the studio once again, this time opting for Drop and Roll studios in Port Elizabeth, to record three new singles, recorded and engineered by Bryan McLagan (The Finkelsteins, Don’t Panic).
The singles drew them much attention both locally and internationally, listed below are just a few accomplishment achieved through these demos:
• Dominating the Modern Rock and Hard Rock charts on Ourstage.com, an MTV partnered site and still currently charting!
• KFC Sessions top 10 Finalist.
• Featured Artist on Mike Cameos Indie Top 10.
• Radio Play on Algoa FM, UCT Radio (where they charted at no3 on the South African Top 30), Tucks FM, DMX and several online radio stations.
• Playing to thousands of fans though unsigned.co.za’s Rock Star Cricket Pro 20 tournament, playing locally at Buffalo Park and at the semi-final at St George’s Park. They were also asked to play the final in Johannesburg due to the immense support show to them by their fans but were unable to due to recording commitments.
Their biggest break to date though came through Slicethepie.com where in November 2009 after winning a spot in a coveted showcase as a top rated artist they beat out hundreds of band from all over the world and raised 15 000 pounds through their fans to record their debut album.
When it came to choosing a producer only one name came up, multi-platinum award winning producer Theo Crous, the man behind top SA bands like The Parlotones, Prime Circle, Karen Zoid, Aking and Freshly Ground to name but a few.
The guys entered Bellville Studios In March to begin work on their much anticipated debut Album due for release October 25th 2010 …watch this space!
Follow Machine OEM on
www.machineoem.com
twitter.com/...
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BAFTA AND MOBO AWARD-WINNING HIP-HOP ARTIST, WRITER AND SOCIAL ENTREPRENEUR. CO-FOUNDER OF THE HIP-HOP SHAKESPEARE COMPANY.
BOOK SPEAKER
Keynote Speaker Category: Creativity, Culture, Diversity,
Companies and projects:
Co-founder of The Hip-hop Shakespeare Company :
Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire
Akala on race, class and his intellectual journey
Irish Times: The state of Britain:myths, lives and identity crises
Summer reading: 100 best holiday books for 2019
Akala x James O’Brien podcast interview re: Natives
Akala x TEDx Salford ‘Evolution of the MC’ (18mins short version):
Akala x TEDx Aldeburgh ‘Hip Hop Shakespeare’ (18mins short version):
CONTACT ORATION FOR MORE INFORMATION
Akala | Full Address and Q&A | Oxford Union
AKALA is a BAFTA and MOBO award-winning hip-hop artist, writer and social entrepreneur. He is the co-founder of The Hip-hop Shakespeare Company (THSC), a music theatre production company launched with the support of British Actor Sir Ian McKellan, aimed at exploring the social, cultural and linguistic parallels between the works of William Shakespeare and that of modern day hip-hop artists.
With an extensive global touring history, Akala has appeared at numerous festivals both in the UK and internationally, and has led innovative projects in the arts, education and music across South East Asia, Africa, India, Australia and New Zealand. Akala has also appeared on NPR, PBS, MTV, BET, Channel 4, ITV, Sky Arts and the BBC promoting his music, poetry and speaking on wide-ranging subjects from music, race, youth engagement, British/African-Caribbean culture and the arts, with numerous online lectures, podcasts and performances that have reached millions via YouTube/Spotify.
More recently known for his compelling lectures and journalism – he has written for The Guardian, Huffington Post, GQ and the Independent and spoken for the Oxford Union and TEDx.
In 2015, Akala and his manager Chanelle Newman co-founded Immovable Limited, a creative publishing hub which produces creative content across music, books and TV. Immovable’s latest production, ‘The Ruins of Empires’ is an adaptation of Akala’s graphic novel / epic poem of the same name – combining Hip Hop poetry and emerging technology, this innovative production blends both traditional and game engine animation with motion capture techniques and wearable technology, further pushing the envelope of the global Hip Hop art form.
NATIVES, Akala’s 2018 published memoir is already a Sunday Times best-seller, having sold over 150,000+ copies worldwide. Combined with being awarded an honorary Doctorate by Oxford Brookes University and the University of Brighton, Akala has gained a reputation as one of the most dynamic and articulate talents in the UK.
For more information on this speaker, contact Oration Speakers directly.
CONTACT USBOOK THIS SPEAKER
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Eye Test May Detect Parkinson’s Before First Symptoms Appear
by Ana de Barros PhD
Changes in the retina of the eye may reveal the presence of Parkinson’s disease before brain changes and early symptoms appear, researchers at University College London’s Institute of Ophthalmology report. Their discovery may lead to a non-invasive and low-cost eye test to detect Parkinson’s well in advance of the tremors and muscle stiffness that characterize the disease.
The study, “The retina as an early biomarker of neurodegeneration in a rotenone-induced model of Parkinson’s disease: evidence for a neuroprotective effect of rosiglitazone in the eye and brain,” was published in the journal Acta Neuropathologica Communications.
Working with rat models of Parkinson’s disease (PD) and using routine ophthalmic instruments, the team spotted changes in the retina that, they believe, can also be perceived early in patients.
“Follow-up of this [experimental rat] model demonstrated characteristic histological neurodegenerative changes in the substantia nigra and striatum by day 60, suggesting that retinal changes precede the ‘traditional’ pathological manifestations of PD,” the researchers wrote.
If successful in future clinical trials, the method would allow for an earlier diagnosis of PD and could also be used to monitor patients’ response to treatment. It has already been tested in humans for glaucoma, and clinical trials for Alzheimer’s disease are due to start soon.
“This is potentially a revolutionary breakthrough in the early diagnosis and treatment of one of the world’s most debilitating diseases,” Professor Francesca Cordeiro, a UCL Professor of Glaucoma & Retinal Neurodegeneration Studies and the study’s leader, said in a news release. “These tests mean we might be able to intervene much earlier and more effectively treat people with this devastating condition.”
After observing retinal changes in the experimental model, researchers gave the rats a newly formulated version of rosiglitazone (brand names: Avandia, Avandamet and Avandaryl), an anti-diabetic drug that helps to protect nerve cells. The treatment was seen to result in lower retina cell death and to provide a protective brain effect, suggesting it could potentially be used in Parkinson’s patients.
“Of all treatment regimen tested, sustained release administration of liposome-encapsulated rosiglitazone proved to be the most potent therapeutic strategy, as evidenced by its significant neuroprotective effect on retinal neurons at day 20, and on nigrostriatal neurons at day 60, provided convincing evidence for its potential as a treatment for PD,” the researchers said.
Parkinson’s disease, the second most common neurodegenerative disease worldwide, is marked by dopaminergic cell death in the brain’s substantia nigra and the accumulation of Lewy bodies. Neuronal death and dysfunction have been reported in other central nervous system regions, including the retina. Disease symptoms including muscle stiffness, slow movement and tremors, which are typically manifest only after more than 70% of dopaminergic cells are lost.
UCL’s research commercialization company, UCL Business, is filing a patent for the method.
Ana de Barros PhD
Ana holds a PhD in Immunology from the University of Lisbon and worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Instituto de Medicina Molecular (iMM) in Lisbon, Portugal. She graduated with a BSc in Genetics from the University of Newcastle and received a Masters in Biomolecular Archaeology from the University of Manchester, England. After leaving the lab to pursue a career in Science Communication, she served as the Director of Science Communication at iMM.
Tagged eye test, muscle stiffness, neurodegenerative disease, retina, Rosiglitazone, tremors.
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Exclusive Interview: Escape Pod Editors Mur Lafferty & S.B. Divya
November 24, 2020 Paul Semel 0 Comments Author Interview, Books, Escape Pod, Mur Lafferty, Mur Lafferty Amazon, Mur Lafferty Author, Mur Lafferty Books, Mur Lafferty Escape Pod, Mur Lafferty Escape Pod Interview, Mur Lafferty Goodreads, Mur Lafferty interview, Mur Lafferty Wikipedia, reading, S.B. Divya, S.B. Divya Amazon, S.B. Divya Author, S.B. Divya Books, S.B. Divya Escape Pod, S.B. Divya Escape Pod Interview, S.B. Divya Goodreads, S.B. Divya Interview, S.B. Divya Wikipedia, Sci-Fi, sci-fi books, science fiction, science fiction books
For the past fifteen years the podcast Escape Pod has presented science fiction stories by both established writers and writers hoping to establish themselves. In honor of this milestone, current co-hosts Mur Lafferty and S.B. Divya — both respected sci-fi writers in their own right — have assembled the new book, Escape Pod: The Science Fiction Anthology (paperback, Kindle), which includes stories by such iconic science fiction writers as N.K. Jemisin, John Scalzi, Sarah Gailey, Tim Pratt, and Lafferty herself. In the following email interview, Lafferty and Divya discuss why they put this book together, and what went into its creation.
Please note: All answers come from both Mur Lafferty and S.B. Divya unless otherwise indicated.
Mur Lafferty, S.B. Divya
First off, for those who aren’t familiar with it, what is the Escape Pod podcast?
Mur: Escape Pod is the premier weekly science fiction podcast. It launched in 2005 before most people had heard of podcasts, and was the brainchild of Serah Eley, who wanted to publish short audio fiction and pay authors for their work. Serah’s tagline was “Have fun!” which was the concept she put into the magazine. There’s plenty of dark, serious, or sad sci-fi out there, and she wanted to offer a more fun look. It’s hard to define fun, we discovered. It didn’t always mean comedy (although it could) and it didn’t always mean a happy ending (although we did enjoy those that did.) The concept of “fun” has evolved in the fifteen years since, and under myself and Divya, we consider fun stories to be those that offer a sense of hope or a very satisfying ending.
And then what is Escape Pod the book about and, aside from the name, how does it take inspiration from the podcast?
We felt the fifteenth anniversary was worthy of celebrating and worked with Titan as publisher for the anthology. To bring about the book, we wanted a mix of stories from authors who had previously been involved with the podcast. In the early days we had stories from N.K. Jemisin, John Scalzi, Mary Robinette Kowal, Cory Doctorow, and Ken Liu. We got reprints from these authors. Some were stories that had run on the podcast, and some had been published elsewhere. Some of our previously published authors were tapped to give us original stories, and it is a thrill to say we are publishing original stories by T. Kingfisher, Maurice Broaddus, and Sarah Gailey.
What conditions did the stories have to meet to be included in this collection? Did they have to fit a theme, or are all the stories about escape pods…
It was more of a “who’s who” yearbook kind of anthology, since we wanted to feature authors who had sent stories to Escape Pod before, even though the stories themselves could be reprints or new to the podcast or brand new stories. We wanted them to have, overall, the same sense of “fun” we look for in stories that we publish in the podcast, but they are very different from one another. The Tina Connolly story is a sweet teen love story and the Jemisin is very satisfying and Scalzi and Kingfisher bring us hysterical stories, while Gailey gave us the absurd. We have darker, more thoughtful stories as well, since we were looking for the kind of anthology experience that gives a wide variety of stories.
A lot of the stories in this anthology are new. Why did you decide not to make this a best-of collection?
Some of the stories have been on the site before, like the Scalzi, Kowal, and Doctorow stories. But mostly we wanted to bring new stories to our audience. All of our stories remain free in one location, so it’s not like you have to hunt down an old issue of a magazine. We wanted to highlight some of our favorite authors while giving loyal fans stories they haven’t seen before.
The Escape Pod podcast has been around since 2005. When you were putting this anthology together, how did you decide which authors to approach for inclusion?
Some of the folks were not well known in the early days, and we were proud to say we gave these authors a step towards the careers they have now, so we looked at who we had published in the first few years who were larger names now. We also looked at exciting newer voices who excelled in short fiction and whom we had worked with. We were lucky that most of the authors we approached could give us a reprint or a new story.
John Scalzi, Kameron Hurley
The subtitle of the book is “The Science Fiction Anthology.” But aside from sci-fi, what other genres are represented by the stories in this collection?
None — they’re all science fiction. Some are set in space or other planets, some are far future, some have fantastical elements, but they’re all sci-fi at the core. Escape Pod is fairly strict about genre boundaries because Escape Artists [the company that publishes the Escape Pod podcast] also have shows to run fantasy, horror, and YA stories, so the anthology reflects that.
I’ve found that short stories are a great way to discover new writers. Do you think the stories in Escape Pod are good representations of the contributors’ work?
Oh, definitely. Readers know what they’re going to get when they read a Cory Doctorow or Kameron Hurley story. So they should trust that if they’ve never read a story by Sarah Gailey before and want to find more, they will find more of the same amazing work they write elsewhere.
Now, Mur, along with co-editing Escape Pod, you also have a story in it. Some writers who edit anthologies think you should never do this, others think it’s okay and that people who buy them will expect it. How much of an internal debate with yourself did you have over this, and why did you ultimately decide, “Screw it, it’s my book, too; I’m putting one of my stories in it”?
Mur: Heh, that’s not quite what I said. Our publisher, Titan, had a list of authors it hoped we could get for the anthology, and they asked for a story from me. Since I wasn’t the only editor on the project, I could step away from the editor role and trust Divya to decide whether what I turned in was a good fit for the anthology.
And when it came to choosing which of your stories to include, why did you include one that is connected to your novel Six Wakes [which you can learn more about here], as opposed to something else?
Mur: I’m not done telling stories in that universe.
So do you think that working on the podcast and putting together this anthology has, in any way, influenced your own writing?
Mur: I’ve been working with Escape Artists in some kind of editorial capacity for several years, so this anthology didn’t feel much different. I can’t say anything tangible was influenced by the anthology any more than the other editing I’ve done. But as pro writers, Divya and I agree that reading anything will make your own writing richer.
Finally, if someone enjoys Escape Pod, what multi-author sci-fi anthology would you suggest people check out next?
A People’s Future Of The United States, edited by Victor LaValle and John Joseph Adams, and Defying Doomsday edited by Tsana Dolichva and Holly Hench. Both of these feature science fiction told from viewpoints that are underrepresented in genre and reality, and both show how people can come together in situations of adversity. They have kernels of hope, and we think that’s something people need right now. It’s also something that Escape Pod‘s audience is used to getting from our stories. One of the stories from the former (“Give Me Cornbread or Give Me Death” by N.K. Jemisin) is featured in our anthology, and a story from Defying Doomsday (“Given Sufficient Desperation” by Bogi Takács) ran at Escape Pod.
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Executive Order No. 209: The Family Code of the Philippines
I, CORAZON C. AQUINO, President of the Philippines, by virtue of the powers vested in me by the Constitution, do hereby order and promulgate the Family Code of the Philippines, as follows:
Chapter 1. Requisites of Marriage
Article 1. Marriage is a special contract of permanent union between a man and a woman entered into in accordance with law for the establishment of conjugal and family life. It is the foundation of the family and an inviolable social institution whose nature, consequences, and incidents are governed by law and not subject to stipulation, except that marriage settlements may fix the property relations during the marriage within the limits provided by this Code. (52a)
Art. 2. No marriage shall be valid, unless these essential requisites are present:
Legal capacity of the contracting parties who must be a male and a female; and
Consent freely given in the presence of the solemnizing officer. (53a)
Art. 3. The formal requisites of marriage are:
Authority of the solemnizing officer;
A valid marriage license except in the cases provided for in Chapter 2 of this Title; and
A marriage ceremony which takes place with the appearance of the contracting parties before the solemnizing officer and their personal declaration that they take each other as husband and wife in the presence of not less than two witnesses of legal age. (53a, 55a)
Art. 4. The absence of any of the essential or formal requisites shall render the marriage void ab initio, except as stated in Article 35 (2).
A defect in any of the essential requisites shall not affect the validity of the marriage but the party or parties responsible for the irregularity shall be civilly, criminally and administratively liable. (n)
Art. 5. Any male or female of the age of eighteen years or upwards not under any of the impediments mentioned in Articles 37 and 38, may contract marriage. (54a)
Art. 6. No prescribed form or religious rite for the solemnization of the marriage is required. It shall be necessary, however, for the contracting parties to appear personally before the solemnizing officer and declare in the presence of not less than two witnesses of legal age that they take each other as husband and wife. This declaration shall be contained in the marriage certificate which shall be signed by the contracting parties and their witnesses and attested by the solemnizing officer.
In case of a marriage in articulo mortis, when the party at the point of death is unable to sign the marriage certificate, it shall be sufficient for one of the witnesses to the marriage to write the name of said party, which fact shall be attested by the solemnizing officer. (55a)
Art. 7. Marriage may be solemnized by:
Any incumbent member of the judiciary within the court’s jurisdiction;
Any priest, rabbi, imam, or minister of any church or religious sect duly authorized by his church or religious sect and registered with the civil registrar general, acting within the limits of the written authority granted by his church or religious sect and provided that at least one of the contracting parties belongs to the solemnizing officer’s church or religious sect;
Any ship captain or airplane chief only in the case mentioned in Article 31;
Any military commander of a unit to which a chaplain is assigned, in the absence of the latter, during a military operation, likewise only in the cases mentioned in Article 32;
Any consul-general, consul or vice-consul in the case provided in Article 10. (56a)
Article. 8. The marriage shall be solemnized publicly in the chambers of the judge or in open court, in the church, chapel or temple, or in the office the consul-general, consul or vice-consul, as the case may be, and not elsewhere, except in cases of marriages contracted on the point of death or in remote places in accordance with Article 29 of this Code, or where both of the parties request the solemnizing officer in writing in which case the marriage may be solemnized at a house or place designated by them in a sworn statement to that effect. (57a)
Art. 9. A marriage license shall be issued by the local civil registrar of the city or municipality where either contracting party habitually resides, except in marriages where no license is required in accordance with Chapter 2 of this Title. (58a)
Art. 10. Marriages between Filipino citizens abroad may be solemnized by a consul-general, consul or vice-consul of the Republic of the Philippines. The issuance of the marriage license and the duties of the local civil registrar and of the solemnizing officer with regard to the celebration of marriage shall be performed by said consular official. (75a)
Art. 11. Where a marriage license is required, each of the contracting parties shall file separately a sworn application for such license with the proper local civil registrar which shall specify the following:
Full name of the contracting party;
Place of birth;
Age and date of birth;
Civil status;
If previously married, how, when and where the previous marriage was dissolved or an’ed;
Present residence and citizenship;
Degree of relationship of the contracting parties;
Full name, residence and citizenship of the father;
Full name, residence and citizenship of the mother; and
Full name, residence and citizenship of the guardian or person having charge, in case the contracting party has neither father nor mother and is under the age of twenty-one years.
The applicants, their parents or guardians shall not be required to exhibit their residence certificates in any formality in connection with the securing of the marriage license. (59a)
Art. 12. The local civil registrar, upon receiving such application, shall require the presentation of the original birth certificates or, in default thereof, the baptismal certificates of the contracting parties or copies of such documents duly attested by the persons having custody of the originals. These certificates or certified copies of the documents by this Article need not be sworn to and shall be exempt from the documentary stamp tax. The signature and official title of the person issuing the certificate shall be sufficient proof of its authenticity.
If either of the contracting parties is unable to produce his birth or baptismal certificate or a certified copy of either because of the destruction or loss of the original or if it is shown by an affidavit of such party or of any other person that such birth or baptismal certificate has not yet been received though the same has been required of the person having custody thereof at least fifteen days prior to the date of the application, such party may furnish in lieu thereof his current residence certificate or an instrument drawn up and sworn to before the local civil registrar concerned or any public official authorized to administer oaths. Such instrument shall contain the sworn declaration of two witnesses of lawful age, setting forth the full name, residence and citizenship of such contracting party and of his or her parents, if known, and the place and date of birth of such party. The nearest of kin of the contracting parties shall be preferred as witnesses, or, in their default, persons of good reputation in the province or the locality.
The presentation of birth or baptismal certificate shall not be required if the parents of the contracting parties appear personally before the local civil registrar concerned and swear to the correctness of the lawful age of said parties, as stated in the application, or when the local civil registrar shall, by merely looking at the applicants upon their personally appearing before him, be convinced that either or both of them have the required age. (60a)
Art. 13. In case either of the contracting parties has been previously married, the applicant shall be required to furnish, instead of the birth or baptismal certificate required in the last preceding article, the death certificate of the deceased spouse or the judicial decree of the absolute divorce, or the judicial decree of annulment or declaration of ‘ity of his or her previous marriage.
In case the death certificate cannot be secured, the party shall make an affidavit setting forth this circumstance and his or her actual civil status and the name and date of death of the deceased spouse. (61a)
Art. 14. In case either or both of the contracting parties, not having been emancipated by a previous marriage, are between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one, they shall, in addition to the requirements of the preceding articles, exhibit to the local civil registrar, the consent to their marriage of their father, mother, surviving parent or guardian, or persons having legal charge of them, in the order mentioned. Such consent shall be manifested in writing by the interested party, who personally appears before the proper local civil registrar, or in the form of an affidavit made in the presence of two witnesses and attested before any official authorized by law to administer oaths. The personal manifestation shall be recorded in both applications for marriage license, and the affidavit, if one is executed instead, shall be attached to said applications. (61a)
Art. 15. Any contracting party between the age of twenty-one and twenty-five shall be obliged to ask their parents or guardian for advice upon the intended marriage. If they do not obtain such advice, or if it be unfavorable, the marriage license shall not be issued till after three months following the completion of the publication of the application therefor. A sworn statement by the contracting parties to the effect that such advice has been sought, together with the written advice given, if any, shall be attached to the application for marriage license. Should the parents or guardian refuse to give any advice, this fact shall be stated in the sworn statement. (62a)
Art. 16. In the cases where parental consent or parental advice is needed, the party or parties concerned shall, in addition to the requirements of the preceding articles, attach a certificate issued by a priest, imam or minister authorized to solemnize marriage under Article 7 of this Code or a marriage counselor duly accredited by the proper government agency to the effect that the contracting parties have undergone marriage counseling. Failure to attach said certificates of marriage counseling shall suspend the issuance of the marriage license for a period of three months from the completion of the publication of the application. Issuance of the marriage license within the prohibited period shall subject the issuing officer to administrative sanctions but shall not affect the validity of the marriage.
Should only one of the contracting parties need parental consent or parental advice, the other party must be present at the counseling referred to in the preceding paragraph. (n)
Art. 17. The local civil registrar shall prepare a notice which shall contain the full names and residences of the applicants for a marriage license and other data given in the applications. The notice shall be posted for ten consecutive days on a bulletin board outside the office of the local civil registrar located in a conspicuous place within the building and accessible to the general public. This notice shall request all persons having knowledge of any impediment to the marriage to advise the local civil registrar thereof. The marriage license shall be issued after the completion of the period of publication. (63a)
Art. 18. In case of any impediment known to the local civil registrar or brought to his attention, he shall note down the particulars thereof and his findings thereon in the application for marriage license, but shall nonetheless issue said license after the completion of the period of publication, unless ordered otherwise by a competent court at his own instance or that of any interest party. No filing fee shall be charged for the petition nor a corresponding bond required for the issuances of the order. (64a)
Art. 19. The local civil registrar shall require the payment of the fees prescribed by law or regulations before the issuance of the marriage license. No other sum shall be collected in the nature of a fee or tax of any kind for the issuance of said license. It shall, however, be issued free of charge to indigent parties, that is those who have no visible means of income or whose income is insufficient for their subsistence a fact established by their affidavit, or by their oath before the local civil registrar. (65a) chan robles virtual law library
Art. 20. The license shall be valid in any part of the Philippines for a period of one hundred twenty days from the date of issue, and shall be deemed automatically canceled at the expiration of the said period if the contracting parties have not made use of it. The expiry date shall be stamped in bold characters on the face of every license issued. (65a)
Art. 21. When either or both of the contracting parties are citizens of a foreign country, it shall be necessary for them before a marriage license can be obtained, to submit a certificate of legal capacity to contract marriage, issued by their respective diplomatic or consular officials.
Stateless persons or refugees from other countries shall, in lieu of the certificate of legal capacity herein required, submit an affidavit stating the circumstances showing such capacity to contract marriage. (66a)
Art. 22. The marriage certificate, in which the parties shall declare that they take each other as husband and wife, shall also state:
The full name, sex and age of each contracting party;
Their citizenship, religion and habitual residence;
The date and precise time of the celebration of the marriage;
That the proper marriage license has been issued according to law, except in marriage provided for in Chapter 2 of this Title;
That either or both of the contracting parties have secured the parental consent in appropriate cases;
That either or both of the contracting parties have complied with the legal requirement regarding parental advice in appropriate cases; and
That the parties have entered into marriage settlement, if any, attaching a copy thereof. (67a)
Art. 23. It shall be the duty of the person solemnizing the marriage to furnish either of the contracting parties the original of the marriage certificate referred to in Article 6 and to send the duplicate and triplicate copies of the certificate not later than fifteen days after the marriage, to the local civil registrar of the place where the marriage was solemnized. Proper receipts shall be issued by the local civil registrar to the solemnizing officer transmitting copies of the marriage certificate. The solemnizing officer shall retain in his file the quadruplicate copy of the marriage certificate, the copy of the marriage certificate, the original of the marriage license and, in proper cases, the affidavit of the contracting party regarding the solemnization of the marriage in place other than those mentioned in Article 8. (68a)
Art. 24. It shall be the duty of the local civil registrar to prepare the documents required by this Title, and to administer oaths to all interested parties without any charge in both cases. The documents and affidavits filed in connection with applications for marriage licenses shall be exempt from documentary stamp tax. (n)
Art. 25. The local civil registrar concerned shall enter all applications for marriage licenses filed with him in a registry book strictly in the order in which the same are received. He shall record in said book the names of the applicants, the date on which the marriage license was issued, and such other data as may be necessary. (n)
Art. 26. All marriages solemnized outside the Philippines, in accordance with the laws in force in the country where they were solemnized, and valid there as such, shall also be valid in this country, except those prohibited under Articles 35 (1), (4), (5) and (6), 3637 and 38. (17a)
Where a marriage between a Filipino citizen and a foreigner is validly celebrated and a divorce is thereafter validly obtained abroad by the alien spouse capacitating him or her to remarry, the Filipino spouse shall have capacity to remarry under Philippine law. (As amended by Executive Order 227)
Chapter 2. Marriages Exempted from License Requirement
Art. 27. In case either or both of the contracting parties are at the point of death, the marriage may be solemnized without necessity of a marriage license and shall remain valid even if the ailing party subsequently survives. (72a)
Art. 28. If the residence of either party is so located that there is no means of transportation to enable such party to appear personally before the local civil registrar, the marriage may be solemnized without necessity of a marriage license. (72a)
Art. 29. In the cases provided for in the two preceding articles, the solemnizing officer shall state in an affidavit executed before the local civil registrar or any other person legally authorized to administer oaths that the marriage was performed in articulo mortis or that the residence of either party, specifying the barrio or barangay, is so located that there is no means of transportation to enable such party to appear personally before the local civil registrar and that the officer took the necessary steps to ascertain the ages and relationship of the contracting parties and the absence of legal impediment to the marriage. (72a)
Art. 30. The original of the affidavit required in the last preceding article, together with the legible copy of the marriage contract, shall be sent by the person solemnizing the marriage to the local civil registrar of the municipality where it was performed within the period of thirty days after the performance of the marriage. (75a)
Art. 31. A marriage in articulo mortis between passengers or crew members may also be solemnized by a ship captain or by an airplane pilot not only while the ship is at sea or the plane is in flight, but also during stopovers at ports of call. (74a)
Art. 32. A military commander of a unit, who is a commissioned officer, shall likewise have authority to solemnize marriages in articulo mortis between persons within the zone of military operation, whether members of the armed forces or civilians. (74a)
Art. 33. Marriages among Muslims or among members of the ethnic cultural communities may be performed validly without the necessity of marriage license, provided they are solemnized in accordance with their customs, rites or practices. (78a)
Art. 34. No license shall be necessary for the marriage of a man and a woman who have lived together as husband and wife for at least five years and without any legal impediment to marry each other. The contracting parties shall state the foregoing facts in an affidavit before any person authorized by law to administer oaths. The solemnizing officer shall also state under oath that he ascertained the qualifications of the contracting parties are found no legal impediment to the marriage. (76a)
Chapter 3. Void and Voidable Marriages
Art. 35. The following marriages shall be void from the beginning:
Those contracted by any party below eighteen years of age even with the consent of parents or guardians;
Those solemnized by any person not legally authorized to perform marriages unless such marriages were contracted with either or both parties believing in good faith that the solemnizing officer had the legal authority to do so;
Those solemnized without license, except those covered the preceding Chapter;
Those bigamous or polygamous marriages not failing under Article 41;
Those contracted through mistake of one contracting party as to the identity of the other; and
Those subsequent marriages that are void under Article 53.
Art. 36. A marriage contracted by any party who, at the time of the celebration, was psychologically incapacitated to comply with the essential marital obligations of marriage, shall likewise be void even if such incapacity becomes manifest only after its solemnization. (As amended by Executive Order 227)
Art. 37. Marriages between the following are incestuous and void from the beginning, whether relationship between the parties be legitimate or illegitimate:
Between ascendants and descendants of any degree; and
Between brothers and sisters, whether of the full or half blood. (81a)
Art. 38. The following marriages shall be void from the beginning for reasons of public policy:
Between collateral blood relatives whether legitimate or illegitimate, up to the fourth civil degree;
Between step-parents and step-children;
Between parents-in-law and children-in-law;
Between the adopting parent and the adopted child;
Between the surviving spouse of the adopting parent and the adopted child;
Between the surviving spouse of the adopted child and the adopter;
Between an adopted child and a legitimate child of the adopter;
Between adopted children of the same adopter; and
Between parties where one, with the intention to marry the other, killed that other person’s spouse, or his or her own spouse. (82)
Art. 39. The action or defense for the declaration of absolute ‘ity of a marriage shall not prescribe. (As amended by Executive Order 227 and Republic Act No. 8533; The phrase “However, in case of marriage celebrated before the effectivity of this Code and falling under Article 36, such action or defense shall prescribe in ten years after this Code shall taken effect” has been deleted by Republic Act No. 8533 [Approved February 23, 1998]).
Art. 40. The absolute ‘ity of a previous marriage may be invoked for purposes of remarriage on the basis solely of a final judgment declaring such previous marriage void. (n)
Art. 41. A marriage contracted by any person during subsistence of a previous marriage shall be ‘ and void, unless before the celebration of the subsequent marriage, the prior spouse had been absent for four consecutive years and the spouse present has a well-founded belief that the absent spouse was already dead. In case of disappearance where there is danger of death under the circumstances set forth in the provisions of Article 391 of the Civil Code, an absence of only two years shall be sufficient.
For the purpose of contracting the subsequent marriage under the preceding paragraph the spouse present must institute a summary proceeding as provided in this Code for the declaration of presumptive death of the absentee, without prejudice to the effect of reappearance of the absent spouse. (83a)
Art. 42. The subsequent marriage referred to in the preceding Article shall be automatically terminated by the recording of the affidavit of reappearance of the absent spouse, unless there is a judgment an’ing the previous marriage or declaring it void ab initio.
A sworn statement of the fact and circumstances of reappearance shall be recorded in the civil registry of the residence of the parties to the subsequent marriage at the instance of any interested person, with due notice to the spouses of the subsequent marriage and without prejudice to the fact of reappearance being judicially determined in case such fact is disputed. (n)
Art. 43. The termination of the subsequent marriage referred to in the preceding Article shall produce the following effects:
The children of the subsequent marriage conceived prior to its termination shall be considered legitimate;
The absolute community of property or the conjugal partnership, as the case may be, shall be dissolved and liquidated, but if either spouse contracted said marriage in bad faith, his or her share of the net profits of the community property or conjugal partnership property shall be forfeited in favor of the common children or, if there are none, the children of the guilty spouse by a previous marriage or in default of children, the innocent spouse;
Donations by reason of marriage shall remain valid, except that if the donee contracted the marriage in bad faith, such donations made to said donee are revoked by operation of law;
The innocent spouse may revoke the designation of the other spouse who acted in bad faith as beneficiary in any insurance policy, even if such designation be stipulated as irrevocable; and
The spouse who contracted the subsequent marriage in bad faith shall be disqualified to inherit from the innocent spouse by testate and intestate succession. (n)
Art. 44. If both spouses of the subsequent marriage acted in bad faith, said marriage shall be void ab initio and all donations by reason of marriage and testamentary dispositions made by one in favor of the other are revoked by operation of law. (n)
Art. 45. A marriage may be an’ed for any of the following causes, existing at the time of the marriage:
That the party in whose behalf it is sought to have the marriage an’ed was eighteen years of age or over but below twenty-one, and the marriage was solemnized without the consent of the parents, guardian or person having substitute parental authority over the party, in that order, unless after attaining the age of twenty-one, such party freely cohabited with the other and both lived together as husband and wife;
That either party was of unsound mind, unless such party after coming to reason, freely cohabited with the other as husband and wife;
That the consent of either party was obtained by fraud, unless such party afterwards, with full knowledge of the facts constituting the fraud, freely cohabited with the other as husband and wife;
That the consent of either party was obtained by force, intimidation or undue influence, unless the same having disappeared or ceased, such party thereafter freely cohabited with the other as husband and wife;
That either party was physically incapable of consummating the marriage with the other, and such incapacity continues and appears to be incurable; or
That either party was afflicted with a sexually-transmissible disease found to be serious and appears to be incurable. (85a)
Art. 46. Any of the following circumstances shall constitute fraud referred to in Number 3 of the preceding Article:
Non-disclosure of a previous conviction by final judgment of the other party of a crime involving moral turpitude;
Concealment by the wife of the fact that at the time of the marriage, she was pregnant by a man other than her husband;
Concealment of sexually transmissible disease, regardless of its nature, existing at the time of the marriage; or
Concealment of drug addiction, habitual alcoholism or homosexuality or lesbianism existing at the time of the marriage.
No other misrepresentation or deceit as to character, health, rank, fortune or chastity shall constitute such fraud as will give grounds for action for the annulment of marriage. (86a)
Art. 47. The action for annulment of marriage must be filed by the following persons and within the periods indicated herein:
For causes mentioned in number 1 of Article 45 by the party whose parent or guardian did not give his or her consent, within five years after attaining the age of twenty-one, or by the parent or guardian or person having legal charge of the minor, at any time before such party has reached the age of twenty-one;
For causes mentioned in number 2 of Article 45, by the same spouse, who had no knowledge of the other’s insanity; or by any relative or guardian or person having legal charge of the insane, at any time before the death of either party, or by the insane spouse during a lucid interval or after regaining sanity;
For causes mentioned in number 3 of Article 45, by the injured party, within five years after the discovery of the fraud;
For causes mentioned in number 4 of Article 45, by the injured party, within five years from the time the force, intimidation or undue influence disappeared or ceased;
For causes mentioned in number 5 and 6 of Article 45, by the injured party, within five years after the marriage. (87a)
Art. 48. In all cases of annulment or declaration of absolute ‘ity of marriage, the Court shall order the prosecuting attorney or fiscal assigned to it to appear on behalf of the State to take steps to prevent collusion between the parties and to take care that evidence is not fabricated or suppressed.
In the cases referred to in the preceding paragraph, no judgment shall be based upon a stipulation of facts or confession of judgment. (88a)
Art. 49. During the pendency of the action and in the absence of adequate provisions in a written agreement between the spouses, the Court shall provide for the support of the spouses and the custody and support of their common children. The Court shall give paramount consideration to the moral and material welfare of said children and their choice of the parent with whom they wish to remain as provided to in Title IX. It shall also provide for appropriate visitation rights of the other parent. (n)
Art. 50. The effects provided for by paragraphs (2), (3), (4) and (5) of Article 43 and by Article 44 shall also apply in the proper cases to marriages which are declared ab initio or an’ed by final judgment under Articles 40 and 45.
The final judgment in such cases shall provide for the liquidation, partition and distribution of the properties of the spouses, the custody and support of the common children, and the delivery of third presumptive legitimes, unless such matters had been adjudicated in previous judicial proceedings.
All creditors of the spouses as well as of the absolute community or the conjugal partnership shall be notified of the proceedings for liquidation.
In the partition, the conjugal dwelling and the lot on which it is situated, shall be adjudicated in accordance with the provisions of Articles 102 and 129.
Art. 51. In said partition, the value of the presumptive legitimes of all common children, computed as of the date of the final judgment of the trial court, shall be delivered in cash, property or sound securities, unless the parties, by mutual agreement judicially approved, had already provided for such matters.
The children or their guardian or the trustee of their property may ask for the enforcement of the judgment.
The delivery of the presumptive legitimes herein prescribed shall in no way prejudice the ultimate successional rights of the children accruing upon the death of either of both of the parents; but the value of the properties already received under the decree of annulment or absolute ‘ity shall be considered as advances on their legitime. (n)
Art. 52. The judgment of annulment or of absolute ‘ity of the marriage, the partition and distribution of the properties of the spouses and the delivery of the children’s presumptive legitimes shall be recorded in the appropriate civil registry and registries of property; otherwise, the same shall not affect third persons. (n)
Art. 53. Either of the former spouses may marry again after compliance with the requirements of the immediately preceding Article; otherwise, the subsequent marriage shall be ‘ and void.chan robles virtual law library
Art. 54. Children conceived or born before the judgment of annulment or absolute ‘ity of the marriage under Article 36 has become final and executory shall be considered legitimate. Children conceived or born of the subsequent marriage under Article 53 shall likewise be legitimate.
Art. 55. A petition for legal separation may be filed on any of the following grounds:
Repeated physical violence or grossly abusive conduct directed against the petitioner, a common child, or a child of the petitioner;
Physical violence or moral pressure to compel the petitioner to change religious or political affiliation;
Attempt of respondent to corrupt or induce the petitioner, a common child, or a child of the petitioner, to engage in prostitution, or connivance in such corruption or inducement;
Final judgment sentencing the respondent to imprisonment of more than six years, even if pardoned;
Drug addiction or habitual alcoholism of the respondent;
Lesbianism or homosexuality of the respondent;
Contracting by the respondent of a subsequent bigamous marriage, whether in the Philippines or abroad;
Sexual infidelity or perversion;
Attempt by the respondent against the life of the petitioner; or
Abandonment of petitioner by respondent without justifiable cause for more than one year.
For purposes of this Article, the term “child” shall include a child by nature or by adoption. (9a)
Art. 56. The petition for legal separation shall be denied on any of the following grounds:
Where the aggrieved party has condoned the offense or act complained of;
Where the aggrieved party has consented to the commission of the offense or act complained of;
Where there is connivance between the parties in the commission of the offense or act constituting the ground for legal separation;
Where both parties have given ground for legal separation;
Where there is collusion between the parties to obtain decree of legal separation; or
Where the action is barred by prescription. (100a)
Art. 57. An action for legal separation shall be filed within five years from the time of the occurrence of the cause. (102)
Art. 58. An action for legal separation shall in no case be tried before six months shall have elapsed since the filing of the petition. (103)
Art. 59. No legal separation may be decreed unless the Court has taken steps toward the reconciliation of the spouses and is fully satisfied, despite such efforts, that reconciliation is highly improbable. (n)
Art. 60. No decree of legal separation shall be based upon a stipulation of facts or a confession of judgment.
In any case, the Court shall order the prosecuting attorney or fiscal assigned to it to take steps to prevent collusion between the parties and to take care that the evidence is not fabricated or suppressed. (101a)
Art. 61. After the filing of the petition for legal separation, the spouses shall be entitled to live separately from each other.
The court, in the absence of a written agreement between the spouses, shall designate either of them or a third person to administer the absolute community or conjugal partnership property. The administrator appointed by the court shall have the same powers and duties as those of a guardian under the Rules of Court. (104a)
Art. 62. During the pendency of the action for legal separation, the provisions of Article 49 shall likewise apply to the support of the spouses and the custody and support of the common children. (105a)
Art. 63. The decree of legal separation shall have the following effects:
The spouses shall be entitled to live separately from each other, but the marriage bonds shall not be severed;
The absolute community or the conjugal partnership shall be dissolved and liquidated but the offending spouse shall have no right to any share of the net profits earned by the absolute community or the conjugal partnership, which shall be forfeited in accordance with the provisions of Article 43(2);
The custody of the minor children shall be awarded to the innocent spouse, subject to the provisions of Article 213 of this Code; and
The offending spouse shall be disqualified from inheriting from the innocent spouse by intestate succession. Moreover, provisions in favor of the offending spouse made in the will of the innocent spouse shall be revoked by operation of law. (106a)
Art. 64. After the finality of the decree of legal separation, the innocent spouse may revoke the donations made by him or by her in favor of the offending spouse, as well as the designation of the latter as beneficiary in any insurance policy, even if such designation be stipulated as irrevocable. The revocation of the donations shall be recorded in the registries of property in the places where the properties are located. Alienations, liens and encumbrances registered in good faith before the recording of the complaint for revocation in the registries of property shall be respected. The revocation of or change in the designation of the insurance beneficiary shall take effect upon written notification thereof to the insured.
The action to revoke the donation under this Article must be brought within five years from the time the decree of legal separation become final. (107a)
Art. 65. If the spouses should reconcile, a corresponding joint manifestation under oath duly signed by them shall be filed with the court in the same proceeding for legal separation. (n)
Art. 66. The reconciliation referred to in the preceding Articles shall have the following consequences:
The legal separation proceedings, if still pending, shall thereby be terminated at whatever stage; and
The final decree of legal separation shall be set aside, but the separation of property and any forfeiture of the share of the guilty spouse already effected shall subsist, unless the spouses agree to revive their former property regime.
The court’s order containing the foregoing shall be recorded in the proper civil registries. (108a)
Art. 67. The agreement to revive the former property regime referred to in the preceding Article shall be executed under oath and shall specify:
The properties to be contributed anew to the restored regime;
Those to be retained as separated properties of each spouse; and
The names of all their known creditors, their addresses and the amounts owing to each.
The agreement of revival and the motion for its approval shall be filed with the court in the same proceeding for legal separation, with copies of both furnished to the creditors named therein. After due hearing, the court shall, in its order, take measure to protect the interest of creditors and such order shall be recorded in the proper registries of properties.
The recording of the ordering in the registries of property shall not prejudice any creditor not listed or not notified, unless the debtor-spouse has sufficient separate properties to satisfy the creditor’s claim. (195a, 108a)
RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS BETWEEN HUSBAND AND WIFE
Art. 68. The husband and wife are obliged to live together, observe mutual love, respect and fidelity, and render mutual help and support. (109a)
Art. 69. The husband and wife shall fix the family domicile. In case of disagreement, the court shall decide.
The court may exempt one spouse from living with the other if the latter should live abroad or there are other valid and compelling reasons for the exemption. However, such exemption shall not apply if the same is not compatible with the solidarity of the family. (110a)
Art. 70. The spouses are jointly responsible for the support of the family. The expenses for such support and other conjugal obligations shall be paid from the community property and, in the absence thereof, from the income or fruits of their separate properties. In case of insufficiency or absence of said income or fruits, such obligations shall be satisfied from the separate properties. (111a)
Art. 71. The management of the household shall be the right and the duty of both spouses. The expenses for such management shall be paid in accordance with the provisions of Article 70. (115a)
Art. 72. When one of the spouses neglects his or her duties to the conjugal union or commits acts which tend to bring danger, dishonor or injury to the other or to the family, the aggrieved party may apply to the court for relief. (116a)
Art. 73. Either spouse may exercise any legitimate profession, occupation, business or activity without the consent of the other. The latter may object only on valid, serious, and moral grounds.
In case of disagreement, the court shall decide whether or not:
The objection is proper; and
Benefit has occurred to the family prior to the objection or thereafter. If the benefit accrued prior to the objection, the resulting obligation shall be enforced against the separate property of the spouse who has not obtained consent.
The foregoing provisions shall not prejudice the rights of creditors who acted in good faith. (117a)
TITLE IV
PROPERTY RELATIONS BETWEEN HUSBAND AND WIFE
Chapter 1. General Provisions
Art. 74. The property relationship between husband and wife shall be governed in the following order:
By marriage settlements executed before the marriage;
By the provisions of this Code; and
By the local custom. (118)
Art. 75. The future spouses may, in the marriage settlements, agree upon the regime of absolute community, conjugal partnership of gains, complete separation of property, or any other regime. In the absence of a marriage settlement, or when the regime agreed upon is void, the system of absolute community of property as established in this Code shall govern. (119a)
Art. 76. In order that any modification in the marriage settlements may be valid, it must be made before the celebration of the marriage, subject to the provisions of Articles 66, 67, 128, 135 and 136. (121)
Art. 77. The marriage settlements and any modification thereof shall be in writing, signed by the parties and executed before the celebration of the marriage. They shall not prejudice third persons unless they are registered in the local civil registry where the marriage contract is recorded as well as in the proper registries of properties. (122a)
Art. 78. A minor who according to law may contract marriage may also execute his or her marriage settlements, but they shall be valid only if the persons designated in Article 14 to give consent to the marriage are made parties to the agreement, subject to the provisions of Title IX of this Code. (120a)
Art. 79. For the validity of any marriage settlement executed by a person upon whom a sentence of civil interdiction has been pronounced or who is subject to any other disability, it shall be indispensable for the guardian appointed by a competent court to be made a party thereto. (123a)
Art. 80. In the absence of a contrary stipulation in a marriage settlement, the property relations of the spouses shall be governed by Philippine laws, regardless of the place of the celebration of the marriage and their residence.
This rule shall not apply:
Where both spouses are aliens;
With respect to the extrinsic validity of contracts affecting property not situated in the Philippines and executed in the country where the property is located; and
With respect to the extrinsic validity of contracts entered into in the Philippines but affecting property situated in a foreign country whose laws require different formalities for its extrinsic validity. (124a)
Art. 81. Everything stipulated in the settlements or contracts referred to in the preceding articles in consideration of a future marriage, including donations between the prospective spouses made therein, shall be rendered void if the marriage does not take place. However, stipulations that do not depend upon the celebration of the marriages shall be valid. (125a)
Chapter 2. Donations by Reason of Marriage
Art. 82. Donations by reason of marriage are those which are made before its celebration, in consideration of the same, and in favor of one or both of the future spouses. (126)
Art. 83. These donations are governed by the rules on ordinary donations established in Title III of Book III of the Civil Code, insofar as they are not modified by the following articles. (127a)
Art. 84. If the future spouses agree upon a regime other than the absolute community of property, they cannot donate to each other in their marriage settlements more than one-fifth of their present property. Any excess shall be considered void.
Donations of future property shall be governed by the provisions on testamentary succession and the formalities of wills. (130a)
Art. 85. Donations by reason of marriage of property subject to encumbrances shall be valid. In case of foreclosure of the encumbrance and the property is sold for less than the total amount of the obligation secured, the donee shall not be liable for the deficiency. If the property is sold for more than the total amount of said obligation, the donee shall be entitled to the excess. (131a)
Art. 86. A donation by reason of marriage may be revoked by the donor in the following cases:
If the marriage is not celebrated or judicially declared void ab initio except donations made in the marriage settlements, which shall be governed by Article 81;
When the marriage takes place without the consent of the parents or guardian, as required by law;
When the marriage is an’ed, and the donee acted in bad faith;
Upon legal separation, the donee being the guilty spouse;
If it is with a resolutory condition and the condition is complied with;
When the donee has committed an act of ingratitude as specified by the provisions of the Civil Code on donations in general. (132a)
Art. 87. Every donation or grant of gratuitous advantage, direct or indirect, between the spouses during the marriage shall be void, except moderate gifts which the spouses may give each other on the occasion of any family rejoicing. The prohibition shall also apply to persons living together as husband and wife without a valid marriage. (133a)
Chapter 3. System of Absolute Community
Section 1. General Provisions
Art. 88. The absolute community of property between spouses shall commence at the precise moment that the marriage is celebrated. Any stipulation, express or implied, for the commencement of the community regime at any other time shall be void. (145a)
Art. 89. No waiver of rights, shares and effects of the absolute community of property during the marriage can be made except in case of judicial separation of property.
When the waiver takes place upon a judicial separation of property, or after the marriage has been dissolved or an’ed, the same shall appear in a public instrument and shall be recorded as provided in Article 77. The creditors of the spouse who made such waiver may petition the court to rescind the waiver to the extent of the amount sufficient to cover the amount of their credits. (146a)
Art. 90. The provisions on co-ownership shall apply to the absolute community of property between the spouses in all matters not provided for in this Chapter. (n)
Section 2. What Constitutes Community Property
Art. 91. Unless otherwise provided in this Chapter or in the marriage settlements, the community property shall consist of all the property owned by the spouses at the time of the celebration of the marriage or acquired thereafter. (197a)
Art. 92. The following shall be excluded from the community property:
Property acquired during the marriage by gratuitous title by either spouse, and the fruits as well as the income thereof, if any, unless it is expressly provided by the donor, testator or grantor that they shall form part of the community property;
Property for personal and exclusive use of either spouse. However, jewelry shall form part of the community property;
Property acquired before the marriage by either spouse who has legitimate descendants by a former marriage, and the fruits as well as the income, if any, of such property. (201a)
Art. 93. Property acquired during the marriage is presumed to belong to the community, unless it is proved that it is one of those excluded therefrom. (160) chan robles virtual law library
Section 3. Charges and Obligations of the Absolute Community
Art. 94. The absolute community of property shall be liable for:
The support of the spouses, their common children, and legitimate children of either spouse; however, the support of illegitimate children shall be governed by the provisions of this Code on Support;
All debts and obligations contracted during the marriage by the designated administrator-spouse for the benefit of the community, or by both spouses, or by one spouse with the consent of the other;
Debts and obligations contracted by either spouse without the consent of the other to the extent that the family may have been benefited;
All taxes, liens, charges and expenses, including major or minor repairs, upon the community property;
All taxes and expenses for mere preservation made during marriage upon the separate property of either spouse used by the family;
Expenses to enable either spouse to commence or complete a professional or vocational course, or other activity for self-improvement;
Ante-nuptial debts of either spouse insofar as they have redounded to the benefit of the family;
The value of what is donated or promised by both spouses in favor of their common legitimate children for the exclusive purpose of commencing or completing a professional or vocational course or other activity for self-improvement;
Ante-nuptial debts of either spouse other than those falling under paragraph (7) of this Article, the support of illegitimate children of either spouse, and liabilities incurred by either spouse by reason of a crime or a quasi-delict, in case of absence or insufficiency of the exclusive property of the debtor-spouse, the payment of which shall be considered as advances to be deducted from the share of the debtor-spouse upon liquidation of the community; and
Expenses of litigation between the spouses unless the suit is found to be groundless.
If the community property is insufficient to cover the foregoing liabilities, except those falling under paragraph (9), the spouses shall be solidarily liable for the unpaid balance with their separate properties. (161a, 162a, 163a, 202a-205a)
Art. 95. Whatever may be lost during the marriage in any game of chance, betting, sweepstakes, or any other kind of gambling, whether permitted or prohibited by law, shall be borne by the loser and shall not be charged to the community but any winnings therefrom shall form part of the community property. (164a)
Section 4. Ownership, Administrative, Enjoyment and Disposition of the Community Propert
Art. 96. The administration and enjoyment of the community property shall belong to both spouses jointly. In case of disagreement, the husband’s decision shall prevail, subject to recourse to the court by the wife for proper remedy, which must be availed of within five years from the date of the contract implementing such decision.
In the event that one spouse is incapacitated or otherwise unable to participate in the administration of the common properties, the other spouse may assume sole powers of administration. These powers do not include disposition or encumbrance without authority of the court or the written consent of the other spouse. In the absence of such authority or consent, the disposition or encumbrance shall be void. However, the transaction shall be construed as a continuing offer on the part of the consenting spouse and the third person, and may be perfected as a binding contract upon the acceptance by the other spouse or authorization by the court before the offer is withdrawn by either or both offerors. (206a)
Art. 97. Either spouse may dispose by will of his or her interest in the community property. (n)
Art. 98. Neither spouse may donate any community property without the consent of the other. However, either spouse may, without the consent of the other, make moderate donations from the community property for charity or on occasions of family rejoicing or family distress. (n)
Section 5. Dissolution of Absolute Community Regime
Art. 99. The absolute community terminates:
Upon the death of either spouse;
When there is a decree of legal separation;
When the marriage is an’ed or declared void; or
In case of judicial separation of property during the marriage under Articles 134 to 138. (175a)
Art. 100. The separation in fact between husband and wife shall not affect the regime of absolute community except that:
The spouse who leaves the conjugal home or refuses to live therein, without just cause, shall not have the right to be supported;
When the consent of one spouse to any transaction of the other is required by law, judicial authorization shall be obtained in a summary proceeding;
In the absence of sufficient community property, the separate property of both spouses shall be solidarily liable for the support of the family. The spouse present shall, upon proper petition in a summary proceeding, be given judicial authority to administer or encumber any specific separate property of the other spouse and use the fruits or proceeds thereof to satisfy the latter’s share. (178a)
Art. 101. If a spouse without just cause abandons the other or fails to comply with his or her obligations to the family, the aggrieved spouse may petition the court for receivership, for judicial separation of property or for authority to be the sole administrator of the absolute community, subject to such precautionary conditions as the court may impose.
The obligations to the family mentioned in the preceding paragraph refer to marital, parental or property relations.
A spouse is deemed to have abandoned the other when her or she has left the conjugal dwelling without intention of returning. The spouse who has left the conjugal dwelling for a period of three months or has failed within the same period to give any information as to his or her whereabouts shall be prima facie presumed to have no intention of returning to the conjugal dwelling. (178a)
Section 6. Liquidation of the Absolute Community Assets and Liabilities
Art. 102. Upon dissolution of the absolute community regime, the following procedure shall apply:
An inventory shall be prepared, listing separately all the properties of the absolute community and the exclusive properties of each spouse.
The debts and obligations of the absolute community shall be paid out of its assets. In case of insufficiency of said assets, the spouses shall be solidarily liable for the unpaid balance with their separate properties in accordance with the provisions of the second paragraph of Article 94.
Whatever remains of the exclusive properties of the spouses shall thereafter be delivered to each of them.
The net remainder of the properties of the absolute community shall constitute its net assets, which shall be divided equally between husband and wife, unless a different proportion or division was agreed upon in the marriage settlements, or unless there has been a voluntary waiver of such share provided in this Code. For purpose of computing the net profits subject to forfeiture in accordance with Articles 43, No. (2) and 63, No. (2), the said profits shall be the increase in value between the market value of the community property at the time of the celebration of the marriage and the market value at the time of its dissolution.
The presumptive legitimes of the common children shall be delivered upon partition, in accordance with Article 51.
Unless otherwise agreed upon by the parties, in the partition of the properties, the conjugal dwelling and the lot on which it is situated shall be adjudicated to the spouse with whom the majority of the common children choose to remain. Children below the age of seven years are deemed to have chosen the mother, unless the court has decided otherwise. In case there in no such majority, the court shall decide, taking into consideration the best interests of said children. (n)
Art. 103. Upon the termination of the marriage by death, the community property shall be liquidated in the same proceeding for the settlement of the estate of the deceased.
If no judicial settlement proceeding is instituted, the surviving spouse shall liquidate the community property either judicially or extra-judicially within six months from the death of the deceased spouse. If upon the lapse of the six months period, no liquidation is made, any disposition or encumbrance involving the community property of the terminated marriage shall be void.
Should the surviving spouse contract a subsequent marriage without compliance with the foregoing requirements, a mandatory regime of complete separation of property shall govern the property relations of the subsequent marriage. (n)
Art. 104. Whenever the liquidation of the community properties of two or more marriages contracted by the same person before the effectivity of this Code is carried out simultaneously, the respective capital, fruits and income of each community shall be determined upon such proof as may be considered according to the rules of evidence. In case of doubt as to which community the existing properties belong, the same shall be divided between the different communities in proportion to the capital and duration of each. (189a)
Chapter 4. Conjugal Partnership of Gains
Art. 105. In case the future spouses agree in the marriage settlements that the regime of conjugal partnership gains shall govern their property relations during marriage, the provisions in this Chapter shall be of supplementary application.
The provisions of this Chapter shall also apply to conjugal partnerships of gains already established between spouses before the effectivity of this Code, without prejudice to vested rights already acquired in accordance with the Civil Code or other laws, as provided in Article 256. (n)
Art. 106. Under the regime of conjugal partnership of gains, the husband and wife place in a common fund the proceeds, products, fruits and income from their separate properties and those acquired by either or both spouses through their efforts or by chance, and, upon dissolution of the marriage or of the partnership, the net gains or benefits obtained by either or both spouses shall be divided equally between them, unless otherwise agreed in the marriage settlements. (142a)
Art. 107. The rules provided in Articles 88 and 89 shall also apply to conjugal partnership of gains. (n)
Art. 108. The conjugal partnership shall be governed by the rules on the contract of partnership in all that is not in conflict with what is expressly determined in this Chapter or by the spouses in their marriage settlements. (147a)
Section 2. Exclusive Property of Each Spouse
Art. 109. The following shall be the exclusive property of each spouse:
That which is brought to the marriage as his or her own;
That which each acquires during the marriage by gratuitous title;
That which is acquired by right of redemption, by barter or by exchange with property belonging to only one of the spouses; and
That which is purchased with exclusive money of the wife or of the husband. (148a)
Art. 110. The spouses retain the ownership, possession, administration and enjoyment of their exclusive properties.
Either spouse may, during the marriage, transfer the administration of his or her exclusive property to the other by means of a public instrument, which shall be recorded in the registry of property of the place the property is located. (137a, 168a, 169a)
Art. 111. A spouse of age may mortgage, encumber, alienate or otherwise dispose of his or her exclusive property, without the consent of the other spouse, and appear alone in court to litigate with regard to the same. (n)
Art. 112. The alienation of any exclusive property of a spouse administered by the other automatically terminates the administration over such property and the proceeds of the alienation shall be turned over to the owner-spouse. (n)
Art. 113. Property donated or left by will to the spouses, jointly and with designation of determinate shares, shall pertain to the donee-spouses as his or her own exclusive property, and in the absence of designation, share and share alike, without prejudice to the right of accretion when proper. (150a)
Art. 114. If the donations are onerous, the amount of the charges shall be borne by the exclusive property of the donee spouse, whenever they have been advanced by the conjugal partnership of gains. (151a)
Art. 115. Retirement benefits, pensions, annuities, gratuities, usufructs and similar benefits shall be governed by the rules on gratuitous or onerous acquisitions as may be proper in each case. (n)
Section 3. Conjugal Partnership Property
Art. 116. All property acquired during the marriage, whether the acquisition appears to have been made, contracted or registered in the name of one or both spouses, is presumed to be conjugal unless the contrary is proved. (160a)
Art. 117. The following are conjugal partnership properties:
Those acquired by onerous title during the marriage at the expense of the common fund, whether the acquisition be for the partnership, or for only one of the spouses;
Those obtained from the labor, industry, work or profession of either or both of the spouses;
The fruits, natural, industrial, or civil, due or received during the marriage from the common property, as well as the net fruits from the exclusive property of each spouse;
The share of either spouse in the hidden treasure which the law awards to the finder or owner of the property where the treasure is found;
Those acquired through occupation such as fishing or hunting;
Livestock existing upon the dissolution of the partnership in excess of the number of each kind brought to the marriage by either spouse; and
Those which are acquired by chance, such as winnings from gambling or betting. However, losses therefrom shall be borne exclusively by the loser-spouse. (153a, 154a, 155, 159)
Art. 118. Property bought on installments paid partly from exclusive funds of either or both spouses and partly from conjugal funds belongs to the buyer or buyers if full ownership was vested before the marriage and to the conjugal partnership if such ownership was vested during the marriage. In either case, any amount advanced by the partnership or by either or both spouses shall be reimbursed by the owner or owners upon liquidation of the partnership. (n)
Art. 119. Whenever an amount or credit payable within a period of time belongs to one of the spouses, the sums which may be collected during the marriage in partial payments or by installments on the principal shall be the exclusive property of the spouse. However, interests falling due during the marriage on the principal shall belong to the conjugal partnership. (156a, 157a)
Art. 120. The ownership of improvements, whether for utility or adornment, made on the separate property of the spouses at the expense of the partnership or through the acts or efforts of either or both spouses shall pertain to the conjugal partnership, or to the original owner-spouse, subject to the following rules:
When the cost of the improvement made by the conjugal partnership and any resulting increase in value are more than the value of the property at the time of the improvement, the entire property of one of the spouses shall belong to the conjugal partnership, subject to reimbursement of the value of the property of the owner-spouse at the time of the improvement; otherwise, said property shall be retained in ownership by the owner-spouse, likewise subject to reimbursement of the cost of the improvement.
In either case, the ownership of the entire property shall be vested upon the reimbursement, which shall be made at the time of the liquidation of the conjugal partnership. (158a)
Section 4. Charges Upon and Obligations of the Conjugal Partnership
Art. 121. The conjugal partnership shall be liable for:
The support of the spouse, their common children, and the legitimate children of either spouse; however, the support of illegitimate children shall be governed by the provisions of this Code on Support;
All debts and obligations contracted during the marriage by the designated administrator-spouse for the benefit of the conjugal partnership of gains, or by both spouses or by one of them with the consent of the other;
Debts and obligations contracted by either spouse without the consent of the other to the extent that the family may have benefited;
All taxes, liens, charges, and expenses, including major or minor repairs upon the conjugal partnership property;
All taxes and expenses for mere preservation made during the marriage upon the separate property of either spouse;
Expenses to enable either spouse to commence or complete a professional, vocational, or other activity for self-improvement;
The value of what is donated or promised by both spouses in favor of their common legitimate children for the exclusive purpose of commencing or completing a professional or vocational course or other activity for self-improvement; and
Expenses of litigation between the spouses unless the suit is found to groundless.
If the conjugal partnership is insufficient to cover the foregoing liabilities, the spouses shall be solidarily liable for the unpaid balance with their separate properties. (161a)
Art. 122. The payment of personal debts contracted by the husband or the wife before or during the marriage shall not be charged to the conjugal properties partnership except insofar as they redounded to the benefit of the family.
Neither shall the fines and pecuniary indemnities imposed upon them be charged to the partnership.
However, the payment of personal debts contracted by either spouse before the marriage, that of fines and indemnities imposed upon them, as well as the support of illegitimate children of either spouse, may be enforced against the partnership assets after the responsibilities enumerated in the preceding Article have been covered, if the spouse who is bound should have no exclusive property or if it should be insufficient; but at the time of the liquidation of the partnership, such spouse shall be charged for what has been paid for the purpose above-mentioned. (163a)
Art. 123. Whatever may be lost during the marriage in any game of chance or in betting, sweepstakes, or any other kind of gambling whether permitted or prohibited by law, shall be borne by the loser and shall not be charged to the conjugal partnership but any winnings therefrom shall form part of the conjugal partnership property. (164a)
Section 5. Administration of theConjugal Partnership Property
Art. 124. The administration and enjoyment of the conjugal partnership shall belong to both spouses jointly. In case of disagreement, the husband’s decision shall prevail, subject to recourse to the court by the wife for proper remedy, which must be availed of within five years from the date of the contract implementing such decision.
In the event that one spouse is incapacitated or otherwise unable to participate in the administration of the conjugal properties, the other spouse may assume sole powers of administration. These powers do not include disposition or encumbrance without authority of the court or the written consent of the other spouse. In the absence of such authority or consent, the disposition or encumbrance shall be void. However, the transaction shall be construed as a continuing offer on the part of the consenting spouse and the third person, and may be perfected as a binding contract upon the acceptance by the other spouse or authorization by the court before the offer is withdrawn by either or both offerors. (165a)
Art. 125. Neither spouse may donate any conjugal partnership property without the consent of the other. However, either spouse may, without the consent of the other, make moderate donations from the conjugal partnership property for charity or on occasions of family rejoicing or family distress. (174a)
Section 6. Dissolution of Conjugal Partnership Regime
Art. 126. The conjugal partnership terminates:
Art. 127. The separation in fact between husband and wife shall not affect the regime of conjugal partnership, except that:
In the absence of sufficient conjugal partnership property, the separate property of both spouses shall be solidarily liable for the support of the family. The spouse present shall, upon petition in a summary proceeding, be given judicial authority to administer or encumber any specific separate property of the other spouse and use the fruits or proceeds thereof to satisfy the latter’s share. (178a)
Art. 128. If a spouse without just cause abandons the other or fails to comply with his or her obligation to the family, the aggrieved spouse may petition the court for receivership, for judicial separation of property, or for authority to be the sole administrator of the conjugal partnership property, subject to such precautionary conditions as the court may impose.
A spouse is deemed to have abandoned the other when he or she has left the conjugal dwelling without intention of returning. The spouse who has left the conjugal dwelling for a period of three months or has failed within the same period to give any information as to his or her whereabouts shall be prima facie presumed to have no intention of returning to the conjugal dwelling. (167a, 191a)
Section 7. Liquidation of the Conjugal Partnership Assets and Liabilities
Art. 129. Upon the dissolution of the conjugal partnership regime, the following procedure shall apply:
An inventory shall be prepared, listing separately all the properties of the conjugal partnership and the exclusive properties of each spouse.
Amounts advanced by the conjugal partnership in payment of personal debts and obligations of either spouse shall be credited to the conjugal partnership as an asset thereof.
Each spouse shall be reimbursed for the use of his or her exclusive funds in the acquisition of property or for the value of his or her exclusive property, the ownership of which has been vested by law in the conjugal partnership.
The debts and obligations of the conjugal partnership shall be paid out of the conjugal assets. In case of insufficiency of said assets, the spouses shall be solidarily liable for the unpaid balance with their separate properties, in accordance with the provisions of paragraph (2) of Article 121.
Unless the owner had been indemnified from whatever source, the loss or deterioration of movables used for the benefit of the family, belonging to either spouse, even due to fortuitous event, shall be paid to said spouse from the conjugal funds, if any.
The net remainder of the conjugal partnership properties shall constitute the profits, which shall be divided equally between husband and wife, unless a different proportion or division was agreed upon in the marriage settlements or unless there has been a voluntary waiver or forfeiture of such share as provided in this Code.
The presumptive legitimes of the common children shall be delivered upon the partition in accordance with Article 51.
In the partition of the properties, the conjugal dwelling and the lot on which it is situated shall, unless otherwise agreed upon by the parties, be adjudicated to the spouse with whom the majority of the common children choose to remain. Children below the age of seven years are deemed to have chosen the mother, unless the court has decided otherwise. In case there is no such majority, the court shall decide, taking into consideration the best interests of said children. (181a, 182a, 183a, 184a, 185a)
Art. 130. Upon the termination of the marriage by death, the conjugal partnership property shall be liquidated in the same proceeding for the settlement of the estate of the deceased.
If no judicial settlement proceeding is instituted, the surviving spouse shall liquidate the conjugal partnership property either judicially or extra-judicially within six months from the death of the deceased spouse. If upon the lapse of the six-month period no liquidation is made, any disposition or encumbrance involving the conjugal partnership property of the terminated marriage shall be void.
Art. 131. Whenever the liquidation of the conjugal partnership properties of two or more marriages contracted by the same person before the effectivity of this Code is carried out simultaneously, the respective capital, fruits and income of each partnership shall be determined upon such proof as may be considered according to the rules of evidence. In case of doubt as to which partnership the existing properties belong, the same shall be divided between the different partnerships in proportion to the capital and duration of each. (189a)
Art. 132. The Rules of Court on the administration of estates of deceased persons shall be observed in the appraisal and sale of property of the conjugal partnership, and other matters which are not expressly determined in this Chapter. (187a)
Art. 133. From the common mass of property support shall be given to the surviving spouse and to the children during the liquidation of the inventoried property and until what belongs to them is delivered; but from this shall be deducted that amount received for support which exceeds the fruits or rents pertaining to them. (188a)
Chapter 5. Separation of Property of the Spouses and Administration of Common Property by One Spouse During the Marriage
Art. 134. In the absence of an express declaration in the marriage settlements, the separation of property between spouses during the marriage shall not take place except by judicial order. Such judicial separation of property may either be voluntary or for sufficient cause. (190a)
Art. 135. Any of the following shall be considered sufficient cause for judicial separation of property:
That the spouse of the petitioner has been sentenced to a penalty which carries with it civil interdiction;
That the spouse of the petitioner has been judicially declared an absentee;
That loss of parental authority of the spouse of petitioner has been decreed by the court;
That the spouse of the petitioner has abandoned the latter or failed to comply with his or her obligations to the family as provided for in Article 101;
That the spouse granted the power of administration in the marriage settlements has abused that power; and
That at the time of the petition, the spouses have been separated in fact for at least one year and reconciliation is highly improbable.
In the cases provided for in Numbers (1), (2) and (3), the presentation of the final judgment against the guilty or absent spouse shall be enough basis for the grant of the decree of judicial separation of property. (191a)
Art. 136. The spouses may jointly file a verified petition with the court for the voluntary dissolution of the absolute community or the conjugal partnership of gains, and for the separation of their common properties.
All creditors of the absolute community or of the conjugal partnership of gains, as well as the personal creditors of the spouse, shall be listed in the petition and notified of the filing thereof. The court shall take measures to protect the creditors and other persons with pecuniary interest. (191a)
Art. 137. Once the separation of property has been decreed, the absolute community or the conjugal partnership of gains shall be liquidated in conformity with this Code.
During the pendency of the proceedings for separation of property, the absolute community or the conjugal partnership shall pay for the support of the spouses and their children. (192a)
Art. 138. After dissolution of the absolute community or of the conjugal partnership, the provisions on complete separation of property shall apply. (191a)
Art. 139. The petition for separation of property and the final judgment granting the same shall be recorded in the proper local civil registries and registries of property. (193a)
Art. 140. The separation of property shall not prejudice the rights previously acquired by creditors. (194a)
Art. 141. The spouses may, in the same proceedings where separation of property was decreed, file a motion in court for a decree reviving the property regime that existed between them before the separation of property in any of the following instances:
When the civil interdiction terminates;
When the absentee spouse reappears;
When the court, being satisfied that the spouse granted the power of administration in the marriage settlements will not again abuse that power, authorizes the resumption of said administration;
When the spouse who has left the conjugal home without a decree of legal separation resumes common life with the other;
When parental authority is judicially restored to the spouse previously deprived thereof;
When the spouses who have separated in fact for at least one year, reconcile and resume common life; or
When after voluntary dissolution of the absolute community of property or conjugal partnership has been judicially decreed upon the joint petition of the spouses, they agree to the revival of the former property regime. No voluntary separation of property may thereafter be granted.
The revival of the former property regime shall be governed by Article 67. (195a)
Art. 142. The administration of all classes of exclusive property of either spouse may be transferred by the court to the other spouse:
When one spouse becomes the guardian of the other;
When one spouse is judicially declared an absentee;
When one spouse is sentenced to a penalty which carries with it civil interdiction; or
When one spouse becomes a fugitive from justice or is in hiding as an accused in a criminal case.
If the other spouse is not qualified by reason of incompetence, conflict of interest, or any other just cause, the court shall appoint a suitable person to be the administrator. (n)
Chapter 6. Regime of Separation of Property
Art. 143. Should the future spouses agree in the marriage settlements that their property relations during marriage shall be governed by the regime of separation of property, the provisions of this Chapter shall be suppletory. (212a)
Art. 144. Separation of property may refer to present or future property or both. It may be total or partial. In the latter case, the property not agreed upon as separate shall pertain to the absolute community. (213a)
Art. 145. Each spouse shall own, dispose of, possess, administer and enjoy his or her own separate estate, without need of the consent of the other. To each spouse shall belong all earnings from his or her profession, business or industry and all fruits, natural, industrial or civil, due or received during the marriage from his or her separate property. (214a)
Art. 146. Both spouses shall bear the family expenses in proportion to their income, or, in case of insufficiency or default thereof, to the current market value of their separate properties.chan robles virtual law library
The liabilities of the spouses to creditors for family expenses shall, however, be solidary. (215a)
Chapter 7. Property Regime of Unions Without Marriage
Art. 147. When a man and a woman who are capacitated to marry each other, live exclusively with each other as husband and wife without the benefit of marriage or under a void marriage, their wages and salaries shall be owned by them in equal shares and the property acquired by both of them through their work or industry shall be governed by the rules on co-ownership.
In the absence of proof to the contrary, properties acquired while they lived together shall be presumed to have been obtained by their joint efforts, work or industry, and shall be owned by them in equal shares. For purposes of this Article, a party who did not participate in the acquisition by the other party of any property shall be deemed to have contributed jointly in the acquisition thereof if the former’s efforts consisted in the care and maintenance of the family and of the household.
Neither party can encumber or dispose by acts inter vivos of his or her share in the property acquired during cohabitation and owned in common, without the consent of the other, until after the termination of their cohabitation.
When only one of the parties to a void marriage is in good faith, the share of the party in bad faith in the co-ownership shall be forfeited in favor of their common children. In case of default of or waiver by any or all of the common children or their descendants, each vacant share shall belong to the respective surviving descendants. In the absence of descendants, such share shall belong to the innocent party. In all cases, the forfeiture shall take place upon termination of the cohabitation. (144a)
Art. 148. In cases of cohabitation not falling under the preceding Article, only the properties acquired by both of the parties through their actual joint contribution of money, property, or industry shall be owned by them in common in proportion to their respective contributions. In the absence of proof to the contrary, their contributions and corresponding shares are presumed to be equal. The same rule and presumption shall apply to joint deposits of money and evidences of credit.
If one of the parties is validly married to another, his or her share in the co-ownership shall accrue to the absolute community or conjugal partnership existing in such valid marriage. If the party who acted in bad faith is not validly married to another, his or her shall be forfeited in the manner provided in the last paragraph of the preceding Article.
The foregoing rules on forfeiture shall likewise apply even if both parties are in bad faith. (144a)
Chapter 1. The Family as an Institution
Art. 149. The family, being the foundation of the nation, is a basic social institution which public policy cherishes and protects. Consequently, family relations are governed by law and no custom, practice or agreement destructive of the family shall be recognized or given effect. (216a, 218a)
Art. 150. Family relations include those:
Between husband and wife;
Between parents and children;
Among brothers and sisters, whether of the full or half-blood. (217a)
Art. 151. No suit between members of the same family shall prosper unless it should appear from the verified complaint or petition that earnest efforts toward a compromise have been made, but that the same have failed. If it is shown that no such efforts were in fact made, the same case must be dismissed.
This rules shall not apply to cases which may not be the subject of compromise under the Civil Code. (222a)
Chapter 2. The Family Home
Art. 152. The family home, constituted jointly by the husband and the wife or by an unmarried head of a family, is the dwelling house where they and their family reside, and the land on which it is situated. (223a)
Art. 153. The family home is deemed constituted on a house and lot from the time it is occupied as a family residence. From the time of its constitution and so long as any of its beneficiaries actually resides therein, the family home continues to be such and is exempt from execution, forced sale or attachment except as hereinafter provided and to the extent of the value allowed by law. (223a)
Art. 154. The beneficiaries of a family home are:
The husband and wife, or an unmarried person who is the head of a family; and
Their parents, ascendants, descendants, brothers and sisters, whether the relationship be legitimate or illegitimate, who are living in the family home and who depend upon the head of the family for legal support. (226a)
Art. 155. The family home shall be exempt from execution, forced sale or attachment except:
For nonpayment of taxes;
For debts incurred prior to the constitution of the family home;
For debts secured by mortgages on the premises before or after such constitution; and
For debts due to laborers, mechanics, architects, builders, materialmen and others who have rendered service or furnished material for the construction of the building. (243a)
Art. 156. The family home must be part of the properties of the absolute community or the conjugal partnership, or of the exclusive properties of either spouse with the latter’s consent. It may also be constituted by an unmarried head of a family on his or her own property.
Nevertheless, property that is the subject of a conditional sale on installments where ownership is reserved by the vendor only to guarantee payment of the purchase price may be constituted as a family home. (227a, 228a)
Art. 157. The actual value of the family home shall not exceed, at the time of its constitution, the amount of the three hundred thousand pesos in urban areas, and two hundred thousand pesos in rural areas, or such amounts as may hereafter be fixed by law.
In any event, if the value of the currency changes after the adoption of this Code, the value most favorable for the constitution of a family home shall be the basis of evaluation.
For purposes of this Article, urban areas are deemed to include chartered cities and municipalities whose annual income at least equals that legally required for chartered cities. All others are deemed to be rural areas. (231a)
Art. 158. The family home may be sold, alienated, donated, assigned or encumbered by the owner or owners thereof with the written consent of the person constituting the same, the latter’s spouse, and a majority of the beneficiaries of legal age. In case of conflict, the court shall decide. (235a)
Art. 159. The family home shall continue despite the death of one or both spouses or of the unmarried head of the family for a period of ten years or for as long as there is a minor beneficiary, and the heirs cannot partition the same unless the court finds compelling reasons therefor. This rule shall apply regardless of whoever owns the property or constituted the family home. (238a)
Art. 160. When a creditor whose claims is not among those mentioned in Article 155 obtains a judgment in his favor, and he has reasonable grounds to believe that the family home is actually worth more than the maximum amount fixed in Article 157, he may apply to the court which rendered the judgment for an order directing the sale of the property under execution. The court shall so order if it finds that the actual value of the family home exceeds the maximum amount allowed by law as of the time of its constitution. If the increased actual value exceeds the maximum allowed in Article 157 and results from subsequent voluntary improvements introduced by the person or persons constituting the family home, by the owner or owners of the property, or by any of the beneficiaries, the same rule and procedure shall apply.
At the execution sale, no bid below the value allowed for a family home shall be considered. The proceeds shall be applied first to the amount mentioned in Article 157, and then to the liabilities under the judgment and the costs. The excess, if any, shall be delivered to the judgment debtor. (247a, 248a)
Art. 161. For purposes of availing of the benefits of a family home as provided for in this Chapter, a person may constitute, or be the beneficiary of, only one family home. (n)
Art. 162. The provisions in this Chapter shall also govern existing family residences insofar as said provisions are applicable. (n)
PATERNITY AND FILIATION
Chapter 1. Legitimate Children
Art. 163. The filiation of children may be by nature or by adoption. Natural filiation may be legitimate or illegitimate. (n)
Art. 164. Children conceived or born during the marriage of the parents are legitimate.
Children conceived as a result of artificial insemination of the wife with the sperm of the husband or that of a donor or both are likewise legitimate children of the husband and his wife, provided, that both of them authorized or ratified such insemination in a written instrument executed and signed by them before the birth of the child. The instrument shall be recorded in the civil registry together with the birth certificate of the child. (55a, 258a)
Art. 165. Children conceived and born outside a valid marriage are illegitimate, unless otherwise provided in this Code. (n)
Art. 166. Legitimacy of a child may be impugned only on the following grounds:
That it was physically impossible for the husband to have sexual intercourse with his wife within the first 120 days of the 300 days which immediately preceded the birth of the child because of:
(a) the physical incapacity of the husband to have sexual intercourse with his wife;
(b) the fact that the husband and wife were living separately in such a way that sexual intercourse was not possible; or
(c) serious illness of the husband, which absolutely prevented sexual intercourse;
That it is proved that for biological or other scientific reasons, the child could not have been that of the husband, except in the instance provided in the second paragraph of Article 164; or
That in case of children conceived through artificial insemination, the written authorization or ratification of either parent was obtained through mistake, fraud, violence, intimidation, or undue influence. (255a)
Art. 167. The child shall be considered legitimate although the mother may have declared against its legitimacy or may have been sentenced as an adulteress. (256a)
Art. 168. If the marriage is terminated and the mother contracted another marriage within three hundred days after such termination of the former marriage, these rules shall govern in the absence of proof to the contrary:
A child born before one hundred eighty days after the solemnization of the subsequent marriage is considered to have been conceived during the former marriage, provided it be born within three hundred days after the termination of the former marriage;
A child born after one hundred eighty days following the celebration of the subsequent marriage is considered to have been conceived during such marriage, even though it be born within the three hundred days after the termination of the former marriage. (259a)
Art. 169. The legitimacy or illegitimacy of a child born after three hundred days following the termination of the marriage shall be proved by whoever alleges such legitimacy or illegitimacy. (261a)
Art. 170. The action to impugn the legitimacy of the child shall be brought within one year from the knowledge of the birth or its recording in the civil register, if the husband or, in a proper case, any of his heirs, should reside in the city or municipality where the birth took place or was recorded.
If the husband or, in his default, all of his heirs do not reside at the place of birth as defined in the first paragraph or where it was recorded, the period shall be two years if they should reside in the Philippines; and three years if abroad. If the birth of the child has been concealed from or was unknown to the husband or his heirs, the period shall be counted from the discovery or knowledge of the birth of the child or of the fact of registration of said birth, whichever is earlier. (263a)
Art. 171. The heirs of the husband may impugn the filiation of the child within the period prescribed in the preceding article only in the following cases:
If the husband should died before the expiration of the period fixed for bringing his action;
If he should die after the filing of the complaint without having desisted therefrom; or
If the child was born after the death of the husband. (262a)
Chapter 2. Proof of Filiation
Art. 172. The filiation of legitimate children is established by any of the following:
The record of birth appearing in the civil register or a final judgment; or
An admission of legitimate filiation in a public document or a private handwritten instrument and signed by the parent concerned.
In the absence of the foregoing evidence, the legitimate filiation shall be proved by:
The open and continuous possession of the status of a legitimate child; or
Any other means allowed by the Rules of Court and special laws. (265a, 266a, 267a)
Art. 173. The action to claim legitimacy may be brought by the child during his or her lifetime and shall be transmitted to the heirs should the child die during minority or in a state of insanity. In these cases, the heirs shall have a period of five years within which to institute the action.
Art. 174. Legitimate children shall have the right:
To bear the surnames of the father and the mother, in conformity with the provisions of the Civil Code on Surnames;
To receive support from their parents, their ascendants, and in proper cases, their brothers and sisters, in conformity with the provisions of this Code on Support; and
To be entitled to the legitimate and other successional rights granted to them by the Civil Code. (264a)
Chapter 3. Illegitimate Children
Art. 175. Illegitimate children may establish their illegitimate filiation in the same way and on the same evidence as legitimate children.
The action must be brought within the same period specified in Article 173, except when the action is based on the second paragraph of Article 172, in which case the action may be brought during the lifetime of the alleged parent. (289a)
Art. 176. Illegitimate children shall use the surname and shall be under the parental authority of their mother, and shall be entitled to support in conformity with this Code. The legitime of each illegitimate child shall consist of one-half of the legitime of a legitimate child. Except for this modification, all other provisions in the Civil Code governing successional rights shall remain in force. (287a)
Chapter 4. Legitimated Children
Art. 177. Only children conceived and born outside of wedlock of parents who, at the time of the conception of the former, were not disqualified by any impediment to marry each other may be legitimated. (269a)
Art. 178. Legitimation shall take place by a subsequent valid marriage between parents. The annulment of a voidable marriage shall not affect the legitimation. (270a)chan robles virtual law library
Art. 179. Legitimated children shall enjoy the same rights as legitimate children. (272a)
Art. 180. The effects of legitimation shall retroact to the time of the child’s birth. (273a)
Art. 181. The legitimation of children who died before the celebration of the marriage shall benefit their descendants. (274)
Art. 182. Legitimation may be impugned only by those who are prejudiced in their rights, within five years from the time their cause of action accrues. (275a)
Art. 183. A person of age and in possession of full civil capacity and legal rights may adopt, provided he is in a position to support and care for his children, legitimate or illegitimate, in keeping with the means of the family.
Only minors may be adopted, except in the cases when the adoption of a person of majority age is allowed in this Title.
In addition, the adopter must be at least sixteen years older than the person to be adopted, unless the adopter is the parent by nature of the adopted, or is the spouse of the legitimate parent of the person to be adopted. (27a, E. O. 91 and PD 603)
Art. 184. The following persons may not adopt:
The guardian with respect to the ward prior to the approval of the final accounts rendered upon the termination of their guardianship relation;
Any person who has been convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude;
An alien, except:
(a) A former Filipino citizen who seeks to adopt a relative by consanguinity;
(b) One who seeks to adopt the legitimate child of his or her Filipino spouse; or
(c) One who is married to a Filipino citizen and seeks to adopt jointly with his or her spouse a relative by consanguinity of the latter.
Aliens not included in the foregoing exceptions may adopt Filipino children in accordance with the rules on inter-country adoptions as may be provided by law. (28a, E. O. 91 and PD 603)
Art. 185. Husband and wife must jointly adopt, except in the following cases:
When one spouse seeks to adopt his own illegitimate child; or
When one spouse seeks to adopt the legitimate child of the other. (29a, E. O. 91 and PD 603)
Art. 186. In case husband and wife jointly adopt or one spouse adopts the legitimate child of the other, joint parental authority shall be exercised by the spouses in accordance with this Code. (29a, E. O. and PD 603)
Art. 187. The following may not be adopted:
A person of legal age, unless he or she is a child by nature of the adopter or his or her spouse, or, prior to the adoption, said person has been consistently considered and treated by the adopter as his or her own child during minority.
An alien with whose government the Republic of the Philippines has no diplomatic relations; and
A person who has already been adopted unless such adoption has been previously revoked or rescinded. (30a, E. O. 91 and PD 603)
Art. 188. The written consent of the following to the adoption shall be necessary:
The person to be adopted, if ten years of age or over,
The parents by nature of the child, the legal guardian, or the proper government instrumentality;
The legitimate and adopted children, ten years of age or over, of the adopting parent or parents;
The illegitimate children, ten years of age or over, of the adopting parent, if living with said parent and the latter’s spouse, if any; and
The spouse, if any, of the person adopting or to be adopted. (31a, E. O. 91 and PD 603)
Art. 189. Adoption shall have the following effects:
For civil purposes, the adopted shall be deemed to be a legitimate child of the adopters and both shall acquire the reciprocal rights and obligations arising from the relationship of parent and child, including the right of the adopted to use the surname of the adopters;
The parental authority of the parents by nature over the adopted shall terminate and be vested in the adopters, except that if the adopter is the spouse of the parent by nature of the adopted, parental authority over the adopted shall be exercised jointly by both spouses; and
The adopted shall remain an intestate heir of his parents and other blood relatives. (39(1)a, (3)a, PD 603)
Art. 190. Legal or intestate succession to the estate of the adopted shall be governed by the following rules:
Legitimate and illegitimate children and descendants and the surviving spouse of the adopted shall inherit from the adopted, in accordance with the ordinary rules of legal or intestate succession;
When the parents, legitimate or illegitimate, or the legitimate ascendants of the adopted concur with the adopter, they shall divide the entire estate, one-half to be inherited by the parents or ascendants and the other half, by the adopters;
When the surviving spouse or the illegitimate children of the adopted concur with the adopters, they shall divide the entire estate in equal shares, one-half to be inherited by the spouse or the illegitimate children of the adopted and the other half, by the adopters.
When the adopters concur with the illegitimate children and the surviving spouse of the adopted, they shall divide the entire estate in equal shares, one-third to be inherited by the illegitimate children, one-third by the surviving spouse, and one-third by the adopters;
When only the adopters survive, they shall inherit the entire estate; and
When only collateral blood relatives of the adopted survive, then the ordinary rules of legal or intestate succession shall apply. (39(4)a, PD 603)
Art. 191. If the adopted is a minor or otherwise incapacitated, the adoption may be judicially rescinded upon petition of any person authorized by the court or proper government instrumental acting on his behalf, on the same grounds prescribed for loss or suspension of parental authority. If the adopted is at least eighteen years of age, he may petition for judicial rescission of the adoption on the same grounds prescribed for disinheriting an ascendant. (40a, PD 603)
If the adopted has committed any act constituting ground for disinheriting a descendant; or
When the adopted has abandoned the home of the adopters during minority for at least one year, or, by some other acts, has definitely repudiated the adoption. (41a, PD 603)
Art. 193. If the adopted minor has not reached the age of majority at the time of the judicial rescission of the adoption, the court in the same proceeding shall reinstate the parental authority of the parents by nature, unless the latter are disqualified or incapacitated, in which case the court shall appoint a guardian over the person and property of the minor. If the adopted person is physically or mentally handicapped, the court shall appoint in the same proceeding a guardian over his person or property or both.
Judicial rescission of the adoption shall extinguish all reciprocal rights and obligations between the adopters and the adopted arising from the relationship of parent and child. The adopted shall likewise lose the right to use the surnames of the adopters and shall resume his surname prior to the adoption.
The court shall accordingly order the amendment of the records in the proper registries. (42a, PD 603)
TITLE VIII
Art. 194. Support comprises everything indispensable for sustenance, dwelling, clothing, medical attendance, education and transportation, in keeping with the financial capacity of the family.
The education of the person entitled to be supported referred to in the preceding paragraph shall include his schooling or training for some profession, trade or vocation, even beyond the age of majority. Transportation shall include expenses in going to and from school, or to and from place of work. (290a)
Art. 105. Subject to the provisions of the succeeding articles, the following are obliged to support each other to the whole extent set forth in the preceding article:
The spouses;
Legitimate ascendants and descendants;
Parents and their legitimate children and the legitimate and illegitimate children of the latter;
Parents and their illegitimate children and the legitimate and illegitimate children of the latter; and
Legitimate brothers and sisters, whether of full or half-blood (291a)
Art. 196. Brothers and sisters not legitimately related, whether of the full or half-blood, are likewise bound to support each other to the full extent set forth in Article 194, except only when the need for support of the brother or sister, being of age, is due to a cause imputable to the claimant’s fault or negligence. (291a)
Art. 197. In case of legitimate ascendants; descendants, whether legitimate or illegitimate; and brothers and sisters, whether legitimately or illegitimately related, only the separate property of the person obliged to give support shall be answerable provided that in case the obligor has no separate property, the absolute community or the conjugal partnership, if financially capable, shall advance the support, which shall be deducted from the share of the spouse obliged upon the liquidation of the absolute community or of the conjugal partnership. (n)
Art. 198. During the proceedings for legal separation or for annulment of marriage, and for declaration of ‘ity of marriage, the spouses and their children shall be supported from the properties of the absolute community or the conjugal partnership. After the final judgment granting the petition, the obligation of mutual support between the spouses ceases. However, in case of legal separation, the court may order that the guilty spouse shall give support to the innocent one, specifying the terms of such order. (292a)
Art. 199. Whenever two or more persons are obliged to give support, the liability shall devolve upon the following persons in the order herein provided:
The spouse;
The descendants in the nearest degree;
The ascendants in the nearest degree; and
The brothers and sisters. (294a)
Art. 200. When the obligation to give support falls upon two or more persons, the payment of the same shall be divided between them in proportion to the resources of each.
However, in case of urgent need and by special circumstances, the judge may order only one of them to furnish the support provisionally, without prejudice to his right to claim from the other obligors the share due from them.
When two or more recipients at the same time claim support from one and the same person legally obliged to give it, should the latter not have sufficient means to satisfy all claims, the order established in the preceding article shall be followed, unless the concurrent obligees should be the spouse and a child subject to parental authority, in which case the child shall be preferred. (295a)
Art. 201. The amount of support, in the cases referred to in Articles 195 and 196, shall be in proportion to the resources or means of the giver and to the necessities of the recipient. (296a)
Art. 202. Support in the cases referred to in the preceding article shall be reduced or increased proportionately, according to the reduction or increase of the necessities of the recipient and the resources or means of the person obliged to furnish the same. (297a)chan robles virtual law library
Art. 203. The obligation to give support shall be demandable from the time the person who has a right to receive the same needs it for maintenance, but it shall not be paid except from the date of judicial or extra-judicial demand.
Support pendente lite may be claimed in accordance with the Rules of Court.
Payment shall be made within the first five days of each corresponding month or when the recipient dies, his heirs shall not be obliged to return what he has received in advance. (298a)
Art. 204. The person obliged to give support shall have the option to fulfill the obligation either by paying the allowance fixed, or by receiving and maintaining in the family dwelling the person who has a right to receive support. The latter alternative cannot be availed of in case there is a moral or legal obstacle thereto. (299a)
Art. 205. The right to receive support under this Title as well as any money or property obtained as such support shall not be levied upon on attachment or execution. (302a)
Art. 206. When, without the knowledge of the person obliged to give support, it is given by a stranger, the latter shall have a right to claim the same from the former, unless it appears that he gave it without intention of being reimbursed. (2164a)
Art. 207. When the person obliged to support another unjustly refuses or fails to give support when urgently needed by the latter, any third person may furnish support to the needy individual, with right of reimbursement from the person obliged to give support. This Article shall particularly apply when the father or mother of a child under the age of majority unjustly refuses to support or fails to give support to the child when urgently needed. (2166a)
Art. 208. In case of contractual support or that given by will, the excess in amount beyond that required for legal support shall be subject to levy on attachment or execution.
Furthermore, contractual support shall be subject to adjustment whenever modification is necessary due to changes of circumstances manifestly beyond the contemplation of the parties. (n)
PARENTAL AUTHORITY
Art. 209. Pursuant to the natural right and duty of parents over the person and property of their unemancipated children, parental authority and responsibility shall include the caring for and rearing them for civic consciousness and efficiency and the development of their moral, mental and physical character and well-being. (n)
Art. 210. Parental authority and responsibility may not be renounced or transferred except in the cases authorized by law. (313a)
Art. 211. The father and the mother shall jointly exercise parental authority over the persons of their common children. In case of disagreement, the father’s decision shall prevail, unless there is a judicial order to the contrary.
Children shall always observe respect and reverence towards their parents and are obliged to obey them as long as the children are under parental authority. (311a) chan robles virtual law library
Art. 212. In case of absence or death of either parent, the parent present shall continue exercising parental authority. The remarriage of the surviving parent shall not affect the parental authority over the children, unless the court appoints another person to be the guardian of the person or property of the children. (n)
Art. 213. In case of separation of the parents, parental authority shall be exercised by the parent designated by the Court. The Court shall take into account all relevant considerations, especially the choice of the child over seven years of age, unless the parent chosen is unfit. (n)
Art. 214. In case of death, absence or unsuitability of the parents, substitute parental authority shall be exercised by the surviving grandparent. In case several survive, the one designated by the court, taking into account the same consideration mentioned in the preceding article, shall exercise the authority. (355a)
Art. 215. No descendant shall be compelled, in a criminal case, to testify against his parents and grandparents, except when such testimony is indispensable in a crime against the descendant or by one parent against the other. (315a)
Chapter 2. Substitute and Special Parental Authority
Art. 216. In default of parents or a judicially appointed guardian, the following person shall exercise substitute parental authority over the child in the order indicated:
(1) The surviving grandparent, as provided in Art. 214;
(2) The oldest brother or sister, over twenty-one years of age, unless unfit or disqualified; and
(3) The child’s actual custodian, over twenty-one years of age, unless unfit or disqualified.
Whenever the appointment or a judicial guardian over the property of the child becomes necessary, the same order of preference shall be observed. (349a, 351a, 354a)
Art. 217. In case of foundlings, abandoned neglected or abused children and other children similarly situated, parental authority shall be entrusted in summary judicial proceedings to heads of children’s homes, orphanages and similar institutions duly accredited by the proper government agency. (314a)
Art. 218. The school, its administrators and teachers, or the individual, entity or institution engaged in child are shall have special parental authority and responsibility over the minor child while under their supervision, instruction or custody.
Authority and responsibility shall apply to all authorized activities whether inside or outside the premises of the school, entity or institution. (349a)
Art. 129. Those given the authority and responsibility under the preceding Article shall be principally and solidarily liable for damages caused by the acts or omissions of the unemancipated minor. The parents, judicial guardians or the persons exercising substitute parental authority over said minor shall be subsidiarily liable.
The respective liabilities of those referred to in the preceding paragraph shall not apply if it is proved that they exercised the proper diligence required under the particular circumstances.
All other cases not covered by this and the preceding articles shall be governed by the provisions of the Civil Code on quasi-delicts. (n)
Chapter 3. Effect of Parental Authority Upon the Persons of the Children
Art. 220. The parents and those exercising parental authority shall have with the respect to their unemancipated children on wards the following rights and duties:
(1) To keep them in their company, to support, educate and instruct them by right precept and good example, and to provide for their upbringing in keeping with their means;
(2) To give them love and affection, advice and counsel, companionship and understanding;
(3) To provide them with moral and spiritual guidance, inculcate in them honesty, integrity, self-discipline, self-reliance, industry and thrift, stimulate their interest in civic affairs, and inspire in them compliance with the duties of citizenship;
(4) To furnish them with good and wholesome educational materials, supervise their activities, recreation and association with others, protect them from bad company, and prevent them from acquiring habits detrimental to their health, studies and morals;
(5) To represent them in all matters affecting their interests;
(6) To demand from them respect and obedience;
(7) To impose discipline on them as may be required under the circumstances; and
(8) To perform such other duties as are imposed by law upon parents and guardians. (316a)
Art. 221. Parents and other persons exercising parental authority shall be civilly liable for the injuries and damages caused by the acts or omissions of their unemancipated children living in their company and under their parental authority subject to the appropriate defenses provided by law. (2180(2)a and (4)a )
Art. 222. The courts may appoint a guardian of the child’s property or a guardian ad litem when the best interests of the child so requires. (317)
Art. 223. The parents or, in their absence or incapacity, the individual, entity or institution exercising parental authority, may petition the proper court of the place where the child resides, for an order providing for disciplinary measures over the child. The child shall be entitled to the assistance of counsel, either of his choice or appointed by the court, and a summary hearing shall be conducted wherein the petitioner and the child shall be heard.
However, if in the same proceeding the court finds the petitioner at fault, irrespective of the merits of the petition, or when the circumstances so warrant, the court may also order the deprivation or suspension of parental authority or adopt such other measures as it may deem just and proper. (318a)
Art. 224. The measures referred to in the preceding article may include the commitment of the child for not more than thirty days in entities or institutions engaged in child care or in children’s homes duly accredited by the proper government agency.
The parent exercising parental authority shall not interfere with the care of the child whenever committed but shall provide for his support. Upon proper petition or at its own instance, the court may terminate the commitment of the child whenever just and proper. (391a)
Chapter 4. Effect of Parental Authority Upon the Property of the Children
Art. 225. The father and the mother shall jointly exercise legal guardianship over the property of the unemancipated common child without the necessity of a court appointment. In case of disagreement, the father’s decision shall prevail, unless there is a judicial order to the contrary.
Where the market value of the property or the annual income of the child exceeds P50,000, the parent concerned shall be required to furnish a bond in such amount as the court may determine, but not less than ten per centum (10%) of the value of the property or annual income, to guarantee the performance of the obligations prescribed for general guardians.
A verified petition for approval of the bond shall be filed in the proper court of the place where the child resides, or, if the child resides in a foreign country, in the proper court of the place where the property or any part thereof is situated.
The petition shall be docketed as a summary special proceeding in which all incidents and issues regarding the performance of the obligations referred to in the second paragraph of this Article shall be heard and resolved.
The ordinary rules on guardianship shall be merely suppletory except when the child is under substitute parental authority, or the guardian is a stranger, or a parent has remarried, in which case the ordinary rules on guardianship shall apply. (320a)
Art. 226. The property of the unemancipated child earned or acquired with his work or industry or by onerous or gratuitous title shall belong to the child in ownership and shall be devoted exclusively to the latter’s support and education, unless the title or transfer provides otherwise.
The right of the parents over the fruits and income of the child’s property shall be limited primarily to the child’s support and secondarily to the collective daily needs of the family. (321a, 323a)
Art. 227. If the parents entrust the management or administration of any of their properties to an unemancipated child, the net proceeds of such property shall belong to the owner. The child shall be given a reasonable monthly allowance in an amount not less than that which the owner would have paid if the administrator were a stranger, unless the owner, grants the entire proceeds to the child. In any case, the proceeds thus give in whole or in part shall not be charged to the child’s legitime. (322a)
Chapter 5. Suspension or Termination of Parental Authority
Art. 228. Parental authority terminates permanently:
(1) Upon the death of the parents;
(2) Upon the death of the child; or
(3) Upon emancipation of the child. (327a)
Art. 229. Unless subsequently revived by a final judgment, parental authority also terminates:
(1) Upon adoption of the child;
(2) Upon appointment of a general guardian;
(3) Upon judicial declaration of abandonment of the child in a case filed for the purpose;
(4) Upon final judgment of a competent court divesting the party concerned of parental authority; or
(5) Upon judicial declaration of absence or incapacity of the person exercising parental authority. (327a)
Art. 230. Parental authority is suspended upon conviction of the parent or the person exercising the same of a crime which carries with it the penalty of civil interdiction. The authority is automatically reinstated upon service of the penalty or upon pardon or amnesty of the offender. (330a)
Art. 231. The court in an action filed for the purpose in a related case may also suspend parental authority if the parent or the person exercising the same:
(1) Treats the child with excessive harshness or cruelty;
(2) Gives the child corrupting orders, counsel or example;
(3) Compels the child to beg; or
(4) Subjects the child or allows him to be subjected to acts of lasciviousness
The grounds enumerated above are deemed to include cases which have resulted from culpable negligence of the parent or the person exercising parental authority.
If the degree of seriousness so warrants, or the welfare of the child so demands, the court shall deprive the guilty party of parental authority or adopt such other measures as may be proper under the circumstances.
The suspension or deprivation may be revoked and the parental authority revived in a case filed for the purpose or in the same proceeding if the court finds that the cause therefor has ceased and will not be repeated. (33a)
Art. 232. If the person exercising parental authority has subjected the child or allowed him to be subjected to sexual abuse, such person shall be permanently deprived by the court of such authority. (n)
Art. 233. The person exercising substitute parental authority shall have the same authority over the person of the child as the parents.
In no case shall the school administrator, teacher of individual engaged in child care exercising special parental authority inflict corporal punishment upon the child. (n)
TITLE X
EMANCIPATION AND AGE OF MAJORITY
Art. 234. Emancipation takes place by the attainment of majority. Unless otherwise provided, majority commences at the age of twenty-one years.
Emancipation also takes place:
(1) By the marriage of the minor; or
(2) By the recording in the Civil Register of an agreement in a public instrument executed by the parent exercising parental authority and the minor at least eighteen years of age. Such emancipation shall be irrevocable. (397a, 398a, 400a, 401a)
Art. 235. The provisions governing emancipation by recorded agreement shall also apply to an orphan minor and the person exercising parental authority but the agreement must be approved by the court before it is recorded. (n)
Art. 236. Emancipation for any cause shall terminate parental authority over the person and property of the child who shall then be qualified and responsible for all acts of civil life. (412a)
Art. 237. The annulment or declaration of ‘ity of the marriage of a minor or of the recorded agreement mentioned in the foregoing. Articles 234 and 235 shall revive the parental authority over the minor but shall not affect acts and transactions that took place prior to the recording of the final judgment in the Civil Register. (n)
TITLE XI
SUMMARY JUDICIAL PROCEEDINGS IN THE FAMILY LAW
Chapter 1. Prefatory Provisions
Art. 238. Until modified by the Supreme Court, the procedural rules provided for in this Title shall apply as regards separation in fact between husband and wife, abandonment by one of the other, and incidents involving parental authority. (n)
Chapter 2. Separation in Fact
Art. 239. When a husband and wife are separated in fact, or one has abandoned the other and one of them seeks judicial authorization for a transaction where the consent of the other spouse is required by law but such consent is withheld or cannot be obtained, a verified petition may be filed in court alleging the foregoing facts.
The petition shall attach the proposed deed, if any, embodying the transaction, and, if none, shall describe in detail the said transaction and state the reason why the required consent thereto cannot be secured. In any case, the final deed duly executed by the parties shall be submitted to and approved by the court. (n)
Art. 240. Claims for damages by either spouse, except costs of the proceedings, may be litigated only in a separate action. (n)
Art. 241. Jurisdiction over the petition shall, upon proof of notice to the other spouse, be exercised by the proper court authorized to hear family cases, if one exists, or in the regional trial court or its equivalent sitting in the place where either of the spouses resides. (n)
Art. 242. Upon the filing of the petition, the court shall notify the other spouse, whose consent to the transaction is required, of said petition, ordering said spouse to show cause why the petition should not be granted, on or before the date set in said notice for the initial conference. The notice shall be accompanied by a copy of the petition and shall be served at the last known address of the spouse concerned. (n)
Art. 243. A preliminary conference shall be conducted by the judge personally without the parties being assisted by counsel. After the initial conference, if the court deems it useful, the parties may be assisted by counsel at the succeeding conferences and hearings. (n)
Art. 244. In case of non-appearance of the spouse whose consent is sought, the court shall inquire into the reasons for his failure to appear, and shall require such appearance, if possible. (n)
Art. 245. If, despite all efforts, the attendance of the non-consenting spouse is not secured, the court may proceed ex parte and render judgment as the facts and circumstances may warrant. In any case, the judge shall endeavor to protect the interests of the non-appearing spouse. (n)
Art. 246. If the petition is not resolved at the initial conference, said petition shall be decided in a summary hearing on the basis of affidavits, documentary evidence or oral testimonies at the sound discretion of the court. If testimony is needed, the court shall specify the witnesses to be heard and the subject-matter of their testimonies, directing the parties to present said witnesses. (n)
Art. 247. The judgment of the court shall be immediately final and executory. (n)
Art. 248. The petition for judicial authority to administer or encumber specific separate property of the abandoning spouse and to use the fruits or proceeds thereof for the support of the family shall also be governed by these rules. (n)
Chapter 3. Incidents Involving Parental Authority
Art. 249. Petitions filed under Articles 223, 225 and 235 of this Code involving parental authority shall be verified. (n)
Art. 250. Such petitions shall be verified and filed in the proper court of the place where the child resides. (n)
Art. 251. Upon the filing of the petition, the court shall notify the parents or, in their absence or incapacity, the individuals, entities or institutions exercising parental authority over the child. (n)
Art. 252. The rules in Chapter 2 hereof shall also govern summary proceedings under this Chapter insofar as they are applicable. (n)
Chapter 4. Other Matters Subject to Summary Proceedings
Art. 253. The foregoing rules in Chapters 2 and 3 hereof shall likewise govern summary proceedings filed under Articles 41, 51, 69, 73, 96, 124 and 127, insofar as they are applicable. (n)
TITLE XII
FINAL PROVISIONS
Art. 254. Titles III, IV, V, VI, VIII, IX, XI, and XV of Book 1 of Republic Act No. 386, otherwise known as the Civil Code of the Philippines, as amended, and Articles 17, 18, 19, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 39, 40, 41, and 42 of Presidential Decree No. 603, otherwise known as the Child and Youth Welfare Code, as amended, and all laws, decrees, executive orders, proclamations, rules and regulations, or parts thereof, inconsistent herewith are hereby repealed.
Art. 255. If any provision of this Code is held invalid, all the other provisions not affected thereby shall remain valid.
Art. 256. This Code shall have retroactive effect insofar as it does not prejudice or impair vested or acquired rights in accordance with the Civil Code or other laws.
Art. 257. This Code shall take effect one year after the completion of its publication in a newspaper of general circulation, as certified by the Executive Secretary, Office of the President.
Done in the City of Manila, this 6th day of July, in the year of Our Lord, nineteen hundred and eighty-seven.
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Home > Special Collections & University Archives > ORSPEAKERS > 92
Special Collections: Oregon Public Speakers
"Biological Determinism as a Social Weapon"
Richard C. Lewontin
Dr. Richard Lewontin, an American evolutionary biologist, geneticist, and social commentator, strongly questioned the ideas of genetic determinism and the use of IQ tests to measure cognitive abilities. From 1973 to 1998, he held an endowed chair in zoology and biology at Harvard University.
Transferred and preserved by Portland State University Library’s Special Collections with the generous support of the Institute of Museum and Library Services through the Library Services and Technology Act, administered by the Oregon State Library.
Genetics, Biology
Reel to reel, 3.75 ips, two track
This digital access copy is made available as streaming media for personal, educational, and non-commercial use only. It cannot be reproduced in any form, distributed or played for commercial purposes. It is made accessible because of one or more of the following situations: the rights are owned by State Board of Higher Education, on behalf of Portland State University; Portland State University has permission to make it accessible; it is made accessible for education and research purposes under fair use; or there are no known restrictions on use. In the event that previously unknown information is shared that may change the status of this item, it will be immediately removed from public view until pertinent rights issues are clarified.
Transcript added September 30, 2020.
PSU Library Special Collections and University Archives presents these recordings as part of the historical record. They reflect the recollections and opinions of the individual speakers and are not intended to be representative of the views of Portland State University. They may contain language, ideas, or stereotypes that are offensive to others.
Lewontin, Richard C., ""Biological Determinism as a Social Weapon"" (1976). Special Collections: Oregon Public Speakers. 92.
Biology Commons, Genetics Commons
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Penny Hampson – Writing History, Mystery, and …. a Touch of Romance
A Gentleman’s Promise
An Officer’s Vow
A Bachelor’s Pledge
The Unquiet Spirit
3 reasons to visit the picturesque Cotswold village of Swinbrook
Last week I joined some friends for lunch in Swinbrook, a pretty Oxfordshire village. If you are looking for a quintessential English village, then Swinbrook fits the bill. A babbling stream runs through the centre, and there are quaint honeystone coloured Cotswold cottages galore.
At this time of year, the village verges are covered in snowdrops, the first green shoots of daffodils are showing, and clumps of primroses bloom along the lanes. Rural England at its best. However, the iconic red telephone box near the village green no longer houses a telephone, but a defibrillator, demonstrating that, although Swinbrook seems set in the past, it is very much part of the 21st century.
The Swan Inn
Another jolly good reason to visit Swinbrook is the charming inn, The Swan. Situated near the bridge that crosses the River Windrush, it was once owned by the late Deborah, Duchess of Devonshire, one of the Mitford sisters. Photographs and drawings of the Mitford family decorate the public rooms, emphasizing the strong connection between this famously eccentric family and Swinbrook.
View from the bridge to a swollen River Windrush
Because of its secluded location, The Swan is also rumoured to be a favourite of the many celebrities who live in the surrounding area. At least one Prime Minister is recorded as having had lunch there with a visiting foreign head of state. And if it’s good enough for the PM… well, yes, I enjoyed my lunch there too (and it was affordable even for a struggling author).
A third, and compelling reason to visit Swinbrook is the delightful church of St Mary’s. Perched on a rise overlooking the River Windrush, this tiny 12th century building, still functioning as a church today, is noted too for its connections to the Mitford family.
The Mitfords lived in nearby Swinbrook House and are remembered mostly for their unconventional and controversial lives. Head of the family, Baron Redesdale, was a noted eccentric, who famously was said to have only ever read one book*. Several of his six daughters were equally unconventional in their early years, earning attention for their wildly differing political views. Nancy was a writer, known for her sharp wit, and whose books include Love in a Cold Climate and The Pursuit of Love. Diana became notorious for embracing fascism, marrying as she did the infamous Fascist leader Oswald Mosley. Husband and wife were both interned during World War II.
Jessica was a Communist. Unity, an ardent follower and supporter of Hitler, attempted suicide when Britain and Germany declared war, succeeding only in severely wounding herself. Deborah, the youngest Mitford sister, more conventionally married into the aristocracy and eventually became chatelaine of Chatsworth House, the seat of the Dukes of Devonshire. The only daughter who did not court controversy or publicity was Pamela, who lived in rural quietude.
The Mitford sisters’ graves (front row)
Nancy, Unity, and Diana are buried in the graveyard of St Mary’s, where their headstones can be seen standing in a neat row near to the main door. Their parents and Pamela are buried elsewhere in the graveyard, and inside the church there is a memorial to their brother Thomas, who was killed in action during the Burma Campaign of World War II.
Even if you have no interest in the Mitfords, the church is worth visiting for its unusual and striking features. The oldest part of the church is the north aisle, with its round pillars and pointed arches. The tower is a later addition of 1822.
The windows are mostly plain, apart from the east window of the south aisle. Remnants of stained glass are formed into one colourful window. These remnants were painstakingly rescued from the ground where they had been blasted after an enemy plane crash landed in a nearby field during WWII.
However, the most striking features of St Mary’s are in the chancel. Here can be found monuments to the Fettiplace family. The Fettiplaces were a wealthy local family who held the manor of Swinbrook in the 17th century. The monuments consist of two triple tiers of reclining figures stacked one above the other, as if on shelves, with the oldest at the bottom. The first tier dates from 1618, whilst the second, more ornate tier, was built in 1686.
Unlike any other monuments I’ve seen, these figures are posed on their sides, looking directly at the viewer. The earlier one depicts the men, heads propped on their right hands, reclining straight-legged, with the left hand placed on the hip. Different, but quite formal.
In the second and later tier the figures are set in much more informal attitudes. Here, each individual is shown leaning on their right elbow, with the left hand casually placed on a bended left knee. If they weren’t wearing armour they’d do very nicely as male underwear models. They’ve certainly got the pose right.
Misericord
Nearby, I discovered the 15th century choir stalls. These stalls have beautifully carved arms and misericords. If you don’t know what a misericord is I will tell you. In the past, clergymen and choristers were forced to stand for long periods, so it was helpful for them, when their seat was tipped up for standing, that the underneath of the seat had a ledge or shelf on which they could rest. These are misericords, or pity seats, and many were intricately carved, as can be seen here. There is a man with a huge nose on one, and another shows a man with both arms outstretched. The arms of the stalls are also carved with intriguing figures, possibly depicting real people.
Sadly my visit to the church was cut short as it was time to return home, so I was unable to explore all the other features that make this tiny church so special. But despite the brevity of my visit, Swinbrook made a lasting impression and I intend to return.
Do you know of any out-of-the way places that merit a visit? Do let me know.
White Fang by Jack London
Who is the Black Sheep? 28th December 2020
PennyH on Who is the Black Sheep?
Paula R.C. Readman on Who is the Black Sheep?
PennyH on The Good Soldier: Part 2
Paula on The Good Soldier: Part 2
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Who is the Black Sheep?
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Arthur A. Clappé:
Early Influencer on American Wind Bands
Arthur A. Clappé
Arthur Albert Clappé graduated from Britain's Royal Military School of Music, Kneller Hall and went on to become called “The father of the modern American military band”. He was once the most influential and highly regarded Bandmaster in the United States of America, yet he is little known today.
The remarks of one of the most popular composers and arrangers of music for concert band serve to illustrate the stature in which Clappé was once held. In November 1918 Percy Grainger wrote an essay entitled Possibilities of the Concert Wind Band from the Standpoint of a Modern Composer for inclusion in the publication Metronome Orchestra Monthly. In it he said “Those who are interested in exploring the full latent possibilities of the modern concert wind band should consult Arthur A. Clappé's The Wind Band and its Instruments, an epoch-making work which is to the band of today what Berlioz's Treatise on Instrumentation was to the orchestra of his time – a standard work that no composer, musician, bandmaster, or bandsman should fail to know and absorb.” This was high praise indeed from a man who himself was to have such an effect on the sound of the concert band with his own arrangements and compositions for the ensemble.
A.A. Clappé was born on July 22, 1850 in Cork, Ireland, the second son of English parents, William Clappe[1] (b. 1817) and Sarah Burcher Clappe (b.1829 - d.1911). William was a Corporal of the 41st Welch Regiment of the British Army. In 1863 Arthur enlisted as a Bandsman with the 2nd Battalion of the 13th Regiment of Foot [ later The Somerset Light Infantry (Prince Albert's)] eventually rising to be Band Sergeant. His major instrument was the clarinet. On December 29, 1871 he began the Student Bandmaster Course at the Royal Military School of Music, Kneller Hall[2]. After successfully completing the important course, he was appointed Sergeant (Bandmaster) of the 3rd Battalion, 60th The King's Royal Rifle Corps on June 7, 1873. He served in that position until May 14, 1877, during which time the 3rd Battalion and its band remained in Chatham, England. [3] In 1873 he married Amy Chesswas (b. 1850 - d. 6 Aug 1899) at St. Mary's Parish Church, Twickenham.
In 1877 he was offered the position of Bandmaster of the Governor General's Foot Guards in Ottawa, Canada and he and his wife Amy, sons Montague Burcher Clappé (b. 26 /05/1875) and Arthur Burcher Clappé (b. 1877) emigrated to Canada. It would seem this was a questionable move in that he left a secure position directing a professional British Army band for a part-time position directing a small Canadian Militia band. However, it proved to be a wise move for Clappé and a fortunate one for North American military bands.
The Governor General's Foot Guards was formed in 1872 as the leading infantry regiment of the Canadian Militia, equivalent to the British Territorial Army. The band played an important part in the military and social life of the Canadian capital city. Although the Canadian capital, Ottawa was at the time a small city situated in the Canadian backwoods and with limited cultural activity, it was the Canadian Capital City in which the Governor General of Canada resided. Clappé would have received an honorarium from the reent in the area of $300.00 per year, equivalent to about US$7000.00 in purchasing power today. The residence of the Governor General was a focal point of social life in the young capital city and the Band of the Governor General's Foot Guards was employed for numerous social functions, all of which would have been fee generating engagements for the band's conductor. In addition, he would have received fees for other band engagements. The 1878-79 Ottawa city census listed him as a music teacher, another source of income. For a time, he worked as a temporary clerk in the Postal Department, a position found for him by the regiment[4]. He was active as a composer for functions in the city. For the arrival of a new Governor General to Ottawa, The Marquis of Lorne and HRH The Princess Louise, he composed Canada's Welcome, a masque with words by Frederick A. Dixon which was premiered at the Ottawa Opera House on February 24, 1879. It was the largest of Clappé 's works with 102 pages of music. Other works included United Empire Valse, Farewell Waltzes dedicated to the Earl and Countess of Dufferin, and the song Softly Round Thy Pillow - all published or advertised around 1878.
In 1879 Clappé moved to Sarnia Ontario to become director of another Militia band, that of the 27th (Lambton) Battalion Band, as well as the Sarnia Citizens Band and the Mozart Choral Union. He also was organist and choir director at St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church. It was during this period that Clappé 's influence on the Canadian Militia bands became most effective. He was tasked to organize the music and the bands at the Militia's annual summer concentrations.
The bands of Canada's Militia (the reserve volunteer army) in this period were of a varying standard depending upon the musical and financial resources of the communities in which they were located. The military units of larger cities, such as Toronto and Montreal, were able to form bands that attained a fairly good musical standard, whilst those of smaller communities were of a far lower military and musical standard. These variances became obvious during the annual summer training encampments of the various Militia Brigades. Often bands were unable to perform together. The Militia Commander directed that this situation be solved and Clappé was given the task to make the improvements.
The result was the printing and distribution of a set of march cards to all bands which included The National Anthem, a slow march for salute, quick steps for marching in column or quarter column, a trot past, and other useful music – all composed or arranged by Clappé. In addition, each band was issued a tuning fork and instructions about tuning instruments. In October 1884 the Brigade Commander said in his report: “I was again fortunate in having Mr. A.A. Clappé, Bandmaster of the 27th Battalion Band as Brigade Bandmaster. The several bands assembled daily for practice; the music was in every way creditable and satisfactory. Mr. Clappé reported a great improvement in the tuning of the various instruments.” [5]
On November 14, 1884 The Sarnia Observer newspaper contained the following article: “Mr. Clappe (sic ) has tendered his resignation as musicmaster in the public schools. Mrs. Clappe and children left for England last week, and Mr. Clappe offered his residence and household good for sale by auction yesterday. His present intention is to return to England. Citizens will generally be sorry to hear of his removal from Sarnia. His services as instructor of the 27th Battalion Band have been of the greatest value to that organization, raising from the level of an ordinary rural band to a top place among the military bands of the Dominion. The musical tastes of the people have been improved by his labours in the schools and churches and musical organizations, and a higher standard than prevailed before his arrival amongst us. The active members of the band, and lovers of good music generally, will regret his departure. Mr. Clappe recommends Mr. Hecker of Winnipeg as a competent musician to take his place. Miss Clarke, who has just returned from there, speaks highly of Mr. Hecker's abilities.”
That is our first indication that Clappé 's marital situation and life in general were taking a new direction. The New York Times of February 12, 1885 contains the following: “Toronto Ont. Feb.11 – Sarnia is all agog over the news that Mr. A.M. Clappe (sic), formerly leader of the Twenty-seventh Battalion Band, who left town several months ago with the declared intention of going to India to take charge of an English military band, is now in New York teaching music. Sometime before leaving last fall, Mr. Clappe sent his wife and children to England, and after settling up his affairs suddenly disappeared, simultaneously with the accomplished daughter of a minister of the place. It has since been ascertained that he is in New York and that the lady is there also. The discovery has created the greatest consternation in Sarnia, where Mr. Clappe had many friends. He was the organist of the Presbyterian church there and also taught music in the public schools. He was an exceedingly accomplished musician and was appointed brigade bandmaster of the first two camps at which his corps attended.”.
The 'accomplished daughter of a minister' was Margaret Isabella Goodson – known as 'Maggie' - whose father, Rev. George Goodson, was Minister of St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Sarnia at which Clappé was the organist and choirmaster. A daughter, Edith Frances[6], was born on Dec. 24, 1885. His wife, Amy and three sons (a third son, Harold Burcher Clappé was born in Sarnia Ont. on December 30, 1881) returned to Great Britain.[7] There is no evidence that the marriage of Arthur Clappé and Amy Clappé was ever legally dissolved. Amy's death certificate of August 6, 1899 showed her as “Wife of Arthur Albert Clappé, Journalist”, which would seem to indicate that they were still legally married.
Clappé moved to New York City to take over the editorship of The Metronome Magazine.[8] The Metronome was a very important publication for musicians in North America at the time. It contained news of concerts, musicians, instruments and job opportunities. Apparently Clappé became very successful in this work and the magazine flourished under his direction. He soon became an American citizen. It seems that Clappé was looking for opportunities to improve his situation. In February 1885 an advertisement appeared in The Metronome Magazine stating “Arthur A. Clappé, Bandmaster, late the Governor General's Band, Canada is desirous of securing a position of bandmaster in some live town. Salary not so much object as desirable location, having engagement taking part time. Michigan or Illinois preferred. Replies care of C. Fischer, 9 Fourth Ave., New York.” [9] In the fall of 1888, he became Bandmaster of the 71st Regiment, a socially prominent unit of the volunteer New York National Guard.[10] The band had been without a Bandmaster for a year, the previous Bandmaster Alessandro Liberati having suddenly disappeared. It was said “Egotism and women had been the undoing of Liberati.” [11]
There was a rivalry in New York City between the resident New York State National Guard Regiments to have the best regimental band. The most famous were the 22nd Regiment's Band conducted by Patrick Gilmore, and the 7th Regiment's band under C. S. Grafulla. Although the National Guard was, and is, a voluntary part-time activity, during this period the bands of the NYC units were professional and very active playing at public and private events. They employed some of the most prominent instrumentalists of the period. A.A. Clappé appeared to enter into this competitive scene with confidence and soon the local newspapers were lauding his accomplishments and the musicality of the 71st Band. The band, which numbered fifty musicians, travelled to communities in other states for appearances and fairs and festivals. There they were also well received. In 1889 he took the band, augmented to 75 pieces, to the Iowa Corn Festival.[12]
Clappé's competent reputation became more widely known and in 1886 he went to Elgin, Illinois for a six-month period at the invitation of the National Watch Company. The firm employed band musicians in its factory but also allowed them time to rehearse and play with the company band. Clappé was asked to reorganize and make recommendations to improve the band. He then returned to New York City to resume his work there.
In July 1888 the 71st Regiment Band performed in Richmond, Virginia. The Metronome Magazine of August 1888 listed the program that was performed by the band:
Marche et Cortėge ' La Reine de Saba' – Gounod
Overture 'Der Freischutz' – Weber
Idylle ' The Mill In The Forest ' - Ellenburg
Introduction and Chorus 'Carmen' – Bizet
Zigeuner Standchen ' Gipsy Serenade' – Nehl
Grand Fantasie ' Scotia' - Clappé
During the Intermission the celebrated French Horn Quartette of the 71st Regimental Band performed.
Overture 'Rosamunde' – Schubert
Descriptive 'Russian Carriage Song' – Waterson
Andante from 'Surprise Symphony' – Haydn
Comic 'Funeral March of a Marionette ' - Gounod
Grand Fantasie ' Episodes In A Soldier's Life ' - J.A. Kappey
The Richmond Daily Times reported “The 71st Regiment Band is a fine body of musicians and it is to be regretted that only thirty-three of its fifty-five members could come to Virginia with the regiment. The program was well rendered, especially the quartet of French horns. Mr. Clappé is an able conductor and a finished musician, as well as a genial gentleman, and made many friends during his short visit to Richmond.”
In 1888 the position of Teacher of Music and Bandmaster became open at the United States Military Academy, West Point. Clappé was recommended for the position by Patrick Gilmore. He was appointed as the 10th Teacher of Music USMA effective October 1, 1888. He was employed in the position in a civilian capacity and this seemed to enable him to keep his position as Bandmaster of the 71st Regiment and Editor of The Metronome Magazine. The West Point Military Band numbered twenty-four musicians plus Leader. Clappé's West Point salary was equivalent to that of a 2nd Lieutenant- $ 1080.00 per annum. That Clappé was performing as director of both organizations is shown by a February 1889 announcement that he was to lead the USMA Orchestra in a concert on April 6 of that year. [13] Another announcement in The Metronome of August 1889 states that he and the 71st Regiment Band of fifty musicians were engaged for the Corn Palace in Sioux City, Iowa leaving on September 19 and were to be there for five to eight weeks.[14] He was presented with two medals, one gold and one silver, in recognition of his work at the Corn Palace Festival. It must say something for the regard in which Clappé was held in that he was permitted by the military authorities to engage in all three activities. It also says something of the energy of the man in that he was able to do so.
It was during this period that he wrote and published the first of several books The Band Teacher's Assistant (1888), and Musical Essays - Pertaining Particularly to Military Bands (1893). Those were followed in 1894 by Self Help to the Cornet. In Musical Essays we are probably able to learn best just what his thinking was in regard to music, musical instruments and the band. In the book Clappé outlines his philosophy on the importance of music in society, and the value of music education and participation throughout all classes of society. In addition, he talks about the properties of the various musical instruments and their place in the band, as well as how to rehearse and develop a good sounding musical ensemble. In particular he advocates the use of the family of saxophones and the valved French horn, then fairly uncommon instruments in British and American bands. During these years he also maintained his work as a composer/arranger of band, orchestra, piano and vocal music, including the USMA Slow March. Many of his military marches were published by Carl Fischer Company, however a variety of firms published his other music works several of which are still published.
In 1891 a Mr. Harry Coleman, who was publisher of the Philadelphia monthly music magazine The Dominant, asked Clappé to become the magazine's editor. He accepted the position, and Carl Fischer Company took over The Metronome. He seems to have left The Metronome on good terms, because in July 1894 that magazine contained the following: “Mr. Arthur A. Clappé, editor of The Dominant, our bright Philadelphia contemporary, is one of the most indefatigable workers in the United States, and he is a man whose resources seem almost inexhaustible. Mr. Clappé has done more to encourage young bandsmen than any other single individual in America, not only by coming directly into personal contact with them in band and orchestral work, but through his literary labors for the past fifteen years. .................Mr. Clappé is a thorough musician, being a graduate of the famous Royal Military College (sic) of Music of England, and he is now bandmaster of the United States Military Academy at West Point.” [15] Mr. Coleman died in 1895 leading Clappé to resign his position at West Point and become manager of the estate which involved music publishing and instrument sales. In 1896 he severed his connection with the estate and purchased The Dominant Magazine which he kept until 1910.
Clappé left West Point with a very high reputation. One of his duties was to teach raw recruits how to play music instruments. Each year recruits who had been favourably assessed for music potential - “some ear for music”[16] - were assigned to the West Point Band for training and used in the Academy band. Those who did not complete a satisfactory standard were reassigned to general military training. In discussing five recruits who were deemed acceptable, the Superintendent USMA said: “The Teacher of Music informs me that when these men reported they knew not one instrument from another. He has taught them the rudiments of music by lecture, by blackboard instruction and in less than five months they have really learned considerable music and can play marches, waltzes but are not yet considered band musicians.” [17] Eventually he was successful in upping the band's strength from twenty-four to forty musicians. Clappé must have felt confident enough in his band's performance ability to take them further afield. In January 1894 he applied for permission to take the band to New York City for a series of concerts. Later in the year he again applied for permission to take the band on a thirty-day concert tour to the St. Louis, Missouri area. Both the requests were granted.
His good work at the Academy stood him in good stead when the position of Bandmaster of the United States Marine Band became vacant. In May 1892 John Philip Sousa announced that he was resigning his position after twelve years with the US Marine Band to form his own civilian band. Sousa was guaranteed US$6,000. per year (equivalent to approx. US$140,000.00 in purchasing power today) plus an interest in the profits. On June 1, 1892 Clappé wrote a letter to the Commandant of the Marine Corps saying he wished to become a candidate for the position. That was followed by a similar letter on June 14 to the Secretary of the Navy. In the letter he cited the Superintendent USMA West Point, the Commander of Cadets, Patrick Gilmore and Sousa himself as references. The Superintendent also sent a letter to the Secretary of the Navy listing Clappé 's abilities and accomplishments. [18] For some reason Clappé was not chosen to lead the US Marine Band. Instead, Francisco Fanciulli was accepted, and this proved to be a mistake. Fanciulli was considered a competent musician but found to be a weak leader and disciplinarian. He lasted a brief period before being replaced. [19] His arrest for insubordination after refusing to play any Sousa marches probably lead to his dismissal.[20]
An October 19, 1892 article in the New Times indicated that Clappé proposed to organize a syndicate to take over the operations of the Gilmore Band. Patrick Gilmore had recently died and there were numerous engagement commitments to be carried out. These included those of the band of 21st Regiment, New York National Guard, and concerts at the St. Louis Exposition. Nothing came of this, and he stayed on at West Point.
The New York Times of December 16, 1892 lists the following program of music to be played by Clappé 's West Point Band at the Press Club Carnival of Sport in the city's Madison Square Gardens:
Grand Processional March - Clappé
Overture 'Mirella' – Gounod
Waltz 'Delores' – Waldteufel
Selection 'Carmen' – Bizet
Hungarian Dance 'Kossuth' - Clappé
Overture 'Merry Wives of Windsor' - Nicolai
Träumerei and Romanze – Schumann
Polonaise – Chopin
Military Patrol 'Retreat' – Welsey
'Red, White and Blue'
The newspaper further stated that “this would afford the public the opportunity to hear on the same day the two 'crack' bands of the United States Government.” The other band was the United States Marine Band. conducted by Francisco Fanciulli, who had recently won the post over Clappé 's application.
As a matter of interest, the US Marine Band's program was:
Overture “L'Etoile du Nord – Meyerbeer
Selection “Merchant of Venice” – Pinsuti
“Danse de Patineurs” (Skaters' Dance) – Godfrey
Grand March “Army of the Potomac” – Fanciulli
Overture “Hanolin” - Griffiths
Galop Characteristique “The Press” -Fanciulli
(New, first time)
Ballet Music “Queen of Saba “- Gounod
Waltz “Fairy Voices” – Crowe
March “Cruiser New York” - Fanciulli
Clappé remained in his position at West Point until February 28, 1895. The Metronome Magazine of March 1895 reported that he resigned “...for a more lucrative position so we are informed.” From 1897 until 1905 he was Director of Music and Entertainment at the recently opened Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, the most luxurious hotel in New York City. He also continued his production of The Dominant Magazine. The Waldorf-Astoria Hotel was the scene of many functions involving socially and financially prominent people. Arthur conducted the music for their events such as charity balls. He was asked to assist on the boards of various music organizations.
The financial position of the Clappés appears to have been quite favourable. In addition to income from conducting, composing and the operation of The Dominant, he performed on the clarinet, and gave endorsements for music instruments. In 1902 he purchased a summer residence in Westport, Connecticut which he remodelled and refurnished[21]. Around the same period he also appears to have acquired a farm property in Bergen, New Jersey, just north of New York on which he employed three people – two labourers and a servant[22]. In 1917 the Clappés lived in a well-appointed apartment building at 149 West 12 Street Manhattan.
During the Labour Day weekend of 1906 Clappé took part in an unusual event. His former Canadian regiment, the Governor General's Foot Guards, was making a visit to New York City and West Point. It marked the first time that British/Canadian 'redcoats' had carried arms in the city since the Revolutionary War. Clappé was able to meet with his former band and to mark the occasion composed the GGFG Two-Step. The Governor General's Foot Guards Band was directed by Bandmaster Joseph Miller Brown who had at one time played cornet in the West Point Band.
Clappé 's experience at Kneller Hall in England, with the Canadian Militia Bands, and with military music in the United States gave him a wealth of experience and knowledge in the field. He came to the conclusion that the US military's system of recruiting musicians, and in particular Bandmasters, needed improvement. Clappé felt that the average US Army bandmaster lacked appropriate musical qualifications. There was no formal mechanism for accessing and choosing bandmasters; such appointments were usually done at a regimental level. He had advocated remedial measures in his books and through his articles in The Dominant Magazine. In 1910 he approached Dr. Frank Damrosch, the distinguished musician and educator, with a plan to change that situation. Amongst Damrosch's many activities was the 'Institute of Musical Arts', which was devoted to musical training[23]. Clappé proposed to Damrosch that a department for training military bandmasters be established at the Institute. He further suggested that the Institute offer ten scholarships in the program, five to be offered in the first year and five in a second year. Damrosch accepted Clappé 's proposal and put it to the Secretary of War. The Secretary accepted the proposal and steps were taken to affect the offer. The Band Leader School was established at Fort Jay, Governor's Island, New York City. Five students were selected out of ten candidates and the school opened in October 1911 with Clappé as the Principal. The program proved to be a success and in 1912 the selection process was repeated and ten more candidates were selected. The first class graduated in 1913[24]. Clappé's experience at the Royal Military School of Music was an influence on the course's content, as was Frank Damrosch's background with German and French music practices. The curriculum included musical form, the history of music, ear training, instrumentation, arranging and conducting - all with the emphasis on the military wind band. Instructors were selected from the best available. Later, in 1914, a twenty-five member band was added to the school to enable the students to gain practical experience. The school continued to grow and prosper coinciding with an authorized increase in the number of army bands. A portion of each day was devoted to choral work, as Clappé firmly believed in singing to be an important element for the morale of soldiers.
The entry of the United States into World War One brought a profound change in the status of the country's military bands. When General John 'Black Jack' Pershing went to Europe as head of the US Expeditionary Force he was impressed with the musical capabilities of the French and British military bands in comparison with the US Army bands. He took steps to increase the US bands from twenty-eight members to forty-eight. He also established a military school of music in France in which the students were taught by professors from the Paris Conservatoire. He also initiated commissions to officer rank for army bandmasters.
The opinions of one of the most important of wind band music composers come into the story at this point. In 1917 Percy Grainger enlisted as a musician in the US Army. After a period with an artillery band playing saxophone and oboe, he was posted to the Band Leader School as an Assistant Instructor. It was there he came into contact with Clappé's ideas of band instrumentation which had an effect on Grainger's band compositions. In his biography of Percy Grainger, John Bird says that “Grainger's admiration for the man (Clappé) bordered on adulation.”[25] Grainger also recalled that Clappé “...was a Buddhist and a man of gentle and saintly behaviour.”[26]
In his essay Possibilities of the Concert Wind Band from the Standpoint of a Modern Composer Grainger said “Mr. Clappé...has furthermore demonstrated in practice the truth and practicability of his theories in the beautifully balanced 'Institute of Musical Arts' Band that he has built up at the Army Music Training School at Governor's Island of which he is principal. When I first heard this band, at a concert at Washington Irving High School, with its quintet of saxophones, its quartet of alto and bass clarinets, its quartet of oboes, bass oboe and bassoon, with the tone of its well-rounded brass section so proportioned and controlled so as to never to (except for quite special intentional effects) obscure or over-blare the more subtly expressive sound colours of its unusually complete woodwind sections, I realized, more than ever before, the truly immense potential of the concert wind band as an emotional musical medium.[27]” One could safely assume that Grainger absorbed Clappé 's ideas and incorporated them in forging his own works which have become such an important part of band repertoire.
During this period Clappé was heavily engaged in making recommendations to the Secretary of War in regard to the composition of army bands and their operation. He was not the only person involved in the process. There grew a conflict between those who advocated adopting the French Army bands as a model (particularly in instrumentation), and those – such as Clappé – who advocated an American approach. But in Clappé's case an approach that was influenced by his own musical development, which was in turn influenced by the British military band system. The influential General Pershing was leading the drive to change US Army bands, and he was receiving advice on how to do so from French military and American civilian musicians. The proposals of these people caused great frustration to Clappé. “Untested theories, individual preferences, and the opinions of musicians, however expert in their specialities, can be of little, if any value in reaching any decision involving, as it would, large expenditures for additional instruments, as well as the question of the permanent instrumental composition of Army bands.”[28] In another statement in regard to the proposed instrumentation he said :” There were included certain instruments which were not scored for by Americans and rarely used by Englishmen.” [29]Regarding Pershing's list of recommended march music he said: “The French marches mentioned are unknown to me. Those by American writers are good and well known. There will be many others issued by domestic publishers, by writers such as Reeves, Hall, Pryor, Innes, etc., which have sterling merit. Some of, if not all, the best American marches are already in possession of bands of the Regular Army.” [30]
There was a great deal of discussion and memos amongst the various protagonists regarding the training of Bandmasters and band musicians, the content of the Army Music School courses, band instrumentation, and the balance of instruments within the band. In July/August 1918 a special board was convened at the Army Music School to decide on the appropriate instrumentation of a 48 member military band. The following instrumentation was eventually approved[31]:
2 Flutes (one doubling piccolo)
2 Oboes (to play Soprano Saxophone for marching)
2 Bassoons (to play snare drum and cymbals for marching)
1 Eb Clarinet
10 Bb Clarinets
2 alto Clarinets
2 bass Clarinets
3 Saxophones (one each of alto, tenor and baritone)
1 Contra Bass Sarrusophone
4 Bb Trumpets
2 Bb Cornets (or Flugelhorns)
4 French horns (Alto horn for mounted bands)
3 Bb Trombones (slide or valve)
1 Bass Trombone
2 Baritone/Euphoniums
4 Basses (2Eb – 2 BBb)
3 Percussion
With minor variations this closely resembles the balance and type of instrumentation recommended by Clappé in his book The Wind Band and Its Instruments.
The end of World War One brought to a close much of this discussion as the American armed forces adjusted to peace time conditions and the reduction in establishment, including bands. But Clappé 's ideas had influenced the upcoming generation of Army Bandmasters that he had taught at the Band Leader School. It can be seen that the post-World War One structure of US Army bands owed a great deal to Clappé 's influence.
Clappé was commissioned as a Captain in the US Army in October 1918 (he had been a civilian while with the Army Band Leader School) and posted to Washington to effect plans for bands in the peacetime US Army. He thereafter spent his time between Fort Jay and the War Department in Washington. The March 1919 issue of The Infantry Journal contained an article by Clappé titled Music as a Moral Force on Morale.
In July 1919 Jacob's Band Monthly, a widely circulated publication, had a profile of Clappé in its series Famous Bandmasters in Brief. The author Frank R. Seltzer had the following comments about Clappé: “The subject of this month's sketch of Bandmasters in Brief has always been a most genial fellow, and knows music in its every form. Of a dignified and stately mien, well and broadly read (he has found time to study other subjects besides music), quick to catch a situation which requires alert treatment and ready at all times to assist others in their ambition to learn music in its various branches, it is no wonder that Captain Clappé is one of the most popular men of the music profession.”
In 1920 he became ill with what were described as 'complicated internal troubles[32], and died of cancer on November 22, 1920. His remains were cremated and interned at the Arlington National Cemetery in Washington on November 27, 1920.[33] His headstone bears the notation 'Founder of The Army Music School'. [34]
William C. White, (Clappé's protégé, former pupil and later Assistant at Fort Jay) who had graduated from the Band Leaders Course was appointed to succeed Clappé, and another graduate John S. Martin was appointed Assistant Principal. In September 1921 the Army Music School was moved to Washington DC, and also ended the connection with the Damrosch's Institute of Musical Art. In 1928, because of budget restrictions, the army closed the school, reopening it in 1941 to once again train army bandmasters. From 1956 to the early 2000s, the US Army music element conducted training in conjunction with the US Navy's School of Music.
Clappé's book The Principles of Wind Band Transcription was published posthumously in 1921. It received wide distribution and was no doubt a great influence on the composers and arrangers of band music published in subsequent years. Copies are still available for sale through used book sellers.
In that book Clappé states that the essential qualifications of a bandmaster should include:
1 – Skill on some wind instrument in particular.
2 – Practical knowledge of all other wind instruments, that is, to be able to play them more or less well.
3 – Knowledge of the theory and practice of music, including harmony, counterpoint, composition, forms, and acquaintance with acoustics in relation to wind instruments, as well as musical history in general and in particular.
4 – Capacity to read “scores” and interpret them.
5 – Pedagogic ability; teaching, tuning and toning of the wind band and
5 – Capacity for direction, otherwise conducting.[35]
In another area of his book Clappé says: “The orchestra, through length of years of service and writings of great composers, has acquired a settled or conventional form. The band, younger in the art world, never taken seriously by the masters, is still chaotic, no agreement having been reached as to numbers, combinations of individual or family of instrument requisite to create an organization, that shall, to their limitation, fulfil the demands of art and become satisfying to composers and connoisseurs. Every bandmaster appears to be a law unto himself in the matter of tonal balance and proprieties (or improprieties) of band formation. Few, if any, recognize that homogeneity can only be accomplished by philosophical consideration of the mechanical, acoustical nature of wind instruments, as well as the aesthetic quality of their tones and the adaption of the principles gained from such consideration to the elements of the organization under their control.”[36] He goes on to say: “From the foregoing remarks and presentations in tabular form it will be apparent that band instrumentation is yet in chaotic condition. That remedy lies in the hands of composers. If only they can be brought to consider the wind-band seriously, and recognizing its potentialities as an art factor, be inclined to write works suited to its genus, taking into account its remarkable variety of voicing, its infinite shades of tone colour, order will result. He who can and will evolve order from this chaos will earn a niche for himself in the Hall of Fame, and without doubt some consideration tangible and immediately available for mundane comforts.” [37]
From a study of Arthur A. Clappé's career it is evident that he was in a great part responsible himself for the 'evolving of order from this chaos'. The many students who went through his bandmaster course went out to apply the principles learned to their work and passed on that knowledge to succeeding generations. Others did so by reading his books and treatises. It may truly be said that he is the 'Father of the modern American military band'.
Special thanks to Chalon Ragsdale for providing original source material. In addition, the author is indebted to Patricia Marshall and Robin Rodger, both descendants of A. A. Clappe's English family, for supplying valuable information.
Listing of Known Compositions by A.A. Clappé
(Publishers names listed if known)
Andante and Polacca for Clarinet and Piano (PEL Music) 1878
Canada's Welcome, a masque – (MacLean, Rogers Ottawa) 1879
Christopher Columbus March - (Fischer) 1888
Close of Day, The – W.F. Shaw NY 1884
Colonel Kopper's 71st Regiment March – (Fischer) 1888
Colonel Mercur Quick March - (Fischer) 1892
The Dominion Grand March - (Fischer)
Dreams of Youth Waltz (1887) - (Coleman 1894)
Esprit de Corps March – (Fischer) 1883
Farewall Waltzes - 1878
Fearless March – (Fischer) 1888
Funeral Marches No. 1 & No.2
GGFG Two Step – 1906
Gloria Tibi – mixed voices 1892
Grand Fantasia “Scotia” 1888
Grand Processional March 1882
Hail to the Flag (with choir)
Hearts Ease Polka (Fischer) 1885 – Euphonium solo
Hungarian Dance “Kossuth” 1892
Jubilant Deo Grand Sacred Melody 1892
King Thistle March - (Slater) 1910
Osian March (Dominant)
Le Petit Roi – (Fischer) 1888
Quick March Medleys No. 1 & No.2 (Fischer)
Quick March for Open Column – (Fischer)
Quick Step March for Quarter Distance Column (Fischer)
Remember The Maine 1889
Return of the Admiral -1899
Sans Souci Polka – (Fischer) 1885, Cornet Solo
Softly Round Thy Pillow - 1878
Strawberry Waltz – (Slater) 1909
Tadeusz Kosciusko Polonaise - (Fischer) 1920
Taps Quick March – (Monfort) 1892
There Is rest In Heaven – (Fischer)
Through Death To Life Eternal – (Fischer)
Uncle Rastus, Negro Dance – (Coleman) 1891
United Empire Waltz – 1878
US Military Academy Slow March
Waltz 'Army Blue'
Wood Nymphs Valse – C.J. Whitney, Detroit 1880
Band Teacher's Assistant, The - Carl Fischer NY 1888
Musical Essays - Pertaining Particularly to Military Bands – USMA Press, West Point 1892
Self Help on the Cornet – Carl Fischer NY 1894
Wind Band and Its Instruments, The – H. Holt & Co. NY 1911
Principles of Wind Band Transcription – Carl Fischer NY 1921
NB – 'The Band Teacher's Assistant' and 'The Wind Band and Its Instruments' have recently been republished by Kessinger Publishing's Rare Reprints, PO Box 1401Whitefish, Montana USA in both hardcover and softcover editions. Website: www.kessinger.net
In addition, many of Clappé 's books can be found at rare book dealer sites on the internet.
'A History of Military Music In America' – William Carter White, Greenwood Press, Westport Conn. 1944. White was a student of the Fort Jay, Band Leader School, and later Clappé's assistant at the School.
'The Wind-Band And Its Instruments' – A.A. Clappé – Henry Holt & Co., New York, 1911
'Musical Essays – Pertaining Particularly to Military Bands' - A.A. Clappé – USMA Press & Bindery, 1893
'A History of U.S. Army Bands' - US Army Element, School of Music, Norfolk Va. 2005
National Archives & Records Administration, Washington DC – various archive documents.
Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library, University of Maryland – extracts from 'The Metronome' magazine.
The New York Times Archives – various newspaper clippings.
Canadian Census 1881
The Heritage Encyclopedia of Band Music – W.H. Rehrig, Integrity Press, Westerville Ohio 1991.
Extracts from 'The Metronome' and 'Jacob's Band Monthly' provided by W.H. Rehrig.
The New Grove Dictionary of American Music, Macmillan Press, 1986
Canada Gazette, Reports of the Deputy Adjutant General – various c.1880.
The Encyclopedia of Canadian Music – Univ. Of Toronto Press, Toronto,1981
USMA West Point, Library Special Collections – various documents.
A History of the United States Army Band to 1946 – Graduate Dissertation – David C. McCormick, North Western University, Evanston Ill. 1970.
'Percy Grainger' – John Bird, Oxford University Pres, 1999
'Historical Perspective on The President's Own United States Marine Band” – US Government Printing Office 1998
Note: Most of Clappé's service records were lost in a 1973 fire at the US National Personnel Records Center that destroyed all records of veterans discharged or deceased between Nov. 1, 1912 and Dec. 31, 1959.
[1]. A United States Treasury Department document of January 13, 1921 completed by Margaret I. Clappé showed A.A. Clappé's father's Christian name to be 'George' which is incorrect. Other documents such as birth and marriage certificates confirm his father's name as 'William'. Also, there was no acute accent over the final of his father's surname. The use of the acute accent over the final e of Clappé appears to have been instituted by Arthur A. Clappé and followed by his descendants.
2. Letter to author from Major R.G. Swift, Archivist RMSM June 16, 2009.
3. W.C. White in his book A History of Military Music in America states that Clappé was for a time a member of the faculty of the RMSM as professor of oboe, harmony and Solfeggio”. He is not listed as such in the Turner history of RMSM “The Trumpet Shall Sound”, which records all staff members, nor does the RMSM archives have such recorded. Nor did he serve in India as White has suggested.
4. This seems to have been a routine sinecure for Bandmaster of the GGFG. There is an apocryphal story that sometime in the 1930s a government inspector asked a civil servant what his job was at the Post Office Department, and the civil servant replied" I direct the GGFG Band".
[5]. Canada Gazette, Report of Military District No.1, October 10, 1884.
[6]. Edith Clappé married Willard Fairchild, a commercial artist and illustrator in November 1917. He was serving as a US Army Lieutenant at the time. He died in 1946, and Edith died January 12, 1973. A son, Willard Jr. (Bill) was killed early in WW2 while training as an army pilot. A daughter Margaret (Peggy) married, but died young., her five living descendants all reside in England. In addition to those descendants of his American family, there are over a hundred living descendants of Arthur's English family living in the United Kingdom, North America, and elsewhere.
[7]. Montague became a Solicitor in London, Arthur Jr. served with the Lothian & Border Horse Yeomanry in WW1, rising to the rank of Captain. Harold became a bank manager in Cardiff, Wales.
[8]. Not to be confused with the jazz magazine of a later era.
[9]. The Metronome Magazine, February 1885.
[10]. History of the 71st Regt. National Guard New York, Published by The Veterans' Association 71st Regt. 1919
[11]. Ibid
[13]. The Metronome, February 1889, Page 13.
[14]. The Metronome, August 1889, Page 14
[15]. The Metronome. July 1894, Page 3
[16]. Letter from USMA Superintendent to Adjutant General, February 2, 1891.
[18]. Letters deposited in United States National Archives and Records Administration.
[19]. Historical perspective on The President's Own United States Marine Band -US Govt Printing Office Pg 18.
[20]. The Wall Street Journal p.A12, 7 Nov.1896. Fanciulli became Bandmaster of the 71st Regt. NYNG in 1897, retiring in 1903. History of the 71st Regt. National Guard New York, Published by The Veteran's Association 71st Regt. 1919
[21]. New York Times, June 15, 1902
[22]. 1910 US Census
[23]. The Institute later merged with the Juilliard Graduate School to become the renowned Juilliard School of Music.
[24]. The five students who graduated were Chief Musician Alfred J. Thomas 10th Cavalry, Principal Musician George A. Horton 3rd Cavalry, Corporal James B. Premitt Band 26th Infantry, Private Einar V. Sorensen 5th Band, Private William C. White 10th Band. William Carter White eventually became Director of Music of the US Army Music School, Washington. He authored several books on military music as well as several articles about A.A. Clappé. Unfortunately, his information about Clappé contains a number of inaccuracies. These include the statement that Clappé's father was a Colonel of the British Army. Other inaccuracies have been previously noted. One can safely assume that this false information must have been provided to White by Clappé and wonder what Clappé 's motive was in doing so. These do seem to have been efforts by Clappé to conceal his origins and enhance his image and qualifications. Actions that, in retrospect, don't seem to have been necessary.
[25]. 'Percy Grainger' John Bird, Oxford University Press 1999, Pg. 188.
[26]. Ibid – Clappé listed his religion as 'Church of England' in the 1881 Census of Canada. There is no evidence of his adopting the Buddhist faith.
[27]. Metronome Orchestra Monthly, November 1918
[28]. Quoted in McCormick – op. cit.
[31]. McCormick -op.cit.
[32]. The Metronome Magazine, Vol.37, January 1921.
[33]. US National Personnel Records Center – 'Walter Reed General Hospital Report of Death' Nov.27,1920
[34]. After her husband's death Mrs. Margaret Isabella Clappé resided for a time at 2590 Colchester Rd., Cleveland Ohio.
[35]. The Wind Band and Its Instruments – A.A. Clappé - Henry Holt & Co., New York, 1911 – Pg 149
[36]. Ibid, Page 35
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Lowell Farms: A Cannabis Cafe Features “Budtenders” in West Hollywood, LA
Over the past few decades, California has led the way in legalized marijuana. In August 2019, Lowell Farms: A Cannabis Cafe in West Hollywood beacme the first of its kind in America. It may seem strange that there aren’t any restaurants that offer the ability to eat and drink THC-infused meals, particularly in California, but the truth is that it’s actually against the law everywhere. Somehow, Lowell Herb Co. found a way. While it isn’t exactly what the founders originally wanted, the two marijuana entrepreneurs Sean Black and David Elias have built a restaurant that serves food and allows the consumption of cannabis.
If you’re looking for the healthiest vape, Lowell Herb Co. rose to fame with their upscale, organic marijuana brand, which is sold in over 300 dispensaries. Their latest project is a tri-level restaurant and cannabis cafe called Lowell Farms, but the most interesting part of all is that the restaurant was once considered impossible due to state and federal laws. The founders of Lowell Herb Co. decided to split the businesses in two and create separate zones on their lot in West Hollywood. With a new consumption license, the cafe operated adjacent to a full kitchen, and patrons of the cafe have their food delivered to them.
While weed isn’t on the restaurant’s menu, you can buy cannabis products such as the healthiest vape carts, pre-rolled cigarettes, organic strains, edibles, and THC-infused cocktails. Unfortunately the kitchen’s food must remain “virgin” for now, but Chef Andrea Drummer has revealed a menu that is completely complementary to those who love to smoke and eat delicious food.
The restaurant already has a ton of A-list patrons, including Miley Cyrus, Woody Harrelson, Halsey, Paris Jackson, Jimmy Kimmel, Sarah Silverman, Bella Thorne, Diplo, Mark Ronson, and many more. Some of their portraits hang on the “Wall of Fame,” which shows off those celebrities who fought the good fight for marijuana legalization. This includes portraits of David Bowie, Lenny Bruce, Snoop Dogg, and Miley Cyrus.
The restaurant and cafe are both designed to be a tribute to organic, sustainable lifestyles with rustic, reclaimed wood benches and chairs. You’ll find that the people here are after the healthiest vape, too, so all of their products are high-quality and organic. Even the silverware is reclaimed. The founders went through considerable lengths to ensure that their business used only green, sustainable practices in building the restaurant, as well as in their food and cannabis products. It’s something that Lowell Herb Co. is known for.
One of the main attractions at the cafe will be “cannoisseurs” and “budtenders,” who are experts on different strains and the history of their growth in America. There are also many high-end accessories to choose from when you decide on what cannabis to smoke. All of the ceramic pipes and bongs at Lowell Farms are made by the LA company Miwak Junior or San Francisco’s Summerland.
You can also test out luxe vape pens before buying them at the budtender. The founders have stated that the goal is to educate and promote sustainable weed practices, too, and they believe that the WeHo location is perfect for weed tourism in Los Angeles. One of the main issues for weed tourism is that it’s not always legal to smoke in public parks, in a hotel, or even out on the street in some areas, which is why it’s safe to explore weed tourism in a beautiful setting like Lowell Farm’s cafe.
The tri-level building has an open air rooftop dining area that overlooks West Hollywood. The panoramic views are truly breathtaking. While you take in the sights, you can try different strains, order lunch, and simply relax with the healthiest vape available.
Lowell Farms: A Cannabis Cafe Features “Budtenders” in West Hollywood, LA was last modified: September 28th, 2019 by Chris Valentine
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Teju Cole on the “Empathy Gap” and Tweeting Drone Strikes
“Mother died today. The program saves American lives.”
Sarah Zhang
Teju Cole / CCCB
“Mrs Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself. Pity. A signature strike leveled the florist’s.” Thus begins a series of tweets from the writer Teju Cole, each one a famous novel’s opening line rudely interrupted by drones. He calls them “drone short stories.”
Discursive, allusive, and always thought-provoking, @tejucole stands out in a Twitterverse crowded by hashtags and throwaway jokes. The Nigerian American writer published his debut novel, Open City, to great acclaim in 2011, but Cole may be best known (online, at least) for his Small Fates tweets about Lagos. Small Fates is inspired by the French journalistic tradition of fait divers, roughly equivalent to “news briefs.” Perfunctory accounts of crime from Nigerian newspapers are transformed with a literary, humanizing twist: “Love is so restless. When T. Dafe’s girlfriend dumped him in Surulere, he went at her with a pen knife until she was no more.?”
His drone vignettes also breathe empathy into anonymous killings that happen far away. And Cole, also an occasional Twitter essayist, previously posted a a series of tweets linking drones, Downton Abbey, the IMF, and Virgin America. It’s easy to ignore drone strikes quietly happening halfway across the world; it’s harder to ignore them when they invade our familiar cultural turf.
Seven short stories about drones.
— Teju Cole (@tejucole) January 14, 2013
1. Mrs Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself. Pity. A signature strike leveled the florist’s.
2. Call me Ishmael. I was a young man of military age. I was immolated at my wedding. My parents are inconsolable.
3. Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather. A bomb whistled in. Blood on the walls. Fire from heaven.
4. I am an invisible man. My name is unknown. My loves are a mystery. But an unmanned aerial vehicle from a secret location has come for me.
5. Someone must have slandered Josef K., for one morning, without having done anything truly wrong, he was killed by a Predator drone.
6. Okonkwo was well known throughout the nine villages and even beyond. His torso was found, not his head.
7. Mother died today. The program saves American lives.
Intrigued by all of the above, I telephoned Cole to ask him what it means to be a writer in the 140-character era.
Mother Jones: What was the inspiration for your drone stories?
Teju Cole: I had been thinking so intensely so much about the global war on terror, especially the heavy silence that has surrounded the use of drones to assassinate people outside this country. I just realized that we’re facing here is an empathy gap. And this was just another way to generate conversation about something that nobody wanted to look at. The weird way that things come together is that when I wrote those drone tweets, the subject was not on the front page of papers. Two, three weeks later, it’s on the front page of the New York Times and everybody is talking in a very direct way because the release of this white paper.
MJ: I suppose this sudden attention over a document that justifies the killing of Americans by drones would be an example of the empathy gap.
TC: Killing a bunch of people in Sudan and Yemen and Pakistan, it’s like, “Who cares—we don’t know them.” But the current discussion is framed as “When can the President kill an American citizen?” Now in my mind, killing a non-American citizen without due process is just as criminal as killing an American citizen without due process—but whatever gets us to the table to discuss this thing, we’re going to take it.
MJ: Small Fates seems to address the empathy gap as well.
TC: The big idea behind it was to somehow participate in the discussion about justice. What does it mean to be just to the others out there whose lives we do not think about. One of the answers I came up with was simply tell their stories.
Children are a gift from God. In the returns department: a baby girl, left by the side of Effiom Ekpo Street in Calabar.
— Teju Cole (@tejucole) August 25, 2011
MJ: A lot of the Small Fates, even though they tell a terrible story, are darkly humorous.
TC: I’ve always referred to it as a troubled project in the sense that I’m trying to tell stories about people who not are here in a way to tell their own stories. I’m trying to speak about an environment I knew well, but I’m aware that I’m dealing with very dark material. I’m pointing out the irony of what we would wish for ourselves and what actually ends up happening. I’m not really telling jokes with these things, but there is sort of that humor about how terrible our fate it. I don’t put a laugh track on my tweets. If you laugh, in a way, that’s on you. It’s just trying to be true to life, which is extremely absurd, and it laughs alongside our suffering. But I think part of it was an exploration of my own fears about death, about pain, about the fact that no matter how much you wiggle and protest, at some point it will be your turn—and it sort of happens in this absurd way.
Police will never catch Ojo, alias Paraga, one of Akure’s most notorious criminals. With a noose, he escaped to the afterlife.
— Teju Cole (@tejucole) September 7, 2011
MJ: Twitter been around long enough that we now have literary Twitterers. Many have been fictional personas or serialized stories—like Jennifer Egan’s for The New Yorker—but the small fates are very discrete and atomized. It’s really weird to see them sprinkled into a Twitter stream full of Justin Bieber and cat videos. Do you consider that context when you’re writing?
TJ: Part of the appeal of Small Fates is that I could put something into people’s day that I knew was completely different from what they were seeing. It wasn’t the only serious thing in their timeline, but it would be the only thing that would arrive with this extreme lack of context—because you have a context for the jokes, you have a context for the news reports that had links, and then the usual “I’m reading this book” or “I just ate the most delicious pizza” or whatever. That’s sort of the voicing of Twitter. And then, you know, the Small Fates sort of arrive with a kind of intricate and decontextualized detail about lives that you knew nothing about. Each Small Fate was completely new and completely out of context, and that sort of helped them stand on their own.
Wives are flammable, a police inspector, Wasiu, of Okokomaiko, has found.
— Teju Cole (@tejucole) March 25, 2012
MJ: Why did you stop doing Small Fates?
TJ: I had wrote a few thousand of these, and I felt like I had sort of delivered. I didn’t want to be tied down to—how do I put it…the more followers you have, the more interesting it gets what reader response means. It’s almost as if it was time to stop because too many people were enjoying them. You know what I mean? The temptation to now entertain is absolutely not what I’m doing. I’m trying to do the opposite of entertaining.
MJ: You’re American, but because of your subject matter, you’re often identified with Nigeria. How do you feel about that label of Nigerian writer or “African writer”?
TJ: Oh, I love labels, as long as they are numerous. I’m an American writer. I’m a Nigerian writer. I’m a Nigerian American writer. I’m an African writer. I’m a Yoruba writer. I’m an African American writer. I’m a writer who’s been strongly influenced by European precedents. I’m a writer who feels very close to literary practice in India—which I go to quite often—and to writers over there. So bring it on! I don’t want to be called just one thing.
MJ: Do you divide your time between New York and Nigeria?
TJ: I’m mostly based in New York. I travel to Nigeria every year, sometimes more than once a year because I’m writing a book about Lagos. I feel as if, these days, there’s sort of two different senses of home for me. One is that very vivid sense I get when I’m coming back on a plane after having been outside New York City. Because of the flight path that comes into LaGuardia in particular, I can actually see my home in Brooklyn from the plane. I can pinpoint it. The second sense of home is where there’s good wifi, whether I’m in a hotel room in Berlin or I’m hanging out with people in Nigeria or wherever.
MJ: You’re also a photographer, and you’ve written about Instagram. Have you played around with Vine?
TJ: I am on Vine. It’s another early-adopter kind of thing. I’m trying to figure out what I’m going to do with it. What’s interesting about it is that everybody knows these amazing restrictions we’ve put on it: I have to use my iPhone, I can only use one continuous take, I cannot edit afterwards, I cannot put sound afterwards. It becomes as appealing as a kind of ink painting, where the intensity and beauty of the art is shown in what you can do spontaneously or seemingly spontaneously. The ephemeral part of it is very appealing—in the same way that people think of Twitter as not worth taking trouble over, so that the people who do take trouble over it, strangely enough, now have a real voice.
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Macron defends his startup-friendly policies
Romain Dillet @romaindillet / 2 years
For the third year as president, France’s President Emmanuel Macron talked to the French tech ecosystem at VivaTech in Paris. This time, he used the opportunity to defend his policies so far and say that tech startups have nearly everything they need to succeed.
Frichti’s Julia Bijaoui, TransferWise’s Flora Coleman, OpenClassrooms’ Pierre Dubuc, Vinted’s Thomas Plantenga and UiPath’s Daniel Dines shared the stage with Macron and each asked one question about funding, European regulation, talent, the digital single market, etc.
Just like last year, Macron took a strong stance when it comes to corporate taxes. “In order to compete with American giants, you need to make sure that competition is fair. You pay taxes, so the tech giant that is competing against you should pay taxes too,” Macron said.
France recently approved a tax on tech giants. If you generate more than €750 million in revenue globally and €25 million in France, you must pay 3% of your French revenue in taxes, even if your company is registered in Ireland, Luxembourg or the Netherlands.
“It’s a temporary measure because we want a tax at the European level, and more generally at the OECD level,” Macron said.
When it comes to funding, things look much better now than a few years ago. There are now more than a handful of French unicorns. And Macron defended his taxation policies, such as the flat tax on capital gain and the end of the wealth tax on your shares in public or private companies.
And yet, it’s still complicated when it comes to exits — if you want to go down the public road, you most likely have to IPO in the U.S. “We have to build a European financial capital market,” Macron said. “It’ll require some modifications and deeper European integration,” he added later.
Given that Europe is about to vote for the European Parliament, a lot of Macron’s solutions involved the European Union. It sometimes felt like Macron was campaigning for his own party by saying that he wants to go further, but you need to vote for his party first.
When it comes to talent, Macron emphasized the quality of French universities and engineering schools. “We are competitive in terms of human capital and it’s no coincidence. A few years ago, everybody was saying ‘there are a lot of French people in Silicon Valley.’ French people living in France are the same, but they cost much, much less,” Macron said.
He then mentioned the French Tech Visa to attract foreign talent, a special visa for tech talent and their families. The program was overhauled a couple of months ago.
When it comes to regulation, Macron says that the European Union should follow the GDPR model. “What we did on privacy, one regulation for all, we have to do it for other areas,” he said. “On competition, on taxation, on data, we need to regulate.”
Macron concluded by defending a third way to regulate and foster tech companies, which is different from China and the U.S. “Europe can become the tech leader of tomorrow because we are building a tech ecosystem that is compatible with democracy,” he said.
According to him, China doesn’t do enough when it comes to individual rights and human rights, which could eventually backfire for tech companies. And American companies have become too powerful and out of control for the U.S. government.
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Ethics and medical professionalism 6
Health care and patient safety 6
Health human resources 4
Health information and e-health 26
Population health/ health equity/ public health 4
Policy document 2
Policy resolution
Response to consultation
"PD18-04" OR "GC17-23" OR "GC16-50" OR "GC16-49" OR "PD16-03" OR "GC15-86" OR "GC15-26" OR "PD15-13" OR "GC14-41" OR "GC13-89" OR "GC13-88" OR "GC13-57" OR "GC13-28" OR "GC09-24" OR "GC09-17" OR "GC08-103" OR "GC08-95" OR "GC08-92" OR "PD08-05" OR "GC07-111" OR "GC07-110" OR "GC07-65" OR "GC07-64" OR "GC05-38" OR "GC04-41" OR "PD02-09" OR "BD01-07-97" OR "GC00-200" OR "GC00-196" OR "PD13-02" OR "GC12-72" OR "GC12-69" OR "GC12-68" OR "GC12-28" OR "GC12-22" OR "GC12-18" OR "GC10-106" OR "GC10-93" OR "GC10-90" OR "GC10-69" OR "GC09-113" OR "GC09-47" OR "GC09-47" OR "GC09-44" OR "GC09-42" OR "GC00-12" OR "GC98-42" OR "GC98-41" OR "GC98-40" OR "GC98-27" OR "BD96-03-53" OR "GC85-45" OR "GC84-54" OR "GC76-39"
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15 records – page 1 of 1.
GC07-110
The Canadian Medical Association and its provincial/territorial medical associations and affiliates call on Canada Health Infoway to support physicians in developing electronic medical records and linkages to electronic health records by making funding directly available to physicians.
Electronic clinical management system
The Canadian Medical Association requests that the federal government provide guaranteed, long-term funding, available to all physicians for an integrated system-wide electronic clinical management system that supports information management and knowledge transfer at the point of care.
Clinical care to incorporate evidence-based technological advances
https://policybase.cma.ca/en/permalink/policy399
That federal, provincial and territorial governments respond to the health care needs of Canadians by ensuring the provision of clinical care that continually incorporates evidence-based technological advances in information, prevention, and diagnostic and therapeutic services.
Review of Controlled Drugs and Substances Act: Canadian Medical Association submission to Health Canada in response to the consultation on the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act and its regulations
://policybase.cma.ca/dbtw-wpd/Policypdf/PD11-03.pdf http://policybase.cma.ca/dbtw-wpd/Policypdf/PD13-02.pdf http
The Canadian Medical Association (CMA) is pleased to provide this brief in response to Health Canada's consultation on the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA) "regarding any challenges, gaps or suggested improvements." The CMA welcomes the consultation and review of the CDSA and its associated regulations. This is an important legislative framework with direct implications for public health, quality care and patient safety. The CMA's recommendations outlined in this brief aim to establish new measures and mechanisms under the CDSA that would contribute to improved public health and patient safety. The CMA looks forward to the opportunity to discuss these issues in greater detail with Health Canada as this consultation proceeds. Part 1: Supporting a Regulatory Approach that Advances Public Health, Quality Care and Patient Safety As an overarching principle, it is the CMA's position that the modernization of the CDSA legislative and regulatory framework should be guided first and foremost by the objective of improving public health, promoting quality care and enhancing patient safety. In enacting the CDSA and promulgating its regulations, enforcement objectives have been emphasized, as demonstrated by the report on program spending in the National Anti-Drug Strategy Evaluation. The modernization of the CDSA legislative framework offers a significant opportunity to contribute to the greater advancement of public health and patient safety goals by establishing mechanisms that support prevention, treatment and harm reduction. This approach supports the Government of Canada's Throne Speech commitment to address prescription drug abuse as part of the National Anti-Drug Strategy. In 2013, the CMA's General Council, often referred to the Parliament of Canadian Medicine, recommended "that there be an increased emphasis on public health-oriented approaches by regulatory authorities responsible for psychoactive substances." Substance abuse is a complex behaviour influenced by many factors, and a therefore a public health approach to addressing it should incorporate a comprehensive multi-factorial strategy. A public health approach would place an increased focus on preventing drug abuse and misuse; on treatment of addiction and other consequences of misuse; on monitoring, surveillance and research; and on harm reduction. It would seek to ensure the harms associated with enforcement (e.g. crime, disease due to use of dirty needles) are not out of proportion to the direct harms caused by substance abuse. The CMA recommends that the modernization of the CDSA legislative framework focus on enabling and supporting such a public health approach. It should be noted that the substances governed by the CDSA include medications used by patients and prescribed by health care professionals for legitimate therapeutic purposes. We note that the schedules attached to the CDSA do not make a distinction between illicit substances of abuse and prescription medication. For example, Schedule I includes both illicit substances such as heroin, and opioid prescription medicines like oxycodone and hydrocodone. The potential of a drug or medication to cause harm has little if anything to do with its legal status. Therefore, the CMA recommends that as part of the review of the CDSA and its regulations, Health Canada undertake a review of the schedules, including the organization of the schedules, and the listing of substances within each schedule. The purpose of this review is to ensure that: (1) the schedules are up-to-date; (2) the CDSA allows for the incorporation of new illicit substances and prescription medication on the basis of available evidence and in a timely manner; and, (3) the schedules are organized based on risk status, legal status or other consideration. In the following sections, the CMA outlines recommendations that would facilitate the expansion of a public health approach. A) Establish Mechanisms to Address Prescription Drug Misuse and Abuse The misuse and abuse of controlled psychoactive prescription medicines, notably opioids such as oxycodone, fentanyl and hydrocodone, is a significant public health and patient safety issue. Canada has the second highest per capita consumption of prescription opioids in the world, after the United States. The abuse and misuse of prescription opioids among vulnerable populations, remains a significant concern. For instance, in 2013 opioids were reported as the third most common drug (after alcohol and marijuana) used by students in Ontario. While accurate data on the prevalence of the misuse of prescription medication among seniors is lacking, the CMA is concerned that as Canada's population ages, an increasing number of seniors will need treatment for harms related to prescription medication use, such as drug interactions, falls due to drowsiness or lack of coordination. Controlled prescription medications are legal products intended for legitimate therapeutic purposes, i.e. to control pain from cancer or terminal illness, or from chronic conditions such as nerve damage due to injury. However, they may also be misused or abused, and addiction may drive some users to illegal behaviour such as doctor-shopping, forging prescribers' signatures, or buying from street dealers. Canada's physicians are deeply concerned about the misuse and abuse of prescription opioid medication for a number of reasons. First, physicians need to assess the condition of the patient who requests the medication, and consider whether its use is clinically indicated and if the benefits outweigh the risks. Secondly, they may need to prescribe treatment for patients who have become addicted to the medication. Finally, they are vulnerable to patients who forge the physician's signature or use other illegal means to obtain prescriptions, or who present with fraudulent symptoms, or plead or threaten when denied the drugs they have requested. The 2014 federal budget promises $44.9 million over 5 years to the National Anti-Drug Strategy to address prescription drug abuse, and CMA believes that this is a positive step. Health Canada, in its role as drug regulator, could use the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to help further this strategy in the following ways: i) Improving the approval, labelling and safety monitoring of controlled substances The CMA recommends that new sections be introduced to the CDSA to require higher levels of regulatory scrutiny for controlled prescription medication, during both the approval process and post-approval surveillance. Specifically, the CDSA should be amended to require: * More stringent pre-approval requirements for controlled prescription medication. Because of their high level of risk, Health Canada could require that they be subject to higher levels of scrutiny than other medications during the review of pre-approval clinical trial results, special post-approval conditions(e.g. formal post-market studies); * Stricter conditions on the marketing of controlled medication by the pharmaceutical industry to health professionals. * Tamper-resistant formulations of prescription opioid medication. New opioid medication or potentially addictive formulations should be tamper-resistant to reduce the potential for misuse or abuse. * Improved patient information and counseling to be offered to prescribers, dispensers, and patients receiving opioid prescriptions. ii) Establishing consistent requirements for prescription monitoring In our brief to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health (see Appendix A), during its study on prescription drug abuse, the CMA encouraged all levels of government to work with one another and health professional regulatory agencies to develop a pan-Canadian system of real-time prescription monitoring and surveillance. Indeed, all stakeholders who testified before the Committee recognized the importance of prescription monitoring programs in addressing prescription drug abuse. While prescription monitoring programs (PMPs) exist in most provinces, they vary considerably in terms of quality, the nature of the information they require, whether health care practitioners have real-time access, and in the purpose for which the data is collected. Standardization of surveillance and monitoring systems can contribute to addressing the misuse and abuse of prescription medication by: * Allowing health care practitioners to identify fraudulent attempts to obtain a prescription, such as an attempt to fill prescriptions from a number of different providers, at the time the prescription is requested or filled. * Deter interprovincial or jurisdictional fraud, again, by allowing health care practitioners to identify fraudulent attempts at the time the prescription is requested or filled. * Improve professional regulatory bodies' capacity for oversight and intervention, by establishing a mechanism for real-time monitoring. * Finally, help Canada's researchers improve our knowledge of this serious public health concern, identify research priorities, and determine best practices to address crucial issues. Such a system should be compatible with existing electronic medical and pharmacy record systems and with provincial pharmaceutical databases such as that of British Columbia. Participation in prescription monitoring programs should not impose an onerous administrative burden on health care providers. Integration with electronic health records and the widespread use of electronic databases and transmission would go far to minimize the potential burden. The CMA recommends that a new reporting regulation be promulgated under the CDSA that addresses reporting requirements and disclosure requirements of practitioners, manufacturers and other stakeholders, in order to establish consistent standards for prescription monitoring. This regulation should: * Enable inter-jurisdictional accessibility and operability; * Ensure that practitioners have real-time access to the monitoring system; * Enable electronically-based prescription monitoring; and; * Conform to privacy laws, protecting patient confidentiality while enabling the sharing of necessary information. (Privacy concerns are addressed in greater detail in Part 2). B) Supporting harm reduction as a component of a drug strategy The CMA fully endorses harm reduction strategies and tools, including supervised injection sites, and believes that the CDSA should support and enable them. It is the CMA's position that addiction should be recognized and treated as a serious medical condition. Section 56 of the CDSA sets out conditions under which applicants may obtain exemptions from the provisions of the Act. Bill C-2, currently at Second Reading in the House of Commons, proposes new, far reaching, and stringent conditions that must be met by a proponent who is applying to establish a supervised injection site. The CMA maintains that safe injection sites are a legitimate form of treatment for the disease of addiction, that their benefit is supported by a body of research, and that the conditions proposed under Bill C-2 are overly restrictive. In addition, to support harm reduction, the CMA encourages Health Canada to amend section 2 (2) (b) (ii) (B) of the CDSA that states a controlled substance includes "any thing that contains or has on it a controlled substance and that is used or intended or designed for use... in introducing the substance into a human body" in order to enable the important role of safe injection sites. C) Developing clinical knowledge base about the medical use of marijuana The CMA has already made its position on the Marihuana for Medical Purposes Regulations known to Health Canada (see Appendix B). Despite repeated revisions since they were first established in 2001, the regulations do not address CMA's primary concern; that physicians are made gatekeepers for a product whose medical benefits have not been sufficiently researched, and which has not undergone the clinical trial process required for therapeutic products under the Food and Drugs Act. The absence of clinical evidence means that physicians lack scientific information and guidance on the uses, benefits and risks of marijuana when used for medicinal purposes. To address these issues, the CMA recommends that Health Canada invest in scientific research on the medical uses of marijuana. This could include establishing market incentives for Licensed Producers to undertake research, or requiring them to contribute to a research fund administered by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. In addition, the CMA encourages the development and dissemination of evidence-based clinical support tools for physicians. Part 2: Ensuring protection of patient privacy In any legislative framework pertaining to patient care, physicians consider protecting the privacy of patient information to be paramount; indeed, privacy, confidentiality and trust are cornerstones of the patient-physician relationship (see Appendix C). For these reasons, the CMA strongly recommends that Health Canada undertake a privacy impact assessment of the existing CDSA and its regulations as well as of future proposed amendments. The CMA encourages Health Canada to make this assessment available to stakeholders as part of its consultation process on this legislative framework. As previously mentioned, the new regulation proposed under Part 1 (A) (ii) above must conform to privacy laws, and protect patient confidentiality while enabling the sharing of necessary information. The CMA is deeply concerned with the search provision under s.31 of the CDSA in which an exception to this broad authority for patient records is mentioned in subsection (1) (c). The CMA is concerned that this exception may not be sufficient to meet the existing privacy laws governing patient information and records, both federally and provincially. As such, the CMA recommends that the CDSA be amended to ensure that patient information and records are exempt from search authorities, consistent with the most stringent privacy laws at the federal and provincial jurisdictions. Part 3: Enabling e-prescribing As part of the review of the CDSA and its associated regulations, Health Canada should assess how this legislative framework may be used to facilitate and support the advancement of e-health, specifically e-prescribing. Electronic health records can support individual physicians or pharmacists to quickly identify potential diversion and double-doctoring, at the point where a prescription is written or filled. The electronic health record also facilitates the sharing of information among health professionals, as well as programs that allow physicians to compare their prescribing practices to those of their peers. For instance, sections of the Benzodiazepines and Other Targeted Substances Regulations, Narcotic Control Regulations, and Precursor Control Regulations, establish the conditions within which pharmacists may accept a prescription. The CMA recommends that these regulations be amended to specifically include electronic prescriptions in addition to verbal and written prescriptions among the forms that may be accepted by a pharmacist. This recommendation is consistent with the joint statement by the CMA and the Canadian Pharmacists Association on e-prescribing (see Appendix D). Health Canada should also ensure that regulatory amendments facilitate prescription monitoring, as discussed in a previous section. Part 4: Establishing a mechanism for changes to scope of practice The New Classes of Prescribers Regulations, promulgated in 2012, grants nurse practitioners, midwives and podiatrists the authority to prescribe controlled substances if their provincial scope of practice laws permit. The CMA's 2012 submission in response to this regulatory change is attached to this brief for information (Appendix E.) In it, the CMA recommended that "A regulatory framework governing prescribing authority, or any other aspect of scope of practice, should always put patient safety first. The primary purpose of scope of practice determination is to meet the health care needs and serve the health interests of patients and the public safely, efficiently, and competently." One of our main concerns at the time was that the more practitioners who could prescribe controlled substances, the greater the potential for the illegal diversion of products to street dealers. This remains a concern for us. Given the significance of scope-of-practice determinations to patient safety and patient care, the CMA strongly recommends that future changes to the scope of practice of a health care practitioner be undertaken only within a defined, transparent evaluation process based on clinical criteria and protection of patient safety. To this end, the CMA strongly recommends the introduction of new clauses to the CDSA and its associated regulations to establish a mechanism that governs future changes to scope of practice. These clauses should require, prior to the implementation of any change: * Demonstration that it will improve public health and patient safety; * Meaningful consultation with professional organizations and regulatory authorities; and, * Support of provincial and territorial ministers of health. Further, the CMA recommends that such a new regulation governing possible future changes to scope of practice require: * That new classes of prescribers have conflict of interest policies; * That new classes of prescribers be incorporated under the prescription monitoring regulation recommended under Part 1 (A) (ii) above; and * That a mandatory five-year review be established for new classes of prescribers. Part 5: Recognizing the authority of physician regulatory colleges As previously mentioned, many controlled substances governed under the CDSA and its associated regulations are prescribed by physicians and other health professionals, for therapeutic purposes. Medicine is a regulated profession, and the colleges of physicians have ultimate authority and responsibility for the oversight of physician practice, including monitoring prescribing activity, investigating practice and when required, taking disciplinary action. In its present form, section 59 of the Narcotic Control Regulations includes a duplicative and redundant provision for oversight and disciplinary action. The CMA strongly recommends that this section be amended to recognize the established authority of physician regulatory colleges for the oversight of the medical profession. Conclusion The CMA welcomes the consultation and review of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act and its associated regulations. As mentioned before, this submission is not an exhaustive analysis of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act¸ but an initial summary of CMA's position on issues of particular concern to patient safety and public health. This brief outlines numerous opportunities within the CDSA and its associated regulations to establish new measures and mechanisms that would contribute to improved public health and patient safety. In light of the breadth and importance of the issues raised in this review, CMA encourages further consultation and welcomes the opportunity to discuss these issues in greater detail. List of Appendices: * Appendix A: CMA Brief to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health - The Need for a National Strategy to Address Abuse and Misuse of Prescription Drugs in Canada * Appendix B: CMA Policy Statement - Medical Marijuana * Appendix C: CMA Policy Statement - Principles for the Protection of Patient's Personal Health Information * Appendix D: CMA Policy Statement - Vision for e-Prescribing: a joint statement by the Canadian Medical Association and the Canadian Pharmacists Association * Appendix E: CMA submission - Response to the proposed New Classes of Practitioners regulations published in the Canada Gazette Part I (Vol. 146, No. 18 - May 5, 2012) Overview of recommendations The CMA recommends that the modernization of the CDSA legislative and regulatory framework should be guided first and foremost by the objective of improving public health, promoting quality care and enhancing patient safety. The CMA recommends that as part of the review of the CDSA and its regulations, Health Canada undertake a review of the schedules, including the organization of the schedules, and the listing of substances within each schedule. The CMA recommends that new sections be introduced to the CDSA to require higher levels of regulatory scrutiny as part of the approval and post-approval process for prescription opioid medication. The CMA recommends that a new reporting regulation be promulgated under the CDSA that addresses reporting requirements and disclosure requirements of practitioners, manufacturers and other stakeholders in order to establish consistent standards for prescription monitoring. To support harm reduction, the CMA recommends an amendment to section 2 (b) (ii) of the CDSA, which states a controlled substance includes "any thing that contains or has on it a controlled substance and that is used or intended or designed for use... in introducing the substance into a human body". The CMA recommends that Health Canada invest in scientific research on the medical uses of marijuana. This could include establishing market incentives that require Licensed Producers to undertake research, or requiring them to contribute to a research fund administered by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. In addition, the CMA encourages the development and dissemination of evidence-based clinical support tools for physicians. The CMA recommends that Health Canada undertake a privacy impact assessment of the existing CDSA and its regulations as well as future proposed amendments, and provide this assessment to stakeholders as part of its consultation process on this legislative framework. The CMA recommends that the CDSA, specifically s.31 (1) (c), be amended to ensure that patient information and records are exempt from search authorities, consistent with the most stringent privacy laws at the federal and provincial jurisdictions. The CMA recommends that the CDSA and its regulations be amended to specifically include electronic prescriptions in addition to verbal and written prescriptions among the forms that may be accepted by a pharmacist, including sections within the Benzodiazepines and Other Targeted Substances Regulations, Narcotic Control Regulations, and Precursor Control Regulations. The CMA recommends the introduction of new clauses to the CDSA and its associated regulations to establish a mechanism that governs future changes to scope of practice, based on the introduction of a new regulation governing changes to scope of practice that will require, prior to the implementation of any change: * Demonstration of public health and patient safety improvement; * Meaningful consultation with professional organizations and regulatory authorities; and, * Support of provincial and territorial ministers of health. The CMA recommends that the new mechanism of the CDSA legislative framework governing possible future changes to scope of practice require: * That new classes of prescribers have conflict of interest policies; * That new classes of prescribers be incorporated under the prescription monitoring regulation recommended under Part 1 (A) (ii) above; and * That a mandatory five-year review be established for new classes of prescribers. The CMA strongly recommends that s.59 of the Narcotic Control Regulations be amended to recognize the established authority of physician regulatory colleges for the oversight of the medical profession.
Primary care telemedicine investments, policies and regulations
GC15-86
The Canadian Medical Association recommends that primary care telemedicine investments, policies and regulations support comprehensive and continuous patient-centred care.
Evaluation of the impact of health information technology
The Canadian Medical Association and provincial/territorial medical associations call on governments to ensure completion of an evaluation of the impact of health information technology that considers the level of functionality and assesses its effect on patient and provider experience of care, population health and per capita costs.
The Canadian Medical Association and provincial/territorial medical associations will work with governments to accelerate the introduction of e-prescribing in Canada to make it the main method of prescribing by 2012.
Assessment of payment arrangements
The Canadian Medical Association will work with provincial/territorial medical associations to carry out an inventory and assessment of the payment arrangements across Canada that foster the emergence of new practice models based on an interdisciplinary approach and the use of new information technologies.
National pharmacare in Canada: Getting there from here
/PD13-02.pdf. Accessed 05/18/16. 42 Department of Finance Canada. Growing the middle class. http
On behalf of 83,000 physician members, the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) welcomes this opportunity to provide input to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health study on the Development of a National Pharmacare Program. Recognizing that the term “pharmacare” is used in different contexts, for the purposes of this brief, pharmacare is defined as a program whereby Canadians have comparable access to medically necessary prescription medications, irrespective of their ability to pay, wherever they live in Canada. The Canadian Medical Association (CMA) is the national voice of Canadian physicians. Founded in 1867, the CMA’s mission is helping physicians care for patients. On behalf of its more than 83,000 members and the Canadian public, the CMA performs a wide variety of functions. Key functions include advocating for health promotion and disease/injury prevention policies and strategies, advocating for access to quality health care, facilitating change within the medical profession, and providing leadership and guidance to physicians to help them influence, manage and adapt to changes in health care delivery. Key Facts According to the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), in 2014, of the estimated $28.8 billion spent in Canada on prescription medications (representing 13.4% of total health spending), governmentsi accounted for 42.0%, and private insurers and out-of-pocket (OOP) payment accounted for 35.8% and 22.2% respectively.1 The CMA is a voluntary professional organization representing the majority of Canada’s physicians and comprising 12 provincial and territorial divisions and over 60 national medical organizations. i Includes federal. Social security fund and provincial/territorial spending 1 Canadian Institute for Health Information. Prescribed drug spending in Canada, 2013: a focus on public drug programs. https://secure.cihi.ca/free_products/Prescribed%20Drug%20Spending%20in%20Canada_2014_EN.pdf. Accessed 05/15/16. 2 Royal Commission on Health Services. Report Volume One. Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 1964. 3 Canadian Institute for Health Information. National Health Expenditure Database 1975 to 2015. Table D 3.1.1-D3.13.1 https://www.cihi.ca/en/spending-and-health-workforce/spending/national-health-expenditure-trends. Accessed 05/08/16. 4 Statistics Canada. CANSIM Table 203-0022 Survey of household spending (SHS), household spending, Canada, regions and provinces, by household income quintile. Accessed 05/18/16. 5 Cancer Advocacy Coalition of Canada. 2014-15 Report Card on Cancer in Canada. http://www.canceradvocacy.ca/reportcard/2014/Report%20Card%20on%20Cancer%20in%20Canada%202014-2015.pdf. Accessed 05/08/16. 6 Canadian Cancer Society. Cancer drug access for Canadians. http://www.colorectal-cancer.ca/IMG/pdf/cancer_drug_access_report_en.pdf. Accessed 05/08/16. 7Schoen C, Osborn R, Squires D, Doty M. Access, affordability, and insurance complexity are often worse in the United States compared to ten other countries. Health Affairs 2013;32(12):2205-15. 8 Himmelstein D, Woolhandler S, Sarra J, Guyatt G. Health issues and health care expenses in Canadian bankruptices and insolvencies. International Journal of Health Services 2014;44(1):7-23. 9 Law M, Cheng L, Dhalla I, Heard D, Morgan S. The effect of cost on adherence to prescription medications in Canada. CMAJ 2012. 184)3):297-302. 10 Tamblyn R, Eguale T, Huang A, Winslade N, Doran P. The incidence and determinants of primary nonadherence with prescribed medication in primary care. Ann Inter Med 2014;160:441-50. Pharmacare is clearly part of the unfinished business of Medicare. Numerous authors have pointed out that Canada is the only developed country that does not include prescription medications as part of its universal health program. Table 1 below shows how Canada compares with the 22 member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) on the proportion of public spending for major categories of health expenditure in 2012. Table 1. Public spending as % of total spending: Major health spending categories, Canada and 22 OECD country average, 2012 % Public Spending Prescription Drugs Hospitals Doctors’ Offices Canada 42 91 99 OECD Average 70 88 72 Source: OECD.Stat, Doctors’ offices figure for Sweden is 2009 In the case of prescription medications, Canada was more than one-third (40%) below the OECD average. The Patchwork Quilt of Public-Private Coverage In 1964 the Hall Commission recommended 50/50 cost-sharing between the federal and provincial governments toward the establishment of a prescription drug program, with a $1.00 charge for each prescription. At the time, prescription medications represented 6.5% of spending on personal health services.2 This recommendation was not implemented. It might be further added that the Hall report contained 25 forward-looking recommendations on pharmaceuticals that remain current to this day, including bulk purchasing, generic substitution and a national formulary.2 As a result of the lack of inclusion of prescription medications in Medicare, there is wide variation today in public per capita spending on prescription drugs across the provinces. It may be seen in Table 2 that, for 2014, CIHI has estimated that public per capita expenditure ranged from $219 in British Columbia and $255 in Prince Edward Island (PE) to $369 in Saskatchewan and $437 in Quebec.3 CIHI does not provide estimates of private per capita prescription drug spending (private insurance plus OOP) below the national level. Table 2: Spending on prescription drugs: Selected indicators by province and territory, 2014 Province/ Territory Public spendinga ($ million) Public per capita spendinga ($ ) Private insuranceb ($ million) Average household out-of-pocketc $ NL 156.7 297 177 454 PE 37.3 255 32 516 NS 302.2 321 337 429 NB 210.8 280 284 477 QC 3,588.7 437 2,369 466 ON 4,730.4 346 4,626 324 MB 411.3 321 249 516 SK 415.4 369 192 514 AB 1,383.7 336 1,065 409 BC 1,015.8 219 894 456 YT 14.0 383 - - NT 17.5 400 - - NU 13.6 372 - - Territories 45.1 385 23 - Canada 12,297.4 334d 10,247 408 a CIHI, National Health Expenditure Database 1975-2015, includes all public funding sources b Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association c Statistics Canada, Survey of Household Spending, 2014 d Provincial/territorial average Table 2 also shows the significant role of private insurance in every region of Canada. Data provided by the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association, shown in Column 3 of Table 2, show that private health insurance companies paid out $10.2 billion for prescription drug claims in 2014, representing 83% of the $12.3 billion paid for by governments. In three provinces — Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick — the amount paid by private insurance exceeds that paid by governments. Table 2 also shows that there is wide variation in average household OOP spending on prescription drugs, according to Statistics Canada’s Survey of Household Spending (SHS). In 2014 this ranged from a low of $324 in Ontario to a high of $516 in PE and Manitoba.4 Even more striking variation is evident when looking at household out-of-pocket spending on prescription drugs by income quintile (detailed data not shown). According to the 2014 SHS the poorest one-fifth (lowest income quintile) of PE households spent more than twice as much ($645) OOP on prescription drugs than the poorest one-fifth in Ontario ($300).4 Aside from overall differences in public spending there are also differences in which medications are covered, particularly in the case of cancer drugs. The Cancer Advocacy Coalition of Canada reported in 2014 that four provinces have fully funded access to cancer medications taken at home. In Ontario and Atlantic Canada however, cancer drugs that must be taken in a hospital setting and are on the provincial formulary are fully funded by the provincial government; if the drug is taken outside of hospital (oral or injectable), the patient and family may have to pay significant costs out-of-pocket.5 More generally the Canadian Cancer Society has reported that persons moving from one province to another may find that a medication covered in their former province may not be covered in the new one. 6 Other sources confirm that prescription medication spending is an issue for many Canadians. On the Commonwealth Fund’s 2013 International Health Policy Survey, 8% of the Canadian respondents said that they had either not filled a prescription or skipped doses because of cost issues.7 Himmelstein et al. reported on a survey of Canadians who experienced bankruptcy between 2008 and 2010. They found that 74.5% of the respondents who had had a medical bill within the last two years reported that prescription drugs was their biggest medical expense.8 At least two Canadian studies have documented the impact that out-of-pocket costs, lack of insurance and low income have on non-adherenceii to prescription regimens. Law et al. examined cost-related non-adherence in the 2007 Canadian Community Health Survey and found that those without drug insurance were more than four times as likely to report non-adherence than those with insurance. The predicted rate of non-adherence among those with high household incomes and drug insurance was almost 10 times as high as that among those with low incomes and no insurance (35.6% vs. 3.6%).9 Based on a large-scale study of the incidence of primary non-adherence (defined as not filing a new prescription within nine months) in a group of some 70,000 Quebec patients, Tamblyn et al. reported that there was a 63% reduction in the odds of non-adherence among those with free medication over those with the maximum level of co-payment. They also reported that the odds of non-adherence increased with the cost of the medication prescribed.10 ii Non-adherence can be defined as doing something to make a medication last longer or failing to fill or renew a prescription. Previous Pharmacare Proposals In a recent monograph Katherine Boothe has contrasted the development of national prescription medication programs in Australia and the United Kingdom with the failure to do so in Canada.11 11 Boothe K. Ideas and the pace of change: national pharmaceutical insurance in Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2015. 12 National Forum on Health. Directions for a pharmaceutical policy in Canada. http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hcs-sss/pubs/renewal-renouv/1997-nfoh-fnss-v2/index-eng.php. Accessed 05/18/16. 13 National Forum on Health. Canada health action: building on the legacy. Ottawa: Minister of Public Works and Government Services, 1997. 14 Bank of Canada. Inflation calculator. http://www.bankofcanada.ca/rates/related/inflation-calculator/?page_moved=1. Accessed 05/18/16. 15 Statistics Canada. Table 051-0001 Estimates of population, by age group and sex for July 1, Canada, provinces and territories. Accessed 05/15/16. 16 Canadian Institute for Health Information. National health expenditure database 1975 to 2015. Table C.3.1. Public health expenditure by use of funds, Canada, 1975 to 2015. https://www.cihi.ca/en/spending-and-health-workforce/spending/national-health-expenditure-trends. Accessed 05/25/16. 17 Berry C. Voluntary medical insurance and prepayment. Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 1965. 18 Receiver General for Canada. Volume I Public Accounts of Canada for the fiscal year ended March 31, 1969. Ottawa: Queen’s Printer for Canada, 1969. 19 Receiver General for Canada. Volume I Public Accounts of Canada for the fiscal year ended March 31, 1972. Ottawa: Information Canada, 1972. 20 Privy Council Office. Speech from the Throne to open the first session thirty-sixth Parliament of Canada. http://www.pco-bcp.gc.ca/index.asp?lang=eng&page=information&sub=publications&doc=aarchives/sft-ddt/1997-eng.htm. Accessed 05/18/16. 21 Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology. The health of Canadians – the federal role. Volume six: recommendations for reform. Ottawa, 2002. 22 Commission on the Future of Health Care in Canada. Building on values: the future of health care in Canada. Ottawa, 2002. 23 Canadian Intergovernmental Conference Secretariat. 2003 First Ministers’ accord on health care renewal. http://www.scics.gc.ca/CMFiles/800039004_e1GTC-352011-6102.pdf. Accessed 05/18/16. 24 Council of the Federation. Premiers’ action plan for better health care: resolving issues in the spirit of true federalism. Communiqué July 30, 2004. http://canadaspremiers.ca/phocadownload/newsroom-2004/healtheng.pdf. Accessed 05/18/16. 25 Canadian Intergovernmental Conference Centre. A 10-year plan to strengthen health care. http://www.scics.gc.ca/CMFiles/800042005_e1JXB-342011-6611.pdf. Accessed 05/18/16. 26 National Pharmaceuticals Strategy. National Pharmaceuticals Strategy progress report. http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hcs-sss/alt_formats/hpb-dgps/pdf/pubs/2006-nps-snpp/2006-nps-snpp-eng.pdf. Accessed 05/18/16. 27 Canadian Intergovernmental Conference Secretariat. Backgrounder: national pharmaceutical strategy decision points. http://www.scics.gc.ca/english/conferences.asp?a=viewdocument&id=112. Accessed 05/18/16. 28 Canada’s Premiers. The pan-Canadian Pharmaceutical Alliance: April 2016 Update. http://www.pmprovincesterritoires.ca/en/initiatives/358-pan-canadian-pharmaceutical-alliance. Accessed 05/18/16. 29 Canadian Medical Association. General Council Resolution GC15-C16, August 26, 2015. 30 Gagnon M. The economic case for universal pharmacare. 2010. https://s3.amazonaws.com/policyalternatives.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/publications/National%20Office/2010/09/Universal_Pharmacare.pdf. Accessed 05/18/16. 31 Gagnon M. A roadmap to a rational pharmacare policy in Canada. Ottawa: Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions, 2014. 32 Morgan S, Law M, Daw J, Abraham L, Martin D. Estimated cost of universal public coverage of prescription drugs in Canada. CMAJ. 2015 Apr 21;187(7):491-7. doi: 10.1503/cmaj.141564. 33 Morgan S, Martin D, Gagnon M, Mintzes B, Daw, J, Lexchin, J. Pharmacare 2020. The future of drug coverage in Canada. http://pharmacare2020.ca/assets/pdf/The_Future_of_Drug_Coverage_in_Canada.pdf. Accessed 05/18/16. 34 Canadian Medical Association. Policy resolution GC15-C19, August 26, 2015. 35 Conference Board of Canada. Federal policy action to support the health care needs of Canada’s aging population. https://www.cma.ca/Assets/assets-library/document/en/advocacy/conference-board-rep-sept-2015-embargo-en.pdf. Accessed 05/18/16. 36 Government of the United Kingdom. Written statement to Parliament NHS charges from April 2016. https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/nhs-charges-from-april-2016. Accessed 05/18/16. 37 Appleby J. Prescription charges: are they worth it? BMJ 2014;348:g3944 doi: 10.1136/bmj.g3944. Among the several Canadian attempts that she describes, the most activity occurred in the decade following the National Forum on Health (NFH), which was struck in 1994 and reported in 1997. A NFH working group paper on pharmaceutical policy recommended first dollar coverage for prescription medications, but acknowledged that it could not occur overnight: “over time we propose to shift private funding on prescribed pharmaceuticals (estimated at $3.6 billion in 1994) to public funding”.12 The NFH included this recommendation in its final report, noting that “the absorption of currently operating plans by a public system may involve transfer of funding sources as well as administrative apparatus”.13 It is instructive to place the 1994 prescription drug expenditure cited by the NFH in today’s context. According to the Bank of Canada’s inflation calculator, the $6.5 billion in 1994 would have cost $9.5 billion in 2014.14 CIHI estimates that actual spending in 2014 was $28.7 billion1 – 203% above the level of 1994 spending, compared to population growth of 23% over the same time period.15 Annual prescription drug spending increases averaged 7.3% over the period, although they have averaged just over 1% since 2009. 16 A significant shift from private to public funding is not without precedent. A study prepared for the Hall Commission estimated that 9.6 million Canadians, representing 53% of the total population, had some form of not-for-profit or commercial insurance coverage for medical and/or surgical services in 1961.17 With the passage of the Medical Care Act in 1966 these plans were all displaced as the provinces joined Medicare. The funding shift did not occur overnight, although it did move quickly. In the first year, 1968/69, Ottawa paid out $33 million to the provinces pursuant to the Medical Care Act, which grew quickly to $181 million in 1969/70, and reaching $576.5 million in 1971/72.18,19 Since the 1997 NFH report the closest that the federal government has come to acting on pharmacare was a commitment in the 1997 Speech from the Throne to “develop a national plan, timetable and a fiscal framework for providing Canadians with better access to medically necessary drugs”, but nothing further was ever made public.20 Pharmacare was subsequently examined in two national studies, both of which recommended federal involvement in reimbursing “catastrophic” prescription drug expenditures above a threshold of household income. The Senate study on the State of the Health Care System in Canada, chaired by Michael Kirby, was authorized in March 2001 and the Commission on the Future of Health Care in Canada, headed by Roy Romanow, was approved in April 2001. Both issued their final reports in 2002. The Kirby plan was designed so as to avoid the necessity of eliminating existing private plans or the provincial/territorial public plans, not unlike the approach taken by Quebec in 1997. In the Kirby plan, in the case of public plans, personal prescription medication expenses for any family would be capped at 3% of total family income. The federal government would then pay 90% of prescription drug expenses in excess of $5,000. In the case of private plans, sponsors would have to agree to limit out-of-pocket costs to $1,500 per year, or 3% of family incomes, whichever was less. The federal government would then agree to pay 90% of drug costs in excess of $5,000 per year. Both public and private plans would be responsible for the difference between out-of-pocket costs and $5,000, and private plans would be encouraged to pool their risk. Kirby estimated that this plan would cost approximately $500 million per year.21 The Romanow Commission recommended a $1 billion Catastrophic Drug Transfer through which the federal government would reimburse 50% of the costs of provincial and territorial drug insurance plans above a threshold of $1,500 per person per year.22 The advantage of these proposals is that they are fully scalable. The federal government could adjust either the out-of-pocket household income threshold, the ceiling above which it would assume costs, or the percentage of costs that it would pay above the ceiling. Following the Kirby and Romanow reports there was a back and forth exchange between the federal and provincial-territorial (PT) governments on a plan for catastrophic coverage. In their February 2003 Accord, First Ministers agreed to ensure that Canadians would have reasonable access to catastrophic drug coverage by March 2006.23 At their annual summer meeting in 2004 the Premiers later called on the federal government to “assume full financial responsibility for a comprehensive drug program for all Canadians”, with compensation to Quebec for its drug program.24 In the September 2004 Health Accord, First Ministers directed health ministers to develop a nine-point National Pharmaceuticals Strategy (NPS), including costing options for catastrophic coverage.25 A federal-provincial-territorial Ministerial Task Force on the NPS was struck and a progress report was issued in June 2006. The estimates of catastrophic spending were markedly higher than those of the Kirby and Romanow reports. Using a variable percentage of income threshold it estimated that, based on public plan costs, only catastrophic spending represented 42% of total prescription drug spending. If private plan costs were also considered, catastrophic spending would represent 55% of total prescription drug spending. This report proposed four options for catastrophic coverage with estimates for new public funding ranging from $1.4 to $4.7 billion.26 Although no account of the methods was provided it is evident that a significant proportion of existing plan costs were included in the estimates of catastrophic expenditure. At their September 2008 meeting, the PT health ministers called for a national standard for drug coverage not to exceed 5% of net income and for the federal government to share 50/50 in the estimated $5.03 billion cost.27 The uncertainty about the projected cost of a pharmacare plan resulting from widely varying estimates has doubtless contributed to a reluctance of governments to engage on advancing this issue. Recent Developments At the PT level, there has been a concerted effort on price negotiations during the past few years through the pan-Canadian Pharmaceutical Alliance (pCPA) that was established in 2010. As of March 31, 2015, the pCPA reported that price reductions in generic and brand-name prescription medications result in annual savings of an estimated $490 million.28 The federal drug plans are now participating in the pCPA and the CMA has recommended that the pCPA should also invite the participation of private health insurance companies.29 The prospect of savings through lower prices has been foundational to two recent studies that have made the case that a single public payer pharmacare program with little or no co-payment is affordable. The first was by Marc-André Gagnon in 2010. The proposal was developed on the basis of a review of cross-provincial and international practices in pharmaceutical policy. The review formed the basis of a set of 11 assumptions that were used to develop four scenarios that resulted in estimates of prescription drug cost savings over the 2008 baseline expenditure of $25.1 billion that ranged to $2.7 billion to $10.7 billion.30 In a 2014 update Gagnon estimated that a first dollar coverage program would save 10% to 41% of prescription drug costs, representing savings of as much as $11.4 billion annually on a 2012-13 base of $27.7 billion.31 Steve Morgan and colleagues (2015) have estimated that a universal public plan with small co-payments could reduce prescription drug spending by $7.3 billion.32 Subsequently, in Pharmacare 2020 Morgan et al. set out five recommendations calling for the implementation of a single payer system with a publicly accountable management agency by 2020.33 Taking a First Step Forward At its 2015 annual meeting, the CMA adopted a policy resolution that supports the development of an equitable and comprehensive national pharmacare program.34 Reflecting on the experience of the past 40 years since the enactment of the Established Programs Financing Act in 1977 that eliminated 50:50 cost-sharing, it seems highly unlikely that the federal government would take on a new open-ended program in the health and social arena, cost-shared or not. However, notwithstanding the progress of the pCPA, we are unlikely to address the significant access gaps in prescription medication coverage without the involvement of the federal government. These are fiscally challenging times for both levels of government, with budget deficits expected for several years to come. As noted previously, the Kirby and Romanow proposals for a federal funding role in pharmacare are scalable. In 2015 the CMA commissioned the Conference Board of Canada to model the cost of covering prescription medication expenditure beyond a household spending threshold of $1,500 or 3% of gross household income, based on Statistics Canada’s 2013 Survey of Household Spending. The projected costs over the 2016 to 2020 are shown in Table 3 below. The cost to the federal government of covering the entire amount above the ($1,500 – 3%) threshold would be $1.6 billion in 2016.35 Recommendation 1: The Canadian Medical Association recommends that the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health request the Parliamentary Budget Officer to conduct a detailed examination of the financial burden of prescription medication coverage across Canada and to develop costing options for a federal contribution to a national pharmacare program. Recommendation 2: As a positive step toward comprehensive, universal coverage for prescription medications, the Canadian Medical Association recommends that the federal government establish a cost-shared program of coverage for prescription medications. First dollar coverage? The issue of co-payment arises in most discussions of pharmacare. Hall recommended a $1.00 prescription charge in 1964. In England, which does include prescription medications in the National Health Service (NHS), the current prescription charge is £8.40, although the government has previously noted that 90% of prescription items are provided free of charge.36 Appleby has noted however that the NHS’s in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland have eliminated prescription charges.37One observational study of dispensing rates in Wales found that the overall impact of removing prescription charges was minimal.38 Table 4 shows the total volume of prescriptions dispensed in Scotland over the period 2009-2015, which straddles the removal of prescription charges on April 1, 2011. It indicates that percentage increases in the annual dispensing volume diminished after 2012 and the increase observed in 2015 was just 1.4%. It should be added, however, that patient charges accounted for less than 4% of Scotland’s dispensing expenditures in 2010.39 It will be interesting to see the results of further studies in these jurisdictions. 38 Cohen D, Alam M, Dunstan F, Myles S, Hughes D, Routledge P. Abolition of prescription copayments in Wales: an observational study on dispensing rates. Value in Health 2010;13(5):675-80. 39 ISD Scotland. Prescribing and medicines. Data tables. http://www.isdscotland.scot.nhs.uk/Health-Topics/Prescribing-and-Medicines/Publications/data-tables.asp?Co=Y. Accessed 05/15/16. 40 Canadian Medical Association. A prescription for optimal prescribing. http://policybase.cma.ca/dbtw-wpd/Policypdf/PD11-01.pdf. Accessed 05/18/16. 41 Canadian Medical Association. Vision for e-prescribing; a joint statement by the Canadian Medical Associaiton and the Canadian Pharmacists Association. http://policybase.cma.ca/dbtw-wpd/Policypdf/PD13-02.pdf. Accessed 05/18/16. 42 Department of Finance Canada. Growing the middle class. http://www.budget.gc.ca/2016/docs/plan/budget2016-en.pdf. Accessed 05/18/16. Table 4 Prescription Dispensing in Scotland, 2009 – 2015 Year Number of Prescriptions % increase from previous year (million) 2009 88.4 3.8 2010 91.0 3.0 2011 93.8 3.1 2012 96.6 3.0 2013 98.4 1.9 2014 100.6 2.2 2015 102.0 1.4 Source: annual tabulations - Remuneration and reimbursement details for all prescribing made in Scotland.39 Other Elements of a National Pharmaceuticals Strategy It was noted previously that the Hall Report contained 25 recommendations on pharmaceuticals, and the 2004 Health Accord called for a 9-point National Pharmaceuticals Strategy. Two of the NPS points that the CMA would emphasize are the need to influence prescribing behaviour and the need to advance electronic prescribing (e-prescribing). The CMA refers to the first of these points as “optimal prescribing” and defines it as the prescription of a medication that is: the most clinically appropriate for the patient’s condition; safe and effective; part of a comprehensive treatment plan; and the most cost-effective available to best meet the patient’s needs. Toward this end the CMA has identified principles and recommendations to promote optimal prescribing, including the need for current information on cost and cost-effectiveness.40 The CMA believes that e-prescribing has the potential to improve patient safety, to support clinical decision-making and medication management, and to increase awareness of cost and cost-effectiveness considerations. In 2012 the CMA and the Canadian Pharmacists Association adopted a joint vision statement calling for e-prescribing to be the means by which prescriptions are generated for Canadians by 2015.41 Clearly that date has come and gone and we are not there yet. The current state primarily consists of demonstration projects and “workarounds”. The CMA was pleased to see an amount of $50 million allocated to Canada Health Infoway in the 2016 federal budget to support the advancement of e-prescribing and telehomecare.42 Finally the CMA remains very concerned about ongoing shortages of prescription drugs. We would caution that whatever measures governments might take to implement a pharmacare program these must not exacerbate drug shortages. Recommendation 3: The Canadian Medical Association recommends that the Federal/Provincial/Territorial health Ministers direct their officials to convene a working group on a comprehensive National Pharmaceuticals Strategy that will consult widely with stakeholders representing patients, prescribers, and the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries to report with recommendations by spring 2017. Conclusion In conclusion, few would argue that prescription medications are less vital to the health and health care of Canadians than hospital and medical services. We would not have had the Medicare program that Canadians cherish today without the leadership and financial contribution of the federal government, and similarly without it now we will not have any form of a national pharmacare program.
Funding criteria for any new electronic medical record initiative
The Canadian Medical Association recommends that funding criteria for any new electronic medical record initiative include the ability for patients to access and contribute to their record.
Regulation of Self-Care Products in Canada
Health care and patient safety
resolution GC00-196 - Clinical care to incorporate evidence-based technological advances. Ottawa
The Canadian Medical Association (CMA) appreciates the opportunity to respond to the Health Canada consultations on the regulation of self-care products in Canada. The CMA is encouraged that Health Canada is proposing a framework for the regulation of self-care products that is reliant on scientific proof to support health claims. The CMA has over 83,000 physician-members. Its mission is helping physicians care for patients and its vision is to be the leader in engaging and serving physicians, and the national voice for the highest standards for health and health care. The CMA’s comments on the regulation of self-care products, particularly natural health products and non-prescription drugs is based on the CMA Policy on Complementary and Alternative Medicine attached as Appendix 1. Our position is based on the fundamental premise that decisions about health care interventions used in Canada should be based on sound scientific evidence as to their safety, efficacy and effectiveness - the same standard by which physicians and all other elements of the health care system should be assessed. Canadians deserve the highest standard of treatment available, and physicians, other health practitioners, manufacturers, regulators and researchers should all work toward this end.1 CMA supports a regulatory approach to self-care products such as natural health products that is based on risk assessment and the development of standards. 2 1 Canadian Medical Association. CMA Policy Complementary and Alternative Medicine (Update 2015). Ottawa: The Association: 2015. Available: http://policybase.cma.ca/dbtw-wpd/Policypdf/PD15-09.pdf F:\E-sig\JB_Signature.jpg 2 Canadian Medical Association. Brief BR1998-02 - Regulatory framework for natural health products. Ottawa (ON): The Association; 1998. 3Canadian Medical Association. CMA Policy Complementary and Alternative Medicine (Update 2015). Ottawa: The Association: 2015. Available: http://policybase.cma.ca/dbtw-wpd/Policypdf/PD15-09.pdf 4 Canadian Medical Association. Policy resolution GC08-86 - Natural health products. Ottawa (ON): The Association; 2008. 5 Canadian Medical Association. Policy resolution GC10-100 - Foods fortified with “natural health” ingredients. Ottawa (ON): The Association; 2010. 6 Canadian Medical Association. Brief BR2014-09 - Bill C-17 An Act to amend the Food and Drugs Act. Ottawa: The Association; 2014. Risk Based Approach As noted above CMA has recommended a regulatory approach that is based on risk assessment. We are troubled that the consultation document does not provide enough information on Health Canada’s risk assessment process. We are concerned that the proposal for a risk based approach could place many natural health and homeopathic products in a lower risk category based on whether or not the product makes a health claim which would require no Health Canada review or licensing of these products. As noted in the consultation document all health products have some level of risk and Health Canada’s role is to ensure that the benefits of a product outweigh any know risks. CMA does not believe that a determination of risk can be made based on historical use of a product or on the basis of a philosophical system not supported by science. The CMA has a long standing position that the same regulatory standards should apply to both natural health products and pharmaceutical health products. These standards should be applied to natural health products regardless of whether a health claim is made for the product. This framework must facilitate the entry of products onto the market that are known to be safe and effective, and impede the entry of products that are not known to be safe and effective until they are better understood. 3 CMA would recommend that the initial risk assessment of a self-care product should be evidence informed and based on the same standards of proof and efficacy as those for conventional medicines and pharmaceuticals. As such, we are concerned that homeopathic and natural health products are given as examples of lower risk products that would not require Health Canada review or licensing. Health Claims The consultation document redefines a health claim to only those that pertain to diagnosis, treatment, prevention, cure or mitigation of disease or serious health condition. These claims will need to be supported by scientific evidence and only these health claims will be allowed and reviewed by Health Canada. The CMA has recommended that safety and efficacy claims for natural health products, and claims for the therapeutic value of these products should be prohibited when the supportive evidence does not meet the evidentiary standard required of medications currently regulated by Health Canada. 4 Claims of medical benefit should only be permitted when compelling scientific evidence of their safety and efficacy exists.5 Therefore the CMA supports the proposal that two products making similar claims would have to provide the same level of scientific evidence and are held to the same standard. CMA would not be in support of the proposal that products can still make claims “based on traditional systems of medicine or alternate modalities” with only “adequate supporting information” to be maintained by the company without review or licensing by Health Canada. CMA would also recommend that even those products that do not make health claims are held to the same standard as those established for pharmaceutical products. Since our position is that all self-care products from lower risk to higher risk should be reviewed for safety and quality, all products should undergo review by Health Canada. Information It is certainly problematic that, as noted in the consultation document, fewer than 2 in 5 Canadians surveyed rated themselves knowledgeable about the effectiveness of self-care products. Canadians have the right to reliable, accurate information on self-care products to help ensure that choices they make are informed. It is very important that Canadians understand the level of scrutiny a product has undergone by Health Canada. CMA can support the proposal for an authorization number on those products that have been reviewed and approved by Health Canada. Equally, a disclaimer on the product label that indicates that the product has not been reviewed or approved by Health Canada for effectiveness is very important. We must guard against an assumption by the public that if Health Canada did not need to review a product there is no risk associated with the product. The Information provided on self-care products should be user friendly and easy to access and include a list of ingredients, instructions for use, indications that the product has been proven to treat, contraindications, side effects and interactions with other medications. In an era when product claims can be spread vie social media and the internet and cannot be easily monitored it is important to ensure consistent oversight of product marketing. Health claims can only be promoted if they have been established with sound scientific evidence. This restriction should apply not only to advertising, but also to all statements made in product or company Web sites and communications to distributors and the public. Advertisements should be pre-cleared to ensure that they contain no deceptive messages. Additional Powers In its submission on Bill C -17 An Act to amend the Food and drugs Act – Protecting Canadians from Unsafe drugs the CMA recommended that the ministerial authorities and measures to address patient safety risks should extend to natural health products.6 We would therefore suggest that Health Canada explore the need for additional powers and tools to require a company to change labels, or order a recall of an unsafe product and institute new penalties to address patient safety issues. Canada's physicians are prepared to work with governments, health professionals and the public in strengthening Canada's regulatory framework for self-care products to ensure that the health related products Canadians receive are safe and effective. Jeff Blackmer, MD, MHSc, FRCPC Vice-President, Medical Professionalism Canadian Medical Association CMA POLICY COMPLEMENTARY AND ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE (Update 2015) This statement discusses the Canadian Medical Association’s (CMA) position on complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). CAM, widely used in Canada, is increasingly being subject to regulation. The CMA’s position is based on the fundamental premise that decisions about health care interventions used in Canada should be based on sound scientific evidence as to their safety, efficacy and effectiveness - the same standard by which physicians and all other elements of the health care system should be assessed. Patients deserve the highest standard of treatment available, and physicians, other health practitioners, manufacturers, regulators and researchers should all work toward this end. All elements of the health care system should “consider first the well-being of the patient.”1 The ethical principle of non-maleficence obliges physicians to reduce their patient’s risks of harm. Physicians must constantly strive to balance the potential benefits of an intervention against its potential side effects, harms or burdens. To help physicians meet this obligation, patients should inform their physician if the patient uses CAM. 1 Canadian Medical Association. CMA code of ethics (update 2004). Ottawa: The Association; 2004. 2 Canadian Medical Association. Policy resolution GC00-196 - Clinical care to incorporate evidence-based technological advances. Ottawa (ON): The Association; 2000. Available: http://policybase.cma.ca/dbtw-wpd/CMAPolicy/PublicB.htm. 3 Canadian Medical Association. CMA code of ethics (update 2004). Ottawa: The Association; 2004. Available: http://policybase.cma.ca/dbtw-wpd/CMAPolicy/PublicB.htm. 4 Canadian Medical Association. CMA statement on emerging therapies [media release]. Ottawa (ON): The Association; 2010. Available: www.facturation.net/advocacy/emerging-therapies. CAM in Canada CAM has been defined as “a group of diverse medical and health care systems, practices and products that are not presently considered to be part of conventional medicine.”i This definition comprises a great many different, otherwise unrelated products, therapies and devices, with varying origins and levels of supporting scientific evidence. For the purpose of this i Working definition used by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine of the U.S. National Institutes of Health. analysis, the CMA divides CAM into four general categories: . Diagnostic Tests: Provided by CAM practitioners. Unknown are the toxicity levels or the source of test material, e.g., purity. Clinical sensitivity, specificity, and predictive value should be evidence-based. . Products: Herbal and other remedies are widely available over-the-counter at pharmacies and health food stores. In Canada these are regulated at the federal level under the term Natural Health Products. . Interventions: Treatments such as spinal manipulation and electromagnetic field therapy may be offered by a variety of providers, regulated or otherwise. . Practitioners: There are a large variety of practitioners whose fields include chiropractic, naturopathy, traditional Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine, and many others. Many are unregulated or regulated only in some provinces/territories of Canada. Many Canadians have used, or are currently using, at least one CAM modality. A variety of reasons has been cited for CAM use, including: tradition; curiosity; distrust of mainstream medicine; and belief in the “holistic” concept of health which CAM practitioners and users believe they provide. For most Canadians the use is complementary (in addition to conventional medicine) rather than alternative (as a replacement). Many patients do not tell their physicians that they are using CAM. Toward Evidence-Informed Health Care Use of CAM carries risks, of which its users may be unaware. Indiscriminate use and undiscriminating acceptance of CAM could lead to misinformation, false expectations, and diversion from more appropriate care, as well as adverse health effects, some of them serious. The CMA recommends that federal, provincial and territorial governments respond to the health care needs of Canadians by ensuring the provision of clinical care that continually incorporates evidence-informed technological advances in information, prevention, and diagnostic and therapeutic services.2 Physicians take seriously their duty to advocate for quality health care and help their patients choose the most beneficial interventions. Physicians strongly support the right of patients to make informed decisions about their medical care. However, the CMA’s Code of Ethics requires physicians to recommend only those diagnostic and therapeutic procedures that they consider to be beneficial to the patient or to others.3 Until CAM interventions are supported by scientifically-valid evidence, physicians should not recommend them. Unless proven beneficial, CAM services should not be publicly funded. To help ensure that Canadians receive the highest-quality health care, the CMA recommends that CAM be subject to rigorous research on its effects, that it be strictly regulated, and that health professionals and the public have access to reliable, accurate, evidence-informed information on CAM products and therapies. Specific recommendations are provided below: a) Research: Building an Evidence Base To date, much of the public’s information on CAM has been anecdotal, or founded on exaggerated claims of benefit based on few or low-quality studies. The CMA is committed to the principle that, before any new treatment is adopted and applied by the medical profession, it must first be rigorously tested and recognized as evidence-informed.4 Increasingly, good-quality, well-controlled studies are being conducted on CAM products and therapies. The CMA supports this development. Research into promising therapies is always welcome and should be encouraged, provided that it is subject to the same standards for proof and efficacy as those for conventional medical and pharmaceutical treatments. The knowledge thus obtained should be widely disseminated to health professionals and the public. b) An Appropriate Regulatory Framework Regulatory frameworks governing CAM, like those governing any health intervention, should enshrine the concept that therapies should have a proven benefit before being represented to Canadians as effective health treatments. i) Natural Health Products. Natural health products are regulated at the federal level through the Natural Health Products Directorate of Health Canada. The CMA believes that the principle of fairness must be applied to the regulatory process so that natural health products are treated fairly in comparison with other health products.5 The same regulatory standards should apply to both natural health products and pharmaceutical health products. These standards should be applied to natural health products regardless of whether a health claim is made for the product. This framework must facilitate the entry of products onto the market that are known to be safe and effective, and impede the entry of products that are not known to be safe and effective until they are better understood. It should also ensure high manufacturing standards to assure consumers of the products’ safety, quality and purity. The CMA also recommends that a series of standards be developed for each natural health product. These standards should include: 5 Canadian Medical Association. CMA statement on emerging therapies [media release]. Available: www.facturation.net/advocacy/emerging-therapies. 6 Canadian Medical Association. Brief BR1998-02 - Regulatory framework for natural health products. Ottawa (ON): The Association; 1998. 7 Canadian Medical Association. Policy resolution GC08-86 - Natural health products. Ottawa (ON): The Association; 2008. 8 Canadian Medical Association. Policy resolution GC10-100 - Foods fortified with “natural health” ingredients. Ottawa (ON): The Association; 2010. Available: 9 Canadian Medical Association. CMA code of ethics (update 2004). Ottawa: The Association; 2004. Paragraph 7. Available: http://policybase.cma.ca/dbtw-wpd/CMAPolicy/PublicB.htm. 10 Canadian Medical Association. CMA code of ethics (update 2004). Ottawa: The Association; 2004. Paragraph 11. Available: http://policybase.cma.ca/dbtw-wpd/CMAPolicy/PublicB.htm. 11 Canadian Medical Association. Brief BR1998-02 - Regulatory framework for natural health products. Ottawa: The Association; 1998. 12 Canadian Medical Association. Brief BR1998-02 - Regulatory framework for natural health products. Ottawa: The Association; 1998. * manufacturing processes that ensure the purity, safety and quality of the product; * labelling standards that include standards for consumer advice, cautions and claims, and explanations for the safe use of the product to the consumer.6 The CMA recommends that safety and efficacy claims for natural health products be evaluated by an arm’s length scientific panel, and claims for the therapeutic value of natural health products should be prohibited when the supportive evidence does not meet the evidentiary standard required of medications regulated by Health Canada.7 Claims of medical benefit should only be permitted when compelling scientific evidence of their safety and efficacy exists.8 The Canadian Medical Association advocates that foods fortified with “natural health” ingredients should be regulated as food products and not as natural health products The CMA recommends that the regulatory system for natural health products be applied to post-marketing surveillance as well as pre-marketing regulatory review. Health Canada’s MedEffect adverse reaction reporting system now collects safety reports on Natural Health Products. Consumers, health professionals and manufacturers are encouraged to report adverse reactions to Health Canada. ii) CAM Practitioners. Regulation of CAM practitioners is at different stages. The CMA believes that this regulation should: ensure that the services CAM practitioners offer are truly efficacious; establish quality control mechanisms and appropriate standards of practice; and work to develop an evidence-informed body of competence that develops with evolving knowledge. Just as the CMA believes that natural health products should be treated fairly in comparison with other health products, it recommends that CAM practitioners be held to the same standards as other health professionals. All CAM practitioners should develop Codes of Ethics that insure practitioners consider first the best interests of their patients. Among other things, associations representing CAM practitioners should develop and adhere to conflict of interest guidelines that require their members to: . Resist any influence or interference that could undermine their professional integrity;9 . Recognize and disclose conflicts of interest that arise in the course of their professional duties and activities, and resolve them in the best interests of patients;10 . Refrain, for the most part, from dispensing the products they prescribe. Engaging in both prescribing and dispensing , whether for financial benefit or not, constitutes a conflict of interest where the provider's own interests conflict with their duty to act in the best interests of the patient. c) Information and Promotion Canadians have the right to reliable, accurate information on CAM products and therapies to help ensure that the treatment choices they make are informed. The CMA recommends that governments, manufacturers, health care providers and other stakeholders work together to ensure that Canadians have access to this information. The CMA believes that all natural health products should be labeled so as to include a qualitative list of all ingredients. 11 Information on CAM should be user-friendly and easy to access, and should include: . Instructions for use; . Indications that the product or therapy has been convincingly proven to treat; . Contraindications, side effects and interactions with other medications; . Should advise the consumer to inform their health care provider during any encounter that they are using this product.12 This information should be provided in such a way as to minimize the impact of vested commercial interests on its content. In general, brand-specific advertising is a less than optimal way of providing information about any health product or therapy. In view of our limited knowledge of their effectiveness and the risks they may contain risks, the advertising of health claims for natural health products should be severely restricted. The CMA recommends that health claims be promoted only if they have been established with sound scientific evidence. This restriction should apply not only to advertising, but also to all statements made in product or company Web sites and communications to distributors and the public. Advertisements should be pre-cleared to ensure that they contain no deceptive messages. Sanctions against deceptive advertising must be rigidly enforced, with Health Canada devoting adequate resources to monitor and correct misleading claims. The CMA recommends that product labels include approved health claims, cautions and contraindications, instructions for the safe use of the product, and a recommendation that patients tell physicians that they are using the products. If no health claims are approved for a particular natural health product, the label should include a prominent notice that there is no evidence the product contributes to health or alleviates disease. The Role of Health Professionals Whether or not physicians and other health professionals support the use of CAM, it is important that they have access to reliable information on CAM products and therapies, so that they can discuss them with their patients. Patients should be encouraged to report use of all health products, including natural health products, to health care providers during consultations. The CMA encourages Canadians to become educated about their own health and health care, and to appraise all health information critically. The CMA will continue to advocate for evidence-informed assessment of all methods of health care in Canada, and for the provision of accurate, timely and reliable health information to Canadian health care providers and patients.
E-health strategies
The Canadian Medical Association will work with provincial/territorial medical associations to ensure investments made by the Canada Health Infoway are aligned with, and respect e-health strategies that are currently being implemented or developed within various jurisdictions.
Innovative health system pilot projects in Canada
The Canadian Medical Association will support new projects and mechanisms to facilitate the expansion and increase the scale of innovative health system pilot projects in Canada.
The Canadian Medical Association, in consultation with provincial/territorial medical associations, the College of Family Physicians of Canada and the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, will work with professional regulatory/licensing bodies to establish a harmonized policy environment that would support physicians who are providing telehealth care in multiple jurisdictions.
Interoperability and connectivity of e-health systems
The Canadian Medical Association strongly advocates for continued governmental investment to support interoperability and connectivity of e-health systems.
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Donald Trump and racism…..
Donald J. Trump a rich guy who NEVER had much empathy for anybody and certainly not for people of color has simply stood by while America has bleed off steam for it’s racial divide and other issues….
From the days of his farther and his race based housing in operation in Queens, New York City, to the birthers tag for Barack Obama…to cheering the actions of white nationalists during g his campaign?
Trump has used race as vehicle to achieve his wants and needs….
No wonder he seems quiet and unable to bring himself to try and help cool things in the streets right now…..
President Donald Trump has spent much of his adult life building his brand around racial divisions.
So much of Trump’s business and political career has hinged on moments of racial strife: from the full-page ads he took out to condemn the Central Park Five in New York in the 1980s to the groundwork he laid for his own presidential bid by promoting the Obama “birther” conspiracy theory to his refusal in 2017 to condemn white supremacists in Charlottesville, Va.
Now, as protesters swarmed the White House for a second night, Trump’s tone lurched between support for the frustrated crowds and cheerleading a sterner approach to law enforcement.
The president spent Saturday night inside the White House residence, as crowds gathered again in Lafayette Park. Despite Trump’s condemnation on Saturday of the violence against George Floyd — the African-American man who died in Minnesota at the hands of a white police officer — he has yet to soothe a divided nation. Even his best efforts tend to end with a dig at liberal groups.
“I understand the pain that people are feeling,” Trump said from the launch of SpaceX in Florida on Saturday. “We support the right of peaceful protests and we hear their pleas, but what we are now seeing on the streets of our cities has nothing to do with the memory of George Floyd. The violence and vandalism is being led by antifa and other radical left-wing groups who are terrorizing the innocent, destroying jobs, hurting businesses and burning down buildings.”
Playing a consoler-in-chief has never been Trump’s strong suit as a leader. He rose to power in 2016 by sowing division and denigrating wide swaths of people — from Gold Star families to Mexican immigrants to the disabled to Muslims — while inciting fear about the future of the country.
Several Trump allies and former aides acknowledge this is a sensitive time for the nation but remain unsure as to whether Trump can lead at this particular moment. “This is more of a time for healing than anything else, and they need to figure out a way to take the tensions down,” said one former senior administration official. “There are people around him who know that. The question is: Will they say anything?”….
image….abcnews.go.com
Filed Under: Government, Law, Other Things, Politics Tagged With: Donald Trump, Floyd protests, Government, Immigration, Politics, racial divide, Racism
jamesb on Convicting Trump for his role in the Capitol violence is proving a bit difficult …Open Thread for Jan. 15, 2021…Brady.......Tampa Bay..... KC with out Mahomes in…
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DP12975 | Forced Migration and Human Capital: Evidence from Post-WWII Population Transfers
Sascha O. Becker
Irena Grosfeld
Pauline Grosjean
Nico Voigtländer
Ekaterina Zhuravskaya
N33, N34, D74, I25
Poland, Forced Migration, Uprootedness, Human Capital
Development Economics, Economic History, Labour Economics, Public Economics
We exploit a unique historical setting to study the long-run effects of forced migration on investment in education. After World War II, the Polish borders were redrawn, resulting in large-scale migration. Poles were forced to move from the Kresy territories in the East (taken over by the USSR) and were resettled mostly to the newly acquired Western Territories, from which Germans were expelled. We combine historical censuses with newly collected survey data to show that, while there were no pre-WWII differences in education, Poles with a family history of forced migration are significantly more educated today. Descendants of forced migrants have on average one extra year of schooling, driven by a higher propensity to finish secondary or higher education. This result holds when we restrict ancestral locations to a subsample around the former Kresy border and include fixed effects for the destination of migrants. As Kresy migrants were of the same ethnicity and religion as other Poles, we bypass confounding factors of other cases of forced migration. We show that labor market competition with natives and selection of migrants are also unlikely to drive our results. Survey evidence suggests that forced migration led to a shift in preferences, away from material possessions and towards investment in a mobile asset - human capital. The effects persist over three generations.
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HomeResearch Outputs Thirdness as the observer observed
Thirdness as the observer observed: From habit to law by way of Habitus
In order to study the notion of habit as an instance of Thirdness in Peirce’s work, it is necessary to go back to the intuitions at the basis of Peirce’s categories, trying to spell out concretely, as I think this has not been done before, the meaning of the three categories. This involves entangling the notions of fallibilism and of the collaborative work of the community of scholars, which may not have been taken seriously by most scholars pursuing the Peircean tradition. It is suggested that Peirce’s phenomenology is a version of Husserl’s phenomenology imposing a lot of constraints on the variation in imagination. In order to make sense of habit as Thirdness, we have to extend Peircean phenomenology into Husserlean phenomenology, abandoning the language of degeneracy, which is not very enlightening. Important contributions to the study of habit has also been made by several sociologists and psychologists.
General Language Studies and Linguistics
Husserl, Mediation, Phaneroscopy, Phenomenology, Thirdness
Studies in Applied Philosophy, Epistemology and Rational Ethics
Donna E. West, Myrdene Anderson
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Mario Henderson Mario Barrett Sports NFL football Professional football Football Celebrity deaths Celebrity Entertainment Arts and entertainment Obituaries NFL Draft
New England Patriots Las Vegas Raiders Los Angeles Chargers
Former Raiders offensive lineman Mario Henderson dies at 35
- Oct. 21, 2020 09:38 PM EDT
HENDERSON, Nev. (AP) — Former Raiders offensive lineman Mario Henderson has died. He was 35.
The team announced Henderson’s death Wednesday. There was no cause of death given.
“Everyone will miss Mario’s sense of humor and passion for football and life,” the team said in a statement. “The prayers of the entire Raider Nation are with Mario’s family and loved ones at this time.”
Henderson joined the Raiders in draft-day trade after being picked in the third round by the New England Patriots after his college career at Florida State. He played four seasons in Oakland, starting 28 games.
He later spent time in camp with the Chargers, but never played a game after leaving the Raiders following the 2010 season.
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The Man Who Inspired Arthur Conan Doyle To Create Sherlock Holmes!
Sherlock Holmes is a fictitious character that Sir Conan Doyle created but it seems like we have met him or known him forever. Yes, It is because the novel and its stories are so common that Sherlock Holmes no more seems to be unreal. It might not be incorrect to say that we all have titled someone or the other as Sherlock Holmes for being that one big detective. But don’t you want to know from where did Sir Doyle get this idea or who actually inspired him.
source- Pinterest
The Doyle-Bell Connection That Gave Birth To Sherlock Holmes
Joseph Bell can surely be labeled as a major inspiration for the character of the much-loved fictional detective Sherlock Holmes.
As a lecturer at the medical school of the University of Edinburgh, Joseph Bell emphasized the importance of close observation in making a diagnosis.
Bell would often pick a stranger, observe him/her, and deduce about his/her personal as well as professional life. Thus, he was revered as a pioneer in forensic science.
source- Wikipedia
Sir Doyle served as Dr. Joseph Bell’s clerk at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. He acknowledged the fact that his character of Sherlock Holmes was loosely based on Dr. Bell. Sir Doyle wrote 56 short stories that were self-contained on this fictitious character Sherlock Holmes. He also wrote 4 novels in the series which makes it to 60 adventures in total. The Sherlock Holmes series and short stories’ collection is famously known as The Cannon.
Because Dr. Bell too had an obsession sort of thing for close observation so does the character Sherlock Holmes has. Sherlock’s character defines a person who is detective by profession as well as choice. He calls him as a “consulting detective” who goes around helping the cops in his own manner in order to fulfill his own desires of solving mystery. Dr. Bell Sherlock both seem to have a knack for close observation and Holmes even solves crime with these skills.
source- BookBub
Sherlock’s character is one of the most interesting one in itself in the history of Crime and mystery fiction. The kind of detective Sherlock is, nothing and no one can go unnoticed from his eyes. Especially if it is anything related to the crime and the crime scene. Sherlock Holmes has truly been inspired from the real life character of Dr. Bell.
Further similarities can be observed between the lives of Holmes and Dr. Bell in an essay by Irving Wallace.
According to Irving Wallace (in an essay originally in his book The Fabulous Originals, but later republished and updated in his collection The Sunday Gentleman) Dr. Joseph Bell was involved in several police investigations, mostly in Scotland, such as the Ardlamont Mystery of 1893, usually with forensic expert Professor Henry Littlejohn.
source- Amazon.in
A BBC Television series titled ‘Murder Rooms-The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes’ is a fictionalized account of Sir Doyle’s time as Dr. Bell’s clerk. The series may have exaggerated Dr. Bell’s criminal investigations, as well as the degree to which Holmes was based on Bell and positioned Mr. Doyle in the role of Dr. Watson in Dr. Bell’s Holmes.
The original one-off production – which led to the later series – was released on DVD and VHS in the US in 2003, titled Dr. Bell and Mr. Doyle – The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes.
So, now you know the secret behind the genius of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle! The secret was a living human being- who inspired and ignited the mind of one of the most brilliant authors of all times – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle!
And with this you even came to know that your favorite detective character Sherlock Holmes is an inspiration of the writer from the professor he worked under. And that trait that links them both is the skill of close observation. So now that you know it do share it with your peers and look like a Sherlock Holmes to them, Enjoy!
Dr. Bell
Joseph Bell
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Two Indian Classical Dancers Who Danced Their Way To Fame
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An Adjunct’s Death Becomes a Rallying Cry for Many in Academe
This entry was posted on 09.24.13, in Faculty, Funding, Postsecondary, Private Institutions and tagged Adjuncts. Bookmark the permalink.
An op-ed column about the death of a former longtime adjunct faculty member at Duquesne University has drawn new attention to the working conditions of instructors off the tenure track.
The column, published [last] Wednesday in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, says that Margaret Mary Vojtko was underpaid and underappreciated during her 25 years of teaching French at the Roman Catholic university, and that she was nearly destitute when she died, on September 1, at the age of 83.
The column’s author, Daniel M. Kovalik, is the senior associate general counsel of the United Steelworkers union, which led efforts to unionize adjuncts at Duquesne over the past few years. His column, which also describes the working conditions for adjuncts at Duquesne and the institution’s fight against unionization, rippled through the Pittsburgh campus and attracted attention in academic circles nationwide soon after it appeared online Wednesday morning.
Duquesne officials disputed some details in the column and said that Mr. Kovalik was using Ms. Vojtko’s death to further the union’s agenda. <Read more.>
Via Lindsay Ellis, The Chronicle of Higher Education.
« Penn State Eliminates Fines for Employees Who Skip Wellness Questions
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You Can’t Kill Rock n Roll…
On May 28, 2018 By connormullin94In progressive rock
Fellow Progarchist Rick Krueger has already published a fine review of this young group, but here is my shout-out to Greta Van Fleet, up and coming rockers from the small town of Frankenmuth, Michigan. Inspired by Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton, and other blues-based rockers, these boys (ranging in age from 19-22) are an emerging force to be reckoned with in the music world. Check out their live performance at Coachella from April of this year and try telling me that rock n roll has died…
Still not sure about GVF? See what Robert Plant had to say about them.
Greta Van FleetLed ZeppelinRobert Plant
The Madeira, Center of the Surf: Rick’s Quick Takes
The Pillars of Prog, Part 2 – Nights in White Satin
7 thoughts on “You Can’t Kill Rock n Roll…”
Well, to be honest… There’s a fine line between inspired and derivative, and GVF are Led Zeppelin in all but name and songwriting skills. I might be overdramatic in my sentiments, but the fact that they are getting so much press only goes to show that, at the end of the day, copycats have it easier than true originators.
Despite the above I quite enjoy their music, but when I’m in the mood for Led Zeppelin, I prefer, well, Led Zeppelin. I also think that this whole ‘old school revival’ has produced more interesting bands such as Blues Pills, Rival Sons, or Tame Impala.
And the hilarious surname, Kiszka! This is actually the name of a traditional dish in Podlasie, the region of Poland I am from. It consists of a pig’s gut filled with potato, pork, fatback, and other stuff. Something my grandmother used to cook and is still part of Podlasie cuisine. The very word is the diminutive of ‘gut’, so it’s one of the funniest surnames in Polish 😉
Agree that Rival Sons could probably lick GVF in a Battle of the Bands with little to no trouble. But to be fair, these are KIDS, milking the moment for everything they can, and the dearth of hard rock in the mainstream media gives them lots of room to run. I really enjoy them for what they’re worth; I think if the lead singer didn’t sound so much like Plant, it would be easier to judge them on their own merits. Their first attempt at a full-length album will probably tell the tale about their staying power.
I agree, Rick. I actually saw Rival Sons open for Black Sabbath back in 2016 and was impressed by their talent. It’s just exciting to see guys younger than I am (I’m only 24) play old-fashioned blues-based rock; it’s a rare treat these days.
I agree that the fact that they are so young and yet so good at what they do is quite impressive, and you are right that as far as mainstream music goes, they are a step in the right direction.
It’s not only the vocals that are the LZ giveaway. What actually struck me even more on first listen was the production. No way the choices made in the studio were not conscious LZ emulation, especially the drums. You just don’t HAPPEN to sound like Bonham.
I’m waiting for their album, hoping that they would show more individuality, because they surely have the talent to be much MUCH more than LZ2.
I think “sounding like Bonham” has been an industry standard drum sound for a while now; the whole Phil Collins/Hugh Padgham gated drum sound of the 1980s came from Collins’ love for “Kashmir” (also why his drums took up more frequency space on Genesis albums starting with Abacab). But, point taken: it’s a deliberate choice.
Yes, that’s true. My point is: there’s sounding like Bonham and then there’s SOUNDING EXACTLY LIKE BONHAM. The tone plus the technique make for an uncanny resemblence. And it’s not only the drums of course. Too many deliberate choices to sound like someone else for my liking.
Jeff Japp
I hear the Zep in there, but also they sound a lot like 4 Non-Blondes to me too.
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Adam Walsh Child Protection & Safety Act
The Adam Walsh Child Protection & Safety Act is a law passed in 2006 with the aim to
“…protect children from sexual exploitation and violent crime, to prevent child abuse and child pornography, to promote internet safety, and to honor the memory of Adam Walsh and other child crime victims.”
On February 8, 2007, the USCIS issued an Interoffice Memorandum explaining what immigration procedures would be changing.
Title IV of the Adam Walsh Act, “Immigration Law Reforms to Prevent Sex Offenders from Abusing Children” contains two provisions that amend the Immigration and Nationality Act (Act).
The first provision is:
…to prohibit U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents who have been convicted of any “specified offense against a minor” from filing a family-based immigrant petition on behalf of any beneficiary, unless the Secretary of Homeland Security (Secretary) determines, in his sole and unreviewable discretion, that the petitioner poses no risk to the beneficiary. Section 402(b) of the Adam Walsh Act amends section 101(a)(15)(K) of the Act to bar U.S. citizens convicted of these offenses from filing nonimmigrant visa petitions to classify their fiancé(e)s, spouses, or minor children as eligible for “K” nonimmigrant status, unless the Secretary determines, in his sole and unreviewable discretion, that the petitioner poses no risk to the beneficiary.
The next provision is:
A petitioner who has been convicted of a specified offense against a minor is not simply prohibited from filing on behalf of a minor child. The petitioner is prohibited from filing on behalf of “any” family-based beneficiary under sections 204(a)(1)(A)(i) and 204(a)(1)(B)(i) of the Act or in accordance with section 101(a)(15)(K) of the Act. “Any beneficiary” includes a spouse, a fiancé(e), a parent, an unmarried child, an unmarried son or daughter over 21 years of age, an orphan, a married son or daughter, a brother or sister, and any derivative beneficiary permitted to apply for an immigrant visa on the basis of his or her relationship to the principal beneficiary of a family-based petition. The term “specified offense against a minor” means an offense against a minor (defined as an individual who has not attained the age of 18 years) that involves any of the following:
An offense (unless committed by a parent or guardian) involving kidnapping;
An offense (unless committed by a parent or guardian) involving false imprisonment;
Solicitation to engage in sexual conduct;
Use in a sexual performance;
Solicitation to practice prostitution;
Video voyeurism as described in section 1801 of Title 18, United States Code;
Possession, production, or distribution of child pornography;
Criminal sexual conduct involving a minor, or the use of the Internet to facilitate or attempt such conduct; or
Any conduct that by its nature is a sex offense against a minor.
Section 401 of the Adam Walsh Act amends section 237(a)(2)(A) of the INA by adding a new subparagraph (v). Under new section 237(a)(2)(A)(v), an alien who is convicted under new 18 USC 2250, for failing to register as a sex offender, is subject to removal as a deportable alien.
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RBWords
Praedicator
RBWords - Volume 24 - Number 7: July 2011
Like many of you, I suspect, I have watched the budgetary arguments and antics in Washington, DC, with feelings of amusement, frustration and bewilderment! When I was a seminarian, in January of 1969, I was in a group of seminarians who visited Washington, DC, to see how our government “worked.” It was a course in “political theology,” taught by a professor from a neighboring Presbyterian seminary in Dubuque, IA. We met members of both houses of congress and lobbyists and interest groups as well. They all seemed like dedicated and conscientious folks. I have no reason to believe that if I were to visit our nation’s capital now that I would be of quite the same mind, although I’m sure there are sincere minds and voices on both sides of “the aisle” in the current “Armageddon” economic scenario. Ideological “impasses” are not unheard of in our government, but I am not a very ideological person and have little patience with the kind of stubbornness that characterizes the current debate. Many of the participants do not seem to care how the rest of the country feels. What seems to matter is ideology.
The media have not helped me much. The whole issue appears to be an artificial one created by our own legislation in regard to “borrowing” by the country against its own resources. So, the crisis is one of our own making and is serving the purposes of particular emotional and political drama. I think it will be interesting to see how this all plays out in the 2012 elections, which, I suspect is the fundamental rationale for much of the noise-making. Underneath it all is the issue of “power” and who gets to wield it for whose benefit! Given the protected economic status of most members of congress, I doubt they will suffer very much as long as they can manage to stay in office! There are “labels” galore being tagged onto the players, none of which seem to accurately identify anyone. Can it be said, “By their votes you shall know them?”
I was a political science major as an undergraduate. I did some additional studies in political science over two summers at the University of Minnesota, studying congressional and executive functions. Lastly, I studied judicial processes as a law student. The balance of powers written into our constitution does not seem to me to have ideological stalemate as its goal. As the cartoon character, Pogo, once said: “We has met the enemy and it is us!” IT’S SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT.
It Has Been Said
It is by serving men’s general welfare that law gets its force and character of law, so when it fails to do so it has no binding force. Now often we find laws the observance of which advances the general welfare on most occasions but is highly harmful to it on some. The lawmaker cannot foresee every single case: and in framing the law to fit most cases he has the general good in view. So if a case crops up in which the general would be harmed by observing the law, the law must not be observed.
St. Thomas Aquinas, SUMMA THEOLOGIAE, I-II, Q.96, a. 6
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© Copyright 2004 - 2011, R. B. Williams, OP, all rights reserved. - Sitemap
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The Mantle of Roger II of Sicily
William Tronzo
The subject of this chapter is one of the most extraordinary examples of the textile art to have come down to us from the entire Middle Ages, the Mantle of Roger II now in the Treasury of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna (Figure 10.1).2 The mantle is a half circle of scarlet samite, 345 cm wide and 146 cm long, encrusted with enamels, pearls, and gems, and it displays, in gold and silk embroidery, a figure that is spectacular in its boldness and simplicity: the doubled image of a lion, triumphant over the camel he holds tightly in his grip, to either side of a palm tree that spreads outward from the center. What might have been analogous to the mantle in a certain sense is the contemporary garb of the Byzantine emperor: an anonymous ekphracist of the twelfth century tells us that Manuel I Komnenos wore a robe decorated with addorsed griffins.3 But nothing quite like it has survived from Byzantium, nor is anything similar attested in the Latin West.4
Palm Tree Twelfth Century Metropolitan Museum Exhibition Catalogue Holy Roman Emperor
This paper in an earlier form was presented at the 1998 College Art Association Annual Meeting. I would like to thank Eva Hoffman for the discussion of the mantle that we had both before and after.
Erwin Margulies, “Le Manteau impérial du Trésor de Vienne et sa doublure,” Gazette des Beaux Arts ser. 6, 9 (1933), pp. 360ff.; Ugo Monneret de Villard, “Le tessitura palermitana sotto i normanni e i suoi rapporti con larte bizantina,” Miscellanea Giovanni Mercati, 1 (Vatican City, 1946), pp. 464ff.; Hermann Fillitz, Die Insignien und Kleinodien des Heiligen Römischen Reiches (Vienna: A. Scholl, 1954), pp. 23ff, 57f.; Filippo Pottino, “Le vesti regali normanne dette dellincoronazione,” Atti del convegno internazionale di studi ruggeriani, 21–25 aprile 1954, 1 (Palermo, 1955), pp. 291ff.; Josef Deér, The Dynastic Porphyry Tombs of the Norman Period in Sicily (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1959), pp. 40ff.; Tarif Al Samman, “Arabische Inschriften auf den Krönungsgewandern des Heiligen Römischen Reiches,” Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien 78 (1982), pp. 7ff.; Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna. The Secular and Ecclesiastical Treasuries: Illustrated Guide (Vienna: Residenz Verlag, 1991), pp. 136ff; David Jacoby, “Silk in Western Byzantium Before the Fourth Crusade,” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 84/85 (1991/92), pp. 464ff; Rotraud Bauer, “Il manto di Ruggero II,” I normanni, popolo d’Europa 1030–1200 (exhibition catalogue), ed. Mario D’Onofrio (Venice: Marsilio Editori, 1994), pp. 279ff.; William Tronzo, The Cultures of His Kingdom. Roger II and the Cappella Palatina in Palermo (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), pp. 142ff; Oleg Grabar, “The So-Called Mantle of Roger II,” in “The Experience of Islamic Art,” forthcoming. I am grateful to Professor Grabar for allowing me to read his paper before publication.Google Scholar
Henry Maguire, “The Heavenly Court,” Byzantine Court Culture from 829 to 1204, ed. Maguire (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 1997), pp. 253f.Google Scholar
See, for example, Eduard Eichmann, “Von der Kaisergewandung im Mittelalter,” Historisches Jahrbuch 58 (1938), pp. 273ff.; Sakrale Gewänder des Mittelalters, Ausstellung im bayerischen Nationalmuseum, München, 8. Juli bis 25 September 1955 (Munich: Hirmer Verlag, 1955); Percy Ernst Schramm and Florentine Mutherich, Denkmale der deutschen Könige und Kaiser: Ein Beitrag zur Herrscherge schichte von Karl dem Grossen bis Friedrich II. 768–1250 (Munich: Prestel Verlag, 1962), pp. 44ff.; Die Zeit der Staufer, 1 (1977), pp. 607ff., 5, pp. 389ff.; Anna Muthesius, Studies in Byzantine and Islamic Silk Weaving (London: The Pindar Press, 1995), passim; Guido Fauro, “Le vesti nel ‘De ceremoniis aulae byzantinae’ di Costantino VII Porfirogenito,” in Arte profana e arte sacra a bisanzio, ed. Antonio Jacobini and Enrico Zanini (Rome, 1995), pp. 489ff. For a textile attributed to Palermo with the inscription, “operato in regio ergast [erio],” see Federico e la sicilia: dalla terra alla corona. Arti figurative e arti suntuarie (exhibition catalogue), ed. Maria Andaloro (Palermo: Ediprint, 1995), p. 99, figs. 13.1–13.2.Google Scholar
Hermann Fillitz, Die Schatzkammer in Wien. Symbole abendländischen Kaisertums (Salzburg and Vienna: Residenz Verlag, 1986), fig. 5.Google Scholar
For a recent discussion with bibliography, see Hans Rudolf Meier, Die normannischen Königspaläste in Palermo. Studien zur hochmittelalterlichen Residenzbaukunst (Worms: Wernersche Verlagsgesellschaft, 1994). Bauer, above, n. 2, relates these buildings to the mantle but with a different purpose.Google Scholar
Ibid., pp. 68ff.Google Scholar
Romuald of Salerno, Chronicon, in Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, ed. Ludovico Antonio Muratori 7 (repr. of 1725 ed., Bologna: Arnaldo Forni Editore, 1977), p. 194. For the poetic description of the Favara by ‘Abd ar-Rahman of Trapani, see Gli arabi in Italia, ed. Francesco Gabrieli and Umberto Scerrato (Milan: Garzanti, 1993), p. 738 (Italian trans.).Google Scholar
Liber ad honorem augusti sive de rebus Siculis, Codex 120 II der Burgerbibliothek Bern. Eine Bilderchronik der Stauferzeit, ed. Gereon Becht-Joerdens, Theo Koelzer, and Marilis Staehli (Sigmaringen: Jan Thorbecke Verlag, 1994), fol. 98r, p. 47.Google Scholar
Giuseppe Bellafiore, Giardini e parchi della Palermo normanna (Palermo: Flaccovio Editore, 1996), p. 27. See also the discussion of Rosario La Duca, Cartografia generale della città di Palermo e antiche carte della Sicilia (Naples: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 1975), pp. 15ff.Google Scholar
Otto Demus, The Mosaics of Norman Sicily (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd., 1949), Figures 26B–28A, 94A–97B.Google Scholar
Ibid., pp. 178ff.Google Scholar
Lucia Travaini, “Aspects of the Sicilian Norman Copper Coinage in the Twelfth Century,” Numismatic Chronicle 151 (1991), pp. 159–74, pl. 26, no. 2.Google Scholar
Philip Grierson, “Guglielmo II o Ruggero II? Una attribuzione errata,” Rivista italiana di numismatica e scienze affini 91 (1989), pp. 195–204.Google Scholar
Philip Grierson, Byzantine Coins (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1982), passim.Google Scholar
See Deér (above, n. 2), pp. 66ff., and the study of Willy Hartner and Richard Ettinghausen, “The Conquering Lion, The Life Cycle of a Symbol,” Orlens 17 (1964), pp. 161 ff., esp. pp. 164ff.Google Scholar
Tronzo, Cultures (as above, n. 2), 142, n. 31. The Byzantine emperor Manuel I Komnenos was compared to a palm tree; see Henry Maguire, “Images of the Court,” in The Glory of Byzantium: Art and Culture of the Middle Byzantine Era A.D. 843–1261 (exhibition catalogue), ed. Helen C. Evans and William D. Wixom (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1997), p. 185.Google Scholar
Willene B. Clark, “The Illustrated Medieval Aviary and the Lay-Brotherhood,” Gesta 21 (1982), pp. 63ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Penelope C. Mayo, “The Crusaders Under the Palm: Allegorical Plants and Cosmic Kingship in the Liber Floridus,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 27 (1973), pp. 29ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
The royal garden, of course, had a long history in the Mediterranean world, against the backdrop of which the Norman phenomenon might be viewed with profit; to cite only one of many studies, see, for example, Elizabeth B. Moynihan, Paradise as a Garden in Persia and Mughal India (New York: George Braziller, 1979), pp. 5ff.Google Scholar
See the entry on “Camels” in the Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, ed. Alexander Kazhdan (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 368. The camel is depicted on the facade of Saint Gilles-du-Gard together with a pair of apes, which were considered wicked creatures in the Middle Ages; see Whitney S. Stoddard, The Facade of Saint-Gilles-du-Gard. Its Influence on French Sculpture (Middletown CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1973), p. 59, fig. 71 (I owe this reference to Eva Hoffman). Apart from the context of the biblical narrative, the image of the camel in medieval Sicilian art is rare; see Ugo Monneret de Villard, Le pitture musulmane al soffitto delia Cappella Palatina in Palermo (Rome: La Libreria dello Stato, 1950), fig. 250 (ceiling of the Cappella Palatina); Federico II e la Sicilia (above, n. 4), 1:171 (ivory box in the Cappella Palatina, Palermo). Of course, not all images of the camel carried negative connotations; see Glen Bowersock, Roman Arabia (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983), pp. 83f. (use of the image on coins); The Age of Spirituality: Late Antique and Early Christian Art, Third to Seventh Century, ed. Kurt Weitzmann (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1977), p. 578, no. 517 (ivory plaque with St. Menas flanked by camels).Google Scholar
Peter Cornelius Claussen, “Renovatio Romae. Erneuerungsphasen römischer Architektur im 11. und 12. Jahrhundert,” Rom im hohen Mittelalter. Studien zu den Romavorstellungen und zur Rompolitik vom 10. bis zum 12. Jahrhundert. Reinhard Elze zur Vollendung seines siebzigsten Lebensjahres gewidmet, ed. Bernhard Schimmelpfennig and Ludwig Schmugge (Sigmaringen: Jan Thorbecke Verlag, 1992), p. 100.Google Scholar
Procopius, The Secret History, trans. G. A. Williamson (London: The Folio Society, 1990), p. 55.Google Scholar
Helene Wieruzowski, “Roger II of Sicily, Rex-Tyrannus in Twelfth-Century Political Thought,” Speculum 38 (1963), pp. 46–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tronzo W. (2001) The Mantle of Roger II of Sicily. In: Gordon S. (eds) Robes and Honor. The New Middle Ages. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-61845-3_10
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With a new CEO and strategy, the desktop is back at Flipkart
Over the past few months, India's largest e-commerce company had shifted its attention almost wholly to the mobile app.
January 21, 2016, 08:31 IST
Over the past few months, the global e-commerce giant edged past Flipkart on the web in terms of traffic, while also narrowing the yawning gap between the two firms on mobile.
Bengaluru: Flipkart is once again focusing on the web, and the desktop. Industry analysts believe it's a move that is partly the result of co-founder Binny Bansal taking over CEO reins from Sachin Bansal ten days ago, as also due to Amazon gaining mind share thanks to its advances on the web in India.
Over the past few months, India's largest e-commerce company had shifted its attention almost wholly to the mobile app. However its latest communications and advertisements - for its Republic Day sale - mention www.flipkart.com as prominently as the mobile app.
All the Flipkart sales events starting from August last year, including the sales around Independence Day, Dussehra, Diwali, Christmas and New Year, were app-only. Just last month, at the annual brand conference of Myntra (Flipkart's fashion subsidiary), Sachin had said the company was a firm believer in a mobile-only strategy. Sachin said the e-commerce company would not be able to become an integral part of India's mobile revolution if employees at the firm still thought with a desktop mindset.
When contacted on Wednesday, Flipkart sent the following statement: "At Flipkart, we continue to follow the 'mobile first' approach. While a great majority of our customers shop from their mobile devices, we also have a base of customers who use the desktop. This Republic Day sale will provide both mobile and desktop shoppers exciting offers on products across categories to shop from." The statement indicates a departure from the 'mobile only' strategy to a 'mobile first' strategy.
Rival Amazon has been a big beneficiary of Flipkart's focus on mobile. Over the past few months, the global e-commerce giant edged past Flipkart on the web in terms of traffic, while also narrowing the yawning gap between the two firms on mobile.
It has also been reported by some media that Binny wasn't as enthusiastic about the mobile-only strategy as Sachin was. Reports have also said that most investors and senior management of the company did not want Flipkart to give competitors any chance to chip away at its leadership position.
Mobile platforms contribute to as much as 70% of all e-commerce transactions in India. Myntra became the first big e-commerce company in the world to shut its website - desktop and mobile - to go app-only. However, last month, Myntra brought back its mobile website. Flipkart had also shut its mobile website last year only to bring it back.
On Wednesday, Flipkart separately issued a release quoting internet traffic data firm SimilarWeb saying the company is far ahead of rivals like Amazon and Snapdeal on mobile platforms. The data for December shows Flipkart enjoying a 47% share of visits among the major shopping apps in India. Myntra was in the second position with over 16% share of visits and the combined traffic share of Flipkart and Myntra stood at 63%. Amazon was in the third position with 16%, followed by Snapdeal with 14%.
Flipkart, valued at $15 billion, has more than 50 million registered users and sells over 30 million products.
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Bjarke Ingels Climbs to Heaven
Eleven years ago, in an effort that confounds me when I look back at it, Oliver and I climbed to the top of Vor Frelsers Kirke in Copenhagen.
It was raining. Oliver was only 6 years old. By all rights he (and I) should have been terrified at the prospect of walking up creaky woeden ladders through spooky antechambers and then out onto the slippery, twisting, copper-sheathed ramp to the golden top. But somehow it seemed like the right thing to do at the time, and we survived. As the evidence clearly shows:
I thought of that rainy May morning today while watching the Bjarke Ingels episode of the Netflix series Abstract.
There’s a scene, about halfway through, that features Ingels–superstar iconoclastic Danish architect–making exactly the same trip up to the top of the church spire.
It’s a beautifully shot scene–much better visuals than my lowly Nokia N70 could capture back in 2006–and it’s an appropriate visual metaphor for the arc of Ingel’s rise:
If you ever find yourself in Copenhagen, the trip up to the top, should you be able to contort yourself into the same height-defying state of mind that Oliver and I did, is well worth the effort; here’s the church’s own description of its spire:
The spire of the church was consecrated in 1752, more than 50 years after the building of the church had been completed. After more than 250 years as an internationally noted landmark of Copenhagen, the tower and spire now stand in all their splendour following the last great restoration in the 1990s. The city has grown in the meantime, but the view from the tower of Our Saviour’s is still the best in town — and the most frightening. It has always been regarded as somewhat of a manhood test to climb up and touch the globe on the summit. That the whole spire is built of oak which can shake a little in a strong wind, adds to the sinking feeling as one stands at the top. The tower on Copenhagen Town Hall is 14 metres taller. The tallest church tower in Denmark on Århus Cathedral is three metres taller but no tower in Denmark can match the beauty of Our Saviour’s tower as the evening sun shines on the gilding ‘like a tongue of fire’ (Thurah’s Vitruvius III)
The architect Lauritz de Thurah (1706-1759) designed the spire, his greatest work, and had it approved and paid for by Christian VI. He was inspired by the university chapel of St. Ivo in Rome where Borromini’s Renaissance tower also has an external spiral form. While Borromini built in sandstone, de Thurah used oak, making it possible to achieve the great height of the spire.
The spire consists of an external staircase with four twists, starting from the gallery and continuing all the way up. On the way towards the top, the visitor is protected by a gilded iron grating. At the top is a gilded globe from which the gilded figure of Christ with banner looks out over the city.
The dimensions of the spire are considerable. It is 90 metres from the ground to Christ’s banner and there are 400 steps to be climbed, of which, the last 150 wind around the outside of the spire. The globe at the top can contain 12 grown men and is 2.5 metres in diameter, the Christ figure is three metres tall.
I’d no idea that our climb was regarded as a “manhood test,” and I reject the sexism implicit in that claim.
But it was thrilling.
Written February 23, 2017 at 3:07 p.m. by Peter Rukavina
Sandy on February 24, 2017 - 07:46
The apartment that we stayed in was a couple of blocks from the church and we walked by it several times. I don't remember why we didn't end up climbing to the top. I am regretting it now - especially since I didn't get to pass the "manhood" test.
Peter Rukavina on February 24, 2017 - 08:42
Is it not ironic then that you also have a connection to Oliver’s other feat of terror, riding the roller coaster at Rainbow Valley!
Well, Oliver has me on this one. I will have to ask Dale if he remembers why we didn't climb- it may have been due to the fact that I didn't think I would make it. You have me walking down memory lane this morning. I was on google maps earlier figuring out where our apartment was - 14 Prinsessegade. Now I want to go back.
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Shawn Hubbard/Baltimore Ravens
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Street Talk In Need of a Holiday Gift…
Todd Karpovich @toddkarpovich
Posted December 23, 2020 in Street Talk
In Need of a Holiday Gift…
The Ravens didn’t do the Steelers any favors with the playoffs on the line over the past two seasons.
In 2018, Baltimore beat the Browns in the regular-season final that clinched an AFC North title and knocked Pittsburgh out of the postseason.
Last season, the Ravens had their playoff seeding wrapped up and played mostly backups in the finale but still beat the Steelers 28-18, knocking Pittsburgh out of the playoff again.
Fittingly for the tumultuous 2020, the roles are reversed and now the Steelers hold some of the keys to the Ravens’ playoff fate.
Baltimore (9-5) holds the eighth spot in the seven-team playoff race in the AFC. The Ravens need either No. No. 5. Cleveland (10-4), No. 6. Indianapolis (10-4) and No. 7 Miami (9-5) to lose one of their final two games to overtake them in the postseason.
This is where the Steelers enter the picture.
Pittsburgh (11-3) hosts the Colts in Week 16 and then finishes on the road against the Browns. A Steelers victory in either of those games coupled with a Ravens victory would shake up the playoff seedings.
Unfortunately for Baltimore, the Steelers are playing their worst football of the season. After opening the season with 11 straight wins, Pittsburgh is mired in a three-game losing streak and have fallen to the No. 3 spot in the playoff behind Buffalo.
“We’re not a good football group right now,” Pittsburgh coach Mike Tomlin said after the team’s 27-17 loss to the Bengals on Monday night.
The Ravens own the tie-breaker against the Colts by virtue of their 24-10 victory in Week 9. Indianapolis (10-4) has won four of its past five games and needs to keep winning to try and win the AFC South from the Titans (10-4), who finish the year on the road against the Packers and Texans.
Baltimore swept Cleveland this season and own the tie-breaker. The Browns, however, are determined to end an 18-year playoff drought and have their eyes on a potential AFC North title in that final matchup with Pittsburgh in Week 17. Cleveland won’t be taking the Jets lightly this week.
The Dolphins own the tie-breaker against the Ravens because they have a better conference record. Some pundits expected Miami to lose to New England in Week 15, but the Dolphins emerged with a 22-12 win. Miami closes out the season against the faltering Raiders and then the Bills, who might be able to rest their starters in that final game.
The Ravens close out the year as heavy favorites at home against the New York Giants and Bengals, who knocked Baltimore out of the playoffs in the 2017 regular-season finale.
Don’t expect the Ravens to slip. They know there’s no margin for error.
However, the coaches and players will have to cheer for Pittsburgh over the next two weeks.
“Of course, we want to get into the playoffs,” Harbaugh said about supporting the Steelers. “So, we know that we need some help, but the focus, really, for us, is going to be on taking care of our business. It doesn’t matter what anybody else does if we don’t take care of our job, and our job is to win.
“So, we’ve got to find a way to win this week – that’s 100% exactly what we’ll be locked in on and focused on. Everything else is not something that we can control, but we can control how we play. We need to play our best football next week to win that game.”
About Todd Karpovich
Todd Karpovich has been a contributor for ESPN, the Associated Press, SportsXchange, the Baltimore Sun, among other media outlets nationwide. He is the co-author of “If These Walls Could Talk: Stories from the Baltimore Ravens Sideline, Locker Room, and Press Box,” “Skipper Supreme: Buck Showalter and the Baltimore Orioles,” and the author of “Manchester United (Europe's Best Soccer Clubs).” Karpovich lives in Towson with his wife, Jill, daughters, Wyeth and Marta, and a pair of dogs, Sarah and Rory. More from Todd Karpovich
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Catalyst﹢
+1 Global Fund
Roddenberry Foundation
Featured, Roddenberry Fellowship, Uncategorized
The Cost of Charity
Hannah Dehradunwala | October 26, 2019
I’ve been thinking a lot about money and how we dance with it. In the nonprofit world, it feels like an awkward bachata with a partner that your parents have set you up with. You try your best to touch minimally, making shy and sparing eye contact, feigning disinterest when in reality you’ve already named the three employees that you’ll hire when he’s yours.
I’ve often felt that if I talk about money more than I talk about impact that I’m losing sight of the mission of the organization. I’ve worked in the food redistribution space for about four years now, and though the nonprofit has grown from a small volunteer-driven organization to an automated, revenue-generating tech platform that facilitates on-demand food donations to local feeding programs, I struggle with the way that nonprofit organizations like ours are expected to interact with money. And I’m surprised that revenue-generation for a non-profit organization is sometimes seen as a negative.
For starters, why is it taboo for revenue maximization to be a goal for a nonprofit organization, while in every other industry it’s an indicator of success? What is it about the concept of making money that seems, to many, to dilute impact? When it comes to NPO’s, why are fundraised dollars somehow cleaner than payment for service? True, we need to be twice as conscious that, in the process, we’re not negatively impacting the population that we’re serving. But when it comes to the question of balancing profit and purpose, in my mind there’s no debate; You need to grow one to grow the other if you’re actually going to achieve anything that lasts. My goal with Transfernation has always been the same: create something that you can walk away from; It should be able to run without you. A huge part of achieving that is securing a sustainable and constant revenue source and the acknowledgment that money is one of the most important drivers of results, buying talent, time, and operational capacity.
To me, the ‘non-profit’ designation is starting to mean less and less. Where before it was seen as an indicator of an organization’s mission and, incorrectly so, their sworn pledge to maintain a minimum wage for life, people outside of the industry who might be engaging with revenue-generating non-profits like ours, are starting to realize that being ‘non-profit’ does not mean that you can not or should not make profit and it certainly doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be generating revenue where you can to help your operations grow.
The emphasis should always be on impact, but it should also take into account that money and revenue-generation are important for nonprofits to continue doing the work that they do. I wish that, when we were first starting, someone had sat me down and said, Hannah, let me tell you about the concept of creating shared value and how to redistribute the financial cost of charity so that it doesn’t fall disproportionately on the people providing the services, for problems that we as a society are all collectively responsible for creating. For me, creating revenue streams is the equivalent of creating jobs for people who run the service behind the scenes. It’s mental security. It’s organizational security. And it all collectively contributes to creating a system that will, consistently and without fail, continue to transport untouched food from where there’s extra to the people that need it, regardless of if I step back. We’re not quite there yet, but I can see it.
Meet Hannah, a 2019 Roddenberry Fellow
Hannah is a Pakistani-American Muslim and the co-founder & CEO of Transfernation, a logistics company focused on building tech-based, integrated food rescue systems for cities. She co-founded Transfernation during her sophomore year at New York University. Transfernation is a technology platform that helps corporate food providers redistribute extra, untouched, catered food from cafeterias and events to local feeding programs instantly. Using the app, event hosts and cafeteria managers can request on-demand pickups for extra food. Learn more
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We Could Win The Election, But Lose The War, If We Don’t Orient Differently.
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When The Lights Go Off During Fire Season, The People Can Turn them Back on
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Broadband/Connectivity • Disaster Relief/Climate • Mobile Satellite Services • Tech Updates • Vertical Markets
Paving the way for Disaster Preparedness
Geeks Without Frontiers recently hosted a disaster-preparedness programme for an Afghani delegation in the UAE.
Geeks Without Frontiers (GEEKS), a non-profit with the goal of leveraging connectivity to improve and save lives throughout the world, has – with support from the US government and in coordination with leading international organisations – successfully provided a disaster preparedness programme for the government of Afghanistan.
The programme, which also received support from key industry members, is part of a GEEKS global initiative. It harnesses connectivity, technology and regulation, and combines them with stakeholder resilience strategies focussed on disaster preparedness, response and recovery, to help protect, save and restore lives.
“GEEKS is honoured to work alongside the Afghan government, in coordination with the US government, and with support from the United Nations and key communications companies,” says GEEKS CEO David Hartshorn. “The outcome of this programme is not only strengthened disaster preparedness, but also an important step toward the development of a national emergency communications plan for Afghanistan.”
Central to the GEEKS programme was an Emergency Communications Management symposium held recently in the UAE, delivered with support from the US Department of Commerce’s Commercial Law Development Program (CLDP) and made possible through funding from the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
Industry sponsors were also instrumental to the programme’s success, including Arabsat, Hughes and Intelsat. Knowledge and skills were imparted by subject-matter experts from throughout the GEEKS connectivity network to 25 Afghan delegates from multiple government agencies and local network operators.
GEEKS’ capacity building draws upon connectivity best practices, shared with the delegates by representatives of organisations central to international and national resilience initiatives. For instance, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a UN agency, shares best practice in communications regulation, policy and spectrum management. During the programme, the ITU focussed on optimising these government functions for improved security and resilience.
The United Nations Emergency Telecommunications Cluster (UN-ETC), which coordinates disaster preparedness and response for UN agencies in disaster-affected nations in every major region, advised delegates on technology tools, operational strategy and key considerations for coordinating with ETC before and during relief efforts.
The communications industry, represented by Arabsat, Hughes and Intelsat, shared updates on how state-of-the-art systems and services are being leveraged through resilience strategies for more effective preparedness, response and recovery. Hands-on skills building was provided by the GEEKS team, together with operators of the technology solutions used for disaster response.
The symposium concluded with an agreement to build upon the dialogue established during the programme, by collaborating on the development of a National Emergency Communications Plan for Afghanistan. A timeline for action was confirmed by all the stakeholders, whose contributions continue to be coordinated and supported by GEEKS.
The GEEKS capacity-building team was drawn from the organisation’s global network of leading connectivity experts, including Riaz Lamak, GEEKS International Programme Lead, who manages capacity building and facilitates performance quality assurance of assets, human resources and processes; Mazen Nassar, GEEKS Master Instructor and CEO of Mena Nets, which manages system integration, training and consulting through a portfolio of seven technology lines; Joe Simmons, GEEKS Project Director, who has extensive experience addressing global connectivity challenges in the NGO sector; and Shafeeq Hamza, GEEKS Training Manager & MBC Trainer, as well as a GVF Certified Examiner.
TagsAfghani delegation disaster preparedness featuredpost Geeks Without Frontier UAE UN
What does disaster preparedness entail?
Satellite IoT: The Rise of Commercial Satellite Applications
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about us associated castles seton house - lothians
Seton House - Lothians
Seton House - on the site of Seton Palace
Site of castle, which was apparently a splendid palace after being rebuilt in the 16th century. The lands were acquired by the Setons in the 12th century, and the family were made Lords Seton in 1448. George, 3rd Lord Seton, was killed at the Battle of Flodden in 1513.
Seton Palace - As it was.
An older castle was destroyed by the English in 1544, and a new house - the Palace - was built on the site. George, 5th Lord Seton, was a supporter of Mary, Queen of Scots, and she fled here after the murder of David Rizzio in 1566. She also visited with Bothwell after the assassination of Lord Darnley, her second husband. The following year, her army camped at the castle the night before defeat at Carberry Hill.
The Setons helped to rescue Mary from imprisonment in Lochleven Castle, after which she stayed at another of their properties, Niddry Castle.
Seton Palace - Lay in ruins after damage by Jacobite troops in 1715
The family were made Earls of Winton in 1600. The house was damaged during the 1715 Jacobite Rising - having been held for three days by Highlanders against Hanovarian forces - after which the Setons were forfeited. The house was left a ruin and demolished in 1790, and a new mansion, designed by Robert Adam, built on the site.
A find collegiate church stands near the house. It was founded in 1490, although it was looted and burned by the English in 1544. The church is in the care of Historic Scotland and open to the public.
Wording taken from The Castles of Scotland Third Edition by Martin Coventry
Added: 18 Apr 2010 Updated: 14 Apr 2019
stoneypath tower - lothian niddry castle
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Environmental Studies » Search: *
Discipline / Subject Area: Environmental Policy and Politics
Topic / Theme: Mining communities
Discipline / Subject Area: Environmental Studies
Documentary(1)
Dramatized scene(1)
Coal mines and mining(1)
Communism(1)
all of Environmental Studies
Infamous Victory - Ben Chifley's Battle for Coal
directed by Geoff Burton, 1946- (Canberra, Australian Capital Territory: Australia. National Film and Sound Archive, 2008), 53 mins
This is a story of coal, communism, and the Australian prime minister who went to war against his own during the national miners’ strike of 1949. Using rare archival footage and re-creations based on meticulous research, the dramatised documentary takes viewers into the corridors of power to show how Labor Par...
This is a story of coal, communism, and the Australian prime minister who went to war against his own during the national miners’ strike of 1949. Using rare archival footage and re-creations based on meticulous research, the dramatised documentary takes viewers into the corridors of power to show how Labor Party leader Ben Chifley took on and defeated the growing forces of communism in Australia. The film examines the complex issues that th... This is a story of coal, communism, and the Australian prime minister who went to war against his own during the national miners’ strike of 1949. Using rare archival footage and re-creations based on meticulous research, the dramatised documentary takes viewers into the corridors of power to show how Labor Party leader Ben Chifley took on and defeated the growing forces of communism in Australia. The film examines the complex issues that the conflict raised and introduces the major players in the dispute, including Attorney-General Evatt, Immigration Minister Arthur Calwell, Chifley’s “spin doctor” Lloyd Ross and his brother Edgar Ross, a Communist Party executive and driving force behind the strike. It portrays a fascinating era of Australian history rarely seen on screen. A former train driver from Bathurst, Chifley was a working-class hero, a Labor Party icon and “man of the people”. But his actions flew in the face of Labor values and tradition when he believed it was in the interests of post-war Australia. Chifley introduced draconian laws to prevent unions accessing funds to support the strike and sent in the army to replace striking miners—so defeating the Communist Party leadership that controlled the militant union. It was a battle he was determined to fight and win in the interests of the nation, despite knowing it would probably cost him government. Show more Show less
Dramatized scene, Documentary
Heather Mitchell, 1958-
Geoff Burton, 1946-
Australia. National Film and Sound Archive
Speaker / Narrator
Person Discussed
J. B. Chifley, 1885-1951
Politics, Communism, Mining communities, Coal mines and mining
A Screen Australia Making History production. Produced in association with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Copyright © 2011 National Film and Sound Archive of Australia.
Environmental StudiesAll of Alexander Street
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Credit by Toru Yamanaka/AFP/Getty Images | Employees at work at a seniors' work center in Tokyo.
PEOPLE Vietnam
Cambodia, Vietnam Raise Retirement Age for Civil Servants, Singapore to Follow
by Indah Gilang Pusparani
Published November 26, 2019 - 15:59 Jkt
Cambodia and Vietnam will increase their retirement ages as the aging population in both Asean countries keeps increasing, AFP reported.
Cambodia’s Ministry of Civil Service has increase the retirement age of all civil servants to 60 years and with this, nearly 2,000 civil servants who are set to retire by year’s end will continue working.
Its current retirement age for civil servants varies from 55 to 60 years old, according to their positions.
The Phnom Penh Post said that with the new ruling, the retirement age has been standardised to 60 years.
Both Cambodia and Vietnam has increase the retirement age of all civil servants to 60 years. - AFP
Ministry of Civil Service undersecretary Chut Monny told The Post that the new law would apply to those who are set to retire from November onwards.
“Those who already retired in October will not be affected by the law,” he said.
Meanwhile, Vietnam’s parliament passed a law increasing the nation’s retirement age to 60 years for women and 62 for men.
According to the Vietnam Express, the male retirement age will be gradually increased from 60 to 62 by 2028, while female retirement age would increase from 55 to 60 by 2035. It said that starting 2021, male retirement age would increase by three months per year while female retirement age would increase by four months per year.
Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced that the retirement age will be increased by three years from the current retirement age of 62. Image: AFP/File pic
The new retirement ages are also aligned with Vietnamese workers’ health and life expectancy.
Vietnam’s current population is around 96.2 million people, with the percentage of elderly people at around 11.7 per cent. The United Nations has forecasted that the percentage of people over 65 in Vietnam will increase to 12.9 per cent in 2030 and 23 per cent in 2050.
Meanwhile, Singapore will gradually raise its retirement age by three years to 65, its prime minister said in August this year.
The retirement age will rise to 63 in 2022 from the current retirement age of 62 and to 65 by 2030, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said, as quoted by New Straits Times.
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NY Sun Expansion Proposal: Good First Step Toward Achieving Distributed Solar Goals
Monday, Nov 25 2019
Today, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) petitioned the New York Public Service Commission to use the successful NY-Sun program to reach six gigawatts of distributed solar energy by 2025, a state-wide goal.
Following is a statement from David Gahl, senior director of state affairs in the northeast at the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), commending New York leaders for their efforts to follow through on the goals outlined in the New York Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act:
“We commend Governor Cuomo and NYSERDA for continuing to prioritize solar energy expansion in New York. Extending coverage of the NY-Sun program would make more than $500 million in incentives available to solar customers, helping to create thousands of careers, generate billions of dollars in investment, and bring clean and affordable energy to more New Yorkers. The program is already a success in the state and expanding its reach is a tangible, realistic step toward achieving New York’s ambitious clean energy goals. We look forward to diving into the details of this proposal, engaging at the Public Service Commission, and reaching New York’s six gigawatt solar goal.”
Celebrating its 45th anniversary in 2019, the Solar Energy Industries Association® is the national trade association of the U.S. solar energy industry, which now employs more than 242,000 Americans. Through advocacy and education, SEIA® is building a strong solar industry to power America. SEIA works with its 1,000 member companies to build jobs and diversity, champion the use of cost-competitive solar in America, remove market barriers and educate the public on the benefits of solar energy. Visit SEIA online at www.seia.org.
Morgan Lyons, Senior Communications Manager, mlyons@seia.org (202) 556-2872
New York Begins Solar Market Recovery With Permitting Fix for Large Scale Projects
WASHINGTON, D.C. and ALBANY, N.Y. – Yesterday, New York State leaders enacted critical, pro-solar provisions as part of the New York state budget. Following is a statement from David Gahl, senior director of state affairs, northeast for the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA):
SEIA Statement on FERC Directing NYISO to Favor Fossil Fuels
Following is a statement by Abigail Ross Hopper, president and CEO for the Solar Energy Industries Association, on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s decision to tilt the scale toward fossil fuels in New York through the “buyer side mitigation” policy, which would serve to separate everyday New Yorkers from their hard-earned money to the benefit of fossil fuel burners:
New York DPS Whitepaper Takes Step Toward the Future of Solar Rate Design
The New York Department of Public Service (DPS) released a long-anticipated whitepaper that proposes rate design changes for residential solar customers in the state.
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SelfportraitureX
Websites and Blogs
Film, Documentarties, Video
Boris Mikhailov Self-Portrait
Mykhailov in 2002
Borys Andriyovych Mykhailov (Ukrainian: Бори́с Андрі́йович Миха́йлов; born 25 August 1938) is a Ukrainian photographer. He has been described as "one of the most important artists to have emerged from the former USSR."[1]
Born in the former Soviet Union, Mykhailov lived and worked for several decades in his hometown of Kharkiv, Ukraine. He received an education as an engineer and started to teach himself photography. Today he is one of the most successful and well known among the photographers who were already active in the Soviet era. His work combines conceptual art and social documentary photography.[citation needed]
Mykhailov had his first exhibition at the end of the 1960s. After the KGB found nude pictures of his wife he was laid off his job as an engineer and started to work full-time as a photographer. From 1968 to 1975 he shot several series documenting everyday scenes, the best known of them being the Red Series. In these photographs he mainly used the colour red, to picture people, groups and city-life. Red symbolized the October Revolution, political party and the social system of Soviet society. It is often said[by whom?] that within those works critical elements toward the existing political circumstances can be found.
In Mykhailov's Klebrigkeit (1982), he added explanatory notes, or diary-like text.
In Case History, considered an important part of contemporary art,[citation needed] he examines the consequences of the breakdown of the Soviet Union for its people. He systematically took pictures of homeless people. It shows the situation of people who after the breakdown of the Soviet Union were not able to find their place in a secure social system. In a very direct way Mykhailov points out his critique against the "mask of beauty" of the emerging post-Soviet capitalistic way of life.
In 2004 Mykhailov first exhibited in Berlin in an exhibition concerning people living at the edge of society.
If I were a German. Dresden: Verlag der Kunst Dresden, 1995. ISBN 3-364-00352-1
Boris Mikhailov. Stuttgart: Oktagon, 1995. ISBN 9783896110015.
By the Ground. Stuttgart: Oktagon, 1996. ISBN 3-927789-91-7.
At DUSK. Stuttgart: Oktagon, 1996. ISBN 3-927789-91-7.
Unfinished Dissertation. Zurich: Scalo, 1998. ISBN 978-3931141974. With an essay by Margarita Tupitsyn.
Case History. Zurich: Scalo, 1999. ISBN 978-3908247098.
Boris Mikhailov: The Hasselblad Award 2000. Zurich: Scalo, 2001. ISBN 978-3908247425.
Äußere Ruhe / Äussere Ruhe (Drucksache N.F. 4). Düsseldorf: Richter, 2000. ISBN 3-933807-21-2. Photographs and Russian text. Includes a German translation of the photograph notes, an interview with the artist (in German) by Marina Achenbach, and biographies (in German). Edition of 1000 copies.
Boris Mikhailov. Phaidon 55 series. London: Phaidon, 2000.
Salt Lake. 2002 ISBN 3-88243-815-0
Boris Mikhailov: A Retrospective.
Zurich: Scalo, 2003. ISBN 978-3908247722.
Eine Retrospektive.
Look at Me I Look at Water . . . or Perversion of Repose, Göttingen: Steidl, 2004. ISBN 978-3882439687.
Crimean Snobbism. Tokyo: Rathole, 2006.
Suzi Et Cetera. Cologne: Walther König, 2007. ISBN 978-3865601131.
Yesterday's Sandwich. London: Phaidon, 2009. ISBN 978-0714848563.
Maquette Braunschweig. 2010. ISBN 978-3-86521-834-6
The Wedding. London: Mörel Books, 2011. ISBN 978-1907071195.[n 1]
Tea Coffee Cappuccino. Cologne: Walther König, 2011. ISBN 978-3865608772.
Time is out of Joint. Berlin: Distanz, 2012. ISBN 978-3942405645.
I Am Not. London: Morel, 2015. ISBN 978-1-907071-45-4. With a text by Simon Baker. Edition of 500 copies.
Suzi et Cetera (Part 2). 89 Books, 2019.
Yesterday's Sandwich II. Tokyo: Super Labo, 2019.
2001: Saatchi Gallery, London.[citation needed]
2001: Case History & Heiner Müller Project, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin.[citation needed]
2002: The Insulted and the Injured, Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York.[citation needed]
2003: Private Freuden, lastende Langweile, öffentlicher Zerfall - eine Retrospective, Fotomuseum Winterthur, Winterthur, Switzerland.[citation needed]
2004: Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA.[citation needed]
2004: Palau de la Virreina, Barcelona.[citation needed]
2005: Look at me I look at Water, Centre de la Photographie, Geneve.[citation needed]
2011:"Case History ", Museum Of Modern Art, New York.[2]
2019: The Forbidden Image, PinchukArtCentre, Kyiv.[3]
2019: The Space between Us, Kunsthalle Baden Baden, Germany.[4]
2009: Ça me touche, Rencontres d'Arles festival, Arles, France. Curated by Nan Goldin.[citation needed]
2012: Revolution vs Revolution, Beirut Art Center, Beirut, Lebanon.[5]
1997: Albert Renger-Patzsch Buchpreis.[citation needed]
1996: Award of Coutts Contemporary Art Foundation, Switzerland.[citation needed]
2000: Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography, Sweden.[6]
2001: Citigroup Photography Prize (later renamed Deutsche Börse Photography Prize), The Photographers' Gallery, London.[7]
2001: Foto-Buchpreis der Krazna-Krausz-Stiftung, London (Kraszna-Krausz Book Award).[citation needed]
Kharkiv School of Photography
^ Page about The Wedding Archived 2011-10-06 at the Wayback Machine, Mörel Books.
^ Christine Toomey, "The barefaced cheek of Boris Mikhailov", The Sunday Times, June 3, 2007.
^ https://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/03/ arts/design/boris-mikhailov-case-history-at-moma-review.html
^ http://new.pinchukartcentre.org/borys-mikhailov-en
^ "Boris Mikhailov". Retrieved 2020-06-24.
^ "Revolution vs Revolution". Beirut Art Center. Retrieved 6 February 2012.
^ Previous award winners, Hasselblad Foundation.
^ "About The Photography Prize". The Photographers' Gallery. Archived from the original on 8 December 2015. Retrieved 22 October 2015.
"Boris Mikhailov photographs taken at twilight". Photography. Victoria and Albert Museum. Archived from the original on 2007-10-30. Retrieved 2007-08-25.
Laureates of the Hasselblad Award
Lennart Nilsson (1980)
Ansel Adams (1981)
Henri Cartier-Bresson (1982)
Manuel Álvarez Bravo (1984)
Irving Penn (1985)
Ernst Haas (1986)
Hiroshi Hamaya (1987)
Édouard Boubat (1988)
Sebastião Salgado (1989)
William Klein (1990)
Richard Avedon (1991)
Josef Koudelka (1992)
Sune Jonsson (1993)
Susan Meiselas (1994)
Robert Häusser (1995)
Robert Frank (1996)
Christer Strömholm (1997)
William Eggleston (1998)
Cindy Sherman (1999)
Boris Mikhailov (2000)
Hiroshi Sugimoto (2001)
Jeff Wall (2002)
Malick Sidibé (2003)
Bernd and Hilla Becher (2004)
Lee Friedlander (2005)
David Goldblatt (2006)
Nan Goldin (2007)
Graciela Iturbide (2008)
Robert Adams (2009)
Sophie Calle (2010)
Walid Raad (2011)
Paul Graham (2012)
Joan Fontcuberta (2013)
Miyako Ishiuchi (2014)
Wolfgang Tillmans (2015)
Stan Douglas (2016)
Rineke Dijkstra (2017)
Oscar Muñoz (2018)
Daidō Moriyama (2019)
Alfredo Jaar (2020)
ICIA: 274605
NKC: jo20000080774
PIC: 289479
RKD: 226129
SELIBR: 76860
SNAC: w6d013tx
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Mikhailov_(photographer)
Categories: Artist
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Security, Conflict and International Development (SCID)
Bridging academia and practice to address today's challenges – Blog maintained by Eleanor Gordon
Networking and Careers
New Book – Conflict, Security and Justice
SCID MSc – Giving People the Flexibility to Study on the Move
Online Guest Lectures 2013-2016
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Students Aloud
Dividing the Threat Multiplier: An Argument for Effective International Prosecution Against Grand Corruption and Kleptocratic Regimes – Maren Moon
The release of the Panama Papers by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) has fuelled spectacular revelations regarding the scale of grand corruption and the wider system which enables it (ICIJ, 2016: np). The scandal is exposing involvement by the very people and institutions who should feel morally and legally compelled to act with the highest integrity but who instead participate in a system all too frequently perpetrating wholesale crime, undue privilege, and the global erosion of security. (Wolf, 2014: 3). They are doing so with impunity, and they are doing so while the world’s watchdogs cannot help but possess full knowledge that ‘the link between grand corruption and mass human rights violations is undeniable’ (Freedom House, 2014, and also Woodrow Wilson Center, 2016: np., and Transparency International: 2008, ).
No less than heads of states and global financial institutions linked to London, New York and Switzerland have now been connected to an enormous shadow economy responsible for: hiding assets; exercising bribery; facilitating tax evasion; practicing financial fraud; enabling drug trafficking; and participating in sexploitation. (See ICIJ, 2016 and Huffington Post a, 2016, Huffington Post b, 2016: np, and BBCb, 2016: np ). And no fewer than 11 million documents have laid bare the global elite’s participation in a system purposefully rigged to increase the gap between the absurdly wealthy and the tragically poor. The international community would do well to note too that this is a system which facilitates crime in desperate and conflict-vulnerable settings while arming the insurgents and terrorists who operate from within such settings (Patrick, 2009 and Napoleoni, 2003). We should also recall the system intentionally erodes democratic principles of transparency, fair taxation, the right to peaceful protest, and the exercise of free speech (Woodrow Wilson Center, 2016: np and Wolf, 2014: 5-8). In short, this is a system wherein leaders and criminals alike actively undermines everything to which the international community aspires, and for which it ultimately endeavours; sometimes selflessly and in conditions of great hardship.
It should not go unrecognised that the responses of those who have been unveiled as both witting and unwitting participants in the darker aspects of this economy, all too consistently reiterate a mantra which should give each of us a moment’s pause for reflection – that lawyers and financial experts alike still possess the legal means of perpetrating unfair, corrupt, and increasingly unfair and corrupting practices. Vested interests in lofty positions have suggested big businesses, and their high-flying personnel, need to work in the shadow economy even when it lowers opportunities for smaller businesses and honest entrepreneurs. They argue further that legislation against bribery ‘puts British companies at a competitive disadvantage’ (Barrington, 2016: 4). And yet still too, others have intoned that society needs to tacitly accommodate unethical practices in the financial sector on the grounds that businesses in their countries are too big to fail, or too important to risk having relocate to another country. But in making these accommodations we will be enabling the capture of entire governments by organisations whose interests do not include the common citizens who eke by and sustain the infrastructure enjoyed by those who have rigged the system against them (Johnson, 2009: np). Such accommodation could only serve to entrench profit for the few at the cost of the many. We are, in effect, now experiencing parallel attacks on democracy by the licit and illicit economies alike – both of whom are seemingly melding into a deeper, more committed relationship in an increasingly shady capacity and whose political-economy will forever thwart the international community’s efforts in bringing peace and security.
Those who evade tax legally are allowed to escape criminality by conveniently structured legal technicalities. This phenomena is relatively easy to rectify. But the Big King Kleptocrats who knowingly act outside the law, do so understanding that successful prosecution against their acts is nearly unheard of. History and statistics remain firmly on their side. This is occurring regardless of corruption’s increasingly evident role in destabilising entire continents such as Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Central and South America (Carnegie, 2015). These actors smile comfortably while insinuating that exposure of their misdeeds might expose a larger, darker reality in which too many purportedly clean-skinned actors may also be complicit.
And while they may not be kind, they most certainly are proving wise.
Indeed, these same kleptocrats, and their advisors, will have followed closely the freedom and riches once more enjoyed by Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak who has now escaped charges of corruption and murder on a mere technicality (Reuters, 2015: np). Mubarak was a kleptocratic despot whose legacy includes death, blood, fear, and a deeply troubled country. He did not operate in a vacuum, and he was aided by the most powerful regimes in the world. But that does not excuse the outcome – nor does it justify the continuance of such behaviour. Those choosing to play in the dirty sandbox of blood and money in today’s shadow economy will have either dismissed the importance of the Arab Spring’s impact on security and human rights or cynically regarded the situation as yet another opportunity from which to leverage additional millions. I argue that humanity can no longer afford such cynicism.
I further assert these same actors will have understood President Goodluck Jonathan’s dismissal of his bank governor following the well-intended public servant’s disclosure to the ‘Nigerian Senate that the treasury was missing billions of dollars in expected oil revenue’ (Wolf, 2014: 5). Indeed, Jonathan and his cronies seemed content to turn a blind eye to the networks which channelled money and arms to Boko Haram while leaving security forces ill equipped to quell an uprising which has now left more than 10,000 civilians and security personnel dead at the hands of Islamist savagery (Foreign Policy, 2015: np).
The kleptocrats will have further monitored the toppling of corrupt regimes in Tunisia and the Ukraine and reacted like narcissistic sociopaths unable to emotionally register the gravity of their actions, while concurrently making plans to fly to safety while maintaining access to their ill-gotten gains if the same danger knocks on their door.
The impunity enjoyed by this cohort, and structured into our globalised economy, has paved the way for much of the harm we see unfolding on the world’s stage. It has also provided resonant and compelling reasons from which the so called Islamic State, Boko Haram, and the Taliban find a seemingly endless supply of recruits (Chayes, 2007: 22, and Woodrow Wilson Center, 2016: np, and Schirch as cited in Mertus and Helsing, 2009: 68).
Whether knowingly or not, every last player in the shadow economy has contributed to an encroaching threat against humanity and which serves as nothing short of a security threat multiplier. It is of epic and global proportions.
The 2014 Ebola crisis in West Africa provides an immediate example of how easily corruption might impact security on a global scale. UN donor contributions topping $5.2bn were dispersed to Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. Almost all of it vanished, and only a fraction of the disbursement was ever audited. ‘In all three countries, no individual has been tried, much less convicted, for their role in the mismanagement of money meant to save the lives of the dying’ (Al Jazeera, 2016: np.). These funds were also intended to contain the outbreak and prevent its spread. The UN’s Global Ebola Response data refers to the outbreak’s nature as having been of ‘widespread and intense transmission’ (UN, 2014: np). But to date, the myriad pages and resources on their website speak only of a level of need and the current status of the situation. Their silence of the flagrant misappropriation of funds perpetuates impunity. And such complicit behaviour could very well facilitate a new pandemic of Ebola or some other virus, which experts warn could be incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to halt if not contained early, and with the utmost care; care which could never result in the face of another round of missing but badly needs funds (Oxford Martin School, 2012: np).
Grand Corruption further impacts security by destabilising regions in concussive shock waves. As migrants flee corrupt regimes and insurgencies (again, simultaneously fostered by the shadow economy), we see communities decimated, resentments grow, borders close, and trust diminish. (BBCa 2015: np,). Actions originating thousands of miles away from Europe’s shores are now threatening the cohesiveness of European states and the long architected interdependence of the EU. The Schengen Agreement is further threatened as once ceded sovereignty is being repossessed by politicians seeking to erect borders and control the influx of desperate people fleeing the regimes which grand corruption has enabled.
Finally, kleptocracy feeds the thickening of the crime-conflict nexus as human traffickers, arms dealers, and smugglers share mutually beneficial relationships with terrorists, insurgents and the ruling elite. The nexus will continue to thicken so long as the chaotic conditions and lack of governance resulting from unabated kleptocracy ensures the conditions favourable to its growth. (see Patrick, 2009, and Lacher, 2012, and McMullin, 2009, and Jesperson, 2015 and Sloan and Cockayne, 2011).
And it is for these reasons, and so many more, that we must strive to end impunity for grand corruption – and the shadow economy in which it thrives. Such a task will require concerted, relentless multilateral efforts and incredible political will. But it can, and must be done.
We can begin by seizing opportunity from the momentum gathering in the wake of the Panama Papers and the associated Unaoil scandals in current headlines. We can further reach out across the international community and form inter-organisational working teams to apply pressure on host-countries, the Bretton Woods institutions, and home governments. We can institute training programs which dispel the activities which remain shrouded in mystery but whose reality can be unpacked in simple terms. But most of all, we must challenge the sovereignty of those countries who refuse to participate in fair trade and good governance – and we must have an international court with both the will and capacity to challenge the problem. And that court must somehow operate separately from the arbitrary and political interests of the United Nations Permanent 5.
But it has to start. Impunity has to end. And accountability must follow. And never has there been a more pressing time.
Post-script
As a post-script to my previous position piece, I would like to gently assert that the International Community has understandably tolerated grand corruption in the theatres of peacekeeping and peacebuilding operations. The conditions in many of these theatres have necessitated that our precious resources be used first to protect lives and second to institute the ground-level security needed to maintain sufficient equilibrium from which to begin the long, hard institutionalisation of security sector reform, transitional justice, and micro-development projects. But this too provides another reason why the solution to grand corruption requires an international effort outside the influence of the P5 (whose own members might be guilty of grand corruption or geopolitics). We must seek a solution which can pre-empt the looting of banks and act independently of outside political agendas which might situate a vulnerable country between winning and losing scenarios as powerful countries battle for control by proxy. We need a solution which sends a clear signal to corrupt elites across the entire world, and not simply those situated in areas of conflict, that corruption will no longer be tolerated, nor paid for by blood of innocent people. But we, the donor countries, must see to our own houses first. We must ensure our hands are clean and that any authority we exercise is comprised of substance and never hollow in its nature. We must lead from the front, and from genuine experience. But we simply cannot afford to turn away from this issue – at home or abroad. People are dying by guns and by starvation; and they are dying by torture when taking action to stop the atrocity at hand while having inadequate support behind and beside them. We must be that support.
Al Jazeera Media (2016) The plunder of west Africa Ebola funds. Available at: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/01/plunder-west-africa-ebola-funds-160125140155872.html (Accessed: 6 April 2016).
BBC (2016) Migration and citizenship, start the week – BBC radio 4. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06ybg7h (Accessed: 3 April 2016).
BBC (2016) Panama papers: What the documents reveal. Available at: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-35956055 (Accessed: 6 April 2016).
Barrington, R. (2016) ‘Spot the Difference: Corruption Research, Academies and NGOs’, British Academy: British Academy. pp. 1–7.
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (2014) Corruption: The Unrecognized Threat to International Security. Available at: http://carnegieendowment.org/files/corruption_and_security.pdf (Accessed: 14 March 2015).
Chayes, S. (2007) ‘Days of Lies and Roses: Selling Out Afghanistan’, Boston Review, , pp. 21–23.
Foreign Policy (2015) In Nigeria, $2 Billion in Stolen Funds is Just a Drop in the Corruption Bucket. Available at: http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/11/18/in-nigeria-2-billion-in-stolen-funds-is-just-a-drop-in-the-corruption-bucket/ (Accessed: 20 November 2015).
Freedom House (2014) ‘Combating Impunity: Transnational Justice and Anti-Corruption’, Washington, DC: Freedom House. pp. 1–10.
Huffington Post (2016) Big Banks Aided Firm at Center of International Bribery Scandal. Available at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/unaoil-citibank-hsbc_us_56feba02e4b0daf53aefa1da (Accessed: 6 April 2016).
Huffington Post (2016) There’s A huge new corporate corruption scandal. Here’s why everyone should care. Available at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/unaoil-bribery-scandal-corruption_us_56fa2b06e4b014d3fe2408b9 (Accessed: 6 April 2016).
ICIJ (2016) Giant leak of offshore financial records exposes global array of crime and corruption. Available at: https://panamapapers.icij.org/20160403-panama-papers-global-overview.html (Accessed: 6 April 2016).
ICIJ (2016) The Panama papers. Available at: https://panamapapers.icij.org/ (Accessed: 6 April 2016).
Jesperson, S. (2015) ‘Development Engagement with Organized Crime: a Necessary Shift or Further Securitisation?’, Conflict, Security, & Development, 15(1), pp. 23–50.
Johnson, S. (2009) The Quiet Coup. Available at: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/05/the-quiet-coup/307364/ (Accessed: 6 April 2016).
Lacher, W. (2012) Organized Crime and Conflict in the Sahel-Sahara Region.
McMullin, J. (2009) ‘Organised Criminal Groups and Conflicts: The Nature and Consequences of Interdependence’, Civil Wars, 11(1), pp. 75–102.
Napoleoni, L. (2003) Modern Jihad: Tracing the Dollars Behind the Terror Networks. London: Pluto Press.
Oxfam International (2015) Richest 1% will own more than all the rest by 2016. Available at: https://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressreleases/2015-01-19/richest-1-will-own-more-all-rest-2016 (Accessed: 6 April 2016).
Oxford Martin School (2012) Pandemics – can we eliminate major worldwide epidemics? | videos. Available at: http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/videos/view/208 (Accessed: 4 April 2016).
Patrick, S. (2011) Weak Links: Fragile States, Global Threats, and International Security. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Reuters (2015) Egypt’s high court overturns last conviction against Mubarak. Available at: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-egypt-mubarak-idUSKBN0KM0O620150113 (Accessed: 6 April 2016).
Schirch, L. (2006) Human Rights & Conflict: Exploring the Links between Rights, Law, and Peacebuilding. Edited by Julie A Mertus and Jeffrey W Helsing. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace.
Sloan, B. and Cockayne, J. (2011) ‘Terrorism, Crime, and Conflict: Exploiting the Differences Among Transnational Threats?’, Policy Brief, , pp. 1–11.
Transparency International (2008) ‘Human Rights and Corruption’, Working Paper, 05, pp. 1–6.
United Nations (2014) Global Ebola crisis response | data. Available at: http://www.un.org/ebolaresponse/data.shtml (Accessed: 6 April 2016).
Wolf, M.L. (2014) ‘The Case for an International Anti-Corruption Court’, Governance Studies at Brookings, July, pp. 1–15.
Woodrow Wilson Center (2016) Combatting grand corruption internationally. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GN6HDEgiSc8 (Accessed: 6 April 2016).
This entry was posted in Building Security and Justice after Conflict, conflict, corruption, Course, peacebuilding, SCID Course, SCID Students, War and Peace and tagged corruption, governance, grand corruption, international community, peace, security, threat on November 2, 2016 by uolscid.
Building Peace and Democracy in Myanmar, Brick by Brick
A series of posts on Democracy and Conflict: Real-life Solutions vs Models:
“Locally owned democratic reforms and peace building processes may not look as logical and attractive as externally promoted/imposed models, but they are effective — not the least because they derive from and are built in local culture, contexts, institutions.”
21st Century Panglong Conference in Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar 31 August, 2016. REUTERS
In this commentary on Myanmar’s recent progress toward establishing democratic governance and ending decades-long civil war, I will try to look beyond the known facts into the background of Burmese politics that frames, directs and conditions the course of developments, but is also continuously influenced by them. That is why this environment is neither static nor monolithic or heterogeneous. I will pick up some pieces of this dynamic puzzle to better understand what is happening in Myanmar and, more importantly, why it happens as it does.
In the course of four days, from 31 August to 4 September 2016, the government and military of Myanmar held a peace conference with rebel groups over the country’s future political and administrative set-up. The conference in the capital Nay Pyi Taw was the first broad based, inclusive of (almost) all stakeholders event dedicated to this issue in nearly seventy years, since gaining the independence in 1948.
The importance of this event is difficult to overestimate. It was the largest and most representative forum bringing together government officials, members of parliament, political party representatives, military officers, and representatives of ethnic armed groups in decades. Its significance is twofold, given that it demonstrated the legitimacy and credibility of the first democratically elected government and set the course toward the implementation of the negotiated peace that shall result in a new, federal political and administrative organisation of the Burmese State.
It was not perfect (what is in political realm?), for it did not live up to (rather elevated) expectations of achieving tangible outcomes except for demonstrating commitment, formally launching the process, and offering all the sides an opportunity to share their opinion. But that is already a firm step forward, in a manner that appears to be characteristic of political processes in Myanmar—testing ground and moving from one milestone to the next as conditions allow.
Conditions must be ripe for making a move to another milestone toward peace and democracy in Myanmar, and they grew so gradually over a number of recent years of painstakingly building momentum, to be ready by this point in time.
This kind of decision making based on ecological rationality (that is when inferences are made through exploiting the structure of information and the environment to arrive at adaptively useful outcomes) shows itself in many instances in Myanmar, including the timing of holding the conference. Many external observes grew impatient over the prolonged negotiations and the delay with holding this landmark event; they missed the point, I am afraid. The conditions must be ripe for making the move toward another milestone, and they grew so gradually over a number of recent years of painstakingly building momentum, to be ready by this point in time:
— The military have made another step on their ‘roadmap’, by allowing the democratically elected government to take public office; in so doing they retained their power and control of certain decision-making domains (such as defence, police and border control where they continue appointing the ministers and their deputies).
— The government is fresh and its de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi commands respect internally and internationally and enjoys credibility with majority of population; thus hopes and willingness to cooperate are high for the time being (this is not going to be always like that, because there will be unavoidable delays and failures in addressing the mounting problems that will eventually lead to certain frustration and disillusionment).
— The rebels are exhausted and they realise that they have achieved maximum of what they could have secured through the armed conflict. It is not a secret to either side that violence leads to more violence which only aggravates the situation but does not bring any result in and by itself. Since the signing of National Ceasefire Agreement in October 2015 all but three rebel groups in the north have put the arms down.
— This explains why all the rebel groups (even those who did not sign the agreement) agreed to its text last year. And in fact accepting the peace agreement is being kept firmly by the government and military, as a precondition for participating in the follow-up peace- and state-building process. On the other hand, the negotiation process was long enough (it took four years) for all the parties to hold internal consultations and to weigh all the pros and cons. In turn, the military’s powerful commander-in-chief, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, and his deputy signing the agreement in person had demonstrated their commitment.
— And finally, the process has got high level of attention and support from the international community. At the moment it is at its pick, which means strong political backing but also availability of financial and technical aid which are much needed to revitalise the economy and to address Myanmar’s numerous social problems (this should be taken with caution though, first, because of ever important to Myanmar strategic goal of balancing its relations with China, and second, recalling the waste in supply and spending when the country first opened for the external assistance in 2011, after the sanctions imposed back in the 1990s).
The fact that the agreement signing ceremony last year was attended by ambassadors of forty-five countries, the UN and World Bank in presence and co-signed by six international witnesses (among them the most important politically and economically neighbours China and India, along with Japan, Thailand, UN and the European Union) already speaks for itself. This year, the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon addressed the conference, while the former SG Kofi Annan will head a commission for examining the situation with Rohingya Muslims and offering recommendations.
Recognizing the complexity of Burmese society
Any society represents a complex system due to broad variety of societal groups which constitute it and the diversity of their interests and intra-group and inter-group interactions (as stakeholders in an array of issues). Complex systems, as a rule, are characterized by the interaction of their components and therefore the resulting ‘emergent’ properties of the system as a whole cannot be derived from generalized quality of its components but reflect the properties of those numerous and multidimensional interactions between its constituent parts. Those interactions, in turn, tend to constantly change in their dynamics, directions, forms and magnitude. That is why it is so difficult to categorize any society, even when assessed against the criteria of one given category (for example, using political rights and civil liberties for judging the degree of democratic freedom).
Now imagine how complex is society where one-third of population is comprised of ethnic minorities. Moreover, there are more than a hundred of those minorities living together in these territories literally for ages. Add seven decades of most recent violent confrontation between them and the government led by military junta (of ethnic majority)—a civil war resulting in further erosion of social fabric and deeply running mistrust, physical destruction, economic backwardness, poverty, massive scale human rights abuses, hundreds of thousands of refugees abroad and displaced people in-country, and more than one hundred thousand of fighters belonging to a dozen-and-half of armed rebel groups spread across the land (which are linked to each other but do not form a single cohesive entity, thus may act independently).
Democracy and Peacemaking. It is impossible to meaningfully achieve one goal without attaining the other: there cannot be a democracy without equality and fundamental human rights and rights of minorities respected, and democracy seems to be the only system that can guarantee those rights to the Burmese society’s diverse populations.
There are two processes running simultaneously in Myanmar, since its independence day. One is the process of political transformation (presumably toward democratic governance, but in a localised fashion). Another is civil war between the ethnic majority and minorities. In the shadows of it is taking place another localised violent conflict, driven by religious divides. These processes are intertwined, although may vary independently, and what happens is that only a solution (or rather, a set of solutions) that addresses core issues at the heart of them has a chance to be effective and sustainable. It is impossible to meaningfully achieve one goal without attaining the other: there cannot be a democracy without equality and fundamental human rights and rights of minorities respected, and democracy seems to be the only system that cannot guarantee those rights to the Burmese society’s diverse populations.
A rebel Shan soldier guards the heights of a hill outside a mobile camp of the Rebel Shan State Army (SSA) in north eastern Myanmar. PDN/TAN/JDP
Understanding the local contexts and institutions
This is a sketchy present-day portrait of Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, set within the country’s unique contextual features and underlying institutions. Take just some of them, most prominent ones, and you will see the random events, individuals and groups as parts and parcels of political processes occurring in their natural environment.
The country has a long history of statehood—existed as an independent kingdom, at times strongly centralised, for centuries (since the mid of 11th century until British colonization in the end of 19th century). Therefore, sense of nationalism and pride of own history and traditions, in each ethnic group and nation-wide, runs very deep. Perhaps this is one reason that in spite of violent infighting, almost all the rebel ethnicity centred groups do not seek to secede but strive to have equal rights and autonomy thorough building a federal state within the present borders. They take pride of the fact that Burma did not join the Commonwealth because they ‘refused to accept the British sovereign as head of state’.
On the other hand, the colonial rule not only disrupted the continuity of sovereign rule but also exacerbated and exposed the country’s major social vulnerability by stressing its inter-communal ethnicity based differences. This was recognised at the time of gaining the independence, and political equality was reflected in an agreement of domestic forces. Unfortunately this agreement was not implemented, thus effectively leading to armed conflict between the ruling majority and ethnic minorities.
Religion (Buddhism) has been one of distinctive building blocks of identity in Burma over the course of its long history, and has greatly influenced the individual, group, and inter-community behaviour and relations. However, group identity is not a permanent ‘solid enduring fact’ but rather a ‘situational construct’ which, first, has many layers and, second, evolves as part of the advancement strategy in response to changing circumstances (for example, by changing the hierarchy of its ingredient parts/layers). Therefore the Buddhist identity has not always played a dominant or unifying role in inter-communal relations, especially in the framework of the civil war unfolding.
In addition to ethnic diversity, there is a religious minority of Muslim population living in compact pockets; they are seen as aliens and discriminated against by nationalist Buddhists, at times brutally. In the western state of Rakhine, about hundred and twenty thousand Rohingya Muslims are living in displacement camps after being driven from their communities four years ago (it is also indicative that no one represented them at the peace conference).
Economic inequality has been another driver of the conflict, since the minorities live in most remote and underdeveloped areas but also have been neglected by the central government for long. Decades of civil war have devastated the country’s resources and destroyed its economy’s productive infrastructure while creating the opportunities for illicit economic activities, especially drug related, thus contributing to the conflict’s sustainability.
The change from within
Myanmar has demonstrated that by following its own path it slowly by surely progresses toward the end goal. The goal itself is broadly defined; it is shaped and reshaped along the journey, with multiple intermediary milestones determining the pace, the direction and the current and possible future settlement formats. Its smooth transition from military rule to democratically elected government (even though with the power and special position of military constitutionally guaranteed) took too long in the eyes of many observers, but what is important is that it worked out and already started delivering its first results. Another process, of ending the civil war, has too, entered its maturity phase after many attempts, iterations, and prolonged negotiations.
It well may be that, after decades of dominating mostly grim news Myanmar is about presenting to the world a lesson on how internal differences could be overcome. Whatever comes in the end (both in terms of governance and peace), is going to be a Burmese product, a local model that may not (and most probably because of that won’t) fit into Western or any other models of democratic government and peacemaking or work as a model for replication elsewhere.
Revitalisation of a troubled society must come from within if there is to be a meaningful fulfilment of its various communities’ needs and aspirations and a workable mechanism to accommodate their diverse relationships.
I am convinced that the Burmese (and similar) experiences of dealing with their problems deserve to be closely studied and learnt from. I see the success factors of this approach in its domestically-driven energy and localised solutions, built with recognition of political culture, traditions and institutions, with adjustments made to local contexts and, through this interaction, influencing those contexts to allow the change occurring and taking root. The revitalisation of a troubled society must come from within if there is to be a meaningful fulfilment of its various communities’ needs and aspirations and a workable mechanism for their diverse relationships.
The country makes cautious steps in progression and there is a long way to go. But one thing is clear today is that they do it their own way in Myanmar, and even if it does not match everyone’s expectations or standards abroad, it may work well for their people. And that’s what matters in the end.
This article originally appeared as a blog on PolicyLabs under the headline ‘Myanmar: Building Peace and Democracy Brick by Brick’
About the Author: Dr. Elbay Alibayov is an international development professional specialising in state-building and political processes in post-conflict countries. He has worked in Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Azerbaijan. Being posted in the field (such as office in Srebrenica) and headquarters of international projects and missions, he has designed, implemented and overseen a broad range of strategies and local and nation-wide initiatives, and have chaired and participated in the work of civil-military groups, political coordination boards at all levels.
This entry was posted in Building Security and Justice after Conflict, peacebuilding, War and Peace and tagged conflict, democracy, local ownership, peace, peacebuilding, security on September 20, 2016 by Elbay Alibayov Mentoring.
Syrian ‘Perfect War’: A Game Changer
Children ride in carts on the third day of Eid al-Adha in the rebel controlled city of Idlib, Syria September 14, 2016. REUTERS/Ammar Abdullah
What is happening in Syria today is not yet ‘another violent conflict fought in the volatile Middle East’. It started five years ago in line with scenario played in many other places over centuries. However, due to internal political dynamics, regional rivalries and cross-border influences, competing geopolitical interests of many actors, as well as the active presence of global terrorist organisations this conflict has grown in something the world has not seen before—it is surely moving toward becoming a Perfect War, the kind of world war of the twenty-first century.
Ending the Syrian War by traditional methods is already impossible; it has been proven by numerous failures and the deterioration further into the abyss of uncontrollable fighting. New approaches must be explored and tested on the ground—this will demand new, unorthodox ways of decision making, cooperation, and implementation.
There are many wars fought in Syria today, with different agendas and actors involved, but all have one thing in common—they are driven by political power and influence.
These wars become increasingly integrated and evolve toward becoming one single multifaceted violent conflict, which no one can control and with no end in sight.
Solution to this conundrum is only one—to abandon the idea of achieving a comprehensive peace in one move and instead decompose the problem into small parts, and implement sets of limited tasks to effectively address them, in order to progress toward the ultimate goal over time.
Looking Beyond the Events:
There are many wars fought in Syria today, with different agendas and actors involved, but all of them are about political power and influence. Today, Syria is a battleground for a number of wars. Each has it its own contexts, underlying conflict drivers, prize at stake, and actors involved directly and covertly. They are fought by a large group of local, regional, national, and transnational actors. Many are involved in more than one war and the aims they pursue and alliances they make in each war are different. Therefore the phrase Syrian War refers to conglomerate of wars closely related to and reinforcing each other.
Three wars are fought for direct power control in Syria. One is civil war. It started from the violent confrontation between the opposition-turned rebels and the authoritarian regime of Bashar al-Assad, in 2011. The government does not intend to give up the power while the opposition wants to take it all. This zero sum game has a number of implications. More protracted it is, more resources it demands, more atrocities are committed, and fewer chances are left for its ultimate resolution (which extends to post-war stabilisation, reconciliation, and rebuilding the country).
Another war is initiated by militant Islamist groups who took advantage of power vacuum and mess created by civil war in pursuit of their own goals: ISIL to establish a self-ruled caliphate; al-Qaeda and other jihadists to exert influence over Syrian state. Originally it alien to Syrian political context, but in the course of five-and-half years managed to become part of it.
Initially in the shadow of these two but growing prominent and creating yet another set of proxy wars is the war of Syrian Kurds. The Kurds, too, aim at reshaping the power balance in Syria in their own favour—getting a recognised autonomous region. By establishing Rojava under their control in the north, they advanced their cause but further complicated the issues for external actors working to end the war (e.g. two NATO members, Turkey and the US).
Proxy wars derive from those three wars and are overlapping, confusing and conflicting with each other. Take a few examples. Regime of Assad is supported by Russia and Iran, while the opposition is backed by the US, Saudi Arabia and Persian Gulf countries. On the other hand US, Turkey, Russia and Iran fight against ISIL. Saudi Arabia also backs non-ISIL Islamist groups which in turn support al-Qaeda’s affiliate. It appears that Saudi Arabia and Turkey are also backing jihadist groups that fight Assad. The US strongly backs the Kurdish forces, but Turkey has drawn its troops to the north to counter them under premise of fighting ISIL. And the list goes on and on, with these and many other smaller players entering the game.
The wars become increasingly integrated and evolve toward becoming one single multifaceted violent conflict, with no end in sight. The wars overlap geographically and in their drivers, incentives, and aims. They overlap in terms of actors involved, from government forces, to various governments sponsored militia, to mercenaries and terrorists on almost all sides. They keep adapting to fast changing circumstances on the ground, pursuing their goals by multiple tactical means, switching sides, merging campaigns with those whom they have seemingly irreconcilable differences at strategic level—and thus contributing to increased integration of wars.
The uncompromising stand of Syrian government and opposition only strengthens the hand of those who want to proliferate from this situation, by offering them an opportunity to dig deeper into political process at the expense of Syrian moderate opposition groups. Jihadists gradually become part of the civil war, mix with rebels and thus pose a risk of highjacking the political contest.
Syrian opposition movement has not been homogeneous from the outset. However, certain categorisation of them, in terms of ideologies and the means they employed was still possible. Today, it is very difficult to distinguish between ‘moderate’ rebels and ‘extremists’ as the former are increasingly radicalised and in desperation many of them join forces with jihadist groups.
The result of this integration is that, by compensating each other’s limitations, the Syrian wars evolve into one self-sustaining conflict—the Perfect War—that is fought for its own sake, is self-sufficient in terms of attracting resources and satisfying its needs, and can last permanently.
Solution to this conundrum is only one—to abandon the idea of achieving a comprehensive peace in one move and instead decompose the problem into small parts and develop and implement a series of limited tasks to address them. The situation in Syria is out of control and there is no such power in the world—individual or collective—that can control it. Before the full integration of Syrian wars a fundamentally new approach to finding solution must be employed.
In complex situations with high risk and uncertainty, many alternatives, and small information available the decision making shall be simple and tactical. For that, small manageable tasks are adapted to environment and then multiple moves carried out simultaneously or subsequently, in various places and directions. Another condition is that the tasks shall be decoupled (but well coordinated) to extent possible so that to isolate their failures from affecting other tasks. This is where less becomes more, in terms of outcome.
Interestingly, this approach is already being tested in the Syrian war framework. Take, for example, the successful attempts of US and Russia (in spite of principal differences in stands with regard to the future of Assad) to establish a ceasefire in Aleppo, to allow delivering humanitarian aid and to share the US intelligence in order to target Jabhat Fateh al-Sham. Or consider the recent deal between the Syrian government and the rebels, on surrendering the Damascus suburb Daraya. These examples prove that small-scale, localised tasks are manageable.
The adversaries have been ahead of the game in terms of decoupling, though. Their recent manoeuvring with rebranding Jabhat al-Nusra into Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (thus pretending to dissociate from al-Qaeda) and subsequent ‘defection’ of a fraction from it to create their own group clearly demonstrate that.
The goal of establishing lasting peace in Syria can be achieved by redefining the engagement strategy. Large scale military campaigns are one of a means to an end: pulling out ISIL form occupied territories and decapitating militant groups are necessary but not sufficient. Neither are high-level (presumably representative and all-inclusive) peace talks. The daily job of progressing toward the desirable end-state in Syria is through numerous, random, tactical interventions aimed at searching for, understanding, and building on the existing opportunities for peace and strengthening local resilient capacity.
Full version of this post was published on PolicyLabs: A Potential Game Changer in Syrian ‘Perfect War’.
For the analysis of scenarios see: The Syrian War: How to Move from Chaos to Peace
This entry was posted in conflict and tagged conflict, Middle East, peace, peacebuilding, political crisis, Syria on September 15, 2016 by Elbay Alibayov Mentoring.
Ending the War in Colombia: Understanding Conflict, Preparing for Peace
On 24 August, Colombian Government and the Revolutionary Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, FARC) have reached a comprehensive peace agreement. It is too early to celebrate the end of the long-lasting war—the deal has to be ratified through referendum and even then its success will be conditional on implementation. At this point, we can reflect on some insights from this 52-year-long conflict and looking forward try to anticipate what we have yet to learn from the Colombian experience.
– Each conflict has its own internal dynamics (which are shaped and fed by local political institutions and contemporary contexts). Any conflict therefore may take as long as its internal logic dictates, be iterative, with many failed attempts to establish peace.
– Whatever external influences they will have an effect on the conflict as long as its contextual fabric absorbs and localises them. This makes any given conflict unique, and therefore no imported solutions will work without being first adapted to and ‘digested’ by local contexts. The same goes for ‘lessons learned’.
– Interventions of external actors tend to complicate the situation and make the conflict’s natural maturation process confused. Active interventions (except for humanitarian aid and facilitation of peace talks) complicate the conflict for many reasons; they also tend to transfer into proxy wars, given different interests and agendas of external actors.
– Military interventions of external (individual or collective) actors must be avoided, except for limited tasks by international stabilisation forces. Even then, the UN mandate should be limited to such tasks as ensuring cessation of hostilities, maintaining ceasefire, enabling delivery of humanitarian aid, etc.
– For a comprehensive peace deal to materialise the conditions must be ripe, first of all the goodwill of both sides along with their readiness to make concessions. Not an easy task considering that there is never full agreement in either camp, as ensuring coherence is always a challenge.
– It also takes a leader who is brave enough and ready to put his/her political career at risk of concluding the deal—which is always subject to imperfection, scrutiny, disbelief, and controversy, and won’t be met by all people positively.
Challenges ahead
There are many questions and many concerns. Not many answers. Quite understandably—only practice will provide them (and even then, these would not be timeless truth).
– Does the peace agreement mean the end to hostilities between Colombian security and all rebels?
Bilateral permanent ceasefire between FARC and the government became effective as of Monday, 29 August.
Other rebel groups are not part of the peace deal and some will seek strengthen their ranks at the account of FARC members who disagree with disarmament. Parallel talks are planned with the National Liberation Army (ELN), the second-largest guerrilla group.
– What are the peace deal’s success factors? Once ratified, the sustainable peace will depend on:
how all the agreed reforms and reintegration points are delivered by the government;
how effective transitional justice works, for all sides;
how society accepts ex-combatants and their supporters;
how population of formerly FARC controlled areas accepts the government’s legitimacy; and
how FARC members go through the process of reintegration into society.
– What are challenges faced by the Colombian government? Most immediate are:
political opposition undermining the process;
population not happy with special treatment offered to ex-combatants and with softness of measures against crimes committed;
financial problems with regards to investing into reintegration, public services and rebuilding infrastructure in former FARC areas.
– What kind of dilemmas will FARC face? They have to be understood along the drivers of conflict:
politically: accepting that they have to become part of political system they have fought for ideological reasons;
economically: making transition to licit income generation, learn new skills;
psychologically: overcoming self-aggrandisement but also frustration from the change in social status;
socially: adapting to new places if relocated (especially with families), finding their new role in community life.
– What are the issues for citizens to overcome? Different groups of stakeholders to peace and reconciliation will have to cope with common dilemmas (such as overcoming mistrust and forgiving) but also specific to them problems:
changing allegiance but also the lifestyle (areas formerly controlled by FARC);
accepting former fighters as equal community members, whatever past experiences and grievances (localities of resettlement);
repossession of property and land, reintegration (returnee population);
overcoming envy as ex-combatants and returnees, as well as former rebel areas will receive financial support from the government (domiciles of resettlement localities; people in remote rural areas across country who won’t receive additional investment);
complying with transitional justice measures (former guerrillas but also security officers facing prosecution).
– What are some tough tests before the international community? There will be at least three challenges, neither of them new to international affairs:
diplomatic: after decades of taking side of the government to adopt a balanced approach in order not to distort a very fragile balance necessary for integration and lasting stability;
political: to respect the democratic process and choice of Colombian people in terms of new government priorities (including in foreign policy), as influenced by FARC’s participation in the legislative and executive.
aid coordination: to ensure maximum possible level of coordination between development agencies, sponsors, implementers in order not to confuse and harm the otherwise sensitive political processes of disarmament, demobilisation, reintegration.
– What are challenges to international development experts deployed to Colombia?
working in the field (and this is where the real job is done): will be under pressure of all sorts—life conditions in remote rural areas, security, and above all unpredictability of developments. Decisions often-time shall be taken spontaneously, urgently and with limited prior knowledge. Exhibiting highest levels of impartiality, integrity, political and cultural sensitivity to navigate through at times turbulent local waters while keeping the delivery of assistance at expected professional standard is not easy;
project owners: development specialists shall be allowed more independence in decision making, thoughtful experimentation, and flexible forms of planning, delivery and monitoring—adapted to local circumstances.
There is a long way to go for Colombia in terms of peacebuilding, and for all those who want to make violent conflict there and elsewhere on the face of the Earth part of history, not future. Understanding local contexts, making timely adjustments, and focusing on the drivers of change can greatly help making this path more effective.
The full version of this article was posted on PolicyLabs: The Colombian Peace Accord: Food for Thought
This entry was posted in Building Security and Justice after Conflict, conflict and tagged conflict, peace, peacebuilding on September 14, 2016 by Elbay Alibayov Mentoring.
Building Security and Justice After Conflict – Student Position Papers
At the end of the SCID Course, students are asked to reflect upon the whole Course and write a position paper (of about 750 words). The paper should be on an issue related to building security and justice in post-conflict environments that they feel most passionate about which requires attention by, at least an element of, the international community. The postscript to the paper summarises reasons why effective action has not been taken to date. Students are asked to draw on their own experience and knowledge as well as academic material, with the aim of persuading the reader to agree with the position put forward and, if necessary, to act, while displaying academic writing and analytical skills.
Those papers that secured a Merit or Distinction (i.e. above 60%) are reproduced on this Blog (below and on a new page entitled Building Security and Justice after Conflict – Student Position Papers). Congratulations to all students who did so well and to everyone in the September 2014 intake for completing the whole course – and all the very best with your dissertations.
Best wishes, Eleanor
This entry was posted in Bridging the Gap between Academia and Practice, Building Security and Justice after Conflict, SCID Course, SCID Students, Uncategorized and tagged conflict, governance, peace, peacebuilding, SCID Students, security, uolscid on May 3, 2016 by uolscid.
This entry was posted in Building Security and Justice after Conflict, corruption, peacebuilding, SCID Course, SCID Students, War and Peace and tagged conflict, corruption, governance, peace, peacebuilding, SCID, SCID Students, security, uolscid on May 3, 2016 by uolscid.
Where are all the women? – Jane Townsley
Across the World there continue to be lost opportunities to build security and justice in post conflict environments by the marginalisation of women. It doesn’t make sense not to include those who can represent the needs and expectations of half the population. In the words of US Secretary of State John Kerry “no team can possibly win leaving half of the team on the bench” (Kerry, 2014 n.p.).
Women play a key role in our societies, they know what is happening within local communities and in many cases are able to influence others, including within traditional societies, where mothers have an important role to play in guiding the future path of their children. So when post conflict reform programs are being designed women need to be included in that process and in their subsequent delivery. There is evidence that when security actors take into account the differing needs of both men and women the likelihood of achieving their objectives is increased (Whiteman & O’Neill, 2012).
Focusing in particular on police reform the lack of involvement of women in certain environments particularly post conflict is shameful. According to Abbas (2016) the expansion of women’s role in law enforcement as well as the broader criminal justice system ‘Is the key necessary element to open the doors of peace and harmony around the globe. It is especially so in conflict zones and regions facing socioeconomic turbulence and instability”.
Gender responsive policing is about ensuring the needs of men and women, boys and girls are taken into account equally when delivering policing services as well as the needs of those men and women working within the police. In most cases the creation of a fully gender responsive police service within a post conflict environment requires not only increasing the number of women but also ensuring all officers are professionally trained and equipped to provide the best services to the communities they are there to protect. This does not mean that women should be restricted to non operational back office roles or that they alone should deal with women and children victims. Women officers can make a valuable contribution to operational roles, just their presence in hostile situations can defuse tensions. It is essential that male officers too have an awareness of the needs and expectations of women within society if trust and confidence is to be built for sustainable security and justice. As stated by Bastick (2008:5) ”SSR efforts should, however not treat young men primarily as a security risk and women and girls primarily as victims”.
The status of women in law enforcement and governance is reflective of the status of women in communities which, in turn, determines a government’s ability to respond effectively to conflict (Bird, Townsley, 2015). Increasing access to justice for victims of gender based violence, something that is often prolific following conflict and disproportionately effects women and girls, is another benefit of gender responsive policing. In post-conflict societies it is far more likely that female victims would be dealt with by male officers, probably at police stations where there are no victim friendly facilities. More women officers can provide victims with the courage to take their first steps into the justice system however they need relevant training. For example, just staffing violence against women units with women officers who have had no specific training will do nothing to increase trust and confidence. Equally, professionally trained male officers can provide the necessary support and understanding required.
Where the numbers of women have been increased in policing within post-conflict environments they often are subject to discriminatory practices. In Pakistan, female officers make up less than 1% of police numbers and lack basic equipment, they are also discriminated against when it comes to nominations for training (Peters, Chughtai, 2014). In Afghanistan, where there is only 1 female officer for every 10,000 women (OXFAM, 2013) policewomen are often side lined into demeaning roles, abused and even killed (IAWP, 2014) “If you cannot safeguard women in the police, how can you possibly improve the situation for women in the community?” (IAWP, 2014: 1).
There is a disproportionate impact from conflict on women and girls when it comes to security and justice, yet they continue to be excluded from many post-conflict reform programs. Despite many advocates that the inclusion of women is essential for lasting peace, progress continues to be slow. Within security reform recruiting more women to the police alone will not solve the problem, policies and procedures need revising to create a fully inclusive police service. In order to achieve ‘real’ change, gender mainstreaming need to be replicated across the entire criminal justice system.
Postscript:
Why hasn’t effective action been taken to address the issues outlined above? A number of reasons exist but the overriding one is a lack of accountability. Who can hold governments to account? In post-conflict settings there is often at the start of reform and rebuilding processes institutions and government structures are broken if not totally collapsed. International actors including UN Peacekeepers can become involved but even then where does the true accountability lie? The only United Nations body with any ‘authority’ is the security council yet still atrocities persist across the globe, sometimes right under the noses of UN Peacekeepers such as in Rwanda and Bosnia.
The UNSC Resolution 1325 (2000) is specific about the role women should play in peacekeeping and peace building yet where is the accountability when so many member states still do not have National Action Plans 16 years after 1325 was accepted? Still only 60 member states have produced their plans (Institute for Inclusive Security, 2016n.p.). The achievement of the Millennium Development Goals did not succeed by 2015, again who holds governments to account? We now have the Sustainable Development Goals #16 ‘Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions’ (UN, 2016) being the most relevant to this paper. How will they be monitored and governments held to account? The UN Security Council was established following the end of WWII yet the World is a different place now and perhaps the make up of the permanent members of the security council is overdue a review something even Kofi Annan recognised whilst he was the UN Secretary General (Annan, 2013:142) as he stated, “For the Security Council to enjoy legitimacy in the twenty-first century, it needs to be not only effective but also representative” He went on to state, “The problem will not be that such countries will actively oppose the Security Council. It’s that they will ignore it” (Annan, 2013: 142).
Abbas, H. (2016) ‘Women Fighting for Peace: Lessons for Today’s Conflicts’ Committee on Foreign Affairs United States House of Representatives, Washington D.C.: USA, 22nd March 2016.
Annan, K. (2013) Interventions: A Life in War and Peace, New York: Penguin.
Bastick, M. (2008) Integrating Gender in Post-Conflict Security Sector Reform Policy Paper 29, Geneva: Geneva Centre for Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF).
Bird, E. and Townsley, J. (2015) ‘Background’ Gender Agenda International, Sheffield: Flinch Design.
IAWP (International Association of Women Police) (2014) ‘Police Women in Afghanistan’ IAWP Campaign Briefing Paper, http://www.iawp.org/campaigns/Afghanistan/IAWPAfghanistanCampaign.pdf (accessed 4th April 2016).
Institute for Inclusive Security (2016) National Action Plan Resource Centre http://actionplans.inclusivesecurity.org (accessed 4th Aril 2016).
Kerry, J. (2014) ‘Closing Remarks’ at Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict, London: Excel Centre, London, UK, 13th June 2014.
OXFAM (2013) Women and the Afghan Police – Why a law enforcement agency that respects and protects females is crucial for progress, OXFAM Briefing Paper 173 http://www.oxfam.org/en/policy/women-afghan-police (accessed 4th April 2016).
Peters, A. and Chughtai, H. (2014) ‘Why Pakistan Needs a Few More Good Women’ Foreign Policy http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/07/29/why-pakistan-needs-a-few-more-good-women/ (accessed 4th April 2016).
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000) S/Res/1325 (2000), New York: United Nations.
United Nations (2016) 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals http://sustainabledevelopment.un.org (accessed 4th April 2016).
Whiteman, T. and O’Neill, J. (2012) Attention to Gender Increases Security in Operations: Examples from the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), Washington D.C.: The Institute for Inclusive Security.
This entry was posted in Building Security and Justice after Conflict, Gender, SCID Course, SCID Students, Security Sector Reform, War and Peace and tagged conflict, Gender, governance, peace, peacebuilding, Police Reform, SCID, security, Security Sector Reform, SSR, uolscid, women on May 3, 2016 by uolscid.
Prospects for Peace in Colombia: Inequalities, Denial and the Undeserving Poor
In the blog post linked at the end of this paragraph, Nathan Tuffin, Portfolio Manager with the Languages, Literature & International Engagement Section of AHRC talks about the experiences at the Post-Conflict Research Workshop, held in Bogota and Medellin, Colombia last month – Source: A Blog from Colombia – An AHRC perspective.
UK-Colombia Post-Conflict Research Workshop
I attended the Post-Conflict Research Workshop organised jointly by the Research Councils UK (RCUK) and the Government of Colombia, held last month in Colombia. During the Workshop the dynamics of the conflict and the prospective peacebuilding challenges were considered, and priorities were identified in terms of areas where academic researchers can help contribute to addressing these challenges. I thought the blog post linked to above might be of interest to some of you – I will share the identified priorities and outcomes once they are formalised. I also wanted to share some further thoughts on my visit to Colombia, in the hope that some of you will comment (which I would find very helpful) or write short blog posts on your views of a conflict-affected environment you work in, have visited, or have read about.
First Impressions of Colombia – Challenges, Complexity and Capacity
This Workshop and my short visit to Colombia left me with an impression of the enormity of the challenges facing a country that has seen 50 years of conflict. It is also a highly complex conflict, not least in terms of how it has changed over time; the hundreds of thousands of victims; the many different actors involved, their activities and alliances which also fluctuate over time; and the way in which the conflict affects different geographic areas and socio-economic groups differently. Indeed, it seems the only constant factor in the conflict has been that the poor and the marginalised have disproportionately suffered – even in places less afflicted by the conflict – as it often is in conflicts worldwide.
Aside from the enormity of the challenge, I was also struck by the capacity that exists within Colombia to address these challenges. Aside from the institutions (often afflicted by corruption) and the legislative framework (comprehensive but not always adhered to), the strength of civil society was what impressed me the most: the number of human rights defenders, lawyers, academics, journalists, as well as indigenous, Afro-Colombian, peasant farmer and other community leaders – and the quality of their work, their commitment to peace and their courage. While this capacity exists, many are threatened and have been killed by guerrilla and paramilitary groups, especially if their focus of attention is on the activities of powerful or clandestine groups. Colombia has one of the worst records of assassinations of human rights defenders: last year, over 54 human rights defenders were killed (The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, 2016), which constitutes about a third of all deaths of human rights defenders that year across the world (Front Line Defenders, 2016).
I was also left with two other lasting impressions; lasting because what I saw and heard I found hard to make sense of. Firstly, the issue of ‘false positives’: this concerns the routine execution of civilians (generally poor and marginalised males, including homeless people, disabled people, farmers, children) by the Army between 2002 and 2008, who were subsequently dressed up to look like guerrilla fighters. This was in response to pressure on the Army to show more combat kills and further to calls for the success of the Army in the fight against FARC and ELN to be judged in terms of blood shed or rather number of guerrillas killed. While the FARC and ELN were trained guerrilla fighters and, in some cases, in cahoots with the state armed forces, it was often more expedient to kill poor people and then dress them up as FARC or ELN soldiers. People were lured away to remote areas with the promise of jobs and then killed, dressed as guerrilla fighters with weapon placed in hands, and photographed. Evidence could no longer be ignored when photos showed a young disabled man who had been killed who had recently been reported missing in a city far away; he was clearly unable to properly hold let alone shoot a gun (and he, along with most of the other false positives, had never had any association with guerrilla groups). Other photos showed shoes on the wrong feet and uniforms without bullet holes over bodies that had been shot. Over 3,000 people were killed and evidence shows that engagement in extrajudicial killings was systematic and widespread throughout the Army (information from interviews – see also Human Rights Watch, 2015, and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the José Alvear Restrepo Lawyers Collective (CAJAR), 2012).
Secondly, in parts of Colombia it is easy to overlook the fact that a conflict is on-going, and in parts of Bogota it is even easy to imagine there is no insecurity, violence or hardship. This is part psycho-social, part geo-political and part communications strategy employed by the Government. In Zona Rosa (Bogota’s Pink Zone) there are many malls, designer shops and restaurants. Only a kilometre or so away are slums and large, highly impoverished communities. It is from these communities that many men were taken away and killed and presented as fallen guerrilla fighters by the state armed forces. People living and working in Zona Rosa and similar privileged areas are more likely to believe Government rhetoric and media reportage of terrorists rather than guerrilla fighters, and the undeserving rather than victimised poor, precisely because they see little evidence of insecurity, injustice or conflict. They are less inclined to be supportive of the peace process, believing it constitutes negotiating with terrorists. They might also be assumed to be less supportive of an eventual peace process, if the voices of victims are to be heard, if history is to be examined and memorialised, and if financial support in the form of increased taxes is to be sought to pay for the necessary peacebuilding programmes (land restitution, transitional justice, DDR etc.).
Psychologically and socio-politically, it is very difficult to move beyond oppression, victimisation and atrocity without an acceptance that is has occurred and was wrong. In his outstanding book, Stanley Cohen (2001) talks about ‘states of denial’, which is when people, governments and societies know about atrocities but ignore them. To assume responsibility for not taking action, or taking a stand when it could have been taken, is very difficult at the individual level: narratives and stories are constructed, histories re-written, and blame reassigned, to avoid dealing with the pain or discomfort. In Colombia it was clear there was general awareness of the massive socio-economic inequalities that existed. I was also told that many members of the Army killed poor people not because they themselves were threatened if they did not but because they would be rewarded with a bonus, extra leave days or promotion. There was no denial of what was happening, and seemingly no insurmountable pressure to commit such atrocities; but there was a reconstruction of the poor as undeserving, as lesser, as not ‘the good ones’ (as I was told was the phrase used in Colombia) and thus seemingly dispensable and irrelevant.
Prospects for Peace
Coupled with the stranglehold of organised crime on Colombian society, it is hard to envisage effective peacebuilding where there are such inequalities and injustices and little evidence that there is the political will to address these – no matter whether an Accord can grapple with the challenges of land ownership and restitution, DDR and ‘concentration zones’, and bottom-up peacebuilding (paz territorial).
When there is such inequality and such apparent disregard of the suffering of the poor and marginalised, it is hard to envisage how there can be a stable platform upon which successful peacebuilding can occur. Of fundamental importance to successful peacebuilding is the need to address structural inequalities if the dynamics which lead to conflict, violence and insecurity are to be changed: those dynamics which create the conditions for further victimisation and which also compound grievances. If there is a reluctance to acknowledge the injustice of massive disparities in wealth and opportunity, to witness the crimes suffered by the poor and dispossessed, and to acknowledge personal responsibility in contributing to a better society for everyone, there is little hope for building a more peaceful society. There can be no peace, if large sections of the population live without security, justice and opportunity. Moreover, if some, privileged groups do not acknowledge that there is a conflict (but only see terrorists and criminals and the undeserving poor) it is hard to envisage that there will be little commitment to the means necessary to resolve the conflict and build peace. To resolve conflict and build peace it is first necessary, of course, to accept that there has been a conflict – and from there begin to unpick the causes of that conflict.
Front Line Defenders (2016) Annual Report 2016, Dublin: Front Line, the International Foundation for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, available at https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/en/resource-publication/2016-annual-report.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) (2015) On Their Watch: Evidence of Senior Army Officers’ Responsibility for False Positive Killings in Colombia, New York: HRW, available at https://www.hrw.org/report/2015/06/24/their-watch/evidence-senior-army-officers-responsibility-false-positive-killings.
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) (2016) ‘IACHR Condemns Killings and Threats Directed against Human Rights Defenders in Colombia’, Press Release, 25 February 2015, available at http://www.oas.org/en/iachr/media_center/PReleases/2016/021.asp.
International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the José Alvear Restrepo Lawyers Collective (CAJAR) (2012) Colombia: The War is Measured in Litres of Blood, FIDH and CAJAR, available at https://www.fidh.org/IMG/pdf/rapp_colombie__juin_2012_anglais_def.pdf.
This entry was posted in conflict, peacebuilding, War and Peace and tagged conflict, governance, inequalities, peace, peacebuilding, security on April 7, 2016 by uolscid.
Places in Conflict & at Peace
Thanks Maren, for sharing this excellent resource (re-blogged below – I’m re-blogging rather than commenting so I can add a few images to give example to my otherwise broad-brushed, unsubstantiated statements below!). I think this resource is an invaluable tool for reflecting upon the way in which we analyse armed conflict as well as the assumptions many of us (as researchers, policy makers and practitioners) have when it comes to armed conflict (being elsewhere, in places labelled fragile, at risk or developing). As you say, it also provides a useful analytical tool for analysing the links between armed violence, organised crime and street gang insurgencies, as well as the impact of globalisation and socio-economic inequalities on conflict and security.
Last week I returned from a trip to the US (Atlanta) and Colombia (Bogota and Medellin). I had only been to the US a few times fleetingly and never visited Colombia before now. The specific places I visited are unique and also not representative of the wider respective countries. However, what particularly struck me was that both demonstrated evidence of massive socio-economic inequalities, high levels of poverty, and anger among some groups towards their respective governments. I was most shocked (though unsurprised) at the extent and nature of the human rights violations and violence against civilians in Colombia, high levels of corruption and collusion between ostensibly opposing groups (government, paramilitary, guerrilla), and the disregard among many of the privileged for the suffering of the marginalised and impoverished (to the extent that you could hardly imagine a conflict was going on in some parts of Bogota).
However, I was more shocked at the tension and aggression which seemed to seep into the corners of everyday life in Atlanta. Here massive billboards portrayed the good life (buy a coke and your life will be meaningful) while people slept on the streets below; there was an onslaught of noise and people who demanded you say how wonderful your day was (OK so I’m a grumpy Brit!); Trump and his vitriol was blaring out from TVs which were everywhere (OK the hotel I was staying in happened to be in the same building as CNN!); people told me how fed up they were with politics and foreigners and women not sticking by their unfaithful men; signs told me I’d have to leave my gun at home if I wanted to get on a plane (which to me is strange in a country not at war, at least on its own soil); and the overwhelming majority of the thousands of participants at the Convention I was attending were white, which smacked of neo-colonialism given the theme was peace, while the majority of people working in the hotels and sleeping on the streets were black. Perhaps I simply didn’t get enough sleep, but I kept seeing messages about about pride and equity, which took on a disturbingly ironic tone in this context (for contrast the third image is from the National Centre for Civil and Human Rights which was outstanding, moving and highly informative – located in the centre of the business district next to the Coca Cola Museum, which appeared to be significantly more popular among tourists – no comment!).
I left the US and Colombia reflecting a bit deeper on our assumptions about places in conflict and places at so-called peace; assumptions about the way in which violence permeates most if not all societies and disproportionately affects the marginalised; and assumptions about the engagement of governments in so-called peaceful states in the dynamics of exclusion, violence and indeed conflict.
So, in short, I think we have a lot to learn about conflict by looking at the machinations of societies where there is peace. Conversely, we also have a lot to learn about peace by looking at the efforts many civilians make to protect themselves and their families, promote peace, and create peaceful communities, in places at war (which I hope to write about soon).
Original post by Maren Moon:
The link below directs readers to a recent article from the Small Wars Journal.
While the subject matter falls outside the discipline of post-conflict studies, it nevertheless provides an opportunity for widening understanding on conflict prevention as it intersects with organised crime, street gang insurgency, transnational threats, proxy actors, and the infiltration and undermining of law enforcement, military, and criminal justice systems. The article also provides a window for examining the dynamics of globalisation and the New Wars paradigm as they potentially threaten ‘first world’ realities.
America’s Unacknowledged Insurgency: Addressing Street Gangs as Threats to National Security
This entry was posted in conflict, peacebuilding, Uncategorized, War and Peace and tagged conflict, governance, peace, peacebuilding, security on March 30, 2016 by uolscid.
SCID Panel of Experts – Online Guest Lecture – Dr Punam Yadav – Impacts of Armed Conflict on Women: Lived Experiences of Women in Nepal
This is the 13th Online Guest Lecture by members of the SCID Panel of Experts. Dr Punam Yadav presents a lecture entitled Impacts of Armed Conflict on Women: Lived Experiences of Women in Nepal.
Punam’s lecture considers the impact of armed conflict on women, with specific regard to the lived experiences of women in Nepal. The lecture also looks at the changing role of women after the recent conflict in Nepal and concludes that despite sufferings and hardships, women have benefited from the civil war in Nepal. The lecture also argues that programmes to support post-conflict societies need to focus on the emerging needs of people, not just on a narrow definition of recovery – as can been seen when looking at the case of women in post-conflict Nepal.
Punam is a new member of the SCID Panel of Experts and is currently a Visiting Scholar at the new Centre for Women, Peace and Security at the London School of Economics (LSE). Punam has conducted research widely in the field of gender, peace and security, and her book Social Transformation in Post Conflict Nepal: A Gender Perspective is being published by Routledge in May (2016).
Click on the link below to access Punam’s Lecture. NB Should the presentation not run automatically or the audio not work, please click ‘Save As’ (and then open once you have saved on your computer) rather than ‘Open’. Alternatively try a different browser (Firefox rather than Internet Explorer).
Women and Armed Conflict – February 2016
Please submit any questions or comments within the next two weeks for Punam’s attention and/or discussion by other SCID Panel members, students and staff.
This entry was posted in Gender, peacebuilding, Uncategorized and tagged conflict, Nepal, peace, peacebuilding, Punam Yadav, security, women, WPS Agenda on February 22, 2016 by uolscid.
The Centre for Security Governance (CSG)
I’ve recently had the honour of being invited to become a Senior Fellow of the Centre for Security Governance (CSG). So, I thought I’d take this opportunity to tell you a bit about this excellent think tank and the many invaluable resources and opportunities it offers.
The CSG is a non-profit, non-partisan think tank dedicated to the study of security and governance transitions in fragile, failed and conflict-affected states. As detailed on its website, the CSG is based in Canada and maintains a global, multi-disciplinary network of researchers, practitioners and academics engaged in the international peace and security field. The CSG website has a wealth of resources that are of enormous value to the SCID students as well as practitioners and others in this field.
The CSG also hosts free eSeminars, on subjects related to peacebuilding, together with the Balsillie School of International Affairs (BSIA) and Wilfrid Laurier University Global Studies Department (WLU). I would highly recommend participating in these eSeminars and, if unable to, accessing the recordings on their website. Previous eSeminars have been on statebuilding, resource conflicts and displacement in the Middle East, and can be accessed here. The next eSeminar is being held on 26 February (12:00PM to 1:30PM EST) and is on the subject of Climate Change, the Environment and Peacebuilding – so especially pertinent to the final Module of the SCID Programme. The panellists for this event are:
– Dr. Mark Sedra, Centre for Security Governance (Moderator)
– Anna Brach,Geneva Centre for Security Policy (Panellist)
– Dr. Simon Dalby, Wilfrid Laurier University (Panellist)
– Dr. Richard Matthew, University of California at Irvine (Panellist)
More details on this eSeminar can be found here and below.
The CSG also now manages Stability: International Journal of Security & Development. This is a leading open-access journal focusing on security and development challenges in fragile, failed and conflict-affected states. Stability is also unique in that it connects policymakers, practitioners, academics and others with timely, peer-reviewed research on a wide range of issues related to peacebuilding, stabilisation, peacekeeping, statebuilding, crime and violence prevention, development cooperation and humanitarian action. If you are looking for an innovative journal to publish your research, I would highly recommend Stability.
Finally, you may be interested to know that the CSG will be posting a call for internships this Spring, and they have said that they have had good experience in the past with Master’s students and graduates from the UK.
Climate change poses a series of catastrophic threats to the planet, from rising sea levels that could swallow coastlines to the increasing prevalence of drought that could devastate agriculture and fresh water supplies. While these direct environmental challenges are clear and omnipresent, less attention is often paid to the secondary effects of climate change, such as its impact on peace and security dynamics. Climate change is already emerging as a major driver of conflict and insecurity in many parts of the world, and this phenomenon will only worsen in the future as the environmental impacts of the changing climate become more pronounced.
This presents new challenges to the global peacebuilding architecture that have yet to be fully addressed by its key stakeholders. As we enter an era that could be marked by climate-driven war and instability, it is important to explore the potential impacts of climate change on global peace and security and how the existing peacebuilding agenda can be adapted to confront them. This will be the central question addressed at the fourth instalment of the Centre for Security Governance’s eSeminar series on “Contemporary Debates on Peacebuilding and Statebuilding,” presented in collaboration with the Balsillie School of International Affairs and Wilfrid Laurier University’s Department of Global Studies.
Our distinguished panellists will each give brief introductory remarks, followed by an open Q&A period where participants will be able to engage the panel directly. The event, which will take place on Friday February 26 from 12:00PM to 1:30PM EST, will be open to the public and free to attend.
This entry was posted in Building Security and Justice after Conflict, Security Sector Reform, Uncategorized, War and Peace and tagged Anna Brach, Balsillie School of International Affairs, BSIA, Centre for Security Governance, climate change, conflict, CSG, environment, governance, Mark Sedra, peace, peacebuilding, Richard Matthew, SCID, security, Security Sector Reform, Simon Dalby, SSR, SSR Resource Centre, statebuilding, Wilfrid Laurier University Global Studies Department, WLU on February 16, 2016 by uolscid.
New Forms of Emancipatory Peace: Arbitrage, everyday mobility and networks
Prof. Oliver P. Richmond Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute, University of Manchester
We know a lot about an emancipatory peace by now, both in terms of war settlements since Westphalia, and in terms of structural violence and inequality after the Cold War. We know that military security and law and order are required. From the…
Source: New Forms of Emancipatory Peace: Arbitrage, everyday mobility and networks
This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged emancipation, Emancipatory Peace, Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute, liberal, Oliver Richmond, peace, peacebuilding, University of Manchester on September 30, 2015 by uolscid.
Peace is what we make of it? Peace-shaping events and ‘non-events’
Dr Gëzim Visoka, Lecturer in Peace and Conflict Studies, Institute for International Conflict Resolution and Reconstruction (IICRR), School of Law and Government, Dublin City University, Ireland has written an excellent article on peace-shaping events and “non-events” which has just been posted to PAX In Nuce: Peace is what we make of it? Peace-shaping events and ‘non-events’. In this article, Visoka argues that policy makers tend to ignore or class as ‘non-events’ those events or phenomena which make them/the wider international community look less successful (such as parallel structures in Kosovo post-’99, the control of police structures in Bosnia and Herzegovina by nationalist parties and their involvement in organised crime, and dissatisfaction in Timor-Leste with recruitment policy for the police and defence forces). As Visoko argues, ‘reducing inconvenient events to “non-events”‘, of course, limits the extent to which conflict-affected environments can be understood and the extent to which positive and sustainable peace can be built.
This entry was posted in peacebuilding, Uncategorized and tagged Gëzim Visoka, non-events, Pax in Nuce, peace, peacebuilding on May 11, 2015 by uolscid.
Language, War and Peace
This post by Phil Vernon of International Alert – The anti-lexicon of peacebuilding: listening to Edward Saïd and George Orwell – raises some excellent points about the need for language to be clear in the field of peacebuilding (and elsewhere) to avoid ‘misunderstandings and misdiagnoses’.
It is agreed that in order for conflict resolution and peacebuilding efforts to be successful, regularly used concepts need to be unpacked and each enjoy a shared, specific and clear meaning. Without a shared understanding of such concepts it is hard for action to be co-ordinated, coherent, efficient and effective. It is also hard to monitor and evaluate progress, identify and utilise lessons learned and best practice, and ultimately improve efforts to prevent and respond to conflict and its challenges. Actions and outputs are less likely to be ambiguous, conflicting and ineffective if communication is clear and the language used to describe aims and outputs is shared and unambiguous.
However, aims and outputs of various actors in conflict-affected environments are not always harmonious, and a shared – if ambiguous – language can be used (and often is) to disguise competing agendas and real priorities. The language of peacebuilding can often be used by those engaged in this field to disguise the politics of intervention. It can also be used to reinforce power relations within the field, which tend to marginalise ‘other’ voices – including those directly affected by conflict and those whose future’s most depend upon the success of peacebuilding.
It is also important to recognise the policy implications of certain concepts and understand the reasons why certain concepts are ascribed to certain phenomena, states or processes above others. As the beginning of the SCID Course addresses, describing a state as failed or fragile may be motivated more out of a desire on the part of other states to intervene (and control threats, or extend their own influence and power, or distract domestic populations from other issues/other threats), rather than ‘concern for the inability of some states to provide for their own population’s security, welfare and rights’ (Call, 2008: 1504). Similarly, describing governance as ‘weak’ may be unhelpful insofar as it often overlooks informal systems of governance and insofar as it is often used as shorthand (and thus specific details or supporting evidence need not be provided). However, it is precisely this value – overlooking the specificities of each system of governance – that makes the term ‘weak governance’ so useful, and tends to generate similar policy responses.
It is suggested that it is necessary to recognise the complexity, power and political dimensions of language – and the ways that it can be used to reinforce or challenge power relations; legitimise actions and intervention; and rationalise, exploit or hide competing agendas. Perhaps we need to accept that the language used in peacebuilding – as elsewhere – can be ambiguous with the same concept being used to mean different things by different people, for instance – just as peace and conflict are experience and mean different things to different people. Rather than aiming to be objective and specific in our use of language, perhaps we need to accept that language is a social construct: it is as part of conflict and peace as it is the tool used to understand these phenomena; it is a means through which conflicts are fought, and peace is forged; it reinforces or shifts power relations and as such is at the heart of conflict. It is informed by our specific experiences as well as shared histories and cultures, as much as it reflects our aspirations and intentions (whether at the micro or macro level). It is suggested that there can be no objectivity when it comes to the language we use: what is important is that we become aware of our subjectivity and how it is reflected in the language we use. In that way we can start to accept the legitimacy of ‘other’ perspectives as well as start to question the validity of metanarratives about conflict and peace – and in such a way potentially better contribute to building more peaceful societies (however we might define them).
Reference: Call, C. (2008) ‘The Fallacy of the “Failed State”’, Third World Quarterly, 28(8): 1491-1507.
Phil Vernon's blog
I think Edward Saïd wrote somewhere that the USA can never hope to contribute to sustainable peace in the Middle East until it is willing and able to describe the situation there objectively, comprehensively and accurately. Good advice for President Obama and his new Secretary of State as they embark on four challenging years in the region. And good advice meanwhile for anyone, be they doctor, secretary of state, international NGO staff member or anyone else, who takes on responsibility to help others fix their problems.
George Orwell, in his 1940s essay, Politics and the English Language (downloadable freely through Google), developed six golden rules for writing clearly about politics:
1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut…
This entry was posted in War and Peace and tagged anti-lexicon, Call, Edward Saïd, Failed State, Foucault, George Orwell, International Alert, knowledge, Language, peace, peacebuilding, Phil Vernon, power, SCID, the other, Third World Quarterly, uolscid, war on February 3, 2015 by uolscid.
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Home » Science Notes Posts » Science History » Today In Science History – December 12 – James Challis Can’t See Neptune
Today In Science History – December 12 – James Challis Can’t See Neptune
This entry was posted on December 7, 2017 by Todd Helmenstine (updated on January 29, 2019 )
James Challis (1803-1882)
December 12 is the birthday of James Challis. Challis was an English astronomer who is best known for not discovering the planet Neptune.
English mathematician John Couch Adams computed an orbit for an unknown planet that should exist to cause the peculiar orbit of the planet Uranus. Adams passed his calculations to the Astronomer Royal, George Airy in 1844. Airy passed the task on to his successor at the Greenwich Observatory, James Challis. Challis had his own ideas about his priorities and undertook the task with little enthusiasm.
Fast forward two years and the German group of Galle and Le Verrier announced their discovery of Neptune. English scientific pride took the discovery as a blow and they took a closer look at Challis’ work. Upon review, they discovered Adams’ prediction was within 2° of the actual position of Neptune and Challis had observed it twice without recognizing the planet.
Challis was remorseful over the missed opportunity of a planet discovery. He did make several contributions to astronomy and physics. He published 225 scientific papers on topics including mathematics, physics, and astronomy. He was succeeded by John Couch Adams when he eventually resigned as Astronomer Royal.
Notable Science History Events for December 12
2008 – Daniel Carleton Gajdusek died.
Daniel Carleton Gajdusek (1923 – 2008)
Gajdusek was an American physician and virologist who shares the 1976 Nobel Prize in Medicine with Baruch Blumberg for their discoveries into the origins and dissemination of infectious diseases. He investigated a neurological disease called kuru that was prevalent in New Guinea tribesmen. It was later determined this disease was the first human prion disease.
1961 – First amateur satellite launched.
OSCAR-1, First amateur satellite. National Air and Space Museum
The first satellite to reach orbit designed by private citizens was launched piggyback with another satellite from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. OSCAR-1 which stands for Orbiting Satellite Carrying Amateur Radio was a 10-pound radio broadcasting station designed and built by amateur radio operators from San Fransisco. When it reached orbit, it broadcast ‘Hi’ in Morse code every 6 seconds. It re-entered the atmosphere three weeks later after completing 312 orbits.
1866 – Alfred Werner was born.
Alfred Werner (1866 – 1919)
Alfred Werner was awarded the 1913 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work describing the linkage of complex ions around a central transition metal atom. This explained several unknown geometries of complex ions. He later used this to explain the differences between complexes with optical isomers and why they appear different from each other.
Alfred Werner was the first inorganic chemist to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The next inorganic chemist was Ernst Fischer and Geoffrey Wilkinson in 1973.
1803 – James Challis was born.
1777 – Albrecht Von Haller died.
Albrecht von Haller (1668 – 1748)
Haller was a Swiss physician and anatomist who is considered to be the father of experimental physiology. He was the first to discover the autonomous nature of the heart and the mechanism of respiration. He also recognized bile helps dissolve fatty acids. His medical encyclopedia, “Elementa Physiologiae Corporis Humani” (Physiological Elements of the Human Body), documented many anatomical studies concerning nerve, muscle, brain and cardiovascular functions.
1775 – William Henry was born.
William Henry (1775 – 1836)
Henry was an English chemist who formulated what would become known as Henry’s law. Henry’s law states that at a constant temperature, the amount of a given gas dissolved in a given type and volume of liquid is directly proportional to the partial pressure of that gas in equilibrium with that liquid. This law also applies to several dilute solutions in addition to gases.
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home/Alcoholics Anonymous/Other Articles
Bill Wilson’s Talk To The Manhattan Group – New York City, N.Y., 1955
Bill Wilson’s Talk To The Manhattan Group
New York City, N.Y., 1955
Already, the history of AA is being lost in the mists of its twenty-one years of antiquity. I venture that very few people here could recount in any consecutive way the steps on the road that led from the kitchen table to where we are tonight in this Manhattan Group.
It is especially fitting that we recount the history, because at St. Louis this summer, a great event occurred. This Society declared that it had come of age and it took full possession of its Legacies of Recovery, Unity and Service. It marked the time when Lois and I, being parents of a family now become responsible, declare you to be of age and on your own.
Now lets start on our story.
First of all, there was the kitchen table which stood in a brownstone house which still bears the number 182, Clinton Street, Brooklyn. There, Lois saw me go into the depths. There, over the kitchen table, Ebby brought me these simple principles now enshrined in our Twelve Steps. In those days, there were but six steps: We admitted we couldn’t run our lives; we got honest with ourselves; we made a self-survey; we made restitution to the people we had harmed; we tried to carry this story one to the next; and we asked God to help us to do those things. That was the essence of the message over the kitchen table. In those days, we were associated with the Oxford Group. One of its founders was Sam Shoemaker, and this Group has just left Calvary House to come over to these larger quarters, I understand.
Our debt to the Oxford Group is simply immense. We might have found these principles elsewhere, but they did give them to us, and I want to again record our undying gratitude. We also learned from them, so far as alcoholics are concerned, what not to do—something equally important. Father Ed Dowling, a great Jesuit friend of ours, once said to me, “Bill, it isn’t what you people put into AA that makes it so good—it’s what you left out.”
We got both sets of notions from our Oxford Group friends, and it was through them that Ebby had sobered up and became my sponsor, the carrier of this message to me.
We began to go to Oxford Group meetings right over in Calvary House, where you’ve just been gathering, and it was there, fresh out of Towns Hospital, that I made my first pitch, telling about my strange experience, which did not impress the alcoholic who was listening. But something else did impress him. When I began to talk about the nature of this sickness, this malady, he pricked up his ears. He was a professor of chemistry, an agnostic, and he came up and talked afterward. Soon, he was invited over to Clinton Street – our very first customer.
We worked very hard with Freddy for three years, but alas, he remained drunk for eleven years afterward.
Other people came to us out of those Oxford Group audiences. We began to go down to Calvary Mission, an adjunct of the church in those days, and there we found a bountiful supply of real tough nuts to crack. We began to invite them to Clinton Street, and at this point the Groupers felt that we were overdoing the drunk business. It seemed they had the idea of saving the world; besides, they’d had a bad time with us. Sam and his associates he now laughingly tells me, were very much put out that they had gathered a big batch of drunks in Calvary House, hoping for a miracle. They’d put them upstairs in those nice apartments and had completely surrounded them with sweetness and light. But the drunks soon imported a flock of bottles, and one of them pitched a shoe out the apartment window right through one of those stained glass affairs of the church. So the drunks weren’t exactly popular when Wilson’s showed up.
At any rate we began to be with alcoholics all the time, but nothing happened for six months. Like the Groupers, we nursed them. In fact, over in Clinton Street, we developed in the next two or three years something like a boiler factory, a sort of clinic, a hospital, and a free boardinghouse, from which practically no one issued sober, but we had a pile of experience.
We began to learn the game, and after our withdrawing from the Oxford Group—oh, a year and a half from the time I sobered, in ’34—we began to hold meetings of the few who had sobered up. I suppose that was really the first AA meeting. The book hadn’t yet been written. We didn’t even call it Alcoholics Anonymous; people asked us who we were, and we said, “Well, we’re a nameless bunch of alcoholics.” I suppose the use of that word “nameless” sort of led us to the idea of anonymity, which was later clapped on the book at the time it was titled.
There were great doings in Clinton Street. I remember those meetings down in the parlor so well. Our eager discussion, our hopes, our fears—and our fears were very great. When anyone in those days had been sober a few months and slipped, it was a terrific calamity. I’ll never forget the day, a year and a half after he came to stay with us, that Ebby fell over, and we all said, “Perhaps this is going to happen to all of us.” Then, we began to ask ourselves why it was, and some of us pushed on.
At Clinton Street, I did most of the talking, but Lois did most of the work, and the cooking, and the loving of those early folks.
Oh my! The episodes that there were! I was away once on a business trip. (I’d briefly got back to business.) One of the drunks was sleeping on the lounge in the parlor. Lois woke up in the middle of the night, hearing a great commotion. He’d got a bottle; he’d also got into the kitchen and had drunk a bottle of maple syrup.
And he had fallen naked into the coal hod. When Lois opened the door, he asked for a towel to cover up his nakedness. She once led this same gentleman through the streets late at night looking for a doctor, and not finding a doctor, then looking for a drink, because, as he said, he could not fly on one wing!
On one occasion, a pair of them were drunk. We had five, and on another occasion, they were all drunk at the same time!
There was the time that two of them began to belabor each other with two-by-fours down in the basement. And then, poor Ebby, after repeated trials and failures, was finally locked out one night. But low and behold, he appeared anyway. He had come through the coal chute and up the stairs, very much begrimed.
So you see, Clinton Street was a kind of blacksmith shop, in which we were hammering away at these principles. For Lois and me, all roads lead back to Clinton Street.
In 1937, while we were still there, we got an idea that to spread AA we would have to have some sort of literature, guide rails for it to run on so it couldn’t get garbled. We were still toying with the idea that we had to have paid workers who would be sent to other communities. We thought we’d have to go into the hospital business. Out in Akron, where we had started the first group, they had a meeting and nominated me to come to New York and do all these things.
We solicited Mr. [John D.] Rockefeller [Jr.] and some of his friends, who gave us their friendship but, luckily, not much of their money. They gave Smithy [Dr. Bob] and me a little boost during the year of 1938, and that was all; they forced us to stand on our own.
In 1938, Clinton Street saw the beginning of the preparation of the book Alcoholics Anonymous. The early chapters were written—oh, I should think—about May 1938. Then, we tried to raise money to get the thing published, and we actually sold stock to the local drunks in this book, not yet written. An all-time high for promotions!
Clinton Street also saw, on its second floor, in the bedroom, the writing of the Twelve Steps. We had got to Chapter Five in the book, and it looked like we would have to say at some point what the book was all about. So I remember lying there on the bed one night, and I was in one of my typical depressive snits, and I had an imaginary ulcer attack. The drunks who were supposed to be contributing, so that we could eat while the book was being written, were slow on the contributions, and I was in a damn bad frame of mind.
I lay there with a pad and pencil, and I began to think over these six steps that I’ve just recited to you, and said I to myself, “Well, if we put down these six steps, the chunks are too big. They’ll have to digest too much all at once. Besides, they can wiggle out from in between, and if we’re going to do a book, we ought to break those up into smaller pieces.”
So I began to write, and in about a half an hour, I think, I had busted them up into smaller pieces. I was rather pleasantly surprised that, when numbered, they added up to twelve—that’s significant. Very nice.
At that point, a couple of drunks sailed in. I showed them the proposed Twelve Steps, and I caught fits. Why did we need them when six were doing fine? And what did I mean by dragging God from the bottom of the list up to the top?
Meanwhile the meetings in the front parlor had largely turned into hassles over the chapters of the book. The roughs were submitted and read at every meeting, so that when the Twelve Steps were proposed, there was a still greater hassle.
Because I’d had this very sudden experience and was on the pious side, I’d lauded these Steps very heavily with the word “God.” Other people began to say, “This won’t do at all. The reader at a distance is just going to get scared off. And what about agnostic folks like us?” There was another terrific hassle, which resulted in this terrific ten-strike we had: calling God (as you understand Him) “the Higher Power,” making a hoop big enough so that the whole world of alcoholics can walk through it.
So, actually, those people who suppose that the elders of AA were going around in white robes surrounded by a blue light, full of virtue, are quite mistaken. I merely became the umpire of the immense amount of hassling that went into the preparation of the AA book, and that took place at Clinton Street.
Well, of course, the book was the summit of all our hopes at the time; along with the hassling, there was an immense enthusiasm. We tried to envision distant readers picking it up and perhaps writing in, perhaps getting sober. Could they do it on the book?
All of those things we speculated on very happily. Finally, in the spring of 1939, the book was ready. We’d made a prepublication copy of it; it had got by the Catholic Committee on Publications; we’d shown it to all sorts of people; we had made corrections. We had 5,000 copies printed, thinking that would be just a mere trifle—that the book would soon be selling millions of copies.
Oh, we were very enthusiastic, us promoters. The Reader’s Digest had promised to print a piece about the book, and we just saw those books going out in carloads.
Nothing of the sort happened. The Digest turned us down flat; the drunks had thrown their money into all this; there were hardly a hundred members in AA. And here the thing had utterly collapsed.
At this juncture, the meeting—the first meeting of the Manhattan Group, which really took place in Brooklyn—stopped, and it stopped for a very good reason.
That was that the landlord set Lois and me out into the street, and we didn’t even have money to move our stuff into storage. Even that and the moving van—that was done on the cuff.
Well, it was then the spring of 1939. Temporarily, the Manhattan Group moved to Jersey. It hadn’t got to Manhattan yet. A great friend, Horace C., let Lois and me have a camp belonging to himself and his mother, out at Green Pond. My partner in the book enterprise, old Hank P., now gone, lived at Upper Montclair.
We used to come down to 75 William Street, where we had the little office in which a good deal of the book was actually done. Sundays that summer, we’d come down to Hank’s house, where we had meetings which old-timers—just a handful now in Jersey—can remember.
The Alcoholic Foundation, still completely empty of money, did have one small account called the “Lois B. Wilson Improvement Fund.” This improvement fund was fortified every month by a passing of the hat, so that we had the summer camp, we had fifty bucks a month, and someone else lent us a car to try to revive the book Alcoholics Anonymous and the flagging movement.
In the fall of that year, when it got cold up there at the summer camp, we moved down to Bob V.’s. Many of you remember him and Mag. We were close by the Rockland asylum. Bob and I and others went in there, and we started the first institutional group, and several wonderful characters were pried out of there. I hope old Tom M. is here tonight—Tom came over to the V’s, where he had holed up with Lois and me, then put in a room called Siberia, because it was so cold.
We bought a coal stove for four dollars and kept ourselves warm there during the winter.
So did a wonderful alcoholic by the name of Jimmy. He never made good. Jimmy was one of the devious types, and one of our first remarkable experiences with Jimmy was this. When we moved from Green Pond, we brought Marty with us, who had been visiting, and she suddenly developed terrible pains in her stomach.
This gentleman, Jimmy, called himself a doctor. In fact, he had persuaded the authorities at Rockland that he was a wonderful physician. They gave him full access to the place. He had keys to all the surgical instruments and incidentally, I think he had keys to all the pill closets over there.
Marty was suffering awful agonies, and he said, “Well, there’s nothing to it, my dear. You’ve got gallstones.” So he goes over to Rockland. He gets himself some kind of fishing gadget that they put down gullets to fish around in there, and he fishes around and yanks up a flock of gallstones, and she hasn’t had a bit of trouble since. And, dear people, it was only years later that we learned the guy wasn’t a doctor at all.
Meanwhile, the Manhattan Group moved to Manhattan for the first time. The folks over here started a meeting in Bert T.’s tailor shop. Good old Bert is the guy who hocked his then-failing business to save the book Alcoholics Anonymous in 1939.
In the fall, he still had the shop, and we began to hold meetings there. Little by little, things began to grow. We went from there to a room in Steinway Hall, and we felt we were in very classic and good company that gave us an aura of respectability.
Finally, some of the boys—notably Bert and Horace—said, “A.A. should have a home. We really ought to have a club.” And so the old 24th Street Club, which had belonged to the artists and illustrators and before that was a barn going back to Revolutionary times, was taken over. I think Bert and Horace signed the first lease. They soon incorporated it, though, lest somebody slip on a banana peel outside. Lois and I, who had moved from the V’s to live with another A.A., then decided we wanted a home for ourselves, and we found a single room down in a basement on Barrow Street in Greenwich Village.
I remember Lois and me going through Grand Central wondering where we’d light next, just before the Greenwich Village move. We were very tired that day, and we walked off the main floor there and sat on one of those gorgeous marble stairways leading up to the balcony, and we both began to cry and say, “Where will we ever light? Will we ever have a home?”
Well, we had one for a while in Barrow Street. And when the club was opened up, we moved into one of those rooms there. Tom M. came over from the V’s, and right then and there a Tradition of Alcoholics Anonymous was generated. It seemed that volunteers had been sweeping the club; it seemed that many of the alcoholics had keys to the club; and they came and went and sometimes stayed; and sometimes they got very drunk and acted very badly—doing we know not what. There had to be somebody there to really look after the place. So we thought we’d approach old Tom, who had a pension as a fireman. We said, “Tom, how would you like to come and live at the club?”
Tom says, “What’s on your mind?”
“Well,” we said, “we really need somebody here all the time, you know, to make the coffee and see that the place is heated and throw some coal on that furnace over there and lead the drunks outside if they’re too bad.”
“Ain’t ya gonna pay me?” Tom says.
“Oh, no,” we said. “This is Alcoholics Anonymous. We can’t have any professionals.”
Tom says, “I do my Twelfth Step work, I don’t charge ’em nothing. But what you guys want is a janitor, and if you’re going to get me, you’re going to pay, see?”
Well, we were very much disturbed about our own situation. We weren’t exactly paid—they were just passing the hat for us, you understand. I think that we went for seven years of the history of this Society with an average income of seventeen hundred bucks a year, which, for a former stockbroker, is not too big.
So this question of who is a professional and who isn’t bore very heavily at the time on Tom and me. And Tom began to get it settled. He began to show that if a special service was asked from anybody full-time, we’d have to pay or not get it.
So, finally, we haggled Tom down on the theory that he already had a pension, and he came to live there, and meetings began in that old club.
That old club saw many a terrific development, and from that club sprang all the groups in this area. The club saw the passage of the Rockefeller dinner, when we thought we’d all be rich as a movement, and Mr. Rockefeller saved us by not giving us money.
That club saw the Saturday Evening Post article published. In fact, the Post at that time said, “No pictures, no article.” If you will look up the March 1, 1941, issue of the Saturday Post, you will see a picture of the interior of the club, and a flock of us sitting before the fire. They didn’t use our names, but they insisted on pictures.
Anonymity wasn’t then quite what it is today. And with the advent of that piece, there was a prodigious rush of inquiries—about 6,000 of them.
By this time, we’d moved the little office from Newark, New Jersey, over to Vesey Street. You will find in the old edition of the book [Alcoholics Anonymous] “Box 58, Church Street Annex.” And that was the box into which the first inquiries came. We picked out that location because Lois and I were drifters, and we picked it because it was the center of the geographical area here. We didn’t know whether we’d light in Long Island, New Jersey, or Westchester, so the first A.A. post office box was down there with a little office alongside of it.
The volunteers couldn’t cope with this tremendous flock of inquiries—heartbreakers, but 6,000 of them! We simply had to hire some help. At that point, we asked you people if you’d send the foundation a buck apiece a year, so we wouldn’t have to throw that stuff in the wastebasket. And that was the beginning of the service office and the book company.
That club saw all those things transpire. But there was a beginning in that club at that time that none of us noticed very much. It was just a germ of an idea. It often looked, in after years, as though it might die out. Yet within the last three years, it has become what I think is one of the greatest developments that we shall ever know, and here I’m going to break into my little tale to introduce my partner in all this, who stayed with me when things were bad and when things have been good, and she’ll tell you what began upstairs in that club, and what has eventuated from it. Lois.”
(Lois then spoke about the formation and the early days of Al-Anon Family Groups.)
So, you see, it was in the confines of the Manhattan Group of those very, very early days that this germ of an idea came to life. Lois might have added that since the St. Louis conference, one new family group has started every single day of the week since, someplace in the world.
I think the deeper meaning of all this is that AA is something more than a quest for sobriety because we cannot have sobriety unless we solve the problem of life, which is essentially the problem of living and working together. And the family groups are straightening out the enormous twist that has been put on our domestic relations by our drinking. I think it’s one of the greatest things that’s happened in years.
Well, let’s cut back to old 24th Street. One more thing happened there:
Another Tradition was generated. It had to do with money. You know how slow I was on coming up with that dollar bill tonight? I suppose I was thinking back—some sort of unconscious reflex.
We had a deuce of a time getting that club supported, just passing the hat, no fees, no dues, just the way it should be. But the no fee and dues business was construed into no money at all—let George do it.
I’d been, on this particular day, down to the foundation office, and we’d just put out this dollar-a-year measuring stick for the alcoholics to send us some money if they felt like it. Not too many were feeling like it, and I remember that I was walking up and down the office damning these drunks.
That evening, still feeling sore about the stinginess of the drunks, I sat on the stairs at the old 24th Street Club, talking to some would-be convert. Tom B. was leading the meeting that night, and at the intermission, he put on a real plug for money, the first one that I’d ever heard. At that time, money and spirituality couldn’t mix, even in the hat. I mean, you mustn’t talk about money! Very reluctantly, we’d gone into the subject with Tom M. and the landlord. We were behind in the rent.
Well, Tom put on that heavy pitch, and I went on talking to my prospect, and as the hat came along, I fished in my pocket and pulled out half a buck.
That very day, I think, Ebby had come in the office a little the worse for wear, and with a very big heart, I had handed him five dollars. Our total income at that time was thirty bucks a week, which had come out of the Rockefeller dinner affair; so I’d given him five bucks of the thirty and felt very generous, you see.
But now comes the hat to pay for the light and heat and so forth—rent—and I pull out this half dollar and I look absent-mindedly at it, and I put my hand in the other pocket and pull out a dime and put it in the hat.
So I have never once railed at alcoholics for not getting up the money. There, you see, was the beginning of two A.A. Traditions—things that had to do with professionalism and money.
Following 1941, this thing just mushroomed. Groups began to break off out into the suburbs. But a lot of us still wanted a club, and the 24th Street Club just couldn’t do the trick. We got an offer from Norman Vincent Peale to take over a church at 41st Street. The church was in a neighborhood that had deteriorated badly—over around Ninth Avenue and 41st. In fact, it was said to be a rather sinful neighborhood, if you gather what I mean. The last young preacher that Peale had sent there seemed very much against drinking and smoking and other even more popular forms of sin; therefore, he had no parishioners.
Here was this tremendous church, and all that we could see was a bigger and bigger club in New York City. So we moved in. The body of the church would hold 1,000 people, and we had a hall upstairs that would hold another 800, and we visioned this as soon full. Then there were bowling alleys downstairs, and we figured the drunks would soon be getting a lot of exercises. After they warmed up down there, they could go upstairs in the gymnasium.
Then, we had a cooking apparatus for a restaurant. This was to be our home, and we moved in. Well, sure enough, the place filled up just like mad! Then, questions of administration, questions of morals, questions of meetings, questions of which was the Manhattan Group and which was the club and which was the Intergroup (the secretary of the club was also the Intergroup Secretary) began to get this seething mass into terrific tangles, and we learned a whole lot about clubs!
Whilst all this was going on, the AA groups were spreading throughout America and to foreign shores, and each group, like our own, was having its terrific headaches. In that violent period, nobody could say whether this thing would hang together or not. Would it simply explode and fly all to pieces? On thousands of anvils of experience, of which the Manhattan Group was certainly one (down in that 41st Street club, more sparks came off that anvil than any I ever saw), we hammered out the Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous, which were first published in 1946 [April Grapevine]. We hammered out the rudiments of an Intergroup, which now has become one of the best there is anywhere, right here in New York.
Finally, however, the club got so big that it bust. The Intergroup moved. So did the Manhattan Group, with $5,000—its part of the take, which it hung on to. And from the Manhattan Group’s experience, we learned that—although the foundation needs a reserve—for God’s sake, don’t have any money in a group treasury!
The hassles about that $5,000 lasted until they got rid of it somehow.
Then, you all moved down to dear old Sam Shoemaker’s Calvary, the very place of our beginning. Now, we’ve made another move.
And so we grow, and such has been the road that leads back to the kitchen table at Clinton Street.
Tags:aabig bookbill w.alcoholics anonymous
Chuck C.’s Testimony
Felicia G. Magruder, Ex-Countess, Dies At 93
The Tombstone Mentioned In Bill’s Story In The Big Book
Flowchart Of Events
James Houck And Alcoholics Anonymous
Illinois Medical Journal, January 20, 1940
Alcoholics Anonymous History In Your Area – International Lawyers In Alcoholics Anonymous
“For Drunks Only – One Man’s Reactions To Alcoholics Anonymous”
Bill W., 1968 – 20min
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Supermarine Spitfire
fighter aircraft family by Supermarine
The Supermarine Spitfire is a British single-seat fighter aircraft. It was used by the Royal Air Force and many other Allied countries throughout the Second World War. The Spitfire was designed by R. J. Mitchell as a short-range, high-performance interceptor aircraft. There were more Spitfires made than any other British aircraft and it was the only British fighter that was being made throughout the war.
Spitfire LF Mk IX, MH434
The Spitfire's elliptical wing had a thin cross-section. This allowed a higher top speed than other fighters of the time, including the Hawker Hurricane. The elliptic shaped wing gives the aircraft a very low amount of induced drag.[1] Speed was seen as essential to carry out the mission of home defence against enemy bombers. The original airframe was designed to be powered by a Rolls-Royce Merlin engine producing 1,030 hp (768 kW).
Because of its higher performance, Spitfire units had a higher victory-to-loss ratio than units flying Hurricanes.
A tribute to the people who built the spitfires can be found next to the site of the factory where they were made. It is in Castle Bromwich in Birmingham. It is a sculpture called Sentinel.
1 Specifications (Spitfire MK VB)
1.1 General characteristics
1.2 Performance
1.3 Armament
Specifications (Spitfire MK VB)Edit
Data from Spitfire: The History[184] and Jane's Fighting Aircraft of World War II[185]
General characteristicsEdit
Crew: one pilot
Length: 29 ft 11 in (9.12 m)
Wingspan: 36 ft 10 in (11.23 m)
Wing area: 242.1 ft2 (22.48 m2)
Airfoil: NACA 2213 (root)
NACA 2209.4 (tip)
Empty weight: 5,065 lb (2,297 kg)
Loaded weight: 6,622 lb (3,000 kg)
Max. takeoff weight: 6,700 lb (3,039 kg)
powerplant: 1 × Rolls-Royce Merlin 45[nb 16] supercharged V12 engine, 1,470 hp (1,096 kW) at 9,250 ft (2,819 m)
PerformanceEdit
Maximum speed: 370 mph (322 kn, 595 km/h)
Combat radius: 410 nmi (470 mi (756 km))
Ferry range: 991 nmi (1,135 mi (1,827 km))
Service ceiling: 36,500 ft (11,125 m)
Rate of climb: 2,600 ft/min (13.2 m/s)
Wing loading: 27.35 lb/ft2 (133.5 kg/m2)
Power/mass: 0.22 hp/lb (0.36 kW/kg)
ArmamentEdit
Guns:
A wing
8 × .303 in Browning Mk II* machine guns (350 rounds per gun)
B wing
2 × 20 mm Hispano Mk II (60 rounds per gun)
C wing
4 × 20 mm Hispano Mk II cannon (120 rounds per gun)
C wing (Alt.)
2 × 20 mm Hispano Mk II (120 rounds per gun)
E wing
2 × .50 in M2 Browning machine guns (250 rounds per gun)
↑ "The drag coefficient". NASA: Glenn Research Center. Retrieved 2013-11-26.
This short article about the military can be made longer. You can help Wikipedia by adding to it.
Retrieved from "https://simple.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Supermarine_Spitfire&oldid=6736585"
This page was last changed on 2 December 2019, at 15:28.
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Montenegro: Power utility EPCG reports revenue of 64.5 MEUR in the first quarter
9. June 2014. / SEE Energy News
During the first quarter of 2014th, EPCG has been operating in a challenging economic environment and reduced production caused by a weaker hydrological situation in the first quarter had a negative impact on operating results. Revenue of Electric Power Industry of Montenegro in the first trimester of 2014th amounted to 64.5 MEUR, and it is lower by five percent compared to the planned revenue, and compared to the same period last year by 17 percent.
EBITDA (earnings before interest, income taxes, depreciation and amortization) of 20, 3 MEUR recorded in the first quarter was 22 percent lower than it was planned, or 33 percent lower than in the same period last year, while EBIT (earnings before interest and taxes) of 11MEUR was lower by 22 percent compared to the plan, and 10 percent from the same period in 2013th.
Despite the willingness and stable operation of production facilities, total electricity production in the first quarter in 2014th of 903 GWh was by nine percent less than planned and 25 percent lower compared to the same period last year. In hydropower plants were produced 517 GWh (15 percent less than in the plan, 37 percent less than in the same period in 2013th ), while the thermal power plant Pljevlja produced 386 GWh of electricity (one percent less than planned, or 0 ,4 percent less than in the same period in 2013th ).
The electricity import for internal use amounted to 200.5 GWh. Labor costs were 10.9 million which is in line with the plan, or 584 thousand EUR lower compared to the same period last year.
Great efforts have been made to optimize the plant availability, reduction of losses in the distribution network and costs, but also increase of overall efficiency, with the aim of improving the consumers’ security and the stability and sustainability of the state electricity system.
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Tag Archives: Barbara Jwanouskos
The Real World- Theater Edition: One More Interview
Barbara Jwanouskos- one more interview for the road.
As my last post to The Real World – Theater Edition, I’d like to first thank all the readers out there who have gotten some enjoyment from following this column. I am extremely grateful to Theater Pub to have been able to have the space to reflect on art, theater-making, and the creative process. Thank you to all the people I’ve interviewed for being so heartfelt and expressing your passion for art. Your dedication is such an inspiration and so needed. Please, all artists and people, keep creating and building. If this column has taught me anything, it’s that perseverance and commitment to craft and vision can be momentous. The creative power that we have can do so much. I guess I keep distilling the words of wisdom from the past two years of interviews and I come up with —
don’t be discouraged
what you do is important, powerful, and beautiful
keep going even (especially) when it’s hard, even if only a baby step
I was fortunate enough to connect with local playwright-director Andrea Hart and dramaturge Heather Helinsky for this last interview on Andrea’s new play, dark is a different beast. We talked about collaboration and the creative process, how they work together, and how they fit into a broader theater ecosystem.
BJ: Tell me a story of how you got into theater. How did you know this was it for you?
AH: I studied theater at college in upstate New York and had an amazing advisor and theater director, Robert Gross. His experimental ethos pervaded the theater program there, including an amazing student-run theater program. One year I performed at midnight in sunken gardens that were part of our art building. The audience was loud and raucous and huge…they were as much a part of the performance as we were. I loved that. And we were in an unusual place at an unusual time and all of that was part of the performance too. All my work tries to capture that essence of creating something that doesn’t conform to expectations, but that takes everyone involved on a unique journey.
HH: Oh, many reasons, but one of the most compelling things for me is what happens in the room together, when we’re all breathing in and responding to the same story. It’s important in our divided culture to find ways of talking and really listening to each other. I learned that in 2008 when I was dramaturging a long run of August Wilson’s Radio Golf in Pittsburgh right up until the eve of Obama’s first election. It was like a town hall meeting every night! So much energy and electric conversations. It brought so many neighbors together and everyone had an opinion about what August was saying about the challenges of a black man running for elected office, roughly ten years before Obama showed up on the national scene. August’s play helped us all process the daily news cycle. Well, Andrea’s play is a response to this year’s national election. We need to keep talking, not shut down. Theatre forces us to stay engaged instead of being cynical about it; artists try their best to show the way.
Heather Helinsky, dramaturge.
BJ: How did you get involved with 6NewPlays and what has the development experience been like?
AH: I started talking about creating a West Coast version of 13P in 2010 with an L.A. playwright I met at the Great Plains Theatre Conference. Our goal was to find a way to make West Coast theater vital and relevant and combat the feeling that if we weren’t doing it in New York or Chicago we were somehow less committed. Over the next couple years we kept finding other playwrights who resonated with the idea. Originally we tried to do an L.A./S.F. group, but it became too unmanageable, so the SF contingent kept meeting and discovering the shape we would take. It took about 3 years of meeting pretty regularly to get ourselves up and running, but the conversations we had those 3 years were a lifeline for me as I continued to try to figure out what it means to be a playwright in this area. Or at all!
HH: Andrea and I are colleagues through Great Plains Theatre Conference, which is a residency that allows playwrights the time and creative space to dream their next project into existence. That’s not hyperbole, that’s just the relaxed environment we nurture in Omaha: a place for writers all over the country to push conversations forward. I’m not surprised that 6NewPlays started there. In Philly, where I’m based, Orbiter3 has been successfully keeping this playwright-centered process going. We need more of this organic energy where playwrights get to drive the process, but every theatre community has its challenges, here in San Francisco no exception. I’m excited by the warehouse space Andrea has chosen, it gives the storytelling a uniquely Bay Area sense of place, but that’s my outsider opinion. I hope this 6NewPlay movement helps the artist community here find their own unique spaces that help add to another part of the conversation to the production.
BJ: What is dark is a different beast about?
AH: dark is a different beast is about finding connection in a disconnected world. I think it’s ultimately a meditation about what living during this time, and watching the news and being aware of what’s going on in the world and living through various catastrophes—either personally or via your experience of watching it unfold on the news or through a friend or loved one—what that does to our ability to love ourselves and each other. Sometimes it feels like authentic connection with others is a process of cutting through layers and layers of padding and protection before finally revealing and seeing the soft core of someone else, and discovering the strength in that place. The play is basically that image played out on a large scale.
HH: Great answer, playwright Andrea! I encourage playwrights on principle not to over-explain your play, let the audience come up with their own interpretation. It’s that and many other things, including the elemental forces in this country, the conflicts between fire and wind, water and earth. We’re living in a time where all of those elements are fueling a big bonfire of issues, and the play mines those metaphors. We’ll see what resonates the most when the audience shows up!
BJ: How are you both working together in this production? What are your roles? Do they have boundaries? What’s your working style?
AH: I asked Heather to work with me on this script after the script had been around for almost 5 years. I wish I had asked her 3 years ago! She has been amazing at helping me find the structure and make the actual “plot line” clearer, without sacrificing the imagery or fantastical elements of the piece.
She came out to see a few rehearsals in October. I had never had a dramaturg working with me during the production, and wasn’t quite sure what to expect. She was able to describe the play to the cast in ways I hadn’t yet. She gave them direct feedback about how the story was coming across and where it wasn’t. She and I stayed up until midnight discussing the ending and she talked me through how to present script changes to the cast. She is basically like a script doula…she holds my hand and encourages me to make the tough choices. She helps me put the script first even when all the production concerns are making me want to do the opposite. She was even counseling me through some actor notes last night via text when it was after midnight her time.
Andrea Hart, playwright-director.
HH: Thanks, all kind of you to say, Andrea. One of the hardest things for a playwright to do is be a playwright-slash-director. Andrea came to me while we were in rehearsals at GPTC for a very poetic play by Chicago playwright/director/producer Bonnie Metzgar. We talked there of the challenges of self-producing and decided to set deadlines over the summer so the actors and designers didn’t feel unnecessary stress if Andrea did any major rewrites. Her focus right now should be directing and nurturing the actors. But the reality of writing is sometimes you discover things in the rehearsal room along the way, so we had a very calculated strategy for me to come in midway and take a hard look at the ending. I’ll miss being there for opening night and I would have loved to see the designers tech this show. I’m sure we could learn more if I wasn’t based on the east coast, but there’s always limitations in theatre-making. Sometimes a limitation can be freeing and have its own advantages. Andrea and I can work well long-distance because there’s a strong bond that has been built over the years working together at GPTC. We’ve been through fire there too, I know Andrea’s aesthetic preferences, we know how to make a quick but tough decision and keep moving forward. Onwards!
BJ: Has working with the story in film changed or opened up how you see dark is a different beast as a play?
AH: The film came out of the need to have better footage of my work to use in grant applications. The cinematographer was a friend and he suggested making it into something that could stand on its own as a film. The process, I think, taught me more about film then it did about theater. It did make me realize that this is definitely a theatrical piece. It helped me know when the language was working or not working—after editing the same line multiple times! The film also only included a few short scenes from the full play, so ultimately the play is an entirely different beast (har har!). And I think how the piece ultimately needs to be seen.
HH: Film is not my medium. As a dramaturg, I work purely in theatre. I read about 300 new plays a season for different national new play organizations and my job is often to sniff out a submission that is really a film script trying to pass as a play. But when a writer like Andrea comes to me and has the experience of making her script as a film first, I love hearing what she learned and what’s she’s already willing to throw away for the sake of a making it a play. There’s always a lesson from crossing over, but you have to be willing to rip it apart and potentially throw away the things that worked best on screen. My training came from the American Repertory Theatre, under AD Robert Woodruff, where we were always encouraged to search for new forms. Woodruff loved Fellini, so we did several exercises ripping apart Fellini’s films and finding the values that were purely theatrical and repurposed them. Like ripping apart a historic house and turning it into a hipster contemporary apartment.
BJ: What challenges and opportunities have come up in the process?
AH: Challenges: How do you have enough time with actors in the room to work the script, discover the design, etc? Really, that’s the biggest challenge. How do you have the space/time/resources to develop the play in the way that it needs before being seen by an audience? I think that’s especially important working with a piece that is this visual and design oriented.
Opportunities: The actors have all brought a lot of interesting knowledge to this piece, from the 3rd Face of Power, to Native American ritual, to comic-book imagery…everyone in the room is constantly introducing me to something I wouldn’t have known about before that is completely relevant to the piece. That makes the piece so much richer and fuller.
HH: Yes. All of the above. Just telling your truth in the form of a play is a challenge, and communicating with a room full of collaborators, and making sure we’re all on the same page with the playwright, and not spinning too far in other directions.
BJ: Have you had any moments of being stuck? How did you get out of it? Or are you still there?
AH: The ending was a big sticking point. I always sort of hated it and kept telling the actors…”We’ll figure that out soon.” Heather was a huge help in talking me through why it wasn’t working and what might work better. It took both of us only getting 3 hours of sleep and me trusting actors to deal with a major change. I’m still not sure it’s the right one, but I know it’s much closer to being right than what we had.
HH: Yep. Out of the 300 new scripts I read a year, a majority of them haven’t figured out the ending yet. Part of my job is to get the writer there. You have to see the potential and keep pressing after hard questions. But then, think about Shakespeare. How many contemporary directors cut the heck out of Shakespeare’s Act 4 & 5? We revere him, but we also get frustrated and cut his last acts to say what we want to say now. For a world premiere, you also have to respect and trust the writer, not force changes to the text until you absolutely have to. My philosophy is to treat a new play like a classic and a classic like a new play. Respect the writer’s first impulse, maybe even go back to an early draft to find the answer. Something hidden in there is closer to the truth.
BJ: What is your take on Bay Area theater vs. other places? What does it look like or how does it differ? Do you see any opportunities to grow the scene?
AH: One thing we’ve talked a lot about with 6NP is that in the Bay Area you really have audiences that are ready and willing to watch anything. What I would love to see is an expansion of support for local theater makers to have the time and space to develop more risky ideas BEFORE inviting the audience in. I think there are some amazing organizations offering this (CounterPulse comes to mind), but with the size of the artist pool, we need more. Ideally, artists shouldn’t have to use the production process to flesh out their work. I think when a workshop showing of a piece has to charge $30 for tickets, something in the ecosystem is not healthy.
HH: I work all over the country in many different theatre ecosystems and this is the first time I’ve been invited to the Bay Area. I’m happy to be here with Andrea, but our collaboration started outside of this city. It takes a lot of respect and trust to invite a dramaturg into the room. Our origin story is taking a critic and throwing an outsider’s critical opinion into the process. Do you want a Kenneth Tynan in the middle of your rehearsal process? Many people don’t.
BJ: What words of wisdom do you have for people that want to do what you do?
AH: I’m at the stage of the process where it’s really hard to feel wise. But I would say…as much as the audience showing up on opening night terrifies you, still make the risky choices. Do what you need to do to drown out the chorus of advisors and critics who get louder as you get closer to opening. Everyone is scared about their part in the final piece. Do what you need to do to get past the fear and find the essence of the story you’re trying to tell. Stick with that.
HH: Pay attention to the playwrights that are part of this 6NewPlays collaboration. In Philly, Christopher Chen’s production of Caught at Interact blew us all away and many Philly playwrights wrote their own new plays in response. I also love Eugenie’s work. Take care of the playwrights making work in your own backyard. The city has many stories to tell, there’s a unique ecosystem here and on a national level, we need to hear your voice just as much as playwrights in NYC, Austin, or Chicago. Give them grants so every once in awhile they can mix it up with writers in other cities, like Philly or Omaha, then bring them home. Don’t lose them.
BJ: Where can we find more info on dark is a different beast and do you have any other projects or friends’ projects coming up we should check out?
AH: Check out 6NewPlays’ website: 6newplays.com. You can find out about dark and also about the next show coming up by Erin Bregman. I also have to put a plug in for Ochlos Theatre Lab, where I create devised work with my collaborator, Carol Ellis. We are slowly working on a new project that we’re hoping will emerge toward the end of next summer: http://ochlostheatrelab.org/. I also pretty much always love what CounterPulse is doing and the education department at ACT—specifically director Tyrone Davis. (Every 28 Hours!)
HH: Playwrights of San Francisco, send your work out bravely to these places, because I work there: Great Plains Theatre Conference, Sundance Theatre Lab (November 15th deadline!), PlayPenn, Jewish Plays Project in NYC, the O’Neill. Or if you’re still in college, the Kennedy Center’s American College Theatre Festival’s playwriting division. I hope our creative paths cross again. Thanks for my first experience in the Bay Area! Looking forward to getting to know your community more. Andrea did a fantastic job in hosting me and introducing me to how things work here. A sincere thank you.
dark is a different beast is playing at Light Rail Studios in San Francisco on Nov. 11, 12, 18, and 19. For more information, please visit http://m.bpt.me/event/269658.
Leave a comment Posted in The Real World Theater Edition Tagged Andrea Hart, Barbara Jwanouskos, collaboration, dark is a different beast, dramaturge, Heather Helinsky, Light Rail Studios, new play, playwright-director, The Real World Theater Edition
The Real World- Theater Edition: Interview with William H. Bryant Jr. and Skyler Cooper
Barbara Jwanouskos interviews the creative team behind Every 28 Hours.
Every 28 Hours is a piece that was created by linking one-minute plays based on the staggering statistic that every 28 hours, a person of color is murdered by a police officer, vigilante, or security guard. This is a piece that hits deeply into the legacy of white supremacy that our culture has been built upon and asks us if we are willing to look at ourselves to build a way of living and interacting where black lives matter.
I had the opportunity to speak with two of the actors in the Every 28 Hours production here in the Bay Area. Their names are William H. Bryant Jr. (BJ) and Skyler Cooper, and I feel fortunate that we were able to connect to share their experiences working on such an intensely powerful theatrical production.
Every 28 Hours is produced by Faultline Theater and playing at PianoFight until Nov.12.
Skyler Cooper. Photo Credit: Joy Yamada.
Barbara: Tell me about Every 28 Hours and how you came to be involved. What are you bringing to the table? Where do you see yourself in the piece?
Skyler: Every 28 Hours is a collection of stories influenced by experiences of black and brown men and women at the hands of law enforcement in this country. I wanted to be a part of this because it’s necessary and it’s vitally important to raise awareness and I am all about the creative activism that weaves throughout these stories. In my heart I knew I was being called forth from a deep spiritual place to do something with my artistic voice. I have been using my art to bring awareness to LGBTQ issues in the past, present, and future. But I am not just from that community, I am also black and I am an American and this affects me and my loved ones. I am fortunate that I am able to say “Yes”. I know so many actors would if they could. It felt like a “call to arms” when I was first told about the project. Also I relate to these stories not just because I’m black but also because I’m transgender, as well as two-spirited. I have walked in both black men and women’s shoes in this country and I’m here to tell you it ain’t easy. Currently the path I walk in the world is predominately as male. I’m either seen as a cisgender black male or a black trans male, every now and then (although I identify as a transgender actor), I am still remembered for the characters I’ve done as a cisgender masculine-of-center female. So I could be seen as black butch female. They have it just as bad as males if not worse in some cases.
BJ: First and foremost, thank you, Barbara, for the opportunity to share a bit about myself and the type of work I love doing the most. Every 28 Hours is a project comprised of 72 one-minute plays that are inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement and was developed after the news of Michael Brown’s death. The title comes from the often challenged statistic that a person of color is murdered by a police officer, vigilante, or security guard every 28 hours.
I first heard of the plays, actually, from one of my cast mates and friend, Deane, who had already started working on the plays before I came aboard. I ended up joining the rest of the amazing cast late because they needed another actor due to one having to drop out because of a conflict. I couldn’t be more grateful for the open arms that welcomed me, from the cast, to the directors, to the production team. Not only did I see it as an amazing opportunity to speak up for something with life-and-death importance to me, but I saw it as a responsibility to stress how important it is for us to, at the very least, open dialogue and have a conversation about the subject matter of the plays.
I see myself in this piece as part of a group with a story to tell. We all complement each other in ways I feel make us most effective in telling these stories. The bond that we created has been so crucial in working to do the writers of these incredibly moving pieces justice.
Barbara: What has the creative process been like? Has there been anything that surprised you along the way?
Skyler: Doing one-minute plays with five different (amazing) directors is a treat. Yet the creative process is different on so many levels from a traditional three-act structured play. It’s kind of like boot camp for character development. Much of what these plays give are a three-act story structure in one minute. I can find the beginning, middle, and end in most of the pieces on stage. Much of the creative process on all these plays is put into the backstory — what is not seen or said in the play. It has allowed us to bring full characters to the table. It’s necessary when you only get one minute! I’m surprised at how full these plays can be, say so little, and give so much.
BJ: The creative process of working on the pieces has been quite the learning experience. We are very lucky to be working with five of the most ingenious, brilliant, and hardworking directors and production team. This itself has made the creative process for this project so much more effective and real. The directors have put all of their beings into this whole process, instilling life into the pieces and allowing us the freedom to do the same with the characters while keeping in mind that this project isn’t for us; it’s for the victims, their families, and everyone who is blind to the fact that there is a major problem in our society/country.
I was actually surprised by how physically, emotionally, and spiritually exhausting, the entire process would be. But, the cause itself, the work, and each other are motivation enough that help along the way and keep us aiming to raise the bar after each and every performance.
3rd: William H. Bryant Jr. Photo Credit: Joy Yamada.
Barbara: Is there anything you do for yourself when investing so much of yourself into a powerful piece like this one? How do you keep going when it goes so deep?
Skyler: What I do to care for myself through this process is exercise my spiritual practice. It keeps me grounded and I include everyone else in my prayers — cast, crew, audiences and the souls that we lost. I rededicate each performance and I try to ground myself in their power, the power of the piece, and the power of the people. When I’m able to do this my cause is unshakable, because the roots are deep with love rather than fear or hate. I try to give love to myself and to the purpose of the piece. It’s all love.
BJ: When investing everything I can into a piece like this I learned that it helps to clear your head by bonding with your cast mates, friends, family, and loved ones. Also, I have guilty pleasures that I go to, like watching cartoons every now and then or watching superhero movies. I’ve learned during this project that we have to continue to go as deep as possible because this play isn’t for us and we have a message to send. So it helps knowing that we’d be selfish if we were to hold ourselves back in any way. So that, and knowing that my castmates, who have become like brothers and sisters to me, and my family and friends always have my back, definitely helps keep me going. I’m extremely lucky and blessed to have the support system I have especially in doing a project like this.
Barbara: Do you have a favorite moment or line of the piece? What is it and why is it your favorite?
Skyler: There are many… but I think my favorite line is the whole point of Every 28 Hours. It’s where two black men, one from the past and the other from the present, say, “I don’t want to fight. I want to be free.”
BJ: It’s tough to point out a specific piece or line and say it is my favorite because there are so many magical, tragic, heartfelt moments that capture the essence of the messages we are trying to send. There is a piece called “The Gray Area,” written by Chisa Hutchinson and performed spectacularly by Adriane Deane and Stephanie Wilborn in our run. It is a play in which a black protester explains to a white protester who is protesting “police brutality against all people,” that her form of protest is a form of racism because of her choice to ignore the fact that police brutality disproportionately targets black people. This is one of my favorite pieces because there are so many people in society who severely undermine the Black Lives Matters movement with the statement, “all lives matter,” when all lives aren’t being taken at the same rate that black lives are because of police brutality.
Barbara: What words of wisdom would you give to others that want to do what you do?
Skyler: Do it. There is only one you. Also, know that training, focus, dedication, courage, humility, and passion, are helpful to any actor who wishes to find their artistic voice. When I was able to find my artistic voice, I was able to chose the plays and characters that helped me to develop my craft beyond my training. Even still I think taking workshop intensives are great. Every instrument needs to be tuned every now and then. The theater is where I started and I highly encourage anyone who wants to be an actor to look to theater at some point preferably at the beginning. It truly is where the actor gets to work their craft the most, your entire body becomes your instrument.
BJ: I would say if they are willing to put everything they have into their craft, especially in doing plays like these, then be sure to take care of yourself mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. Really diving into a piece as heavy as this one can take a toll on your body in many different ways.
Barbara: What are you hoping someone watching the piece will take away?
Skyler: To have an unshakeable desire to enact a change in this country. Mindfulness to a degree that allows them to shift unconscious biases held against black and brown people.
BJ: What I am really hoping that people take away from this piece is the urge to act and not just stand by any longer as this continues to go on throughout the country. There are many ways to become active and fight against racism, systematic racism, and police brutality against people of color. I also hope more and more people try to get others to open their minds and understand the struggle instead of staying stagnant, in denial that there is a problem in society.
Skyler Cooper and William H. Bryant Jr. Photo Credit: Joy Yamada
To learn more about Skyler Cooper’s work –including several upcoming films — is visit http://www.skylercooper.net/#skyler-cooper and https://www.facebook.com/skyler.cooper.9. For more information on upcoming projects for William H. Bryant Jr., please visit http://www.williambryantjr.com/ and @bjbeege19 on Instagram.
2 Comments Posted in The Real World Theater Edition Tagged Barbara Jwanouskos, black lives matter, creative process, every 28 hours, Faultline Theater, interview, PianoFight, police brutality, Skyler Cooper, William H. Bryant Jr.
The Real World – Theater Edition: Get It Out
Barbara Jwanouskos, putting it out there.
My mind races constantly. From what I’ve gathered, this is pretty normal. It’s filled with so much stuff that I can have trouble focusing on any one thing. I think some would say that they’re good at multi-tasking when they have this quality – I not sure I believe in the concept of multi-tasking. To me, that means spreading your attention over a wide variety of tasks, projects, ideas, and thoughts equally.
No, instead, I think how it works is you work quickly on one thing at a time and, let’s be honest, sometimes you half-ass it. That’s okay. I’m not saying don’t do that. What if you could be less scatter brained and give most gusto? What if you could get some of what’s inside out?
This is about writing and doing and creating theater or any other type of project. This is about how to start. This points to some elements of how to keep going. It’s more observation than advice. It’s not even a real essay with the best structure or syntax. This is an idea that needed to get out.
I hear and I have SO MANY good ideas. Brilliant ones. Things that shatter your mind into a million pieces and make you go, “this changes everything.”
I see less of this actualized. I guess it’s to be expected. It takes a lot of effort to get things going.
I’m just going to point to one thing that may help in this process of turning an idea to a reality – write it out. Get it out. Badly if need be. Repeatedly. Using really bad jargon-y, clunky turns of phrase. With bad grammar or no grammar. *gasp!*
I know, I get it. It’s scary. But at some point the idea needs to get out so we can shape it and mold it. It has to be spoken aloud. Written out. It has to come out, not stay in for a huge change to occur.
I do believe in the power of transformation. It sounds so new age-y, but whatever, my thing is, hey, do you want to keep living the same old life you’ve been living? Or would you be willing to put it out there and maybe have someone scoff, but so what?
The result is a new play.
The result is a new play that moves people.
The result is a new play that changes people’s perception.
The result is a new play that inspires someone to take their own courageous step.
It ripples out.
But it has to start somewhere. This is a small way. Easily overlooked. Easily shooed as a given. Yet it’s so essential. And sometimes putting a little intention into it goes a long way. Keeps things moving forward.
Barbara Jwanouskos is a local writer who writes all kinds of things. She co-wrote a play with Julie Jigour, THANATOS, for the San Francisco Olympians Festival, which will be read this Saturday at EXIT Theatre at 8 PM. For more and to experience her creative writing, go to https://dynamicsofgroove.com/.
1 Comment Posted in The Real World Theater Edition Tagged Barbara Jwanouskos, creative process, Get It Out, idea generation, new play, The Real World Theater Edition, transformation, Writing
Theater Around The Bay: In Every Ending, A Beginning
Barbara Jwanouskos, thinking, remembering.
My first teacher in playwriting – really, the first teacher that taught me how to write and parse out creative thought – was Naomi Iizuka. Among many things that have stuck with me over time is how she would describe beginnings and endings. She asked us to take notice and reflect on how every ending within our play was also a beginning – and vice versa. I think about this frequently. How the end of one period of life can welcome a new stage and moment, which is exciting.
I’m thinking about this in the context of the news about Theater Pub’s closure. How this space, company, and group of people has given us confidence and joy in making art and exploring its edges together. And I’m thinking about the ways in which an ending of Theater Pub means a beginning of something else. Something new and exciting and that we don’t know anything about yet.
I’ve written before about relishing in the space of the unknown and how in this realm, anything is possible. That it’s all about ideas and trying them out and learning from them. I think this is one of those times again. Where we can allow ourselves the time to ask questions that get to something deeper than probably a lot of us realized we were capable of. The start of those questions resulted in the closure of Theater Pub, but this is just the beginning. This means that artists and thinkers of all types now can go out trying things on their own or with new people, old friends, whomever. It gives us all space to put on stage exactly what we want to see and really make it a project we truly care about. It’s not that we didn’t have that with Theater Pub – quite the opposite, Theater Pub taught us how to do this. How it was possible.
So, I’m looking at this moment and looking beyond the foreground to what’s on the horizon. We may not be able to fully see it yet, but I am confident with the experiences we had from doing things together under this umbrella, we will be making some great art for our communities to share in. Thank you for reading, seeing, and supporting us! There is always more to come though maybe it looks a little different than in the past.
Barbara Jwanouskos is a local writer. For more, check out her blog, The Dynamics of Groove.
1 Comment Posted in The Real World Theater Edition Tagged Barbara Jwanouskos, beginnings, endings, Naomi Iizuka, San Francisco Theater Pub closure, The Real World Theater Edition
Theater Around The Bay: Stupid Ghost Opens Next Week!
Co-Artistic Director Tonya Narvaez reveals what drew her to Stupid Ghost, announces the marvelous cast, and releases a teaser trailer.
One week from today, San Francisco Theater Pub will open Stupid Ghost, written by Savannah Reich (http://savannahreich.com) and directed by Claire Rice. I chose this play for Theater Pub after it was shown to me by a friend, Theater Pub’s own Barbara Jwanouskos. Once I started reading, I couldn’t put it down. This play touches me in so many ways. It has heart, it’s dark and twisty, and it has the kind of humor that sort of tickles you on the chin before punching you in the gut. To me, this play is about the desire to connect above all else, being unsure how to do so, and being willing to do absolutely whatever it takes to get what you want.
A young Claire Rice unwittingly preparing to direct Stupid Ghost.
I selfishly wanted to direct this piece myself. After sitting with that decision for awhile, I realized there was only one person I knew who could direct this play. That person is Claire Rice. To me, this play screams Claire Rice’s name from the rooftops. It pleads to be read by her. It begs to be thoughtfully analyzed and synthesized into a production by her mind and her heart. I sent the play in Claire’s direction and let her know how I felt. Thankfully she agreed with me and took on the project.
Trying on sheets and cutting out eyeholes at rehearsal.
I’m now incredibly delighted to announce our cast and release a teaser trailer for this very special Theater Pub production.
Ghost – Christine Keating
Ronnie – Celeste Conowitch
Poltergeist – Ryan Hayes
Lecturer – Valerie Fachman
John Pierre – Megan Cohen
See Stupid Ghost only at PianoFight (144 Taylor Street, San Francisco):
Monday, September 19 @ 8:00pm
Tuesday, September 20 @ 8:00pm
As always, admission is FREE, with a $10 donation suggested at the door. No reservations required, but we suggest getting there early to get a good seat and enjoy PianoFight’s full bar and dinner menu. Remember to show your appreciation to our hosts.
See you at the Pub!
Leave a comment Posted in Shows, Theater Around The Bay Tagged Barbara Jwanouskos, Celeste Conowitch, Christine Keating, Claire Rice, Megan Cohen, Ryan Hayes, Savannah Reich, Stupid Ghost, Theater Around The Bay, Tonya Narvaez, Valerie Fachman
The Real World – Theater Edition: Imagination as Power
The other day I had the good fortune to join local playwright, Veronica Tjioe, in being interviewed by Jovelyn Richards on her radio program, Jovelyn’s Bistro. We talked about the SF Olympians Festival and the plays we were writing as a part of it. I had a fantastic time being a part of the conversation, which you’ll be able to check out on KPFA’s website, under the Cover to Cover archives.
One of Jovelyn’s questions really got me thinking about our role as writers and creators and the power we have to invent new worlds, new language, new characters, relationships, and modes of being. I’m paraphrasing, but she asked our thoughts on the importance of inventing new language and constructing new narratives in order to respond to what we’re not seeing represented. If I could underline, highlight, put in bold, and make 64 font anything, it’d be this idea. And the heart of it, for me, is within the question Jovelyn asked.
As writers (but honestly this could span to the other roles we play as well), it’s more than just the recognition that we have this ability to see and imagine new worlds and possibilities — I would say we have a responsibility to promote and enact them to the fullest of our capacity. And — good news! — if you are creating, dreaming, and envisioning, you are already doing that. Here’s one step further, if you have articulated this vision to another person or written the idea down, you are already working towards implementation. This is a huge step closer to seeing a new possibility as a reality and creating it.
When I started writing plays some of it was a response to things about the world that I found more nuanced than what the mainstream version of that idea was. I see these unspoken rules that are often hypocritical, yet we’re expected to live by them. For instance, with one of the first full length plays I wrote, It’s All in the Mix, I really just wanted to create a play about DJs because I wanted to see that on stage. Rob Handel of CMU would often tell us to write the play you would go see. But in this world I was seeing these rules and ideas that tended to collide and overpower each other.
Everyone can be a DJ if you learn how and pursue it with passion and skill.
Skill and technique talks.
Okay, well, what about women are they good DJs?
I feel like all I hear is no, but I’m a woman and I like DJing so am I doomed to being bad?
Oh, I saw this DJ who’s a woman and she was really good!
But other male friends didn’t think so? Can’t articulate why?
For me in this instance, it starts with this feeling like something I’m experiencing isn’t being represented, or is minimized, shut down, and ignored. So I want to test if this is true. I started with using plays in order to see the characters relate to each other and how it unraveled. I’m using gender in this example, but this extends into race, ethnicity, income level, backgrounds and abilities of all types, who you love, what you look like, how you live your life, and what you believe. There is so much out there beyond what has become a standard for a protagonist or story. We just need to create it and if people aren’t going to make it – then we need to help each other make it.
I think now I’m in a different space with writing – I see gaps in what characters or stories the entertainment world and I’m looking to fill that gap if I can. And if I can’t, I want to support someone (or multiple people!) who can. It starts with the recognition that I can do something. One of my gifts may be writing or storytelling. Others have other gifts or other ways they express those gifts. We can all learn so much from each other as we continue to imagine different worlds than what we’re seeing and support each other in making them real.
Barbara Jwanouskos is a local writer. Blog’s over here. THANATOS, the play she is writing with Julie Jigour and directed by Christine Keating, is being read on October 15 at EXIT Theatre in San Francisco.
Incidentally, if you want to put that imagination into practice – check out the SF Olympians Festival’s call for submissions! The Real World – Theater Edition: Imagination as Power
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The Real World – Theater Edition: A Couple Words
Barbara Jwanouskos, speaking up.
So, it’s been a while since I’ve written more of an editorial for San Francisco Theater Pub instead of conducting an interview with a local theater maker, but I thought I’d write down a couple words this week because I’ve been thinking.
I’ve been thinking about how our artistic systems are set-up and how we engage in them. I’ve been thinking about how we develop our craft and make connections across communities. I’ve also been thinking about all the barriers that come about when you’re trying to make art. And why even make art in the first place and not something useful like a chair? Though it seems even chair-making is a becoming a lost art.
Barbara: Writing is hard!
I have been extremely fortunate to have been able to connect with other people making theater, help them out, get them to read my stuff and give me their feedback, submit to stuff, have people I don’t know give me recognition, have my writing bolstered by being a part of development groups. Not everyone gets these chances. And I feel very lucky that they’ve come my way.
At the same time, I’m writing my plays and as much as I can I go see theater and be a part of my community (though it’s not been nearly as much as when I was younger since I had less that I was responsible for then). And then something happened. I stopped doing that as much as I was.
When you look at how we put on plays, you usually have three choices:
1) do it yourself – self-produce
2) make friends with people who can put on your play, like a theater company
3) send it into the ether and hope that your writing holds weight against anyone else out there doing the same
(We haven’t even gotten into the question of how to get people who are not your family or friends to see your plays or pay attention to you in anyway.)
So, these things are hard, which is not a reason not to do them, but something about this process felt icky and off. I felt overly attached to the idea that someone else knew more about what I should create, why I should create it, and whether it was any good. Everyone needs feedback – you can’t live in a vacuum. BUT.
I was thinking to myself at some point this year – why do I do this? It’s extremely painful. There are so many other things I could do with that time that may be more enjoyable and relaxing. Maybe even more rewarding. Why do I keep coming back to this? And the simplest answer that I could come up with is that I do it because I have to do it.
I don’t have a deeper answer than that. I wish I did. Because then I could keep reminding myself of that when it gets hard, when I feel like my writing sucks, that I suck, and that it will probably always be that way. It’d make it so much easier. Maybe this is why I can’t be motivated by money or even pushing to a greater good – though I do think my role in that realm is partly enacted through writing.
A couple months ago, I started looking for ways that I could get in between 5 minutes to 1 hour of writing regularly. Everything that I did was based off a deadline, but it usually went something like, do nothing, do nothing, do nothing, deadline approaches – note that, do nothing, freak out, do nothing, freak out to the point of breakdown, turn inward, do nothing, start doing some mindless task that has nothing to do with writing, deadline is around the corner, freak out, and then finally write something. Suffice it to say, I procrastinate. And I’m a perfectionist. It’s a winning combination. ☺
Anyway, I was trying to break that cycle so I figured, well hey, if I can do a little tai chi every day and get after what I want, then I should just shut up already and figure out a way to do it with writing.
I had this blog that I wasn’t using. Guys, it was the equivalent of a rundown old warehouse that had bug problems or something. Totally useable space that needed some work.
At first, the idea was, “Oh, I’ll just share these short plays and snippets of scenes I write”. But it gradually morphed into a space and time where I could very casually explore creativity through writing without boundaries or rules. I made a goal – write and post something on there every day – so it’s been mostly poems and short stories (WHICH I NEVER WRITE) and then most recently, a little scene popped out the other day.
I was like, “Oh, hello, friend. What’s this?”
The whole shift towards devoting time to this space was to take the power to create back in my own hands. To say, hey, I don’t need anyone to give me a grant for this, welcome me into a development program, say I’m a good writer, buy a ticket to see a play of mine, or pay attention to me in any way at all – and I can STILL write good shit every so often. Honestly, I personally find something of value in everything I put down in words. Some resonate with me more than others, but everything has helped.
A strange thing happened – a small group of people started paying attention to me. No really, like 10 people. But, even though it’s a small group – I don’t know any of them personally. Not a one. All of them live all over the world. Occasionally I get a comment that I restored their faith in online poetry or something – which real Barbara is like, “wtf, me? Really? Are you sure? Cuz I’m just winging it and going with the flow…” And online Barbara is like, “omg thank you for reading!”
My point is that in being able to remove my attachment to any sort of outcome with where my writing should go or what it should do or whether it should make me money or open up any doors, it is in some small way giving people a little joy or inspiration in their day and for me, it’s opened up a huge door of possibility. I’d never fully considered/believed before that I could write a book, or even in theater – that I could get that fellowship or teaching appointment or have my play produced and developed by X, and now, I’m like, “Oh, well, I would just need to set it up as a goal and start training.”
I want to share this because so often as artists we are told no or that we’re missing the mark or that we’re confusing and people aren’t going to get it or that we’re not going to make any money and survive by our art alone. And I just want to say, I think that’s all bullshit and that if you burn with a desire to write, then just write stuff and fuck everyone else who will give you a prize or a pat on the back. They’re cool too sometimes, but it starts – it ALWAYS starts – with what you love. Do that and then if you have a goal you can chip away in some small way every day.
Eventually you will reach a height you hadn’t dreamed of. And eventually you will be working with such speed and proficiency that you wouldn’t recognize yourself five years ago or even five months ago.
And for the people out there that have keys to doors we don’t have – remember why it is that you do what you do. You have the power to open up opportunities for lots of people who are very passionate about what they do. All it takes is a second to listen and a little patience as someone reveals what they are capable of. Know that they have to reveal it to themselves before they can reveal it to anyone else.
Official Babs Headshot
Barbara Jwanouskos is a local writer. She has a blog called the Dynamics of Groove, which if you go to, know that the bio is still under construction. She is co-writing a play about the Greek god, Thanatos (think the Grim Reaper only less scary) with her friend and fellow writer, Julie Jigour. It will be presented through the San Francisco Olympians Festival on October 15, 2016 at EXIT Theatre. For more information, click here.
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The Real World – Theater Edition: Interview with Christine Keating
Barbara Jwanouskos brings us an inside look at this year’s Olympians Festival.
This week, since the San Francisco Olympians Festival Indiegogo is at 8 days left, I thought I’d focus on one of the writers in this year’s festival, Harvest of Mysteries. The festival brings together a myriad of different people to create new work – this year, it’s inspired by the Greek and Egyptian gods of the dead. One of the best parts of the festival, from my perspective, is that you don’t need to have an extensive background or know someone in order for your proposal(s) to be seriously considered. All you need is a great idea. From there, the festival builds in small but manageable check-ins with writers, where you share what you’ve been working on and get feedback and encouragement from other writers in the room.
Operating on a very small budget yet still managing to acknowledge that everyone should be paid SOMETHING for their artistic work, this festival builds in a raffle whose proceeds are shared by the poster artists on the night of readings. By doing this, they give artists exposure and recognize that hard work goes into creating art.
As a writer for the festival this year, I’ve had the opportunity to hear short bursts of what Christine Keating is working on and I’m always excited to hear what she’s developed next. So, I thought I’d chat with her a bit more about her creative process and what she’s been up to.
Colorful Christine
Barbara: What attracted you to theater? How did you get your start?
Christine: I’ve always been attracted to theatre because I am fascinated by the idea that a group of people can all be made to feel a feeling because of how words are put together by someone else.
I started by writing my own plays when I was about 7 years old, and they were all re-enactments of various horrible tortures people put other people through throughout history. I performed them for my horrified but supportive parents in my living room with my best friends. I acted in high school at the all-boys school in my town because I figured it was a great way to meet boys, and then I realized I actually like the theatre part better. I then realized I was a much better writer and director once I got to college, and have since then been attracted to the new-works scene because I love watching and being a part of the births of creative projects.
Barbara: This is a question borrowed from Mac Wellman – what is the first performance you remember seeing?
Christine: The first show I remember going to was Beauty and the Beast on Broadway – but I remember zero percent about the show, I only remember getting a cool sparkle wand afterwards. The first play I really remember seeing was Measure for Measure in London with my grandparents when I was about 7.
Barbara: How did you get involved in SF Olympians? What do you like?
Christine: I got involved when I wrote for The Sirens (The Sisters Sirene) with my friend Amelia Bethel two years ago. I was attracted to a Greek mythology festival, being someone who likes gore and torture and gossip. But I also was excited by the Olympians because it is a commission-based festival that really commits to nurturing its writers and their ideas.
Barbara: Tell me about how the festival nurtures writers. How is its model helpful for creating new work?
Christine: The writers’ meetings are a built-in community for people to make new connections and build on existing friendships. They’re so supportive of wherever you are in the process, and it’s nice to feel like we’re all struggling for the same thing. The whole festival also connects writers and directors and actors in this huge swirl of “wow this is my community, these are my people” which is such an invigorating experience for artists.
Barbara: Who’s your character and what’s your play about?
Christine: My play is about The River Styx, and while I’m still figuring out my play, I know it’s about being stuck and needing to cross something terrifying and not knowing how, or being afraid of it. It’s got a character who is forced to face all the things she’s messed up in her life, as well as all the things she’ll never get to do.
Barbara: What interesting challenges and/or opportunities have come up in the writing process?
Christine: I have never had writer’s block like I’ve had with this play. I’m normally one of those people who can shut myself up in a room and come out five hours later with the script I was supposed to write, plus 35 pages of another play I wrote by accident. Figuring out what Styx is about has taken me into doing a lot of really fascinating research, and immersing myself in the ideas I want to talk about in a way I haven’t done with other scripts.
Barbara: What stage is your script in currently and what are you excited to hear on the night of the reading?
Christine: It’s in the “I’ve had 15 versions of my first 15 pages” stage right now. I’m really excited to see what comes out of this struggle, and the audience reaction – the best part of theatre is being with other people when it happens!
Barbara: What writing/development do you anticipate having to do between now and the reading?
Christine: I love living-room readings, but I live in under 200 square feet, so I can really only have one if my cast is under 3 people and they’re willing to get cozy, or if someone else has a living room to donate…
Barbara: I’d love to hear your take on Bay Area theater. Why do it here and not in NY or someplace else? What do we have going for us? What could we stand to learn/put into practice?
Christine: Well, first off, I don’t like NYC because within ten seconds of getting into it, I become a huge jerk to everyone. It’s something in the air. I think what San Francisco has is many small groups of people who find that they need to work together and support each other in order to have a thriving arts scene, which means we come up with a lot of different kinds of performance, and new people are always discovering it. We’re also a community that recognises when someone is talented and then nurtures and encourages them to grow in a way I don’t hear my friends in New York talking about.
Barbara: What words of wisdom do you have for people who want to do what you do?
Christine: I think the best words of wisdom I ever received were just someone looking me in the eye and saying “You can do this. This is a hat, among many, that you can wear.”
Barbara: Any plugs for your work or friends’ work happening soon?
Christine: Of course! You should check out the Bay Area Playwrights Festival this weekend – my friend Logan Ellis directed Non-Player Character by Walt McGough. Also, Portal: The Musical is playing next week at Theater Pub, written by Kirk Shimano, whose play for Olympians I will be directing this year! I saw it this week and I thoroughly enjoyed it and felt the overwhelming urge to dedicate the next month of my life to re-playing Portals 1 and 2. And finally, my boyfriend Adam Magill will be in The Thrush and the Woodpecker at Custom Made Theatre coming up next month, and having read the script a few years ago, I am really excited to see what the excellent creative team does with it.
For more about Christine Keating, check out her website. Her play, STYX, commissioned by the San Francisco Olympians Festival, will be read on Wednesday, October 12 at EXIT Theatre in San Francisco.
Leave a comment Posted in The Real World Theater Edition Tagged Adam Magill, Amelia Bethel, Barbara Jwanouskos, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Christine Keating, creative process, Custom Made Theatre, director, Kirk Shimano, Logan Ellis, new play, new play development, new work, Non-Player Character, playwright, Portal: The Musical, readings, River Styx, San Francisco Olympians Festival, San Francisco Theater Pub, The Sirens, The Sisters Sirene, The Thrush and The Woodpecker, Walt McGough
Theater Around The Bay: Cowan Palace Goes Portal
Ashley may be 3000 miles away but it’s like she’s right next to you, singing in your ear about her interview with Kirk Shimano and Sang Kim, who prepare to rock San Francisco Theater Pub with Portal: The Musical!
Hello there, my San Francisco friends! Wow, what a few weeks it’s been, huh? Lots going on all over the world but I have to say getting the chance to interview writer Kirk Shimano and director Sang Kim was a real treat. This dynamic duo is currently working on San Francisco Theater Pub’s latest show, Portal: The Musical.
The cast features Alan Coyne, Jamie Lee Currier, Dan Kurtz, Courtney Merrell, and Karen Offereins with musical direction by Liz Baker, voice direction and production design by Renee LeVesque, and Paul Anderson and Spencer Bainbridge rounding out this rockin’ team as the band. The show is set to the music of Jonathan Coulton and this theatrical piece is sure to be unlike any other production you’ve seen this millennium.
AC: So firstly, what are audiences in store for when they sit down for Portal: The Musical?
KS: I think the experience will be pretty different based on what the audience member is bringing in. Fans of the video game are going to get to see the story they love brought to life in a totally different way. Jonathan Coulton fans will get to hear their favorite songs for the first time again when they’re sung by our characters. And people who don’t know anything about either are going to discover a whole new world that they never knew they were missing.
SK: A lot more feeling and earnestness than you’d expect for a video game based on dimensional rifts and psychotic artificial intelligence. Also – this show passed the Bechdel Test with extra credit! Good Job sticker for us!
AC: So, how did this project come to be?
KS: I played through the original Portal in one sitting and it’s been a favorite ever since. And when I found out the guy who wrote “Still Alive” had a whole repertoire of other work, I got my hands on all the Jonathan Coulton music I could find. But this all really gelled for me when I heard the song “Code Monkey” on the Best. Concert. Ever. album. As soon as I heard that, I immediately knew there was a character behind this song and wanted to bring it to life in a full musical.
SK: Kirk emailed me back in June 2013 after he punched out a first draft during his stay-cation. I replied back and said yes to working on this. I wish it was more dramatic and suspenseful, but there it is. How about we just pretend Kirk threw the script into a Thunderdome death pit and I emerged the victor and claimed the musical as my prize.
AC: What’s been the biggest surprise you’ve experienced while rehearsing a musical about a video game?
KS: I’d say it’s just seeing all the passion that people have for this source material. There’s always a great level of support among other members of the theater community, but it’s been wonderful to also see friends who wouldn’t necessarily consider themselves “theater people” get really excited about this project because of their connection to the source material.
SK: Agree with Kirk. It’s gotten to the point where rehearsals are going long because there’s too many ideas and too much fun being had. And, oh Lord, the spontaneous singing. Always with the spontaneous singing. People singing and making up lyrics and breaking into song. It’s like witnessing a karaoke playlist for ADHD show choir students on meth.
AC: What’s been your favorite moment so far while working on the show?
KS: I’d have to say it’s those moments in rehearsal where we’ve had everyone sing along together. Our cast and creative team has been wonderful to work with in general, but that’s the moment when I just feel we’re all the most connected.
SK: Yes. This.
I played viola in the orchestra so the power of group singing has never made an impact on me until this show. I finally understand why the Grinch’s heart grew three sizes that day.
AC: What drink do you think would pair best with the production?
KS: Maybe one of those novelty drinks that comes in a beaker and has some dry ice to make fog spill out over the sides? Because something that is fun and a little creepy with a chance of killing you is basically the character of GLaDOS.
SK: Anything garnished with olives – just one olive so your drink is looking back at you which reminds me of all our little robot friends from the game.
AC: What’s been the hardest challenge you and the cast/crew have faced while bringing this story to life (and song!)?
KS: I feel very fortunate in that Sang has been taking on the HUGE task of all the scheduling and coordination of bringing together all of the talent need to bring this together, and I just get to watch. But one challenge that comes to mind was having to cut a couple songs from the script that I really like but that weren’t serving the story (sorry “I Crush Everything”).
SK: Kirk is gracious but having this specific group of talent has been worth all the wrangling. The hardest thing is to pull the show back for a staged musical setting at Theater Pub. I think a lot of past contributors have excelled in presenting fantastic shows in such an unconventional setting. But the scope and creativity of Kirk’s musical, the Portal universe, Coulton’s songs,along with the talent involved have actually been an embarrassment of riches. Having limited time and resources means picking and discarding your darlings.
AC: Tell us more about what you’re up to after this show! Any fun new projects on deck?
KS: Next up for me will be the San Francisco Olympians Festival, which I’m happy to be returning to for the sixth year in a row. I’m looking forward to sharing a night with three other playwrights (Barbara Jwanouskos, Julianne Jigour, and Alan Coyne) as we present three very stylistically different approaches to the gods of sleep and dreams.
SK: After some rest, I’ll be helping co-write Thunderbird Theatre’s next original play. It’ll be a creative collaboration with The Mess sketch comedy, which also has a show up this November.
AC: What Bay Area show (other than this) are you most excited to see this summer?
KS: I’m a big fan of musicals in general, so I can’t wait to see City of Angels at the San Francisco Playhouse and Chess at the Custom Made Theatre Company. I’ve been a big fan of the cast albums of both and neither is a show that you see performed all the time.
SK: I was glad to see The Rules and the Loud and Unladylike Festival, but they both closed this past weekend. After that, probably my usual summer and fall diet of Pint Sized Plays and the Olympians Festival before I hibernate for the winter.
AC: Using only emoticons, how would you describe Portal?
KIRK: — 0 0– >
SANG: 🍰🤔
AC: If your directing/writing style was a song, what would it be?
SK: For this show? “Bizarre Love Triangle.” You’ll see.
KS: Want to be: “Everything is AWESOME!!!” But, actually: “Still Alive.”
See Portal: The Musical only at PIANOFIGHT (144 Taylor Street):, July 18, 19, 25, and 26 @ 8 PM.
Leave a comment Posted in Cowan Palace, Theater Around The Bay Tagged ADHD, Alan Coyne, Artificial Intelligence, Ashley Cowan, Audience, Barbara Jwanouskos, Bechdel Test, Best. Concert. Ever, Bizarre Love Triangle, Chess, City of Angels, Code Monkey, Courtney Merrell, Cowan Palace, Custom Made Theatre Company, Dan Kurtz, Everything is AWESOME, GLaDOS, Grinch, I Crush Everything, Jamie Lee Currier, Jonathan Coulton, Julianne Jigour, karaoke, Karen Offereins, Kirk Shimano, Liz Baker, Loud and Unladylike, music, musical, Olives, Paul Anderson, Pint-Sized Plays, Portal: The Musical, Renee LeVesque, San Francisco, San Francisco Olympians Festival, San Francisco Playhouse, San Francisco Theater Pub, Sang Kim, Spencer Bainbridge, Still Alive, The Mess, The Rules, Theater, Thunderbird Theatre, Thunderdome, video game
The Real World- Theater Edition: An Interview With Star Finch
Barbara Jwanouskos brings you the author of H.O.M.E.
I heard the title first, H.O.M.E. (Hookers on Mars Eventually) and I thought, “okay, now, that’s gonna be good…” I see it and it’s this meld of worlds, ideas, curiosities, passions, and most importantly, issues I care about, so I was immediately drawn in. It’s speaking to something mythic and larger than life, but is what our every day is made of. When we think of what the future – or even the present – will be like and wonder who’s going to celebrate in the success and who will be left out? With people being pushed out of their homes and places around the Bay that they grew up, this is palpable and real. And the play opens that door. For me, it was the first time in a long time that I felt connected to something that I can only relate to the word, “spiritual”. It’s the type of theater that captures you and draws you into its share experience and shared space. It lets you be there and lets you listen as the ideas, the words, the characters come to life on stage. Gives you a place where you can share this with others.
Suffice it to say, I was moved deeply.
Campo Santo is currently putting on the production at The Strand Theater by playwright, Star Finch, who was born and raised in San Francisco. I was able to connect with her after seeing the show – thanks to Sean San Jose. I asked her about her process and how H.O.M.E. developed.
Star Finch
Barbara: Tell me about your artistic and writing background. What drew you to theater?
Star: I’ve always used writing as a way to make sense of the world or my experiences within it since I was a teen. It wasn’t until later in life that I found the courage to admit to myself that I wanted to be a writer and should actively pursue it rather than hide it away in notebooks. I found my way to theater specifically in grad school when I randomly took a course with Michelle Carter, despite my focus being in fiction. I immediately fell in love with the plays we went to see, the playwrights she introduced into my world, and the layers of energy that could be folded into great dialogue. Michelle Carter became a mentor and later a great friend who was instrumental in encouraging me to pursue my path.
Barbara: Do you have any influences – shows you saw that you were inspired by, books or essays, teachers, family, friends or mentors, etc. – that show up in your writing?
Star: I’m very much inspired/influenced by the playwrights Caryl Churchill and Suzan-Lori Parks. Everything David Lynch produced made a big impact on my childhood subconscious (why I was allowed to watch his work as a kid is its own mystery). Michelle Carter’s emphasis on the dance of beats and subtext within dialogue stays with me. Kara Walker and Wangechi Mutu’s work speak directly to the ghosts I carry. And lastly D. Scot Miller’s manifesto on AfroSurrealism was a revelation that gathered all the tiny fragments of my lived experiences and named/framed them into a whole.
Barbara: What’s your process like and did anything about it change in writing and developing H.O.M.E.?
Star: My process was always to write late at night after my kids and husband had gone to bed and the house was finally quiet. I would write by hand in notebooks until I felt like I had a solid chunk of scenes and then I’d type them up on my computer to get a view from a different angle. For the most part that remains my process in that I always begin by hand in a notebook. For whatever reason I can’t just jump onto a computer/laptop and take off. What was different with H.OM.E was that it was written within Campo Santo’s informal writing group, Clika. So in this case I was sharing scenes, hearing scenes read by actors, and getting feedback from the very beginning. Prior to that I had only written something all the way through on my own and then asked for feedback on the draft as a whole.
Barbara: I’m curious about your thoughts on how you engage with collaborators, for instance once you’re in the rehearsal room. What was it like to work with Campo Santo?
Star: Campo Santo is an amazing place to call home. Sean San Jose truly feels like a long lost brother. I don’t know if it’s because we’re both SF natives or what, but we just vibe really well and make each other laugh. There is a trust involved that speaks to our commitment to speak truth in matters of injustice, hypocrisy, or oppression within the stories we seek to tell in our work. In the rehearsal room we spent a good two weeks sitting around a table asking questions. Everyone at the table was given a voice to seek whatever answers they needed to best help them embody the text. In a way we were all sitting in the dark with a script and it was important to build the world collectively through conversation.
Barbara: Could you tell me about H.O.M.E. and what inspired or prompted you? Do you have a favorite moment or line in the play? What draws you to it?
Star: The original prompt for this play was a photograph, by Chris Arnade, of two sex workers in the Bronx looking through a telescope. The photo got me to wondering about space travel, access, privilege, and who would be “allowed” to travel to new worlds in the future. It’s difficult to pick a favorite line or moment in the play, but one of my favorite images is the idea of a mythological Tupac Amaru Shakur living as a prophet in a cave on Mars. That thread throughout the piece became even more poignant for me after the death of Afeni Shakur in May. I love the idea of writing the spirit of their names across the solar system.
Star’s inspiration for H.O.M.E. (Hookers on Mars Eventually). Photo by Chris Arnade.
Barbara: What do you think about where San Francisco and the Bay Area is at now (theater scene or beyond) and where we’re going?
Star: In theater (and beyond) I think San Francisco and the Bay Area talks about wanting diversity and inclusion but it’s for the most part just talk. The word diversity is often a matter of using numbers to secure grants, create a “colored” brochure, or pat oneself on the back for being a progressive city. But true progress requires actively dismantling and rebuilding as an act of restoring normalcy, not feigning nobility. Organizations, neighborhoods, workplaces ought to be diverse because the very nature of Nature itself is diversity in abundance. The gap between the image the Bay Area projects and the reality of who is made to feel welcome here grows wider every day.
Barbara: Is there anything that drives you to write within (or out of) that context? How so?
Star: Yes! Because I know how diverse, vibrant, wild and open this city used to be. I’m always writing from a place that questions the sanity of what we’re conditioned to consider normal, and who benefits from said conditioning.
Barbara: Are there other theaters, writers, performance artists, artists of any media for that matter that you think are doing really something really interesting? Work you enjoy experiencing?
Star: I like how Ubuntu Theater Project and AlterTheater are putting on shows in unexpected spaces. Local artists like Paul Lewin and Lexx Valdez produce imagery that speaks to my soul. Over the last year I’ve been leaning heavily into reading women playwrights such as Naomi Wallace, Kia Corthron, Annie Baker, and Sarah Kane. And of course I have to again mention Michelle Carter and Sean San Jose. For some reason I tend to be most inspired and excited by documentaries about space, nature, creatives, and subcultures–the more wild and far out, the better. Foreign films are another source of inspiration. Is it odd for a writer to find most of her inspiration from visual art forms? LoL! I love all of the exhibits SOMArts puts on and the ways they engage with gentrification and its erasure.
Barbara: What do you love most about San Francisco?
Star: My old answer to the San Francisco question would be its diversity. I grew up around people who looked like me, in addition to having friends/neighbors from a wide variety of different cultural backgrounds, and sadly when I look at my children’s class photos that is no longer the case. My new answer to what I love most about San Francisco now would be the food. Whenever I take a trip out of town I quickly realize how unbelievably spoiled we are here. Not to mention its beauty. The city is gorgeous from every angle.
Barbara: Any words of wisdom or thoughts for people who want to do what you do?
Star: The most important bit of wisdom I can offer is Keep Writing!! (and sending your stuff out.) Even when it might seem pointless or as if no one is interested, press on. You never know when an opportunity might present itself and when it does you’ll want to have your best work on deck and ready to be read. It also helps immensely to be part of a community—so seek that out whether it comes from school, volunteering at a theater, taking acting classes, signing up for a workshop. Making authentic connections with your fellow creatives is a vital part of the process.
Barbara: Any upcoming projects you or friends are working on in the Bay Area?
Star: I have a play called Bondage that will be produced by AlterTheater next January. It’s a play that came about through my year long residency with them in AlterLab 2015. Campo Santo also has a bunch of cool collaborations on the horizon through their residency with Magic Theatre and beyond. First up is Nogales, written by Richard Montoya and directed by Sean San Jose. The best way to keep up with them is via their Facebook page: CampoSantoSF
Image by Lexx Valdez
You can check out H.O.M.E. (Hookers on Mars Eventually) at the Strand Theater through the weekend. Click here for more information.
1 Comment Posted in The Real World Theater Edition Tagged Afeni Shakur, AfroSurrealism, AlterTheater, Annie Baker, Barbara Jwanouskos, Campo Santo, Chris Arnade, D. Scot Miller, H.O.M.E. (Hookers on Mars Eventually), interview, Kara Walker, Kia Corthron, Lexx Valdez, Michelle Carter, Naomi Wallace, new play, Paul Lewin, Sarah Kane, Sean San Jose, SOMArts, Star Finch, Strand Theater, The Real World Theater Edition, Tupac Amaru Shakur, Ubuntu Theater Project, Wangechi Mutu
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Carol Christ
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11th chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley
Carol Christ began her term as the 11th chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley on July 1, 2017. A celebrated scholar of Victorian literature, Christ is also well known as an advocate for quality, accessible public higher education, a proponent of the value of a broad education in the liberal arts and sciences, and a champion of women’s issues and diversity on college campuses.
Christ spent more than three decades as a professor and administrator at UC Berkeley before serving as president of Smith College, one of the country’s most distinguished liberal arts colleges, from 2002 to 2013. She returned to Berkeley in January 2015 to direct the campus’s Center for Studies in Higher Education, and was appointed interim executive vice chancellor and provost in April 2016 before being named chancellor in March 2017. Since her return to Berkeley, she has worked to foster community and improve the campus climate for people of all backgrounds, celebrate the institution's longstanding commitment to free speech, strengthen Berkeley's financial position, address a housing shortage, and develop a ten-year strategic plan for the campus.
As president of Smith for more than a decade, Christ supervised the development of the nation’s only accredited engineering program at a women’s college, oversaw a significant rise in student diversity, expanded Smith’s global activities and reach, managed a major campus capital planning program, and shepherded the college through strategic planning exercises designed to improve its academic and financial models within the context of changing trends in higher education.
Prior to joining Smith, Christ served as UC Berkeley’s executive vice chancellor and provost from 1994 until 2000. During her six years as the campus’s top academic officer, she sharpened Berkeley’s intellectual focus, strengthening many of the institution’s top-rated departments in the humanities and sciences as well as advancing major initiatives in areas including neuroscience and bioengineering.
Christ received her B.A. (1966) from Douglass College, and her M.Ph. (1969) and Ph.D. (1970) from Yale University. She joined the Berkeley English faculty in 1970, and in addition to her other roles, has served as chair of that department, dean of the Division of Humanities, and provost for the College of Letters and Science. Christ has authored two books, The Finer Optic: The Aesthetic of Particularity in Victorian Poetry (1975) and Victorian and Modern Poetics (1994), and has edited or co-edited several others, including The Norton Anthology of English Literature. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.
Christ was married for 21 years to Paul Alpers, a professor of English and founding director of UC Berkeley’s Townsend Center for the Humanities, until his death in 2013. She has two grown children, Jonathan and Elizabeth Sklute, from a previous marriage, as well as two grandchildren. She lives in Berkeley.
"Campus Conversations": UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ
Class of 2020 Celebration: Carol Christ
Education, Education Industry, Education Professionals, Leadership, Berkeley Professors, College, Smith College, English, Women, Women in Leadership,
Victorian And Modern Poetics
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2000 Mark McGwire Original Baseball Artwork by LeRoy Neiman....
2000 Mark McGwire Original Baseball Artwork by LeRoy Neiman.
Inscription: McGwire, Game III, NLCS 10-14-2000 Shea, Cardinals Mets, 4th Inning Pinch Hit Long Fly Out Left Field.
Baseball: ONL (White).
Documents: Neiman & McCabe's ticket stubs (2), pre-game party passes (2), Neiman signed snapshot of the artist sketching McGwire in batting practice, Neiman signed letter. Pre-certified by PSA/DNA.
The LeRoy Neiman Collection of Original Baseball Art.
A letter from our consignor...
Prior to my retirement I was the officer in charge of marketing and Communications at Manufacturers Hanover (which became Chemical, Chase and, finally, JP Morgan Bank). One of our marketing strategies was to use sports as a vehicle to promote the bank's brand. So we sponsored almost all the professional and college sports in the New York area. We were major sponsors of the Mets, Yankees, Giants, Jets, Knicks, and so on. The New York Mets had a beer sponsor that awarded the Mets Player of the Year with an original Neiman drawing of himself. When the beer sponsor dropped out in the mid-1970's, the bank stepped in. This was the beginning of a forty-year friendship with LeRoy. This award was made during spring training, and it was then (in 1978) that I asked LeRoy to draw the first ball. I think it was Yogi Berra, but he did not say so on the ball.
As the years went by LeRoy did other work for the bank such as drawings of players that were then made into posters as team promos for give-away days at the stadium. Many of the images on the posters were also drawn on the baseballs. LeRoy drew many of these at the game, some in the car as we drove to the game, and others at his studio. He really liked the challenge of capturing the image on the baseball and found creative ways to make it work. We went to most Mets Opening Days, since this is where LeRoy could be on the field doing his work. When he had the time he drew his Femlin and self-portraits on balls for me also. He was very good to the charities in which I was involved, doing dinner program covers and showing up at events giving countless autographs. He was a great friend not only to me but to the whole world of sport.
Charles McCabe
We'd like to add that this one-of-a-kind collection represents the entirety of the Neiman baseballs owned by Mr. McCabe, and only a tiny handful of other Neiman artwork baseballs are known to exist. Most of the baseballs are accompanied with signed and notarized letters of provenance from Neiman, and many include various ticket stubs, photographic snapshots and other ephemera from the events at which they were created. The result is a fascinating and comprehensive "behind the scenes" view of the master at work.
I want to again thank you for a job well done. Your professionalism prevailed through out the process for which I am so grateful.
Jerry D.,
New Ulm, MN
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Puck Daddy
Capitals blew it and now suffer non-championship hangover
Greg Wyshynski
Can a team that’s never won a Stanley Cup suffer a Stanley Cup hangover?
Of course, according to Washington Capitals GM Brian MacLellan. The 2016-17 Capitals swung for the fences, struck out and now they’re in the same situation other top-heavy teams like the Chicago Blackhawks have found themselves in: Making excruciating financial decisions on players they don’t want to lose, and then scrambling to spackle over the holes in their lineup.
OK, it’s not exactly the same situation.
Those teams won.
The Capitals didn’t.
“We spent the last three years building that team to where it was last year. We maxed it out player wise and salary wise, and we were expecting to run into some issues here, going forward,” said MacLellan. “It’s no different than the teams that have won in the past. We have the same kind of hangover, but we haven’t won a championship. And we’re dealing with it now.”
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If any Pittsburgh Penguins fans have been waiting for the right moment to pour the rest of their salt on the Capitals’ wounds, please commence with the pouring: Not only did Pittsburgh eliminate Washington for the second straight season, but they did so in what MacLellan admits was their all-in, must-win postseason before having to re-conceive much of this roster in the summer.
“It hurts. We spent three years trying to get back to that lineup last year, and I thought it was a complete lineup. We knew were going to lose people that we really like,” he said.
So far, the Capitals lost RFA defenseman Nate Schmidt to the Vegas Golden Knights in the expansion draft; they saw defensemen Karl Alzner and Kevin Shattenkirk and forward Justin Williams walk away in free agency; on Sunday, they stunned the NHL by trading 26-year-old winger Marcus Johansson, who was coming off his best offensive season, to the New Jersey Devils in a cost-saving move in order to re-sign star forward Evgeny Kuznetsov to an eight-year deal.
The Kuznetsov deal was one of several decisions that broke the wrong way for MacLellan and the Capitals this offseason, including the fact the cap only rose to $75 million.
His eight-year deal carries a whopping $7.8 million cap hit, the second-highest on the team. It’s higher than that of Vladimir Tarasenko of the St. Louis Blues ($7.5 million), also 25 years old, a top line winger with a 40-goal season to his credit.
But Kuznetsov leveraged the Capitals by using the KHL – threatening to leave for two seasons, make boatloads of money, and then return to the NHL as an unrestricted free agent. That threat effectively took away the option for arbitration with the restricted free agent as well.
“I think we went a little above where we wanted to be. Just because of the situation we were in with Kuznetsov, and his ability to play in Russia for two years and earn more money than he’s making here and then come back as a UFA … he had leverage,” said MacLellan.
“We had to comply with his demands.”
That meant making the difficult choice to trade Johansson, whose $4.583 million hit would be folded into Kuznetsov’s salary spot.
“He was making the money that we needed to shed to sign Kuznetsov. So the decision in the end was do we let Kuznetsov walk to Russia and become a UFA in two years, or do we trade Marcus?” said MacLellan.
But the Johansson trade was a misplay by the Capitals. By waiting this long, the number of trade partners they fit the parameters of what the team needed on a Johansson deal had dwindled: Washington needed a team with an open roster spot, that had the cap space and would only swap picks because the Capitals couldn’t take any salary back.
The Devils were one of few options.
Could they have traded Johansson around the expansion draft or the NHL Draft? Perhaps. But the trade market as a whole wasn’t what MacLellan was expecting, even with the Golden Knights entering the fray. There wasn’t the frenzy many expected.
Of course, there are other ways to open up salary space. Like buying out the declining play of 36-year-old Brooks Orpik, which would have saved $3 million against the cap in each of the next two seasons, and the cost them $1.5 million in dead cap space for the following two.
But MacLellan said the Capitals had no appetite to do that.
“I don’t know that we really considered that. I thought Orpik had a good year last year. I thought him and Schmidt played well together on our third pair. We value what he brings to young defensemen. He was very good for Schmidt, and Schmidt was good for Orpik. We have a bunch of young defensemen that are coming up: 10 or 12 guys that are under 22. They’re all pretty good players. We’re going to value the ability of Orpik to mentor these guys,” he said.
“So I didn’t want to buy out on our salary cap going out four years. I didn’t think it made sense for us.”
For a lot of Capitals fans, this team has stopped making sense, but that’s because it thought it had all the answers last season.
There’s this clear “it was now or never” vibe about 2016-17 from MacLellan, and one wonders how much that vibe infected (or will infect) the rest of the roster. It’s not he’s saying the window’s shut, because this is still a playoff lock and contender in the East. But it’s inarguable that he’s saying last season was the Capitals’ best shot at a Stanley Cup, and they didn’t even make the conference final.
And so now there’s a championship hangover for a team that didn’t win a championship.
The other big difference between the Capitals and the teams that did win a title and then suffered the salary cap fallout? Those teams had the utmost confidence that their star players, coach and management could be relied on to guide them through tumultuous changes.
The Capitals are not those teams.
Greg Wyshynski is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter. His book, TAKE YOUR EYE OFF THE PUCK, is available on Amazon and wherever books are sold.
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← Zoe’s Tale by John Scalzi
Softspoken by Lucius Shepard →
Publisher: DAW
Pub. date: June 2008
$7.99, 320 pages,
Reviewed by Danny Adams
[Editor’s Note: The following review was originally written for the October 2008 issue of Some Fantastic, which was never published. This marks its initial publication.]
Cory Doctorow has made a point of explaining his stories by saying that he doesn’t predict the future — he predicts the present. He wasn’t necessarily following any slippery slopes to someday conclusions, but rather extrapolating all of the potential consequences for things happening right now. While most of the stories in Future Americas aren’t quite that immediate, many if not most do take that next logical step. If you can genetically tailor your children, what happens if the child still doesn’t meet the standard you wanted? Are there alternatives to burial in an environmentally-challenged land? Is forensics becoming too technical at the expense of human instinct?
Ed Gorman asks the GM children question in “The Baby Store.” Kevin and Jen McKay just lost their own modified child, Kevin Junior, to drowning, and Kevin is now secretly doing something he is certain would hurt and anger his wife greatly: looking at new potential children at the “baby store.” The story reveals in brief, but slowly building, painful detail that Kevin Junior was one of those rare statistics where the modification process didn’t go quite right, and he would always be well behind his peers no matter how hard he tried, and… and, there is actually an underlying tragedy behind the boy’s death that sneaks up on the reader until it’s ready to slap you.
In Brian Stableford’s “The Great Chain of Being,” 36-year-old Sarah Whitney is dying of a cancer that hasn’t responded to any treatments and has decided on a death that’s unusual but growing in popularity: she wants her body turned into a tree. Sometime in the past, America was ravaged by what appears to have been a continent-wide eco-catastrophe, and now the land is being repopulated by trees that were once people. Sarah is well aware that this won’t mean any continuity of consciousness, and her husband is the loudest critic — he wants her to keep fighting the cancer, not to mention being a little dubious about both the whole process and the intentions of the people doing it. Don’t expect any surprise endings or great revelations here; “Being” is an introspective story about life and death without becoming too maudlin, saccharine, or preachy, and is among the strongest in the anthology.
The protagonist of Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s “The Power of Human Reason” is considered an antique by most of his co-workers on the police force — not because he’s in his eighties, which is the new middle age, but because he relies as much if not more on gut instinct, on human reason, than technology. When a multiple murder case comes along that the technology cannot solve, the younger cops are shaken but he simply regards it as a challenge — and a way to hold onto his job awhile longer, if he can solve it. The mystery itself is compelling and Rusch manages to believably pull off one that could only have been solved with experience and instinct rather than computers and analysis.
Still other tales do quite well carrying on with the “one step away from here” idea. For example, “The Rotator,” by Pamela Sargent, could literally take place where the future America happens to be tomorrow, when a President Bush and Vice President Cheney from an alternate America switch over to one were they aren’t quite as unpopular. Mike Resnick and Linda Donohue’s “The Last Actor” explores an America dominated by a pop culture that has even crushed Shakespeare with a humor flowing on pathos. Meanwhile, massive overpopulation in Donald J. Bingle’s “Attached to the Land” sees America adopting a growth policy that China can only envy, and carries a hammer blow hitting all the harder for the story’s brevity.
A more hopeful outlook imbues Jane Lindskold’s “Unlimited,” which looks at the possibilities of cloning prehistoric mammals to bring them back to the world, and while the story definitely has its serious moments, the characters — and perhaps the author, one might presume — are having a great deal of fun bringing this past into their own futures. “Better Guns,” by Jean Rabe, deftly mixes the humorous and serious by offering us characters who have suffered under restrictive anti-terror laws that include the confiscation of all weapons except museum pieces. Our “heroes” put up with their deprivations until the government foists on them one final insult that they just refuse to bear: the president has taken over Graceland as his official residence.
No doubt there will be readers coming to Future America who, like me, wondered if it would contain a story that featured an America long ruined by her imperial-style vices and overreaching. Maybe for that reason the very first story is Brendan DuBois’s “A Souvenir To Remember,” about a rich and bored young fellow named Armand who is in what used to be Washington and decides he wants a tour of the “ruins,” which we today would know as The Mall: that famous stretch between the Lincoln Memorial and the Capitol. Instead of what could have been a dragged-out laundry list of “Here’s what’s left of the Capitol, here’s what left of this Smithsonian museum,” Dubois skillfully offers up different aspects on what was truly lost, each wreck a symbol for what we had and either squandered or abused or both. The souvenir of the title is something that we today would barely give a second look, but which Armand considers incredibly precious as a reminder, and made this writer want to take a closer look at his own such souvenir the next time one came into his hands.
On the other side of expectations is “Switching Off the Lights” by Peter Crowther, a story whose title is exactly as it sounds: the end of the entire world. The means for interstellar travel also wound up damaging the planet beyond repair, and as far as the Stuczi family knows as they’re preparing their own escape rocket, they may be the last family in America. Their flight will be dangerous and statistically doomed to fail, but Crowther nicely has father Jerry comforting his children not with platitudes or fairy tales, but with the probabilities of quantum theory — an effective spoonful of hope in this very short piece.
While the story quality certainly varies, there isn’t a klunker to be found in Future Americas, nor (for good or ill) anything that isn’t utterly outside the broader realms of possibility. Readers looking for post-apocalyptic stories should look elsewhere; sometimes the apocalypse simply doesn’t happen and people are either forced to grind on through their circumstances or able to keep working towards an optimistic light while managing to survive the crush of daily history. Those kinds of stories are in ample supply here. There’s quality to every piece, and in each one a clear window to what might yet be.
Danny Adams is the author of the forthcoming early medieval historical novel The Matter of Camelot (Musa Publishing) and the co-author, with Philip Jose Farmer, of the short science fiction novel The City Beyond Play (PS Publishing). When he’s not writing, he’s also a college librarian and a speculative fiction reviewer for Publishers Weekly. Most of the time he lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia; the rest of the time, don’t bother trying to find him.
Click to purchase Future Americas on Amazon.com .
This entry was posted in Danny Adams, John Hellers, Martin H. Greenberg. Bookmark the permalink.
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You are here: Home / About Us / The Staff of St. Matthew / Ministerial Staff
The Rev. Dr. Kathy Vitalis Hoffman
Pastor Kathy received her Master of Divinity at Luther Northwestern Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota and her Doctor of Ministry in Pastoral Leadership from Drew University in Madison, New Jersey.
Pastor Kathy has served faithfully in ministry for over 31 years and in five different ministry settings before coming to St. Matthew. She comes to St. Matthew with a passion for people and ministry and offers great insight and leadership. Pastor Kathy is married to the Reverend Mark Vitalis Hoffman, a professor at Gettysburg Seminary. Together, they have two daughters, Sarah and Amy.
The Rev. David Kiel
Interim Associate Pastor
Pastor David Kiel was born in Houston, Texas and grew up at Grace Lutheran Church in the Montrose area of Houston. He was very active in the youth ministry of his congregation and eventually the synod and the National Youth Ministry of the Lutheran Church in America. He also worked at Camp Lutherhill, the Lutheran camp in Texas, and it was there he felt his call to ministry.
Pastor David graduated from Texas Lutheran University in 1981 with a degree in Mass Communications. He attended Luther Seminary and after graduation was called to serve as the first Associate Pastor of Maple Grove Lutheran Church in Maple Grove, Minnesota.
His wife, Renee, is also an ELCA pastor. She currently serves as an Army Chaplain and is attending the Army War College in Carlisle (where they both live). They have served two churches together and have raised three sons. Joseph and Justin are twins. Joseph is currently living in Australia serving the ELCA through YAGM (Young Adults in Global Mission). His twin, Justin, is working in Charleston, South Carolina, as a Research Assistant at the Medical School of South Carolina. He is an Army Reserve Officer and hopes to go to Medical School soon. Their third son, Kristopher, is attending Winthrop University in Rock Hill, SC seeking an Economics Degree. Upon his graduation he will be commissioned as an Army Officer in the Reserves.
Pastor David’s interests include singing and playing guitar, reading, hiking, bicycling, riding a motorcycle, boating and camping. He also enjoys hunting and fishing.
The Rev. Faye C. Snyder
Congregational Visitation Pastor
email: nicksong@comcast.net
A native of Hanover, Pastor Faye is pleased to again minister in her home congregation, St. Matthew. This is the church home where her 4 children grew up. These walls have witnessed, both joyful and sad, the major transitions of their lives.
Having graduated from York College of PA with a degree in Behavioral Sciences, and the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg with a Masters of Divinity, Pastor Faye is a second-career pastor. She filled many roles in her former life. She was the Executive Director of Hanover Area Council of Churches, the founding Director, as well as a teacher, of Discovery Place Preschool, and a founding board member of Turning Point Interfaith Housing. She is a veteran in the Northern Canadian Ministry, in addition to being a founding board member of On Eagle’s Wings, a ministry in the Northwest Territory.
Pastor Faye served in Mt. Joy-St. Paul’s Parish in Gettysburg, PA, and Taneytown, MD, and as interim pastor at First Lutheran Church in New Oxford, PA, from 2313-2014. She was active in ELCA Rural ministry, and is trained as a mission developer/church renewer/redeveloper. She has been a Stephen Ministry leader since 1995.
Presently Pastor Faye is on the Global Missions Committee of the Lower Susquehanna Synod, the Finland/Estonia Task Force of the DE/MD Synod, and is a board member of SpiriTrust Homecare and Hospice.
The proud mother of 4 grown children, Shane, Laurel, Cara, and Ryan, Pastor Faye is also delighted to be grandmother to 6, (soon to be 8), beautiful grandchildren!
Deacon Jan Davis, Minister of Christian Education
email: jdavisaim@stmattlutheran.org
Jan Davis has served as Minister of Christian Education and Youth at St. Matthew for twelve years. She is a 1988 graduate of the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg with a Master of Arts in Religion. Certified as an Associate in Ministry in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America for 18 years, Jan previously served congregations in Pottstown and Ardmore, PA, and Hagerstown, MD. Currently, Jan oversees all educational programs for children, youth, and adults. This includes Sunday School, Confirmation Classes, Vacation Bible School, Bible Studies, and SAW activities. She also oversees all youth programs, including our Youth Group and junior and senior high retreats, both for our congregation and on a synod and nation-wide level. She is also Assisting Minister for worship services.
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Home/Science/China is officially going to Mars – BGR
China is officially going to Mars – BGR
May 26, 2020 Science Comments Off on China is officially going to Mars – BGR
China’s Mars mission is scheduled for the month of July as the country increases its space exploration efforts
Chinese space group CASC is to send an orbiter and a rover to the surface of the Red Planet in the hope of finding evidence of past or present life.
China plans to build a space station and have their own astronauts on the Moon, sooner rather than later.
It was not long ago that China didn’t seem to care much about the space. The country looked to The united states and Russia dominate space exploration for decades before they actually throw their hat in the ring. Now, after a mission of programming that has advanced at a breakneck pace, China is poised to launch a new mission to Mars.
The country announced that it believes that it will be ready to send its mission to Mars on the sky in the month of July. Similar to NASA’s Mars missions, China will send a rover to the surface of Mars in the hope of discovering some of the planet’s long-held secrets, including whether or not the life has never taken root there.
Assuming that the planned July launch stays in the opening hours of China’s “Tianwen” spacecraft will spend the months of cruising through space before eventually getting to Mars. During this time, there is not much to the Chinese scientists who do but wait and keep your fingers crossed that everything arrives in one piece.
Once it makes it to Mars, the spacecraft will enter orbit around the planet and the robotic rover will be sent to the surface. It will be China’s first attempt to send a robot to Mars, which marks an important milestone for the Chinese space group China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC).
The ship is designed to last approximately one Earth year, although it could be used for a longer time if it is still viable. The rover, on the other hand, is expected to last only 90 Martian days, or sols. As with the orbiter, the rover could see the wide-spread use based on the needs of the researchers and the capabilities of the hardware.
Unlike NASA, the Curiosity and the Perseverance of the rover, China’s first Mars rover is based on the solar energy. The Opportunity rover of NASA was also based on the solar energy, ultimately, it succumbed to a Martian dust storm, which then remain in operation for many years after its completion date. The curiosity and the Perseverance, both use nuclear energy based on sources that allow them to remain in operation, regardless of the light conditions.
A trip to Mars is a great business to China, especially in light of his recent success in landing a rover on the far side of the Moon from the Earth. The success of a “soft landing”, was the first not only for China but for humanity, and it was a clear signal that the country is prepared to be ambitious with its space exploration activities.
Along with the Mars mission, China is planning to have an orbital space station in the coming years, and that is already hashing out plans for manned missions to the Moon.
Image source: NASA
Mike Wehner has informed about the technology and video games in the last decade, which covers the latest news and trends in the VR, wearables, smart phones, and the future of the technology.
Most recently, Mike served as the Technology Editor of The Daily Dot, and has been featured in USA Today, Time.com and a host of other web and print outlets. His love of
presentation of reports is second only to his addiction to the game.
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Archive for the ‘ Ireland’s Counties ’ Category
Ireland’s Counties
Leaving Dublin
Dublin is Ireland’s “Center.” In countries that have such a city – France is another example- the Center is not just the Capital. Dublin is the economic and cultural as well as the political center of the country. Fully one-quarter of the 4.58 million population of the Republic of Ireland live here in an urban concentration that takes only 1.6 percent of the country’s total land. I wanted to learn about the rest of Ireland, 62 times larger and much more rural, which was home to the Irish other than the Dubliners. For that you needed to leave the Center, both physically and as a state of mind. It helped to have Desmond as our guide.
He was from CountyLimerick. “That is one of the 32 ‘traditional’ Counties of Ireland,” Desmond said, “which are divisions for local government, originally formed in the 12th century after the Norman invasion to ensure royal control of taxation.” CountyLimerick is located in the mid-west region of Ireland. It is a part of Munster, “one of the five Irish ‘provinces,’ into which Ireland was divided before the Normans, each being under the influence of a ‘king of over-kings’ who were from the major Irish ruling families.” Desmond added: “the Province of Ulster in the north with its 6 traditional Counties is not a part of the Republic of Ireland which is in the south.”
Desmond’s manners were professional; his shirt and trousers always crisply ironed, his shoes shined; his English correct, his accent country Irish. Desmond was also our driver and the droning sound of his big Mercedes bus, driven fast, combined with the hum of air-conditioning sometimes muffed and aggravated the complexity of his speech delivered into a mouthpiece. This left us room for constructively imagining when his explanatory facts did not sound all that coherent, but we were on a short, whirlwind tour which the presage of time would make impressionistic anyway. The real challenge was to perceive the broad strokes of our physical surroundings as reflecting the rich story of Ireland that uniquely shaped them. In that, history and tradition called for my attention as much as the distinct lay of the land.
For about an hour the landscape in the drive south from Dublin was flat and green with some trees and hardly any buildings. We did not see any high-tech campuses. Desmond said many of the high-tech companies, so crucial to recent Irish economy, had established themselves near Dublin “but not in a specific area with a name like ‘The Irish Silicon Valley’.” When we crossed CountyDublin into CountyKilder, more rolling gentle hills and farms came into view. The barley grown in the fields had been cut and compacted as silage. Presently, we saw some of the ruminants, sheep and cows, for whom the fodder was intended.
As we approached the town of Kilkenny, Desmond said “You find that word ‘kil’ in many Irish town names: Kildare, Killarney, Kilkenny. It is a Gaelic word meaning church.” He said that Gaelic which was “historically spoken by most Irish people” was the “Irish language” now used only by a minority of Irish as their first language, “fewer than 2 million.” They lived mostly in the area “from West County Cork to the west and northwest.” This was because “the English rulers were not as interested in those distant places and, partly because of that, the residents there have been poorer.” Since independence, however, the IrishRepublic’s government” has been making efforts to revive Gaelic,” Desmond said. He mentioned that the Government “succeeded in gaining acceptance of Gaelic as a ‘Recognized Language’ by the European Union as a condition for joining it.” He added that “Now four TV stations in Ireland broadcast mostly in Gaelic.” Consequently, according to Desmond “currently 40% of the Nationalists, that is citizens of the Republic of Ireland, can converse in Gaelic.” Directional signs on the road which we saw were in Irish as English, some for modern phenomena such as Airport (Aerfort) obviously derived from English.
Desmond’s comment about kil caught my attention as a it could be an explanation for the word kilisa (Christian church) in Persian, isa being the name for Jesus. When I broached the subject of possible connection between the two old languages, Desmond said “Gaelic is related to the Celtic languages like Scottish,, Welsh and Breton.” Celtic, of course, descended from Proto-Celtic, a branch of the Indo-European language family, as is Iranian. More intriguing, I discovered, Celtic languages are known to have been spoken in central Asia Minor during the 1st millennium B.C., a time of intense activity by the Persian Parthian Dynasty in the area.
The principal church in the town of Kilkenny is called St. Canice’s Cathedral, after the 6th century monk St. Canice (Chainnigh in Gaelic, becoming Kenny). The 100 feet early Celtic Christian round tower that stands as the Cathedral’s sentinel is from the 9th century. The Cathedral itself is a work of the 13th century, preserved in its original style and form. Worship has taken place here for over 800 years. The Cathedral fits well in the current medieval-looking town with its narrow side alleys. Kilkenny’s origin, however, dates back to some 1,500 years ago. The Normans, who invaded in the 12th century, have left a lasting legacy here. Their legendary leader Strongbow (an Anglo-Norman lord named Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke), built a castle on the site of a fort that his father had established as an important element of the defenses of the town. Another noble man, the Irish James Butler, 3rd Earl of Ormonde, bought the castle in 1391, when he made himself the ruler of the area. The Butler dynasty continued for centuries and the Castle, remodeled in Victorian times and set in an extensive parkland , remained the Butlers’ residence until 1935.
In the 1640s the castle was the venue for the meeting of the Parliament of the Confederate Ireland government, formed primarily for uniting resistance against English persecution of Irish Catholics. Overtime the influence of the Confederation diminished and when Cromwell arrived in 1649, he dissolved it. Kilkenny remembers the early 17th Century as its “Golden Age.” The main street of town is called Parliament Street. On that street the town showcases the Rothe House and Gardens, built by an Irish merchant in 1594.
The Butler family’s coat of arms has three cups because of their duties and privileges as Chief Butler of Ireland, the position and title given in 1185 by the English Prince John with whom they came to Ireland. As one of those duties, the Butler had to make sure there was plenty of food and drink ready for the English King when he visited Ireland. Second, the Chief Butler had to serve the first glass of wine to the King after he had been crowned. The third cup in their coat of arms signified that the Butlers received the “Prisage of Wine,” meaning that they were entitled to a royal levy of about 15% of all the wine that was imported to Ireland. The common people of Kilkenny, on the other hand, have been happy drinking beer since 1710 when John Smithwick founded Ireland’s oldest operating brewery here. The Smithwick’s boasts of its 300 year history at a site on Parliament Street which used to be an ancient Franciscan Abbey where monks had brewed ale since the 14th century. The ruins of the original abbey still stand witnesses on its grounds.
This is not to say that the Prisage of Wine which the Butlers obtained was not valuable. Far from it, at the time of its grant in the major city of Ireland, Waterford, the common drink was red wine imported from France; one did not drink water for fear that was contaminated. I saw on display in Waterford an example of the jugs, also imported from France, in which that wine was drunk. Some thirty miles south of Kilkenny, Waterford had the great advantage of being on the estuary of the River Suir. When Prince John landed in 1185, Waterford had already fallen to the Anglo-Romans. Arrow heads found near the town walls dating to August 1170 mark the time Waterford was conquered by Richard de Clare, Strongbow. That event was also the beginning of the rapid end of the Viking era in Irish history.
Waterford was where the Vikings had come in 914 and established their first settlement in Ireland. It is the country’s oldest city, predating Dublin which is now the Vikings’ only other surviving settlement. Waterford also has the sole monument in Ireland named in honor of a Viking, Reginald (or Ragnall), the founder of this city. The Reginald’s Tower which I climbed is at the apex of “The Viking Triangle” in Waterford, located on the site of the original 10th century Viking settlement. The round Tower was rebuilt as a defensive structure in 1185 by Prince John and subsequently used, at different times, as a prison and munitions storage. Cannons installed there successfully defended against sieges in the late 16th century before the Tower was again used as a prison in 1819. In 1861, the Reginald’s Tower became the official residence of the High Constable of Waterford. Its last inhabitant having left in 1954, it is now a museum.
The museum displays a model of what the Viking settlement looked like. There are significant pottery fragments such as those of lamps used during the Vikings period. A beautifully crafted pin excavated near the Reginald’s Tower is evidence of the very early smelting dating to the time of the founding of the city.
In 1783 George and William Penrose could relate to that smelting tradition when they set up their original Waterford Crystal factory here which I was about to visit. Indeed, by the middle of 18th century Waterford was a thriving industrial center of shipbuilding and ironworks. Their furnaces were fueled by timber from the surrounding forests. What especially helped Ireland’s crystal manufacturing was its exemption from luxury taxes which applied in England. The Penroses sold their business to their clerk, Jonathan Gatchell in 1799. He then expanded the company in partnership with a fellow employee. In 1854, Waterford Crystal won several gold medals at the Great Exhibition in London, topping its growing international “reputation for beauty and intricacy of design and for quality of its crystal.” Ironically, later that same year, “economic conditions” made business impossible and forced the closing of the Waterford factory . It was resurrected 93 years later by two Czechs who migrated from their country which had been recently turned Communist. With only one boss, Karel Bacik, and one employee, the glass blower Miroslav Havel, the new Waterford Crystal company grew to the point that just five years later, in 1952 it developed its best ever selling design, the Lismore.
Today, in a flashy “House,” Waterford Crystal displays its jewels and offers a guided tour for a price. This is where most of the tourists to Waterford spend their time, their buses crowding the parking lot. Connecting the parking lot to the House of Waterford Crystal is a canteen run by a crusty woman who prepares sandwiches and salads alongside with her young employees for pricey offerings to the hungry visitors.
Waterford also has a claim to Irish nationalist history. It was in its Wolf Tone Club that the Irish tricolor flag was flown for the first time on March 7, 1848, by General Thomas Francis Meager , an Irish nationalist who was also an American Civil War hero. Actually, Meager was an American general. A leader of the Young Irelanders’ Rebellion of 1848, he was sentenced to life in Australia but managed to escape from there to the United States in 1852 where he worked as a journalist while lecturing on “the Irish situation.” When the American Civil War began, Meager joined the Army and rose to the rank of brigadier general, encouraging support among Irish immigrants for the Union. After the war he was appointed acting governor of the Montana Territory where he drowned in an accidental fall into the Missouri River in 1867.
Meager’s contemporary Irish-Americans had mostly come to America due to a different reason. What the House of Waterford Crystal had delicately referred to as “economic conditions” in 1854, were caused by the famous Irish Potato Famine of 1845-1852 which forced a million people to emigrate from Ireland. That immigration continued for sometime. By 1911 Ireland’s population had fallen to 4.4 million, half of its peak. The great majority of those affected by the Great Famine were from Irish-speaking districts, and they also supplied most of the emigrants -among them, as our guide Desmond pointed out to his American group, the families of both parents of Richard J. Daley, the future mayor of Chicago, who came from An Seanphobal, a village in West County Waterford. In the decades of the 1840s and the 1850s, about 1.7 million Irish immigrants arrived in the United States.
City of Cork
Roughly 2.5 million of the six million Irish who would migrate to North America between 1848 and 1950 departed from the CorkHarbor which we were now going to visit. Not far outside of CountyCork we saw the TipperaryMountains on our right in the north. “That is CountyTipperary,” Desmond said, “where President Barack Obama’s great-great-great grandfather came from.” He was Falmouth Kearney, a cobbler’s son from the village of Moneygall on the border of CountyTipperary and CountyOffaly, who arrived in New York on March 20, 1850.
In the fields between us and the TipperaryMountains we saw occasional plants with white flowers. “They are Bog Cotton which grows in damp peaty ground,” Desmond said. We were approaching the city called Cork which means “marshy place” in Irish. We had our first glance of the waters of the CelticSea in the Atlantic Ocean. Cork is an ancient city, founded 14 centuries ago on islands in an estuary. This is where the River Lee joins CorkHarbour, the second largest natural harbor in the world. The city center is circled with waterways, crossed by 22 bridges. Narrow alleys near the Harbor marked the older part of town. A modern esplanade ushered you to the Harbor. On the other side of the old town, stately four-story buildings from the recent centuries lined the streets with well-paved wide sidewalks. Contemporary high-rise residences had since gone up on the banks of the River Lee . The 18th century English Market, long a gourmet hub for fresh produce, fish, meats and cheeses, has been supplemented in nearby grungy streets with new ethnic restaurants, such as Noodle King and Delhi Palace. It is as if Cork wants to shout that it is hip in its recent “renaissance” that has earned it the title of “a European Capital of Culture.” It has even called itself “The People’s Republic of Cork.” Its University College Cork, one of the oldest parts of the National University of Ireland, has an impressive campus. The Royal Cork Yacht Club boasts that it has the oldest charter in the world. Yet, with a quarter of a million souls, Cork is still only the “second” city of Ireland. Not just in size, but also in how it feels.
That is what I felt as I sat in the lobby of the Hayfield Manor Cork with its grand piano and grand stairway. It had the charm of a country house. A refurbished Georgian property, the Manor is set in acres of grounds on a hill overlooking the city, tucked away in a mature private garden with an Aviary and Kennel As I looked up, I noticed the main wall decoration of the lobby, a framed copy of the local newspaper Daily Express. It headlined the day’s news about an Irish-American President: “Kennedy Assassinated.”
County Cork west of the city of Cork is famous for its shoreline of many inlets, coves, beaches and safe harbors. We saw an example of those harbors in the picturesque fishing village of Kinsale, some 15 miles south of CorkCity. It is a destination where in summer time the tourists substantially add to its population of some 2,000. According to Dermot Ryan, however, Kinsale had a notable history long before tourism. A local guide for the last 40 years, Mr. Ryan was proud to be “Secretary on the Irish Federation of History Societies.” He showed me maps of Kinsale dating to 1601 and photographs of the place from 1889. At the harbor, Kinsale celebrated its two favorite sons with one monument. The memorial to the brothers Tim and Mortimer McCarthy commemorated their roles in Arctic Exploration. Mortimer was on the Terra Nova in Robert Falcon Scott’s second trip in 1910. Timothy joined Ernest Shackleton’s Endurance in 1914.The McCarthy boys had learned how to handle boats in this Kinsale harbor and the nearby river estuary.
The roads outside of Kinsale had not changed much from the time of the McCarthys. We shared the narrow highway which had no shoulders with farm tractors. The few farm houses we saw were on the side facing the sea . On this corner of the Celtic Sea the ruins of the Timoleague Friary awaited us at the scenic Courtmacsherry Harbor .
Timoleague Friary. The Friary was founded by Franciscan monks in the late 13th or early 14th century on the site of the 7th century Monastery of St.Molaga in the village named after it, Timoleague (house of Molaga). Not much is known about St.Molaga, except that he was a local boy, as Desmond said, who is credited with bringing “beekeeping and honey to Ireland” from his trips to Wales and Iona. The Franciscan friars who came to live here several centuries later devoted themselves to strict rules of poverty and simplicity as laid down by St. Francis, so the architectural details of their buildings were quite plain . Their earliest church was extended when a tower was built about 1500. The monks allowed themselves the pleasure of the natural surroundings: their dining room in the northeast corner had 5 windows overlooking the sea. Forced to abandon the Friary during the Reformation, some of the monks returned when that storm was over and lived here on and off until 1642 when the Friary was burned down “by the English soldiers.” These were from the army of Cromwell which had arrived in 1633. Golden moss has since covered the stones of the Monastery.
The Timoleague Friary was “endowedby the Barrys and the McCarthys who are buried here.” The McCarthys were over-lords of other clans in southwest Ireland and MacCarthy Reagh who funded the Friary lived near Kinsale in the 13th century. The Berrys (Barrymores) were the owners of the village of Timoleague. In addition to those two families, the ruins of Timoleague Friary have been used for burial purposes by others. One grave had a framed writing as a memorial to “Mum”. A more recent note left on this grave was in handwriting addressed to “Mom” on Mothers Day and said “Miss you”. The graves are both inside and outside the Friary buildings. The crosses on the tombstones were “high crosses” of the Celtic Christian world, a free-standing cross made of stone, which combined the ancient Celtic cross -a simple cross with a ring surrounding the intersection- with the Christian cross. Families, such as O’Leary, have shared the same grave and tombstones. The ruins of Timoleague have become a place for pilgrims who come to pray and reflect, Desmond said. The practice of grave digging, on the other hand, has been so common that the County had posted a sign to warn that it was dangerous and had to be authorized.
What has lived on from the days of the Timoleague Friary is an important book, the Book of Lismore. Commissioned by a descendant of Timoleague’s original benefactor, the work was written in the Friary in 1480 and named after him, the Book of Mac Cárthaigh Riabhach. It is actually a vellum manuscript compiled from the early, and lost, Book of Monasterboice as well as other manuscripts. It consists of two main parts: one is on the lives of the Irish saints, St.Brigid, St.Patrick and St.Columba, and the other part is a greatly valuable Middle Irish narrative from the 12th century pertaining to the Fenian Cycle. The Cycle, also called the Ossianic Cycle, is a text of verse and prose about the exploits of the mythical hero Fionn mac Cumhaill and his warriors the Fianna. That is one of the four major cycles of Irish mythology (the others being the Mythological Cycle, the Ulster Cycle, and the Historical Cycle). I was amused to learn from Desmond that this Book of Lismore also contains an Irish translation of The Book of Marco Polo. Long lost, the Book of Lismore was discovered in 1814, in a blocked-off room of Lismore Castle, in County Waterford.
Near the ruins of Timoleague, we drove through the narrow streets of Clonakilty which featured impressive baskets of flowers hanging from the windows. Desmond pointed out the small town’s double claim to fame: Michael Collins, a heroic figure in Ireland’s campaign for independence from Britain in the 1920-1921 was born in the hamlet of Sam’s Cross near here and attended school in Clonakilty, and Henry Ford’s father, William, was raised in a village nearby before migrating to the United States in 1846.
Bantry Bay. Skibbereen, which means “little boat harbor,” was even smaller than Clonakilty, but it had the distinction of being the most southerly town in Ireland. We soon came to the much larger Bantry Bay with its spectacular backdrop of mountains. There were areas of fish farming in the Bay. “Those are for mussels,” Desmond said, but I also spotted lobster traps. Another sight we spotted here on a hill was a big poster with a picture of Maureen O’Hara. This was near the village of Glengrriff at a bay with the same name which is an enclave of Bantry Bay. The famously red-headed Irish-American movie star was in the news these days. As the Irish Independent reported, Maureen O’Hara had lived in Glengrriff since 1968. She had recently fired her “personal assistant” who was now about to sue her for libel. The assistant, Carloyn Murphy, was her neighbor and friend in Glengarriff. The dispute began after Maureen O’Hara lent her name to a film and acting center which was to be opened in her honor in Glengarriff with the help of Murphy. After firing Murphy, O’Hara moved to Idaho to live with her grandson. The poster we saw publicized the film and acting center whose future is now uncertain.
Glengarriff has long been a tourism venue in Ireland. Its Eccles Hotel is a venerable institution. It has a sweeping view of Bantry Bay, including an island “which is still a favorite with the Irish tourists,” Desmond said. It certainly was that when the poet William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) and the playwright George Bernard Shaw (1856- 1950) used to come here. Those two luminaries stayed at Eccles Hotel which has placed their portraits facing each other above the fireplaces in its lobby. The Hotel, indeed, dwelled in nostalgia. It is not just that the sole book on the coffee table in the lobby was about when the city of Cook was named the cultural Capital of Europe: Here’s to the Cultural Revolution, Cook 2005. Older still were the two issues of newspapers, respectively, from 1922 and 1994 which were hanging from the newspapers rod in the lobby. The hotel clerk’s explanation that the newspapers were “decorations” only added to the puzzle of their presence.
We left Eccles and drove on a climbing road away from the water to the top of mountains. On the top we went through the Turner Tocks tunnels into CountyKerry. There were three tunnels at this border, a big one in Cork, and 2 small ones in Kerry which were more carving of the hills with open windows. The road had narrowed to one lane. We soon came to Kenmore, a town on a bay with the same name which was at the junction of Iveragh Peninsula and the Beara Peninsula, two of the three Atlantic peninsulas on the southwest of Ireland, the third one being Dingle Peninsula.
Driving north on part of the route called Ring of Kerry which circles the Iveragh Peninsula, we saw Ireland’s highest mountain range called Macgillycuddy’s Reeks (stacks) which stretches 12 miles and includes Ireland’s highest peak at 3,406 feet, the Carrauntoohil. These mountains and the several lakes which they surround are all left from an ancient glacial landscape. The Ring of Kerry crosses KillarneyNational Park. We stopped at a lookout in the heart of the Park with a panoramic vista called Ladies View, a name recalling the visit by Queen Victoria’s ladies-in-waiting on her 1861 trip. Now as then this location is still a favorite of women: several were picnicking here on this day. A larger group of visitors chose to walk around for a better look at the spectacular scenery. Desmond pointed out the lakes before us. “The three major lakes of the Park are Upper Lake, Muckross Lake (also called Middle Lake) and Lough Leane.” The last one, meaning the Lake of Learning, was so called because of the studious medieval monks of the Innisfallen Abbey, who recorded the earliest history of Ireland. Their monastery, now in ruins, was founded in the 7th century on an island in that lake.
The town of Killarney is at the shore of the Lake of Learning. Today it hosts tourists rather than monks judging by the number of their cars descending with us on the road toward Killarney. Indeed, this town claims to be where Irish tourism began over 250 years ago. The streets of Killarney were festooned with banners welcoming visitors from near and afar. We stayed at a hotel catering more to Irish guests. It was owned by the same people who ran Cork’s luxurious Hayfield Manor, but the contrast between the two was remarkable. Here, corridors at uneven levels and bending at points where older structures were joined led to guestrooms with mismatched furniture and walls some of which were painted and some wallpapered. The lobby was homey with the receptionist sitting at a low-level desk sharing the space with the guests who lounged in arm chairs discussing the souvenirs purchased that day. The one I noticed was a 2014 Calendar with a picture from Maureen O’Hara’s movies The Quiet Man as its cover which I had seen in a Killarney store.
Killarney is known for its live music venues and it had several stores selling records, music books, song books, and traditional Irish musical instruments, including the frame drum bodhran. During the day the pubs were well-attended by the locals watching horse racing on television. We were in the middle of Killarney’s July Festival, and its major event was “horse racing,” the guide Desmond said, pronouncing the animal’s name hos. Elsewhere on the streets of downtown one could hear music. A group of four teenagers played several string instruments in front of a shop. At another corner a man wearing an Elvis mask sat on the ground, playing the guitar. He sang Jingle Bells, among other tunes. In Murphy’s pub that boasted it had won the James Joyce Award for being an “authentic Irish pub,” an ensemble of two men and two boys playing traditional Irish music. Near Murphy’s there was a passage way with a wide array of banners and flags hanging from the ceiling. Going through it, I found on the other side a crowd of about 50 people in an open plaza listening to three musicians on a stage.
They played mandolin and guitars and sang. When they paused, the one in the middle called out to the audience “Anybody’s birthday?.., anniversary?.., divorce?” He got no response. Then he asked “Any Americans?” Many yelled “Yes!” He followed: “Any English?” A few replied. A handful of Germans also answered to his polling, but no French. In the momentary silence that followed a group of middle aged guests who had just come out of a restaurant next door and taken seats in the plaza made their presence known: “Denmark!” The musicians had one more question: “Any Irish?” None replied, but when the entertainers finally started singing Irish folk songs several in the audience sang along with them quietly, including a young couple who kept watchful eyes on their four year old son dancing in front of us. That breakdown of the visitors to Killarney in the musicians’ sampling was echoed on the streets of the town where you mostly heard American accent, followed next by German.
Desmond pointed to the license plates of cars in Killarney: “Note that because of superstition regarding the unlucky number 13, the plates don’t have 2013; instead there are two license plates, one is 131 for cars bought in the first half of 2013 and the other is 132 for cars bought in the second half.” Alas, this stratagem did not protect a truck we presently saw near Killarney. It had caught fire. Notwithstanding the great flames shooting up, we were casually allowed to pass the burning truck on this narrow road. That evening in the local newspaper I read the reasons a former expatriate Irish had given for returning home. One was this: “In Australia and the US and UK people doggedly stick to rules. In Ireland it is considered a ‘challenge’ to bend rules: No such word as No!” The point was expanded by his kudos for the police (gardai), defined as “Guardians of the peace rather than the enforcers of the law, it’s only when you’ve encountered foreign police that you recognise (sic) how decent and sensible most gardai are.”
We were on our way to see the eight ancient Ogham Stones in Beaufort village, a few miles from Killarney. They stood on the edge of the road in a fenced site, still remarkably erect after more than 18 centuries. Cut along their edge vertically were sets of strokes. These were the oldest known form of Irish writing. The inscriptions were short, “mostly the names of a person and his father,” Desmond said. They were probably memorials to the deceased. Ogham was usually written in four sets of strokes, each consisting of five letters which could be from one to five strokes long. Thus there were twenty letters in this Celtic script. The Ogham writings we were seeing dated from 300 A.D. These were “orthodox” inscriptions of the early or Primitive Irish language. That language then evolved into the Old Irish language around the 6th century. Although this language was also written in Ogham until the 9th century, the Old Irish became the language of the earliest Irish sources in the Latin alphabet. With the transition from paganism to Christianity, Ogham was forgotten in favor of Latin. Early Christians adopted the practice of making stones with Latin inscriptions and Christian symbolism, even re-carving some of the old Ogham Stones. In recent times, having an Ogham Stone in one’s front yard has become fashionable, causing the removal of some from their original places. They are now protected in places the government has put on its List of National Monuments.
If the Irish now do not use the Ogham to write, many of them still speak the language for which the script was invented. Contemporary Irish (Gaelic), however, has evolved from the Primitive Irish, into Old Irish, then Middle Irish, and finally Classical Irish; in the process it has changed.
One of the largest Gaelic speaking communities of Ireland lives in DinglePeninsula which is designated as a Gaeltacht, meaning an area where Gaelic is the predominant language, the vernacular spoken at home. That designation is by the Irish Government which helps to protect and restore the Gaelic language. We saw evidence of this effort in the town of Ballyferrita, home to a celebrated Irish language school during the summer. Students were going to classes as our bus passed through this community in the west of DinglePeninsula where 75% of the population speaks Gaelic on a daily basis.
DinglePeninsula has attracted many more visitors because of its seascapes and intriguing ancient stone structures. As tour guides would tell you, the American magazine National Geographic once called it “the most beautiful place on earth.” At the pretty Smerwick harbor, not far from Ballyferrita, is Gallarus Oratory (The Church of the Place of the Foreigners). Built between the 7th and 8th century it is the best preserved early Christian church in Ireland, according to the Archaeological Survey of the Dingle Peninsula. Architects admire it as “the apogee of dry-stone corbelling, using techniques first developed by Neolithic tomb-makers. Corbelling consists of laying courses of flat stones so that each course projects slightly inwards beyond the one below until the sides almost meet at the top and the roof can be closed by a single slab.” The same dry-stone corbelling technique was used in many huts found on hundreds of locations in the Dingle Peninsula. Called beehive huts due to their resemblance to beehives, such structures were a common form of dwelling in Dingle by the early Christian period. The ones we were seeing “may well date to the 12th Century when the incoming Normans forced the Irish off the good land out to the periphery of the Peninsula,” according to an official Irish tourist publication.
The beehive huts’ use as human dwellings persisted into the 19th century. Now they function as farm buildings . DinglePeninsula is home to more than 500,000 sheep, and we spotted several just across the road from some beehive huts, grazing in the green field by the sea. These sheep’s famous long curled hair was sheared and they were branded across the back. “Ninety percent of our lamb is exported to Europe,” Desmond commented “and in Ireland you have to pay top dollar for it.” Indeed, lamb was rare on restaurant menus and expensive.
The western “periphery” of DinglePeninsula which these sheep and their beehive huts occupied had spectacular views of the Bay of Dingle with mountains of IveraghPeninsula in the background. The popular sandy beach at Inch was wide and long and on this uncommonly warm and sunny day even had a few swimmers and sunbathers. Desmond pointed out the Macgillycuddy’s Reeks beyond the water. “In those wild mountains Lords of Reeks, the Macgillycuddys, lived who at one time were the most powerful family in this corner of Ireland. They were feared by other residents. Ironically, in recent times, their most famous descendent was the American comedienne Lucille Ball!”
The scenery became stark and dramatic when we reached Slea Head . This was just a mile and a half from Garraun Point which is the westernmost point of DinglePeninsula and mainland Ireland. Further west, however, were the Blasket Islands in the water just before us. A village on the islands was inhabited until 1953. Now only “a couple of structures are left, but people go to the Islands for the day,” Desmond said. Since then the village of Dunquin, near Garraun Point, has become the westernmost settlement of Ireland.
Dingle Town
Garraun Point and the handful of other small villages in the DinglePeninsula are dwarfed in population by the only town in the peninsula after which it is named: Dingle. The town has some 2,000 inhabitants. It also has 52 pubs crowded with tourists. “Bitte,” a German visitor said as she took the spare chair from our table, dragging it across the room to her table because all other chairs in this large pub were taken. The brightly colored houses of Dingle’s main street stretch from a small town center featuring a bronze sculpture of Fungie , a bottlenose dolphin who has often visited the Dingle harbor area since 1984. Dingle Harbor was settled in the 12th century and by the 16th century Dingle was one of Ireland’s main trading ports. The town center, however, commemorated a rare military event in the history of the town when “James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald, leader of the Geraldine Revolt arrived in DingleHarbour on the 13-July 1579 with military aid from Spain and Rome during the Elizabethan Wars.”
Royal Rock of Cashel
CountyKerry as well as CountyCork and CountyWaterford were part of the ancient Province of Munster. So was CountyTipperary where the “kings of over-kings” of the Province had their seat of power in the Rock of Cashel. When we arrived there, it became clear why they had chosen this site. The large Rock which could accommodate a castle and several other major buildings was exceptionally defensible as it sat high in a vast plain which could be easily watched for advancing adversaries. What is more, this surrounding area of some fourteen by six miles has been among the best land in Ireland for agriculture, especially dairy farming. Called Golden Veil, it is “like RhinelandValley,” Desmond said.
The Rock of Cashel has become an important depository of facts and myths about Ireland’s history. The Kings of Munster established themselves on the Rock in the 4th century. Old artifacts found on the Rock include a “Roman type” brooch which dates from the first century. Although there have been hypotheses of some kind of Roman invasion of Ireland around that time, this country was never formally a part of the Roman Empire. The Roman influence, however, often extended beyond its borders. In the year 100 Ptolemy was writing about the geography and tribes of Hibernia, the Romans’ name for Ireland. The people who eventually populated Ireland were native inhabitants who had lived here since the Late Bronze Age, 600 B.C., gradually absorbing infiltration of small groups of Celtic-speaking people. More likely than the result of an invasion, elements of Celtic culture, including the Gaelic (Goidelic) languages emerged in Ireland due to the natives’ exchanges with the Celtic groups in southwest continental Europe. By the 5th century this blending of indigenous and Celtic cultures produced the Gaelic culture of Ireland. It was also around this time that Ireland’s main over-kingdoms, such as the one presiding on the Rock of Cashel began to emerge.
Our guide in Rock of Cashel who provided much of that information now stopped in front of a concrete cross on the grounds of Cashel. “This is St.Patrick’s Cross,” he said. It is actually a replica of the one made in the 12th century; the original which was carved from sandstone has been moved indoors to protect it from further damage by elements.The guide pointed out that the Cross was in the Latin Style, one face depicting Christ’s crucifixion, and the other St.Patrick. It had two pillars on either side, “denoting two thieves who were crucified with Jesus.” He said the locals believe that “if you could hug this Cross you will have no tooth ache, and if you hop as you hug you will get married within a year.” The legend has it that on the spot where the Cross is located St. Patrick baptized the pagan King Aengus in 432. The guide said in the process “Patrick accidentally placed his staff into the top of the King’s foot, and the King did not make any sound. When asked, the King replied that he thought that was part of the ceremony.”
The purported conversion itself is a part of the myth of Patrick, developed in the centuries after the Saint’s death. St.Patrick, who may not have arrived in Ireland until 461, was primarily a missionary to the pagan Irish of the northern kingdoms in the Provinces of Ulster and Connacht.
As Prosper of Aquitaine, a contemporary chronicler, has noted, in 431 the Pope sent Palladius the Deacon as “first Bishop to the Irish believing in Christ.” He worked with Christians in the Kingdoms (Provinces) of Meath and Leinster. The latter was next to Munster, the Province where the Rock of Cashel is located.
In 978 Brian mac Cennétig (Kennedy) , better known as Brian Boru, defeated the incumbent king of Munster and was crowned the new Provincial king at the Rock of Cashel. He then moved the seat of Kingdom to a site in CountyClare and went on to dominate the other Provinces of Ireland. With a population of about 500,000 people, Ireland at the time had over 150 kings, with different size domains. In 1002, Brian Boru won the position of the High King from Máel Sechnaill mac Domnaill whose families, the Uí Néill dynasty, had ruled as Ireland’s High King for centuries. By 1011 all other regional rulers in Ireland acknowledged Brian Boru’s authority. Within two years, however, his rule was challenged by several powerful families and he was killed in battle. Subsequently in 1013 Máel Sechnaill mac Domnaill was restored as the High King.
Ecclesiastical Rock of Cashel
In 1101, the King of Munster, Muircheartach Ua Briain, having conquered most of Ireland’s Provinces and declaring himself High King, donated the Rock of Cashel as a gift to the Church. Not much has survived of the Rock’s earlier royal structures. The buildings that remain are all from the 12th and 13th centuries. They are a collection of Celtic and medieval architectures. The oldest one is the Round Tower. As a look-out tower it rises 90 feet above ground. It is the best preserved as well as the tallest structure on the Rock. The ancient dry-stone method was used in its construction. Much more sophisticated is Cormac’s Chapel , an Irish Romanesque church that combines elements of Germanic influence in the twin towers on its sides. Named after Munster King Cormac Mac Carthaigh, the Chapel was built in 1127-1134 with sandstone, from the hills nearby, which has become water logged by the passage of time. The frescos in the interior which told the life of Christ have been damaged with “discoloration of the paint layers.” At the time of our visit, the restoration work to repair “the impact of microbiological growths” required that Cormac’s Chapel be enclosed in a rain-proof cover so that dehumidifies could dry out the stone and “prolonged irradiation with ultraviolet light” could “destroy the reproductive system of the micro-organisms.”
Next to Cormac’s Chapel stood Cashel’s Cathedral. Built between 1235 and 1270, it was augmented in the 15th century by the addition of the Hall of the Vicars Choral, for the laymen who helped in chanting during the services, and the five-story Castle as the residence for the archbishop. The Cathedral was named after St. Patrick and came to be recognized as the best Irish church building: it is aisle-less in a cruciform plan with a central tower, multiple arches , and faux windows on the walls. Around the Cathedral in the fields below there were several abbeys. On the east, we could see the ruins of Hore Abbey, founded by Cistercian in 1272. On another side was a Dominican friary which was founded in 1243.
St. Patrick’s Cathedral continued in use until 1748. Then its main roof was removed at the order of the presiding Anglican Archbishop of Cashel who maintained that the damages to it could not be repaired. The damages were caused mostly by the wind that “on this plateau could be up to 90 miles an hour in winter,” according to our guide who pointed out as proof a large boulder that the wind had wrecked from a building. The Archbishop subsequently built a new cathedral at a different site, abandoning the gutted old Cathedral and what else remained on the Rock of Cashel.
Since the Reformation, from 1567 the bishops of the Cashel Cathedral have been from the Anglican Church of Ireland rather than the Irish Roman Catholic Church. Our guide told us about an exception, when “one bishop surreptitiously served both as the Archbishop of the Anglicans here and the Catholic Archbishop of a monastery up north.” Religious differences, however, mixed with politics at other times and produced violent results. In 1647, the Castle of the Cathedral was the scene of the massacre of many Irish Roman Catholic clergy by the troops of the Anglican Parliament of England under the command of Earl of Inchiquin, sent to re-conquer Ireland from the self-government of the Irish Catholic Confederation which, in alliance with the “English royalists” opposing the rule of the Parliament, had come to control two-thirds of Ireland since 1642.
In addition to the clergy who died in 1647, many of the past Cashel bishops are buried in the Cathedral. Indeed, the whole Rock of Cashel has become a popular cemetery. In the grounds surrounding the buildings there are graveyards with Celtic crosses. The largest commemorates the wealthy local Scully family. It was built in 1867, but the top of it was cut off by lightning in 1976. Multiple burial of the same family is common here. The demand for the dwindling scarce burial lots on the Rock “led the local government in the 1930s to establish a registry of those who would be eligible,” our guide said. “Of the 5,000 who were registered only 5 are left.” He added as an afterthought “also, people still get married here.”
Lough Rynn Castle
We now went to see a part of Ireland assigned to St. Patrick as his mission in the 4th century: County Westmeath in the Province of Leinster. After all those centuries it was still rural and sparsely populated. The biggest town of the County, Mullingar, has only 20,000 residents. Mullingar has enjoyed a measure of fame because author James Joyce mentioned it in both Ulysses, and Finnegans Wake. Its main street now boasted a shiny “sphere” sculpture, but Mullingar’s main attraction for the tourists, mostly anglers, were the three lakes nearby.
We went to another lake, Lough Rynn, in CountyLeitrim, located in yet another ancient IrishProvince, Connacht, included in St. Patrick’s assignment. This County was near the border with Northern Ireland where most of Ulster is located – the latter being the only historical Province of Ireland which we did not venture in on this trip. The main attraction at Lough Rynn was the Castle by that name built in the late 19th century by the 3rd Earl (Lord) of Leitrim, William Sydney Clements. It has since been bought and turned into a hotel.
The LoughRynnCastle as the hotel is called is on an estate covering 300 acres of Ireland that is idyllic with exceptional natural beauty. Since the 18th century this was the home of the Clements Family. Long before them, the Mac Ragnaill Clan had been here. The ruins of their 12th century castle still exist. The hotel is in the newer Castle which sits majestically on the shores of Lough Rynn with breathtaking scenery. The property has lush green pastures and ancient forests, as well as yet a second lake . There is a boat house and a walled garden. Maintenance personnel keep the paint fresh on the sculptures which grace the grounds. The front lawns were designed to keep the walkways for the servicemen discreetly below the sight from the Castle. The luxurious interior of the hotel aims at evoking the time when this was the house of a Lord.
That Lord, William Sydney Clements, actually died before his Castle was completed. The legacy of his times as the master of this estate from 1854 is far from pretty. He is remembered as merciless against his “tenants” who worked on this land. They grew oats, attended cattle and pulled turnip, did not make enough to feed themselves, and had few ways to rise. Sydney was assassinated in 1878, it is believed, largely as a result of his tenants’ discontent. In CountyDonegal where he was murdered, there is a monument (in Kindrum) to the three suspected assassins who were commissioned by a tenants’ rights secret society, honoring their action which “Ended the tyranny of landlordism.”
The LoughRynnCastle which is only 90 minutes away from Dublin by car especially caters to “weekenders.” To that end it has served as the venue for such events as an open-air concert on its lawns featuring Ireland’s National Harp Orchestra on the occasion of “The first ever O’Carolan weekend.” Turlough O’Carolan (1670-1738) was a blind Irish harper and composer. Many consider him to be Ireland’s national composer. In Lough Rynn he is considered a native son. He lived a few miles away. As we passed through the town of Mohill just north of the Castle, we came to a statue of O’Carolan erected on the main street. He was sitting with a big harp between his legs and so absorbed in making music that he looked oblivious to the lacuna in his closed eyes. As such he was an apt metaphor for Counties of Ireland, immersed in their rich history and tradition, contained in the splendor of their natural beauty
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Why Do We Witness The Wanton Destruction & Mob Rule Nowadays?
https://www.survivopedia.com/why-do-we-witness-the-wanton-destruction-mob-rule-nowadays/
For over a month, the nation has been treated to the spectacle of a massive temper tantrum by those on the extreme left, and the coddling of those destroyers by leftist politicians.
I’m not talking about the legitimate demonstrations that have been going on. Those are guaranteed rights under the First Amendment of the Constitution. But there’s nothing in that amendment which gives anyone the right to destroy anything.
Yet destruction marches on.
I can almost understand the removal of Confederate statues, even though I don’t agree with the methodology. After all, what country builds monuments to the losing side of a war? But that’s not the point. The destroyers have reached the point where they are destroying just to destroy.
We can see where this is going by what’s being destroyed now. They’ve torn down the statue of a man who was an abolitionist 30 years before the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, as well as a statue of Frederick Douglass, a famous black abolitionist. As far as I’m concerned, that proves this is no longer about black lives matter. Now they’re talking about tearing down statues of all our historic figures and even “white” statues of Jesus. Apparently they think that he was a racist too. But perhaps the one statue that most proves this is about destruction and nothing else is the statue that was torn down of an elk; yes, an elk.
If destroying our nation’s monuments isn’t enough, there’s been an increase in flag burning going on as well. Now I realize that’s nothing new, but it’s a rather clear statement of where the mob is coming from. They don’t see the flag as a symbol of freedom, as it is seen around the world, but one of oppression, following the warped teachings they’ve been hearing.
I recently wrote about the current conditions in our country looking more and more like revolution and this destruction is making it look more and more that way. Tearing down statues, burning books and destroying other things associated with a nation’s history are all part of the Marxist playbook for revolution. In their world view, it is necessary to destroy the past in order to create the future. Perhaps that’s because they don’t have anything better to offer.
Sadly, many leftist politicians are unwilling to punish those who are unwilling to take any action towards making these people pay for their criminal actions or even put an end to the wanton destruction. Worse than that, it seems like some of them are even applauding those who are breaking the law. Isn’t that what the mayor of Seattle did with CHOP?
This sort of support is only emboldening the mob, giving them more reason to keep destroying and demanding more and more of society in general. It is convincing them they are right and that they can get whatever they want.
Let’s Keep it in Perspective
In reality, the mob that I’m talking about is a small percentage of our overall population. Even so, they currently wield a big stick and they’re using it very effectively. They’ve learned the lessons of political correctness and previous work by the black lives matter movement and are using that to allow the tail to wag the dog.
What do I mean by that? I mean that this small group of people is dictating what major corporations, cities and even society is doing. They are setting the standard which everyone else must meet and they’re doing it through threats and violence.
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This is strangely reminiscent of the NAZI party’s Brownshirts, their personal army of rabble-rousers. Few pay any attention to this group, but the Sturmabteilung were the NAZI party’s “paramilitary arm,” otherwise known as “thugs.” Their official function was to act as guards at NAZI rallies and assemblies, but they also disrupted the meetings of other political parties and were busy intimidating everyone from trade unions to Jews. Eventually, they were disbanded, but only to be replaced by the SS, which should give you a pretty good idea of how squeaky clean they were.
Historically, intimidation has been an effective tool used by many in politics. We even have it in our own history. The “shoulder strikers” of the mid-19th century were often employed by politicians to intimidate election officials, their opponents, and businesses, all in an effort to get the vote to go their way.
That’s a whole lot more similar to what’s going on today than most people realize. The current mob isn’t changing the culture at the ballot box, at least not yet; they’re changing it by threatening companies and politicians to meet their demands. Failure to heed those demands can lead to violence, financial ruin, and destruction.
I think it’s becoming increasingly clear that this isn’t accidental; nor is it spontaneous. Just like back when the Black Lives Matter movement started, there have apparently been advertisements, soliciting to hire paid agitators. The most likely culprit behind that movement is George Soros, the far-left billionaire who has made it his mission to bring down America. Somehow, it always seems to come out that he’s funding every anti-American movement and group out there.
Coincidentally (yeah, right… some coincidence), Soros also funds the Democrat Party, and just about every Democrat candidate there is, the more radically left, the better. At the same time, he spends millions of dollars trying to suppress the Republican Party and anyone who has a conservative message and a platform to voice it.
Just as coincidentally, the far-left politicians are the same ones who are supportive of the anarchist message of ANTIFA. In other words, they are supporting a terrorist movement, which is using violence to bring down American institutions, American history, traditional American values, and traditional American culture. They’re just using the current Black Lives Matter protests as camouflage. Like Rahm Emmanuel, former mayor of Chicago said, “Never let a crisis go to waste.”
Where’s this All Going?
If I can add another coincidence in here, which really isn’t a coincidence, all of this is happening at the same time that there’s a concerted effort to silence conservative voices. Granted, that’s not anything new. Political correctness has always been about silencing conservative voices. You either parrot the PC message or you get called out and cut off.
But the efforts to silence Republican and conservative voices are increasing all the time. A large part of the reason why the president is always tweeting is that that’s about the only way he can make sure that his message gets out to his followers, without being corrupted by the left-wing’s media lapdogs. They have become so good at misquoting his words, that they can now outright lie about them with a straight face. He could say “black lives matter” and they’d turn it into “kill the blacks.”
We now have a situation where Facebook is censoring the president’s posts and having them “fact-checked” by people who compare them to the New York Times. If they don’t agree with what the Times, a clearly leftist publication, says on some topic, those posts are marked as “untrue.”
Many people are seeing this as an effort to win the November election, but they’re being a bit to short-sighted. Those on the left aren’t just interested in winning the next election; they’re not even interested in winning every election. They’re only interested in total control. That’s their end game.
Talk to any strong Democrat and they’ll gleefully tell you that the Republican Party is going down. That’s what they want. Hey, I might not like the Democrat Party and what they stand for, but that doesn’t mean I think we should eliminate them. Our country needs to have at least two strong political parties, and it just so happens that we only have two. Neither is indispensable.
Communist China has one political party and look where it’s led them. The same can be said for the former Soviet Union. Perhaps they were a bit more hypocritical about it, as they still had elections. But there was only one party on the ballot you could vote for. It really made election day exciting.
When there’s only one party, the country falls into the trap of that famous quote about absolute power. Yet there are those who want just that. We’ve got them on our side too, but there are a whole lot more of them on the other side.
With the left in full out conservative suppression mode, it really questions the ability of any Republican candidate to win in the fall. That’s a scary prospect when you think about it. The way things are going right now, if the left ever manages to gain total control of our nation’s government, as they did in former President Obama’s first term, there’s no saying what they will do. But I’ll tell you this; they’re probably going to work overtime to make sure that whatever they do can’t ever be undone.
The other thing they’ll probably do is try to make it impossible for Republicans to ever regain power. They’ve already floated a number of proposals which will put them in permanent control, including immigration amnesty, vote by mail, and stacking the Supreme Court. They want their way and they aren’t going to allow anything to stop them.
Taking it to the Next Step
Kicking Republicans out of power and keeping them out of power isn’t all of it. Not by any means. During the last few years, the far-left wing of the Democrat Party has gained tremendous power. They have made it increasingly clear that their goal is to turn the United States into another socialist country. That will soon be followed by the United States becoming a failed socialist country.
They say that the hardest thing to kill is a bad idea and socialism sure seems to prove that point. It is being taught in our “institutes of higher learning” (almost a parody) and talked about fondly by the “intellectual elite.” Any time anyone brings up the fact that socialism has never worked, they brush it off, saying that “nobody has done it right before.”
Perhaps the reason for that is that socialism can’t be done right. To do so requires perfect people, who are totally unselfish and willing to give their lives for the collective. But we humans aren’t like that; not even those who are trying to push socialism down our collective throats. They’re perhaps the worst of all because each and every one of them is interested in pushing socialism for what they can get out of it, whether that be some financial benefit or political power.
One of socialism’s biggest errors is that it doesn’t give anyone any incentive to do better. You can’t get paid more for doing more, so why bother? That one thing is enough to cause socialism to fail. Without anyone being given any incentive to do more, society can’t move ahead. People need their needs met, but they also need to know that they have an opportunity to better their own lives.
Should the more socialist wing of the Democrat Party ever gain control, it will be the end of the United States as we know it. Oh, it might still exist in name, but that’s it. All the technological advances that our country has been known for and all the wealth we have generated will become a thing of the past. Without the ability to start a business, build something for ourselves and better our own lives, people will stop putting forth the effort. We, just as many other countries have done before, will fall.
Just Let Me Say…
The United States isn’t perfect. We have our flaws. We have a checkered past. And we still make mistakes today. But this is the greatest country the world has ever spawned. Even with all our failures, we are the most altruistic country in history. We are the ones who run to help, whenever there is a need. We are the ones who protect the underdog and cheer him on. We are the police of the world and rightly so.
Maybe it’s time for people to stop concentrating on the bad that this country has done and start looking at the good once again. I’m not talking about ignoring the bad. No, I believe in learning from our mistakes. But it’s hard to have pride in a country when you don’t see the good that it has done.
When I listen to Black Lives Matter and others on the left, I hear a common thread. It’s the same thread that’s calling for the destruction of our monuments. That thread is that this country is all bad; it’s never done anything good; in fact, we’re somehow guilty for everything bad that has ever happened, anywhere in the world. No wonder they want to destroy our past and our heritage; they don’t understand what it is.
That’s the mob which wants to rule. They want the rest of us to bow to their ideas of who we are; ignoring history, except those parts they can use to make our country look bad. Well, I for one won’t bow. I’ll admit we’re not perfect, but rather than using that as an excuse to destroy, I’d much rather use it as an excuse to build. One thing that has made the history of the United States unique is that we have always improved. That’s what needs to come of this, not wanton destruction and mob rule.
Sat Aug 1 , 2020
20% of Dems & Repubs Believe Violence is Justified if Their Side Loses
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SurvivingInfidelity.com® > I Can Relate
BS Questions for WS's - Part 13
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Sunny69 posted 3/20/2019 05:35 AM
It seems that WS struggles to give up AP because of the feel good factor they give them. Being wanted/desired. So much so that it stops them investing properly and committing to their primary relationship. How does this dynamic change when the AP has other AP's? I believe my WS orginally stopped sleeping with his MAP, because he thought she had started seeing her previous AP again. It didn't stop him pursuing her though and trying to engineer recoupling's for the next 18 months. And yes I know I shouldn't even be wasting my time giving it consideration, but if each and every AP gives you the feel good factor, does it mean you struggle to give any of them up? Or for a serial cheater is it all just a game? As long as they are getting something out of it, who cares. I apprecaite it also reflects a broken person with no self worth, exchanging sex for attention.
layla1234 posted 3/24/2019 15:57 PM
How many of you WS's will admit that your BS doesn't know all the details?? Specifically, any parading around that it was just an EA when it was actually a PA? My husband kept it a secret from me for 3 years that he attended a strip club (it was his first time). That wouldn't have been a big deal, but now I'm in the mindset of if he can keep something like that from me for so long then what else is he capable of/hiding?
BraveSirRobin posted 3/24/2019 16:40 PM
I hid important details of my A, both emotional and physical, from my BH for 29 years. He now knows everything I can remember, with open offers for polygraph and hypnosis to back that up. I guess my question, as far as whether your WS is likely to be hiding more, is how you found out about the strip club. Was he outed by evidence, or did he choose to share with you? Did you ask, or did he volunteer it for some other reason?
I think the best way that I've started to rebuild trust with my BH is offering details that he didn't even know to ask about. It hurts, for sure, and at first, we both questioned whether it was just a form of pain shopping. In our case, it was not, because what I offered made the whole picture of the A fit together in ways that did not make sense before. I guess I'm saying that if you still feel like the things you know don't add up, your gut is probably correct that there's more being hidden from you. If new specifics are painful but consistent with the overall narrative of the A, it's more likely that you're getting to the bottom of the TT.
SaddestDad posted 3/24/2019 16:48 PM
I hid important details of my A, both emotional and physical, from my BH for 29 years.
BraveSirRobin,
29 YEARS?!?!
How exactly does that get maintained for so long without coming out?
Not to shame you (trust me, I know it sounds otherwise) but I'm hoping you and others can answer this honestly and fully:
How did you live with yourself and him for that long keeping such secrets?
How do you live with the knowledge that you were lying by omission for so very long to the man who's stood by you for even longer, even after his world and view of you was initially shattered?
I'm still a newbie... but I'm baffled and mind-blown... and honestly, I probably would still be baffled even if I weren't so new to this shitty club.
Bravesir, it came out after I found out about his A. He was coming clean about everything supposedly, even though details of the affair were still hidden at that point so of course that carries no weight with me. Anything I've found out, I've pretty much had to ask.
This is the toughest part of healing for me. That there are holes in their "relationship". Things that don't make sense still.
Specifically, I wonder if he is being truthful about the start of it. He knew this woman and worked with her for 7 years. I always had a weird feeling around her and WH and I got into an argument in 2012 because he bought her a drink at a bar we were at. He didn't even get me anything. When she got married in 2017, I was honestly relieved. Now that I know she had no problem cheating on her husband, what would have stopped her from doing anything with him while she was single?
[This message edited by layla1234 at 5:04 PM, March 24th (Sunday)]
Darkness Falls posted 3/24/2019 17:47 PM
My husband doesn’t know all the details, because he never wanted to. He obviously knew the basics of that it was EA and PA, approximately how long it lasted, etc. But yeah, there are a ton of small details that he doesn’t know.
Barregirl posted 3/24/2019 19:17 PM
My BH has any and all of the details he wants to have. He has specifically requested not to know sexual details, other than wanting to know I did not do anything with AP that I haven't with him. I am not keeping anything from him purposefully, other than what he has asked not to know.
BraveSirRobin posted 3/25/2019 02:41 AM
Not to shame you (trust me, I know it sounds otherwise) but I'm hoping you and others can answer this honestly and fully: How did you live with yourself and him for that long keeping such secrets?
No offense taken, SaddestDad. The reason we're all on this forum is to understand behavior that baffles us, including (in the case of most WS) our own. I’ll do my best to answer “honestly and fully,” with the caveat that “fully” means “very, very long.”
I had my A when my then-BBF and I were in an LDR at different universities, and it took place entirely between two of his visits (about 4 months). BF and I had an understanding that I was dating OM casually, but I became much more romantically and sexually involved with him than the terms of our agreement allowed. I came clean with the worst parts it, the sex and the exchange of I love yous, the first time I saw BBF afterwards. This was during the height of the AIDS crisis, when HIV was a death sentence. OM had claimed to be a virgin, but of course, he was lying, which I discovered after we had unprotected sex. Because of that exposure, the fact that the PA had progressed to intercourse was something that I knew I had to disclose, but I was less sure how to handle the emotional involvement. Although BBF was always my primary relationship, OM claimed to have fallen desperately in love with me, and I felt guilty about making it so clear to him that he was just a side piece. In my screwed up brain, OM was the one who needed my sympathy and support, because he had "lost" and my BBF had "won." (Yes, I believed this despite his lies. I allowed myself to be totally gaslighted.) At the same time, in the two weeks between the end of the A and seeing BBF, my fog started to dissipate. I had been compartmentalizing all thought of the eventual consequences of my actions, and the closer I got to my impending D-Day, the more fear was starting to sink in.
Honestly, I had expected my BBF to be more furious than hurt when I told him about the sex. He had broken up with me once before, when I graduated from high school a year ahead of him, saying that college-bound LDRs never worked out. Two months later, he asked to get back together, but then a few months after that, he suggested that we be able to date other people. From this, I got the impression that he was already unsure about our relationship, so when I went to confess, I thought I might very well be back on the train the next morning, freshly dumped. I was completely off base. BBF was devastated, shaking and begging for reassurance that I still loved him. We had been first and onlies, and he was destroyed that this was no longer true. I was unprepared for his reaction and went into full lying coward mode. I gave him a minimized account of the sex -- one brief instance instead of a full-night, multi-position encounter -- and I glossed over how much physical and romantic interaction OM and I had both before and after that night. Once I had told the lies, I couldn't see how to retract them, especially since BBF seemed to be barely coping with what he already knew.
You would think that seeing BBF’s devastation would have straightened me out immediately, but in fact, I was a terrible candidate for R. I refused to go NC, “reassuring” BBF that the A was over and that OM and I could be just friends. I had no idea what an EA was and thought that everything was fine because I was no longer saying anything sexual/romantic to the OM or allowing him to do so. OM had graduated and moved thousands of miles away. This was years before cel phones, texting, or the internet, so that distance meant more than it does now, but there were still letters, email, and the occasional phone call back and forth. BBF was traumatized by the ongoing threat of OM, who was single and absolutely wanted to restart the relationship, even as an LDR. OM actually flew across the country to visit me for one night, and although I insisted and held to my promise that nothing would happen between us, it's indicative of my total self-centeredness and lack of empathy that I allowed him to see me at all.
Obviously, had SI existed back then, every BS on it (and probably every WS too) would have told BBF to stop playing the pick me dance and kick me to the curb. Instead, he coped by having an ONS with someone at his school, which he announced he was going to do beforehand. I was crushed, but I couldn't see how I had the right to ask him not to do it. At the same time, there were several complicating factors that made me resentful of being portrayed as the only villain in our relationship. After I disclosed my A, BBF admitted that he had spent a night kissing and groping his sister's best friend eighteen months earlier, just a few weeks after we had reconciled from our breakup. He had felt guilty ever since but now regarded the episode as completely trumped by what I had done. It was several months after that fling that he suggested we be able to date other people on a casual basis, which is how I eventually got involved with OM. The irony is that BBF thought that offering me freedom would give me perspective and keep me from feeling trapped in our LDR; I interpreted it as him wanting to play the field, even as I couldn’t understand why he kept bringing it up but never acted on it himself. After the disclosure, I felt like BBF had set me up in a situation that was tailor made for an A and then blamed me for having one, and I used the resentment to justify not going NC.
Any sane person, at this point, would have told us to break up. We had no marriage vows, no kids, no shared finances, and no trust. We were living hundreds of miles apart and had years of college left to go. But we also had years of history, having gotten together when we were only 16. Until the A, we had each other on pedestals. Both of us had experienced deep insecurities -- his that I would find someone smarter and more mature in college and dump him, and mine from mixed signals and a deep lack of self esteem. We didn’t explore and discuss these problems as we should have; we just knew that neither of us wanted to break up. After several months of miserably treading water, we decided that we should either commit to being together or let the relationship go. BBF proposed, on condition that I cut all contact of any kind with OM.
This is where the rugsweeping began. BBF let out a huge exhale; OM was gone from our lives, having accepted that a ring on my finger and my declaration of NC was the end of any ambiguity. I was happy that BBF was committing to me and was willing to put the past behind us. Neither of us thought that everything was completely ok, but both of us were glad to be done with the long, miserable phone calls, crying jags, and silent recrimination. Instead, we were planning a wedding and a future. Of course, this was way too early for R, and there were all kinds of things going on under the surface that neither of us would admit. BBF was having mind movies during sex and panic attacks in daily life, but he was hiding it from me for fear that I might decide R was too much work. I was still emotionally attached to OM, not in the sense that I wanted to resume the A, but worried that I had broken his heart. I maintained NC as promised, but the only way to stop the concern was to push him completely out of my head. This wasn't a healthy process of understanding my whys and coming to view the whole A with revulsion, it was simply blanking out OM's existence and anything associated with it. As a result, I got very good at not thinking about the A at all, including the sexual and romantic details I had never disclosed to BBF. And BBF wasn't asking about the A much any more, either, both because he didn't want to keep reminding me of OM and because he had no idea that he didn't have the full story.
In the early years of our marriage, we had occasional discussions about the A, but none of it was especially deep or helpful. BH never stopped having mind movies and insecurity, but I had no idea about his struggles. I gradually lost most of my memories of the OM, though I’m ashamed to say that I held on to a few moments as ego kibble of the days when two men were fighting over me. I remained NC and lost contact with anyone who would know anything about what OM was up to. BH and I built our lives together, sharing happiness and tragedy, buying our home, having and raising our children, and I honestly thought the A had become a painful episode in our history. Two decades passed without serious discussion of it, and several years went by without any mention of it at all.
Two years ago, as we were approaching our 25th wedding anniversary, BH started having symptoms of a midlife crisis. His business, which had been doing well for a decade, started to falter, and he was faced with giving up on the time and effort he had invested in it and moving on to a new career. As had been the case at a few points in our marriage, the stress and insecurity brought his memories of my A to the forefront. The mind movies intensified and started impacting our sex life. I knew something was wrong, but not what. Sex became more aggressive and less satisfying, which made me withdraw, which compounded the problem. The more BH thought about what I had told him about the affair, the less sense it made to him. Finally, he started testing the water by dropping hints about the parts he didn’t really believe. I was blindsided. Over the course of decades, I had successfully eradicated a lot of what I didn’t want to remember. For what remained, my mind was running on two opposing tracks: one, that I had told BH the most significant facts of the A, so everything else wasn’t really all that relevant, and two, that those details were totally devastating, and that if I admitted them to him at this late date, he would never forgive me. I honestly had few remaining memories of the sex, but what I remembered – the premeditation, the words of consent, the additional positions – how could I tell him all that now? It felt like there was a 19-year-old panicking inside my head, telling me not to be crazy, that there was no one who knew these details but me, and no evidence, so unless I said them aloud, they didn’t really exist. Especially if I didn’t really remember them, which in my panic, I immediately latched onto – what did I really remember for sure? If most of it was hazy, wasn’t all of it suspect? Why hang myself out to dry over something I wasn’t absolutely certain was true?
A big part of my work as a wayward has been the discovery of what a liar and a coward I am. It’s not just about the A. I have developed a pattern of lying, minimizing, and blameshifting to evade consequences throughout my life, both large and small. The answer to “how could you live with yourself and him while lying to him” is that for me, that was the status quo. Now that I see it, it’s astonishing, like walking along in the desert and suddenly seeing the Grand Canyon open up in front of you. “Shit, where did that massive hole come from?” And then I realize I’ve been living on the edge of it my whole life, just looking up at the sky and never glancing down.
I am so ashamed to say that not only did I lie for 29 years, but I put my BH through several weeks of trickle truth before I could get all the details out. I assured him more than once that “that’s everything,” because I had just told him something I never thought I would tell, and that only left a few minor, insignificant (major, highly significant) facts half-seen in the dark corners of my mind. A few days later, he would be saying, “You’re really sure that’s everything?” and I’d let out the next “insignificant” detail that had been swelling up like a malignant cyst, ready to burst. Finally, I realized that I really was on my last chance, that the TT was destroying him by a thousand cuts, that soon he would never believe a word I said about anything, and that nothing I told him now was as bad as it would be later. I took a deep breath and let go of the outcome.
For me, the key was writing. I wrote out my full account of the night of sex. Somehow, it was harder to type a lie than it was to say one, and there was the additional benefit of taking a few minutes to reflect. Several times during TT, I would say something that minimized the truth, and within 90 seconds I would regret it, but I had no idea how to take it back. Writing gave me the chance to read it over and say to myself: Is this really true? To say it to myself harshly, and kindly, and angrily, and sympathetically, and every way that I needed in order to finally admit it. Yes, this is what happened. This is true.
The last thing I’ll add is that it wasn’t until I admitted those truths that I was able to even consider the ways in which I stole my BH’s agency from him. I totally sold myself on the idea that telling him the full story would only hurt him and damage a relationship that he knew he still wanted, even acknowledging the A. The moment when I internalized that I had tricked him, that there was a chance he really could regret having married me, that I might have stolen his life, with no chance of undoing or fixing that monumental betrayal…
Trying to explain what that was like is where I finally run out of words.
[This message edited by BraveSirRobin at 9:27 AM, March 25th (Monday)]
Brennan87 posted 3/29/2019 09:06 AM
I noticed "wanted/desired" pop up time and time again on here and this is something my WW (and myself) struggles with communicating.
How as a WS in an A does one feel wanted and desired when they know the following:
1) The AP could have been anyone, there was nothing special about the AP.
2) The AP was only in it for sex, there were no feelings of "love", affection it was lets screw.
I struggle with how any WS could feel wanted and desired in this situation. When 1 and 2 equate in my mind to nothing more than being a human masturbation tool?
If you and the AP specifically discussed you would never leave your families or marriages for the other and no discussion of long term objectives and you both know 1 and 2 are true during the affair. How does one feel wanted and desired to spend nothing more than 45-1 hour on occasion with a stranger.
What am I missing here? IMO seems the opposite would be generated, I'm cheap, I'm easy, not he/she wants and desires me as I'm just the one that said yes".
hikingout posted 3/29/2019 09:37 AM
For me 1 & 2 were only clear to me in hindsight. A WS doesn't understand themselves when they enter the affair. There is very little introspection or self evaluation going on..
What it really boils down to for me is I was unhappy. It isn't my spouses job to make me happy, but I didn't sit down and think "how can I change things". I just escaped reality. It's like putting a bottle to your lips or a needle in you vein in many ways. Instead of trying to rearrange your life to try and do the hard work of changing it to meet your needs, you kind of say "fuck it, this is easier". So, you really abandon a lot of logic, common sense, etc to live in this little fantasy world where things are all roses and happiness. If you look too closely, well, that would ruin it, right?
After the A is over and you have sat in your shit long enough to understand "time to do some serious digging", you understand the whole thing was built on nothing at all. That you were very, very wrong in trying to remedy and cope with your situation the way that you did. And you see the AP with the new eyes that say "Gosh, it was YOU I was projecting all this on?" You realize that all you did was a major act of avoidance. And, it really, really was the worst decision you ever made.
I also like a recent post I saw where a lot of it is like a circus mirror...the affair is a lot like looking in the mirror and having it show you things you want to see rather than what's really there. And, most of these things, believe it or not are about YOU and who YOU are rather than the AP. It's all about reflecting an image back on yourself.
So, yeah, if we knew 1 & 2 an affair would never happen or work.
Darkness Falls posted 3/29/2019 10:06 AM
Brennan,
That wasn’t my situation, is my reason. There’s no way the AP could have been “anyone.” I’ll also never know for sure, but I do believe he did love and desire me for me, not just for a screw. He was a single, attractive guy—he could have had a dozen women at a time to “just screw.”
There was no difference at all between my ex coming back into my life and asking for another chance, leading to the affair and my XH (who is also my current H) coming back into my life and asking for another chance, leading to our remarriage—except that in the first situation, I was married and chose to cheat rather than divorce. My ex wasn’t looking to prey on a married woman—he would have vastly preferred that I wasn’t married, in fact. I’m not defending him behaving dishonorably—but I did give him the impression that I would leave my H for him. (And meant it, at the time—I just couldn’t go through with it in the end.)
But my H knew I was in a relationship too when HE asked (although he knew I wasn’t married). The difference is, I ended that relationship immediately after he asked to get back together. (Yes, seriously right away—it was a terrible, toxic relationship that was over for all intents and purposes anyway and we both knew it.) So if my then-XH was sincere, why wouldn’t I have thought my then-ex boyfriend was too?
Brennan87 posted 3/29/2019 13:38 PM
HikingOut,
As always thank you for your articulate, concise and heartfelt responses. I don’t think you nor darkness fall truly understand the impact you have on some of us.
With that said, I think your introspection is putting me on the verge of something falling into place. I’m not 100 percent there but if I understand what your saying...
The compartmentslizing was in full force and too look at the affair for what it was would have stopped it from happening. As such, what ever you were feeling to escape you were getting mirrored back to you.
So if I translate this to me own situation. The thrilling/exciting part for my WW wasn’t the AP but what he was mirroring back. Since she was partly recreating a past trauma every degrading thing he said and did was exciting and thrilling as that was what she wanted to see in that mirror. Someone who didn’t respect her, who though of her as the whore she was being. So for him to validate this (mirror) was thrilling and exciting. Do I have this right in terms of mirroring?
Ironically this kinda makes sense to a degree.
Darkness falls,
I echo my sentiments with you as I did hiking out. You genuinely put yourself out there to try and help us Bs and your own story and experiences are very helpful.
As sad as it seems, your experience makes more sense too me. As prior to my own world exploding I was a media believer. I thought all affairs were about love, which too a degree yours was (in my head) based on what you shared. So too a rational person 1 and 2 wouldn’t equate for you.
Thank you both!!!
hikingout posted 3/29/2019 13:49 PM
Ironically this kinda makes sense to a degree
Possibly. It's hard to know what each WS sees in that mirror.
For me, it was I was younger, more vibrant, more carefree. As long as I could get him to reflect that back to me as I played out that role it kept the fantasy world going. If I were to relate to what you are saying, I could probably make that fit as well.
The reason I say that is because I was molested as a girl by an older kid. And, I wanted that attention from him to a certain degree, just not the sexual aspects of it. So, as I became a woman I led with my sexuality to seem "cool to guys". They liked I was open and enthusiastic, much like my predator did. I could equate some of that with the AP, yes. So, I don't think you are making a leap in your understanding. I never thought about it in those terms before, but I can see how they also fit.
With the benefit of hindsight and maturity, I came to learn the difference between “being in love” and “treating with love” (and respect). I was treating everyone very poorly because I was selfish and disrespectful.
My heart aches for what was done to you. No one deserves that, NO ONE. You’ve overcome a lot. If they haven’t happened yet, know you’ll be blessed in someway.
Not too make this a mini therapy session for Brennan but I can’t converge the two lines of thinking regarding my WW. Unfortunately she can’t articulate it at this point either.
Through therapy she has come to realize she re-enacted previous traumas based on actions during the affair. This makes sense too me based on discussions. Such as her comments of:
I thought I could control it and it not go sexual.
It’s what I deserved, I didn’t deserve to be treated with respect and kindness based on my past.
I had a small bit of self respect left and after the first two times would come home and cry. I stopped crying then as it’s what I deserved.
It was fun, I felt alive and young ( as you pointed out) as her 14 year old self was in the driver seat based on past traumas and comfort.
I knew what he was, a liar and a cheat as I knew he’d been fired before due to sexual harassment and he only wanted a piece of ass.
All of this ring true in my mind of someone reliving a previous trauma.
However, I can’t connect that she knew all this and still felt “happy, wanted, desired” by him. He boosted her self esteem. How being called vulgar names (which again rings true of past trauma), being degraded in setting and during sex (again rings true of recreation of trauma) makes one, happy, wanted and desired.
Maybe I’m projecting as I too used sex (pre WW) as a coping mechanism due too my own abuse. However I never felt happy, wanted or desired at all. aaarrtgggh
Thank you for the distinction... you’ve come so far!! Kudos. I agree love is an action!!!
The reason I say that is because I was molested as a girl by an older kid. And, I wanted that attention from him to a certain degree, just not the sexual aspects of it. So, as I became a woman I led with my sexuality to seem "cool to guys". They liked I was open and enthusiastic, much like my predator did.
This was me, too. I looked for validation through sex because that early attention made me feel special and important. I had no idea that that dynamic was at work, though.
Trying to apply logic to a WS's motivations is often an exercise in futility, but I'll try to explain how things started for me. I was insecure in my relationship with my BF and was drawn to the idea of an A where we made no promises and owed each other nothing. If, by definition, we weren't a couple, then he couldn't destroy me by leaving me. I didn't have to worry about whether I was his true love, or if I had all his attention, or if he really wanted someone else, or if I wasn't "enough." The irony was that because I was completely uninvested in OM, I became like catnip to him, this cool girl who was unattainable and didn't make demands. That made him pursue me much more aggressively, including romantically, because he wanted what he couldn't have. And because a major reason I got involved with OM was my insecurity in my primary relationship, I loved seeing myself through the funhouse mirror of his professed obsession for me. I basked in the ego kibbles. And then I started to feel sorry for him, because I saw my insecurities about BF abandoning me playing out in my abandoning OM. So when I ended it and came clean to BBF, I felt and acted like I owed more sympathy and support to OM, because I had broken his heart and stayed with BBF. Totally fucked up, I know.
Want2BHappyAgain posted 3/29/2019 22:15 PM
And then I started to feel sorry for him, because I saw my insecurities about BF abandoning me playing out in my abandoning OM. So when I ended it and came clean to BBF, I felt and acted like I owed more sympathy and support to OM, because I had broken his heart and stayed with BBF. Totally fucked up, I know.
This is very interesting BraveSirRobin. My H said something very similar to me about his feelings of being sorry for his adultery co-conspirator...because he was leaving her after leading her on that they were more than just fuck buddies. On DDay...when he confessed...he very much felt and acted sympathetic and supportive of her...especially after he sent her the NC message. When he received her reply the next day...his whole demeanor changed...and that fantasy land bubble POPPED right before my eyes. He saw that she had LIED to him and it pissed him off. It also embarrassed him that he didn’t see she was doing to him what he had been doing to her.
I don’t understand that logic though and I am wondering if you could expand on this a little more please. Maybe seeing it from a woman’s POV might help to clear things up for me!
Are you saying you felt sorry for your infidelity co-conspirator because you saw what YOU feared...as being what you were doing to him? If y’all had already agreed...like my H and his adultery co-conspirator did...to NSA sex...what was there to feel sorry about him for? ANY insight you...or others who have felt this way...can give...will be greatly appreciated!
LuvsMeLuvsMeNot posted 3/30/2019 14:16 PM
Since there have been so many threads lately pertaining to "A" sex vs."M" sex I would like to ask the WS if they would be willing to share "What was the most exciting thing sexually (like off the charts exciting) that your OW/OM did to you, for you or with you that your BS does not do to you, for you or with you?”
Also, if there was something you really enjoyed with your OW/OM "Have you ever asked your BS to do that specific thing or did you not ask for the fear of triggering them since they might think it was something that you had done with the AP?"
I asked my WH if there was ever 1 thing that his OW (was his ex/gf from now 34 years ago) did that he thought was VERY exciting since all he’s ever said (since I found out it was a 5+ year PA and not a "few months long" EA) was how the parking lot car sex was boring, vanilla and over fast since she was very self-conscious about how overweight she was and her large, saggy, stretchmark covered breasts.”
He said the most exciting thing to him “bc it made him feel like a teenager again” was when they got in our car (after going out to dinner one time) and the OW pulled her pants down and just laughed. Mind you, they were both in their mid 40’s during the A.
Thank you in advance for taking the time to read my question and share a reply if you’re able to.
[This message edited by LuvsMeLuvsMeNot at 2:54 PM, March 30th (Saturday)]
It wasn't that I feared OM leaving me. I had a long history of being dumped and left, and that made me overly sympathetic to OM when he was the dumpee. And yes, it was agreed at the outset that this was a short term thing with no promises made, but I made very bad decisions about not getting out as soon as it became evident that things were getting more serious. (For context, BH and I were BF/GF at the time of the A and in an LDR at different universities. We had an understanding that I could see OM casually, but not get deeply involved, either romantically or sexually.)
Before BF, my past was a series of unfortunate relationships where I used sexual acts to try to gain approval, validation and commitment. The one guy I had really been in love with before BF had ghosted me at the end of our relationship, and that made me feel totally worthless and insignificant. I carried all of that into my relationship with BF, who was genuinely the best person I had ever dated but had his own set of insecurities that sometimes made him keep me at arm's length. So when BF went into that mode, I didn't do what a secure, healthy person would do, which is to ask him what was going on and stand up for my right to not be treated that way. I thought that would seem needy and make him more likely to break it off. So when OM appeared, my attitude was, "Well, I'm not going to be cherished in this relationship, but at least that's par for the course, and since I'm not expecting it, I won't be disappointed." It was such a broken place to be.
The unanticipated development was that OM caught feelings for me, or more accurately, he was attracted to what he projected on me. I think he had some kind of martyr complex. At the time that I started seeing him, he was in love with his best friend's girlfriend and doing the "bearing up under long suffering" routine. I thought that made him safe -- he was in love with someone else, I was in love with someone else, he was moving away in four months, this wasn't going anywhere permanent. But then he transferred that star-crossed longing to me, because I was also unattainable long term, with the added advantage of not causing him problems with his best friend. It didn't really have much to do with me as a person, I don't think; we shared some common interests, but in terms of the things that really matter about a person, we barely knew each other. But he decided he had fallen madly in love with me, and told me so frequently. It didn't help that he was a professional actor, so he could deliver the right soulful looks and body language and everything to go along with the words. And with my history of brokenness, what he was selling was what I had always been desperate to buy -- the idea that I was a person someone could not live without. And so I started reflecting that back to him, and convinced myself that I was in love, though never as much in love as I was with BF.
When we were nearing the end of the A, which had always been understood to be time bound by his upcoming move, OM turned up the romantic heat. He wanted me to break up with BF and be his girlfriend, officially instead of on the side. I started feeling really guilty, not towards BF as I should have, but towards OM. I was the one who had made the first move in starting the A, and now I was going to break his heart. I kept thinking of the ex who had ghosted me and what that had done to my self-esteem, and I thought I could "fix" BF by recommitting to him and "fix" OM by letting him down gently.
Even after D-Day, I refused to go NC with OM. I had no intention of restarting the A, but I had my head up my ass believing that we could stay "just friends." This was incredibly damaging to my BF, who did the pick-me dance instead of kicking me to the curb as I deserved. It was cruel to him, and frankly it didn't do OM any favors either, because it let him believe there was still some hope that we'd reunite, even though that wasn't my intention.
I also had the same experience as your WH, discovering that OM had lied to me, and being crushed by it. (Yes, the irony of a WS feeling "betrayed" by an AP is nauseating.) In my case, he lied about sex with a FWB at the beginning of the A. He insisted it never happened; she said it did and was far more credible. I allowed myself to be gaslighted for far longer than I should have because believing her was so painful. It turned the story of my A from "I was his 'one who got away'" to "I was just a target for manipulation." TBH, it sounds like your WH showed more sense than me in allowing the fantasy bubble to suddenly pop instead of slowly and painfully deflate.
"What was the most exciting thing sexually (like off the charts exciting) that your OW/OM did to you, for you or with you that your BS does not do to you, for you or with you?”
Nothing. I mean, I don't know if that's at all useful to you, but it's the truth. BH is amazing in the sack.
This rings true to me, honestly. It's not about the AP being a sex god/goddess. It's about the persona the WS inhabits, someone with no responsibilities, no self-control, and frankly no maturity. It's intoxicating, the idea that "this person is so wild about me that they behave in what they know to be an inappropriate way because they just can't help themselves." The longer I do the work here, the clearer it becomes to me that I was having an A with myself, and the OM was just the prop guy who was feeding me the right lines.
[This message edited by BraveSirRobin at 6:59 PM, March 30th (Saturday)]
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/ Kate and Anna McGarrigle
July 1, 2016 By Joe Marchese Leave a Comment
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! We've got the latest release from Second Disc Records and Real Gone Music as well as plenty more that we know you won't want to miss! Eddy Arnold, Each Road I Take: The Lee Hazlewood and Chet Atkins Sessions 1970 (Second Disc Records/Real Gone Music) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) Our newest release brings together two seminal, never-before-reissued albums by Eddy Arnold on one CD, both from 1970. Love and Guitars captured Arnold
Categories: Release Round-Up Formats: CD, Digital Download, Vinyl Genre: Cast Recordings, Classic Rock, Country, Folk, Funk, Pop, R&B/Soul, Soundtracks Tags: Betty Davis, Brook Benton, Burt Bacharach, Chet Atkins, Davy Jones, Eddy Arnold, Eric Clapton, Harry Nilsson, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Lee Hazlewood, Micky Dolenz, Miles Davis, Quincy Jones, Sea Level, Survivor, The Delfonics
June 6, 2016 By Joe Marchese Leave a Comment
Omnivore Recordings is gearing up for a busy summer, with releases from The Kingbees, The Bangles, Velvet Crush and many more. Two of the label's most exciting titles, however, come from a pair of remarkable duos. Farewell Aldebaran arrived in 1969 on Frank Zappa's Straight Records label from the duo of Judy Henske and Jerry Yester. Henske was the onetime "Queen of the Beatniks" whose distinctive, bluesy voice earned her legions of fans on the folk circuit. She appeared alongside Johnny
Categories: News Formats: CD, Vinyl Genre: Folk, Pop Tags: Jerry Yester, Judy Henske, Kate and Anna McGarrigle
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Perpetual Poet: Prodigy, 1974-2017
Prodigy (born Albert Johnson) was one-half of the hip-hop duo Mobb Deep with rapper and producer Havoc. He died at age 42.
byAshly E. Smith
Vivid yet brash, bold yet robust, and profound yet poetic. These are just a mere few words to describe the lyrically gifted Albert “Prodigy” Johnson.
Born in Hempstead, New York, Prodigy was unknowingly destined for greatness. Descending from a musical family, Prodigy inherited his musical roots from his grandfather, Budd Johnson, and his great-uncle Keg Johnson who were notable for their contributions to the Bebop jazz era. In addition, his mother, Fatima was a member of the Crystals, while his father, Budd Johnson Jr, was a member of a Doo-wop music group the Chanters.
As an infant, Prodigy was diagnosed with a severe form of sickle cell anemia, which is a blood disease marked by debilitating spells of bodily pain. Despite this, his ailment didn’t stop him from contributing to reforming hip hop in the 1990s.
In 1991, at the age of 16, the future hip hop pioneer joined Jive records, under the alias Lord–T (The Golden Child). Soon after he landed an appearance on 90’s R&B group Hi Five’s single “Too Young”. The song was featured on the Boyz N The Hood soundtrack. In high school, he met Kejuan “Havoc” Muchita. The duo soon became The “Poetical Prophets”, before becoming “The Infamous Mobb Deep”.
Prodigy and Havoc as Mobb Deep
Mobb Deep saw their first major success with their second album, The Infamous, released in 1995. Havoc and Prodigy catapulted to the top of the hardcore hip-hop scene with their dark, yet straightforward narration of street life. In this album, Mobb Deep vividly portrayed the struggles of living in New York City’s Queensbridge Houses where Havoc grew up. Following the release of The Infamous, Mobb Deep became some of the most prolific artists of the East Coast. The hit single “Shook Ones Pt. II“, a remix to the hit Shook Ones, received critical acclaim as one of the best songs in hip-hop history.
Mobb Deep’s third album, Hell on Earth was released in 1996 debuting at number six on the Billboard Album Chart; the album continued the duo’s portrayal of harsh street life while further pushing them to the forefront of Hip Hop scene along with contemporary East Coast Rappers like the Notorious B.I.G., Jay-Z, Wu-Tang Clan, Big L and fellow prolific Queensbridge rapper Nas. Nas appeared on ‘Hell on Earth’ along with Method Man and Raekwon
In 1996, Mobb Deep appeared on the Red Hot Organization‘s compilation CD, America is Dying Slowly alongside Biz Markie, Wu-Tang Clan and Fat Joe among many others. This compilation was solely meant to raise awareness of the AIDS epidemic among African American men and this compilation was heralded as “a masterpiece” by The Source Magazine.
In 1999, they released the highly anticipated Murda Muzik, which had the majority of its songs unintentionally leaked. This resulted in delays in the official album release. When the album was officially released, it eventually debuted at number three on the Billboard 200 and quickly went platinum. Murda Muzik was further promoted by the popular and pioneering single “Quiet Storm.”
Shortly afterward, Prodigy released his long-awaited solo album H.N.I.C in which he collaborated with fellow hip hop artists such as B.G., N.O.R.E, and producers such as the Alchemist, Just Blaze, and Rockwilder. H.N.I.C also featured “You Can Never Feel My Pain”, a song which Prodigy referenced his suffering from sickle-cell anemia. This was the first time that he had done so in his career.
In 2001, Prodigy released a 2001 autobiography entitled, My Infamous Life: The Autobiography of Mobb Deep’s Prodigy. In 2011, he released a free EP called The Ellsworth Bumpy Johnson EP which is his first project since being released from prison. In 2013, Prodigy released his second collaboration album with The Alchemist titled Albert Einstein. On April 1, 2014, Mobb Deep released The Infamous Mobb Deep their eighth studio album. In August 2016, he released an untitled EP of five tracks, released in partnership with BitTorrent.
On June 20, 2017, Prodigy died in Las Vegas, Nevada after having been hospitalized a few days earlier for complications related to his sickle-cell anemia. He was performing in the Art of Rap Tour in Las Vegas with Havoc, Ghostface Killah, Onyx, KRS-One and Ice-T when he was hospitalized. The exact cause of his death is yet to be determined.
Following his death, tributes from many fans and fellow hip-hop artists alike poured in on social media. Heartfelt tributes from numerous prominent hip-hop figures including Havoc, Snoop Dogg, Lil Wayne, Q-Tip, Ghostface Killah, Ice-T, Drake, and The Game among others expresses how much Prodigy meant to them.
Steve Rifkind, the founder of both Loud Records and SRC Records, remembered Prodigy as “a pure lyricist who made some of the best hip-hop records of all time.”
Hip hop legends
Ashly E. Smith
Ashly E. Smith is an author, poet, columnist, and freelance writer from Baltimore, Maryland. With her strong pop culture and entertainment backgrounds, Ashly strives to create articles that inspire as well as entertain.
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News Roundup: Gossip Girl, One Tree Hill, 90210 and The O.C.
Vogue has a spoiler-filled behind-the-scenes video of the Gossip Girl episodes that will feature Fashion’s Night Out.
Parade.com has a great interview with Kristen Bell (Gossip Girl, Gossip Girl).
TV Squad has an interview with Sophia Bush (Brooke, One Tree Hill) about her eco-minded charity efforts.
Antwon Tanner (Skills, One Tree Hill) tweeted that he started a Ustream account.
Gregory Harrison (Paul, One Tree Hill) will appear on CSI: New York.
Us Weekly has a brief interview with Joe Manganiello (Owen, One Tree Hill).
Sharon Lawrence (Paulette, Beverly Hills 90210) has been cast in a recurring role on One Tree Hill. Warning: spoilers involved!
TV Fanatic has an extremely spoiler-filled interview with Jessica Lowndes (Adrianna, 90210).
In addition to Trevor Donovan (Teddy, 90210), Michael Steger (Navid, 90210), Ryan Eggold (Ryan, 90210) and Matt Lanter (Liam, 90210) will be at the City of Beverly Hills’ 9-02-10 Day event.
Us Weekly has a brief interview with Kellan Lutz (George, 90210).
Michael Cudlitz (Tony, Beverly Hills 90210) will star in the The Grief Tourist.
The Associated Press has an interesting but sad story about the testimony Brian Austin Green (David, Beverly Hills 90210) and Rachel Bilson (Summer, The O.C.) gave regarding the burglary ring that targeted them.
Chris Carmack (Luke, The O.C.) will star in Shark Night 3-D.
Tags: 9.02.10 Day, 90210, Adrianna, Antwon Tanner, Associated Press, Beverly Hills, Beverly Hills 90210, Brian Austin Green, Brooke, Chris Carmack, City of Beverly Hills, CSI: New York, David, Fashion's Night Out, George, Gossip Girl, Gregory Harrison, Jessica Lowndes, Joe Manganiello, Kellan Lutz, Kristen Bell, Liam, Luke, Matt Lanter, Michael Cudlitz, Michael Steger, Navid, One Tree Hill, Owen, Parade.com, Paul, Paulette, Rachel Bilson, Ryan, Ryan Eggold, Shark Night 3-D, Sharon Lawrence, Skills, Sophia Bush, Summer, Teddy, The Grief Tourist, The O.C, Tony, Trevor Donovan, TV Fanatic, TV Squad, US Weekly, Ustream, Vogue
Categories : 90210, Beverly Hills 90210, Gossip Girl, One Tree Hill, The O.C.
News Roundup: Gossip Girl,90210, One Tree Hill and Dawson’s Creek
New York Magazine and TVGuide.com‘s recaps of the Gossip Girl TCA panel have some details and quotes that I don’t recall seeing in the live-blogs and recaps I previously posted.
Shannen Doherty (Brenda, Beverly Hills 90210) helped judge a competition to find the “most inspired bartender.”
Doherty tweeted today that, contrary to rumors, she’s not pregnant.
Hilarie Burton (Peyton, One Tree Hill) told Zap2it she would return to One Tree Hill if a) it’s the final season, b) she’s asked and c) it worked with her schedule.
The Associated Press has a few quotes from Burton on having a baby with Jeffrey Dean Morgan.
Burton appeared on the PIX Morning News this morning. She makes nice mentions of Antwon Tanner (Skills, One Tree Hill) and Chad Michael Murray (Lucas, One Tree Hill).
James Van Der Beek (Dawson, Dawson’s Creek) tweeted that he got married yesterday. He and his now-wife, Kimberly Brook, are expecting a daughter.
Tags: Antwon Tanner, Associated Press, Beverly Hills 90210, Brenda, Chad Michael Murray, Dawson, Dawson's Creek, Gossip Girl, Hilarie Burton, James Van Der Beek, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Kimberly Brook, Lucas, New York magazine, One Tree Hill, Peyton, PIX Morning News, Shannen Doherty, Skills, TCA, TVGuide.com
Categories : Beverly Hills 90210, Dawson's Creek, Gossip Girl, One Tree Hill
Second Annual One Tree Hill Evaluation
After the television season ended last year, I conducted three sets of polls to evaluate what readers thought of One Tree Hill, Gossip Girl and 90210.
The results of each then formed one more survey to see which teen drama really had the best season.
With last week’s conclusion to the 2009-2010 TV season, it’s time to do it again.
We’ll kick things off with a set of polls about One Tree Hill’s seventh season.
You have until Wednesday at 11:59pm eastern to vote. I’ll post the results and the next set of questions the next day.
**Please remember your answers should be based solely on the season that just ended, except for the last question, which is about the show overall.**
Note: The format is wonky for the open-ended questions. Please put your answer in the “other” space.
Tags: 90210, Alex, Alexander, Brooke, Chase, Chuck, Clay, Dan, David, Fergie, Gossip Girl, Grubbs, Haley, Jamie, Josh, Julian, Junk, Katie, Kylie, Lauren, Lydia, Mia, Millicent, Miranda, Mouth, Nathan, One Tree Hill, Owen, Paul, Quinn, Rachel, Renee, Sara, Skills, Taylor, Victoria
Categories : 90210, Gossip Girl, One Tree Hill
Exclusive: Meet The MunnRoyds!
In my Real-Life Relationships series, I wrote how One Tree Hill held the honor of being the only teen drama to ever have married cast members. But they also held the dishonor of being the only show with divorced cast members when that same couple split. I’m happy to say honor has been restored this season with the introduction of Scott Holroyd as David. Holroyd’s recurring role meant he was starring on the very same show his wife, Allison Munn, has been on as Lauren for more than a year now.
Munn and Holroyd haven’t yet had the privilege of sharing scenes together but the excitement of just working on the same set has pleased them both. They were also more than enthusiastic about doing a joint interview and officially introducing everyone to the MunnRoyds.
TeenDramaWhore: Is this your first joint interview?
Munn: This is our first joint interview–except for the man who married us. We had an interview with the man who married us and that was equally as fun.
TDW: I am very honored, then, to be your first professional joint interview.
Munn: It’s very exciting. We’re having some wine and sitting down. This is fun.
Holroyd: You got the exclusive.
TDW: I’m very excited. Allison, we covered a lot of ground in our first interview, but something I forgot to ask you was how you got involved with One Tree Hill in the first place. Was it the typical casting call-audition route?
Munn: It was. The part came down the pipes and I went in. It was cool because I was sitting in the room waiting for everyone and I didn’t know who was actually going to be in the audition but [creator] Mark Schwahn walks in and I had known Mark back when I was on What I Like About You. Mark used to come by our set a lot so I was excited to see him again because he was always so nice. And then my friend Joe Davola walked. He’s one of the producers on One Tree Hill but he was also one of the producers on What I Like About You. So it was just a little mini-reunion and it took a minute to have the actual audition because we had to catch each other up on our lives. So that was fun. Then I auditioned and I think I found out that night that I got the part. It was kind of perfect because the day I flew in, I got into Wilmington at night and it was the show’s Christmas party. I went in and I went straight to the Christmas party and got to meet everyone there, which was a lot of fun.
TDW: That’s a great way to ease the stress of having to meet everyone when you first get on set.
Munn: Oh, yeah. It’s stressful when you guest-star on a show because they’re a tight-knit group and you’re a stranger coming into their world. But these people could not have been more accommodating or nice. It’s truly been a blessing to meet these people.
TDW: Your first episode was when Jamie [Jackson Brundage] asks you out on his little date [Episode 6.16, Screenwriter‘s Blues]. Did you sign on to do just that one episode or did you know there would be more?
Munn: I was only booked for that episode and when I read the scenes, the way they originally read, there was supposed to be a flirtation with Dan [Paul Johansson]. But they were very careful to not make it that way. I don’t know if they had it in their minds that I would go on. I finished that episode and I came home over the holidays and Mark Schwahn called me and pitched me the [storyline] that I would start dating Skills [Antwon Tanner]. That was really exciting. That was a great call to get.
TDW: I’m sure. So, Scott, last year did you visit Allison on set at all?
Holroyd: Yes, actually. I knew Joe from the What I Like About Days. I met Schwahn during Allison’s work on One Tree Hill and Mark was familiar some of the work I had done. I went and visited the Jerry Rice episode [7.01, 4:30 a.m. (Apparently They Were Traveling Abroad)]. I was in North Carolina during that time and Allison texted me and said, “Hey, do you know who Jerry Rice is?”
Munn: No, I think I texted you like, “Hey, have you ever heard of some guy named Jerry Rice?” Clearly I had no idea who he was.
Holroyd: And I was like, “Uh, yes! He’s only the best wide receiver in the history of the NFL.” And she was like “Well, I’m playing football with him right now.” I turned the car around and went to set. That was the first time I was on set and hung out with everybody there.
Munn: The greatest thing also about these people is that we also got to know a lot of them back here [in Los Angeles]. When they’re not in production in North Carolina, we tend to hang out and go to dinner here in Los Angeles. So he had met them socially as well here.
TDW: So then when the part of David came up, did you have a formal audition?
Holroyd: Yeah, I went in and read for Mark. It was a typical audition and then I got the call when I was in North Carolina to visit Allison and visit family. I got the offer when I was there so I ended up not leaving North Carolina and staying for the rest of the summer to shoot [my] first four episodes. It was actually perfect timing and a perfect situation because it’s always nice to work with friends. Mark had become a pal through all of this when Allison was in season 6. We’d hang out, like she said, go out to dinner with he and his wife. It was just a fun situation for us both and it was also fun to be home because Allison and I are both from that area. My mom and dad live in Myrtle Beach, which is 45 minutes away from Wilmington so that whole summer Allison and I were there with both of our dogs and it was the best summer on record for us.
Munn: It really was. We always say there’s very few times in your life when you’re having a wonderful time and you’re aware of how lucky you are and aware of the fact you’re going to look back on this moment in your life and reflect on it and say, “Wow, remember when we got to do that?” We were very aware of how good we had it this past summer. It was wonderful.
Holroyd: Was this the first time you were working on the same project?
Munn: Well, technically no. We were both on That 70’s Show. We were never on set at the same time. Scott did an episode and I think I did the episode after him. So technically we had but not like this.
TDW: On One Tree Hill, Lauren is a much a happier character than David has been. Scott, as someone who is happily married in real life, is it difficult to get into David’s frame of mind or do you embrace the challenge of playing someone so different from you?
Holroyd: You always embrace it. It’s fun. You can kind of empathize and understand. We’ve all had disappointments and adversity in our lives and you grasp onto that to figure out where the character’s coming from. So the challenge was fun.
Munn: Believe it or not, this is one of the nicer characters he’s played. He usually plays like rapists…
Holroyd: Murderers, wife-beaters.
Munn: Wife-beaters. So, yeah, this has been a departure from his normal roles.
Holroyd: Yeah, so when I got the offer from Mark, he was like, “Yeah, this is not like the things you normally play” because he had seen some of my work before. He was like, “Gosh! There is no vigilance in [David]. He’s a nice guy.”
Munn: I think Joe Davola was surprised, too, because Joe knew mostly his work when he on Dirty Sexy Money. I don’t know if you saw his arc on that but he ran the gamut. He hit women–
Holroyd: Pistol-whipped a woman.
Munn: Pistol-whipped a woman, he shot a person, he killed a person. It was a lot for them to wrap their head around, to have Scott be the nice guy for a change. I loved seeing that. I mean, yeah, he was in pain but it was really neat for me to see Scott play that role.
TDW: At what point did you know you’d be coming back for the Taylor [Lindsey McKeon] storyline?
Holroyd: Mark called and he was happy with how things had turned out and the arc of the story. He said there’d be some more stuff coming down the pipe. That’s all I knew. I didn’t know in what way I was going to be used or what way David was going to come back but he said there’d be more stuff for me to do. So when I got the call for the next little bit with Taylor and when I read the script, I was like, “Ohhhkay. Okay.” That’s when you see a little bit of David’s…kind of vindictive side. Maybe vindictive isn’t the right word.
Munn: No, he was kind of vindictive.
TDW: I was going to say vindictive, too.
Holroyd: Yeah, but it wasn’t really honest vindictiveness. It was more…
TDW: It came from a place of hurt.
Holroyd: Yes. It came from hurt. And when he realized it was all a lie, that’s when he kind of bailed on the whole thing because he was really just relying on Taylor. I think Taylor was honest in her approach to her sisters and I think David was just kind of going along with that, like “Okay.” I think David was looking at it as “Quinn hurt me. How can I hurt her back?” Taylor was the way to do that. I think that’s how that all came about. I think David kind of relished the moments, like at the dinner scene. I think David was just relishing watching Quinn [Shantel Van Santen], even though Quinn stayed above it all. But I think he relished it until he found out she didn’t really sleep with Clay [Robert Buckley]. That’s when his world really came crashing down again. David just got–
Munn: He got kicked. He got hammered.
Holroyd: He got kicked on all sides. Even when he tried to be forceful and be a little vindictive, he got hit again. I felt bad for David and I fought for David and I thought he was right in how he approached things. I agreed with him.
Munn: I really loved seeing those flashback scenes with him and Shantel [Episode 7.07, I And Love And You] because it was nice to see David happy and in a good place. That added, for me, a lot of depth to both their characters.
TDW: It did. It gave us the point of view of where David was coming from–what was the marriage he had with Quinn like? You would think anyone would be upset they’re getting divorced but we didn’t know what Quinn was leaving behind.
Munn: Right. And it’s hard because they had such a great thing. I think a lot of people were like, “Why is Quinn leaving this great marriage?” but, being in a relationship that actually works, you do really change a lot as people. If you don’t grow together, the growing apart feels so lonely and I think that’s what Quinn was really haunted by, her loneliness. David wasn’t the man she originally married.
Holroyd: Of course, I’m gonna side with David. I don’t think he necessarily changed.
Munn: I think he grew up.
Holroyd: I think he was thinking ahead and he was growing up and evolving and thinking, “Hey, I have a passion”–which was Quinn’s thing, “Stick to your passion”–“but if the passion doesn’t pay the bills, let’s be honest. You don’t want to be motivated by money but money is to an extent a necessity, so let me get a job that affords us a life that we can live on and grow and have a family.” So I saw where David was coming from. I don’t think he necessarily changed who he was; he just wanted to better his family. That’s my opinion on David but, of course, I’m going to stick up for my man.
TDW: I think the fans saw it from both sides. I think there were people were questioning, “What is Quinn doing?” and they wanted to see more of David. And there were people who accepted she wasn’t happy and wanted a change and to move on. I would also venture to guess a lot of the fans are younger and not married, so it might’ve been hard to understand. Maybe because they’re not married, they think that moving on is an easier thing to do.
Munn: Yeah, that’s intuitive.
Holroyd: A lot of people were asking, “Why?” A lot people were getting frustrated with the Quinn storyline and asking “Why would she want to move on? She has no reason.” And my explanation for the storyline was when you grow, you either grow together or you grow apart and sometimes you grow apart. It’s as simple as that. I think that frustrated people. It’s so simple that it frustrated people. It would’ve been a lot of easier had there been infidelity or something else. But it was just a matter of just growing apart. It’s as simple and as complicated as that.
TDW: I’ve been wondering where Quinn and David lived. I think the implication was that you guys were out of town. But I think people liked David and I know I would’ve liked to see him stick around and I came up with a way to have him stick but I didn’t know if he actually lived in Tree Hill or not.
Munn: I don’t think he does live in Tree Hill.
Holroyd: I don’t think he does either.
Munn: But what’s your way to make him stick? I want to hear it! I like it!
TDW: Well, David was in his own way a filmmaker. I guess documentary was more his style but he liked filmmaking. And you have another filmmaker in Tree Hill–you have Julian [Austin Nichols] making his movie. And I can easily see David trying to get a job on the set to be near Quinn, even though she’s moving on with Clay. You can just extend the length of that triangle, where Quinn has to deal with having her ex-husband living in town with them and working with her sister’s friend’s boyfriend, ‘cause everybody in Tree Hill is connected.
Munn: And Julian needs a good guy friend to hang out with.
TDW: He does.
Munn: And David needs a nice girlfriend who, perhaps, is a schoolteacher.
Holroyd: Named Lauren.
Munn: Named Lauren.
Holroyd: That’s a petition! Petition it! David and Lauren!
TDW: That would be great! Could you imagine if we got that going?
Holroyd: That would be insane.
TDW: I think working on Julian’s film is a totally plausible way to have David stick around and evolve into more than just Quinn’s ex.
Munn: I think you’re right.
Holroyd: Put it out there, Shari! Put it out there!
Munn: It’s up to you! I think you’re right. I think the Julian connection makes a lot of sense.
TDW: With Lauren, in 7.12 [Some Roads Leave Nowhere], that was the last episode before a hiatus for us and we saw Skills go to L.A. and people thought that was it for Skills and that therefore that would be it for Lauren. Did you think that, too, or did you know about the plans to tie her in with Mouth [Lee Norris] later on?
Munn: I didn’t know it was going to be with Mouth. I knew something was going to happen. They had the idea to have Skills come back and I would be dating someone else. I didn’t know it was going to be Mouth. So during those first scenes when I hang out with Mouth [Episode 7.14, Family Affair], I come and clean up the apartment and all that–
Holroyd: CSI-style.
Munn: Yeah, the CSI kind of stuff. We didn’t know we were going to be paired off. What I was told is that the writers watched those scenes and they could see a lot chemistry between the two of us and wrote to that.
TDW: Wow! I never would’ve guessed that it happened in that order!
Munn: I know! Me either. I remember actually talking to Paul Johansson, who directed that episode. I was like, “Look. I’ve been hanging out with this guy all day”–and typically on shows like One Tree Hill when that happens, usually romance springs from it–and I remember saying to him, “Do we need to be really careful to avoid any sort of romantic tension?” And he said, “Don’t play to it and don’t play against it. Just play the scene as it is. You don’t need to think that far ahead.” And I was like, “Okay, fine.” But I still didn’t expect us to end up having any sort of liaison, that’s for sure.
TDW: That’s such a treat to know because people watched those scenes and said, “Oh, I know what’s coming! Mouth and Lauren are getting together!”
Munn: Right! They saw it before us. That’s what some of the writers told me. It’s kind of neat that they do pay attention to that stuff and they write to it. I love that.
TDW: So then you did find out and what was your reaction?
Munn: I felt bad! As Allison, I felt bad because of Millie [Lisa Goldstein]. I didn’t feel bad because of Lauren’s relationship with Skills because of what had come out in some of the scenes. Skills moved. He didn’t ask me to move with him. When I pressured him, he was like “Fine, go with me” but that felt like it was half-hearted so I said no. And then we kept up a phone relationship for a while but then it just petered out, like he stopped calling me. I think it had been from the time Skills left and Lauren started having feelings for Mouth, I think it had been a while. It wasn’t just like a month. I think it was 3-6 months in the way the linear storyline goes. So I think that’s enough time for a relationship to peter out. Lauren kind of knew the relationship was done. We’ll see what happens with Skills. Maybe it wasn’t done on his end.
TDW: I do have a question about that but I want to go to back to something you just said. You as Allison felt bad for Millie?
Munn: Yeah, because I think their relationship has been so sweet. I love Mouth and Millie together. Of course, over the course of this season, she has treated Mouth very, very poorly and I do think Mouth deserves better. I’m pulled in both directions. When I was watching it–it’s funny, because I don’t watch it as the actress; I watch it as a fan. I love the show. So when I was watching the episode when he asked Lauren out, I was rooting for him. I wanted him to ask Lauren out because I cared for Mouth and I feel like right now Lauren is much more stable choice than Millie–however, that being said, I really do like him and Millie together.
TDW: I’m already seeing two fandoms brewing. People who not only think Mouth and Millie are the endgame for Mouth’s character but just have been attached to this couple since season 5. And then there’s other people that are just tired of the drama, tired of the back and forth and also really like Lauren and see potential in the coupling with Mouth.
Munn: Mouth is such a stand-up guy. He’s so good. And so far what we’ve seen from Lauren is that she’s grounded and good as well. I can see why the fans who are really protective of Mouth would be glad that he gravitates towards Lauren now because she seems safe. Millie’s not safe right now.
TDW: In the last episode [Episode 7.18, The Last Day Of Our Acquaintance], we first saw Lauren say, “I’ll be your partner-in-crime but I’m not going to be your rebound.” And at the end of the episode, she kind of says, “Okay, I was kind of lying. I was worried that you were going to be my rebound.” Where do you think she was coming from there?
Munn: Well, actually, in that–Joe Davola was directing that episode and he had a really great note at the beginning of that scene. And what you guys didn’t see because I think it was cut out of the episode was that a lot of us were at the funeral. You didn’t see us all at the funeral for Haley’s [Bethany Joy Galleoti] mom.
TDW: Wow! Thank you for telling me that! Keep going, please!
Munn: There was a moment in the script that was cut out of what you guys saw. Mouth looks over at Millie and Millie smiles at him and I look at that. No, wait, I don’t think Millie’s smiles at him. It was just a moment where they pan across and they see Millie, they see Mouth and then Mouth sees me. And pretty soon, like I don’t think it’s the next scene but it’s pretty close to that, I come and knock on the door and I say my piece to Mouth. So Joe had a really good note for me. He was like, “Look. You’ve just been to a funeral. You’ve seen that life is short. You’re feeling lonely. Carpe diem.”
TDW: Nothing against the way they do the show or anything but that’s so helpful to know. That would’ve enhanced things, because you two only had two scenes in that episode that aired.
Munn: That’s true.
TDW: You had the first scene where you’re walking in town and the scene when you come to his apartment. It was very little of you two and some people said it felt weird having that second scene mixed in with the trauma of Lydia’s [Bess Armstrong] death and the funeral and what Haley was going through afterward. But there’s such another layer to it when you tell me now that you guys were at the funeral and that kind of motivated Lauren.
Munn: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I see what you’re saying. I guess it did help them [in how it aired] because they wanted the audience to be surprised by her actions but you’re right, character-wise, it did seem to come a little bit more out of nowhere.
TDW: Let me just ask you another question about the funeral. Was there any planned dialogue for that or was it always just supposed to be montage-style with a song playing?
Munn: Actually, now that you say that, I remember when we were shooting it the only dialogue was this woman who did the service. It was the typical “ashes to ashes, death to death” speech. It was sort of chilling. I was surprised to see how short that sequence was. But I think the sisters did such a great, great job–Joy and Shantel and Lindsey. They did such a great job. They made me want to cry when I saw that. But I did notice that the “ashes to ashes, death to the death,” that whole speech was taken out. So there was definitely that dialogue and there were other moments. I know you got to see Brooke [Sophia Bush] and Julian. I forget who else they showed at the funeral but they did film me and Millie and Mouth also.
TDW: That’s good to know.
Munn: It made a lot of sense for me when I read it. I hadn’t even thought about that [since] because sometimes when you’re watching the episodes, you forget what you originally said or the original flow. I didn’t even think that that might be a little jarring. That makes a lot of sense now.
TDW: In the promo for the next batch episodes, there’s a really quick scene of Skills punching Mouth. Can you tease a little bit about what gets them to that point?
Munn: Well, I think you can probably guess what might lead to that, as per what we just talked about.
TDW: Well, you mentioned before how to you it seemed the relationship with Skills petered out because he stopped calling. But when he walks in the door in that last episode, he’s back to calling you “baby” and I got the sense that maybe things weren’t so over.
Munn: Yeah, you might be right with that. It’s funny how things can be miscommunicated but from what I knew and what Lauren knew, he had stopped calling. Lauren had called him more and he had quit returning her phone calls. And she had relayed that information to Mouth, not to lead him on but because they were friends. She was confiding in him, like, “We don’t really talk anymore. He doesn’t call me back. I don’t even know how he’s doing.” She was actually finding out more of how he was doing through Mouth than through actually talking to Skills. So when he walks back in the door and he’s like “Hey, baby!” completely casual, I think Lauren was really taken aback by that.
TDW: I think we were, too. So now I guess you’re going to have these two friends pitted against each other.
Munn: Yeah, and it’s a shame because they have a really solid friendship. I hate that for them.
TDW: And their friendship goes back to the very first episode of the show.
Munn: Yep, the pilot. That’s a shame. Never let a lady come between you, boys!
TDW: Well, if the show lived by that, we would’ve missed out on countless storylines!
Munn: Scott just whispered “bros before hos.” That’s a twist on the “Clothes Over Bros.”
TDW: Well, that’s something Brooke and Peyton [Hilarie Burton] used to say to each other. They used to say, “Hos over bros” and once it became “Hos over psychos” [Episode 4.16, You Call It Madness, But I Call It Love]. Anyway, I know Antwon tweeted that he’s in like three of the last four episodes.
Munn: Yes, I think so. I’m forgetting how many we shot. I know he’s around, definitely. I don’t know that he’s in all of the last ones. I don’t know how much I can say without giving away too much. He’s in–sorry, I’m counting–yep, you’re right. It’s three of the last four, correct.
TDW: Can you say how many more you are in?
Munn: I just wrapped for the season and they have another one to shoot. I don’t think they’ll get mad at me for saying this but I’m not in the last two.
TDW: Oh, you’re not in the last two?
Munn: No, but I don’t think that has anything to do with the story. They’re just wrapping their season and I’m not one of the main characters, you know?
TDW: Okay, so you’re not in 7.21 or 22.
Munn: Right. But that’s not a big spoiler anything. It’s not like I get shot or I drown or anything.
TDW: What are you hearing about a season eight?
Munn: You know, nobody really knows what quite to think yet. I look at the ratings versus the ratings of other shows on the network and I think we stand a pretty good chance.
Holroyd: If you’re asking me as a fan, I think it’s definitely going to get picked up for an eighth season.
Munn: I like that. I like where his head is at! I really hope so.
Holroyd: But that’s me as a fan.
Munn: That’s Scott as fan. Honestly, I talked to the major players this week and nobody really knows for sure. But everyone is very optimistic, if that helps.
TDW: Do you know if you have a future on the show if there’s an eighth season?
Munn: You know, I never know. I would hope so but I never know.
Holroyd: David and Lauren!
Munn: David and Lauren all the way!
TDW: I would totally buy it. You guys already have the chemistry.
Munn: I know. Lauren and David and David and Skills. Oops, sorry, not David and Skills–that would be a whole different show! Who else can David date? Hmm…
Holroyd: David and Haley, what?!
Munn: Aw, no! That would be a disaster!
Holroyd: All the Scott sisters, yes!
Munn: No way!
TDW: Scott, We’ll see you next on Chuck, right?
Holroyd: Yes.
Munn: It’s very exciting. He has a really good arc on Chuck.
Holroyd: Here’s the only problem: it airs Monday nights at 8!
TDW: I know!
Holroyd: So people have to be able to record two shows at once or have two televisions. They have to watch One Tree Hill.
Munn: They have to watch One Tree Hill! If you have to choose, choose One Tree Hill but if you have another option, choose One Tree Hill and Chuck.
Holroyd: Right, there you go. I think my stuff starts in a couple of months, probably mid-April, late April. I don’t know when the season ends for One Tree Hill.
Munn: I don’t know. Shari, you probably have a better idea than I do.
TDW: The show comes back from hiatus April 26 and if it airs the last four episodes in a row, that takes through May 17.
Holroyd: Uht-oh, there’s gonna be an overlap. You need to be able to record two shows at once.
TDW: So right now the next step for you both, besides Chuck, is pilot season.
Munn: Oh, good lord, it’s a nightmare!
TDW: Can you tell me a little bit about that nightmare?
Munn: It’s a nightmare in the best way. The networks are buying a lot of pilots this season. So we have been completely inundated with auditions. Sometimes it’s up to three a day and it’s exhausting. It’s one of those where you have a change of clothes in your car and you go to one and you either change in the bathroom of that one or in the car on the way to the next one. It’s been pretty crazy.
TDW: Are any of these for leading roles?
Munn: Oh, yeah. They’re all for leading roles.
TDW: That’s awesome!
Munn: Yeah, it’s great. We’re reading some really good scripts. There’s good stuff out there right now. It’s an exciting time for actors in L.A.
TDW: By chance, any of the same projects?
Munn: No! I wish!
Holroyd: That’s why One Tree Hill was such a blessing. That doesn’t often, if ever.
Munn: The planets really have to be aligned for you to even get a job. So for you to get a job co-starring your husband, it’s pretty close to impossible.
TDW: I sincerely hope it happens. It’s great having you both on One Tree Hill but it would be even better to see you in a scene together.
Munn: It would be really fun to act with Scott. I’m a huge fan of his. It would be a lot of fun. And it would be really fun to continue to get to do interviews this way because we are having a blast!
TDW: I am, too! Are you guys still drinking your wine?
Munn: Yes, we actually just poured more!
Holroyd: Cheers! (glasses clink)
TDW: I heard that! That’s great. I really appreciate your time.
Munn: Absolutely, Shari. I have to say I really respect what you do. I’ve been to your site and I think you have really great interviews. You ask such great questions. You get some really cool interviews and I just have to say I’m super-impressed with you.
TDW: Wow, thank you very much! That means a lot to me. Can I print that?!
Munn: Print it and reproduce it anywhere you want! I’m very much impressed with your journalistic skills.
Holroyd: And we’re excited that this is our first dual interview. You got the exclusive.
Munn: Yeah, you’ve got the MunnRoyds.
TDW: The MunnRoyds! Do people actually call you that?
Munn: Yes!
Holroyd: We do!
Munn: We call ourselves that and we forced our friends to call us that. It could be the title of a sitcom, “Hangin’ With The MunnRoyds.”
Holroyd: There’s Brangelina; we’re the MunnRoyds!
TDW: That works!
Munn: It sounds like a terrible infection you’d get on your foot.
Holroyd: “Oh man, I’ve got a terrible case of the MunnRoyds!”
Munn: But it works for us.
TDW: Allison, have you thought about changing your name professionally?
Munn: I haven’t.
Holroyd: No.
Munn: Holroyd is a pretty difficult name. I’m taking it personally and it’ll be on my driver’s license and all that eventually but professionally, as Scott can tell you–he’s begged me, “Honey, I promise you, you don’t have to take this name!”–it’s a burden sometimes.
Holroyd: She’s worked very hard to make a name for herself as Allison Munn. She’s made a great name for herself. It’s hard enough to have a career in this business but it’s even harder with a name like Holroyd. I’m proud of my name–
Munn: I love your name!
Holroyd: But it doesn’t make things easier.
Munn: You have to spell it about five times with each person.
Holroyd: My name is not Scott Holroyd, it’s “Scott Holroyd, H-O-L-R-O-Y-D.”
Munn: “No, it’s H-O-L-R-O-Y-D. No, not I-D, Y-D. H-O-L-No, yes, H-O-L-R-O-Y-D, yes, that’s the name!”
Holroyd: That’s my goal. I just want people to know my name.
H & M: (singing) “Say my name, say my name”
TDW: Can I make a little request, Scott? Actually to both of you. You both need to tweet a bit more.
Munn: I know! It’s hard. I get nervous. And I know Scott gets even more nervous than I do.
TDW: Why are you nervous?
Munn: Because it goes out there to a lot of people! I get shy, Shari, I get shy!
TDW: I think fans just love it because it’s really unprecedented access. Before this, we were lucky if people had official sites and actually updated them. So this is a great connection. If we don’t interact with you, we’re still hearing from you and the fans just feel closer to you.
Munn: You’re right. It’s true. And I like having that kind of access, where I can write fans back. I usually direct message fans. You feel like you have access but you don’t feel completely accessible, which is nice. I think Twitter’s really great for that.
TDW: There’s actually a fan account on there for you, linked to a fansite, I think.
Munn: Really? I’ll google myself later and find it. Awesome! I’ll do that tonight.
TDW: You guys should start a joint Web site, how about that?
Munn: Babe, we should start a joint Web site and then we could do Flip videos of us hanging out.
Holroyd: That wouldn’t be boring.
Munn: That wouldn’t be boring at all. I think it’s the need to feel creative that’s a little bit stressful.
Holroyd: The need to be witty.
Munn: Yeah, I have to think of something smart and funny to say. That’s where I get stymied a little bit.
TDW: Two suggestions.
Munn: Okay, perfect.
TDW: Mike Grubbs [Grubbs], he has a blog. And he does little blog posts but he also does short little videos from the set or other places in his life. They’re maybe, like, a minute long but they’re funny. And Jana Kramer [Alex] and her fiancé, I guess it’s his Web site but there’s like episodes of their life on there and we actually got to see footage of his marriage proposal.
Munn: I saw some of that and that was incredible! That was so cool to be able to see. I love Jana Kramer. But I haven’t seen all of their videos. I have to check those out.
TDW: I have to admit I haven’t seen all of them either and it’s kind of weird that I don’t actually know them but I saw them get engaged.
Munn: I know, right?
TDW: But, anyway, I think people love to think the characters on their show are together in real life and that can be a blessing and curse but here we have two people who are together and I think people would be interested in seeing more of it if you guys were willing to put it out there.
Munn: That’s a cool idea. Maybe we will. Babe, what do you think?
Holroyd: Shari, you may have a point.
Munn: I forced him to get the Twitter account. He’s been very hesitant to do any of the social media stuff.
TDW: I know it’s hard for some people who worry about it being a big invasion of privacy and the stalking that happens in real life is transferred to online.
Munn: Yes. And I think for people who are in a position to be stalked, like pretty famous people, I can understand why they’d be scared of that stuff. It would stink I think to be a celebrity and say I’m at a certain place for lunch and have people show up. I think that’s where some people should draw the line.
TDW: The whole service is what you make of it. People say, “I don’t want to know when so-and-so is going to the bathroom.” Well, then don’t follow the person who tells you when they’re going to the bathroom.
Munn: Exactly. You’re right. It’s like when people are upset about something that’s on television. Well, then change the channel. You have a choice.
TDW: Right. People forget what is actually in their control.
Munn: Scott is so excited he can follow Conan [O’Brien] now. That was a big day.
Holroyd: He just joined. He tweets once a day. He doesn’t follow anyone. He’s got like 500,000 followers. His first tweet was…
TDW: With his squirrel!
Holroyd: “Today I interviewed a squirrel in my backyard and then threw to commercial. Somebody help me.”
Munn: I love the fact that in his picture he’s got a full beard.
Holroyd: He’s embracing his unemployment.
TDW: If Conan can tweet once a day, Scott, so can you!
H & M: Oh!!!!
Munn: Way to bring it back, Shari. Shari for the win!
Holroyd: Alright, I got you. I accept your challenge.
TDW: I’m going to hold you to that! I’ll give you tomorrow off because I’m going to publish this Monday night. Monday can start your Twitter Challenge!
Munn: Can it be a week? The Twitter Challenge Week? I’ll force him to do it.
Holroyd: Okay.
TDW: Okay, starting Monday, I’ll see if you do it.
Munn: It’s on, Shari. He just said he accepted.
Holroyd: Yeah, I accept. You throw it down and I will accept it!
Munn: I’ll make sure he follows through.
TDW: Well, thank you guys so much. If nothing else, I’m just honored to be in your history book as your first joint interview.
Holroyd: There you go!
Munn: We’re the ones who are honored. We had a good time. We really did. This was fun.
TDW: Well, thank you so much. Keep drinking your wine, relax, have a good night.
Munn: Thank you so much, Shari. You, too!
TDW: Goodnight guys!
Come back Sunday for another exclusive interview!
TDW Interview Index
Tags: Alex, Allison Munn, Antwon Tanner, Austin Nichols, Bess Armstrong, Bethany Joy Galleotti, Brangelina, Brooke, Christmas, Chuck, Clay, Clothes Over Bros, Conan O'Brien, CSI, Dan, David, Dirty Sexy Money, Family Affair, Flip, Grubbs, Haley, Hangin' With The MunnRoyds, Hilarie Burton, I and Love and You, Jackson Brundage, Jamie, Jana Kramer, Jerry Rice, Joe Davola, Julian, L.A., Lauren, Lee Norris, Lindsey McKeon, Lisa Goldstein, Los Angeles, Lydia, Mark Schwahn, Mike Grubbs, Millie, Mouth, MunnRoyds, Myrtle Beach, NFL, North Carolina, One Tree Hill, Paul Johansson, Peyton, Quinn, Robert Buckley, Say My Name, Scott Holroyd, Shantel VanSanten, Skills, Some Roads Lead Nowhere, Sophia Bush, Taylor, That 70's Show, Tree Hill, Twitter, What I Like About You, Wilmington, You Call It Madness But I Call It Love
Categories : One Tree Hill
Exclusive: One Tree Hill’s Cullen Moss on the Evolution of Junk, Making of Dear John and Blood Done Sign My Name
Think One Tree Hill is the only place to catch Cullen Moss? Not true, my friends, not true. In the month of February alone, Moss had two movies come out in theaters, the based-on-a-novel Dear John and the based-on-a-true-story Blood Done Sign My Name.
But there’s no denying Moss is most familiar to us TDWs for his role as Junk Moretti, a character we first met way back in 2003 in the One Tree Hill pilot. In our exclusive interview, Moss talks about his longevity on the show, improvising in Dear John and the connection he has to Bethany Joy Galeotti’s The Notebook musical.
TeenDramaWhore: Do you remember what your audition for One Tree Hill was like?
Cullen Moss: Yes, I do. It was a surprise. It started with a call from my agent that the [casting agency] Fincannons wanted to see me. I just this past year found the piece a paper where I wrote the details down. I wrote “Jump McCready, 17-year-old baller.” This was when I was 27! My agent, she even told me, “Now, I asked them if they knew how old are you” and she asked if they were sure they wanted to see me and they did. I went in and I found out it was not Jump McCready. But for some reason, that name, Jump McCready, made me go in and do this character-y New York dialect. I guess they liked it. The line was about somebody stinkin’ and needed deodorant. It sounded like something from The Bowery Boys in a 1940s movie. Or somebody out of The Sandlot. It was weird. But when I went back for the call-back, I said, “You know, I can lose that accent. I don’t have to do that” because I realized that it was supposed to be set in North Carolina, and they were like “No, no, no. Are you from New York?” and I said I wasn’t. I forget who was there. [Creator] Mark Schwahn and…
TDW: [Executive producers] Mike Tollin? Brian Robbins?
Moss: Yeah, I think they were both there. I’m pretty sure Brian Robbins was. Anyway, they were like, “No. Keep it. We like it.” So I did. At the time, I was supposed to go over to Japan to visit my brother who was living there but my agent kept saying, “You’re still in the running. You’re still in the running.” It was this long process. So I had to postpone the trip to Japan and then the final audition was a shoot-out. They set up a basketball hoop outside the casting office. I was by no means 17 and by lesser means a baller. I would play little pick-up games with my friends but I was terrible. I had poor form. I would describe my court-style as frantic. I practiced the night before the shoot-out and I tried to pass to one of my friends and my back went out! I was just feeling decrepit and old and useless. But the morning of, I stretched it out and kind of played through the pain. It was down between me and a black guy for the role. He had played high school basketball and stuff but, for some reason, he wasn’t hitting his shots. I was talking trash, needlessly because I was horrible, but all my garbage I was shooting was going in! I remember Mark Schwahn saying, “Your form is horrible! How are you making these shots?” but I couldn’t miss that day. Then I got the part.
TDW: Did you ever expect all these years later that your character would still be around?
Moss: No, I didn’t. Vaughn Wilson, who is such an awesome and cool dude, plays Fergie. Usually when we would shoot, it was like smoke and fire. One of us wasn’t working unless the other was. They would call us in together, Junk and Fergie, Junk and Fergie. I was working at the studios, actually, during the second or third seasons, in the lighting and grip department. I was in the shop, inventorying equipment and fixing equipment. I would deliver stuff to the set of One Tree Hill and try to get the scoop–was I in the next script? I remember somebody at the beginning of the third season saying, “Oh, yeah. You’re coming up soon” and then they looked at the script later and were like, “No, I think it was just Fergie in the script.” It happened another time, too, where he was working and I wasn’t so I thought maybe they were just done with me and I wanted to find out. So I e-mailed Mark Schwahn and said, “Hey, if you’re done with me, I understand. I don’t want to be on edge here. Just let me know if that’s it. If that’s it, that’s fine and thank you for keeping me around as long as you did.” He answered back–and he’s such a sweet dude–he said “You know, honestly, we really don’t know. We don’t have a point of view for your character. We don’t know where we’re going to go so I don’t have an answer for you but that might be it for you. Oh, and you’re not looking so high school.” And I understood that.
So I wrote him back and pitched an angle. I don’t know if it had anything to with his ultimate decision but I pitched it that maybe Junk was this older loser guy. They had never shot me at the high school. I said maybe he’s the older loser guy who hangs out with the kids on the River Court. He never really grew out of his high school years. He doesn’t have anyone his own age so he’s clinging to this group and maybe he’s the guy who buys the beer. I didn’t know. But I pitched it to him and he brought me back in and I thought it was in that capacity, as the older loser guy who found his niche with these guys. I thought it was that until they had me going to prom [Episode 4.15, Prom Night At Hater High] and graduation [Episode 4.20, The Birth And Death Of The Day]. I was like, “Okay. So I actually graduated. I actually went to prom.” They actually had Fergie and I go together. We didn’t have dates. So we walked in together.
Mark Schwahn, he’s a loyal guy. Our characters certainly have not been so integral that they couldn’t have just been dropped at this point. There wouldn’t have been some huge outcry from the general public that watches One Tree Hill, I don’t think, if Junk and Fergie disappeared. But they did keep us around. I was surprised when I found out that there were people who actually knew who Junk was, that people did watch the show that intently. “They’re the old crew. They’re the River Court kids.” I think Schwahn saw that, too, and felt the need to bring back those roots, every now and then, to the River Court and to where the pilot began, the story began. Throughout whatever changes have gone on, he’s brought us back to represent those roots and certainly occasionally for comic relief. It is kind of a surprise that seven years later I’m still playing Junk and that, in the small capacity I’m in, people know who Junk and Fergie are and appreciate us. It makes me feel like maybe if I was gone, I would be missed. I don’t know.
TDW: I think it’s remarkable because the show has had tons and tons of supporting characters over the years and you two have outlasted nearly all of them.
Moss: Yeah. I think part of it might be due to the fact that we’re local actors. They don’t have to fly us in. So part of it may be a budgetary issue. But Mark’s been loyal and kept us in mind when there’s gatherings and weddings and stuff. He’s like, “Even if you don’t have lines in the episodes, you guys need to be there. You’re part of the crew.” He hasn’t forgotten the roots of the show and that’s cool. While we’ve never come in and had very specific storylines or characters arcs, he’s felt us somewhat integral and necessary, I guess.
TDW: Your most recent episode was the John Hughes tribute [Episode 7.15, Don’t You Forget About Me]. Were you a fan of Weird Science and Home Alone before then?
Moss: I was with Weird Science. I hadn’t watched Home Alone in its entirety until this last year. I showed it to my six-year-old son and we got to enjoy that together. But I was a big fan of Weird Science.
TDW: What was it like filming those scenes with Jackson [Brundage, Jamie]?
Moss: It was a lot of fun. He’s always fun to work with. He was such a cool addition to the show when he came in. It’s cool whenever the cameras stop rolling and we get to horse around with him. Actually in the paintball scene [in 7.15], there was a point in the shooting where they used stunt guys. Vaughn and I took the first few hits with special effects guys firing the paintball guns because they were not entirely trusting of Jackson’s aim, not to hit us in the face or the cracks of our padding. But once they got the stunt guys in our places, they let him have a turn with the gun and he did not miss. He was nailing them repeatedly. He was a good shot.
TDW: On some level, that doesn’t surprise me. He’s proven he’s good at like every single thing the show has handed him.
Moss: He is. He’s such a little fella. I’m sure his percentage on the basketball court is better than mine. He puts up these wild shots and they go in. He’s good. He’s a sporty little fella. He’s just a lot of fun. I’ve been doing this show longer than my son’s been around. He was born [in season 1] so it’s an interesting timeline, just to think I’ve been doing this show as long as its taken to this little human being to become who he is. The point of that being is that I’ve got a six-year-old kid and he’s a little younger than Jackson, but I love kids and interacting with them. So Jackson is also a joy to be around.
TDW: Have you heard anything about the chances of there being an eighth season?
Moss: Probably as much as you have. I’ve got two theories. One, we will get an eighth season and my second theory is that we won’t.
TDW: Very scientific.
Moss: That’s as far as it goes. I really have no idea. I know the show was doing well with ratings towards the beginning of this season. I don’t know quite where it is right now. I don’t know who wants it, who wants to continue. I don’t know who doesn’t. So I don’t know what will factor into it but I’d love for there to be another season, of course for myself and for the Wilmington crew, too. From the PAs to the DPs, the grips, the electrics–that’s kind of the only gig in town right now outside of independents. I’m hoping all the talented guys on the crew can stay employed another season. And hopefully by the time the show has seen its last episode, there will be enough other work in town due to the film incentives that were recently passed so they can stay employed and stay in their own town.
TDW: I have to congratulate you on the success of Dear John. You guys took down Avatar in your first week!
Moss: We did. Our special unit dudes tackled those blue aliens. That was a shock. It was pretty cool to be a part of that.
TDW: For that audition, did you go in for a specific one of John’s army pals or a generic one? Because I thought they all had unique personalities but I wasn’t sure if that was determined by the script or if you brought that to the role.
Moss: Well, it was a little bit of both. To answer the first question, I originally auditioned for one of Savannah’s friends. And then they brought me in for Rooster, who was who I got cast as. As far as what I brought to it, that was something again with the name. When I hear names, I put voices to them and with Rooster I decided maybe he was a Southern guy and brought that to the audition. I got called back and the director Lasse Hallstrom was there and I said, “Now I don’t know if you want him to be Southern” but he liked what I had done. He asked where I was from and I said North Carolina and he said, “Oh, but you don’t have an accent?” and I said, “I do but I don’t have the accent I auditioned with.” I made him a little more Southern.
Hallstrom did let us bring a lot to it. Very little of what you heard my character saying was scripted. I’m trying to think of any of it was. There was “requesting to extend my stay as well, sir”–that was scripted. But he would let us improvise a lot. There’s that scene where John drops his letters in the mud before he burns them off. Hallstrom decided at the last minute, “Let’s pop this shot off” and he asked if I would walk by and say something. I asked, “Anything in particular?” and he said, “No, maybe you can just say something smart-ass to him, make a little joke about it. Or ask him what’s wrong. It’s up to you.” So we went over a few variations of it and did it. And the scene in the humvee just before John gets in a firefight, there was this whole little written monologue about being a little upset about being a soldier sent overseas and there not being any combat where we were. We tried that and he said, “No, it sounds too soldier-y, too military. Can you just tell a story?” And I said, “What kind of story?” “I don’t know. Any kind of story. Something personal.” So I told part of a story from a buddy of mine, a fishing story about a catfish eating a squirrel and the squirrel getting away and swimming to the shore. So I did that in one take and I was just ad-libbing in the surroundings for other stuff. So we all did get to bring a lot of our stuff to it. Hallstrom would just try to breathe life into it by saying, “Forget the script. Here’s the situation. Act as you would naturally.”
TDW: You also have a new movie out now, Blood Done Sign My Name. What can you tell me about that?
Moss: That was a great experience because it was the only time I’ve played an actual real-life person. It’s a true story. It’s based on the memoirs of Tim Tyson. He observed the racial tensions in Oxford, North Carolina in the 1970s, where riots and protests came about when three local white men–a business owner and his two sons–weren’t convicted of brutally beating and shooting to death a young black Vietnam veteran who had just gotten back. I was cast as one of those sons, Larry Teel. It’s an important story. As a North Carolinian and as well as an American, you don’t hear all these stories. You hear about the civil rights movement and it’s kind of confined to this time in the ‘60s but you find out shit was not fixed in the ‘70s and it’s still not. That should be common knowledge but you don’t hear these little stories. It’s not a part of North Carolina history. They teach North Carolina history in their schools and you don’t hear about this. It was cool to be a part of a true story. There were people on set that were there during the riots, during that time, and saw the tension after these three men went on trial and got off scot-free when there were witnesses. It was really interesting. It was a great experience.
TDW: You also worked with fellow One Tree Hill stars on it.
Moss: Yeah, I worked with Lee Norris [Mouth] and Michael May [Chuck]. It was cool to have Lee there. It was comforting.
TDW: Speaking of One Tree Hill stars, you also narrated The True-Love Tale of Boyfriend and Girlfriend, which starred Hilarie Burton [Peyton] and Austin Nichols [Julian].
Moss: Yes, I did. That was really cool. [Writer-director] Nick [Gray] and Hilarie asked me to come in and do that. I think they both had seen me do really broad kind of character-y voices from different things that I have done so they wanted me to come in and provide them with this crusty narrator guy. It was a lot of fun to kind of disappear into that voice.
TDW: If I didn’t know that you were the narrator, I never would’ve guessed.
Moss: Well, thank you. We toyed around with a couple of voices but that was pretty much the first idea and they liked it. It was like a Southern-fried William S. Burroughs.
TDW: I think I read that your girlfriend was on One Tree Hill recently.
Moss: Yes! She’s awesome. Madison Weidberg. She is an incredible actress and quite a talented actor. We actually met doing a play in Wilmington. We met [in 2008] during Debbie Does Dallas: The Musical–real high-brow stuff. But it was a blast. Anyway, she was involved with The Notebook musical, the workshop that Bethany Joy [Galeotti, Haley] did. She played a couple of characters in that and she did a great job. She and Bethany Joy got along really well and so when the opportunity came for back-up singers for the episode where Haley has her big concert [Episode 7.13, Weeks Go By Like Days], she called upon some of the girls that had been in The Notebook.
TDW: That’s very cool. What’s next for you?
Moss: Since Dear John, I got to do a part in The Conspirator, which is a Robert Redford-directed film about the trial of Mary Surratt after the assassination of Lincoln. I play a senior officer in the war department and I get to have a nice scene with Kevin Kline–and under the director of Robert Redford, so that was amazing! To be there and looking at Robert Redford’s face telling me what to do–that was a real thrill. Then I went down not long ago and had a day on The Hungry Rabbit Jumps, which is a Nicholas Cage thriller. It’ll be out in a year or so. And I just got cast in Army Wives; that’s a Lifetime show that shoots in Charleston. There’s a possibility that that’ll be a recurring role.
TDW: That’s exciting.
Moss: Yeah, I just shot that this past week. I guess that’s the next thing that will be seen. Vaughn and I worked on another One Tree episode about Skills [Antwon Tanner] coming back and some drama there with Mouth.
TDW: Is Antwon in that episode?
Moss: Oh, yeah. He is.
TDW: That’s great. We’ll keep our eyes peeled for that and everything else you have going on.
Moss: I’ve got a couple pilots out there that are kind of little independent ventures that I’m hoping will come to fruition. I shot a pilot called Hardwell with some good friends. It’s a comedy we shot and pitched to FX. Nothing’s happened with it yet but we’re crossing our fingers but not holding our breath. And there’s a golf pilot I shot with some guys in town here about a golf pro. Wilmington is really cool. There’s so many creative, talented people in this town that just drum up [projects] when there’s not any big things in town. The independent film scene in town is thriving and alive and will hopefully get realized and make some dough. When there’s nothing big happening, you can usually find something to do, something to act in, some way to work whether it’s for free and the thrill of the project or what.
TDW: I wish you the best of luck of everything.
Moss: Well, thank you so much. Thanks a lot, Shari.
Come back next Sunday for another exclusive interview!
Tags: Abraham Lincoln, Antwon Tanner, Army Wives, Austin Nichols, Avatar, Bethany Joy Galeotti, Blood Done Sign My Name, Brian Robbins, Charleston, Chuck, Cullen Moss, Dear John, Debbie Does Dallas: The Musical, Don't You Forget About Me, Fergie, Fincannon, FX, Haley, Hardwell, Hilarie Burton, Home Alone, Jackson Brundage, Jamie, Japan, John Hughes, Julian, Junk, Junk Moretti, Larry Teel, Lasse Hallstom, Lee Norris, Madison Weidberg, Mark Schwahn, Mary Surratt, Michael May, Mike Tollin, Mouth, Nicholas Cage, Nick Gray, North Carolina, One Tree Hill, Oxford, Prom Night, River Court, Robert Redford, Skills, The Birth And Death Of The Day, The Bowery Boys, The Conspirator, The Hungry Rabbit Jumps, The Notebook, The Sandlot, The True-Love Tale of Boyfriend and Girlfriend, Tim Tyson, Vaughn Wilson, Vietnam, Weeks Go By Like Days, Weird Science, William S. Burroughs, Wilmington
News Roundup: One Tree Hill, 90210, Gossip Girl and More
I have confirmed that Antwon Tanner (Skills, One Tree Hill) will appear in at least one episode of OTH later this season, despite being sentenced last month to three months in prison. As I reported then, Tanner hadn’t been fired from the show and he has until the end of April to begin serving his sentence, so this news makes perfect sense. I will have a spoiler on Tanner’s appearance on Sunday.
Change of plans again: Robert Buckley (Clay, One Tree Hill) will indeed be at the Wilmington police fundraiser tomorrow.
Michael Grubbs (Grubbs, One Tree Hill) chose Tobias’ poem as the winner of our contest.
TVGuide.com and ScreenStar.com have interviews with Bryan Greenberg (Jake, One Tree Hill) about his new movie The Good Guy.
Variety has an article on Glee, which mentions One Tree Hill, Beverly Hills 90210 and Gossip Girl.
Monday is the start of the showbizzle Hollywood Challenge, where college improv teams and sketch comedy groups can compete fo the chance to work with Charles Rosin (executive producer, Beverly Hills 90210), among other prizes.
Caroline McWilliams (LuAnn Pruit, Beverly Hills 90210) died last week. She was 64.
MTV.com has an article on the AnnaLynne McCord (Naomi, 90210) Shape cover story.
Tristan Wilds (Dixon, 90210) and Matt Lanter (Liam, 90210) are participating in GameStop’s Bad Company 2 Celebrity Tournament.
Lanter spoke with E! Online about working with Leighton Meester (Blair, Gossip Girl) on The Roommate and gave some 90210 spoilers.
Brian Austin Green (David, Beverly Hills 90210), Meester and Ed Westwick (Chuck, Gossip Girl) are included in a PopEater list of Actors Who (Sort of) Secretly Rock.
Hilary Duff (Olivia, Gossip Girl) is engaged to hockey player Mike Comrie.
Aaron Tveit (Tripp, Gossip Girl) will appear on an episode of Ugly Betty in March.
PEOPLE.com has Gossip Girl spoilers.
PopMatters has an interesting article they say is about Chuck vs. Gossip Girl but there’s a whole lotta O.C. in there.
Olivia Wilde (Alex, The O.C.) will be among the presenters at the Film Independent Spirit Awards next month.
This is an interesting article on the connection the band Mumford & Sogs has to Orange County and The O.C.
The Boston Herald has an article on James Van Der Beek (Dawson, Dawson’s Creek) and his new movie Formosa Betrayed.
Tags: 90210, Aaron Tveit, Alex, AnnaLynne McCord, Antwon Tanner, Bad Company 2 Celebrity Tournament, Beverly Hills 90210, Blair, Boston Herald, Brian Austin Green, Bryan Greenberg, Caroline McWilliams, Charles Rosin, Chuck, Clay, David, Dawson, Dawson's Creek, Dixon, E! Online, Ed Westwick, Film Independent Spirit Awards, GameStop, Glee, Gossip Girl, Grubbs, Hilary Duff, Jake, James Van Der Beek, Leighton Meester, Liam, LuAnn, LuAnn Pruit, Matt Lanter, Michael Grubbs, Mike Comrie, MTV.com, Mumford & Songs, Naomi, Olivia, Olivia Wilde, One Tree Hill, Orange County, PEOPLE.com, PopEater, PopMatters, Robert Buckley, ScreenStar.com, Shape, Showbizzle, showbizzle Hollywood Challenge, Skills, The Good Guy, The O.C, The Roommate, Tripp, Tristan Wilds, TVGuide.com, Ugly Betty, Variety, Wilmington
Breaking News: One Tree Hill’s Antwon Tanner Sentenced to 3 Months in Jail, Not Fired
Antwon Tanner (Skills, One Tree Hill) has been sentenced to three months in jail prison but has not been fired from the show, according to Newsday.com. After he completes his prison term, however, he will have to serve 5 months of home detention. (Full disclosure: I have freelanced for Newsday.)
In August, Tanner plead guilty to fraud charges. He had been arrested in April and accused of distributing fake social security numbers. Reports at the time said he faced up to 10 years in prison. The CW said nothing had been decided in regards to his future with One Tree Hill.
According to today’s report, the judge said Tanner’s actions were based on “greed.” Tanner, addressing the judge, said he has “worked so hard” and this is “an embarrassment to my family, my kids, my wife, my fans.”
Tanner’s lawyer told Newsday that this was a case of “stupidity,” not greed. He pointed out that Tanner had a six-figure income but has since suffered financially.
In a poll I conducted in August, 44 percent of voters said this should be irrelevant to Tanner’s career on the show. Thirty-seven percent, however, said he should be fired since he was found guilty of a crime. Another 19 percent expressed shock and uncertainty.
Prior to the hiatus, One Tree Hill (episode 7.12) showed Tanner’s character moving to Los Angeles to pursue a new career.
Tanner tweeted last week that life is “hectic” but also said he is working on his own show.
Tanner must surrender to authorities by April 30. I will update if and when the network/show releases a comment.
Tags: Antwon Tanner, Los Angeles, Newsday.com, One Tree Hill, Skills, Twitter
Spoiler: Watch With Kristin
RELEVANT QUESTIONS–DON’T READ IF YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW!!!
Krista in Lafayette Hill, Pa.: Is it true that the CW has decided to air the rest of the episodes of The Beautiful Life later this season? If for some miracle the ratings increased would they bring it back full time?
A representative for the CW tells us, “The status of unaired eps of The Beautiful Life is still to be determined.” My rock-solid source who knows about such things tells me: No truth whatsoever. Sorry, Mischa!
Drew in Walhalla, S.C.: I’m a freak for Chuck and Blair on Gossip Girl! Tell me they aren’t going to break up any time soon.
They aren’t. It’s actually Rufus and Lily’s relationship that will be in a very bad place until the end of the season. From what I understand, it all stems from a letter that Serena’s father is going to send her. And of course, it doesn’t help that Bart Bass is back in the mix!
Rebecca in Miami: How about some One Tree Hill scoop?
Skills is moving to Los Angeles. (Tear. You will be missed in Tree Hill!) Also, a new man may come between Brooke and Julian.
Randall in Ohio: How about some good stuff on 90210? I’ve been getting into it lately.
DVR alert: I’m hearing that episode 12 is going to be awesome. It all goes down at the Winter Wonderland dance, and an intervention takes place for Annie to get her to realize that Jasper is a bad guy. Hmmm, will she believe them? Also, Teddy has feelings for Silver and asks her out, but she rejects him. Wah-wah. Though we hear something will happen between the two later on.
Credit: E! Online
If you recall, The Beautiful Life starred Mischa Barton (Marissa, The O.C.).
We already saw Lily receive the letter from Serena’s father last week and the OTH stuff we already knew as well both from the episodes and spoilish info I posted.
There’s also been spoilish pictures of the Winter Wonderland dance circulating. Can’t remember if I posted them.
Tags: 90210, Annie, Bart, Bart Bass, Blair, Brooke, Chuck, E! Online, Jasper, Julian, Lily, Los Angeles, Marissa, Mischa Barton, One Tree Hill, Rufus, Serena, Silver, Skills, Teddy, The Beautiful Life, The CW, The O.C, Watch with Kristin
Exclusive: One Tree Hill’s Lee Norris Answers YOUR Questions!
This was the third time I’ve interviewed Lee Norris (Mouth, One Tree Hill) but I can’t say “third time’s a charm” because he’s been charming every time. And this time around, as we caught up on the phone, he was gracious enough to answer questions submitted by YOU!
TeenDramaWhore: Since we just spoke a few months ago, today I thought I would do things a little bit differently. I asked my readers, your fans, to send in questions. So this is coming directly from them.
Lee Norris: Alright, very cool.
TDW: So Em wants to know: Do you hang out with any of your One Tree Hill costars in your free time?
Norris: Yeah, absolutely. We’re a tight-knit family and we’ve worked together for going on seven years here so we definitely hang out. Sophia [Bush, Brooke] is a great friend of mine and we have new faces now like Austin [Nichols, Julian], who’s a good kid. You know, pretty much everyone. We all hang out when we can. We work different schedules.
TDW: Okay, and Zella wants to know: In last week’s episode, Mouth got the idea of doing his own sports webshow/website as his new career path, and she’s wondering what web-series, podcasts, and websites do you pay attention to in real-life. And if you are into web 2.0 & social media like we are.
Norris: That’s a good question. I’m not a huge blog-follower. Other than, of course, TeenDramaWhore, a big shout-out there.
TDW: Thank you!
Norris: But I don’t go to too many blog sites. My girlfriend reads some of that stuff and will send interesting things to me so I pretty much rely on her. But otherwise, I’m pretty typical, you know, ESPN.com viewer and I try to keep up with a couple of my favorite bands’ blogs in terms of their upcoming concerts and things like diaries that they’re doing and stuff. So that kind of thing. I’m not a huge–like I don’t do Twitter. I think it’s a really cool thing and I just don’t think I’m exciting enough to have a Twitter personally.
TDW: Awww.
Norris: I don’t. I just feel like, I don’t know. Maybe people would be interested. I guess they probably would considering I have a really cool job and work with some pretty cool people but otherwise I don’t think they really care about me eating my chicken sandwich from Chik-fil-A.
TDW: You never know. Lauren wants to know if the cast is planning on doing anymore tours or charity events?
Norris: You know, those kinds of things have always been driven by our producers. They’re really the force behind that, and the network. So it’s not typically up to the cast, but, that being said, I would love to go out and do any of those kind of things because anytime we get to go out and see the fans face-to-face, it’s obviously the best part of the job for me, to get to meet all of our fans because they’re the reason we’ve been around for so long and it’s nice when you can step outside of this little world we have in Wilmington and see that what we’re doing on this little soundstage is affecting people that live in other countries. It’s just amazing to see that it affects people in a real-life way. So I’d be all for that. And I really want–I’d really like to some, you know, we’ve been over the states quite a bit but it’d be nice to sort of go out and do some international stuff.
TDW: And Lauren also wants to know if you are interested in directing an episode.
Norris: Yeah. I would eventually like to move into directing. It’s been really fun to work with James [Lafferty, Nathan] and Soph and [Bethany Joy Galeotti, Haley] and Paul [Johansson, Dan] and watch them do it. I’m the kind of person–I’m like a major organizer and preparer. I don’t typically like to take something on until I feel like I’ve learned every possible thing about it, and directing is such a huge task that I feel like I’m still sort of figuring that whole world out. I’m observing a lot and trying to learn as much as I can, so that if the opportunity comes along, that, you know, obviously I can do–I can hopefully do–a great job. But, yeah, I’d be interested in that eventually.
TDW: A reader by the username of g90210th wants to know: Besides Mouth, who is your favorite character currently on the show, and why?
Norris: Ooh, that’s a good question! Wow. I don’t know. Is it really bad to say that Dan is my favorite character?
TDW: Not at all! That’s totally fine.
Norris: I don’t know, it’s kind of weird. I don’t know. I’m always, you know, intrigued as to what’s going on in that man’s mind because he’s just so…Obviously I don’t like him at all but I’m always sort of waiting to see what he’s got up his sleeve and currently kind of interesting to me is, is he really the bad guy in his relationship right now or is Rachel [Dannel Harris] the bad guy? They’re both pretty bad. That’s kind of interesting to me at the moment so I guess I’ll go with Dan. I bet most people wouldn’t pick Mouth to say that.
TDW: Keren wants to know: If you could be in any TV series beside OTH, which series would it be? Which character?
Norris: Okay, I’d definitely would love to be on True Blood, which is a show about vampires. I would definitely want to be–well, first of all it’s set in the South and I’m from the South so I definitely just want to be a cool, majorly-centuries-old vampire that’s really really bad-ass, I guess. I don’t know. I didn’t get swept away in the whole Twilight thing but the True Blood craze is pretty cool. It’s a neat show.
TDW: Keren also wants to know: If you could visit any country in the world right now, which country would it be?
Norris: That’s a good question, too. Gosh, you know I’ve always wanted to go to Australia but I’ve never been. I almost studied abroad there in college and it fell through at the last minute. I’ve heard wonderful things about the people and the beaches and the weather. I’d like to do that. It’s just a long flight from here. There’s a number of places I’d like to go but I’ve been lucky to travel to some great countries already and Australia’s one of the ones, unfortunately, I haven’t been to yet.
TDW: Becky wants to know: How has the cast changed this season with the departure of Chad [Michael Murray, Lucas] and Hilarie [Burton, Peyton] and the addition of some of the new actors?
Norris: Obviously we miss Chad and Hil because we worked for them for six years and, you know, it’s tough to say goodbye to people after that long but, you know, I think One Tree Hill is really an ensemble show at its core. I think there’s enough of “old people” around that the show still has interesting stories left to tell about the characters. And I think you still feel the presence of Lucas and Peyton from time to time, which is important. In terms of the new characters, you know, I feel like they’ve tried to balance so you’re not completely immersed in new storylines only without the old stuff. Obviously, you know, Rob Buckley’s character Clay just had a huge revelation in terms of you finding out he’s been married and his wife passed away tragically, and I think that was a really smart way to introduce that character because certainly it’s hard enough to deal with that and obviously he’s kind of good to Nathan and Haley who are a big core part of the show. So I think that’s interesting ,and Jana Kramer [Alex] is really funny and has a lot of energy as Alex so I think they’re doing a good job of balancing the new characters so far.
TDW: Okay. A different Lauren wants to know: When the show eventually ends, what are your plans?
Norris: Well, my plans are hopefully to continue acting because I love it. It’s a passion of mine and I’d like to continue doing it for as along as I can. And I certainly wouldn’t mind moving behind the camera, as I said, to directing. I’d look for those opportunities.
TDW: Okay, this one’s a little bit longer. Lauren also wants to know: If you could describe each of your castmates with one word, what would it be?
Norris: Oh, wow. Okay, I’ll try. This is going to be like word association. It’s going to be like right off the bad. So, each cast member?
TDW: Yes.
Norris: Okay. For Sophia I would say intelligent. For Austin I would say wily–in a good way. I guess that’s more than one word but anyway. For James I would say focused. Let’s see. Gosh, I’m trying to think. We have so many cast members! For Rob I would say polite. For Lisa [Goldstein, Millicent] I would say genuine. For Paul I would say mischievous. For Antwon [Tanner, Skills] I would say talkative. (laughs) Who am I missing? Oh, I haven’t done Joy. Oh gosh. That’s a tough one. Let’s see. What would I say about Joy? I would say she is…gosh, I would say, I don’t know. She’s like such a unique person and complex. Let’s go with multi-talented.
TDW: Yeah, she definitely has that going for.
Norris: She does. The girl is like–I don’t know if people know this but she just put together like a Broadway musical pretty much.
TDW: I know! I’m looking forward to seeing it. I hope it goes far.
Norris: She’s insanely talented. Is that everybody?
TDW: Yeah, I think you got the core cast down really well.
Norris: Oh, Shantel [VanSanten, Quinn]. I didn’t do Shantel. She’s glamorous.
TDW: Okay. And what can you tell us about your storyline for the rest of this season?
Norris: Well I can tell you that Mouth’s in a bit of a predicament right now because he just lost his job after sticking up for Nathan. So he’s gotta figure out his career path and obviously in the last episode Julian sort of planted a seed in him, thinking about the internet so it’s going to be interesting to see if he can pick that up and run with it. And certainly I think also really important to him is obviously his relationship with Millicent and she’s starting to go down a little bit of a questionable path here after being introduced to this modeling world. How is he going to maintain this relationship with the girl that he loves but who’s changing right before his eyes? He’s got a lot to deal with. There’s no shortage of drama in Tree Hill, you know that.
TDW: And lastly, do you have any message for the fans?
Norris: Well, obviously anytime I get a chance to say anything to the fans, after seven years, we have to say thank you. They are absolutely without a doubt the reason we’re still on the air and I just thank them for their passion and their support because obviously, you know, this is a lot of fun for this. This is a job and we appreciate the fact that you guys let us into your homes every week. So I would say thank you because I don’t think I’ll ever be able say to say thank you enough.
TDW: Well, thank you so much, Lee. I really appreciate you taking the time to do this.
Norris: Of course, Shari. It’s always fun to talk to you so keep up the good work.
TDW: Thank you. I hope you’ll continue to check out the site.
Norris: I will. I love it when you interview my friends.
TDW: They have such great things to say about you!
Norris: It’s pretty nice. Alright, Shari, take care!
TDW: Thank you, you too!
Come back Tuesday for another exclusive interview!
Tags: Alex, Antwon Tanner, Austin Nichols, Australia, Bethany Joy Galeotti, Brooke, Chad Michael Murray, Chik-fil-A, Clay, Dan, Danneel Harris, ESPN.com, Haley, Hilarie Burton, James Lafferty, Jana Kramer, Julian, Lee Norris, Lisa Goldstein, Lucas, Millicent, Mouth, Nathan, One Tree Hill, OTH, Paul Johansson, Peyton, Quinn, Rachel, Rob Buckley, Shantel VanSanten, Skills, Sophia Bush, TeenDramaWhore, Tree Hill, True Blood, Twilight, Twitter, Wilmington
Exclusive: Get To Know One Tree Hill’s Allison Munn
Let’s get one thing straight: this isn’t Allison Munn’s first trip to the rodeo. Sure, she only started on One Tree Hill last season and (unfortunately) isn’t in every episode. But with a starring role on the dearly departed What I Like About You, continued involvement with Rock the Vote and a growing role on OTH, I think it’s safe to say “Miss Lauren” is doing pretty well for herself.
TeenDramaWhore: You starred in nearly 60 episodes of What I Like About You. What are some of the differences working on a half-hour comedy versus a one-hour drama?
Allison Munn: I love working in both the comedy and drama format, but they’re completely different beasts. I started out in musical theatre, where I was used to performing in front of an audience, holding for laughs, and getting instant gratification for a funny bit. That ’70s Show and What I Like About You were shot in front of a studio audience, so it was a comfortable transition. Shooting a sitcom is like doing a mini-play every week. You rehearse for the first 3 days, camera block and pre-shoot on the 4th day, and shoot the whole episode in front of the audience on the 5th. It’s super fast and incredibly fun. Dramas move at a much slower pace – you could spend half of a day on one scene. There isn’t as much rehearsal time as there is for a sitcom, but you get more takes. Oh, and actors generally look a lot better in a drama, because the lighting is better – so I love that. At the end of the day, though, it’s all about creating an entertaining and honest performance, regardless of the format.
TDW: When you joined One Tree Hill, did you know you were going to be Jamie’s teacher AND Skills’ love interest?
Munn: When I first joined One Tree Hill, I had no idea I’d eventually be paired up with Skills. I was thrilled when Mark Schwahn called me soon after my first episode and pitched this storyline. I was excited to work with Antwon Tanner because he’s so great on the show and he’s good friends with Wesley Jonathan (my character’s love interest from What I Like About You). Antwon is so easy to work with, super-relaxed and funny. We have a blast.
TDW: What is it like working with Jackson Brundage and the other child actors?
Munn: Jackson is awesome. He’s such a cool kid – I love hanging out with him on set. He’s so professional – always knows his lines (and mine when I forget one!) and takes direction like a champ. Working with babies, on the other hand, is terrifying. On Carpoolers, my character had a 6-month-old baby and he was in my arms in many of my scenes. The triplets they hired to play the baby were enormous – SO heavy. They always dressed me in very tall platform shoes and I was so afraid I was going to trip and drop the baby – to the point where I’d have nightmares about it. I can’t tell you how many times I tried to convince the director to let me sit down in a scene – or put the baby in a stroller.
TDW: As of this writing, the first two episodes of season 7 have aired. Will we see more of you this season? [Ed. note: now 4 episodes have aired, as of publication]
Munn: You will see more of Lauren this season. I think Lauren is really good for Skills. She’s grounded and sincere and genuinely loves him. It’s a very solid relationship and I’m excited to see where it goes.
TDW: Are you working on any other projects?
Munn: Yes, there is project coming up that I’m excited about but I don’t know if I can talk about it yet.
TDW: You’re originally from South Carolina. Does North Carolina seem similar or different to you?
Munn: Working in the South has been one of my favorite things about this job. I’m from Columbia, South Carolina and went to college in Charleston but I haven’t ever worked there. It has been such a blast to work in a town that feels like home. My mom, dad, brother, and sister have all visited at some point. Downtown Wilmington is beautiful – it reminds me of Charleston and the beaches are lovely. Whenever I’m down there I dream of buying a house and moving there. And don’t even get me started on the food – the boiled peanuts, pulled pork barbecue, grits, biscuits, hush puppies…
TDW: In the past you’ve been very involved with Rock the Vote. Now that the election is over, what do you do for them?
Munn: I love Rock the Vote and am proud to have been involved with them. They are a non-partisan organization and their primary focus is to give a voice to a typically overlooked portion of voters. Due to their efforts, the youth vote (18-29 year olds) has risen significantly over the past 10 years and more than doubled in 2008. Now that the election is over – their focus has switched to educating young voters by explaining the issues in ways that young people can relate to. They analyze the issue from all sides and leave the voters to decide where they stand. I think that’s why love this organization so much – they don’t tell you how to think, they give you the tools to think for yourself. For example, if you want to learn more about the health care debate, visit: http://www.rockthevote.com/issues/health-care.html
TDW: Have you given any thought joining Twitter or Facebook so you can interact with fans?
Munn: I’m on Twitter. My Twitter name is @allisonmunn. See you there.
Tags: Allison Munn, Antwon Tannter, Carpoolers, Charleston, Columbia, Facebook, Jackson Brundage, Jamie, Lauren, Mark Schwahn, North Carolina, One Tree Hill, Rock the Vote, Skills, South Carolina, That 70's Show, Twitter, Wesley Jonathan, What I Like About You, Wilmington
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Colonizing Libya
The debt ceiling “debate” has successfully kept us from pondering the fate of Libya, where NATO still drops bombs, killing civilians in attacks that increasingly target Libya’s infrastructure, rather than military installations, in an attempt to frighten the people of Libya into turning against Ghaddafi. The “kinetic humanitarian intervention” quickly descended into an attempt to simply assassinate the leader of a sovereign nation. That attempt has so far failed, although the NATO forces did manage to slaughter one of Ghaddafi’s sons and three of his grandchildren in an air attack several months ago on a home in a clearly civilian area. The casualties caused by the NATO nations to impose a simple “no-fly” zone so far: Libyan soldiers killed – hundreds to thousands (the numbers are very inexact on military deaths); Libyan civilians – 1108 dead and 4500 wounded. These are people killed by the NATO forces.
The NATO regime change operation – let’s not bother with the pretense that this is a “humanitarian intervention” any longer – has so far cost several hundred million dollars. NATO has brought into Libya special forces, mercenaries, and intelligence operatives; none of which, oddly, the press considers “boots on the ground”. France has illegally air-dropped weapons to the rebels. This week, NATO’s targets included a flu clinic and a food storage depot in the town of Zlitan, which has already had a school and a mosque destroyed by NATO bombing. While viewing the destruction with a CNN interviewer, a local official from the town said, “It [NATO] is waging wide-scale war on the people. They are destroying everything.”
The “rebels”, as various reports have proven over the past couple of months, are a mixture of former Gaddafi ministers, CIA operatives and pro-Al Qaeda Islamic fundamentalists.
The US is now discussing how best to give the assets it seized from the Libya National Bank (which belongs to Libya’s people) to these rebels.
On July 10, the Libyan Prime Minister al-Baghdadi Ali al-Mahmoudi asked for UN intervention to stop NATO military attacks against Libya, saying that the intensive airstrikes have caused a great number of civilian casualties, in violation of the UN resolutions on Libya.
In a statement which clearly flies in the face of international law, the US simply announced two weeks ago that it recognizes the rebel forces (the TNC) as the “government” of Libya. Other NATO nations agreed that they would “deal with” (i.e., bargain with, do business with) the TNC in preference to the actual and current government of Libya. [See my previous post on the questions of international law and the recognition of the rebel forces.]
Yesterday, the UK formally recognized the rebels as the “government” of Libya, a move that the UK seems to think legitimizes the unfreezing of UK-held assets in the Libyan national oil reserve fund to the rebels. (The UK has frozen these funds in the same manner the US has frozen the funds in the Libyan National Bank.) Further, the UK is expelling all Libyan diplomats loyal to Ghaddafi from London and asking for members of the TNC – the rebel group – to take over the Libyan embassy building in London.
The decision to recognise the NTC as sole governmental authority led to the unfreezing of £91m in UK assets belonging to the Arabian Gulf Oil Company, a Libyan oil firm under the NTC’s control.
Foreign Office sources said the assets were unfrozen after the NTC gave assurances that the funds would be used to purchase fuel and not arms, which would be illegal under UN security council resolutions.
Hague also announced at his press conference that:
…• No deadline has been set for the military campaign against the Gaddafi regime. British military chiefs have advised ministers they can continue with the bombing indefinitely….
The renewed diplomatic offensive comes as British aircraft stepped up the bombing against Gaddafi’s security and intelligence apparatus before the start of Ramadan on 1 August.
http://tinyurl.com/3k4eae4
Currently, the governments of the US, the UK, and France are discussing the possibility of “settlement” with Ghaddafi. A representative from each government made public announcements that Ghaddaf’s fate was “a question for the Libyan people to decide”, yet the “deal” NATO is talking about is for Libya to set up a “power sharing plan” where Ghaddafi would be allowed to remain in his own country, but only under the condition that he not retain his current position. The Russian government has proposed a five-man “interim regime”, consisting of two Ghaddafi loyalists, two members of the rebel’s TNC group, and a fifth person appointed on the basis of mutual agreement. This is, obviously, still regime change. It also sends a clear signal to Ghaddafi’s inner circle: work with NATO in overthrowing Ghaddafi and you might get to keep some of your power and wealth in this deal. The power sharing plan would be brokered by the NATO forces (mainly the US and UK) and thus install a colonized puppet government more likely to give lucrative oil deals to western companies and take away the nationalized oil revenue from the Libyan people. (All Libyans currently share in the profits from oil revenue generated by their natural resources – this is under Ghaddafi’s rule.) It would further end any plans Ghaddafi had for working out an African currency and oil market with other African nations based on gold, and de-nationalize Libya’s National Bank.
In none of these talks, deals, and proposed bargains have the Libyan people been asked for their opinion. No suggestion has been made that the Libyans actually vote for any member of the “5 man interim regime”.
Posted by Teri on July 28, 2011 in Libya, mercenaries, MIC, State Dept/diplomacy
The Big Tent.
There are two sides to this global economic class war now being waged. There is “our” side. We are the left, the liberal, the progressive, the conservationists – whatever you want to call it. (Note the word ‘conservationist’. This is not the same thing as a conservative. Conservationists believe that we need to preserve our ecology and natural resources for the enjoyment and benefit of future generations. We do not tear down entire mountains and disastrously pollute waterways in the meaningless attempt to extract all the oil, coal, and natural gas under them. We do not drive entire species to extinction or strip the oceans of fish, we do not think it is wise to pursue policies which are unsustainable and unreasonable, given the facts of peak oil and toxic waste which kills.)
We believe in the New Deal. We believe that a government exists to serve the general well-being of the people. Our taxes should be used primarily to benefit the society from which they are collected. We take care of the elderly, the halt and the lame. We do not want the US to engage in illegal wars of aggression for the benefit of big banks, war profiteers and oil companies.
We do not want a handful of people owning all the property in the US or having all the money. We do not think the average American should pony up more than he has already given just so that the fuckers who took our economy down and who have, in any case, already received 17 trillion bucks (yeah, the number has gone up) from the Fed printing machine, can get even wealthier. We want jobs. We want to keep our homes. We want our public schools for our children.
We are, in short, humans. You may think one or two of these ideas is worthy of quibbling over. Do not get so involved in quibbling that you lose sight of the larger picture. You think we should vote for Ron Paul instead of Fill-in-the-blank? (He’s ‘real’, he has ‘integrity’, the ‘MSM hates him’, the business class ‘hates him’ – which they don’t, BTW – he is the best friend a big business has ever seen – these were all the same reasons given to vote for Obama. How’d that work out? Paul has the most conservative voting record in the Senate. He fundamentally believes in the free market and has openly called for the end of SS, medicare, food stamps, the minimum wage, the Civil Rights Act, etc. Read his wikipedia page or his own website, people. Anyway, what the hell is the point of voting for any of these fools? Don’t you see you are being played? There IS NOT going to be a candidate offered who does not intend to take all your money and give it to the MIC.) You want to argue over the definition of “rights”? Fuck that. I don’t know and I don’t care to discuss whether the rights listed in the Bill of Rights are inherent in some theoretical sense to all humanity or simply there because we enforce them. I want those rights and I want our Congress to uphold them because that is what they swore to do. That’s our agreement, that’s our deal, that’s our Constitution. Maybe the people of Zimbabwe believe they have different “rights”; I don’t live there and neither do my members of Congress.
Now let’s define the Other Side in this war. They are the MIC, the financial oligarchs, the big corporations, both parties in Washington (including the POTUS; he is the biggest cheerleader the other side has), and all the mouth-breathers who let themselves be tricked into supporting those groups. They are loosely arranged and one group may rise or fall in prominence at different times. They are only united in the one goal – to own all the stuff in the world – and the marriage of these groups is largely accidental. There’s no secret cabal that plans all this out. For now. Right now, it serves the bankers to unite with the the oil companies. As natural resources dwindle, those two sub-groups may end up fighting each other. The bankers will dump support of the oil companies and try to get the green technology guys to join up. This will happen, and you’ll know it is happening, when you see the renewable industries calling for higher taxation on and limited public access to their energy products. More than likely, however, the oil companies intend to subsume the renewable companies so as not to lose their place at the trough.
What is the common policy of that side in this war is to do all they can to attract otherwise normal Americans to join up on that side. You see how they have succeeded in getting the teabaggers so bamboozled that the teabaggers now (with cow-eyed stupidity) serve the big money interests. They want the commoners so confused by media propaganda and fear mongering that some of the population will join in to help kill off what’s left of our middle and poor classes. Once the big boys are done with the “lefties”, the minorities, the old and the sick, they will go after the idiots who helped them, of course. You think Halliburton or JP Morgan needs you? They’ll let you drop a bead on a few “socialists” for fun – and then they will take your stuff and let you die in the street, too.
The other side will take all comers. Their tent is big and has many tables attractively arranged, all set up to lure passers-by with all kinds of trinkets. Hate dark-skinned people? Here, have a brochure explaining how “blacks owning houses” caused the economic melt-down. Hate the government? Why, look. Here is a Ron Paul screed showing why we need to dismantle the wasteful “entitlements” and keep people from trying to “live off” the “nanny state” and how the minimum wage is killing business. Hate the college elites? Let me tell you how Washington wastes your money on silly Pell grants. Drill, baby, drill. Natural gas fracking is the answer. Over there is a happy-faced clown man who will tell you all about the wonders of Reagan’s trickle-down theory. He’ll tell you why the budget “crisis” is real and must never, ever include tax increases – in fact, he can explain exactly why we need to decrease the taxes on the wealthy. You will be a real economist when you finish with his lecture series. Plus, he makes balloon animals. Love the Lord? Well, praise Jesus, so do we! And Jesus, as we know, only loves them that helps themselves. The rich are rich as a sign of God’s love. All that “social gospel” crap is pure, well, it’s crap. A true Christian values the rich because they are the shepherds given to guide us in these trying times. And if you enjoy being just a little scared, if you dig that kind of thrill, at this table right over cheer is a nice lady with big hair who will tell you about the godless, heathen Muslims and their Sharia law, which they are trying to impose secretly on Amurika. Go, Israel, boo, Islamofascistpigdogs.
The other side doesn’t give a shit if you can’t spell or don’t know the difference between Keynes and von Mises – in fact, they prefer it. They could give a crap if you like their brochure art or know how to define the word “is”. That side will take anyone who can shoot, no questions.
Our side, on the other hand, is busy thinning its own herd, chasing out what we see as the “impure” and “imperfect” and those who offer any slight deviation of the liberal borg script. We are busy picking off our own with friendly fire.
Guess who’s going to win?
Posted by Teri on July 27, 2011 in austerity, Congress, corporatocracy, economy, elections
Acceleration.
I’m not sure why Obama has signed onto the plan to ruin the American economy once and for all – I only know that he has. So have many Democrats and all the Republicans. The teabagger Republicans are a particularly ruthless sub-species of Republican, who would like to see a really violent and spectacular crash with lots of blood and body parts flying about. It’s an odd thing for a group which started with the idea of holding the Wall Street mafia accountable and ending bank bailouts to reach the place where they are calling for the deaths of the less well-to-do, but hitching your horse to the Koch Brothers will do that. “Make no mistake”, as the President likes to say, your leaders are crashing this country and the end result will be death for the elderly, the poor, the young. A complete and dramatic increase in job losses. An increase in police state tactics. Hunger. Soaring food prices and energy costs.
I have a theory that we are seeing the splitting of the human DNA. The original group had some empathy and some sense of taking care of the vulnerable. The desire to see many do well, with a grand variety of career options. The new group is driven by only one impulse: the desire to own everything in the world. That’s it. That is their entire point of view. They should have all the stuff. They have no souls. We have forever had this gene pool, but until now, they were not tolerated for very long and were weeded out; sometimes through the use of civil laws and sometimes with violence. Now, however, there are many of them – they have multiplied – and they are not being challenged. These things are running our country now. We let them multiply and now they rule.
How stupid do you have to be to believe that withholding medicine and retirement funds from old people, or ending educational programs, gutting environmental regulations, stopping unemployment benefits for those who simply cannot find the non-existent jobs, will somehow solve the budget issues? All it will do is erode the economy further and make it less likely to bounce back. Impoverish the nation’s people and you have no income to tax to do anything with. (Not even to run your goddamn wars, Washington.) In the end, you will drive society so deeply into poverty that you cease to even have a people. How stupid do you have to be to think that giving all the wealth and tangible assets to a few individuals will do anything but, uh, give all the stuff to a few individuals?
It turns out that the people in charge, of the golem DNA, want you to be that stupid. They know what they are doing. They hope you don’t. They are ruthless. They are winning. No, strike that. They have won. When you see the entire governing bodies of every country deliberately acting in unison to destroy economies and societies across the globe, with so little outrage aimed back at them, they have won. And in particular, so little concern from the masses here in the States, the point of origin for most of the destruction forces.
Here is an excerpt from the latest tomdispatch; a small essay written by Mike Davis, called “Crash Club”. Please take the time to read the original in its entirety. He gets into much more detail about the financial issues in China than I am including here.
…From three directions, the United States, the European Union, and China are blindly speeding toward the same intersection. The question is: Will anyone survive to attend the prom?
Shaking the Three Pillars of McWorld
Let me reprise the obvious, but seldom discussed. Even if debt-limit doomsday is averted, Obama has already hocked the farm and sold the kids. With breathtaking contempt for the liberal wing of his own party, he’s offered to put the sacrosanct remnant of the New Deal safety net on the auction bloc to appease a hypothetical “center” and win reelection at any price. (Dick Nixon, old socialist, where are you now that we need you?)
As a result, like the Phoenicians in the Bible, we’ll sacrifice our children (and their schoolteachers) to Moloch, now called Deficit. The bloodbath in the public sector, together with an abrupt shutoff of unemployment benefits, will negatively multiply through the demand side of the economy until joblessness is in teenage digits and Lady Gaga is singing “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?”
Lest we forget, we also live in a globalized economy where Americans are consumers of the last resort and the dollar is still the safe haven for the planet’s hoarded surplus value. The new recession that the Republicans are engineering with such impunity will instantly put into doubt all three pillars of McWorld, each already shakier than generally imagined: American consumption, European stability, and Chinese growth.
Across the Atlantic, the European Union is demonstrating that it is exclusively a union of big banks and mega-creditors, grimly determined to make the Greeks sell off the Parthenon and the Irish emigrate to Australia. One doesn’t have to be a Keynesian to know that, should this happen, the winds will only blow colder thereafter. (If German jobs have so far been saved, it is only because China and the other BRICs — Brazil, Russia, and India — have been buying so many machine tools and Mercedes.)
Boardwalk Empire Times 160
China, of course, now props up the world, but the question is: For how much longer? Officially, the People’s Republic of China is in the midst of an epochal transition from an export-based to a consumer-based economy…
Unfortunately for the Chinese, and possibly the world, that country’s planned consumer boom is quickly morphing into a dangerous real-estate bubble. …
In effect, a shadow banking system has arisen with big banks moving loans off their balance sheets into phony trust companies and thus evading official caps on total lending…
As the three great economic blocs accelerate toward synchronized depression, I find that I’m no longer as thrilled as I was at 14 by the prospect of a classic Felsen ending — all tangled metal and young bodies.
http://tinyurl.com/43z2vqh
Posted by Teri on July 26, 2011 in austerity, corporatocracy, economy, MIC, security state
If this doesn’t alarm you, nothing will. (Updated below.)
It appears that with the approval of Obama and the heavy-hitters in Congress, our legislative bodies have decided to contemplate a complete usurpation of the way our Constitutional system works. A plan, put forth by Mitch McConnell and Harry Reid (who, despite their bland physical appearance, are in reality soulless golems – monsters) would create a Super Congress composed of only 12 members of Congress. This new body would have the right to draft legislation which would not be subject to debate, amendments, or any other such democratic niceties. The implications here are staggering: this is not the same thing as a committee making recommendations which the full Congress then has hearings and discussions on, followed by suggestions for amendments and a vote. This is a fairly straight-forward attempt to thwart that whole process and the very reason we have a Congress. This idea, if accepted, creates an ipso-facto top echelon of little oligarchs within the Congress who would be allowed to rule by fiat.
This is the final act in our American drama and the end to our democratic processes.
Here is how the Super Congress plan is explained by Ryan Grim at the Huffington Post:
WASHINGTON — Debt ceiling negotiators think they’ve hit on a solution to address the debt ceiling impasse and the public’s unwillingness to let go of benefits such as Medicare and Social Security that have been earned over a lifetime of work: Create a new Congress.
This “Super Congress,” composed of members of both chambers and both parties, isn’t mentioned anywhere in the Constitution, but would be granted extraordinary new powers. Under a plan put forth by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and his counterpart Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), legislation to lift the debt ceiling would be accompanied by the creation of a 12-member panel made up of 12 lawmakers — six from each chamber and six from each party.
Legislation approved by the Super Congress — which some on Capitol Hill are calling the “super committee” — would then be fast-tracked through both chambers, where it couldn’t be amended by simple, regular lawmakers, who’d have the ability only to cast an up or down vote. With the weight of both leaderships behind it, a product originated by the Super Congress would have a strong chance of moving through the little Congress and quickly becoming law. A Super Congress would be less accountable than the system that exists today, and would find it easier to strip the public of popular benefits. Negotiators are currently considering cutting the mortgage deduction and tax credits for retirement savings, for instance, extremely popular policies that would be difficult to slice up using the traditional legislative process.
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has made a Super Congress a central part of his last-minute proposal, multiple news reports and people familiar with his plan say. A picture of Boehner’s proposal began to come into focus Saturday evening: The debt ceiling would be raised for a short-term period and coupled with an equal dollar figure of cuts, somewhere in the vicinity of a trillion dollars over ten years. A second increase in the debt ceiling would be tied to the creation of a Super Congress that would be required to find a minimum amount of spending cuts. Because the the elevated panel would need at least one Democratic vote, it would be presumably include at least some revenue, though, if it’s anything like the deals on the table today, would likely be heavily slanted toward spending cuts. Or, as Obama said of the deal he was offering Republicans before Boehner walked out, “If it was unbalanced, it was unbalanced in the direction of not enough revenue.”
Republicans, however, are looking to force a second debt ceiling fight as part of the package, despite the Democratic rejection of the plan. Under the Republican plan, lawmakers would need to weigh in on the debt ceiling during the heat of the presidential election, a proposal Democrats reject as risky to the nation’s credit rating. “We expressed openness to two stages of cuts, but not to a short-term debt limit extension,” a Democratic aide close to the negotiations said. “Republicans only want the debt ceiling extended as far as the cuts in each tranch. That means we’ll be right back where we are today a few months down the road. We are not a Banana Republic. You don’t run America like that.”
The aide said that Democrats are open to a series of cuts as well as a Super Congress, but only if the debt ceiling is raised sufficiently so that it pushes past the election. “Our proposal tonight was, do two tranches of cuts, but raise the debt ceiling through 2012 right now, though the McConnell process would be one way,” said the aide, leaving open the possibility that Boehner could craft a new process and distinguish it from McConnell’s, which the Tea Party despises as a dereliction of duty. “Do that now with a package of cuts, and have the joint committee” — the Super Congress — “report out a package that would be the second tranch. Republicans rejected that, and continued to push a short-term despite the fact that Reid, Pelosi and Obama all could not have been clearer that they will not support a short-term increase. A short term risks some of the same consequences as outright failure to raise the ceiling — downgraded credit rating, stocks plunge, interest rates spike, etc. It is unclear why Republicans have made this their sticking point.”…
Obama has shown himself to be a fan of the commission approach to cutting social programs and entitlements. Shortly after taking office, Obama held a major conference on deficit reduction and subsequently created, by executive order, The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. The White House made two telling appointments to chair the commission: The first was former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wy.), a well known and ill informed critic of Social Security who earned notoriety by suggesting, among other things, that the American government had become “a milk cow with 310 million tits!” His Democratic appointment was even more indicative of whose interests took priority, former Sen. Erskine Bowles (D-N.C.). Bowles is a member of Morgan Stanley’s board of directors; an adviser to Carousel Capital, a private equity firm; and is a director of Cousins Properties Incorporated, a firm with significant investments in commercial and mixed-use real estate.
Simpson and Bowles, unsurprisingly, produced a report recommending corporate and high-end tax cuts, along with cuts to Social Security, Medicare, veterans’ benefits and a host of other social programs.The commission needed 14 of 18 members to approve the plan in order for it to advance to Congress for a vote. The commission fell short, but did win a majority.
Proponents of slashing spending won’t make the same mistake with a new Super Congress. Only a simple majority will be necessary.
http://tinyurl.com/3eabxqp
You surely see where this is going, don’t you? Eventually, you have all the laws written by a small group of elite members of Congress, with the entire balance left as mere window dressing up-and-down voters to give the faintest tinge of “democracy at work” blushing to what is actually a junta ruling over the country. There is no limit to the number of issues which could be declared “important” enough to be handled via a fast-track through the elite Super Congress. Why not all of them? It’s all important stuff, right?
This is all aside from the fact that the debt ceiling should be handled as a stand-alone, clean vote, the way it always was until Obama began tinkering with that process the last time. (When last we saw our debt ceiling, Obama had traded the 2-year extension of the Bush tax cuts in return for a temporary increase in the debt ceiling. Before the Republicans even asked for it.) The deficit issues have no place in the debt ceiling debate and deserve a full discussion process with a full Congress, with the citizens given time to weigh in with their representatives. We should not change our entire social bargain based on the secretive bargaining of a committee of 12 with only up and down votes allowed by the full Congress.
Ryan Grim has updated his article here (this is an update from what is actually the second article he wrote on the subject; the article I quoted above was his first).
He points out the teabaggers hate the idea, not because it is unConstitutional or gives too much power to too few, but because they think it would raise taxes. Getting rid of the New Deal, not such an issue with them. They are retarded. Sorry, I just had to point that out in case anyone has missed it.
Here are some bits from his new article with its update:
WASHINGTON — A powerful coalition that includes Tea Party members of Congress rejected a debt ceiling offer from House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Monday, calling a proposed bipartisan, bicameral committee that would draft deficit-reduction legislation “troubling” — not because it would afford too much power to too few people, but because they said it could lead to tax increases.
Nevertheless, separate proposals put forward by Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Monday each included versions of a Super Congress — referred to on the Hill as a Super Committee — that would write laws that could not be amended by the regular Congress, only voted up or down. In Boehner’s version, the debt ceiling would be raised a second time if Congress approved the cuts decided on by the Super Congress….
The liberal advocacy organization MoveOn.org, meanwhile, argued that any joint committee empowered to make cuts should specifically exempt Medicare and Social Security from cuts, and is organizing members in opposition. “[A]ny Joint Congressional Commission must be set up in such a way that it protects Social Security and Medicare benefits. Any plan that includes a backdoor to cut those vital programs is just as unacceptable as one that puts the cuts up front,” said MoveOn head Justin Ruben.
[My note: apparently MoveOn is also missing the larger picture. They only oppose the Super Congress because it might cut SS, and fail to see the threat inherent in the whole concept. That’s just lame.]
Progressive opponents of the Super Congress, however, argue that its very purpose is to cut entitlements, so negotiating its parliamentary outline misses the point. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) told FireDogLake.com that he would approve of a “commission that makes recommendations,” but not one empowered to send fast-track legislation to Congress. “But if it’s got any kind of parliamentary advantage, then no,” he said.
Boehner described the new legislative body in a summary of his proposal released by his office Monday afternoon:
The framework creates a Joint Committee of Congress that is required to report legislation that would produce a proposal to reduce the deficit by at least $1.8 trillion over 10 years. Each Chamber would consider the proposal of the Joint Committee on an up-or-down basis without any amendments. If the proposal is enacted, then the President would be authorized to request a debt limit increase of $1.6 trillion.
The structure of Reid’s proposed Super Congress is similar to Boehner’s…,
Reid’s plan, according to a spokesperson, would create a 12-member body that includes six Democrats and six Republicans, with an equal number coming from the House and Senate. Legislation would need seven votes before heading for Congress, where it would face a fast-tracked, up or down vote.
The Super Congress amounts to an institutionalization of the gang structure that exists informally in the Senate, where a small number of lawmakers write legislation behind closed doors and then announce it to the public. Legislation written by the Super Congress would be extremely difficult for individual members of Congress to stop.
UPDATE: MoveOn’s Justin Ruben sends the following statement firmly opposing a Super Congress that would be able to cut Social Security or Medicare: “Republicans want a Super Congress so they can push through unpopular cuts to Medicare and Social Security. MoveOn members, and the vast majority of Americans, oppose benefit cuts, and Democrats shouldn’t give Republicans a vehicle to make it easier to cut them. MoveOn members oppose the idea.”
http://tinyurl.com/3sao5kv
Posted by Teri on July 24, 2011 in austerity, Congress, corporatocracy, economy
Follow up to the legality issue of recognizing the Libyan rebels as the “government” of Libya
I questioned in a previous post if would be legal under international law for the US to just name the rebels in Libya as the “government”. I did some research, and it is, of course, blatantly illegal to do so. I came across this fascinating discussion. The interview below is with John Bellinger, the former legal adviser to the State Dept., now with the Council of Foreign Relations (you know you’re in trouble if those guys don’t like your nation-building policy).
Bellinger is concerned that this latest move is ill-advised and, in fact, against international law. He also clearly states that not all the members of the 30 country coalition has “recognized” the rebels; in fact, and making a lie of the media statements in the US that the entire 30 country coalition had used that phrase, he points out that most of the other countries involved merely avowed a willingness to “deal with” (i.e., “work with”) the rebels, and fell far short of officially recognizing the rebels as the de facto government.
From article:
Writing for the Council on Foreign Relations this week, John B. Bellinger III, former legal adviser to the State Department, said the announcement raises “legal and practical problems,” including questions over whether Gaddafi’s government or the NTC is legally bound to respect international treaties….
In an interview, Bellinger said he suspects State Department lawyers “have been advising their policy clients of the difficult international law questions that recognizing the NTC would raise and that, nonetheless, the policy officials wanted to go ahead with this recognition.”
Checkpoint: Why might the recognition of a group like the NTC be seen as problematic from an international law perspective?
Bellinger: For the last several decades, for the United States and indeed most other states, the practice has been to recognize only new states but not new governments. And by that I mean that if a new geographic territory comes into existence, like Kosovo or Montenegro, the United States will make a decision whether to recognize that as a new state.
But for a number of decades, the Untied States has decided as a matter of diplomatic practice that it does not want to get into the business of having to recognize a new government every time there is a change of government. So if there’s a coup or if there’s a dispute over who’s in power or if there’s an insurgent group that claims to be the government, U.S. practice and the practice of most states is just not get into it. It’s just difficult.
This recognition last Friday of the Libyan National Transitional Council is a departure from that practice and is particularly problematic in this case because the council clearly doesn’t control all of the territory of Libya. It only controls part of it, and can’t reasonably say that it even speaks for all of the people of Libya, since there is at least some portion who are still loyal to Gaddafi. So it raises legal questions there.
Historically under international law, an outside country could even be accused of interfering illegally in the internal affairs of a country if it were to recognize an insurgent group. Of course, at this point, the United States is doing far more than just recognizing. We’re providing assistance and military support generally.
And then finally, in this case, [the recognition] raises difficult questions as to who has the international obligations of Libya under international law, and who owes those obligations. For example, under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, which requires the government of Libya to provide State Department access to any detained person, who owes that obligation? Is it that the old Libyan government under Gaddafi or the new transitional council?…
[Discussion of how the Obama administration has gone off the policy in several cases. Deleted for space.]
Checkpoint: And the real world consequences, as you say, could be more dire in terms of upholding international obligations, right?
Bellinger: It really does raise questions as to whether the NTC now owes international obligations to the United States and the outside world and whether the Gaddafi regime, which is no longer recognized by the United States and certain other countries, no longer has those obligations.
The State Department has not made clear exactly how it is going to treat the question of treaty obligations…
I think what has been going on is that the lawyers at the State Department have been advising their policy clients of the difficult international law questions that recognizing the NTC would raise and that, nonetheless, the policy officials wanted to go ahead with this recognition. The lawyers than tried to come up with the best alternatives they could…
One of the countries that apparently didn’t go that far was Great Britain. Britain, which has historically been a stickler for finer points of international law, has been willing to go along with the “deal with” formulation but has pointedly refused to recognize the insurgency because of the various international legal problems it raises…
[Discussion of the Libyan funds. Again, space.]
Checkpoint: Now we have to hope that the Gaddafi government, while scorned by the United States, is still happy to oblige by its international obligations?
Bellinger: Well, that’s right. I would be worried about that. It’s not clear, at least publicly, what message is being conveyed to the Gaddafi regime, since they have been told publicly by the State Department that they are no longer considered to have any legitimate authority in Libya. How can we also expect them to fulfill certain international law obligations that they have to us or to others if we don’t think they’re the government anymore? That certainly raises some difficult legal questions….
http://tinyurl.com/44y6frx
This is a very interesting discussion and I highly recommend reading it in its entirety.
Posted by Teri on July 21, 2011 in Libya, State Dept/diplomacy
Today’s random thoughts.
I need to get a few things off my chest. These items are unrelated to each other, but have in common that they bug the crap out of me.
In no particular order of pissed offedness:
1) The US and 30 other countries have now formally recognized the Libyan rebels as the governing body of Libya. [http://tinyurl.com/6gamr6z]
So much for the claim that this is not about regime change. We just changed the regime via government in a box. What is democratic about this whole procedure? Did the people of Libya themselves vote for or ask that these rebels be their government? No. They did not. We just told them that this group IS their government. More and more evidence mounts that the rebels, good-looking though they are, are a CIA-backed coup against Gaddafi. Human Rights Watch notes the rebels have abused civilians in at least 4 cities. The US seized the Libyan National Bank, the people of Libya’s money, containing 30 billion bucks (a lot of it stored in the form of gold – is that relevant, one wonders?) and instead of returning it to the people of Libya, have announced they will give some of it the rebels. Do the people of Libya want their money going to the rebels? Why the fuck would anyone ask them? It no longer matters what the people of Libya want. We (and NATO) are clearly telling them what they will have. Could the unfrozen funds be used by the rebels to purchase arms?
“Rebel spokesman Mahmoud Shammam welcomed the NTC’s recognition and called on other nations to deliver on a promise to release hundreds of millions of dollars in funds to the opposition. ‘Funds, funds, funds,’ Shammam said, in order to stress the opposition’s demand. It remained unclear Friday whether the unfrozen assets could be used to purchase arms, or if some restrictions would still apply.”
Some other restrictions, like maybe the little fact that there was imposed an arms embargo as part of the agreement to this NATO kinetic action?
How Obama and the NATO participants have gotten away with what they just did here is a wonderment, especially in light of how relatively recently we saw Bush the Lesser do the exact same thing in Iraq.
2) Eric Cantor is being accused of potentially profiting should the US default on its debt. [http://tinyurl.com/3zfqy3f] Shocked! are the Democrats. Of course, they can’t and won’t do anything about it, since members of Congress are exempt from insider trading laws, an issue they wouldn’t want to address in a gazillion years as this exemption provides Congress with one of the less well known perks of the job. [http://tinyurl.com/n9zvdf]
There was a law introduced to make this as illegal for Congress as it is for the lumpen proletariat, the “Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge” Act, but the legislation is being handed around desultorily to one committee after another.
“In a series of procedural moves, the bill was referred to six House committees (Financial Services, Agriculture, House Administration, Judiciary, Ethics, and Rules) on Mar. 17, 2011, then re-referred and “discharged” from five of those committees (all but Rules) and referred to all six committees again on Mar. 29, 2011. As of May 25, 2011 there has been no additional Congressional action.“
This is the latest information I can find on it.
3) During Friday’s press conference, Obama said that raising the debt ceiling without imposing spending cuts was the “least attractive” option. That’s a pretty strange position to take, considering that Obama requested a “clean vote” at the beginning of this whole fiasco. It was John I-am-obviously-a-fucking-alcoholic-please-stop-me Boehner who first insisted on all the deficit reduction equivalent add-ons.
Obama also said he would take the US back to the levels of domestic spending percentage as under Eisenhower, as though that were a GOOD thing.
(“I am willing to take down domestic spending to the lowest percentage of our overall economy since Dwight Eisenhower.”)
During the years of the Eisenhower administration (1953-1961), the only significant federal social program was Social Security. Medicare and Medicaid didn’t happen until 1965, and it was only during the late 60’s and the 70’s that we saw increased funding for public education, the creation of the EPA and HUD.
Of course, the top tax rate for the wealthy under Eisenhower was over 90%, but apparently that part is not germane to the discussion.
According to the statistics I have read over and over, half of senior citizens now survive on incomes below $22,000 a year and for one-third of the elderly, Social Security accounts for more than 90 percent of their income.
During the Q and A part of the press conference, I did not hear a single question suggesting that the wealthy, not working people, should bear the cost of the fiscal crisis, although the crisis exists because of 2008 Wall Street crash and the subsequent measures taken to bail out the big financial interests. The entire discussion has been successfully diverted (largely by Obama, it must be noted) into a talk about how much more the middle-class and poor will give up in order to buy toxic assets from the big banks, put them on the public’s balance sheet, and avoid any tax “burden” on the people who have profited most from this scheme.
And that’s all I have to say for today. Off to work. At lunchtime, I will be working on the 79th recipe for the family’s cookbook project, “100 Slightly Less Than Wonderful, But Still Edible, Recipes with Ramen Noodles”. We were going for 200, but then you have to include stuff like wallpaper paste, and simply NObody uses wall paper any more. Although the wallpaper paste we developed would have technically fit into the “edible” requirement that our working title suggests.
Posted by Teri on July 16, 2011 in austerity, Congress, economy, Libya
indefinite detention of Americans
From the ACLU. This needs no comment from me:
Hooray! With your help, we prevented the Senate from authorizing the president to engage in worldwide war.
For months, we have been pushing to prevent Congress from passing legislation that would give this president (and any of his successors) the authority to engage our country in a worldwide war without a defined enemy.
A couple of weeks ago, the Senate Armed Services Committee passed its version of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2012 (NDAA), H.R. 1253. The committee recently released the official language — and the worldwide war authority provision was nowhere to be found!
We can take only a moment to pat ourselves on the back because the fight is far from over. We now need to turn our attention to the devastating indefinite detention provisions that the committee did include in the bill.
These provisions are inconsistent with fundamental American values embodied in the Constitution and in this country’s adherence to the rule of law.
If enacted, the provisions could:
* authorize the federal government to imprison indefinitely without charge or trial civilians — including American citizens— apprehended both inside and outside the United States, including individuals who had no role in the 9/11 attacks or any actual hostilities (the bill would mark the first time since 1950 that Congress explicitly authorizes the detention without charge or trial of American citizens)
* mandate military detention of some civilians who would otherwise be outside of military control, including civilian suspects apprehended within the United States itself
* transfer to the Department of Defense core prosecutorial and investigative responsibilities now held by the Department of Justice, the FBI, the Bureau of Prisons, and the Marshals Service, as well as by the state attorneys general of the 50 states.
These provisions could significantly cut back on the historic protections provided to American citizens by the Non-Detention Act of 1971 and to all U.S. residents by the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878…
http://tinyurl.com/3r39zba
Posted by Teri on July 7, 2011 in civil rights, Congress
Obama going after social security.
As I expected, it appears Obama is going after Social Security in a trade for some meaningless corporate loophole “tax increases”. These loophole increases are nothing much to speak of and the Republicans are demanding that any changes to loopholes be “revenue neutral”; in other words, entirely offset by spending cuts elsewhere. In other other words, while Obama is cutting SS in “exchange” for loophole changes, the loopholes will ALSO be offset by cuts elsewhere. Furthermore, as revenue neutral actions, the corporate loopholes won’t, by definition, affect the deficit. So it is now meaningless as far as the deficit goes.
The biggest error being made in these negotiations, however, is that Social Security cannot, BY LAW, affect the Federal budget.
They will take your SS for no reason. Well, okay, for one reason: so that people will have to invest in 401’s and other privatized plans. (Read: Wall Street. Anyone remember what Wall St. did to the 401k’s? Anyone? Hello?)
SS cannot, by law, have any impact on the Federal budget. So they will dismantle it, or reduce benefits for the purpose of “deficit reduction” this year and next year they will casually say that we need more austerity measures because (surprise!) it turns out that reducing SS benefits did not have any effect on the “budget crisis”. I can only assume that they hope we will have forgotten in a year’s time exactly what reason they gave for reducing benefits. Or maybe by then we will be so overwhelmed with wars and other budget cuts, foreclosures (ramping up again), more job losses, a new proposal to end public education in America (watch for this – it’s coming), more oil spills, maybe a nuclear disaster or two in the Homeland, that we will see the loss of SS as a minor one.
Please read the following article in full (link at bottom provided) and pass it around.
From “Social Security and the Deficit Commission: Myths and Realities”, by Kristen Friend, staff US Supreme Court, Sept., 2010
…Here are the truths behind some of the more common Social Security myths.
1. Social Security adds to the deficit.
Social Security, by law, cannot add to the deficit. It is a separate program, paid into through FICA contributions, with benefits paid only from the revenue it raises. If the trust fund were to be exhausted and current contributions were not adequate to pay benefits, Social Security could not borrow from the general budget. Federal law prohibits Social Security from borrowing.
2. Social Security is broke, and there is no “Trust Fund.”
Conventional wisdom among Social Security skeptics is that the program is out of money now and that there is no Social Security Trust Fund. This is fueled largely by the fact that Social Security did begin to pay more in benefits than it received in taxes earlier than was projected due to the depth of the 2008 recession. Regardless of this fact, The Social Security Trust Fund currently runs a $2.5 trillion surplus. The Economic Policy Institute estimates the surplus will peak at $4.2 trillion in 2024 [7]
Trust Fund intact, with no changes to the program, Social Security is projected to be able to pay 100 percent of benefits until the year 2037. After 2037, Social Security will still be able to pay 75 percent of benefits. [8]…
5. Benefit cuts are needed
To the extent that there will be shortfalls in the Social Security budget in the future, they are minor in relation to other budget expenditures, and can be corrected without cutting benefits. In 1983, when Social Security actually did run out of funds, a “deal” was made with workers to put Social Security back in the black. Payroll taxes were raised, significantly, on middle and lower income workers. The tax increase was highly regressive, but, coupled with a raise in the retirement age, was responsible for building the large surplus Social Security enjoys today.
The increase in taxes on lower income individuals also allowed Reagan to cut taxes on those earning higher incomes. At the time, implicit in the deal was the idea that lower income workers would overpay their taxes for 30 years, at which point higher income individuals would pitch in to relieve some of the burden and cover any funding shortfalls. After a period of overpayment of payroll taxes, the tables would turn, and middle and lower income individuals would begin to underpay payroll taxes with the difference being covered by a raise in income taxes on higher earners. [10]
Thirty years later, the second part of that deal has been conveniently forgotten. Without cutting benefits, and in the spirit of Alan Greenspan’s 1983 recommendations, creating new sources of revenue could increase funds. The cap on Social Security taxed-income, currently $106,800, could be raised or eliminated… [Teri’s Note: This was a point made by candidate Obama during a debate. As President, however, he has reduced the amount paid by wage-earners and is suggesting a “holiday” on the employer side now as well. This has the effect of WEAKENING the SS fund, exactly the opposite of what we should be doing and the opposite of what he himself proposed on the trail.]
6. Social Security faces the same issues as Medicare and Medicaid.
Social Security often gets lumped in with Medicare and Medicaid as a problem “entitlement” program. It is true, Medicaid and Medicare do face funding problems, but much of this is due to the ballooning costs of health care. Social Security does not face the same problems as Medicare and Medicaid as payouts are not affected by rising health care costs…
Current and future retirees would be well served if politicians would stop confusing the distinction between cuts in Social Security and cuts in the national debt. Mounting deficits are a legitimate concern, but can in no way be attributed to Social Security…
http://tinyurl.com/3cf8nmu
Read the full article and pass the link around to everyone you know.
Posted by Teri on July 7, 2011 in austerity, Congress, economy
budget things
I really like rawstory.com. They usually do a good job on the synopsis (synopsi? synopsises?) – summaries – of the headlines of the day. But this morning, the sight of these two headlines, one right under the other is a bit much to take.
Attorney: Evidence Strauss-Kahn bruised maid’s vagina
Jon Stewart delighted by Halperin’s ‘dick’ remark
So, okay, fun over. A couple of economic stories from other sources.
Jane Hamsher at firedoglake points out a strange give-away to North Korea in her article about a little-discussed tendency of Obama’s to sign whatever free-trade agreement crosses his line of vision. The article is titled, “What Obama Fights for – Giving 9.55 B to North Korea to Spend on Nukes”. Yes, and he is also giving away a ton of US jobs with this deal.
Yesterday the White House took the last step to owning all three leftover Bush NAFTA-expansion deals with Korea, Colombia and Panama by announcing that they would send them to Congress imminently. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that we’ll lose 159,000 jobs with the Korea deal alone.
At a time of high unemployment, it’s difficult to fathom why the President would be fighting to increase our trade deficit and ship tens of thousands of jobs overseas.
Even more stunning, however, is the loophole in the Obama deal that will hand billions over to North Korea to spend on their nuclear weapons program (PDF)….
http://tinyurl.com/5w866pv
Krugman discusses the debt limit talks in his article, “To the Limit”. He points out:
In about a month, if nothing is done, the federal government will hit its legal debt limit. There will be dire consequences if this limit isn’t raised. At best, we’ll suffer an economic slowdown; at worst we’ll plunge back into the depths of the 2008-9 financial crisis.
So is a failure to raise the debt ceiling unthinkable? Not at all.
Many commentators remain complacent about the debt ceiling; the very gravity of the consequences if the ceiling isn’t raised, they say, ensures that in the end politicians will do what must be done. But this complacency misses two important facts about the situation: the extremism of the modern G.O.P., and the urgent need for President Obama to draw a line in the sand against further extortion.
Let’s talk about how we got here.
The federal debt limit is a strange quirk of U.S. budget law: since debt is the consequence of decisions about taxing and spending, and Congress already makes those taxing and spending decisions, why require an additional vote on debt? And traditionally the debt limit has been treated as a minor detail. During the administration of former President George W. Bush — who added more than $4 trillion to the national debt — Congress, with little fanfare, voted to raise the debt ceiling no less than seven times.
So the use of the debt ceiling to extort political concessions is something new in American politics. And it seems to have come as a complete surprise to Mr. Obama….
Now, Mr. Obama was right about the dangers of failing to raise the debt limit. In fact, he understated the case, by focusing only on financial confidence.
Not that the confidence issue is trivial. Failure to raise the debt limit — which would, among other things, disrupt payments on existing debt — could convince investors that the United States is no longer a serious, responsible country, with nasty consequences. Furthermore, nobody knows what a U.S. default would do to the world financial system, which is built on the presumption that U.S. government debt is the ultimate safe asset.
But confidence isn’t the only thing at stake. Failure to raise the debt limit would also force the U.S. government to make drastic, immediate spending cuts, on a scale that would dwarf the austerity currently being imposed on Greece. And don’t believe the nonsense about the benefits of spending cuts that has taken over much of our public discourse: slashing spending at a time when the economy is deeply depressed would destroy hundreds of thousands and quite possibly millions of jobs…
http://tinyurl.com/6khflu4
It surprises ME that it never occurs to Krugman that Obama may just be part and parcel of a plan to LET the government hit the ceiling and go into default. The public would get a taste of a few weeks of government shut-down, no social security checks sent to old people, temporary (with no pay) lay-offs of public workforce, Wall Street going bonkers, etc. and then an imposition of austerity measures the likes of which we can’t imagine to “end the crisis” and “come to an agreement”. There is, of course, always the original plan currently winding its way behind the scenes should actually going into default get too scary: agree to pre-emptively impose austerity measures in a bipartisan agreement with the Republicans.
House Democrats are trying to warn us that Oblahblah is going to cave to the Republicans, but we are reading about dicks and vaginas.
From The Hill, an article called, “House Democrats Feel Jilted by the President…”
…Partly to temper mounting discontent, Obama called House Democrats to the White House on June 2, a day after meeting with House Republicans, to hear their concerns about the debt negotiations.
It was a tense encounter, according to several accounts.
One Democrat who was there said Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) bluntly asked Obama whether he was willing to fight for Democratic priorities amid GOP calls for trillions of dollars in spending cuts.
In asking the question, Waxman said he’d asked several Republicans about their White House meeting the day before and had been concerned by their response.
“To a person, they said the president’s going to cave,” Waxman told Obama, according to his colleague’s account.
“If you’re not going to cave, eliminating that misunderstanding is very, very important to the negotiations,” the lawmaker said, retelling Waxman’s message. “And if you’re going to cave, tell us right now.”
Obama, however, “didn’t answer the question,” the Democrat added. “Obama got in a huff, and he said, ‘I’m the president of the United States, my words carry weight’ — which is not the answer,” the lawmaker said. “That’s not what anyone challenges. It’s whether he is doing this negotiation in the right way.”…
http://tinyurl.com/3fep98n
Make of it all what you will. I know what I make of it.
Posted by Teri on July 2, 2011 in austerity, Congress, economy, trade agreements
Resurrecting McCarthy
I keep trying to tell myself I am just an overwrought, emotional, middle-aged lady. Things cannot be as bad as they might appear. And then…well, and then I take a deep breath and realize that things are worse than they appear.
The Greek people are going to be starving in the streets to serve the rentiers who caused the economic devastation in the first place. It would be obvious to anyone with a brain that by slashing jobs and imposing austerity on the major portion of the population, there will never be a chance for the economy to rebound. The bankers who created the mess will get richer, while the rest die off. It will happen there, where the gov’t is being forced to sell off its infrastructure to private companies as part of the loan package; in Ireland, where the gov’t is scrounging for discarded copper laying on the sea floor to raise money; in Tunisia and Egypt, where the IMF and WB are suggesting austerity as a condition for loans – and where our Congressmen are activists in promoting American companies as leaders in the jobs front rather than Egyptian or Tunisian companies. It will happen in Libya – it’s the whole POINT of Libya. It will happen here and, indeed, has begun in earnest here.
To go along with austerity, the PTB must have a rigorous control of the population they are decimating. And so we have the gradual changes which we have all noticed: TSA pat-downs in airports and bus depots, enormous scoops of phone calls and e-mails, security cameras being installed and ever more report-your-neighbor programs, etc.
Yesterday, the call for control just got a tad louder.
From CNN:
Washington (CNN) — A new U.S. counterterrorism strategy released Wednesday focuses on the ability of al Qaeda and its network to inspire people in the United States to attack the homeland, said John Brennan, White House counterterrorism adviser.
Speaking at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, Brennan said, “Indeed, this is the first counterterrorism strategy that designates the homeland as a primary area of emphasis in our counterterrorism efforts.”…
He made it clear the administration wants to follow a strategy of drone strikes and targeted raids against terrorists and avoid prolonged wars…
The U.S. can’t go after every terrorist group and must focus attention on those that seek to harm the U.S., Brennan said. He said al Qaeda and its affiliates still represent the greatest danger, even after the May raid by U.S. Navy SEALs that killed Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
Brennan said the U.S. wants to work with allies to bring terrorists down, but he would not rule out future unilateral strikes even in the territory of allies.
“As the president has said repeatedly, if we have information about the whereabouts of al Qaeda, we will do what is required to protect the United States — as we did with bin Laden.”…
Brennan admitted there is a concern that Americans could become complacent since there hasn’t been a large-scale attack here since 9/11 and since Osama bin Laden has been killed. But with the 10-year anniversary of 9/11 coming soon, Brennan said, “We want to make sure that we’re as vigilant and we’re as poised to detect and thwart these attacks.”
He added Congress is well aware of the need to stay focused on the threat of terrorism.
http://tinyurl.com/42cdobv
The crawl on MSNBC yesterday simply stated that the State Dept. wants to focus on “al Qaeda in the homeland as the new front in the war on terror.” Somehow, the casual reference to this is more alarming than even the article I cite. It’s such a casual and offhand way to announce that we are focusing internally for “the enemy”. Can we not see the clear parallels to the Nazi squads hauling away dissenters, the KGB doing the same, the internment of Japanese-Americans during WW2?
Posted by Teri on July 1, 2011 in austerity, economy, security state, State Dept/diplomacy
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Women of Colour call on Joan Armatrading not to play Apartheid Israel
Posted on June 1, 2010 Categories: BDS News, Boycott, British Organizing, Cultural Boycott, Take Action Comments are off for this post
Women of Colour in the Global Women’s Strike
Crossroads Women’s Centre 230A Kentish Town Road London NW5 2AB
Tel: 44 (0)20 7482 2496 womenofcolour[at]allwomencount.net
www.globalwomenstrike.net
We call on Joan Armatrading, as a woman of colour who wrote a tribute to and performed for Nelson Mandela, and whose website says, “South Africa has always been close to my heart”, not to play Israel. As we write, people are gathering worldwide, thousands in London alone, to protest the Israeli piracy and murder of at least 20 unarmed people taking part in a humanitarian mission bringing aid to blockaded Gaza.
These unprovoked killings are the latest in a long line of atrocities by Israel, which has shown itself to be one of the most violent and racist regimes on the planet. Archbishop Desmond Tutu – a leading proponent of boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel – has written:
“I have been to the Occupied Palestinian Territory . . . I have witnessed the humiliation of Palestinian men, women, and children . . . and this humiliation is familiar to me and the many black South Africans who were corralled and regularly insulted by the security forces of the Apartheid government.”
Palestinian people have been dispossessed and their lands occupied; they have been walled in, imprisoned, starved and bombed by Israel. Israel is still building the apartheid wall inside the occupied West Bank, separating families, dividing farms, villages and towns, and starving Gazans, in addition to building Jewish-only settlements and Jewish-only roads on Palestinians” land.
Palestinian women have borne much of the brunt of this violence – including at security checkpoints, in prisons, and trying to fight for and protect their imprisoned young children. In their day-to-day work in the family and in the fields they have kept communities together in the face of poverty, hunger, injury and death – enabling communities to resist, despite intimidation and corruption, and to oppose expulsion from their homes and land. Women”s survival work is thus the backbone of resistance.
Palestinian people have called for our support against genocide and occupation. This includes a boycott of goods, culture, and education – everything that empowers and promotes the Israeli state against them – and us.
Gill Scott-Heron and Elvis Costello very recently pulled out of concerts there, in recognition of the struggle of Palestinian people and their refusal to be used to undermine it. Costello said:
“There are occasions when merely having your name added to a concert schedule may be interpreted as a political act that resonates more than anything that might be sung and it may be assumed that one has no mind for the suffering of the innocent.”
Nothing you can say would justify your playing in Israel.
UK”s Massive Attack is among the increasing number of groups which respect the boycott, refusing to play Israel no matter what blood money the Israelis offer. They understand that going there lends credibility to Israel”s occupation and genocide, and would permanently stain their artistic reputations. Multi-racial demonstrations – by Palestinian and Israeli, Afro-American, Indian and European people – held in many UK cities are supporting and reinforcing the cultural boycott.
People may think what happens in Palestine is out of sight or off the grid, but the eyes of the world are watching, and many voices in many languages cry out in protest.
Your concert planned for June 5th is the anniversary of the beginning of the so-called Six-Day War in 1967 when Israel occupied the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, and the Sinai desert, and ethnically cleansed thousands of Palestinian people from the West Bank. For many it was a second expulsion – in 1948 over half the Palestinian population had been expelled from their own cities and villages. This makes it even more crucial that you pull back from this disastrous step. We urge you to consider the powerful statement by PACBI.
Your proposed concert is also scheduled a year and half after the horrendous and brutal punishment bombing of Gaza where over 1400 women, children and men lost their lives, and thousands of homes, schools and hospitals were destroyed. Support for Palestinian people has never been more urgent or more vital for the entire anti-racist struggle to establish that we humans are all entitled to the compassion and support of others. Those of us who have also suffered racism have a special responsibility to demonstrate support and compassion to people of colour whose lives are on the line.
Sister: don”t turn your back on fellow sufferers; and don”t force your loyal fans to turn their backs on you. Don”t help Israel whitewash its atrocities. Use your status as president of the “Women of the Year Lunch” and as a world-famous singer-songwriter to take a stand with Palestinian sisters and brothers and with all of us fighting for justice.
We are with the many thousands outside the UK Parliament chanting: “In our thousands, in our millions, we are all Palestinians.”
Please help us get the word out: circulate this widely in your networks and ask your group or organisation to endorse it.
Write to Joan Armatrading at:
Email: admin[at]armatrading.co.uk
http://www.joanarmatrading.com/index.asp?m=misc&n=contactus&p=1
Write to her record label:
email address: inquiries2[at]sigmusicus.com
http://www.429records.com/sites/429records/contact.asp
Phone: Santa Monica, CA, USA: 310-451-0451
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November 10, 2019 April 17, 2020 travsd
Richard Burton: The Welsh Wizard
Like many of my favorite actors (George C. Scott, William Holden), Richard Burton (Richard Walter Jenkins Jr, 1925-1984) radiated a rare combination of intelligence and macho charisma. He was athletic (a serious rugby player); when he donned Roman armor, it looked like it belonged on him, which is hardly the case with most actors. Yet when he recited poetry and classical drama, he understood and sold the meaning of it, an equal rarity. This mixture was something Laurence Olivier also possessed, one of the reasons Burton was often spoken of as Olivier’s successor, for a time. And yet there was another aspect to him that resonated with his times. The crystal diction and the celebrated voice were acquired through hard work. Burton had risen up from the lower depths. He was one of the People.
Burton was the 12th of 13 children, born to a Welsh coal miner. His mother, a barmaid, had died when he was two, so he was raised mostly by older siblings. When he was a teenager his schoolmaster, Philip Burton, seeing his potential took him on as his ward, trained him, cultivated him. School plays led to professional plays (including a well received turn as Prince Hal in Anthony Quayle’s adaptation of the two parts of Henry IV) which then led to movies.
Burton is often spoken of in terms of squandered talent, but that is only really true of his last years, and exaggerated, at that. The 1950s and ’60s were years of great accomplishment for him. His first Hollywood movie was the 1952 adaptation of Daphne Du Maurier’s My Cousin Rachel, which cast him opposite Olivia de Havilland. He was moody and sort of charmless in the role, but the following year he starred in the first Cinemascope Biblical/Roman blockbuster The Robe. During the 1953-54 season he took a break from Hollywood to play Shakespeare at the Old Vic, famously turning down a $1 million contract in order to tackle classics, taking on Hamlet, Coriolanus, Twelfth Night, and King John. His next movie was Prince of Players (1955) in which he played Edwin Booth. The title role in Alexander the Great followed in 1956. He was well received the 1957 Broadway adaptation of Jean Anoulih’s Time Remembered. This was followed by a turn as Heathcliff in a television production of Wuthering Heights (1958), and his iconic performances as the “angry young man” in Look Back in Anger (1959). 1960 to 1963 came his star turn in the original Broadway production of Camelot.
In 1963 he starred opposite Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra and The V.I.P.s, beginning the tumultuous relationship that would result in their famously quarrelsome marriage (1964-74, 75-76). Next came Becket (1964), The Night of the Iguana (1964), a Broadway production of Hamlet (1964), then The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965), and several more films with Taylor: The Sandpiper (1965), Who’s Afraid Virginia Woolf? (1966), The Taming of the Shrew (1967), Doctor Faustus (1967), The Comedians (1967), and Tennessee Williams’ notorious Boom! (1968). These are just a few notable productions out of scores of other credits.
Burton worked steadily and constantly after this but rarely with the same amount of critical acclaim or success. Highlights included Anne of a Thousand Days (1969), the stage and screen versions of Equus (1974-77), The Wild Geese (1978), the tv series Wagner (1983) and the 1984 adaptation of George Orwell’s 1984. The lowpoint, many might agree, was the incomprehensible Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977). The downturn in Burton’s career (as well as his break with Taylor) date to the time of a radical increase in his drinking, which reached epic levels and took a massive toll on his health throughout the ’70s and ’80s. He was only 58 when a brain hemorrhage took him in 1984.
Melodrama and Master Thespians
The Hall of Hams
Richard Walter Jenkins
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Home Products John Bellany - Call of the Sea No.4
John Bellany - Call of the Sea No.4
Framing Unframed Framed
Produced in collaboration with Kip Gresham at The Print Studio, Cambridge
This print is also available as part of a portfolio set of 12 'Call of the Sea Suite' prints
78cm x 59cm (Image)
Framing Available
If ordering framed, please e-mail framing@thearthoundgallery.com after your order, to start your bespoke framing consultation.
John Bellany
John Bellany studied painting at Edinburgh College of Art under Sir Robin Phillipson from 1960 to 1965. During this time he gained an Andrew Grant Scholarship in 1962, taking him to Paris and in 1965 he received a Postgraduate Travelling Scholarship enabling him to travel to Holland and Belgium. He went on to attend the Royal College of Art, London, where he studied under Carel Weight and Peter de Francia from 1965 to 1968. Bellany went on to be Lecturer in Painting at Brighton College of Art in 1968 and from 1969 to 1973 was Lecturer in Painting at Winchester College of Art, Visiting Lecturer at the Royal College of Art and at Goldsmiths College of Art. From 1978 to 1984 he was Lecturer in Painting at Goldsmiths College of Art and was Artist in Residence at Victoria College of the Arts, Melbourne in 1983.
Bellany’s first solo exhibitions were held at the Dromidaris Gallery, Holland (1965), at Edinburgh College of Art (1968) and at Winchester School of Art (1969). From 1970 he exhibited in solo shows annually throughout the UK. His first international solo exhibition was held at Rosa Esman Gallery, New York in 1982 and this quickly led to a string of exhibitions around the world. In 1986 he was given the first solo show ever to be held at the National Portrait Gallery, London, centred around his portrait of Ian Botham, commissioned by the NPG. He also had a solo show at the National Portrait Gallery, Scotland in 1994, exhibiting his portrait of the composer, Peter Maxwell Davis commissioned by the gallery; this was surrounded by other works by Bellany, held in its collection.
Retrospectives of his work were held in 1983 (touring the UK, the United States and Australia), in 1986 at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh and the Serpentine Gallery, London, in 1988 at the Ruth Siegel Gallery, New York and at the Hamburger Kunsthalle and Museum am Ostwall, Dortmund (1988-89). His work has also been included in many key group exhibitions both nationally and internationally since 1963.
Among Bellany’s numerous awards are the Burston Award at the Royal College of Art (1965), John Moores Prize Winner (1980), Major Arts Council Award (1981), Athena International Art Award (joint first-prize winner, 1985) and the Royal Academy’s Wollaston Award (1987). In 1992 he received a British Council visit to Central Europe and in 1993 he won the Korn/Ferry Picture of the Year Award at the Royal Academy. His commissions include murals for Chesser House, Edinburgh (commissioned by the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries in 1965) and the portraits of Lord Renfrew and Sir Roy Caine (commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery, London).
Bellany was elected Fellow of Trinity Hall, Cambridge in 1988 and in 1994 was awarded the CBE. He went on to be given an Honorary Doctorate by the University of Edinburgh in 1996 and an Honorary D Lit by Heriot Watt, University of Edinburgh in 1998. He was elected RA in 1991 (ARA 1986), Honorary Member of the Royal Scottish Academy in 1986, and in 1998 was made a Senior Fellow of the Royal College of Art, London.
Collections: John Bellany
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When giving pays dividends beyond expectations, announcing additional support for local artists
Published by Dayna Del Val at November 19, 2020
I’m a big believer in the Biblical principle that to whom much is given, much is expected. I believe it personally and professionally, and as such, The Arts Partnership continuously strives to ensure that we are providing for our sector as often and as generously as we can.
We take our unofficial mission statement to simply #SupportLocalArt seriously and recognize that there are many kinds of support, but one of the most meaningful is financial. To that end, we have worked diligently to increase our City Arts Partnership and Individual Arts Partnership grant programs over the years along with opportunities such as ArtWORKS, Community Supported Art, Salon Party, our highly subsidized studio spaces at Aptitude and others that not only provide outstanding exposure to artists and arts nonprofits but also dollars.
As I used to say when I was a freelance writer, “I can’t put exposure on the table for supper.”
It was no surprise then that the Board of Directors unanimously approved the creation of the Emergency Fund for Arts Nonprofits when COVID caused our major shutdown in the spring – this has been extended now and is for emergency loans of many kinds.
It is also in keeping with our values that the Board supported waiving half of the rent from the studio artists at Aptitude for all these months. I was delighted when they agreed we should find an easy and transparent way to get this year’s City Arts Partnership grants into the hands of our nonprofits without going through the application process.
But it’s not just Board members who understand these needs. When I reached out to some longtime supporters of Community Supported Art this summer to get their thoughts on ending the program in September after a highly successful nine-year run, one of the longest continuous CSA programs in the nation, those supporters all said, “This program is more important now than ever, this is one way we can directly support artists and make a difference for them!”
We listened to that enthusiasm and added an additional artist to the September share to show that we had heard their desire to be providing even more support. And instead of cancelling next year’s season, we increased the amount artists will be paid to produce art for the program. And we’re doing that with ArtWORKS in 2021 as well.
We believe in the arts sector, and we believe in supporting the individuals and the organizations that make our Metro the cultural, artistic and vibrant community that it is.
So you can imagine my utter shock at a recent conversation I had with Carl Atiya Swanson, Associate Director, Operations & Communications of Springboard for the Arts in St Paul. Carl had reached out to see if we wanted to participate in a consortium with *six other organizations across the upper midwest to ever further support local artists. I’m not sure I actually let Carl finish his ask before I shouted out, “YES!”
But there was more. They are working with an anonymous family foundation, so in addition to the connections to the other organizations, there is actually financial support to do more of the good work we are already doing! This isn’t about making a new program or fitting someone else’s expectations; this is about us being recognized as experts of the arts sector in our community and knowing our staff’s capacity to do additional work. In short, this is a dream come true. And that’s when the tears sprang to my eyes.
So, without further ado, I am thrilled to announce that we have created or extended three programs for individual artists of all types and at all stages of their careers:
Emergency Relief Fund for Artists – to supply money to artists in the Metro with catastrophic, career-threatening emergencies
Aptitude Studio Grants – to fully offset studio rent for the current artists plus four additional artists at Aptitude inside West Acres in 2021
This grant opportunity is open to artists, makers, culture bearers and creative workers living and working in the Metro and near region. Eligible artists may be at any stage in their careers, including college students in their junior or senior years.
Eligible artists may be working in any genre. However, given the physical construction and size of the Aptitude studios, it may not be well-suited for certain genres or modes of working
Application Deadline: Monday, December 14 at 5 pm. Grants will be announced within 5 business days of the application deadline.
Individual Arts Partnership Grants – to support artists with outstanding talent and ability realize their artistic visions (applications open 12/14/20)
More detailed information and the various applications can be found on the grants page.
Springboard has long been a leader in the region and nation for their understanding and support of the arts and the value they provide communities. We have always had a good relationship with them, but this new opportunity is simply an incredible gift. I am choosing to think of it as one of those universal karmic moments that you sometimes get to witness.
Instead of hunkering down during COVID and hoping that the arts sector would survive, we’ve stepped up to provide better existing opportunities and new ones, instead. And I think it’s because we spread our resources around where we could that we are being invited to do even more. We are so grateful to both Springboard for the Arts and the anonymous family foundation for the privilege to do this work and be part of this collective.
*The Arts Partnership is part of the Upper Midwest Emergency Relief Fund coalition, in partnership with Arts South Dakota, Crosshatch Center for Art & Ecology, CultureSource, ImagineMKE, Racing Magpie and Springboard for the Arts.
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One of the most unique films at Nightstream is definitely Lucky. The film is directed by Natasha Kermani (Imitation Girl, Shattered) and written by Brea Grant (12 Hour Shift, Best Friends Forever), who also stars in the film. Lucky tells the story of May, an author who finds herself hunted by a masked man who comes back every night to try and kill her. When the police end up being less than helpful, she has to take matters into her own hands to stop the masked killer. Grant is able to tell a familiar story in a very different way, and Kermani does a beautiful job of bringing it all to life.
This smart and thrilling re-imagining of a slasher film conveys the threat women face every day: men. The mask the killer wears makes him largely featureless. This not only makes him look terrifying, but it also allows him to represent all men who prey on women. Whenever May speaks to someone about what she’s facing, she is constantly told how brave she is, how “lucky” she is she survived, and even that this is just the way things are. Throughout the film, it’s never clear if this is a supernatural situation or something more sci-fi related, but it’s not something that feels like it needs to be explained.
Grant’s performance as May is wonderful. She makes the character feel relatable, but at the same time there is a slight coldness to her, which can even be felt in the title of her book, “Go It Alone.” The musical score by Jeremy Zuckerman (Horse Girl, The Legend of Korra) melds beautifully with every scene. The climax executes some distinctive ideas in a visually stunning way that adds to the overall mystery of the film. Lucky is a suspenseful, magnificently told metaphor for the real-life horrors women face on a daily basis.
Posted in Horror Movie Review, Slasher, Thriller/Suspense and tagged Brea Grant, film, Horror, movie, Natasha Kermani, Nightstream, Nightstream Fest, Review, Shudder, slasher, Suspense, thriller on October 12, 2020 by Molly Henery. 1 Comment
A young woman visits a mortuary to interview for a job. Throughout the course of the interview, the creepy mortician tells ghastly tales of how some of the bodies came to be in his mortuary. Spanning from the 50’s to the 80’s, each tale is more horrifying than the last.
Writer and director Ryan Spindell brings his feature-film debut to the Fantasia International Film Festival. The Mortuary Collection tells four tales of terror with a single overarching plot to tie it all together. That overarching is the story of a somewhat frightening mortician in his mortuary. After a funeral he gets a knock at the door and meets a young woman looking for a job. As he goes through the motions of the interview process, the young woman encourages him to tell scary stories. But these aren’t just any scary stories. These stories are about how and why certain bodies ended up in this mortuary.
The audience gets to hear stories from different subgenres of horror including a pickpocket from the 50’s who finds more than she bargained for, a 60’s frat boy who learns a lesson the hard way, a husband forced to make a tough choice about his invalid wife in the 70’s, and an homage to the classic 80’s babysitter/serial killer story. These stories are fascinating, yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that it has a bit of a “woman-hating” tone. Each of the main female characters typically is portrayed in a negative light or meets some kind of violence. I believe it may seem this way because the film also tends to portray women in roles typically reserved for men, but it was an aspect that gave me pause.
Despite spanning four decades and covering a wide range of topics, these stories feel unified. Each tale in The Mortuary Collection is unique, but Spindell unifies them by giving all of them the same, somewhat cheeky tone. There is a perfect marriage of gruesome events sprinkled with moments of dark humor. It gives the film a bit of a lighthearted feel despite some of the more horrifying and graphic stories being told. Even the overall look of the film helps tie the different stories together. They all have the same visual style, utilizing a heavily blue and green color palette. The filmmakers also had all the stories take place in the same town of Raven’s End. The scary, yet humorous tone combined with the eerie look of the film all blend seamlessly. It’s as though Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark and Creepshow came together and had a spooky baby.
Other visual aspects of The Mortuary Collection that enhance the look and vibe of the film are the production and effects designs. From the moment the camera moves through the streets of Raven’s End, the audience is transported back in time. The cars are clearly decades old, the buildings all look as if they have been around for at least 100 years, and the clothing matches the time period. The mortuary itself is an absolutely gorgeous Victorian building that I would definitely live in, even if it was haunted. The sets and costumes also help us move through the decades in each story and match perfectly to their respective time periods. To bring terror into these tales, the filmmakers use absolutely gorgeous practical effects. There is some CGI enhancement, but for the most part you can tell they wanted to keep it old school. The effects are just as stunning as they are disturbing, plus they add quite a bit of fright to the film.
From each segment, The Mortuary Collection encompasses tremendous performances. Everyone is truly magical, but it is the mortician and the young woman he is interviewing who stand out. Clancy Brown (Shawshank Redemption, Starship Troopers) stars as the mortician himself. This man is creepy, decrepit, and always seems to be laughing at some inside joke in his head. Clancy brings this character to life in the most memorable way, being both scary and funny all at once. Caitlin Fisher (Teen Wolf, Extraction) plays the interviewee, Sam. Fisher’s performance really stands out because, on the outside, Sam appears to be just a sweet girl looking for a job. Yet Sam is cunning and challenges the mortician at every turn and Fisher conveys that defiant nature quite well. Brown and Fisher also have a great banter between the two of them and seem to challenge each other for dominance at every turn.
The Mortuary Collection is an enthralling blend of scares and laughs that is a delight to watch from start to finish. The fact that this is Spindell’s feature-film debut makes me believe he is a writer/director horror fans should keep an eye on. As a whole and also looking at the individual tales of horror, the various plots are all unique and intriguing to watch and every performance is impressive. Unified by the gorgeous visuals and the storytelling mortician, The Mortuary Collection delivers a group of tales audiences are sure to enjoy.
Posted in Creature Feature, Horror Comedy, Horror Movie Review, Slasher, Supernatural/Occult, Thriller/Suspense and tagged anthology, Caitlin Fisher, Clancy Brown, Creature Feature, Fantasia 2020, Fantasia International Film Festival, FIFF, film, Horror, horror comedy, movie, Occult, Review, Ryan Spindell, slasher, Supernatural, Suspense, The Mortuary Collection, thriller on August 17, 2020 by Molly Henery. 1 Comment
After a columnist’s article goes viral, she gets a great book deal. The downside is, now she has trolls constantly harassing and threatening her on social media. The columnist decides to take matters into her own hands and exacts revenge on those trolls.
Hailing all the way from the Netherlands, Fantasia International Film Festival brings the darkly comedic horror film, The Columnist. The film is directed by Ivo van Aart (Quantum Zeno, Zes Dates) and written by Daan Windhorst (Quantum Zeno, Zes Dates). Together, this duo deliver a black comedy that is both hilarious and humorous. As a writer, this is a story that really hits home. Femke Boot is a columnist who writes a controversial piece that sets some of the more conservative readers on the attack. Trolls hound her on social media by threatening her, calling her names, and so on. It’s unfortunately all too common for the anonymity of the internet to embolden people to say whatever they want without fear of repercussions. Yet Famke isn’t going to take this harassment anymore. She begins tracking down some of the more vicious trolls and getting her revenge.
The plot of The Columnist is very straight-foward, if not a bit too on-the-nose, but still brings the laughs. Femke gets up to some very bloody and violent antics tinged with dark humor. What makes her violent acts even more hilarious is that they seem to help her break any writers block she runs into while writing her new book. It’s very clear how the filmmakers feel about internet trolls. They address it in a comedic way, but it also doesn’t leave a lot of room for complexity within the plot. The only thing driving the story, aside from Famke trying to finish her book by killing trolls, is whether or not she will be caught. It leads to a rather predictable end, but the film is still a fun watch.
Each actor in The Columnist plays the role relatively straight, which makes their performances even funnier. The characters seem so normal on the surface, but their actions prove otherwise. Katja Herbers (Westworld, The Leftovers) stars as Famke Boot. Famke seems like the most normal, mild-mannered woman. Herbers does a great job of giving off that persona for the character, while also showing Famke becoming more unhinged the longer she scrolls through social media. It makes her murderous actions shocking, yet still plausible. Despite these violent methods, Herbers still shows Famke as a sympathetic character. Bram van der Kelen (Centraal, 4Jim) plays another writer, Steven Dood. At first Steven seems like he’s against Famke, but he eventually reveals he is simply playing a spooky persona to match his books. He’s an interesting character who is surprisingly sweet and van der Kelen’s performance adds a bit more commentary on the roles we play in the public eye. Herbers and van der Kelen are not only great together on screen, but they also perfectly show two opposing types of writers.
Despite the generally lighthearted tone of The Columnist, it still has a fair amount of gore. Each time Famke kills, the murder scenes become a bit more elaborate and violent. The best part is the “souvenir” she takes from each victim. The practical effects are disturbingly realistic. They are all the more disturbing because of the juxtaposition between the murders and the otherwise cheery Netherlands setting.
The Columnist is a delightful revenge fantasy for anyone who has dealt with internet trolls, despite it being a bit gauche. Windhorst and van Aart have a clear message they are sending to Fantasia International Film Festival audiences. There could have been a bit more subtlty, but the bloody dark comedy is still incredibly entertaining to watch. Both Herbers and van der Kelen deliver delightful performances. It’s an almost therapeutic watch that will hopefully make at least a few trolls think twice before posting hate on the internet.
Posted in Horror Comedy, Horror Movie Review, Slasher and tagged Bram van der Kelen, Comedy, Daan Windhorst, Fantasia 2020, Fantasia International Film Festival, FIFF, film, forgein film, Horror, horror comedy, Ivo van Aart, Ktja Herbers, movie, Netherlands film, Review, slasher, The Columnist on August 14, 2020 by Molly Henery. Leave a comment
To celebrate a successful business deal, two couples decide to rent a secluded vacation home on the coast for the weekend. What begins as a pleasant weekend quickly spirals out of control. They have to deal with relationship issues, a creepy racist property manager, and someone might be watching them.
The Rental is the feature film debut for director Dave Franco, who is primarily known for his acting. Franco also co-wrote the screenplay with Joe Swanberg (V/H/S, Easy). This thriller manages to maneuver through many different plot points, while still being cohesive. As soon as the two couples arrive at the vacation rental, there is immediate tension as the property manager is outed for his racist behavior. Things only escalate from there after a drug-fueled night of partying leads to many bad choices. The true catalyst for the horrifying events that follow is the discovery of a hidden camera in the rental. In this modern age when most people are staying in vacation rentals rather than hotels and technology is so advanced, the fear that the owner or someone else could have camera installed to watch you is a very real fear. This discovery is what sparks the shift from a purely suspenseful film to a chilling slasher. Individually, these varying plot points are relatively simple, but when put together they create a more complicated story. It doesn’t necessarily always add up and I wish some aspects could be explored more in-depth, but it manages to generate more than a few white-knuckle moments. It almost ends up feeling like the film is split in half, the first part being a new-age thriller and the second half being a classic slasher.
Packed with indie favorites, The Rental has several recognizable faces and memorable performances. Sheila Vand (A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, Argo) stars as Mina. Mina is the total package; she’s smart, beautiful, kind, and incredibly strong. Vand makes it clear Mina will always stand up for herself by confronting the racist property manager when others want to avoid conflict. Dan Stevens (The Guest, Apostle) plays Mina’s business partner, Charlie. Stevens does a great job of making Charlie seem like a great guy on the surface, but the more we learn about him, the more he seems a bit shady. Jeremy Allen White (Shameless, Bad Turn Worse) plays Josh, Mina’s boyfriend and Charlie’s brother. Josh has had a rough past, but White makes him a very endearing character. He clearly adores Mina and is trying his best to be a better man. Finally we have Alison Brie (GLOW, Horse Girl) as Charlie’s wife, Michelle. Brie plays Michelle in a way that makes her the most sympathetic character in the entire film. Together, all four actors play off of each other very well, creating different chemistries and building tensions in turn.
This film relies heavily on the set and other smaller details to visually enhance the plot. The location of The Rental is a truly stunning home with lots of big windows overlooking the seaside cliffs and the ocean beyond. Surrounded by the beach and ocean on one side, then nothing but green forest on the others, this home is definitely isolated. Even before the tiny hidden cameras are discovered, there is a sense of paranoia and being watched that comes from being in a secluded place with those huge windows open for all to see in. One detail that isn’t shown much in the film, but still leaves quite an impression, is a mask worn by the killer. It is an eerie, almost featureless human face so it takes a moment to realize you’re looking at a mask. All these visual aspects add to the general sense of paranoia and being watched.
The Rental is a manic, paranoid thriller turned slasher and a strong directorial debut for Franco. It does almost feel like watching two films in one, but that doesn’t take away from the overall success. Franco and Swanberg show a mastery of bringing together various threads to gradually build the suspense and keep the audience at the edge of their seat. The entire cast carries the film beautifully, but it’s Vand that delivers the most memorable performance. The stunning vacation rental offers a gorgeous setting that quickly turns ominous. The Rental is sure to make audiences wary of where they spend their next vacation.
Posted in Horror Movie Review, Slasher, Thriller/Suspense and tagged Alison Brie, Dan Stevens, Dave Franco, film, hidden camera, Horror, Jeremy Allen White, Joe Swanberg, movie, Review, Sheila Vand, slasher, Suspense, The Rental, thriller, vacation rental on July 21, 2020 by Molly Henery. Leave a comment
What’s better than seven tales of horror wrapped in one package? Seven meta tales of horror filled with laughs, gore, up-and-coming filmmakers, and familiar faces wrapped in one package. This and more awaits viewers in the new horror anthology, Scare Package.
Scare Package brings together a host of talented writers and directors. They all used their individual segments to hone in on various horror tropes and either subvert them or highlight those tropes. Viewers will no doubt watch the seven short films and see numerous nods to classic horror films, some more obvious than others. Sometimes the plots take a back seat to the visual aspects, but these aspects often tell a story of their own for the trained horror fan’s eye. Through all the meta filmmaking and Easter eggs, the filmmakers still manage to tell stories that are as funny as they are unique.
“Cold Open” hilariously honors the characters in horror films that are briefly seen and don’t get enough credit for setting up the film, while also honoring one of the most popular horror films of all time. “Rad Chad’s Horror Emporium” is not only a place I wish I worked, but it’s also the overarching story that ties everything together as each segment is presented like a rental at Rad Chad’s. “One Time in the Woods” is probably the goriest segment that also throws as many horror subgenres at you as it can. “M.I.S.T.E.R.” is likely going to piss off a few male viewers, but I mean that in the best way possible because it perfectly plays with the idea of what makes a real man. “Girls’ Night Out of Body” can be found in the post modern feminist slasher revenge body horror section at Rad Chad’s, and that honestly sums it up perfectly. “The Night He Came Back Again! Part IV: The Final Kill” plays into the classic horror trope of the masked killer that somehow always comes back, no matter how you kill him! “So Much to Do” exemplifies how important shows are to some people and the dangers of revealing spoilers. And finally, “Horror Hypothesis” takes everything you know about slashers and puts it to the test.
The performances in Scare Package are all fantastic, many of them being highly satirical and sure to make viewers laugh. Because many of the segments are meant to a mockery of horror tropes, some of the performances come across as intentionally cheesy. That might not appeal to all viewers, but definitely made me laugh. A clear standout performance from the beginning is Jeremy King (The Pale Door, Sinister Seduction) as none other than Rad Chad himself. King perfectly embodies all the good and bad aspects of hardcore horror lovers. His portrayal will make you love Chad as much as you also can’t help but roll your eyes at him. Another great performance comes from none other than Noah Segan (Knives Out, Mohawk) who stars as the husband in the segment he also co-wrote and directed, “M.I.S.T.E.R.” Segan does a fantastic job of acting as a typical nice guy with an underlying creepiness. Toni Trucks (Grimm, Franklin & Bash) stars in the “So Much To Do” segment as Franchesca. Trucks really shines in this role mostly because she kicks some serious ass. She has one of the most physical roles of all the segments, and she definitely delivers. Really all the performances are delightful and horror fans are sure to see more than a few familiar faces.
One thing I can promise viewers is that there is a lot of gore in Scare Package. The film relies on practical effects to create creative kills, gruesome monsters, and devious killers. There is definitely no shortage of blood, guts, and goo. While all of these segments utilize great practical effects, the most memorable in that regard is definitely “One Time in the Woods.” Not only does it have a high body count and unique kills, but it also has a fantastic melting character that looks absolutely amazing. If lots and lots of blood is more your speed, then “The Night He Came Back Again! Part IV: The Final Kill” is definitely the segment for you. The effects have a little something for everything horror fan.
Scare Package hilariously highlights the good, the bad, and the ugly of horror films. It’s clear this anthology was put together by horror fans for horror fans. Each segment is a hilarious take on various horror tropes, but there are still delightfully unique stories to be seen. At times it might be a bit too meta and tongue-and-cheek for some viewers. I for one scared my pets multiple times by bursting into laughter. Scare Package showcases the beginnings of promising careers for these writer and directors. Fans will also be laughing along with the fresh new actors and cheering for the horror favorites that pop-up. It might be a bit goofy at times, gory horror anthology that viewers are sure to adore.
Posted in Creature Feature, Holiday Horror, Horror Comedy, Horror Movie Review, Slasher, Supernatural/Occult, Thriller/Suspense and tagged anthology, Chase Williamson, Comedy, Creature Feature, film, Holiday Horror, Horror, horror comedy, Joe Bob Briggs, movie, Noah Segan, Occult, Review, Scare Package, Shudder, slasher, Supernatural, Suspense, thriller on June 13, 2020 by Molly Henery. 1 Comment
The Shenandoah backcountry is a gorgeous place frequented by hikers. Unfortunately, it is also the hunting ground for a dangerous serial killer. With several bodies already discovered, now the killer is stalking their latest victim.
Making his premiere as a writer and director, Johnny K brings horror fans his short film, The Killer of Grassy Ridge. This short film is less than 10 minutes long and utilizes minimal dialogue, but still manages to pack a punch. Johnny K does this by playing with the viewers’ expectations of the short. It opens on a dirty, somewhat frightening looking man burying something in the woods. As if that isn’t creepy enough, he soon encounters an injured young female hiker who is all alone in the wilderness. The man has no lines while the woman sparse dialogue. The only context we get in the short film is from a radio the man is listening to. It is turned to a news station that talks about another body being found. This is the source of the danger, as having a scary man in the woods is only enough to cause alarm rather than inducing fear. The lack of dialogue and setting up of certain horror expectations, or even tropes, allows K to have fun with the short and include a few great “aha!” moments in the climax.
The lack of dialogue makes it a bit more difficult to give a complete analysis of the performances. One thing I can say about the two leads of The Killer of Grassy Ridge is that they have great presence on screen. Michael Stumbo makes his film debut as the grimy looking sinister figure, Wetzel Reid. Wetzel doesn’t speak during the short, but Stumbo still manages to be an imposing figure. Many horror fans may watch Stumbo on screen and immediately think Wetzel sure looks a hell of a lot like Otis Firefly from Rob Zombie’s The Devil’s Rejects, played by Bill Moseley. I can only assume this was a deliberate choice to make sure viewers look at Wetzel as the villain without it needing to be explicitly explained. Opposite Stumbo is Heather Stone, also making her film debut, as the hiker. Stone’s performance in The Killer of Grassy Ridge stands out because she shows quite a bit of range in the short amount of time she’s on screen. She starts out as a happy hiker enjoying nature, to being injured and alone in the woods asking for help, to something quite different during the climax.
The Killer of Grassy Ridge skillfully presents stereotypical characters and horror cliches, then proceeds to roll them in their grave. Johnny K takes care to make sure all signs point to a single logical conclusion. Everything from the lack of dialogue, to the casting, to the radio news context lends to one possible outcome. Then he flips the script and delivers something a bit more unexpected. The one thing I’m not sure The Killer of Grassy Ridge fully achieves is telling a complete story while also leaving the audience wanting more. There is definitely a complete story told here, and it could easily be expanded upon. Yet there isn’t anything making me crave more information from the plot. Either way, this is a strong debut from K, Stumbo, and Stone. The Killer of Grassy Ridge is a fascinating short thriller that feels fresh by using classic horror tropes to subvert your expectations.
Posted in Horror Movie Review, Short Film, Slasher, Thriller/Suspense and tagged film, Heather Stone, Horror, Johnny K, Michael Stumbo, movie, Review, serial killer, short, Short Film, slasher, Suspense, The Killer of Grassy Ridge, thriller on May 5, 2020 by Molly Henery. Leave a comment
A group of sorority sisters at a prestigious college decide to stay at their sorority house over winter break. Unfortunately for these women, the school has a sordid tradition of misogyny and racism. This holiday, that tradition involves killing female college students who are “out of line.” The sisters will have to fight for their lives if they want to make it until Christmas.
Continuing a long and delightful tradition of Christmas horror films comes Black Christmas. This re-imagining of the 1974 classic is directed by Sophia Takal (New Year New You, Always Shine), who also co-wrote the film with April Wolfe in her feature film debut. Instead of recycling the same plot of the original film, Takal and Wolfe have created a culturally-relevant thrill ride that still has some of the same spirit of the original. The film focuses on Riley, a sorority sister who has had enough of the fraternity brothers. After a scandalous Christmas performance at the frat house, the sisters find themselves in mortal danger as a masked figure attacks them in their sorority house. The mythos created around the university and the founder of the school is very interesting, albeit not as well developed as it could have been. Either way it is still very entertaining. Even though this film is a complete re-imagining of the original, eagle-eyed fans of the 1974 Black Christmas will still see a few fun nods to the original film sprinkled throughout.
This film is incredibly politically charged, definitely written for women, and it’s going to piss off a lot of men. It addresses the rampant male toxicity in the world today and how it affects women. Much of the plot, both the normal interactions and the murderous ones, involve experiences that are unique to women. The most obvious female-specific experience is the sexual harassment and assault women deal with on a daily basis. It even shows how we can’t walk down the street alone without having to be completely aware of our surroundings. Some of the more subtle interactions are likely ones most men won’t pick up on. There are references to Diva cups, periods, and vibrators that are sure to get some good laughs from the women in the audience. What I especially enjoyed about the update of this film is how it essentially lets men know women are done taking all of their shit. These women are strong, powerful, and they are done with misogynistic men trying to control and ruin their lives.
While I love the update in this Black Christmas and commend the message it sends, that doesn’t mean it’s a perfect film. One issue I have with the plot is a lack of character development. Aside from Riley and maybe one other sorority sister, it doesn’t feel like the audience really gets to know the women very well. Another aspect that felt unnecessary is the character of Landon. While the character is nice and the performance is great, his character felt like an afterthought. It was almost as if the studio asked the filmmakers to include at least one guy to fit into the “not all men” category. Finally, I feel like Cary Elwes (The Princess Bride, Kiss the Girls) was greatly underutilized. It’s obvious from the beginning that he isn’t a good guy, and we’ve seen in him a great villain in past films, but his character just doesn’t quite reach that same malevolent level fans will likely want and expect.
Each of the women in Black Christmas deliver great performances of complex and strong females. Imogen Poots (Green Room, 28 Weeks Later) stars as Riley. She is a survivor of a sexual assault and doubly strong because she persevered despite not being believed. Poots does a fantastic job of conveying Riley’s trauma and how it has changed her, but she is also able to be strong and powerful with the help of her friends. Aleyse Shannon (Charmed, Instinct) stars as Riley’s sorority sister, Kris. Kris is a very political character and a clear fighter who isn’t afraid to speak her mind. Shannon is great at exuding confidence as Kris while also being a great support system for her sisters. Honorable mention goes to Lily Donoghue (Jane the Virgin) as Marty, Brittany O’Grady (Above Suspicion), and Caleb Eberhardt (The Post) as Landon.
To keep up with the legacy of the original film, this Black Christmas had to be sure to have some great visuals. For one, the lighting in this film is phenomenal. There is a lot of great use of Christmas lights to draw the viewer’s eye while also creating gorgeous color play on the screen. While I feel as though the filmmakers shied away from showing the kills a bit too much, they did find a clever way to show some gore within the constraints for the PG-13 rating. I will leave this as a bit of a surprise since it relates to hidden aspects of the plot, but suffice it to say there is at least a bit of gore for the gore-hounds out there. Earlier I mentioned there are great Easter eggs from the first film, but also be sure to keep an eye out for a delightful little nod to The Exorcist III.
Black Christmas is a film made by women, for women, that is sure to bring in hoards of new young female horror fans. It is clear that Takal and Wolfe made this film for young women with the goal of empowering them and bashing male toxicity. If this film makes even one young woman feel empowered after leaving the theater, then it is a successful film. Naturally, the political message and the idea of empowering women is a threat to many men, as we see in the film and has already been evident on social media around the film. I for one really enjoyed Black Christmas. It has it’s flaws, but its fun, has great characters young women can look up to, and will definitely appeal to its target audience. Hopefully this will lead to many more studio horror films geared towards women who love horror. There are definitely going to be plenty of men who don’t like this film, which is fine, but if you’re a guy just remember: this film wasn’t made for you.
Posted in Holiday Horror, Horror Movie Review, Slasher, Supernatural/Occult, Thriller/Suspense and tagged Aleyse Shannon, April Wolfe, Black Christmas, Blumhouse, Brittany O'Grady, Caleb Eberhardt, Cary Elwes, Christmas, cult, film, fraternity, Holiday Horror, Horror, Imogen Poots, Lily Donoghue, movie, Occult, Review, slasher, Sophia Takal, sorority, Supernatural, Suspense, thriller on December 13, 2019 by Molly Henery. 2 Comments
A woman and her friend are kidnapped during the night. She wakes up the next day and finds herself in a box alone in the Australian wilderness. Soon she realizes not only are there other women trapped here, but there are also hulking men wearing terrifying masks out to kill the young women. It’s a fight for survival and no one can be trusted.
Writer and director Tony D’Aquino makes his feature film debut with the Australian thriller, The Furies. From the opening shot D’Aquino makes it clear this is going to be a feminist take on slashers as two of the female characters are shown spray painting “FUCK PATRIARCHY” on a wall. This moment between the two women is very brief, but still manages to establish who the characters are before throwing them into peril. From there the filmmakers waste no time in delivering high-octane thrills. Once the women are thrown into the remote Australian setting they have to battle masked madmen, those who have trapped them all here, and each other. It’s a relatively simple plot that relies heavily on the bloodshed and mayhem, but D’Aquino manages to make it feel fun and different.
There are many aspects of this plot that make it interesting and unique. One obvious difference from other similar films is how these women and killers ended up in this remote location together. The women were obviously kidnapped and brought to this place, but the surprise is that the killers appear to have arrived the same way. The boxes the women arrived in are all marked “beauty” and the boxes the men arrived in are marked “beast.” The people who brought everyone to this place are clearly very organized and use advanced technology which creates an odd dynamic between all the captives and interesting sets of rules they must follow. Another interesting aspect is how the female lead, Kayla, not only acts as a feminist icon, but she also shows how women with physical or mental illnesses are as capable as anyone else. Kayla has epilepsy. She has always seen this as a hindrance to her being an independent woman, yet it gives her a strange advantage when she is thrown into the twisted cat and mouse game. It allows her to see that she is capable of being a self-reliant warrior woman. All of the other woman are also quite compelling characters because none of them fit into any stereotype often seen in horror films.
Since the vicious men in the film don’t speak a single word, the women of The Furies carry the performances. Airlie Dodds (Killing Ground, Ready for This) stars as Kayla. She starts out in the film as very meek and she is convinced her illness keeps her from being able to take care of herself and live life to the fullest. Dodds does a fantastic job of showing Kayla evolve throughout the film as she is thrown one curveball after another. Linda Ngo (Mako Mermaids, Top of the Lake) plays another captive in this deranged game, Rose. Rose is an interesting character because she is slightly odd and innocent, but there is also something hidden just beneath the surface that is waiting to be released. Ngo is quite memorable in her portrayal of Rose and how easily she straddles the line between naive and creepy.
This film doesn’t hold back on the gore and luckily the practical effects are fantastic. The first thing viewers will notice is the truly disturbing masks worn by the killers. Each one is very distinct, unique, and terrifying. The practical effects of the various wounds and kills are so well done. They look incredibly realistic to the point where some viewers might have to turn away. In addition to the effects, the way the film is shot also gives it a unique look. As soon as Kayla emerges from the box, the entire film has a white-washed look to it. The filtering and color palette are clearly meant to add to the barren and sun-scorched Australian landscape. This appearance not only adds to the idea that the setting is exceedingly hot, but it also makes the blood and gore stand out as the most vibrant colors.
The Furies delivers a unique slasher dripping with girl-power and gore. This is a very strong feature film debut for D’Aquino. He manages to deliver a film that is familiar, yet injects intricacies that make the plot still feel fresh. Each performance is great from the dynamic women to the physical acting of the killer men. All of the gore hounds out there will have a ball watching this film with it’s fantastic practical effects and others, who like a bit more depth to their slashers, will enjoy the fascinating rules the film puts into place. Not only is this film sure to be on many must-watch lists this October, but it also has the potential to spawn a new horror franchise.
Posted in Horror Movie Review, Slasher, Thriller/Suspense and tagged Airlie Dodds, Australia, Australian film, film, Horror, Linda Ngo, masked killers, movie, Review, Shudder, slasher, Suspense, The Furies, thriller, Tony D'Aquino on October 3, 2019 by Molly Henery. Leave a comment
It’s almost Halloween. A group of local punks decide to honor their longtime tradition of pranking the local outcast while he’s at work at the visiting freak show. When the guys take things too far, a ritual is used to bring him back to life. Now he will take his revenge on this sleepy little town.
For me, Candy Corn has been one of my most anticipated horror films of the year. The film was written, directed, edited, and produced by Josh Hasty (Honeyspider, In Hell Everybody Loves Popcorn: The Making of 31). Immediately we are introduced to the group of young adults who just love hazing the local outcast, Jacob. The three young men are your typical small-town jerks who get pleasure out of other people’s misery. When they accidentally kill Jacob, it is Jacob’s employer, Dr. Death, who comes up with a plan to bring him back. This introduction to the various characters automatically makes the audience despise the locals and sympathize with Jacob and the freaks. It also plays well to those in the audience who have ever been bullied. When it comes down to it, that’s all those who tormented Jacob really are; a bunch of bullies. Watching them get torn apart is incredibly satisfying.
The film is one part supernatural and one part slasher resulting in a thrilling and bloody ride. This blend of horror subgenres helps to make Candy Corn the perfect fall film. It captures the essence of what horror fans love about this time of year. Part of that Halloween feel also comes from the filmmakers who clearly influenced Hasty in this film. The most obvious influences are John Carpenter and Rob Zombie. From the filming style to the sets to the characters and the music, Hasty shows his passion for the great filmmakers who came before him while still creating a film that is entirely his own. Even though those influences are clearly felt, Hasty still creates a really entertaining and unique mythos around the freak show and the ritual Dr. Death. Hasty wisely leaves some of the mythology vague, yet gives the audience enough to follow what’s happening, which leaves the film open to sequels that expand on that mythos.
It is clear that each artistic decision made by Hasty was chosen to make Candy Corn a new Halloween classic. From the first frames the look of the film transports the audience back to the 70’s. While it isn’t explicitly stated, it is clear from the wardrobe, the cars, and the technology used in the film. Even the somewhat gritty look of the film and the slightly washed-out colors harken back to that era of filmmaking. This time period and look also feel very reminiscent of Carpenter’s and Zombie’s films. One thing that doesn’t work quite as well is the use of freeze frames and removing audio, except for the music, in scenes where people are killed. This is similar to some of Zombie’s filming methods. It looked interesting in a couple scenes, but it is a bit overused throughout the film.
Other artistic elements help to make the film exciting, gory, and fun. The mask worn by Jacob when he returns to exact his revenge is absolutely terrifying. It almost looks as if a jack o’lantern was combined with the Michael Myers mask to create something out of a nightmare. Candy Corn also primarily sticks to gruesome practical effects for the kills. Each kill has a high level of brutality created with the practical effects and minor CGI enhancement, mostly utilized to add extra blood spatter. Then of course there is a fantastic score composed by both Hasty and Michael Booker. It is ominous, yet has a lightness to it that helps to build both suspense and excitement. Much like the plot, the score simply feels like the Halloween season.
This indie film has several faces horror fans know and love. Courtney Gains (Children of the Corn, The Funhouse Massacre) stars as the local sheriff, Sam Bramford. The sheriff tries his best to keep the peace between the local punks and the visiting freak show, but when the bodies start piling up he’s left with no choice. Acting opposite him is Pancho Moler (31, American Fright Fest) as Dr. Death, leader of the freak show. While on the surface he seems stern and mistrusting of outsiders, it is also clear that he cares deeply for his freaks and is sick of seeing them treated like second-class citizens. These two characters play off each other quite well because neither of them is purely good or bad, they simply want to protect the ones they care for. Unfortunately, they care for people on opposing sides. Other notable horror favorites are Tony Todd (Candyman, Final Destination), PJ Soles (Halloween [1978], Carrie), and Sky Elobar (The Greasy Strangler, The Rocker).
When it comes to the group of punks who attack Jacob, the performances are well done, but the casting is a bit confusing. The group is played by Cy Creamer in his feature film debut as Steve, Madison Russ (Junkie) as Carol, Caleb Thomas (The Terror of Hallow’s Eve) as Bobby, and Jimothy Beckholt (Corky and Bob Get a Job!) as Mike. They all do a great job of making the audience dislike their characters, which in turn makes it more fun to watch them die. The issue is it is difficult to figure out what age these kids are supposed to be. Most of the actors could pass for teenagers or very early 20’s, yet Beckholt appears to be older than the rest of the group. It may be a small detail, but in a genre where it’s typically either teens or college kids being slaughtered, that missing piece stood out.
Candy Corn is a love letter to Halloween and classic slashers of the 70’s and 80’s that is sure to be a holiday favorite for horror fans. Hasty’s passion for filmmaking and his influences are clearly felt. It perfectly balances the line between homage and originality resulting in a violent thrill ride with a unique mythology. The cast of horror fan favorites and newcomers all do a fantastic job. Then of course the film looks like it came straight from the 70’s, has gory practical effects, and the score is so fantastic that I can’t wait to buy it. You’ll want to watch the film now and then again for Halloween.
Posted in Holiday Horror, Horror Movie Review, Slasher, Supernatural/Occult, Thriller/Suspense and tagged Caleb Thomas, Candy Corn, Courtney Gains, Cy Creamer, Dread Presents, Epic Pictures, film, Halloween, Holiday Horror, Horror, Jimothy Beckholt, Josh Hasty, Madison Russ, Michael Booker, movie, Occult, Pancho Moler, PJ Soles, Review, Sky Elobar, slasher, Supernatural, Suspense, thriller, Tony Todd on September 13, 2019 by Molly Henery. Leave a comment
After inheriting the family farm, a young woman decides to take a trip to the property. She invites a group of friends to check the place out and celebrate the holidays. When they arrive they meet the bizarre renters who live on the property. Yet the friends soon find out these country folk are the least of their worries when a strange masked man starts killing them one by one.
Don’t Look is a feature-film debut for director Luciana Faulhaber, who also stars in the film, as well as a debut for co-writers Jessica Boucher and Danielle Killay. The film comes across as a tribute to the classic 80’s slasher film. It has all the elements one would expect; a group of young people, they are alone in a secluded area, they are partying, and there is a masked killer who wants nothing more than to murder them all. Many of the characters even fit the classic stereotypes one would expect from an 80’s slasher film, including most of the characters not necessarily being that likable. That may seem like a bad thing, but it ultimately makes it more enjoyable to watch the cast get killed off.
The homage to 80’s slashers is great, but there are quite a few drawbacks to the overall quality of Don’t Look. One thing that makes the film somewhat forgettable is that it is too similar to 80’s slashers, and not necessarily like the great ones horror fans remember. It is very “murder by numbers” to the point where the plot is a bit dull. Much of the information about Don’t Look describes it as a film that redefines the role of women in slashers. With the exception of one female character being ever so slightly more proactive than in typical slashers, all of the characters follow the archetypes used in the 80’s. The backstory created for the killer is also on the weaker side. The backstory, and the reveal, come across as more of an afterthought instead of an integral part of the plot. Finally, there are times when the dialogue sounds unnatural and doesn’t flow in the vein of normal conversations. This is mostly prevalent in the first act of the film, then it gradually improves as the plot progresses.
Much like the dialogue, the performances start out a little rough, but then improve as the film pushes forward. The only performance I think is consistently good throughout the film comes from director Luciana Faulhaber (Shades of Blue) herself as Lorena. She is the only character one could argue breaks the mold of the typical women seen in slashers. Faulhaber plays a dynamic character who is both empowered and vulnerable quite well. Other than Faulhaber, the performances range from difficult-to-watch to passable. As the writing improves the performances seem to improve as well, but not enough to make Don’t Look more than simply “okay.”
Don’t Look attempts to honor 80’s slashers while also creating more independent female characters, yet it falls short of reaching that goal. I do believe director Faulhaber and writers Boucher and Killay show promise, this being their debut, but the film overall is not a strong display of their talents. The dialogue leaves something to be desired, and the killer’s backstory feels tacked on. While for the most part the various performances are just fine, at least for a portion of the film, Faulhaber’s performance is the only one that stands out as actually being good. Fans of classic 80’s slashers will likely enjoy watching this film, but there isn’t enough to make it stand out from the crowd.
Posted in Horror Movie Review, Slasher, Thriller/Suspense and tagged 80's throwback, Danielle Killay, Don't Look, film, Horror, Jessica Boucher, Luciana Faulhaber, masked killer, movie, Review, serial killer, slasher, Suspense, thriller on May 14, 2019 by Molly Henery. Leave a comment
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Ashley McBryde Joins Kane Brown, Sarah Hyland as 2020 CMT Music Awards Co-Host
Kevin Winter, Getty Images
Ashley McBryde is the third and final co-host of the 2020 CMT Music Awards, CMT announced on Friday (Oct. 16).
McBryde, the 2019 CMT Breakthrough Video of the Year award winner, will lead this year's show along with fellow artist Kane Brown and actor Sarah Hyland. CMT originally stated that there would be a fourth co-host, but that plan has changed. McBryde and Brown are also scheduled to perform during the event.
“I am beyond excited, and maybe a little nervous, to host an awards show for the very first time. Luckily, it’s not all about me -- it’s about celebrating badass music videos and the brilliant men and women that help us create them," McBryde, one of the most-nominated artists at the 2020 CMT Music Awards, shares in a press release. "I’ve loved watching and being part of this event in the past, and I think the fans are really going to enjoy what we have planned for them. It’s going to be a blast!”
CMT also announced presenters for the 2020 CMT Music Awards on Friday. Brandi Carlile, Demi Lovato, Diplo, Idina Menzel, Jessica Chastain, Katy Perry, Kelly Clarkson, Rob Thomas, Tanya Tucker and Taylor Swift will each fill that role at times throughout the show.
In addition to McBryde and Brown, Sam Hunt, Shania Twain, Gabby Barrett, Morgan Wallen, Maren Morris, Dan + Shay, Little Big Town, Luke Bryan, Ingrid Andress, Hardy, Caylee Hammack, Mickey Guyton, Riley Green and Travis Denning are all performing during the 2020 CMT Music Awards. Additionally, viewers can expect collaborations from Kelsea Ballerini and Halsey, Jimmie Allen and Noah Cyrus, and Luke Combs and Brooks & Dunn.
Nominees for the fan-voted 2020 CMT Music Awards were announced on Sept. 23, and voting for each category is open now at CMT.com. The event was rescheduled from June due to the novel coronavirus pandemic and will now air on Oct. 21 at 8PM CT on CMT as well as MTV, MTV2, Logo, Paramount Network, Pop TV and TV Land and feature, per a press release, "epic outdoor performances in and around Music City."
Check Out the Best Songs of 2020, So Far:
Source: Ashley McBryde Joins Kane Brown, Sarah Hyland as 2020 CMT Music Awards Co-Host
Filed Under: ashley mcbryde, CMT awards, CMT Music Awards
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Does the shutdown increase America’s vulnerability to bio-terrorism?
By Laura H. Kahn | October 11, 2013
Among the more dangerous consequences of the government shutdown that began on October 1 is that it severely compromises health authorities’ ability to respond to and prevent infectious diseases. With the response to common outbreaks impaired, any reaction to a bioterrorist attack could be even more jeopardized.
Public health should be considered a national security issue. Civil society quickly deteriorates when people are dying en masse from a deadly infectious disease. A nation’s best protection against bioterrorism is its public health infrastructure, and if nobody is at the helm, then citizens are sitting ducks.
Consider what’s going on at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the US government’s primary public health agency.
With the flu season approaching, the agency has had to furlough more than three-quarters of its 13,000 employees. This means that the CDC is unable to support the nation’s seasonal flu program or help state and local governments conduct infectious disease surveillance. The processing of laboratory specimens is being cut back, meaning that diagnosing potential outbreak victims could be severely delayed, possibly allowing a deadly contagion to spread unchecked. Fortunately it is still early in the flu season and there’s no shortage of vaccine—although FluView, the CDC’s weekly summary of influenza surveillance data, has been suspended. And, while seasonal influenza might not be a concern at the moment, other scourges emerge all the time.
Food-borne illnesses, for instance, are always a threat. Meat and poultry production facilities remain relatively safe because legally, inspectors and public health veterinarians from the US Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service must be present in every processing plant. Since their presence is mandatory, they cannot be furloughed. However, they inspect only 20 percent of the nation’s food supply.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) inspects the other 80 percent, and roughly 45 percent of its employees, mostly food inspectors, have been furloughed. This means that 91 percent of the seafood that the United States imports is not being inspected. The United States imports 50 percent of its fruit and 20 percent of its vegetables. These are not being inspected either. (However, even during business as usual, the FDA inspects less than 2 percent of most imported food.)
The FDA will not be doing routine inspections of domestically-produced fruits, vegetables, or seafood either. In partnership with states, the agency normally inspects about 80 facilities per day. As it is, the FDA is severely underfunded. In March 2013, when the government’s $85 billion in automatic budget cuts went into effect, FDA spending was cut by $209 million. In 2013, there were 2,100 fewer inspections than in 2012.
In addition to conducting food safety inspections, the FDA works with the CDC to investigate food-borne outbreaks. The FDA conducts trace-backs of foods believed to have caused widespread illness, issues food recalls, and responds to food emergencies. Several on-going outbreak investigations have been suspended. Right now, an on-going outbreak of Salmonella Heidelberg, a bacteria that causes diarrhea, fever, and abdominal cramping,has sickened 278 people in at least 17 states, mostly (77 percent) in California. Forty-two percent have required hospitalization. The government shutdown is very likely hurting the CDC’s and FDA’s abilities to investigate and respond.
Most Americans assume that they won’t get sick from the food they eat, and won’t die from an outbreak of a deadly infectious disease. Most of the time, with a functioning government, their presumptions are justified. But with a government shutdown interrupting the silent, unnoticed forces that work hard to keep people healthy, nothing should be taken for granted.
Public health and food safety are critical governmental functions that protect the public against infectious disease outbreaks—from those due to natural disasters or human errors, to those caused by individuals or organizations wishing to do harm. It is foolish, and foolhardy, to furlough the professionals who diligently conduct surveillance of, respond to, and prevent epidemics.
Topics: Biosecurity, Columnists
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Laura H. Kahn
Laura H. Kahn is the author of One Health and the Politics of Antimicrobial Resistance, published in 2016 by Johns Hopkins University Press. A general internist who began her caree...
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